Page 33 of Promise of Darkness
“I’ll take you up on that bet.” It’s a terrible idea, but I simply can’t help myself. Me? In the prince’s bed? No surer bet has ever been won, even if I’m subjecting myself to his relentless chase. “Because my mother will bow at your feet before I’ll ever end up beneath your sheets.”
“Tell her to practice her curtsy. I want to see her grovel.”
Oh, you arrogant ass.“And if I win, then you will relinquish the disputed territories between our lands to my mother.”
The prince stiffens.
It’s the perfect opportunity to show my mother I can be valuable.Make whatever deals you have to, she’d said. Imagine the look on her face if I return with the deeds to the borderlands.
An unreadable expression crosses his face. “It’s a deal.”
He’s that confident? I gape.
“Now what?” he asks.
I swear, that smile is going to be the end of me. “What do you mean?”
“How do you escape your thrashing now?”
He’d best be joking. “If you even think about it, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I quiver with terror.” He leans his entire weight upon me, as if to prove there’s no means of escaping him. Every rock-hard inch of him presses me deep into the snow.
I barely feel the chill. Perhaps he’s got good reason to be confident, because there’s a battering ram of indefinite proportion pressed firmly against my thigh. It stops just short of where I want it, and I can’t help freezing beneath him. One inch. Just one little twist of my hips, and this would be an entirely indecent embrace.
The son of a bitch is enjoying this.
Worse. There’s a small part of me that wants him to make that move.
“Get off me!”
“Ask me nicely, and I might just let you go,” he teases, his breath caressing my jaw.
I can see he’s not going to let me go. Not without making me beg.
And pride is my weakness. It always has been.
But what ishisweakness?
The second I think it, I know exactly how I’m going to escape.
The kiss takes him by surprise.
But not for long.
I shove a handful of snow down the back of his shirt, and he yelps, giving me just enough space to kick him off. Then I’m out from under him, whipping his cloak over his head and planting a boot in the middle of his chest.
By the time he fights his way free of the cloak, I’m in the saddle of his mount—an enormous black stallion, how typical—and doffing an imaginary hat to him. “A pity you sent my mare fleeing. It’s going to be a long, cold walk back to Valerian, Your Highness.”
“Get your ass back here!” Thiago yells.
It’s so incredibly childish that I can’t help myself. I kick his horse into a trot and yell back, “Make me!”
A snowball hits me between my shoulder blades, but all I can do is laugh as his horse canters away from the clearing.
I do believe I finally won a round.
And look at that. Nobody even drew blood.
