Page 94 of The Thing About My Prince

“Would there be any hope for us if you weren’t leaving?”

She smiles and looks up at me with those big blue eyes. “Probably not.”

Although it’s been clear that I, and everything my accident of birth comes with, are not what she wants, her words still smash my heart like a scrapyard car-crusher.

But I would be out of my mind to turn down the opportunity to be with her while I can.

“Well then, what is it they say?” I run my thumbs along the velvet-soft lines of her cheekbones. “‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’”

I don’t doubt that when she turns in the final version of the book and heads off to save the world I will wonder why I put myself through the pain of losing her. So I need to sear these feelings, these sensations, the entire experience of living in her orbit for barely longer than the life of a shooting star, into my memory so in the future I can remind myself it was all worth it.

“Am I getting a glimpse of the reckless, seize-the-moment side of you?” she asks.

“It’s more like the seize-the-Lexi side of me.”

She squeals with surprise when I slide my hands under her bum and lift her off the chair and onto the desk.

She nudges the tray of food and her computer to one side. “Careful of my laptop. Everything is on there. If we break that, we’re both in big trouble.”

“If you don’t have a backup, I’ll fire you.” I run my fingers over her shoulders, down her arms, and curve my hands around her thighs. Her body heat radiates through her jeans and into my fingers, travels up my arms, then settles for a moment in my chest before rushing like a raging waterfall to my groin. “Because the way I feel right now, we might be about to break this desk and everything on it.”

She grabs my shirt at the sides and pulls it out of my jeans. She already has my skin so alive that the drag of the fabric over it makes me shiver.

I push my hands through the hair at her temples, the silky strands tickling my fingers as they slip between them, and hover my mouth over hers. “And I am going to make up for last night.”

“Nothing to make up for.” She moistens her lips, lickingmine in the process, and my cock screams to be set free. “But I look forward to it anyway.”

Then we’re a tangle of mouths and tongues and hands, searching, stroking, my skin flaming with desire wherever she grazes it as we grapple to remove each other’s clothes.

It’s a passion, a need, born of the ticking clock, the expiration date we know is counting down on whatever it is we’re doing here.

And whatever it is, I want to do it all with Lexi—cram as much life as possible into the time that we have. All the talking on walks in the countryside, all the laughing, all the waterfalls and, right now, all the being inside her.

Once we’re topless, I lean back for a second to imprint the glow of her skin in the lamplight, the curves of her breasts, the pink pebbles of her nipples, on my mind for forever.

Absorbing the vision of her makes my heart pound hard enough to rock my body.

Speaking of rocks, the one in my pants is as hard as granite. I guess my cock has already made a decision that will inevitably damage my heart.

“Are you okay?” she says quietly, wrapping her fingers around my forearms.

“I want to have this image to come back to again and again.”

When I cup her soft breasts and drag my thumbs over her hard nipples, my cock twitches and shifts, knowing exactly where it wants to be.

Lexi’s eyes drift shut, and her grip on my arms tightens. It’s as if she’s squeezing my heart, causing a heady combination of pleasure and pain.

“I could stand here forever doing this and watching you.” My gaze moves between the sensual expression on her face and her silky-soft, yielding flesh that molds itself under my touch.

“Really?” Her blue eyes open. “Even if I do this?”

She reaches for my jeans, popping the button and lowering the fly.

The release of pressure forces a heavy sigh that empties my lungs, and the proximity of her hand to my cock fires a surge of heat that launches me straight to the edge.

“Well, that might change things a little.” I just about manage to scrape out the words as I fight to keep myself under control.

Circling an arm around her back to support her, I lower my mouth to one of those sweet pink buds right as she plunges her hands inside my boxers and takes hold of me.