Then, when I’m nearly clear of the throng of people, someone touches my shoulder.
“Miss Sung,” Kostya says.
I turn around. He’s holding out his hand, and I put mine in it. He kisses my knuckles.
I swear he’s enjoying this whole prince-at-a-ball thing a little too much.
“May I have this dance?” he asks.
It’s all I can do not to laugh.
“I’d be honored,” I say.
I finish the last sip of champagne and walk back to the dance floor, hand in Kostya’s elbow. My whole body feels like it’s filled with bees, and I tell myself over and over again that two people are allowed to dance at a masquerade ball. That’s what people do here.
We get into position. My feet still hurt, but now at least I’m distracted as I look into his gray eyes. He strokes my shoulder blade with his thumb.
The music starts and we dance. He pulls me closer, a little too close, his mouth a few inches from my ear.
“That dress makes me want to bend you over the dessert table and bury my cock in you until you come screaming my name,” he murmurs.
I trip over my own foot.
Kostya steadies me with his hand on my back, even as heat slides through me like a lava flow. I glance around nervously, but no one is showing a sign that they heard him.
“God dammit,” I whisper.
He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are smiling as he looks at me.
“I guess you’re really Prince Kostya behind that mask and not an imposter,” I say a moment later when I’ve regained my composure.
“That’s not proof,” he says, totally straight faced. “I’m sure I’m not the only man here who’s had that thought.”
I scrunch my nose a little, and I see a smile flicker around his mouth.
“If I wanted to prove it, I’d tell you what you looked like in nothing but tube socks,” he says.
“Lucky for you I’m the real Hazel,” I say. “What if I were some official’s wife?”
“Then you would be very scandalized,” he says.
“I am scandalized,” I say. “I nearly fell over.”
“You were just surprised,” he says. “It’s different. If you were scandalized, you wouldn’t be thinking about it right now.”
I swallow, squeeze his hand slightly, and glance at the loaded dessert tables. I imagine myself pressing my face into the white tablecloth, clutching it in one hand as I moan, Kostya fucking me hard and deep from behind.
“And they say chivalry is dead,” I manage to say.
“I’d make sure you come first,” he says. “Chivalrous enough?”
His fingers curl slightly against my back, and I glance around the floor full of dancing couples, desperately wishing that they would all disappear.
“Which dessert table?” I ask.
“The sturdiest one,” he says.
“Not the closest?”
“I’d walk an extra twenty feet to make sure I fucked you right,” he says.
“I do appreciate a job well done,” I say, my pulse racing.
We dance for a moment without speaking, and I just savor being close to him, even in public. I can feel eyes on us from the sidelines, or should I say: eyes on Kostya. There’s Yelena, and there are her friends, the other girls the king’s tried to push on Kostya.
My parents. My mom meets my eyes and gives me one of those mom knows everything looks, and I try to ignore it.
There’s the King, looking unhappy.
He’d look considerably unhappier if he knew what his son had just said to me. I look away and pretend I can’t see him.
The music begins to slow, and Kostya presses his fingers into my back a little harder, like he doesn’t want to let go.
“Thank you for the dance,” he says.
“You’re welcome,” I say. “I only tripped once, and it was your fault.”
“I could make you trip again,” he says, his voice low.
“Not now that I’m expecting it,” I say, forcing myself to keep a straight face, because smiling at the prince has to look suspicious as hell.
“I knew you weren’t scandalized, zloyushka,” he says.
The music stops. We wait a beat too long, then separate. He kisses my hand again and then someone’s there, talking to him, and he gets pulled away for another dance. I melt back into the crowd and finally find a place to sit down.
Fifteen minutes later, the doors to the gallery open and the smell of coffee wafts in. The ballroom begins to empty slightly, so I take a deep breath, heave myself to my feet, and make my way out there.
The gallery is hot, steamy, and I don’t want coffee this late at night, so I go back to the ballroom. Before I know it I’m at the dessert table, and my toes curl as I wonder which one is the sturdiest.
Stop it, I think. You’re in public.
I grab a few morsels and open the door onto the patio by the garden. It’s cool outside but not cold, and I wander a bit until I find a bench hidden away in a nook and collapse onto it, slumping and leaning my head against the stone wall of the castle. I breathe in the rose-scented air from the garden, then lean down, take both my shoes off, and wiggle my toes freely for the first time in hours.
It feels so good I don’t hear the footsteps. I don’t even know anyone else is there until I hear him chuckling.
“Americans,” Kostya says, and I open my eyes.
“Don’t you have official prince business?” I tease. “Or something better to do than come find me in my moment of weakness?”
“I didn’t have to find you,” he says, and sits down next to me. “My eyes have been glued to your ass for hours.”
“It does look pretty good in this dress,” I admit.
Kostya just grins.
“And you said you were a pigeon,” he says, and I laugh.
“It’s true,” I say. “Everyone seems so uptight, but then I get to a formal event and the women all have their tits out.”
I sigh.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
He leans back against the wall, tilting his head against mine.
“Still not stranger than pie-eating contests,” he says, taking my hand in his and lacing our fingers together. I laugh and squeeze his fingers.
“Pie is delicious,” I say. “It’s not that strange.”
“But if you’re eating as part of a contest, you’re not enjoying the pie,” he says. “It may as well be sawdust.”
“I can’t really defend pie-eating contests,” I admit. “I’m barely American.”
“Why?” he asks. “You seem very American.”
“Because I’m loud, friendly, and don’t know my manners?” I ask.
“You wore spandex pants to meet the royal family,” he says.
I sigh.
“I barely lived there until I was a teenager because of my mom,” I say. “We lived in Croatia for a while, then Poland. Ireland. Brazil. Then they sent me to boarding school.”
“Your parents did?” he asks, sounding puzzled.
I nod.
“They wanted me to have at least a couple years of stability,” I say. “Where I could make friends and keep them for a while. Stay in one place for a couple years, at least.”