Royal Date by Sariah Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

started spreading through all of my limbs. He kissed me again, gentle and persuasive.
    “Relax, bella ,” he murmured against my lips, running his fingers along my jawbone. I realized that I was clenching his shirtfront with my fists. I loosened my grip. He continued to plant sweet and soft kisses on my lips. “This works better if you kiss me back,” he said with a smile as he leaned back slightly to look at me, his eyes glittery and intense. He ran his thumb along my lower lip, which made all sorts of unmentionable things happen to my insides.
    Leave it to me to mess something up as basic as kissing. Fortunately, I wasn’t a total idiot. I could do what he was doing. Scared as I was, I managed to give myself a pep talk. I was twenty-four years old. I was the oldest person on the planet who had never been kissed. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect setting, or a more perfect man. So gathering up every bit of courage I possessed, I leaned in to kiss him. Just a small peck. A little smooch. It was all I could manage.
    I pulled back to see a delighted and appreciative look in his eyes.
    “That wasn’t as bad as I expected.”
    “Not as bad as you expected? Katerina, I can do much better than ‘not as bad as you expected.’”
    I hadn’t meant to issue a challenge, but he accepted it anyway. I thought I heard him growl before he pressed our lips together more firmly, his hands framing and holding my head in place as he kissed me over and over. It was all I could do to keep up. Electricity exploded everywhere he touched and kissed me.
    Was it possible to die from a kiss?
    My hands moved from his shirt to his wrists, and I felt like I was clinging on for dear life. His kisses started to escalate in intensity until he suddenly stopped. He leaned his forehead against mine, and we were both breathing fast.
    “I think . . . I think it’s time for me to return you to your room.”
    I nodded, unable to think.
    He could have said, “I think it’s time for us to get on a spaceship and fly to the moon,” and I would have agreed to that, too.
    He pulled me up with one hand, and as we rushed from the moonlight garden, I realized that he had left his coat behind. I was going to mention it, but when I looked back all I could think of was us on that bench and that kiss. I touched my lips with my fingers, still able to feel the phantom pressure there.
    Lemon was going to pee her pants with excitement.
    I must have been in some kind of Nico-induced trance, because next thing I knew we were standing in front of my room. I had been so caught up in my own head that I hadn’t paid any attention to where we had been going. I opened my door and saw that my bed had been made.
    I turned back to Nico, suddenly very nervous and unsure of what to say. I didn’t think, “Hey, thanks for my first kiss! That was awesome!” would be appropriate. Should I high-five him or something?
    He held both of my hands in his, and released them to run his hands up my arms, onto my shoulders, settling one on the side of my neck, the other at the back of my head. He was going to kiss me again.
    He kissed me once, softly and briefly. He murmured, “Good night, bella ,” against my cheek. He let go and began to walk away.
    Wait. What? “Good night?”
    He turned to face me. “Unless you’d like to invite me into your room?”
    It was like he’d poured a bucket of ice water on top of me. Reality came crashing down, hard. “Uh, no.”
    He smiled like he knew something I didn’t. “Then, good night.”
    I hurried inside my room and slammed the door shut before he changed his mind. Because if he pushed, I didn’t think I was currently strong enough to resist.

I stuck my head out of the door to make certain that Nico had left. The hallway was empty. I ran next door to Lemon’s room and knocked frantically. No response. No way was she asleep already. I opened the door and switched on the light. “Lemon?” I looked around for a minute, but