Page 90 of An Heir to Blood and Power

He threw his head back and laughed so hard, so long, that his abs were contracted so tightly that they looked painful, and when he finally gasped, hesnorted.

Hard.

And then he looked at me over his thick shoulder, his eyes still crinkled with mirth but his hand over his mouth in chagrin. “Oh, how uncultured. I apolo?—”

But he couldn’t even finish the word before his giggles broke through and he cracked right back up.

“Well, I’m gladyouthink it’s funny,” I snarked at him.

“It’s only funny because it can be cured with antibiotics, but it is funny.” Nicolai braced both his hands on the bed and panted through his mouth like he’d sprinted so hard he’d fallen to his hands and knees. “Sometimes I forget how deeplyweirdAmericans are.”

“Oh, so, your European teenagers are so sophisticated that head-memes never take root and run through a population?”

“Evidently, not like an epidemic of butt chlamydia.” He got the giggles again.

“Dude, they were idiots.”

“Well, I don’t believe any of my boarding school friends would have believed that limiting oneself to anal sex maintains one’s moral purity.” He was still panting a little. “Our health education system is better than that. Some people consider their unbreached ass to be their second virginity, but no one thinksonlyanalkeeps one as pure as the driven snow.” Hisshoulders and stomach twitched, like something had shaken him. His glance at me held straight-up fear.“Youdidn’t think that, did you?”

“No!”

Ihadn’t.Iwouldn’t’ve.I’d tried to talk them out of it. And my vehemence must have convinced him.

“All right. Good,” he said. “Not that it would have been a problem. Not that it’s any of my business. I just wouldn’t want you to have been hurt, or abused, or so sadly misinformed.”

“They were just trying to balance their values with what their boyfriends were pressuring them for.”

His head dropped to the side, and his ribs ballooned and collapsed with a sigh. “And that’s where it becomes tragic.” He turned to look out the window, probably checking for dawn.

Outside, the Strip still sparkled beneath an ink-poured sky.

Nicolai glanced at the silvery-metal watch still on his wrist, even though he was shirtless. “It’s late. Let’s get you cleaned up and perhaps salvage some sleep before Clemmy swans in like the Duchess of Do-My-Bidding.”

Nicolai rolled off the bed with a muscular movement like a martial arts master pivoting under an attack, graceful and yet strong.

And then I nakedly flopped and flailed over to the edge and slithered off the mattress with the poise of an octopus falling out of a tree.

Nicolai was right there, holding out his hand.

“But we haven’t even negotiated the contract,” I wheedled.

“Lexi, come.”

“Okay.” I grabbed his fingers.

The iron rail of his arm steadied me, and I didn’t fall. Fatigue drifted in sunset-tinged clouds in my head.

When I looked up at him, he was smiling down at me. “Let’s go.”

I padded into the bathroom after Nicolai, where he was already tapping a screen embedded in the marble-clad wall outside the shower stall that was as big as the whole bathroom in our tiny hotel room at Caesars the night before.

He was still wearing pants. And a belt. Like a normal adult.

I, however, was buff-naked.

I grabbed a towel from the folded pile and shook it out so I could kind of hang it over my swimsuit parts in front.

Water roared out of the showerhead in a solid torrent, and steam rose toward the ceiling and hung there. Nicolai tapped a few buttons on the screen and adjusted some sliders that moved like volume controls.