Page 47 of Dating the Rebel
“Put me down,” she said.
And he did, but not until he’d carried her through the throne room to another room where he dropped her onto the silk sheets of an enormous bed. He joined her on the bed and leaned over her. But she reached up for his shoulders, holding him back. “Grant, what happened to you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
“These bruises and scrapes...you didn’t have them the last time we were together...” She would have noticed anything marring the perfection of his muscular body.
“Well, you did get kind of aggressive with me,” he teased.
And she knew he wasn’t going to answer her. Why? Because he couldn’t, like Blair suspected, admit what he really did? Or because he just didn’t want to share anything of himself with her but his body?
“Grant...”
“That’s your royal highness to you,” he persisted in teasing her.
“Did you fight the real prince for this place?” she asked. “Is that how you got these bruises?”
He chuckled. “The real prince is nearly eighty years old so...”
“You beat up an old man?” she asked, teasing him back, because she knew that was all they were going to do. They weren’t going to be honest with each other about themselves. She couldn’t even be honest with herself about what she was beginning to feel for him.
Too much...
Too much concern and passion and interest...
He’d gotten to her more than she’d ever believed he would. And she didn’t really even know him...
“He is a pretty tough guy,” Grant said.
“Maybe we should introduce him to my mother,” she said. “She’s always wanted to marry royalty.”
“I thought she didn’t care who she married,” Grant remarked.
She must have flinched because he quickly apologized.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t say anything about your mother.”
She sighed. “Why not? She probably hit on you in the past like she has every other man she’s met.”
He slid his finger under her chin and tipped it up, so their eyes met and held. “She didn’t,” he assured her. “And let’s not talk about Blair or your mother...”
“Or your bruises?” she surmised.
He grinned. “Especially not those...” He leaned down and kissed her then, lightly brushing his lips across hers before trailing them down her throat.
Her pulse leaped beneath his mouth as he suckled at it. She wanted him, wanted this...too much to deny either of them. So she shimmied quickly out of her clothes while he shrugged off his shirt and shucked off his pants.
Then they were naked, nothing between them but those scrapes and bruises. She couldn’t entirely ignore them—like he obviously wanted her to—so she kissed them gently, as if her touch would somehow heal them.
He sucked in a breath and murmured her name. And she knew that he was as affected as she was by the attraction that burned between them. He wanted her just as badly as she wanted him.
He pushed her back against the mattress and closed his lips around a nipple then flicked his tongue over it.
She arched up from the mattress, needing his touch, needing him so badly.
As if he’d read his mind, he cupped her mound in his hand and slid his fingers inside her. He stroked her while he continued to tease her nipple with his tongue.
Desire throbbed inside her. And she shifted and arched against him, needing release. It came—she came—just a little, just enough that a soft cry slipped out of her lips.
