Page 63 of An Heir to Blood and Power

It was silly, but I couldn’t stop. His name was in my mouth because my mind was full of him, maybe with love, maybe with obsession.

“Yes, Lexi. Just breathe. Had you never had an orgasm before?”

“Not likethat!”I whimpered.

Not like an earthquake shaking apart my soul.

His quiet chuckle rumbled under my chest. “Oh, Lexi. The things I could do to you.”

Tremors still quaked deep in my core.

Even though my arms were still quivering, I pushed myselfaway from his chest to search his eyes, still afraid of what I would find there. Disgust? Revulsion at me, what we’d done?

Or disinterest?

His face was set in soft lines, and he cupped my cheek. The gentleness in his eyes saddened to wistfulness. “You are an innocent, and I will ruin you.”

I bent my head and whispered against his lips,“Yes.”

PART THREE

when everything changes

CHAPTER 19

a heightened state of readiness

NICOLAI

Lexi fluttered ahead of me through the living room of our suite at Billionaire Sanctuary, bobbling on her high heels in the thick carpeting. The air conditioning caught the liquid silk of her dress and flicked it into the air like she was flying on copper butterfly wings.

Or angel wings.

I stalked her past the coffee table with its glass bowl of fresh apples, avoided detouring into the long dining room with its candelabra lit and flickering on the table, and didn’t stop at the wet bar with its glasses sparkling in the overhead lights.

She reached the door to the bedroom, flitting inside.

I’d seen the ecstasy in her eyes. Her body had writhed with just my touch.

Every cell in every tissue in every muscle of my body strained to chase, to catch, to have every delicious inch of her skin in my hands, under my mouth, and around my?—

“Nicolai,did you nothearme?”

Ueli’s gruff voice was a harsh spotlight when my thoughts wanted thedark.

I turned slowly, composed. “I beg your pardon?”

His hands were balled into fists, bulging his muscular forearms under his suit. “We need to talk about tonight’s incident.”

The last thing I needed was Ueli to demand a three-hour debrief of the situation that hadn’t even happened. “Can we do it in the morning?”

“The garage incident was tense.”

That stopped me. “Go on.”

“When you texted that you were T-minus-one hour from leaving, we began preparations for the walk out. Evidently, our activity drew attention. Dush and the beta team entered the kitchen to secure the elevator for your exit, and as soon as they were inside the building, three SUVs cornered alpha and gamma teams in the cars. The objective appeared to be to block alpha and gamma, and then to intercept you with beta team as you exited from the elevator. We had a standoff with hands on guns about whether they were going to move their fucking cars or not. No one drew. Weapons stayed in holsters. But it was close. If there hadn’t been five different CCTV feeds in there that we pointed out to those fucking idiots, things might’ve gone differently.”

As Ueli was talking, I mentally counted my security team operators I’d seen on the way out and checked off the roster in my head, relieved that everyone was accounted for. “You defused the situation?”