My throat tightens. “Hmm… I’m not so sure about that.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, even kings who love their countries.” She tilts her head. “It’s what’s in your heart when you’re making the mistake that counts. People can tell if you’ve tried your best to serve them or if you’ve screwed up while looking out for number one.” She sniffs, and another shiver works its way through her from head to toe. “And even if we can’t ever be friends or anything more, I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I was trying to make the best of a hard situation. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, especially you. Even when I hated you, I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s not the way I’m made.”
I arch a brow, fighting the urge to draw her into my lap, wrap my arms around her, and warm her up. “You hated me?”
She nods, her lips puckering as they shift to one side. “I did. I judged you on childhood pranks and your cheesy PicsWithFriends account and decided you weren’t nearly good enough for my sister.”
“It’s not cheesy. It’s what the people want.”
“The people want lots of things that aren’t good for them. Like tur-duck-ens. A chicken doesn’t need to stuffed inside a duck and then stuffed inside a turkey, and you don’t need to post pics of your royal bottom online every week.”
“It's only once or twice a month,” I say, surprised to find the tight feeling in my chest beginning to ease. “And I have a nice bottom. Who am I to deprive the women of the world of this ass?”
She holds my gaze, unflinching. “You’re an intelligent, devoted, compassionate future king who deserves the trust and love of his people. You’re not here to entertain them. You’re here to lead them, and it’s time you started acting like it.”
I search her face. “You really think I’m all of those things?”
“I do,” she promises. “You just need to start thinking of yourself as the kingdom’s daddy instead of its boyfriend.”
My lips quirk, and I can’t help but ask, “Does this mean you secretly want to call me daddy?”
“I’ll call you anything you want if you’ll consider forgiving me,” she says, the emotion in her voice making it impossible to stay angry. The last of the tight heat in my jaw fades away as I reach for her.
“I forgive you,” I whisper, cupping her damp face in my hand.
Her lips part, and her eyes begin to shine. “Really?”
“Really. But I’m still hurt,” I say. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you again. You know I can’t stand lies.”
“But you were lying, too,” she reminds me as I brush thick ropes of soaked hair from her forehead and over her shoulder. “Is one so much worse than the other? I mean, I’m betting Lizzy and I look a lot more alike than your table manners did before and after you decided to use them to scare away your fiancée.”
I press my lips together. “My brothers made a similar point.”
“But you didn’t want to listen to them?”
“No, I didn’t. But they’re not nearly as pretty as you are.”
A tentative smile lifts her mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, bringing my face closer to hers. “They don’t kiss as well, either.”
“Liar, you’ve never kissed your brothers.”
“Well, not on the mouth,” I whisper, and then I kiss her. Because she gets me. And she’s got me, right by the heart, and I don’t want her to go.
I want her to stay here with me. I want to get to know the real Sabrina and fall in love with her all over again.
I shift, lying back on the sleeping bag and drawing her on top of me, running my hands up and down her curves while she continues to shiver until it becomes clear there’s only one way to solve this problem. “We’ve got to get you out of these wet clothes, or you’re never going to warm up,” I say, reaching for the tie at the bottom of her corset.
“Prince Andrew, are you trying to get me naked?” she murmurs, pressing closer to my chest, making it easier to reach the ties, but so much harder to concentrate. Her breasts spill over the top of her shirt, so close to my lips I can’t resist the urge to lean down, trailing kisses across her sinfully soft skin.
“I am, Princess Sabrina,” I murmur between kisses. “And to take further advantage of you in your fragile emotional state.”
“I’m not fragile. But I would love for this to be more than a one-night stand.”
I guide her corset up and over her head, tossing it away before reaching for the buttons on her linen undershirt. I stare up at her face, watching her watch me and wondering if I’m ever going to get tired of seeing her eyes go dark with wanting me.
“You know what I’d like?” I ask. “I’d like for the two of us to pack our bags and go away for a while. I have a feeling that after four or six days on the beach, I’ll forget why I was ever angry with you.”
Hope flickers in her eyes, lighting her up from the inside. “Really?”
I guide her shirt apart, baring her breasts, which are even more beautiful now than they were spilling out of the top of her corset in the woods. I cup her in both hands, dragging my thumbs back and forth across her nipples, loving the way she shivers in response and rocks her hips closer to mine. “Really, but I need you to promise me—no more lies. I want the truth from you. Even if you think it’s going to piss me off.”
“I’m not afraid of pissing you off,” she says, her next breath emerging as a moan. “But I am afraid of losing you. And that you’re going to stop touching me like this.”
“I’m never going to stop touching you,” I promise as I pull her closer, guiding her breast to my mouth. “Not ever.” I kiss and suck and tease her oh-so-responsive nipples until she’s writhing on top of me, making sexy, hungry sounds in the back of her throat, and then I make quick work of the rest of her clothes.
Skirt and stockings and panties go flying as she tears at the buttons on my shirt and drags down the zipper on my fly, her cool hand diving inside my pants. I suck in a breath as her freezing fingers curl around my cock, but it isn’t long before my burning skin has warmed hers right up.
But there’s somewhere even warmer than her hand that I’m dying to be.
I roll on top of her, pinning her arms above her head. “I want you so much.”
“Then take me,” she says, arching her hips, trapping my cock between her slick heat and my belly.
“Condom, saddlebag,” I groan as I press tighter against her, dying to be inside her more than I can remember wanting anything, ever, even out of the damned engagement with her sister.
“I told you, I’m the pill.” She kisses me with the words, her arms winding around my neck as her legs wrap around my hips, shifting our position until my cock presses against her entrance and I’m two seconds away from losing control. “And I’m clean.”
“Me, too, but are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t leave me,” she says, lifting her hips, taking the tip of me into the paradise between her legs. “Don’t ever leave.”