Page 68 of Fortress of the King

He pushes my hair back off my face. “Does that make me a monster?”

“I… I don’t know, Angelo.”

“You don’t ever have to be afraid of me,” he says with conviction. My heart races at his words. He really, truly, fucking means it. I swallow hard. “You know that, don’t you?”

I nod. If anything that came out of his mouth were true, it’s that.

He picks me up and cradles me in his arms. “Which bedroom is yours?”

“Last door on the left,” I say, as he strides down the hall with me in his arms.

When we get there, he places me down on the bed, and I reach for his jacket and pull him down to me. It takes me a second to realize that he’s not kissing me back.

“I’m not drunk,” I reiterate.

He grins and pulls the duvet back. “Climb in, princess.”

I sigh haughtily, growing a little frustrated and confused with his actions. He can’t just act like a brute one minute and then a sweet, caring man the next, I’m getting whiplash.

He looks down at me, sizing me up. He shrugs his jacket off, folding it over the back of my desk chair right behind him, then he starts to kick off his shoes, pulling off his socks and unbuttoning his shirt. “Strip,” he orders.

I glare at him, who the hell does he think he is? This is my apartment!

I make an exaggerated movement of stripping my robe off, lifting myself up to throw it down on the floor behind him; I kneel in front of him with my hands on my hips.

He reaches for his belt buckle and unzips his pants, shrugging them down. He keeps his cotton boxers on. I glance down at his arousal straining through the material and take him in, in all his gloriousness.

“Get in.” He nods to the open space where he’s pulled the covers back, unperturbed by my nakedness in front of him. I wish I could say the same.

“You’re so bossy.” I sigh flopping down onto my bed, letting my head hit the pillows.

He comes in behind me, spooning against my back as I snuggle into his warm body. “Rest, princess, you just need to rest.”

Words form in my throat, but they don’t leave. Emotions swirl through me as I try not to drown in everything Angelo.

Who is this man?

Just when I think I have him all figured out, I realize that I don’t at all.

He came here just to sleep. To hold me.

I feel like an idiot getting teary because of it. It’s the alcohol, that’s what it is.

And it can’t help but think; who is the real monster here?

* * *

The darkness in my room tells me it’s still nighttime when I rouse. I glance at my side table and realize it’s three in the morning. With a slight jolt, I feel a hand on my hip and a warm body pressing into my back.

I slowly turn around to face Angelo. He’s sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling in a calming rhythm.

Even in his sleep, he’s sexy as sin, so damned beautiful, his dark hair crushing into the pillow.

My fingers reach to lightly touch his skin. He’s warm and seems softer while sleeping, though everything about him screams the exact opposite. He’s not a man to be crossed.

I trace his skin tenderly. He has a small smattering of hair on his chest; I trail my fingers down to his belly button and just below to the trail of hair that leads downward. He cracks an eye open suddenly, even though I barely touched him.

“You feeling me up in the dark?” he mumbles, his voice still thick with sleep, dark and husky.

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