The Bossy Prince - Rugged and Royal - Page 9

She refused to dance after dinner last night—staying on the sidelines with Andrew and Sabrina, poking gentle fun at Jeffrey and Lizzy as they wiggled awkwardly on the bistro’s dance floor, proving they really are a perfect match and far more concerned with enjoying each other than playing it cool.

But if Zan had joined them, I bet she would have been the furthest thing from awkward. She would have had every ski bum in the joint fighting for the chance to sway closer to the deceptively diminutive blonde.

Zan’s a good six inches shorter than her sisters, and her head barely reaches the middle of my chest, but she’s a powerhouse, a mentally acute and physically dangerous spy who’s been undercover for half her life.

When she asks, “What’s nice?” I remind myself of that fact.

That she’s brilliant and highly trained, and any sudden change of behavior should be suspicious. Still, I hear myself say, “You. Looking like you’ve decided I’m not so bad, after all. You’re very pretty when you’re not plotting to murder me in my sleep.”

She laughs—actually laughs out loud—for the first time in my presence. “Oh, come on. I wouldn’t do it in your sleep. You’re a decent guy. You deserve a fighting chance.”

I arch a brow, and my lips hook up on one side. “Oh, yeah? Decent? When did you come to this realization? I thought I was Satan’s unpardonable spawn.”

She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “I don’t see the point in continuing to butt heads. We had a misunderstanding last summer, but that’s over now. You’re my brother-in-law and soon to be my boss. Unless...” She trails off, her lips pursing as she crosses her arms, causing her breasts to lift higher, straining the silk fabric of her pajama top enough to erase any doubt about that bra.

There is no bra. Only Zan’s perfectly shaped breasts and two small, but equally perfect, nipples I would like to worship with my mouth for the rest of the year.

Surely, if we ravaged each other senseless from now until New Year’s Eve, we’d be able to defuse the sexual tension. Perhaps even eliminate it entirely. I know I’m not the only one who feels it, the electricity between us, the potential energy crackling in the air every time we’re close enough to touch.

Zan was as taken off guard by our kiss last summer as I was. I’d bet my favorite surfboard she’s thought about it—maybe even wondered what it might be like to do it again, this time in private, with no audience and no reason to stop kissing until we’ve both had our fill of each other.

“Or was dangling that carrot a ruse to get me alone in your room?” she asks, leaving me scrambling to catch up with the conversation.

I’ve clearly missed something while I imagined all the things I’d like to do to her with my tongue.

This has to stop. I’ve never been an uptight spy, but I’ve always been a professional one. I’ve worked with beautiful women before—even had to fake a relationship with another agent while we were undercover—but I’ve never been tempted to cross the line between personal and professional.

And no, there’s no official policy against dating other Union Ten members, but this job is sufficiently exhausting without bringing it home every night. As much as I hate lying to my family about what I do all day, leading them to believe I’m an incredibly slow tourist-site coder at best and a lazy baby brother at worst, I love going home to people who don’t know I’m a secret agent. People who would never imagine I know how to use a gun, let alone that I carry one almost everywhere I go. People to whom I’m just Nick, their brother, their son, their fun-loving friend with an above-average love of pizza, travel, and gorgeous women.

But not this gorgeous woman.

She’s number one on my personal “No Fly” list.

Must focus.

Must launch Operation: Get Zan Out of My Life before we make our already awkward family and work situations even worse.

“No ruse.” I motion toward the closet. “But let’s add another wall between us and the outside world before we chat. Just in case.”

Her brows pinch together, but she nods and follows me past the bed—still made, with a dozen pillows on top, a tangible signal that this meeting is above board—and into the closet.

When I flick on the light and close the door, Zan leans against the far wall, gazing up at the bare bulb. “I’ve never been in a closet with the lights on. Back in my boarding school days, we’d sneak across the pond to the boys’ campus to play Seven Minutes in Heaven in the gym supply closet, but we always left the lights off.”

I’m tempted to tell her that if I took her to “heaven,” it would last a lot longer than seven minutes, but I remind myself to behave. “Same,” I say. “Though I wish we’d played with the lights on. I might have avoided being ambushed by the Bellaro twins.”

Tags: Lili Valente Romance
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