Page 26 of Duke for the Summer

Thea squealed, pounding on the table. “Prince Thibault is going to look so fucking hot, oh my God. I can’t wait to see what they wear.”

“Eeeeee, I knowwwwww!!”

“Dude,” Nate said. “Control your vaginas, both of you. Are we playing this game, or not?”

“Ok, ok,” Gracie said. “I want to go. Ask me a truth.”

“Hm.” Thea gave her an assessing look, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “Weirdest place you’ve ever had sex?”

Gracie shrugged. “A car?”

“Gracie.” Jacopo was sitting up, fully alert all of a sudden.

“What?” Gracie rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-six, Jacopo.”

“Man, you gotta branch out,” Thea said.

“No, I want to. But there aren’t a lot of opportunities on this island.”

“Gracie,” Jacopo said again. He looked a little bit sick.

“Thea, seriously.” Nate ran a hand over his face, feeling how hot his skin was. This game was getting very awkward, very quickly.

“Gracie, askhim.” Thea nodded toward Jacopo. “What’s the weirdest place he’s ever had sex?”

“Thea.” Nate’s pulse was pounding in his ears. He licked his lips, tasting limoncello. “No more weird sex questions.”

“That’s the entire point of the game!”

Gracie looked at her brother, eyebrows raised. She toyed with her glass, tipping it back and forth. “Jacopo?”

“I’m not answering that,” Jacopo snapped.

Nate wanted to know, despite himself. His mouth was dry, and he felt a tremor of desire, remembering how Jacopo’s eyes had burned, looking down at him in the early morning light. How needy his hands and mouth had been on Nate’s skin. He rubbed a hand over his chest unconsciously, touching the mark Jacopo had left there, and a flush rose in his cheeks as he caught Jacopo watching his movement.

Jacopo cleared his throat. “This is a stupid game. We should all go to sleep, anyway.”

“No way, if you won’t answer the question, you have to drink.” Thea rolled over, her hair spilling across the carpet. She pointed an accusatory finger at Jacopo. “Those are the rules.”

“Maybe we really should–” Nate tried, but Jacopo was already wordlessly reaching for the bottle, his lips pressed together.

“Nate?” he asked some time later. He was slumped in the chair like a fainting dandy, long legs tucked over one of the armrests. Gracie and Thea had disappeared in search of snacks. Nate could hear them clattering around on the stairs. Thea was chanting something that sounded like “midnight cheese” over and over again.

Peeling himself off the carpet, he got onto his hands and knees. The frescoes on the walls cavorted merrily for a second before becoming still. There was one peacock that seemed especially stressed out, like it was the daycare provider for the rest of the animals, and the thought made Nate laugh. He crawled over to Jacopo’s chair and rested his head against his thigh, looking up at him.

“Hey.”

“Nate.”

God, he was sobig, and so pretty, and Nate bit his lip, a happy little shudder traveling through him. “Your face is really symmetrical,” he said.

Jacopo traced a fingertip down Nate’s cheek, over his lips. He murmured something in Italian.

“Huh?”

“He says he wants to make a dictionary for you.”

Nate sat bolt upright, blood rushing to his face. Gracie was standing in the doorway, yawning. Behind her, Thea was doing some kind of happy dance and double-fisting a salami and a block of parmesan.

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