Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(74)

He stands there, his hands on his hips, his feet braced and his body tense as if he thinks I’m going to make a break for the door and he’s going to have to tackle me to stop it. As always, whenever I’m with him, all my doubts dissolve and the cold is replaced by a bone-deep warmth. Easton is my sun, I realize.

“Are we going to have to wrestle about this?” he says. “Because if so, let’s get naked and on the bed. It’s the only wrestling I allow in here.”

I glance over my shoulder at the big boat-sized bed. My cheeks heat up at the thought of the two of us rolling around on that bed. Kissing each other…touching each other. I want to kiss him again so badly, but I’m too chickenshit to make the first move. So I respond with sarcasm. “I bet you’ve had a ton of wrestling matches in this room. More than I could count, probably.”

He offers an innocent smile. “Nope. I have not had wrestling matches in here before. I’m a virgin.”

My jaw drops open. “Really?”

He nods in earnest. “Yes. Since you don’t have any memories, yes, I am a virgin. Now go change so we can go to sleep.”

I start toward the attached en suite and stop at the door. “Since you’re a virgin, I’ll remember to be gentle with you our first time.”

I take an immense amount of pleasure in closing the door on his shocked face. Nothing about these past few days has been particularly funny, but Easton’s expression puts a smile on my own face. I might not be great at flirting, but that parting remark was pretty hot. Go me.

I brush my teeth, wash my face with a bar of soap that smells like cedar and orange spice, and throw Easton’s shirt over my head. It goes down almost to my knees.

The lights are off when I open the bathroom door.

“You done?” comes his gravelly voice.

Suddenly shy, I scamper over to the huge bed and climb under the covers. It’s large enough that all five Royal brothers could probably fit on here. Hearing the sounds of Easton getting ready is strange. I’m used to silence, I think, which would make sense because I lived by myself in that apartment, and from the lack of social media pictures it appears I didn’t have many friends.

It’s pleasant. No, pleasant is a mild, meaningless word. It’s…wonderful and I don’t want to go back to the time in my life when there were no sounds but the ones I made. I think that’s why, when my very own personal sun steps out of the bathroom rubbing a towel over his hair, I say, “The bed’s big enough for a family.”

He stills. “It’s a king.”

I sit up, reach over to the other side and flip the covers down. “Get in.”

“Why, Hartley Wright, are you going to deflower me?” he gasps in mock dismay. Or maybe it’s mock eagerness. Who knows?

“Not tonight. I know it’s your first time, so I want to ease you into this. We’ll start by sharing the bed.”

East throws the towel behind him, hits the lights, and dives onto the mattress, landing half on top of me and half on top of the bed. “I don’t trust you,” he teases.

“I can tell,” I say dryly as I push one of his heavy limbs off me. “You’re the very picture of a scared virgin.”

“I know, right?”

I throw a pillow at his head. “Get under the covers.”

He takes the pillow, bunches it under his head and repositions himself so that he’s lying next to me.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask, trying not to stare at his nearly naked body. Easton Royal doesn’t wear pajamas and I’m pretty sure that if he were alone, he wouldn’t be wearing anything to bed, not even his black boxer briefs.

“Like I said, there’s a trust issue here.” There’s a level of self-deprecation that makes me believe that it’s not me he’s worried about, but his own ability to keep his hands to himself—the hands he has tucked under his head.

“We can pretend like we’re Puritans and use the pillows as a bundling board,” I suggest.

“What the hell is a bundling board?”

“Like a log or sack you stick between two people before they get married. That way they can get used to sleeping with each other without giving up their precious V-cards.”

“You remember the weirdest things, Hart.”

My own heart skips a beat, as it does whenever he calls me by that nickname. Like I’m his heart. Like I belong with him. I force my gaze to the ceiling.

“I’m going to memorize a bunch of random facts so that my head’s full of them. Maybe being Jeopardy champion should be my life’s goal. I’ll skip college, spend all my time memorizing trivia books, and win a million dollars on a game show.”

“Okay,” he says simply, as if my idea isn’t the strangest thing.

“I think you’d say okay even if I said my plan was to learn how to swing on the trapeze and join the circus.”

I feel him roll onto his side. I twist my head to see him smiling at me.

“First, swinging on a trapeze is sexy. Second, the circus is dope. Third,” he reaches out and trails a hand over my hair. “Third, I love you, Hart. So yeah, if you want to join the circus or sell magazines door to door or work as a clerk at the mall, then I’m all for it. Whatever makes you happy.”

He loves me?

Oh my God. He says the most unexpected things at times. My heart flips over, the butterfly house in my stomach feels like it just got shaken by a hurricane wind, and tears prick my eyes. I blink furiously to keep them back.