Page 92 of Duke, Actually
“My god, woman. You may be ready to go again, but I need a moment.”
She laughed. “No! I meant for next time.”
Next time.Had Max ever heard two better words?
She rolled over. “Oh, wait. Is there not going to be a next time? Was this”—she waved her hand between them—“It? Do I have to follow the same rules as everyone else?”
He captured the hand, cognizant that getting too cuddly was not advised for a variety of reasons but unable to help himself. “There is going to be a next time.” He grinned. “And I don’t have any condoms. But I’ll get some.”
“Not from Leo and Marie, though, right?” she said quickly.
“Because we’re not going to tell them about this?” he asked carefully.
“Are you kidding? No. They wouldn’t understand.”
He was fairly certain he didn’t understand, either. “What wouldn’t they understand?”
“Us. Our thing. I would say friends with benefits, but it’s more than that.”
His heart, which had only recently returned to normal, picked back up. “It is?” The ground beneath him had shifted today, but he wasn’t flattering himself that Dani was going to see this as anything they could actuallyhave. Things hadn’t shifted that much.
“Yeah. I mean, it’s perfect, right?”
Yes.
“Like, I’m here,” she went on. “We can do this without violating your rules. And whatever my deal was with the potential Tinder dudes is a nonissue. And weknowwe’re not going to ruin our friendship.” She looked alarmed suddenly as she jerked her head up. “Right?”
“Right. Of course not.” He played with her hand a bit. “But how is what you’re describing not friends with benefits?” He was trying to understand. He wanted to know what she expected from him. He wanted to know what he could have.
“I guess it is.” She shrugged. “I just feel like . . . we’re us. We don’t need labels. I mean, you’re my favorite person.” He jokinglypreened, but inside, it wasn’t a joke. She took her hand back and used it to swat his chest. “This feels like an extension of that. Also, at the risk of inflaming your already healthy ego, I gotta say . . .” She fanned herself with her hand. “You weren’t lying when you said you’d had good reviews.” He grinned and did some more mock-preening. “Like, what was that?” she exclaimed. “I usually can’t come unless I’m on top, but you do some weird mojo with your palm, and bam!”
“I was merely following your lead,” he said, though he noted her preference for being on top. As pleased as he was to have been proclaimed her favorite person, not to mention a sex god, he remained dissatisfied with her explanation about the nature of their relationship. Were they friends with benefits, or were they, as she’d said, “more”? But he wasn’t going to press her. He didn’t want her to overthink things and end up calling it—whatever “it” was—off. So, with more difficulty than he would have expected, he changed the subject. “I could go across the hall to my brother’s room. He’ll have condoms.” He would, right? Max frowned. Hopefully Seb was using condoms.
“It’s hard to imagine your brother having sex. He’s so buttoned up.”
“It’s even harder to imagine him having sex with Torkel Renner.” Max still had not fully recovered from his shock.
“Who’s Torkel Renner?”
“The head of palace security.”
“The big beefy guy with the mirrored sunglasses?”
“That’s him.”
She whistled. “Well, he seems like he’s very good at his job. I’m sure he’s extremely competent in... other areas as well.”
“The thing is, I’m fairly certain they’re in love.” It was still so astonishing. But he supposed sometimes these things happened with no warning. He glanced over at Dani.
“Do you think Sebastien will come out?”
He thought back to Seb’s statement about not wanting to hide anymore. “I think he will.”
“How is that going to go over?”
“I don’t know.” He cast his mind back to his confrontation with his mother, which, remarkably, had been only an hour ago. “But I do know that things are changing around here.”
“What does that mean?”