this?
Last night, we kissed and talked and kissed and talked...until we had nothing left to say. All further communication was between her lips and my lips. She wanted me, and I wanted her. And yet...I couldn’t.
I, fiend, the seducer of women, the playboy, had a woman in my arms I wanted desperately...and instead of giving in to that lust, I held on to her and did nothing but kiss her until we both fell asleep.
What in God’s name is wrong with me?
“Gale,” she muttered in her sleep, and I paused, looking down at her as she moved closer to me. I’d never shared a bed with a woman and only ever just slept before, but this was now the second time. I watched as one of her eyes opened and she tried to wake up.
“What time is it?”
“Three in the morning,” I answered as she groaned in annoyance.
“Why in the world are you still up?” she muttered, flipping onto her side.
Because you are taking up all my thoughts. I smiled, putting my journal down and lying beside her. It was also funny how she did not seem to react to the fact that we were in bed together...again. Maybe she was too tired to realize. I, however, was acutely aware of it and was not sure of how I was supposed to lay. As if she had heard me, she flipped back over, tossing her leg slightly over my thigh.
“Is this fun for you?” I whispered, but she was still asleep. The heat of her body next to mine was a new kind of torture for me. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t manage to. My mind was racing too much. I found myself wondering all sorts of things, like how badly I wished I didn’t stop us last night. Why had I? I had no idea. I’d never just kissed a woman—only just kiss her and sleep—but that was apparently what I’d done last night.
I also found myself wondering if this was how it was going to be for the rest of our lives. Us drinking wine, laughing, going to dinners, coming back to kiss, and to lie in bed together. Would she always curl up beside me? Would I always be tempted? How many nights would I be up amazed at whatever I was amazed at, writing in journals as the days passed blissfully?
If it was, I think I liked it.
I think I liked it a lot.
Chapter 21
“No,” he said flatly, an answer I was getting far too used to hearing.
“Iskandar, I can’t date someone from the confines of this one apartment!”
“You have been doing well so far.”
“You cannot be serious!”
He lifted his phone to me so I could see it, and I half expected Arty to be on the line, waiting to lecture me as well. But instead, it was a newspaper from back home. The headline reading, “Where is Prince Galahad?” They had even chosen to use a very large, very unflattering photo of me slightly drunk from almost two years ago because nothing was ever in the past with these people.
“Over the last few weeks, no one has been able to account for the prince’s whereabouts, nor has he been seen frequenting regular hot spots,” Iskandar read for me when I didn’t even bother to look any longer. “This week, the prince was not in attendance for Her Majesty’s—”
“I understand your point. There is no need to keep reading.”
“That is why you must think of something that either requires limited social interaction or remain indoors.”
“I said I understood your point, but that does not mean I will agree,” I replied, and his shoulders fell as if he were utterly tried of me.
He very might well have been. But I did not care.
Things had been going well with Odette and I—really well—and I wanted her to have fun with me before the rest of the world only saw her as my soon-to-be bride, before the newspapers and tabloids were following us everywhere.
“I already know what it is I want us to do—”
“Well, someone looks excited.”
I had turned my back away from him for less than five seconds. There was no way it could be longer than that. And yet when I turned back to see the voice that had spoken to me, knowing it was not Iskandar’s, I came face-to-face with my brother, now on a video call on Iskandar’s phone.
“Are you serious?” I gaped now, my shoulders dropping. “You gave up and called my