Page 41 of Filthy Royal

She never felt more beautiful than when she was with him.

“Turn over. On your belly.”

Her heart skipped a beat. This was new.

She clutched the top blanket to her chest.

“Don’t be nervous.” He jerked his chin toward a tray by the bed. “I told you. I have plans.”

She’d been so lost in him that she hadn’t noticed the tray or the items on it. “What are those?”

“Full-service caretaking.” He watched her carefully. “You in?”

“I… I don’t know. I am not even sure what it all is.”

“The best illicit items I could bribe someone into getting for me.” He pointed to each item in turn. “A glass of the finest Sartin spirits. I hate to admit it, but those guys make a good drink. Top-of-the line massage oil from Abzal—because anything related to pleasure’s something we do well on my home planet.” He winked at her. “And a standard hairbrush from the Golden Dome fighters’ commissary.”

It awed her to think of all the effort he’d made. For her. No one had ever done anything like this for her before.

“This… this is amazing.” She swallowed hard. “But you didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

“I wanted to.” His gaze shifted away as he rubbed a hand down his jaw. Then he took a deep breath, as if bracing himself, and turned back to her. “It’s all I want to do.”

He sounded like he was confessing a secret. Or a sin.

“I don’t understand.”

He ran a hand down his thighs. “I don’t want to scare you off or freak you out, but the truth is it makes me fucking hard as hells just thinking about using every single thing on that tray on you, in every way I want, and you trusting me enough to let me.”

Scarlett stilled. “Really?” A tiny thrill pulsed through her.

“Yes. More than I even want to admit. I know it’s not typical Alpha behavior.”

She surveyed the items on the tray. “It’s better.”

“Really?” He looked relieved, reminding her that he was as new to all of this as she.

He was so confident and cocky that she sometimes forgot they were stumbling through all this together. Figuring out their likes and needs together.

“Really.” All her life, she’d felt alone. Not anymore.

His smile was pure temptation—and wild, raw hunger as if her words had released something inside him. “Good. ‘Cause I’ve got a filthy mind, and fighting only keeps me so busy. I’ve had a lot of time to… fantasize.”

He lifted the glass and pressed it to her lips. “Drink.”

She did, the splash of sweetness followed by an even sweeter burn. Damien took the glass, and placing his lips where hers had been, drank too.

Another shiver whispered through her.

“I want to try every one of those items.” She dropped the blanket, letting it pool around her hips. “I want to explore everything with you, Damien.”

They were such a perfect match, the wild recklessness in him calling to her soul while the gentleness at his core soothed her as nothing had before.

He was just like her colors, a mesmerizing mix of soft and vivid, wild and bright, swirling through her with a power that stunned her.

She’d never met anyone like him, and now she knew why. There was no one else in the galaxy like Damien.

And he was all hers.

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