His Royal Highness(55)
“It’s true, Whitney. You’re scared of real pain,” he whispers down at me, softly now that his attention is on my lips. “The burning kind. The lie awake and worry kind. The can’t eat, can’t think, no life without you in it…kind.”
And then he leans down and kisses me.
Fireworks explode. Literally. Over our heads, a million rainbow sparks crackle across the sky as his lips possess mine.
He kisses me with reckless abandon, like we might never get another chance, like I might come to my senses and push him away at any moment. This, his kiss tells me, this is what I’ve been waiting for—you going soft and sweet in my arms.
On our script it simply read Princess Elena and His Royal Highness “share a kiss”, and since we never actually rehearsed it, there’s no way to know exactly what that meant. Still, if I had to guess, I assume it was intended to be a quick, modest peck.
What we’re doing is the exact opposite. It’s heated and crazed, a kiss meant to take place behind locked doors, tying a knot around two hearts. He’s relentless. Hungry. My hands slide up his chest and wrap around his neck. He groans as my palms touch his heated skin. He follows suit, moving to cradle my chin so he can tilt my head back and deepen the kiss even more. My skin comes alive under his touch.
His tongue touches mine and my head spins.
I’m sure tiny children are standing in the front row, slack-jawed and worried.
“He’s not…hurting her, is he, Mommy?”
One of us needs to stop this, but he’s not letting me go, and I refuse to step away. Now that I’m here, pressed against him, it’s like I can’t get close enough. I want to rip his jacket open and step inside of it, feel his reassuring strength.
There is no way on earth I’ll ever have a first kiss that tops this one, and that’s good considering how much trouble we’ll be in when this is all over.
Derek’s the one to eventually break it off. He pulls back just enough to let his forehead touch mine and we stay like that through the rest of the parade, our hearts beating wildly, our breaths heavy. We refuse to separate even with the roar of the theme park around us.
My lips are swollen and parted as I try to grasp for a thread of common sense to take me back ten minutes in time. Before we kissed. Before I realized all my imaginings of what his kiss would be like were nothing compared to the real thing. I find no thread. None at all. By staying here, pressed against him, I’m admitting defeat, admitting my fear. I’ve been keeping myself away from him as a way to protect my heart. I’m not confident I can survive him leaving me a second time, but I suppose there’s only so long you can beat back the inevitable.
Sometimes fate is sick of being ignored.
I tip forward and steal another quick kiss. It’s not enough. Derek grips my waist tighter, communicating his annoyance when I pull away. His eyes are heated with yearning. We could reignite so easily. Another kiss…longer…
Our float jostles as it pulls back into the warehouse, and Thomas has his megaphone aimed right at us.
“Derek, can I have a word?”
Derek and I glance at each other, and I have to bite my lip to hold back a giddy laugh.
“We’re in trouble,” I whisper like we’re delinquent teens.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take the fall, tell him I was the one who initiated it. I took advantage of you.”
“That won’t work. I was kissing you right back—nearly climbed on top of you. I would have, had my dress allowed it.”
His eyebrows arch at the idea. “All right then we’ll have to Bonnie-and-Clyde it. We’ll escape and go on the lam.”
“I can have a bag packed in five.”
He grins.
“Derek,” Thomas says again, and this time the severity in his voice makes us finally step away from each other and try unsuccessfully to wipe the smiles off our faces. Apparently, we should be taking this much more seriously.
Derek helps me down the ladder and I deflate as he drops his hands from my waist and walks over to join Thomas. We have a lot to talk about. You don’t just share a kiss like that and go back to life as you knew it before. Everything has changed. It has to.
Carrie rushes past them with a giddy pep in her step. Her smile is contagious, and the moment she has passed Derek and is out of his line of sight, she throws her hands in the air in triumph.
“Is it true? What everyone’s saying? I thought maybe he’d just kiss you on the cheek but apparently you guys were really going at it! Scaring the children! Tell me everything!”
“Oh, god.” My face floods with color.
I fill her in, skipping breaths and talking fast as she leads me back into the dressing room. She unpins my veil and starts on the buttons of my dress. An assistant knocks, asking if Carrie wants help, but she shoos her away so we can keep talking.
By the time I’m tugging on my jeans and sweater, there’s another knock on the door. Carrie’s working on hanging the wedding dress back up, so I answer it and stand back, surprised to find Thomas standing there. His brows are furrowed, eyes unreadable. No, not true. He looks…worried. Upset, even. Are we really in that much trouble? It was just a kiss. We didn’t hurt anyone.
He tugs his hand through his hair and asks if he can come in.
“Of course. Wait, is this about—”
I don’t get the full sentence out before he cuts me off. “Cal is in the hospital.”