Chapter 58: My Dark Prince: Chapter 57

Icy beads of water needled into my skin.

I trudged from the cabana into the mansion, still drunk and dripping wet. I’d taken a shower there, not bothering to undress. Violent goosebumps sprung out of my skin. I tossed my drenched clothes off, scattering them in piles along the way.

I didn’t care that Seb, with his newfound boldness, might walk out and catch me buckass naked. It was my damn house, anyway.

I crawled back upstairs to my room, flung off my duvet, and burrowed onto the mattress when the smooth, warm skin of another body latched onto mine. Confused, I reached to the light on the nightstand and flicked it on.

“Ugh, Ollie.” Briar sat up, squinting at me, her hair a mess. A tiny satin baby doll clung to her body. “What are you doing?”

“I was about to ask the same damn thing.”

If this was a hallucination, I needed to get more of whatever I’d taken to conjure it, because this was a pleasant surprise. Deranged, but pleasant.

My heart thrummed inside my chest.

“I’m trying to get some sleep. Isn’t it obvious?” She rearranged the blanket over her long legs, glowering at me as if I was the weird one. “I need to stack up on those sleeping hours, because apparently, it’ll take us three days to get to Bribie Island.”

“Nauru,” I corrected her. “And you’ve regained your memory, so you can drop the charade, unless you want to skip to the honeymoon part.”

I was certainly naked enough for it – and nice and ready the second her body had curved into mine. How drunk was I, by the way? Had I stooped so low that I now got boners for hallucinations? Did I need an intervention?

If so, I bet Romeo and Zach would film the whole thing. Fuckers.

“The honeymoon part would probably include zero sex and a lot of shopping.”

“Sold,” I quipped, sinking my head onto the pillow. “As long as I can watch you in the changing room.”

“Ollie, you smell like a brewery.”

“Breweries are God’s worship place.”

“You mean churches, temples, and mosques?”

I shot her an incredulous look. “Where do you see people having more fun: there or in breweries?”

She gave me a flat stare. “I hope they sell sunscreen in hell.”

“Don’t worry about me. I get tan, not red. Now, what are you doing here?” I squinted. “I know you remember that I am the worst thing to happen to this world since shoulder pads. What’s up?”

“No.” She stared up at me, the picture of innocence. “I’m your fiancée, Oliver. And I want to marry you.”

What she wanted was to drive me out of my own home.

We both knew that.

Fine. Game on. Now that she had her wits about her, I could retaliate. She was fair game. I could pull her leg. And oh, did I want to do some pulling. And kissing. And biting. And things that would probably make a porn star blush.

“Sweetheart, you’re not scaring me. I put the cum in commitment.”

I tossed the blanket back over us, scooting close to wrap my arms around her waist. It was a fleeting touch, but it made both of us jolt back in surprise as electricity wove between us. I wouldn’t kick this woman out of my bed even if she was on fucking fire. She was threatening me with a good time.

She scrunched her nose. “There’s no cum in the word commitment.”

“Shh. I’m dyslexic.”

“Are you really?”

“No. But I don’t let facts stand in the way of a good joke.”

If looks could kill, hers would chop me into tartar-sized pieces. I was deeply amused, turned on, and confused. Also: not entirely convinced the whiskey hadn’t introduced me to the nightmare of my dreams.

“How about we start consummating our marriage?” I rubbed my nose against hers, knowing she wanted to hurl a heavy piece of furniture my way. “Practice makes perfect.”

“Legend has it you’re quite the perfectionist.” She pushed at my chest, already raw from my brawl with Sebastian.

I didn’t even entertain the possibility that his disappearance tonight had something to do with her presence here. Nope. No way they’d met. He would never let her see his face. Not in a million years.

I propped my head on my hand, turning serious. “Did you know about my reputation while you were in Los Angeles?”

“How could I not?” She snorted. “Gossip sites love you, and so do women, for a reason I can’t fathom.”

“I know it’s a shocking concept, but not everything they print in the National Enquirer is true.”

“Of course, it is. Especially that story about the UFOs and the mermaids.”

I knew exactly what headline she was referring to. I had a National Enquirer subscription. It was the only newspaper Geezer seemed to like chewing on.

“So, what brought you back here?”

My eyes ran the length of her. The chaotic strawberry-blonde curls. The dark blue eyes. The skin kissed with freckles that weren’t there when we were teenagers and somehow made her more beautiful. She wore all the dips and peaks of her life like a badge of honor.

“Giving you hell.” She tossed the blanket off her and rounded the bed. “What else?”

I watched her lazily, my dick painfully hard beneath the sheets, wondering what her ulterior motive could be. She wasn’t that petty, and I wasn’t that stupid.

“Hell is not a place. It’s a state of mind. And let me assure you, sweetheart, I’m already there.”

She shoved her feet into slippers and picked up a satin robe from the floor, tying it around herself. “Are you asking me to leave?”

Did she unpack? When? The woman was a demon.

I shook my head. “Mi casa es tu casa.”

She tossed her hair outside her robe, and my breath caught in my throat – she was so fucking pretty. “Tu casa is probably an exotic animal trafficking hub, judging by that mysterious south wing no one is allowed to go into.”

Well, at least that confirmed she didn’t know about Seb living here.

I hopped off the bed, still as buck-ass naked as I’d entered, and chased her down the hallway, grinning from ear to ear. “There’s no trafficking going on. The kitties are well-provided for and are enjoying every minute of it.”

“Kitties?” She screeched into a halt, swiveling around, her fists curled by her sides, not bothering to glance down at the goods. “Did you really just make an animal abuse joke?”

To a vegetarian, no less.

“Hey, you started it.”

“You have no red lines.”

“True story. But I do adhere to safe words, so there’s that.”

“It wasn’t a joke.” Her eyes tapered and her cheeks turned as pink as those nipples I could see through her satin cloth. “I was serious about my accusation.”

“No, you weren’t.”

A lock of hair fell across her eyes. I reached to tuck it behind her ear. Because this was real life and not a book, the lock slipped right back to where it was.

I snatched the throw from the couch and wrapped it around my waist like a towel. “If you seriously thought I was a threat to anyone, you wouldn’t willingly move in with me, and the FBI would be here, searching my rectum right about now.”

“You’d probably enjoy it.”

I shrugged. “Don’t kink-shame me, missy.”

Her nostrils flared, and her jaw tightened. We were now equals. I could dish it out as good as I got it.

She shook her head and started for the corridor. Very well. She must’ve chosen one of the guestrooms downstairs.

I joined her, as though we’d embarked on a leisured stroll. “So, how long will you be staying with me?”

“I’m thinking forever, would you mind?” Her weak attempt at getting a rise out of me failed.

“Au contraire. You are always welcome. We have lots of catching up to do.”

“Gossip columns helped me stay all caught up with your antics.”

“… and I cannot wait for you to attend one of my orgies.”

The most persistent rumor – a media favorite, really – was that I hosted sex parties. Wild, illicit, dangerous sex parties. It all started when I hired a car detailing service. They came on the same day of every month like clockwork, taking with them all twelve of my cars to deep clean and refill with gas. A passing jogger spotted all the parked vehicles on the curb outside my property and drew the wrong conclusion. I never corrected them.

Briar stormed down the corridor, not bothering to check if I’d followed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re gross?”

“On an hourly basis, actually.” I plucked a rose from a vase mid-step, tucking it above the shell of her ear. It somersaulted to the tiles when she swatted it away. “I mean, you did meet my friends. Tough love is an understatement.”

“Are you and Frankie having an affair?” she demanded.

“Answer my question first.” I tsked. “I understand we’re playing a game of who’s gonna break first – you, by the way, I’d take you straight to the altar if it were up to me – but I want to hear the reason behind your change of heart.”

That was the thing about greed. Just the slightest taste of what I wanted, and I could abandon every moral.

You see, something switched in me when Seb and I fought on the grass. That tiny flash of normalcy emboldened me. It told me that I could fix things with Briar. Or try to, at least. Seb wouldn’t kill me for reneging on my promise. Or maybe he would, and that would be normal. Us again. He’d call me a bastard, rough me up a bit, and we’d go back to being brothers.

So, yeah, if Briar gave me any indication that we had something left to salvage, that I could win her back, I wouldn’t waste the opportunity. I’d fucking ace it. I would never let her go.

“Three and half months until my next post. That’s how long I plan on staying.” She turned the corner, and it dawned on me that, with the exception of the south wing, she already knew every inch of this massive manor. “Now, are you having an affair with Frankie?”

“No.”

“Then, why did she have your credit card?”

I hitched a shoulder up. “I really like pissing my friends off. I knew Romeo would collapse into himself when he heard about it. And he did.”

“You look like a horndog, chasing a barely legal woman.”

I chuckled. “If the shoe fits …”

“You know, even though I absolutely detest you – and make no mistake, I truly do – I cannot picture you sleeping around.”

“No need to use your imagination, baby. I can give you a demonstration.”

Her eyes flicked down to my throw-covered dick. “I’m not impressed.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen it in battle mode.”

“I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone worse than you.”

“That is entirely unfair. You’ve met two. You call them your parents.”

“Not anymore.” She finally smiled. “Not since I was eighteen, in fact.”

I shot her a sidelong glance. “That long?” Guilt and sadness weaved together, tightening around my throat.

Her smile turned miserable. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“I’m sorry. It was a shitty thing for me to say.”

“Right on brand.” She stopped in front of one of my many guestrooms, pointing at the door. “Well, this is me.”

“And this is me.” I pointed to a painting of a sad clown in the hallway. “Seriously, I’m sorry I brought your parents up. I know it’s a sensitive subje—”

“No, you don’t.” She spun to face me. “A lot has changed in the last fifteen years. You don’t know me. You don’t know what my triggers are, what my likes and dislikes are, what makes me tick. We are strangers. I’m happy to take advantage of your mansion, and your pool, and your tennis court for a while, but don’t mistake this for a truce. I still hate you.”

She flung her door open and was about to shut it in my face, but I managed to slap a hand over the edge, stopping it with ease.

“Let me ask you something.” I licked my lips, my tone dropping low and sultry. “What makes you so sure I won’t kick you out of here after the way you’ve spoken to me?”

I was turned on. I was pissed off. I was a lot of things, and all of them made me feel alive.

Surprise colored her face. “You owe me.”

“I owe you shit. You are still the same person, and so am I. What I did to you was horrible. Inexcusable. But I had my reasons. You were my first love.” My only love. “And the truth is, deep down, you know I’m your safe place.”

“My safe place?” Her jaw dropped. “I’d be safer in a warzone.”

I just stared at her, letting her know I saw through her bullshit. She gave me the middle finger. I pretended to catch it and put it in my pocket, like it was a kiss, a smug grin hiking up my cheeks.

She slammed the door in my face.

“Love you, too,” I called out to her through the wood. “Goodnight, roomie.”