Page 64 of The Unlikely Spare (Unlikely Dilemmas #3)

“I was thinking the camping, actually.” Another step. We’re close enough now that I can see the darker flecks in his blue eyes. “You’re the one who announced we were on our honeymoon.”

“Well, we needed a cover story,” I manage to say.

My lungs do something complicated in my chest, twisting in a way that feels like drowning and breathing at the same time.

“This is the real deal, isn’t it?” My voice comes out gruff. “You and me, I mean.”

“I don’t think it gets more real than this,” Nicholas replies. His fingers find mine tentatively. “I notice you didn’t deny the boyfriend designation I gave you.”

“Hard to deny when I already told you I loved you in the back of a terrorist’s van.”

His breath catches. “About that?—”

“Nicholas—”

“I love you too,” he says in a rush. “In case that wasn’t clear. I love you despite your default expression of someone who’s just discovered their tea’s gone cold and your stubborn refusal to let me protect you and your frankly alarming competence at stealing vehicles.”

“My alarming competence at stealing vehicles?” I pull him closer. “What about you? You launched yourself at a man with a syringe. You handcuffed yourself to me in front of fellow officers.”

“All perfectly reasonable responses to the circumstances.” His arms wind around my neck. “So, about this physical inspection we need to do…”

I don’t have a chance to say anything before he kisses me.

Nicholas is kissing me like we have all the time in the world. It’s no longer just stolen moments between crises but something that gets to continue.

The world narrows to Nicholas’s mouth on mine, gentle and thorough and achingly sweet.

The kiss leaves us both unsteady, foreheads pressed together while the world rights itself around us.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” I tell him.

“Probably,” he agrees cheerfully. “But what a way to go.”

And then he’s kissing me again, deeper this time, and I stop thinking about disciplinary hearings and palace disapproval and the brother I’ve lost. There’s just this—Nicholas in my arms, alive and whole and inexplicably mine.

He finally pulls back. “I’m thinking you probably need a shower.”

“It has been a while since personal hygiene and I made an acquaintance,” I admit.

“I’m thinking more that I want to have you all naked and wet and soapy, but sure, let’s go for the hygiene aspect,” Nicholas says as he grabs my hand.

I laugh as I follow him into the bathroom, which is all marble and gold fixtures. Nicholas turns on the shower and the steam begins to fog the mirror.

I watch him test the temperature, the domestic intimacy loosening the tightness in my chest.

His hands are steady as he reaches to undo my belt, but his breathing isn’t. His chest moves up and down as his fingers work the buttons of my shirt, slipping each one free with deliberate care.

I stand still, letting the prince undress me.

He pushes the fabric off my shoulders, hands lingering on the bruises already darkening my ribs from where I was kicked. His touch is featherlight and reverent.

When he hooks his fingers in my waistband, I move forward to help, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes. Then it’s his turn.

I watch, transfixed, as he sheds his own clothes with that elegance that turns even mundane actions into something worth watching.

The bathroom light catches the planes of his body, highlighting the curve of his spine, the dip of his collarbone.

There’s a spectacular bruise blooming across his chest that I gently trace the edges of.

Nicholas steps under the spray first, tilting his head back, and I’m helpless to do anything but follow. Steam rises around us like we’ve entered another world entirely.

The hot water is bliss against my battered body. Nicholas moves behind me, his hands gentle as they slide over my shoulders, working the tension from muscles I didn’t realize were knotted.

I groan and let my head fall forward.

“Better?” he murmurs, lips brushing the nape of my neck.

“Getting there.” I turn to face him, water streaming between us. “Your turn.”

I pour shower gel into my palm, working up a lather before sliding my hands over his chest. I map each bruise and scrape with careful fingers, memorizing the evidence of what we’ve survived together.

“Eoin.” My name comes out breathless as my hands drift lower, skating along his ribs.

I look up to find him watching me with dark eyes, water clinging to his lashes. The heat in his gaze has nothing to do with the temperature of the shower.

I slide my hands up to frame his face, pulling him down for a kiss that starts gentle but quickly turns hungry.

His mouth opens under mine, and I press him back against the tiled wall, swallowing his gasp as the cool surface meets his heated skin. Water cascades over us as we kiss deep and desperate, bodies sliding together in the most delicious friction.

“Bloody hell,” he pants when we break for air, his hands gripping my hips hard.

I kiss down his throat, tasting water and skin, feeling his pulse race under my lips. His head falls back against the wall as I work my way lower, mapping the column of his neck with teeth and tongue.

“Just how thorough,” Nicholas gasps as my mouth finds that spot where neck meets shoulder, “do you feel this physical inspection should be?”

I pull back to look at him—flushed and wanting, lips swollen from kissing, water running in rivulets down his body.

“Very thorough,” I growl, capturing his mouth again.

He moans into the kiss, one arm reaching around my hip to pull me closer. The new angle aligns us perfectly. I rock against him, the slide of wet skin and building friction drawing desperate sounds from both of us.

Then he’s pulling away, sliding to his knees.

“I’m nothing if not meticulous when it comes to royal duties,” he says.

The sight of Prince Nicholas on his knees in the shower spray, water streaming down his body, looking up at me with those impossibly blue eyes dark with promise, nearly brings me to my knees as well.

He looks like sin and salvation wrapped in one infuriating package.

“Nicholas…” My voice comes out wrecked.

“You keep saying my name like that, and I might start to think you actually like me.” He presses kisses along my hipbone.

“Jury’s still out,” I manage, though my voice cracks when he starts kissing down to the top of my thigh.

“Well then.” His smile is pure wickedness. “Allow me to present some compelling evidence.”

“Get on with it then.” It comes out more like a plea than a command.

I can feel the last vibration of his laughter as he takes me into his mouth, and Christ on a bike, that wicked tongue of his is even more dangerous when it’s not forming words. He works me with a combination of finesse and hunger that has me desperately trying not to thrust into that perfect heat.

“Jaysus,” I gasp, my hands tangling in his ridiculously bleached hair. “Where did you learn to…fuck…”

My hips buck involuntarily, and he pins them against the shower wall, holding me in place while he continues to take me apart with lips and tongue and just the right amount of teeth. He moves one hand to gently stroke the skin behind my balls.

It’s overwhelming, the wet heat of his mouth, the sight of him between my legs, the way he hums with satisfaction when I make particularly desperate sounds.

“Your mouth,” I pant, “should come with a warning label.”

He pulls back slightly, lips slick and swollen. “I’m fairly sure you knew that about me.”

I can’t help tugging him up to me so I can kiss him again. His mouth is hot and slick against mine, and I groan at the taste of him, at the way his tongue slides against mine. My hands tangle in his hair, holding him close as we kiss deep and filthy.

“Fuck,” I breathe when we break apart. “The things you do to me.”

“Good things, I hope.” He’s watching me with navy eyes, lips swollen and red, water droplets caught in his lashes like diamonds.

“The best things.”

We kiss again, slower this time, savoring the slide of tongues and the taste of each other mixed with shower water.

My legs are barely steady when we finally break apart, both of us breathing hard.

The shower suddenly feels too small, too limiting for what we need. Luckily, it appears Nicholas is on the same wavelength.

“Bed,” Nicholas manages to gasp out. “Need you properly. Now.”

We fumble to shut off the water, grabbing towels but barely bothering to use them, too focused on not breaking contact. We stumble into the bedroom and tumble onto the bed in a tangle of damp limbs.

“So demanding,” I murmur, but I’m already reaching for him again, unable to keep my hands off him for even a moment.

“You love it,” he says with that wicked smile, pulling me down on top of him.

“I do,” I admit. “But I think it’s my turn.”

I kiss my way down his body, taking my time, learning what makes him gasp and arch beneath me. I chase the water droplets still clinging to his skin with my tongue.

But there’s no desperate urgency this time, no fear that someone will burst through the door or that we’re stealing moments between catastrophes.

When I reach his cock, I look up at him. His damp hair curls slightly at the edges.

“I see you’re going straight to advanced techniques,” he manages, then his head falls back as I take him in my mouth.

I work him slowly, thoroughly, using every trick I know to drive him wild. His hands fist the sheets, hips straining against my hold as I keep him pinned in place. The sounds he makes are incredible—desperate little gasps and moans that go straight to my cock.

“Eoin, please,” he pants. “I need…I can’t…”

I pull off just long enough to say, “Tell me what you need.”

“You. Inside me. Now.”

“So demanding.” But I’m already reaching for the lube and condoms he must have conveniently extracted from his luggage, slicking my fingers. “Lucky for you, I’m in an accommodating mood.”

“Since when?” he gasps as I press one slick finger inside him.