Page 16 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

‘You should be sure about what you are asking of me.’ He moved a step closer, then surprised Poppy by reaching out and pressing his fingers to her chin, tilting her face so their eyes met squarely. ‘You should be clear about what I would expect in return.’

Poppy’s pulse went crazy. She couldn’t speak for several moments and when she finally did, the words were trembly and weak.

‘What would you expect?’

His smile was more of a smirk: damn him for even making that look sexy!

‘My parents will only believe this if we are convincing. I would not agree to pretend to date you and then have them discover it was a lie. If we do it, it must seem real.’

‘Obviously,’ she snapped.

‘At the palace, you will sleep in my room. In my bed.’

Her lips parted on a rush of surprise. ‘I—can’t see that that’s necessary.’

Another smirk. ‘You are so quick to point out that my parents know what I’m like. Do you really think they’d believe anything less?’

He had a very valid point. Damn it, why hadn’t Poppy thought of that?

‘But we can’t—I’m not—suggesting we, erm—’

Nearer he came, closing the distance between them completely. ‘Sleep together again?’ he murmured, the words warm against her cheek.

‘Right,’ she said, uneasily, because her pulse was now just a tsunami in her veins and her knees were trembling.

‘I cannot promise you that,’ he said quietly.

She shivered, adrenalin making her body shake. ‘You said it was a mistake,’ she reminded him, shaking her head. Even when she desperately, desperately yearned for him, on some instinctive level, she knew that to give into that desire would be an absolute nightmare.

‘Some mistakes are pleasurable to repeat.’ And he kissed her, with as much intensity as their first kiss, more perhaps, because so much had happened since then, and her whole body responded with an arc of fierce, bright electricity and a burst of something like light that came from the depths of her soul and flared outwards. She wanted to cry and laugh and scream and melt into a puddle of pleasure at his feet, but all she could do was kiss him back, and wrap her hands around his neck and hold him closer to her, lift her body, press it against him, her breasts squashed to his chest, her hips so close to his manhood, her mind wishing away their clothes so that they could rediscover what they’d shared last night.

His tongue moved with devastating effect, rolling hers, teasing, his mouth punishing and proclaiming her as his even before she could understand what he was doing. She was exploding from every pore of her body; she was awash with sensations and then, into his mouth, she was begging for him. She didn’t care. She needed him. It made no sense, but nothing about this did. Just like last night, she was overpowered by something so much bigger than her; she just hoped Adrastos could help her make sense of it all.

He pulled away and she stared up at him, bewildered, still flooded with an electrical current, body jolting, waiting for his hands to lift her shirt, to remove her clothes then his—but he stepped away from her instead, and his features bore a mask of cool reserve.

‘There is no sense pretending you do not want to sleep with me, Poppy. We both know that is a lie.’

She gasped. Had he kissed her just to prove a point? God, and she’d let him. She’d let her objections go so quickly and easily.

She was trembling from anger now, and yes, desire too. ‘Are you saying you’ll only do this if I agree to...have sex with you?’

To his credit, he blanched. ‘Do you honestly think I am desperate enough to deliver such an ultimatum?’

It wasn’t the time to be reminded of his prowess with women.

‘So?’ she said crossly. ‘What, then?’

‘You will sleep in my bed. This is not negotiable. I will not agree to lie to my parents and then have that lie found out. We all have our boundaries: that is mine.’

She had to respect his position on that, particularly as she’d forced him into the lie.

‘But you should realise that sex is a very real possibility of the situation you’ve orchestrated. If you have an issue with that, you should work out a way to extricate yourself now. Otherwise...’ his eyes met hers, held, and a shiver ran the length of her spine ‘...I suggest you sit back and enjoy the ride.’

While Adrastos had earned a reputation as a playboy prince, he was also revered and respected for both his work ethic and nous, and with good reason. At nineteen, he’d been catapulted into the position of heir to the throne but his interest in good governance and social policies predated it. From almost as soon as he could remember, Adrastos had been fascinated by the way things worked, and, more importantly, by how he could make them better.

His position of authority simply gave him a vehicle for change, and he was not slow in using it.

However, as he pored over a report he would usually have devoured in a single hour, he found his concentration wandering, his focus bizarrely absent.

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