Royal Heartbreaker

Chapter Five - Elle

ELLE

My temperature has risen to a point I'm sure isn't healthy—my entire body feels like it's on fire. It's a good thing I'm almost one hundred percent certain the illness the baby has isn't contagious, or I would be pretty sure I had contracted it.

My heart is pounding in my chest. Except it isn't so much pounding anymore as it is trying to burst itself right out of my body. He's standing too close to me—not quite touching me—but so close I can feel the waves of heat emanating from him. I'm pretty sure I'm not breathing, except I can hear the ragged breaths escaping me that make me sound like an animal in heat. And I don't even want to think about the goddamned pulsing between my legs that has made me embarrassingly wet.

And he's barely even touched me.

He rocks back on his heels, pulling away just enough to look into my eyes, almost daring me to deny my attraction to him.

Fuck.

This is not how things are supposed to be happening. This is not how anything in my life is ever going to happen. I'm not going to let myself even consider how this is the stuff fantasies are made of—how one evening with Prince Leo would set me up with enough fantasy material to take care of my sexual needs for the rest of my life.

If I can just stop looking at his lips...

Almost as though he can read my mind, his tongue trails slowly across his bottom lip, and his eyes sear through me.

My mouth opens, and I'm mesmerized, imagining his tongue in places I should not be thinking about—not here. Not ever.

I blink a few times, snapping myself out of one hot daydream. That is all he is ever going to be to me—a fantasy. It isn't like I haven't fantasized about Prince Leo before, like every other warm-blooded woman on the planet. It's just that the photos in the magazines do not do him justice—the man oozes sex appeal, which has obviously not translated itself completely onto the pages of the tabloids. It isn't fair that a man this magnetic is also a royal.

A royal pain in my ass. A royal bad boy who will never change.

And that's the problem. Never again am I going to be someone's plaything.

He lifts an arm, placing his hand on the wall behind me and almost pinning me there with his body. He tilts his head to whisper in my ear again, his breath hot on my neck. "Elle. I don't believe you can deny our attraction, no matter how much you resist."

Something about his words snaps me to immediate attention and I duck under his outstretched arm, just as his other hand reaches up to touch my cheek. I back away, around the gurney to the middle of the room. There are no walls here—nothing he can pin me against now. My eyes dart around the room, planning my escape path, which is silly considering I've spent a year here, only leaving on rare occasions. I know this clinic better than I've known any other place I've ever worked, so escaping seems almost like an overreaction.

I take a long breath, trying to slow my pounding heart as much as I'm trying to slow my racing thoughts. I don't get like this—overcome. I just...don't. I don't know what sort of signals I've been sending out since Leo arrived, but he must have misinterpreted them.

Ha.

He hasn't misinterpreted anything, but I didn't know I was so...transparent. And knowing he's somehow able to read my mind makes my cheeks burn with a mixture of embarrassment and anger about my overactive libido.

"Elle." His voice is low, almost soothing. He turns to me with that same slow, sexy smile that he's given me—Christ, I don't even know how many times now. I might have to start counting.