The Royal Affair (The Palmera Royals) Read Online Free Page A

the keys, the chilly night air circled and a shiver slithered down Marina’s spine as she stared back down the driveway.
    “You having second thoughts?” he asked.
    She turned from the ghostly sway of nearby trees and tried to smile.
    Jonas waved to her bodyguards. “The beds are made up for you guys.” He pointed toward a light haloing the entrance to a door some twenty feet away. “It’s a granny flat installed by the previous owners for their aging parents.”
    Jacques stood his ground, stance rigid, Pierre an exact imitation behind his security partner. “Your Highness,” Jacques said, “this is highly irregular.”
    It was, and she wasn’t sure it was a good idea either. She’d be alone with Jonas. “It is, but it’s also unavoidable.” What she didn’t say was that her nerves were shot and she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to get through the night. And that what she really wanted to do was jump his bones.
    Ignoring the erotic thoughts carousing inside her brain, she tempered her voice as best she could. “I’ll be fine, gentleman. Please, get yourselves a good night’s sleep.” She gave Jonas a quick look, grateful for the encompassing darkness of a shadowed moon. “Mr. Wilder is an old friend.”
    “That’s right, guys, we’re just going to catch up for old times’ sake.” Without giving her bodyguards time to argue, Jonas grabbed her hand and pulled her up the steps and inside his home, leaving Jacques and Pierre staring wide-eyed.
    The house seemed eerily quiet, but he gave her no time to mitigate his control of the moment and tugged her behind him, taking the stairs two at a time. Okay, so following him had its good points, giving her a wonderful moment to study the man’s butt. Firm. Perfectly formed. His long, strong legs…
    “Your bedroom.”
    Marina snapped to attention and dragged her gaze away from things she should definitely not be ogling. But she hadn’t gotten away with it, because Jonas watched her with an intensity that sent shivers scurrying along her spine. Then he smiled, delineating those tiny dimples … So sexy.
    He reached past her and elbowed open the door, flicking on the light to reveal a decidedly feminine room.
    She had wondered. Hoped. But he didn’t even try to coerce her to his room. Jonas Wilder’s mind was not wallowing where hers was. The man couldn’t have said it any louder. He wasn’t interested in her anymore.
    “You’ll need something to um…sleep in, though I seem to remember you slept au naturale.”
    Heat stole to her cheeks. “A T-shirt will be fine.”
    “I remember you wearing my T-shirt and how it skimmed your thighs, your hair all tousled.” His gaze slipped lower, and every inch of her felt the wash of his gaze as if it were a physical touch. The air seemed to crackle between them, an electric charge that bound them together. “Is there anything else you need, Princess?”
    A cuddle. A kiss. To touch you. She cut those thoughts right off. “Nothing.” She snapped her arms across her middle. She had to break that connection at all costs. She held out her hand. “The T-shirt.”
    Without uttering a word, he spun on the heels of his rough-hewn riding boots and stomped up the corridor and into a room right at the end.
    See, he couldn’t even put you in a room next to his!
    A few seconds later, he returned and held out a gray marl T-shirt, a Mustang emblazoned across its front. She reached for the shirt, but he held it back a moment.
    “You always liked those silky contraptions. They were kinda sexy, and definitely fun to take off.” He stood so close, his cologne a fragrant reminder of other times, other nights.
    Her fingers curled around the T-shirt. “That was a long time ago.”
    “Four years.”
    “A lot can change in that time.”
    “Has it? Have you?”
    “I’m no pushover. I’ve worked hard to get this far.”
    “As Charlie Flanders’s bank account is about to find out.”
    She smiled then, unrepentant.