Free Prince With Benefits: A Billionaire Royal Romance by Nicole Snow Page B

on my breath. “But we have to get used to more tender forms of contact, of course. What would an engagement, a wedding be, without a kiss?”
    Her eyes go wide. She's trembling in my arms, but it isn't just nerves talking.
    I know this heat, this waver, this fire in the blood. She wants me. I want her.
    No, I want to be inside her.
    We're both prisoners here, holding back on our natural instincts for a greater purpose, the way it has to be. We can only graze, but never gorge.
    We can't rip off each other's clothes. We can't try every position I know, and invent several new ones. We can't fuck, and it kills me, the part deep down inside that loves a good conquest.
    Fuck.
    “It's too soon for that,” she tells me, nearly breathless. Her sweet, plump tits wedge against my chest, and I swear I can feel her nipples through several layers. “I need some time to adjust to all this. Please, Your Highness.”
    “Fine.” I tear myself away from her, pulling her with me by one hand, to the balcony's stone edge. “You should really start calling me Silas behind closed doors.”
    She looks at me, and blinks. I don't say a word, just run one hand up across her shoulder, cup her cheek, and gently tilt her face to the scenery.
    “Take a good, long look at all that. It's the very reason you're here. You're doing this with me to save your father's life. For me, this is about a family, a kingdom. All the people down there in that glittering city, and the thousand other villages and towns beyond that make up this island.”
    “How noble.” Sarcasm drips from those little lips I want to bury in mine. “It's not that I don't believe you. It just seems...so unlike you, Silas.”
    “What do you know?” I growl. “We barely know each other. To be fair, that's the way it ought to be. There's more to this life than fucking and partying. They're simply the fine perks I allow myself, something to keep myself sane when I have to face who I am, and what I've been destined to do since the day I was born.”
    She stares at me a lot more seriously now. Just like I expect.
    This is all too familiar. I've brought dozens of women up here before, and sometimes I launch into this bullshit, after one too many drinks. I haven't had that tonight, but everything's creeping up, slowly strangling me.
    The impending engagement. The wedding. The ridiculous marriage I'm going to have to pretend to be enjoy for the next three years, and the divorce that will come next.
    Then there's the possibility Her Majesty could drop dead any time. Fuck, I haven't thought about what I'd do if I have to take the crown while I'm still married to this woman.
    For a split second, doubt courses through me, deflating my erection. It doesn't go further than that.
    I wouldn't be alive today if I let second guesses rule me. I take her hand in mine, squeeze it, and we stare across the capital together, my eyes focused on the palace in the distance.
    “Let me tell you a secret,” I whisper, wondering why I'm trying to convince her. “I'm not the bastard you think I am. If you'd come up here tonight and told me you wanted nothing to do with this proposal, I'd have let your father stay in Mexico anyway. I won't turn away a dying man from the treatment he needs. I'm not a monster.”
    Her eyes soften. She shifts, resting one arm against the high stone banister, just as the wind kicks up, ruffling her skirt. The wedding dress illusion to the damned thing makes my cock throb again, though this is far more casual than the long, ornate getup she'll be forced to wear at the actual wedding.
    “That's good to know, but it doesn't change my mind. I'm not backing out of anything. I told you I'd marry you, go through with what we need to do. It's only right that we live up to both ends of our bargain. I don't need to know who I'm marrying. I don't care. I just want to get this over with. It's all make believe, like you said, right?”
    She studies me closely. Of course, she's right. I give