Page 19 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Without thinking what I was doing, I took Rafe’s hand and put it under the faucet. I turned on cold water and held him in place, letting the water take away the sting. It didn’t look too bad. I didn’t typically deal with burns because animals didn’t have a tendency to burn themselves.

I was about to tell Rafe that when I suddenly became very aware of the physical situation I had put myself in.

He was pressed against my back. He must have bent his head, because I could feel his lips very close to my neck. He was breathing on that sensitive spot right behind my ear. His arm was against my waist as I kept his hand under the water, and he just seemed to radiate this warmth that I wanted to sink into.

This was not good.

Chapter 6

Correction—it was very, very good. So good I didn’t want to move. Which was the bad part.

“Trying to cook for yourself?” My voice sounded shaky. That connection between us, the one I’d felt when I met him for the first time, was still there. And so strong. Stronger than I had expected. Like a million ropes tethered us to one another.

“Trying. Not succeeding,” he murmured, and he must have moved his head because now I could feel his breath in my hair and it sent sparkly shivers all through me. I was so painfully and achingly aware of him pressed against me. How strong he was, and how amazing this felt. His heart pounded quickly against my back. My own heart was matching him beat for beat.

“Why don’t you get Marco or Gianni to help you?”

“They aren’t here to cook for me. They’re here to protect me,” he said, and I could feel the words against my skin.

I accidentally sighed. “The smoke alarm didn’t concern them?”

He reached over to the sink with his other hand, which pressed us even closer together. My heart ricocheted around in my chest. He turned the water off.

“That happened a lot while you were gone. I think they got used to it.” He was saying the most innocuous things, but every word felt like a physical caress. I should have moved. He should have moved. Neither one of us did.

I had to close my eyes against the emotional and physical onslaught when he put his hands on my upper arms. My palms were damp. Not from the water. He literally made my palms sweat. I gripped the edge of the sink.

His hands moved slowly from the top of my arms down toward my wrists, and then he trailed them over to my waist. I could feel his breath again on the back of my neck. He was going to kiss me there, and then I was going to lose all control and reason and maul him.

I’d had all that I could take. I pulled away and walked across the room, grabbing an extra dishtowel to dry my sweaty palms.

“You could teach me.”

I blinked rapidly. “Teach you what?”

He didn’t miss how high my voice had become, and he gave me a slight smile. “Cooking. So I don’t keep catching things on fire.”

I was so glad he was talking about cooking and not about anything else that I stupidly agreed. “Okay. But just know that what you were doing was not cooking. That’s called burning.”

And he already knew a lot about making things burn. Me, in particular.

He headed toward his bathroom, brushing past me, getting me all riled up again. He reached under the sink and pulled out a tube of ointment.

“I can’t believe you want to stay here,” I blurted out nervously. “This whole place is smaller than your bathroom in your palace.”

He finished putting the ointment on his burn and put the tube back down. “It is small, but there are other benefits to being here.”

He was talking about me. Did he have to have such a sexy voice? I leaned against his table and mentally pleaded with my knees to not give way. I was going to properly freak out now.

But then I saw his laptop. He had been playingWorld of Warcraft, and he was in an unfamiliar area.

Which wasn’t possible, because I had been everywhere and done everything in that game. “Wait, is that the new expansion?”

“It is,” he said, coming closer than I was comfortable with. There were some papers on the table, and he hurriedly shuffled them together and put them into a folder.

“How do you have that? It doesn’t even come out for another two months.” I couldn’t help it. I reached over and pulled up the map to see the names of the new lands. So unfair! I had been dying for this expansion and the new playing class it was going to introduce.

“A perk of being a prince, I guess. Do you want me to get you a copy?”

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