Page 22 of Royals
Instead, he fiddles with some knobs at the bottom, and then there’s a soft hissing sound that I guess is heat actually coming back into the room.
“Sorted,” Seb says, standing up and turning back around.
His eyes slide down to the monkey socks I’m wearing, then make a leisurely journey back up to my face.
“You don’t look much like your sister,” he finally says, and I have no idea if that’s meant to be a criticism or a compliment. His handsome face isn’t giving anything away, and I fight the urge to fidget. Being around Seb this afternoon had been one thing; there were lots of other people around, plus pipers, plus the incomprehensible farmer and the kilts and the champagne and the swords... even a very hot prince couldn’t competewith all that excitement. But now he’s here in my room, and it’s nighttime, and the soft golden light from the lamp makes everything cozy and romantic, and I feel roughly 9,000 leagues out of my depth.
“You don’t look much like your brother,” I finally manage, and Seb winks at me.
“Thank god for small favors, eh?”
Then he turns and walks to the fancy desk in the corner of the room, the one with the cabinet over the top, and slides the cabinet open. “Ah, there you are, my beauty,” he says, his Scottish accent rolling.
I curl my toes into the thick carpet, holding on to the bedpost as he cradles a bottle of amber liquid. “You hid booze in your friend’s house?”
Seb yanks out the cork in the top of the bottle, lifting it to me in a little salute. “I did not actually hide this bottle, I’ll have you know,” he says. “That was Sherbet’s father’s doing.”
“So instead of hiding booze, you’re stealing it,” I say.
He walks closer, then stops to lean against the opposite bedpost as he lifts the bottle to his lips, taking a truly massive gulp of whatever is in there. My stomach rolls in sympathy.
“I cannotsteal,” Seb informs me, “because,technically, anything in this house belongs to me, as I am a prince of the land.”
I’m just about to roll my eyes when that boyish grin flashes again. “Kidding, of course,” he assures me. “I am indeed stealing Sherbet’s father’s fine whiskey.”
I give a kind of breathless laugh that doesn’t sound anything like me, and honestly, I kind of want to punch myself in the facefor how ridiculous I’m being, but this is some next-level swoony material happening here.
Then Seb tilts the bottle up, taking another one of those massive gulps, and I shudder. Drinking straight alcohol like that would probably result in me projectile vomiting. Is he... used to this kind of thing? Earlier today, he’d been all charm and decorum while his friends were the ones totally out of their minds. Well, most of his friends. The tall guy had seemed sober enough.
“So you’re to be my new sister-in-law,” Seb says once he’s done damaging his liver. “What do you think of the family so far?”
I can’t tell if he’s genuinely curious or just making small talk, but in either case, I kind of wish he’d leave already. I’m getting tired again, and I feel like talking with Seb might require more brainpower than I can currently access. There’s a light blanket on the end of the bed, and I pick it up, wrapping it around my shoulders.
“It’s great,” I say. “Alex is... great.”
Seb sucks in a deep breath through his nose. “Great,” he echoes. “He is indeed that.”
Silence falls between us then, and it is most definitely the awkward kind, but only on my end, I think. Seb appears to mostly be studying the patterns in the carpet.
Then up goes the bottle again, and I have the strangest urge to call Isabel, or at least take a quick phone video of Seb for her.This guy is not nearly as dreamy as you thought,I’d tell her, but then I look again at Seb, and okay, so he’s getting drunk andmaybe not quite as polished as I’d imagined he’d be, but I’m not sure the visual would get that across. He actually looks pretty good right now with his loose collar and perfect pants.
And then I realize I’ve been staring at him for several beats, and when I lift my gaze back to his face, he’s watching me, and I realize that he may not have understood that I was mentally composing a text message to my best friend about how disappointing he is.
In fact, he might think—
I can’t even finish the thought before Seb is letting go of the bedpost and moving toward me with the same grace I’d admired earlier. There’s no time to admire now, however, as he immediately swoops down on me, his lips meeting mine.
Chapter 11
He must take my gasp of surprise for an invitation because he is full-on kissing me immediately. No lead-up, no questioning, just a royal tongue in my mouth, andoh my god.
I place both hands on his chest and shove hard.
Seb lets me go immediately, stumbling back a few steps, his brow furrowed. “What?” he asks, and I stand there, gaping, the taste of whiskey—which, turns out, I really don’t like—still stinging in my mouth.
“You kissed me,” I tell him, and he nods, even as he keeps looking at me like I’m speaking another language.
“I did... yeah,” he says slowly. “Because you were looking at me in such a way that seemed to indicate you’d be amenable to such a thing.”
