Royally Screwed Part 15

"It's easy. You have a pa.s.sport, don't you? If not I'm sure Sergei can get one rushed for you. Oh, and . . . ." He kept talking but Kat wasn't listening. She had a pa.s.sport. Lane had made her get one, wanted Kat to feel like they were always just a plane ride away from international capers and exotic locations. She'd never used it, still sat unstamped in her nightstand but at the ready all the same. The pa.s.sport was not the problem.

"Why should I go with you? Why do you need me?" She didn't mean for the question to seem so serious but it felt that way, infinitely important.

That smile that had begun to make her weak in the knees unfurled across his face. "I'm not quite ready to be all good just yet. I have to leave and I don't want to leave you behind." She didn't know how to respond to that and before she had time to let it sink in he added, "Or you could just agree to marry me right now and put me out of my misery."

She was taken aback for a moment he hadn't asked her that question recently with quite so much conviction. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm just too hot for you to handle, Your Highness."

"Why is it dark in here? What's going on?" Blaze asked as he entered the loft. His eyes alighted on the pair of them on the couch. "Do I have to get my shotgun?"

"You don't have a shotgun," Kat groused, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the couch.

"No but I have sculpting tools that can inflict tons more pain."

"I thought we had moved past this," Sebastian said.

"I reserve the right to change my mind. I'm unpredictable." Kat opened her eyes enough to shoot Blaze a meaningful look; he rolled his in response.

"When will you learn to recognize a joke, Kitten?" Blaze asked. He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You look like s.h.i.+t, dear sister."

"Gee thanks, just what every woman wants to hear."

"I don't understand women that's why I don't date them."

"Yes, that's the reason," his sister sa.s.sed.

"Well that and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Who likes b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"

"Now I think I need the shotgun," Sebastian drolled, rising. "We'll talk when you're feeling better Kat."

"I didn't mean to scare him away," Blaze said after the Prince closed the door behind him.

"He asked me to go to Sezynia with him," Kat said at the same time.

"Wait, what??"

"Sebastian Petrescu, the Royal Rebel, he asked me to go to Sezynia with him. On Thursday." Kat said.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. What do you say to something like that?"

"Well do you want to go?" her brother asked. She shrugged her shoulders. "You don't know? How do you not know?"

Her eyes alighted on him for a moment. "I can't go," she finally said, a hand coming up to ma.s.sage the decision away. "I have too much stuff to do here. Work, I can't get out of work for however long he plans on flittering around Sezynia. And what would I do there anyway while he's in boring meetings learning about courtly business or whatever else he's planning on doing. No, there are too many reasons not to go, I don't need to go. I'm not going."

Blaze let her wind her way down. "This better not be about me."

"Yeah right things are always about you, aren't they?" She tried to fill her voice with disbelief but all that came out was uncertainty.

"Kat . . ." he warned.

"What? I can't go anyway. I'm not the kind of girl that gallivants across continents."

"You could be."

"Okay, I'm here," she said.

Sebastian looked up from his paper and smiled. "Was there ever any doubt?"

He might have thought it inevitable but Kat's presence on that plane had never been a foregone conclusion. She was so nervous about leaving Blaze she'd waffled in the apartment for an hour before Giovanni and Lane had frog-marched her to the waiting limo. They kept saying she should go, when had she ever been offered such a vacation? But Kat couldn't help the suspicion that this 'vacation' was going to be anything but relaxing.

"No, none at all." He patted the seat next to him on the private plane but she pivoted and dropped down across the aisle. "How long is the flight to Sezynia again?"

"Oh, just about ten hours."

"Oh, just ten hours, is that all?"

"Kitty Kat, are we nervous?" he purred with a wicked grin.

"I don't really like planes." Or had ever been on one, she added to herself. She lived in New York, where else was there really?

"Well maybe you just need something to keep your mind off of it. I always enjoy the Mile High Club myself."

Kat turned to Sergei in exasperation. "Does he ever stop?"

"No, ma'am."

"Ma'am? Ma'am?! Since when am I a ma'am? Do I look like a ma'am?"

Sebastian laughed. "I keep telling him not to be so formal. He never listens." Sergei just shook his head, murmuring in Sezynian the whole time, and went back to his computer.

"What do you really do on such long plane rides?"

He shrugged. "Read, sleep, watch movies. Sometimes I play cards when I can convince the guards to play. But they hate to part with their money so . . ."

"A poker shark, eh?"

"The royal one even."

"I bet I could take you," Kat mused.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Well it's not a dance invitation."

"You're on. And when we get to cruising alt.i.tude you're going down."

"We'll see about that."

Six hours later Kat and Sebastian were staring at each other over a deck of cards. The bodyguards had all been knocked out, one by one. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this game? Are you sure they aren't just placating you?"

Their audience snickered but Sebastian just kept staring at her. "They better not be. Otherwise it would be off with their heads."

Kat laughed as she ran a finger over the edge of her cards. "You the Queen of Hearts?"

"Are you bluffing Kitty Kat?" he asked.

She shrugged a shoulder. "A good poker player let's their body do the bluffing for them. A manufactured tell, a raised heartbeat, a dart of the eyes." She leaned in closer to the table, winding a strand of her hair through her fingers. She bit her lip in thought for a moment. "The question isn't whether you think I'm bluffing. It's how good of a poker player you think I am."

Sebastian stared at her for a moment longer, trying to read her mind. "Based on my observations you're always fantastic," he sighed, folding his cards.

"Such a vote of confidence," she purred. Three hands later he was out too.

"Is this the first time anyone's gotten the best of you, Your Royal Highness?" Kat asked as she made her way to the bathroom at the back of the cabin.

"Oh no, I'm very used to being bested. I have a twin sister, remember."

"And she beats you at everything? Such a dent to your ego I'm sure."

"I win when it counts."

"Which is?" Kat prompted. She met his eyes in the mirror as she checked her reflection, moving to straighten her hair.

"Raw animal magnetism." He s.h.i.+fted slightly in the doorway and gave her the impression of being trapped. Kat just shook her head in amus.e.m.e.nt and started to gather her hair up into a ponytail.

Sebastian reached for her, taking her wrist and twining it behind her back, causing her to drop her hair and pirouette as if they were dancing, coming recklessly close together. "No."

When she spoke her voice came out shallow, as if his sheer proximity could make it hard to breathe. "Glad to know I have something you like."

"You have a lot of things I like, Kisa," he purred. He entwined their fingers together behind her back and drew them even closer.

"What are you doing Prince Sebastian?" she asked.

A wolfish grin appeared on his face. "Having fun. Aren't you?"

"Not particularly."

"Liar," he teased. But he stepped away anyway, reluctantly releasing her arm and leaning back against the wall. He still took up too much s.p.a.ce for her comfort. "You think too much."

"Do I?" she asked, deftly securing her hair into a topknot as Sebastian made a grunt of disapproval.

"Sometimes it is acceptable to do things just because they'll feel good."

"In the world you live in I'm sure that's true."

"Not for much longer I'm afraid," he said as an aside, almost to himself.

"I do so love to be used as a distraction," Kat deadpanned, arms crossed and hip balanced against the sink.

"Ah, but the absolute loveliest kind."

"One night," she said. His eyes lit up. "One night was all I promised you. And you already got it." Kat tried to move past him but he turned and trapped her in the doorway, a relaxed pose that had her back at the first time, having much the same conversation in his hotel room. It seemed like ages ago instead of just weeks. "What happened to the guy that lived on one-night stands?"

"Facing a future of monogamy, he figures it wouldn't hurt to give consistency a try."

"Ooh, hold on Prince. Such pa.s.sion is turning me on." But Kat's words didn't have the same sarcastic bite when he was standing so close, forcing both of them to almost whisper.

"That's the spirit," he mocked, one corner of his mouth raised for half a grin.

"I'm not sleeping with you."

"Who said anything about sleep? I'm still on that search for perfection."

Now it was Kat's turn for a crooked grin. "If you didn't find it before what makes you think you're going to find it now?"

"Practice makes perfect."

"Or is the definition of insanity."

"Are you calling the future King of Sezynia insane, miss?"

"If he really thinks I'm going to put out for him in this bathroom yes."

"How about the hallway?"

"Where everyone can see us? You think that's a better option, really?" Kat couldn't stop her eyes from rolling.

"A more exciting one. I'll order them not to look if that helps."

"I thought you weren't a voyeur, remember?"

"Hmm, maybe I lied." He leaned in to kiss her but she wasn't having any of it. She just laughed and pushed him away.

"You're such a pig," she said, exiting the doorway.

"And you're a tease," he shot back. Kat raised her hands to her head and pulled her hair down, letting in fall in waves against her shoulders. She looked over her shoulder at him and winked.

Chapter 14.

"This is my room," he said smugly, throwing his arms wide open to encompa.s.s the huge bed, sitting area, and fireplace.