He listened as Lola continued to outline the protocols from here, but his eyes kept straying to Phoebe, and he was sure she knew he was watching, because her cheeks began to glow pink. At one point, a piece of glass cut her finger and he had to bite back a curse.
It was too much.
He strode across the tiles, uncaring for what Lola might think, and crouched beside Phoebe. Up close, memories of last night throbbed in his gut and spread through his whole body, so when he spoke his voice was raw with hunger. ‘Let me help you.’
Startled, she looked at him, her lips parting. It was a mistake.
A huge mistake.
He couldn’t help but stare at them, and the memories came thick and fast now. What would she say if he pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she was moaning against him, as she had the night before, begging for him to take her? He tamped down on that very real temptation. It would obviously be one of the stupidest things he could do, and Octavio was not stupid. Nor was he controlled by his libido. Generally.
‘You’re bleeding.’
‘Go away.’
‘You’re hurt.’
‘It’s nothing,please.’
‘Phoebe—’
‘Don’t,’ she hissed, her eyes flashing past him, to the hospital director and whomever was watching. ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered, plastering a bright smile on her face. ‘This is my job.’
But he hated that.
His whole body was flush with emotions he couldn’t process and didn’t want to analyse. He continued to pick up pieces of glass.
‘Your Majesty, you must stop,’ she whispered. ‘People will notice. People will talk.’
‘Who gives a damn?’
‘I do,’ she promised. ‘And you do, too. You’ve just forgotten it because of yesterday.’
Yesterday—his uncle’s death. Not last night, with her. He shook his head once, to demur, but her features were so cold, her look so laced with warning. ‘Please leave me alone,’ she whispered.
He hated it.
He felt those words deep in the core of his being, and he couldn’t say why but he knew that they mattered. He stood slowly, hands thrust into hips, looking down on her working, wishing it weren’t this way. Wishing they were back in his bed, where they were thoroughly equals, wondering if he could move heaven and earth to make it so.
‘Please go,’ she whispered again, without looking up at him.
He turned on his heel and strode back to the clinic director, but Phoebe James was burned into his brain.
‘The funeral was beautiful.’ Octavio glanced at his cousin Xiomara without really seeing her. The funeralhadbeen beautiful, Xiomara was right. Private, small and in accordance with royal traditions. Rodrigo had been brought home and laid to rest in the family crypt, reunited with his brother and parents.
‘It was a good funeral, yes,’ Octavio agreed.
Xiomara’s smile was wistful. ‘Thank you for letting my father attend.’
‘I was surprised he wanted to.’
‘I suppose time…’ Her voice trailed off into nothing and she sighed. ‘I can’t defend it. You know that. But today was nice. Youdid well, Tavi.’ She walked across and placed a kiss on Octavio’s cheek. ‘Do you need anything?’
Did he need anything? Hell, yes, he needed something. He needed the same thing he’d needed the night Rodrigo had died. The same thing he’d been craving every night since—or rather, someone. A craving he’d been fighting, because it was so out of his realm of experience, so overwhelming in a way he resented and instinctively shied away from.
He’d thought of calling Phoebe though, even when he knew it would be a mistake. But even if he’d wanted to, how could he? Apart from the fact he was now King, his every move tracked and speculated upon, he’d been manically busy dealing with the aftereffects of Rodrigo’s death.
Funerals, though, were an end-point, a line in the sand, and now the background hum of noise that was his need for Phoebe had exploded into a full-blown absorption.
