I lean my back against the stone wall as well, trying not to look at him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him dressed so casually, in jeans and t-shirt, and it’s... distracting, the way his sleeves hug his biceps, or the way his shoulders are just a touch too wide.
“Do they do it by getting the other animals drunk?” I ask.
“Only sometimes,” he says, and I can feel his eyes slide toward me again.
For a moment, he’s silent, just looking at me. My face heats up and my heart beats faster. Desperately, I think it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.
“Did you get your shirt from a church?” he finally asks.
I look down at myself, because I’ve never gotten a shirt from a church and have no idea what he’s talking about.
With my arms crossed, all that’s visible of this dumb shirt is Good girls go to heaven.
“Definitely not,” I say, and uncross my arms.
I use every ounce of my willpower not to shiver and pucker my nipples.
“Aha,” he says, reading Bad girls go everywhere.
Then he looks at me, and something sparkles in his gray eyes. I think it’s a smile. I think.
“Which are you?” he asks.
“The shirt was a gift,” I say, not really answering the question. “My best friend gave it to me before I went on this trip, as sort of a joke, because I was going to a lot of places and I’d just dropped out of school.”
“Was one of the places heaven?” he asks.
“Does the Vatican count?” I ask.
“Not even close,” he says, and the corners of his eyes crinkle.
“I went to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral,” I say.
“Closer, and beautiful, but not heaven,” he says.
I look away for a moment. My back is to the sea, so we’re looking over the stone work of the castle and the grounds beyond, all dimly lit and silver in the moonlight. I’m just buzzed enough that I can feel the moonlight on my skin, cool and liquid.
“I watched the sun come up on a train in the Alps,” I say.
“Still not heaven,” he says. His voice has gone a little softer and almost growly. Now that we’re alone up here, just the two of us and the night sky, he sounds different. Not quite so harsh.
Fuck it, I think.
Flirt back. He started this.
“Kostya, are you trying to get me to say I’m a bad girl?” I ask.
“I’m just making polite conversation with a palace guest about her shirt,” he says, and I swear there’s just a hint of a smile in his voice. “Though it does seem you’ve been many places, and not one of them was heaven.”
I swallow as warmth snakes through me, tightly coiled and writhing.
I’m acutely aware that I should not be doing any of the things that I’m doing right now: I shouldn’t be in this off-limits area, I shouldn’t be smoking pot, and I shouldn’t be flirting with a future monarch.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been everywhere.”
“You’ve got time to fix that,” he says. “And I think everywhere is much more interesting than heaven.”
A slight breeze drifts over us and I hug myself tighter as I feel my nipples pucker.
Don’t look, I think. I swallow.
Or do look, fuck, I don’t even know.
Being near Kostya lights something stupid and dangerous inside me, something that wants to throw all caution to the wind and tell him I’m a very bad girl. Something that wants to do something ridiculous, like lean against this wall and lick my lips and invite him to sex-glare at me, nipples at full attention while I bite one finger like some kind of sexpot.
I don’t do any of those things.
“Heaven’s never sounded all that appealing,” I admit. “I think I’d rather be on the goat train from Kiev than spend eternity on a cloud with one of those tiny harps.”
“I believe they’re called lyres,” he says.
“Show off,” I say, teasing him.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and frowns very slightly. Then the corners twitch a little.
“Because I know what a tiny harp is called?”
“I’m just kidding,” I say, already wishing I could backtrack.
He kicks at a loose rock and it bounces across the stone blocks that make up the floor of the rampart.
“Did it work?” he finally asks. “Are you impressed?”
“That you knew the word lyre?” I ask, smiling.
“That I know more about heaven than you,” he says.
“You’re not going to convince me you’re an angel,” I say. “You snuck up here just like I did.”
“It’s my palace,” he points out. “I don’t have to sneak anywhere.”
“So the palace guard knows where you are right now?” I ask.
“I just said I don’t have to sneak, not that I didn’t,” he says. “Having your every move tracked can get tedious after a while.”
“You’re taking a pretty big risk being alone with me, then,” I say. “Maybe I’m an assassin.”
The second I say that out loud, I regret it.
“I’m not an assassin,” I say quickly.
“Yes, that was a joke,” he says, his eyes sparkling again. “I’m catching on.”
“I just couldn’t sleep,” I say.
“Me either,” he says.
He looks like he’s about to go on, but doesn’t.
I take a deep breath.
He came and gave you bread when you humiliated yourself, I think.
“You know what helps me sleep sometimes?” I say, reaching into my pocket.
“Is it smoking marijuana?” he asks.
“Shit,” I say, and laugh. “I guess I wasn’t very crafty.”
“It’s not what Americans are known for,” he says.
“I’ve still got half a joint,” I offer. “I smuggled it from Amsterdam by accident.”
I pull out the joint and the lighter and offer them.
I have no idea if he’s ever even smoked before. Everything I’ve read about the prince makes him sound like a serious, straight arrow who toes the line.
I’m starting to realize that there’s more to Kostya than the official reports, though.
“A medical school dropout and a drug smuggler,” he says, taking the joint and the lighter. “Bad girl doesn’t even start to describe you.”
“It got lost in my dirty laundry,” I say. I have no idea whether that makes me more or less of a bad girl. “I didn’t mean to smuggle it here.”
He lights it and takes a deep breath, then holds it in before blowing the smoke up toward the stars. Then he coughs a little.
“It’s been a while,” he says.
The crown prince of Sveloria takes one more hit off of my smuggled joint, then hands it back to me. I crush it out again on the stone wall. He exhales again and clears his throat.
“These stones are hundreds of years old,” he says. I think he’s trying to sound stern again, but I’m not falling for it.
“Then they’ve had worse things happen to them,” I say, and put the stub and the lighter back in my pocket again.
“The ramparts were built so that archers could fire flaming arrows at ships coming ashore,” he admits.