One Night With The Prince: A Royal Without Rules. Fiona McArthur

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      “No,” he growled in a voice like gravel, when she’d almost forgotten she’d asked him a question. “I’m not drunk. Not even a little.”

      She didn’t like the way he watched her then. Panic and awareness twisted inside her, sending out a shower of sparks, but Adriana didn’t let herself back down. She wasn’t going to break. Not this time. Not here.

      “Perhaps you should consider getting drunk, then,” she suggested icily. “It might improve your disposition.”

      She didn’t see him move, and then he was right there in front of her, his hand on her jaw and his eyes so tortured, so dark, as he gazed down at her. Adriana didn’t understand what was happening. The things he was saying, that dangerous tone of voice, his dark demeanor—but then she looked in his eyes and she wanted to cry. And not for herself.

      “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

      Something she didn’t understand flashed through those eyes. Then he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. It was soft and light, hardly a kiss at all, and even so, Adriana felt it as if he’d wrapped both hands around her heart and squeezed tight. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and she felt the sweetness of it work through her, warming her, making her feel as if she glowed.

      And then he let go of her, though he didn’t step back, and when she looked at him he was that dark, edgy stranger again. His mouth was severe as he gazed at her, a grim line without the faintest possibility of any curve. Much less anything sweet.

      “For the first time since you walked through the door and started ordering me around,” he said quietly, “I feel like myself.”

      Adriana stared at him for a long moment. He looked back at her, that wicked mouth unrecognizable, those beautiful eyes so terribly dark and filled with things she didn’t understand—but she understood this. He didn’t need to call her names. He didn’t need to stoop to the level of seventeen-year-olds. He was a royal prince. He could do it with a glance, a single sentence.