Page 78 of The Thing About My Prince

“It was the most beautiful fucking thing I have ever seen. That’s what that was.”

I reach for his jeans because, after what he just did to me, this man deserves everything I can give him. Also, I want to get my eyes on the dick behind this bulge and have it inside me as soon as humanly possible.

After I’ve popped the button and lowered the zipper, I plunge my hands inside his boxers—no hesitation, no embarrassment, no awkwardness, only a pure desire to please.

The second I make contact with his smooth, hard shaft, he lets out a guttural groan.

“Shh,” I whisper, suddenly irrationally worried the bug might catch us.

“No need,” he pants, as I get to my knees in front of him. “Everyone expects us to do this, remember?”

Oh yeah. It’s just feels like it should be a secret.

He pushes his hands through my hair at the temples, bending lower as he pulls my face to meet his. “You literallyhad us making fake sex noises the other day. Now they get the real show.”

And he kisses me. It’s fast and passionate, and he rocks himself into my hands, completely out of control.

“Fuck, Lexi.” He grabs my breasts and thrusts hard. “I can’t… I’m going to… Oh God.”

And he comes right then, in my hand, less than a minute after I first touched him.

“Shit.” He pumps and pants, his back arching, face contorted with pleasure.

Then he slumps forward, forehead resting on my shoulder as his pace slows.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. I couldn’t help it.”

“Don’t be silly.” I slide my hands out, grab some tissues from the nightstand to quickly wipe them, then wrap my arms around him. While I can’t deny I was pretty damn eager to know what he felt like inside me, I don’t want him to feel bad about it.

He lifts his head to reveal a face full of shame and runs his thumb along my jaw. “All I wanted was to be inside you.” He drops the most tender of kisses on my lips. “But I couldn’t make it.”

The emotion in his expression pulls at my heart. It’s like he feels he’s let down yet another person, like I’ll now be disappointed in him like he thinks other people always are.

“You’d already given me everything,” I say, trying to reassure him.

“But it’s embarrassing.” Maybe it’s more than a postcoital glow that’s making his face flushed. “And it’s not only because you’re gorgeous and incredible and turn me on by only looking at me.” He pushes my hair off my face. “It’s also been…a while for me. Like, a really long while.”

“When was your last relationship?” As the words leavemy mouth, I hear them sound like an interview question. But now I want to know for my own nonprofessional reasons.

“Not long before I left the UK. The bartender who everyone hated because she wasbeneath me. And the press coverage about her being a gold digger and me dating ‘The Most Common of Commoners’ drove her away.”

“You mean you’ve not been The Playboy Prince sleeping his way through Manhattan’s society events?” I giggle to try to lighten the mood. “It was all a lie?”

The outdoor lights catch his green eyes looking right into mine, sending that—now familiar—unique spark shooting through me.

“My whole family lives a lie,” he says.

I have done some emotional interviews in my time, but never have I ever heard such deep, heartfelt truth in someone’s voice.

“But I don’t want it to be like that anymore,” he adds.

Then he kicks off his jeans and boxers and rolls us onto our sides, his naked body spooning mine, and pulls the covers of the royal four-poster bed over us.

What has this man done to me? What has he brought me to? And how can I ever go back?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

OLIVER