The Prince. Tiffany Reisz

words echoed in his mind: Stearns was touching him … Stearns was …

      Kingsley leaned forward and pressed his lips to Stearns’s mouth.

      And for one perfect second, Stearns let him leave them there.

      Once that perfect second passed, Kingsley found himself flat on his back, his hands by his head, his wrists pinned hard and fast into the mattress. Stearns gripped his wrists so tightly that Kingsley thought he heard something crack inside his hand.

      “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I don’t know what …”

      He struggled against Stearns’s viselike grip, but no amount of pushing back could free him. Stearns held himself steady overtop of Kingsley, one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor, and pushed him deeper and deeper into the mattress.

      Stearns’s face hovered only six inches from his own. The pain in his wrists, the fear in his heart, all threatened to send Kingsley into a panic. But underneath the panic he felt something else—a strange calm, a sense of surrender. As much as Kingsley wanted Stearns, he would be content letting him do anything to him, even kill him.

      “I’m sorry,” Kingsley repeated. “I—”

      “Stop talking.” Stearns spoke the words coldly, calmly, and Kingsley obeyed immediately. He pushed up again and Stearns pushed back down with even greater force.

      “Stop moving.”

      Kingsley froze.

      Waited.

      Realized he’d never been so aroused in his entire life.

      Looking up into Stearns’s eyes, Kingsley noticed the pupils had dilated hugely. And Stearns’s perfectly pale skin had flushed slightly. The exertions on the soccer field hadn’t caused half the reaction that simply holding him down on the bed clearly did.

      “You are playing a very dangerous game, Kingsley.” Stearns lowered his voice as he spoke the threat, and every nerve in Kingsley’s body tightened.

      He remained silent as ordered. Stearns’s thumb moved to press into the pulse point on Kingsley’s right wrist. The touch was so surprising, so suddenly gentle, that Kingsley moaned with the pleasure of it. A soft moan, barely audible. But Stearns clearly heard it, for his hooded eyes widened once more.

      “You aren’t afraid of me right now.” A statement, not a question, and yet Kingsley heard the question underneath the words. Why?

      “There’s nothing you could do to me now that I wouldn’t want.”

      Stearns looked Kingsley up and down, as if he realized an alien lay beneath him instead of a person.