Page 25 of Regal Queen

Seven

He froze,and for a brief moment, I thought he was going to deny me. Going to pull back and leave me out in the cold rain.

And then he sunk into me, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around me and yanking me into his arms.

A deep moan sounded low in his throat as his lips claimed mine, devouring them. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him as elation strummed through me. I felt powerful, as what I took gave in to my demands.

We kissed as if the world was ending, as if we were finally accepting that we were meant to be together all along.

In this moment, I never wanted to let him go, always wanted to feel his body pressed to mine, his lips tasting mine, his hands clasping my side like he was desperate to capture me.

We kissed and kissed, kissed like I never knew you could kiss someone before. Like his lips were claiming mine, claiming me, like he was demanding my obedience to give myself to him.

His lips were demanding and mine were submitting.

And yet, he wanted more. He not only wanted my lips but my whole body, my heart pounding loudly in my chest, my very fucking soul.

He wanted everything from me and I was slowly, slowly submitting to him.

I grew soft and supple in his arms, molding my body next to his, showing him all the yearning that I'd been feeling ever since we met.

If he opened the hotel door and commanded me to walk away from him, I would insist on staying.

The tables had turned, and now he was my prisoner.

He belonged to me.

Our hearts were chained together in a never ending circle.

We kissed as if the world no longer existed, as if it didn't matter that we'd basically lost everything.

We kissed until I thought my lips were going to fall off, until I felt that the world had passed into nothingness around us and there was only him and me and a sky full of rain and possibility.

And then he pulled back, burying his head in the crook of my neck, and groaned. “We shouldn't be doing this."

"Why not?” I whispered. My arms, which were pressed against his chest now, curled around his waist, wanting to trap him there, not wanting him to escape through my fingers like a mist of fog.

He shook his head, the hardening of his tone an indication of the distance he was already putting between us. "Because, it’s not right. I know you don't want to be here, not truly."

"You think you know me, Bourbon?" I shook my head, my own voice hardening. "You don't know a single, fucking thing about me."

He straightened, revealing a cold wall of ice back in his gaze. "Then tell me something, Rose. Tell me something that's real. Convince me that you want to be here." His fingers curled in the collar of my silk pajamas, fisting them. "Tell me something that will convince me not to let you walk away from me as soon as all this is over. Tell me something that will convince me that you're worth it."

Anger strummed through me at his words but then something happened. Something completely and totally unexpected. His words had struck like an angry bolt but his bottom lip trembled, as if trying to withhold the emotions inside him.

It was only a half a second, a flash of true emotion, before he bit down on it, stopping the tremble, pressing his lips into a firm line. But I caught it.

I caught it and it was then that I knew.

His mistake was showing me the painting in the museum, telling me what it meant to him. The one truth he'd revealed to me.

He was feeling vulnerable.

It was the house. The one that was now destroyed, along with his mother that was gone.

He'd lost the one thing that meant anything to him, a past that was now completely destroyed.

He hadn’t had her to turn to growing up, and now, he didn't even have the things that reminded him of her.

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