Page 371 of Bad Prince
My fists clench. Should I just text her? End this right now. Tonight?
Go over and crawl into her bed and never get out?
I stand there, breathing ragged, skin too hot, body too alive with the ghost of her.
And I know—I fucking know?—
I’m not winning this war tonight.
The next morning I need caffeine. Double what I usually order. I spent half the night curing under the spray of an ice cold shower. And even debated taking the melatonin sleep gummies, my roommate swears by.
I push through the door of the indie coffee shop and stop so fast the girl behind me almost walks into my back.
Stella sits at the corner table by the window like she owns the light pouring in around her. The morning sun spills across the scarred wood floor and catches the tiny gold hoop at her ear, turns it molten. Her head is bent over a stack of notes, dark hair twisted up in that careless way that isn’t careless at all, because it leaves the long line of her neck bare. Exposed. A soft brown curve disappearing into the collar of her fitted white tee.
My mouth goes dry.
I’m so fucked.
There are a dozen empty seats in this place.
And a hundred reasons to turn around.
Instead, I stand there staring at the one woman I’ve been trying to starve out of my bloodstream for weeks.
She doesn’t look up right away.
That somehow makes it worse.
It gives me time to notice everything I shouldn’t.
The way her lips purse slightly when she reads something she doesn’t agree with.
The delicate flash of that earring when she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
The elegant slope of her shoulders.
The smooth column of her throat.
All the places my mouth has never landed and still somehow knows by memory.
I’ve imagined that neck under my lips more times than I’ll ever admit. Imagined dragging my mouth from just below her ear to the pulse point at her throat until her breath catches. Imagined those sharp, beautiful eyes going soft. Imagined her in my arms, all fire and surrender, breathless because of me.
Punishment, I’ve learned, doesn’t kill desire.
It feeds it.
Her gaze lifts then, like she felt me thinking about her.
We lock eyes across the room.
And there it is.
That hit.
That instant, merciless jolt low in my body that saysminebefore my brain can remind it of all the reasons that word is a problem.
Her expression barely changes, but I see the flicker.
