Page 111 of Throne Off Course

She hesitated, just for a second, lingering at the threshold.

Alexander turned, watching her with something unreadable in his gaze.

“We don’t have to—”

“I know,” she cut in, stepping past him, past the point of hesitation.

The second the door clicked shut behind them, Alexander’s control—the same rigid self-discipline he’d maintained through council meetings and diplomatic negotiations—shattered completely.

No hesitation. No second thoughts. No carefully measured words.

Just need. Because they’d waited long enough.

They’d had their stolen moments—desperate, fleeting kisses behind bookshelves in the archives, whispered confessions on the palace rooftop, that devastating goodbye when they thought there was no hope. Restraint that had cost them both more than they could bear.

But there was no pulling away now. No pretending they weren’t already too far gone.

“Emilia,” he breathed, her name like a plea as he moved toward her with the certainty of someone who had made his decision long ago.

Emilia barely had time to register the raw intensity in his eyes before he was kissing her, backing her against the door with a quiet thud. Not careful. Not planned. Just as desperate and consuming as that first kiss in the archives after they argued.

Her hands instinctively found his shoulders, steadying herself as his body pressed against hers. She let herself sink into it—into him—with reckless abandon.

“You are going to be the death of me,” he muttered against her lips, his voice somewhere between a growl and a prayer.

Emilia laughed breathlessly, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt just as they had that first time. “That’s nice, Your Highness, but I’d rather be the reason you live a little.”

His pulse hammered against her palm, and she felt a surgeof satisfaction at the effect she still had on him, even after everything.

Alexander didn’t waste time with a retort. Instead, his lips found hers again, harder, hungrier, as if making up for every moment they’d been forced apart. His hands slid down to her waist, fingers digging into the fabric of her blouse as he pulled her impossibly closer.

And she let him.

Because Emilia was done pretending that Alexander wasn’t all she’d wanted since that moment in the archives when everything between them had changed.

His fingers worked at the buttons of her blouse with the same focused intensity he brought to everything that mattered to him, and Emilia tilted her head back against the door, eyes closing as his lips traced a path down her throat.

This was Alexander as she’d rarely seen him—not the careful diplomat, not the dutiful prince, but the man who, when pushed to his breaking point, had kissed her with a desperation that matched her own.

Emilia shivered as cool air hit her skin, quickly replaced by the warmth of his palms sliding over her ribs, her waist, tracing patterns that made rational thought increasingly difficult.

“You know,” she managed, trying to maintain some semblance of her usual composure even as his touch unraveled her, “for someone who took months to kiss me the first time, you’re remarkably efficient now.”

Alexander laughed against her skin, the sound vibrating through her. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.”

“Have you now?” she asked, aiming for teasing despite the breathlessness in her voice.

He drew back just enough to meet her eyes, his own dark with want and something deeper, more vulnerable. “Every day since I first saw you in the archives,” he admitted. “Looking up at melike I was interrupting something important.”

“You were,” she reminded him, though there was no heat in it now.

“I know.” His smile turned rueful. “I’ve been interrupting your life ever since.”

Emilia shook her head. “Not interrupting,” she corrected softly. “Improving it.”

Something in his expression shifted, the careful restraint he always maintained giving way to raw emotion. Without warning, he swept her up, one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back.

“Alexander!” she gasped, startled by the sudden movement.