Page 29 of Prince Material (The Prince Pact #2)

ORSON

I stared at the blinking cursor on my laptop screen, the blank document reflecting in my glasses like an accusation.

The paper was due in three days, but my mind kept drifting back to the weekend.

Spending that time with Floris had made it the best Thanksgiving ever.

Maybe the best weekend ever, period. The way he’d listened to me as I told him about my dad, the pure joy on his face when we saw the gators, and how sweet and kind he’d been with my mom and Tia…

Each memory was a welcome distraction and a source of anxiety all at once.

Two days back at Vernon Technical College, and I’d managed to write exactly three sentences of my paper for environmental engineering.

Three sentences in forty-eight hours. At this rate, I’d have a complete first draft somewhere around my fiftieth birthday.

And it wasn’t like the topic I’d picked—the environmental impact of the Hoover dam—didn’t interest me.

It did. It was just that… Well, it was Floris.

Had I really brought Floris van Oranje Nassau—a literal prince—home to meet my mother and sister?

Had Floris really charmed Tia into showing him her science fair project?

Had he really sat at our worn kitchen table, asking my mom thoughtful questions about her biology classes while she was making soup from the leftover turkey?

It seemed impossible, like a particularly vivid hallucination. More impossible still was the fact that Floris had enjoyed himself. Sure, he might’ve had training into always being polite, even when he was bored out of his mind, but no one was that good an actor.

I pulled up the photos on my phone. Evidence that it had really happened.

There was Floris, his whole face lit up like a Christmas tree, pointing at a gator.

There he was on the streetcar, green eyes wide as he took in the city, framed by the window like a Renaissance painting.

And I had even taken a selfie with the two of us, something I had never done in my entire life.

His smile was so broad, I couldn’t help but respond to it, even now.

It had happened. It was real. But for how much longer?

That was the question that burned on my mind, a constant, uncomfortable heat that I recognized as fear.

People like Floris didn’t end up with people like me.

It wasn’t how the world worked. Someday—maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month if I was lucky—Floris would realize he could do better than a compulsive, anxious math nerd with a tragic backstory.

That wasn’t even a dis at myself but more of an acknowledgement of who I was.

I didn’t hate myself or anything, nor did I consider myself a basket case or lost cause.

But Floris was a prince. He was literal royalty, and on top of that, he was insanely good-looking, smart, charming, and did I mention hot?

We weren’t playing in the same league, even if we were batting for the same team, to stay in that metaphor.

He was major league while I was not even good enough to make it onto a high school team .

No, at some point, this thing between us would end.

Floris would grow tired of me or simply meet someone else, someone more suitable for him.

But until then, I would take what I could get.

I would memorize every touch, catalog every smile, document every moment like the methodical, detail-oriented person I was.

And when it ended—not if, when —I would at least have that.

That was why, when we were on the plane back, I’d asked Floris to keep our relationship private at school. “I’m not ready for everyone to know,” I’d said, the lie bitter on my tongue.

The truth was more pathetic: I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming known as Floris’s ex. Of being pitied when the inevitable happened and his identity leaked. Of the whispers that would follow me through the halls of VTC, wondering what I’d done wrong, how I’d managed to lose a literal prince.

Floris had agreed easily, with a casual shrug and a smile. “Whatever you want, I understand.”

And he probably did. After all, he’d been stalked by paparazzi his entire life. Privacy was a luxury to him.

The door to our room swung open, shocking me out of my spiral of self-doubt.

Floris stood in the doorway, a laundry basket balanced on his hip.

His damp hair curled against his neck, and he wore nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants slung low on his hips.

Droplets of water clung to his shoulders, catching the light from the desk lamp.

“I remembered,” he announced triumphantly, hoisting the laundry basket a bit higher. “I put my laundry in this afternoon and actually remembered to take it out of the dryer.”

I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. “Gold star for you,” I said, spinning my desk chair to face Floris fully. “Did you also remember to keep your red socks away from your white shirts? I mean, you own a vast collection of pink shirts by now. No need to add to it.”

“I did, actually. But pink suits me, don’t you think?” Floris grinned, setting the basket down and striking a pose, flexing one arm in a parody of a bodybuilder. “With my complexion?”

I rolled my eyes, but the knot in my chest loosened slightly. This was the thing about Floris, he made everything easier somehow. Made the world seem less threatening, more manageable. Made me forget sometimes the heavy load I carried.

“That one oversized shirt you have looks ridiculous on you now that it’s pink,” I said, but there was no heat in it. “Like a flamingo.”

“A very handsome flamingo.” Floris crossed the room to stand behind my chair. His hands came to rest on my shoulders, thumbs pressing gently into the tense muscles at the base of my neck. “How’s the paper coming?”

I gestured helplessly at the blank document. “Could be better.”

“Are you stuck?”

“I keep getting distracted.” I tilted my head back to look up at Floris. From this angle, with the ceiling light behind him, Floris looked almost otherworldly: his sharp jawline, the constellation of freckles across his nose, those impossibly green eyes framed by thick lashes.

“Distracted by what?” His thumbs continued their gentle massage, now making small circles at the nape of my neck.

“You know what.” Even after the weekend we’d spent together, even after the kisses and touches we’d shared, I still found it hard to say these things out loud.

“Hmm, I’m not sure I do,” Floris teased, leaning down so his lips were inches from my ear. “Perhaps you should enlighten me. ”

A shiver ran down my spine. “I should be working. This paper is 20 percent of my grade.”

“And it will still be 20 percent of your grade after you take a short break,” Floris reasoned, his breath warm against my skin. “You’ve been staring at the screen for hours. Your brain needs to reset.”

The responsible, disciplined part of me—the part that had gotten me a full scholarship to VTC, the part that triple-checked every calculation, the part that never missed a deadline—was screaming at me to turn back to the laptop.

But then Floris’s lips brushed against the sensitive spot just below my ear, and the responsible part of me was drowned out by a chorus of other, less disciplined urges.

“Twenty minutes,” I said, my voice embarrassingly breathless. “Then I really need to work.”

Floris’s answering smile was both victorious and hungry. “Twenty minutes.”

He took my hands and pulled me up from the chair. We moved to my bed, the narrow dorm mattress creaking slightly under our combined weight. Floris lay back against the pillows, pulling me down on top of him. For a moment, we just looked at each other, the air between us charged with possibility.

Then Floris’s hand came up to cup my cheek, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone with a tenderness that made my chest ache. “I missed you today,” Floris whispered. “Was thinking about kissing you again all day.”

The words sent a different kind of shiver through me—not desire this time, but fear. How long would Floris want me? How long before the novelty wore off? Before Floris realized that I wasn’t special, wasn’t extraordinary, wasn’t enough?

But then Floris was kissing me, and I couldn’t think at all.

Floris kissed the way he did everything else: confident, thorough, with a single-minded focus that made me feel like the center of the universe, as if nothing else existed but us.

His lips were soft, coaxing my mouth open, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that made heat pool in my stomach.

It was overwhelming and exhilarating, a powerful and much-needed reminder that he wanted me, even if I couldn’t quite figure out why.

My hands found their way to Floris’s chest, palms flat against the warm skin, feeling the steady thump of his heart.

Floris hummed appreciatively against my mouth, one hand sliding down to grip my hip, the other tangling in my curls, pulling me impossibly closer until I was completely surrounded by him.

We’d done this before, the kissing, the touching, the exploration of each other’s bodies. But each time felt new somehow, a fresh discovery. I marveled at the way Floris responded to my touch, the small catches in his breath, the way his pulse quickened beneath my fingertips.

Floris broke the kiss, his lips trailing down my jaw, my neck, finding the sensitive spot at the hollow of my throat. A soft sound escaped me, something between a gasp and a moan.

With a fluid motion, Floris flipped our positions, pressing me back against the pillows. His hands slid under the hem of my T-shirt, pushing it up to expose my torso. I raised my arms, allowing Floris to pull the shirt over my head.