Page 605 of Bad Prince
She kisses me back with that same devastating mix she’s always had—athlete control and absolute surrender, fire under discipline, love with teeth when it needs them and softness when it counts.
By the time I pull back, she’s smiling against my mouth.
“What?” I murmur.
She shakes her head slightly.
“You still kiss like a problem.”
I grin.
“You still like problems.”
“Only the specific one.”
That nearly gets another kiss out of me immediately.
Instead I let my hands settle lower at her waist and look at her properly one more time.
Gold medal.
Compass bracelet.
Moonlight on her skin.
The face that broke me young and rebuilt me right.
Somewhere inside, I think of the boy I was at Royal Oaks.
The one behind the curtain.
The one who knew the kiss would ruin him and still froze when the lights came up.
He would not recognize this man.
Good.
I hope he wouldn’t.
Because this version of me knows what to do when the world is watching. From inside, Jade’s voice cuts through the night.
“If you two disappear and come back engaged without me, I will commit a crime.”
Stella laughs outright, the sound carrying out over the terrace and into the warm dark.
I close my eyes for one second and let it hit me.
That laugh.
Still.
After all this time.
Still the thing that stops me.
When I open them, she’s watching me.
I brush one knuckle along her cheek and say the truest thing I’ve got left.
