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I froze and pulled away, lips swollen. “A show?”
His grin was wide, red swollen lips pulled back in a teasing smile. Mesmerizing almost evil at the same time. “Did you really think all it would take was a simple kiss to bring me to your side from your fiancé? Do you even know how many women I’ve kissed in my lifetime? And what do you think makes you different? I respect you. I like you. I could never marry you, but I can buy you some more time to get your head together. What’s so bad about him?” He was still holding me in the air, pressed against the wall. I was too embarrassed to move, let alone speak. “What’s so bad? Hmm?”
His eyes crinkled at the sides, the blue flashed back at me like he saw through to my very soul and all the secrets it hid, all the insecurities. “Hmm?”
“He’s… crude.”
Frederick smirked and looked down at me, it was slow though, like he was breathing me in, calculating what I would say. “Oh? And this is what?”
My legs were firmly around him, he was clearly turned on, and I’d just kissed him in one of the tearooms. “Ummm, this was a bet?”
“You lost before you even started.” He pointed out, gently tucking my hair behind my ears with both hands, his jeweled red blood crested ring was cold against my neck, reminding me that even if it felt good in the moment, he wasn’t my forever. “Though you do taste good, something I shouldn’t even really know about, which I’ll promptly forget.” He nipped at my lips again, like he couldn’t help himself. “Maybe I’ll sample you, then give you to him.”
Who was this guy?
He wasn’t what I expected from boring Frederick. Did he have some weird kink I didn’t know about?
I squirmed against him, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Ahhh.” He nodded and backed away. “And there it is, for someone who claims to want to marry anyone, you still want romance, you still want love, you don’t want to be led by lust, in fact, I imagine if I tried to”—he slid a hand down my shoulder dangerously close to my chest, I shoved him away and slid down the wall—“Exactly.”
“What? What does exactly mean?” My voice sounded so desperate and pathetic, had he really called my bluff?
He took a step back and wiped his mouth with his black-and-white striped handkerchief, wait was he literally wiping my spit? “It means, you still want what you want, and I could seduce the hell out of you right now and it would be meaningless for both of us, why don’t you do the opposite of what you want to do and attempt to get to know him? You might actually like him.”
“Or I could still hate him.”
“Stubborn wench.”
I gasped in horror. “Did you just call me a wench?”
His eyebrows narrowed into a squint. “Well, I was going to call you something else, but it was more inappropriate, started with a C and I still have some decorum.”
My eyes shot open. “What?”
He grinned. “I’m kidding. Go.”
“Where?”
Frederick looked around the room, his eyes wide like I was the idiot in the scenario. “To the man you’re supposed to marry, find a way to get to know him and if you truly want out…” He sighed and hung his head like I was the chore. “I’ll marry you.”
My stomach dropped to my feet. “That wasn’t romantic.”
“Again, you want romance, you want connection, you want love, and I can promise you, I will always love my books and my country more than my wife and that’s the truth, so if you choose this path just know other than some great nights together—a friendship—you’ll be lonely, I would never give you my heart.”
I crossed my arms, needing to distance myself from him or maybe even protect myself. “And he would?”
“Better question…” Frederick caressed my face with his thumb before dropping his hand. “Who wouldn’t?
“You. Arthur.”
He smiled. “We were doomed kings from the start, cursed even, who wants that? One reads all day and the other drinks and sleeps around, maybe try the Yankee for once, words I never thought I’d utter.”
I laughed at that and hung my head. “When the Yankee’s the better choice…”
“Might like it across the pond… hear it goes deep,” Frederick joked.
If blushes and gasps could be heard across the country mine would have been like a giant gong going off.
