Page 120 of Underground Prince

Flicking on the lights, I pointed at the couch. “Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Or even better, lie.”

“Don’t push it.” His voice tightened as he sat.

I peered into my freezer, dumping ice cubes into a dishtowel and also choosing a few bags of crusted-over frozen veggies that Verily and I pretended to eat but never cooked.

Arms full, I swiveled out of the kitchen and said to Theo, “Strip.”

“Are you going to use full sentences around me ever again?”

“One-word communications work best for you, no? It’s how you preferred getting me to do your grunt work when we first met.”

He stooped forward to slide out of his blazer before unbuttoning his shirt, a smirk of admission on his face.

“Here.” I laid out my supplies beside him as he sat back on a sigh, his cuts and bruises seeming all the more agitated since they last appeared before me.

“God, Theo,” I said as I pressed a bag of peas against his ribs. He yelped at the contact.

“Fuck.”

“Well yeah, it’s gonna be cold.”

He sent me a long-suffering stare through his lashes. “You’re not a nice nurse.”

“Hard lovin’, that’s the only way to your heart.” I said it with cocky attitude, but as soon as it hit the air, the atmosphere changed around us, a stifling heat, yet we both breathed fine. I became conscious of his skin underneath the frozen bags I was stacking on his chest, and what it looked like underneath those wounds.

Six squares of muscles, sifting and trembling at both my contact and the ice. The sharp cuts of obliques traveling as a V to the place I was most intrigued by. The pops of his tendons as he flexed.

The scars underneath those fresh bruises.

“Scarlet?”

I was staring at his chest, and I raised my eyes to his.

Our breaths were the only sounds between us, and we looked at each other, steady, like we were already stripped bare.

“Come here,” he said, speaking deep in his throat.

I licked my lips, tentative. He liked it, because his good eye ticked, and he lowered the pack of ice from his other one, slowly, like if he made any sudden movements I’d scram.

I probably should. It wasn’t proper to jump a man while he was injured and ride him like a cowgirl. It wasn’t classy to want him pleasuring me while his eye throbbed and his ribs pierced soft tissue.

“Come. Here.” He lifted the bags from his chest, exposing those carved lines, skin shining with melted ice, bare from the top up.

The primal part of me was already moving before my frontal lobe caught up. I hiked my skirt up, exposing more thigh. I managed a slow descent to his lap, stretching this out for the both of us, though I craved putting my sex on his, feeling the length of him sliding against me through his pants.

His upper lip curled and he arched up to meet me, clasping the nape of my neck, and meeting my kiss halfway.

My skin sizzled at the contact, flashes of electricity sparking the air as his other hand went to the small of my back to deepen the kiss. My fingers danced down his chest and hit the hem of his pants. I went to his belt loops, but he prevented me from going any farther.

He stopped me.

“I’m taking my time with you,” he said against my lips, before committing the ultimate sin by drawing lazy circles with his hips, working his arousal against me as his hands went to my waist, directing the sway.

Our breaths were heavy, panting, voices cutting through only to moan or sigh as we quickened the pace. One of his hands dropped to my thigh because he was no longer in control. It was me, spinning us to the brink. My back curved, my chin tilted up…

---