Page 59 of Prince

When her consciousness had swum back and her vision faded in, Max had been panting, his forehead pressed against her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her.

As she looked down his back, the tattoo staining Maxence’s flesh from his shoulders to his waist was unrecognizable, almost a waterfall of black ink. Digging all that ink into his skin must have taken so long, hours and hours over many days. She smoothed her hand over his skin, trailing her fingers over the blackened feathers of a fallen angel’s wings.

She would never have chosen a fallen angel’s destroyed wings for him. She hated that’s what his tattoo was. Some of the lines that formed the broken feathers faded away, and parts of it looked incomplete where the hollow bones were broken.

He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t look her in the eyes.

That kind of distance wasn’t normal for him.

Afterward, when they were entangled in the white comforter, he was lying with his fingers laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling, while Dree drew circles on his skin with her fingernails. She was trying to tickle him a little, but just any reaction would have sufficed.

When her arm got tired and she rested her hand on his chest, his heart under her palm was racing, battering itself against his rib cage at least a hundred beats per minute.

Okay, that was odd.

His respiration rate was normal, each breath measured and deep.

Very measured.

Dree propped herself up on one elbow. “Maxence, buddy? You okay?”

“Of course.” His dark eyes didn’t move.

The mismatch between his respiration and pulse rates were disconcerting. If he’d been in Dree’s ER, she would’ve hooked him up to an EKG or just sent him for an immediate cardiac consult. “Your heart is racing, but you don’t look upset.”

“I’m fine.”

Under her hand, his heart flipped and, if anything, accelerated. “Are you in the middle of a massive panic attack?”

That got his attention, and his dark eyes flicked to meet hers. “Of course not.”

“Max, you can’t fool a nurse practitioner. I’m taking your heart rate right now, and I’ve known you have panic attacks ever since Paris. Did you try your grounding strategy?”

After a beat, Maxence nodded one dip of his head.

“Is there something in particular that triggered this?”

His gaze returned to the ceiling, a vast expanse of white interrupted by golden medallions around the chandelier fixtures. “No.”

Oh, just “No.”There wasn’t anything suspicious aboutthatat all.

Dree snuggled down more firmly under the comforter and wrapped her naked leg around his. “Tell me a story about Monagasquay.”

“Dree—”

“No, really. Come on.”

“We’reinMonaco.”

“I know, but just tell me the story of the little prince and the pirates again.”

“That’s not a very good story.”

Under her calf, Maxence’s knee twitched.

Pay dirt.“Tell it to me anyway.”

He sighed. “There once was a little prince from Monagasquay—”