Reign: A Royal Military Romance by Roxie Noir

hand from mine. The air between us feels like it’s sparking, charged with static, and it’s all I can do not to press her against the stone wall and fit my fingers to the dimples in her back.
    I’m hard again. The multiplication tables barely helped, and we’re so close that it’s a miracle if she can’t tell. I should let her go and tell her to go back to her bedroom, forget any of this ever happened.
    Instead I ask,“How much of Velinsk have you seen?”
    Hazel blinks.
    “Most of it, I think,” she says. “It isn’t very big.”
    I’m close enough to see the shape of every freckle, even though here in the shadows it’s nearly dark.
    “Do you want to see the real Velinsk?” I ask. “The parts the palace tour guide doesn’t show visitors?”
    Hazel hesitates, pressing her lips together and looking down.
    “Why do I get the feeling it’s something else I shouldn’t do?” she asks, looking up at me.
    “Because it is,” I say, and half-smile.
    “You know, Kostya, everyone thinks you’re the perfectly upstanding, well-behaved prince, and here you are telling me to burn my clothes and asking me if I want to see the seedy parts of the city.”
    “It’s a good reputation to have,” I say, and I let my mouth curve up, just a little. “Do you think you believe it, zloyushka ?”
    “I think I need to find out what that word means before I say yes to anything else,” she says, eyebrows raised.
    “I’m sure you can figure it out,” I say.
    “So you’re not going to tell me.”
    “Where’s the fun in that?”
    Her hand is still in mine. Neither of us has let go, and the warmth of her skin against mine is making electric ripples spread up my arm and across my chest.
    “It must mean something bad,” she says. “What is it? Loud? Mouthy?”
    Now she’s smiling up at me, the challenge back in her eyes.
    “Déclassé drug smuggler,” she guesses.
    “We don’t have a single word for that,” I say.
    “Rude foreigner,” she goes on.
    I put one hand on the stone wall above her head and lean over her, just a bit. She doesn’t move or flinch, and it takes every ounce of self control I’ve got not to push her against it right then and there.
    “Tomorrow night,” I say. “The bench in the garden nearest the stone arch. Midnight. If someone sees you, say you can’t sleep and you’re taking a walk.”
    She cocks her head to one side and examines me. I can’t remember the last time I was this close to someone else. The air between us is crackling and snapping, and it feels like I’m breathing in electricity.
    I don’t know how much is the pot and how much is Hazel, but I’m not that high. Barely buzzed.
    “Does it mean something like hot mess ?” she asks.
    “No, but that’s closer than déclassé drug smuggler ,” I say.
    “You won’t tell me where we’re going, you won’t tell me what zloshka means,” she says.
    “ Zloy-ush-ka ,” I say, very slowly. “You’ve got to spell it right if you want to figure it out.”
    “Or you could tell me,” she says, her voice low and quiet.
    Somehow, her face is even closer to mine than it was before, and the urge to kiss her, to push her back against the wall and press myself against her is overwhelming.
    This is stupid , I think. This is impossibly stupid.
    “Tomorrow night,” I say.
    Then I finally drop her hand and step back. The electricity disappears. I almost feel like I can breathe again.
    Hazel gives me another long look, and then the corners of her eyes crinkle, just a little.
    “Maybe,” she says.
    Then she walks back to the door in the tower, still wearing my shirt and carrying hers, heaves it open, and disappears inside. I watch the door shut behind her, then walk back to the wall.
    I look out over the ocean and force my breathing to slow. I force myself to stop thinking about the swell of her breast, the dimples in her back, her nipples poking through my shirt.
    Most of all, I wonder what the hell I was thinking, inviting her