Page 7 of Twins For His Majesty (Royally Tempted #1)

‘Yeah, well, I have no interest in anything His Bloody Majesty might have to say.’ She went to slam the door in the driver’s face but his foot caught the door before it latched.

‘I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer.’

‘That’s your problem,’ she snapped. ‘You can take it or leave it, but my answer is still no.’

This time, when she slammed the door, he didn’t stop it.

She should have known better than to believe that would be the end of it.

Only two minutes later, with hands still trembling from outrage, in the midst of making a mug of peppermint tea, the doorbell rang once more.

Damned persistent driver , she thought with chagrin, making her way into the small foyer and wrenching it inwards.

Only to find Octavio staring back at her, all unmistakable royal importance and unfairly perfect good looks.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘You left me no choice.’

‘We always have a choice,’ she replied, gripping the door.

‘Mind if I come in?’

She cast a glance over her shoulder, aware that her place was as tidy as usual, but still hating the thought of Octavio seeing where she was living. It was only temporary, a place to stay whilst she searched for her father, but it was still a reflection of her. It was intimate. Exposing.

Only in that brief moment, rather than waiting for an answer, he swept past her, brushing his body to hers by virtue of the cramped entrance area, so her pulse went haywire.

She stood there, staring at him, door still open, so Octavio made a noise of impatience, reached over and unpeeled her fingers. Just his touch sent a thousand little fireworks into her veins. She jumped back from him, holding on to her anger as though it were an anchor she desperately needed.

‘What do you want?’ Before he could answer, she clicked her fingers in the air, and when she spoke her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

‘Oh, let me guess. A quick roll in the hay? What’s gone wrong in your life today that you need me to fix, Your Majesty?

A problem with the budget? A servant? Did you come here to sleep with me so you could forget something else? ’

His features were locked in a mask of steel, giving nothing away, and she was glad. If he’d looked even slightly chastened or apologetic, she might have softened her anger a little. Instead, he stared back at her with a look of cynicism and nothing.

Nothing.

He’d come here and he was looking at her as though it was the last place he wanted to be.

Damn him.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded, her tone as withering as she could make it.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if he’d ever been spoken to like that.

She couldn’t help it though. His quick change of heart and immediate dismissal of her once she had performed her purpose had resonated so perfectly with the feelings she’d suffered on that awful day when the penny had finally dropped and she’d realised how utterly and completely Christopher had been using her.

Octavio hadn’t done anything nearly as bad as Christopher, but Phoebe had a big, open wound that Octavio had unknowingly and deeply plunged a knife into.

‘Is there some place we can talk?’

She gestured to the small foyer as if to say here , only it was small and he was big and there was a sudden dearth of space that made it hard for Phoebe to think. With an angry expulsion of breath, she whirled away from him and practically stomped into the living room.

Small, but neat as a pin, it was light-filled and perfectly adequate for the six months or so Phoebe intended to stay in Castilona.

After that, she expected her savings to have run out, and if she hadn’t managed to find her father in that time, she’d go home and work out how to get on with her life.

At least she would have succeeded in putting some space and distance between herself and the disastrous breakup with Christopher.

‘Okay, talk,’ she said, then added with faux deference, ‘Your Majesty.’

She was used to seeing Octavio smile, but this time, when his lips shifted into a general approximation of that expression, there was no humour in his face. Rather, it was a look of cynicism, or even mockery.

‘You’re angry with me.’

She crossed her arms. ‘Do you blame me?’

‘Why are you angry?’ he prompted.

She stared at him as if he’d just asked what feet were used for. ‘I would imagine it’s pretty obvious.’

‘Humour me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d like to understand what I’m dealing with before I start.’

‘Start what?’

‘What I came here for.’

‘Are you being deliberately cryptic?’

‘I asked you first.’

‘What are you, eight?’

He didn’t answer. Those dark, mesmerising eyes of his just bore into her, and as the seconds ticked by, the force of his look and the caustic silence surrounding them eroded her strength. She lifted one shoulder in a gesture of conversational surrender. ‘You were rude.’

One thick, dark brow arched upwards.

‘I knew what you wanted from me, and why, but I still never expected you to make me feel so disposable. I thought you were… nice. ’ It was a very insipid way to explain what she’d thought of him.

She’d liked him. She’d thought he was nice , yes, but also kind and funny and decent.

In short, she’d been fooled, just like with Christopher. Would she never learn?

‘You are not disposable,’ he said, but the words were tinged with something like anger. ‘If you were, I would not be here now.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘To explain.’

‘There’s no point. It’s over. Ancient history. I don’t even think about it any more.’

Another quirk of his brow and this time, his quick half-smile was definitely, unmistakably mocking. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No.’ She doubled down on the slight exaggeration. She thought about it, him, what they’d done from time to time. As in, at least several times a day. Most days, even more often than that. ‘It’s old news.’

‘Prove it,’ he growled, taking a step towards her.

Her throat felt thick suddenly, her bones liquid. ‘How?’

He pressed a finger to her chin. ‘Show me I’m old news. Don’t react when I kiss you, Phoebe, and I’ll believe you.’

She opened her mouth to protest but he took the opportunity to drop his mouth to hers and kiss her.

Oh, she could have pulled away, kneed him in the groin, shoved at his chest, elbowed him in the ribs.

When she looked back, she realised he’d deliberately hesitated a few seconds—between laying down the gauntlet and making good his threat, he’d given her time to respond, to push him away. But she hadn’t.

Because even when she knew her body would show her to be a liar, she didn’t—couldn’t—care. She just wanted him to kiss her.

She did her best not to respond as his mouth separated hers and his tongue invaded every single one of her senses.

She tried to think cold, practical thoughts as his fingers tangled in the hair at the back of her head.

She willed her body to stay completely still, as if frozen, as he pushed himself forward, his large frame easily engulfing her smaller one.

And for several long seconds, she managed.

She stayed almost limp against him, refused to kiss him back, refused to show that her heart was beginning to pound dangerously fast and her pulse was thready.

But then his knee caught a little between her legs, and the moan that escaped her was impossible to resist. It was like opening the floodgates.

All the desire she’d felt and had no place for in the last five weeks suddenly went from gas to flame, and her whole body was alight with passionate wants.

They stirred in her belly and spread throughout, so not only was she kissing him back, her hands were roaming his body, separating his shirt from his trousers and lifting it so she could touch the warm flesh of his bare back.

‘I hate you.’ She groaned against him, though she wasn’t sure if that was true.

She hated Christopher, and how he’d made her feel, and she hated that Octavio had unwittingly found that old emotional injury and reinflamed it, proving that she wasn’t anywhere near healed yet. Maybe she never would be.

‘But you want me,’ he said, moving his kiss to her throat, flicking the pulse point there with his tongue, which he clearly knew drove her wild. ‘And that’s the most important thing.’

‘Is it?’ She tilted her head back to give him better access.

‘Oh, absolutely, querida. It’s all that matters.

’ And then he was cupping her breasts and the last vestiges of thought dispersed so she was just a quivering mass, his to do with what he would.

And he understood that moment of surrender.

It was as though she were a book and he could read her just perfectly.

He pushed her shirt over her head, growling when he realised she wore no bra, but not hesitating before taking one of her nipples into his mouth and rolling it mercilessly, until she was incandescent.

He moved a hand down her belly, finding the fastening to her jeans and pushing it open so that he could slide his hand into her underpants and brush her sex.

She whimpered; he moved his mouth to absorb the sound, kissing her while his other hand turned its attention to her breast, squeezing the nipple that was already oversensitive.

‘Please,’ she groaned. ‘God, please.’

His response was a gruff sound of surrender and then he was stripping them both of their clothes with an efficiency Phoebe couldn’t have managed, given how badly her hands were shaking.

Naked, he lifted her easily, wrapping her legs around his waist, so his arousal was nestled between the cheeks of her bottom.

She rolled her hips, silently inviting, needing, desperately hungry for him.

He made a deep sound of understanding and strode through the apartment, his lips seeking hers as he walked.

‘Where?’ he grunted.

She pointed to her bedroom door. Octavio shouldered it open and dropped her to the bed, his eyes firing to hers as he ripped open a condom she hadn’t even realised he’d brought with them.

Then again, in his position, he couldn’t exactly take chances, and God knew she didn’t want to run that risk either.

He unfurled it over his length and then he was moving over her, pushing inside of her, and she cried out at the sheer relief her body felt to have him filling her once more. The world seemed to stop spinning and every noise silenced, so there was only the solid racing of their hearts.

‘Octavio…’ She said his name long and slow, like a prayer that had been answered, and then she said nothing else, because he moved in such a way that made her body come alive and rendered her mouth mute—save for the little moans of ecstasy that escaped without her knowledge.