There was no backing out once I was in Carlos' bedroom. Even if I wanted to turn around, which I didn't, it was way too late. The door hadn't made a sound when I slipped inside, but that didn't mean it would stay quiet if I tried to chicken out and run. Knowing my luck, I'd trip and fall in my rush and Carlos' guards would barge in. They'd catch me in my super slutty negligee, running away from trying to seduce their prince. They'd probably think I was some kind of crazy girl trying to poison him in his sleep. So don't chicken out, Paula, I told myself, blinking until my eyes got used to the dark. You want this. You totally want this. Want him. I tried to act like a cool spy girl and took a couple of steps toward one side of his huge California king-sized sleigh bed. In the pitch black, I had to go by memory of the room's layout from the tour of the whole palace the day before. After the nine-hour flight on his private jet, Carlos had brought the whole group, Maria, Juan, Nor and me, up to his room to chill. He blushed like a tomato when we all stood there staring at how big it was. Like he could say, "Yeah, my bedroom's the size of a chapel but hey, we're still on for a game of Call of Duty before we crash, right?" and we'd just be fine with it. That was Carlos for you. So modest. And so damn sexy it hurt to look at him. With his dark black hair, icy-blue eyes and athlete's body, it was no wonder he had so many girls to pick from for senior prom, like a farmer choosing the best cow at a show. It had hurt that he hadn't asked me, but I was long over that. Sort of. Because tonight, I was going to have the best sex of my life. I was being totally unfair to Sergio, the jerk, because even with the messy way we broke up, he was pretty good. Oh yeah. So good he never gave you an orgasm. Sergio Foster might have looked like a Greek god, but I had never felt what my best friend Maria called "the big Paula." It feels a whole lot unrealistic to me, just like a myth. That didn't mean I hadn't gotten wet whenever I came to Corfu for Christmas and saw my ex-boyfriend. That wasn't the problem. Maybe it wasn't Sergio, a mean voice in my head said. Maybe it's you. It was with this upsetting thought floating in my head that I tripped over my own feet and went flying right onto the bed. I landed on the guy I liked in a tangle of awkward arms and legs. If he had been fast asleep, he sure wasn't anymore the second my palm hit his face. "The hell?" he grunted, trying to sit up in a sleepy way. Without thinking, I pushed him back down, glad he couldn't see how red my face must have been. "Shit, I'm so sorry, Carlos. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?" I babbled. As carefully as I could, I moved to sit on top of him, shivering when I felt his bare chest under my hands. "Are you bleeding?" I gently checked his face, relieved to feel no warm blood or bump. He froze. I wished I could see his face right then. I wished I could tell if he was pulling away because it was me, one of his best friends, sneaking into his bedroom at midnight. Before I could chicken out, I lowered my lips to his, or at least where I thought they were. Instead, my mouth hit his tight jaw. It was unusually rough with stubble and that only made it sexier. Slowly, I kissed my way up to his lips, praying he wouldn't pull away or tell me to get the hell out. Which was a real chance at this point. But then he kissed me back. One big hand flew to the back of my head to keep me there. A rush of hot need hit my stomach and before I knew it, his tongue was in my mouth. Just like I thought, Carlos Sebastian the Third knew how to kiss. He kept tasting me, pulling my bottom lip into the warm heat of his mouth. I pulled back, breathing hard, my heart pounding fast against my chest. Carlos let out a low sound of complaint, his hands sliding down my sides and to my legs on either side of him. I pulled the thin fabric of my negligee over my head and tossed it behind me, now completely naked. I hadn't been naked with any guy but Derek, but I was okay enough with my body not to feel too shy. Besides, it was totally dark in here. The moon was hidden by clouds. Carlos couldn't see, only feel. "I want you to touch me, Carlos," I whispered, finding his hands, leaning forward and putting them on my chest. His hands were huge and warm, and when they squeezed my breasts right away, I almost lost it. Almost slowly, Carlos traced a circle around both hard nipples before pulling and stretching them with skilled fingers. I cried out before I could stop myself. The feel of his rough skin against my sensitive nipples was so good it hurt. I pressed against him, grinding without thinking against what I knew was his growing hardness under the covers. Hot and hard, it hit me right there. Carlos Orlov the damn Third was hard for me. One hand left my breast, tracing heat down my stomach before cupping the throbbing spot between my thighs. A loud moan slipped out before I could stop it, but Carlos didn't tell me to be quiet. Come to think of it, he hadn't said much, just cursed when I landed on him. "Please," I begged, when it felt like minutes had passed of him not touching me where I needed it most. He shifted under me and ran his finger along my opening, stopping at the swollen tip of my clit. He pulled his fingers away and I made a soft sound of protest. In the quiet that followed, I heard the clear sucking sound that told me he had just tasted me on himself. "Oh," I whispered, wishing I had seen that. I was full of mixed feelings. "That's so hot." And then his finger pushed into me. I yelped and arched up before giving in to the feeling and rocking against him. He brought his thumb to my clit, rubbing it fast while he slid another finger inside me. I let out another sharp cry, shaking when he curled a finger and found another myth I had heard about, my G-spot. I knew that was what it was because right then, just like that, I came apart over his hand and came. Shakes ran through my body and bright spots danced in front of my eyes. My climax had surprised me, even though I had sensed that the strong need to pee had nothing to do with my bladder and everything to do with the guy fingering me. I wanted to cry with thanks. It wasn't me. There was nothing wrong with me. I could come. "Thank you," I breathed on a sob, reaching down and holding Carlos's face with my hands. Leaning forward, I kissed him, finding his lips with no trouble. His tongue flicked out to trace the edge of my lips before I opened them and let him in. Groaning, he kicked the covers away from under me and that was how I found out he slept naked. Nothing sexier. The kiss changed when I felt his hardness press against my inner thighs. His tongue took over my mouth, attacked my tongue. His groans got louder, more desperate. I sucked on his lower lip, biting it and shaking when he let out a rough curse. Pulling my lips from his, I said, "Condom," and sat up, blood rushing in my ears. "Oh crap. I forgot!" Probably because you didn't think you'd get this far. Carlos's breathing was rough and his body shook with held-back need. I was so stupid. So, so stupid. What if I hadn't said anything and he had come inside me? What if I got pregnant and had to explain it to Dad and Claire? Dad would come after Carlos with a big knife and a gun. He'd get arrested for killing the heir to the Ruslavic throne and my brother Liam wouldn't have anyone to play baseball with. Claire would never leave him and would probably waste away, crying herself to sleep every night without her one true love and hating me in her mind. All because I didn't think of a condom.

I felt Carlos move under me and reach for his nightstand. Without pushing me off, the drawer opened and after searching for a few seconds, he closed it again. The sound of foil made my heart beat faster. "Oh. I should have known," I said softly. Carlos wasn't a player but he did get some action. I just hadn't expected he brought girls to his family castle. He snorted. I lifted myself off him and waited for him to roll the latex on, feeling less sure of myself by the second. What if Derek had cheated on me because I was such a bad lay? The thought had hit me before but I wasn't about to let that stop what would be the best I'd ever had. Carlos had given me an orgasm. I owed it to him to give him the same. Heck, I owed him my life. "Come here," I hissed, blindly grabbing his head and pulling him into a breathless kiss. He matched my heat, settling between my open thighs without breaking the kiss. My hands went to his broad shoulders, holding them tight as his mouth took mine. Before I knew it, I was squirming for contact with his cock. He chuckled, a low and sexy sound that made me even wetter. Reaching down between us, I grabbed his hardness. The laugh on his lips died and turned into a painful groan. He was huge. So huge I couldn't get my whole hand around him. So huge I started doing math in my head to figure out how much he would stretch me. So the rumors are true, I thought, happy beyond belief. Squeezing, I pulled another groan from his mouth. "Stop," he said in a rough voice, stilling my hand. "I want you," I murmured, moving impatiently under him. I sighed when I felt him at my entrance, the thick tip of his cock running along the slit of my pussy. "Shit," I hissed when he nudged my clit. "Ah, please!" He slowly pushed into me and I made a soft sound, wanting more. Tilting my hips to take him, I ran my hands down his back and dug my fingernails into the hard muscles of his ass, forcing him into me all the way and pressing my breasts against his chest. Pain, sharp yet good, throbbed through me from taking someone so big. Derek wasn't small by any means, but I was, as he'd told me, extremely tight. Hearing Carlos's sharp breath further proved that. "Big," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. But just as I was getting used to his size, he pushed in deeper and my eyes snapped open. I cried out and he stopped, his whole body tense. "I'm okay," I said quickly, afraid he'd pull out. "Don't hold back." It seemed like the right thing to say. It was what I wanted, after all. Lowering his face into the curve of my neck, Carlos cursed against my skin before moving inside me. "Oh boy," I choked out, tilting my hips to get more pressure inside me. "Wow." Moving faster, Carlos's thrusts and pulls took my breath away. Catching my breath, I grabbed at his ass once more, feeling the muscle tighten under my fingers. He hooked a hand behind my knee and wrapped my leg around his waist, then plunged into me again. I arched off the bed, crying out. Eyes half closed, I moaned his name. He paused, his heart racing against mine. "What?" I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. "What are you doing? Keep going!" I'd heard of guys who brought girls to the edge of orgasm, only to pull out and walk away. It was said to be the meanest kind of torture but since I hadn't ever had an orgasm, I hadn't worried about that. Tonight was a different story. If Carlos left me hanging like this, I was going to die. "Please," I panted, my voice no more than a breath. Grunting, he thrust into me with no mercy, his cock hitting that spot. I moaned, moving against him, desperate to feel that again. "Come," he said, his voice thick. I was going to. So close. So, so close. Tightness. Pressure. So much. Too much. I came, letting go of everything I had. Carlos was pumping hard inside me and for one scary moment, I thought he'd tear me apart. But a beautiful thing happened. Arching his back and letting out a deep animal sound, he came, his whole body tightening and then releasing. Collapsing onto me, he almost crushed me. With a shaky hand, I reached up and ran my hand through the damp curls of his head, looping a lock around my finger. Curls? I thought, quickly pulling my hand back. Carlos's hair was cut short to his head. Less than an inch of hair. Way too short to be curly. Oh, fuck me. "Get off me or I'll scream," I hissed, crashing down from the good feelings so fast my head spun. He laughed. "Oh, but you have been screaming," he said, and he sounded nothing like Carlos. For starters, his voice was a hundred times deeper. And he had an accent. Carlos, who'd basically grown up in the States, didn't. Lifting himself out of me, the stranger rolled onto one side of the bed. Ignoring the empty feeling, I took a deep breath and sat up, pain echoing through my whole lower half. "Who the hell are you?" I demanded, reaching around for a bedside lamp, if there even was one. "Who the hell are you?" he shot back, beating me to it and turning a light on. He turned back and looked me over. A look I couldn't name crossed his face. I stared. I couldn't help it. Couldn't hide it. This was no fresh-out-of-high-school Carlos. No, this was an unshaven, icy-blue eyed man. A naked, unshaven, icy-blue eyed man. Who had been inside me minutes ago. Making me come. Hard. Muscular with a Roman nose and full lips, it was his hair that really held my attention. Thick and curly, it hung over his forehead, wet from the hard work with me. The fact that it wasn't going gray in places was a relief. At this rate, I put him somewhere in his twenties. "I kept saying Carlos's name. You knew," I blurted, hugging myself. Looking around at what I could finally see was the wrong bedroom, I felt like crying. "You knew who I wanted." He raised a brow. "So you're telling me that Carlos's wife died a year ago and he's already inviting whores to his bed?" Wife? Brushing off the idea that I was a paid slut, I bit out, "What the hell are you talking about? Carlos's only eighteen!" The man's lips parted but no words came out. "Well?" I pushed. He cleared his throat. "You're one of little Carlos's friends?" "Yes! What did you thin..." My voice trailed off. Little Carlos. Meaning there was a big Carlos. Carlos's dad. "Oh, God." The man looked just as grim. "Please don't tell me you're sixteen." "I'm such an idiot," I mumbled, jumping off the messy bed and searching the floor for my negligee. "Such an awkward idiot." Finding the slip and pulling it on, I finally faced the man, the wrong man I'd seduced. "I'm eighteen. Not that it matters because... because I'm so stupid. I took a wrong turn somewhere and you're probably... probably one of the guards and I slept with you!" He laughed again, standing. I quickly looked away from his half-hard state. So much bigger in the light. "Let's not forget that you came to me," he pointed out. My head snapped toward him and I was shocked to see him coming closer. "Let's not forget that a normal person would have stopped me! A normal person would have admitted that he isn't Carlos!" "Any man who'd do that," he said in a low voice, "is either gay or a saint." "Ugh," I snorted in disgust, stepping away from him. In one step he was in front of me, pulling me to him. I suddenly found it hard to breathe under his blue-eyed stare. "Alejandro," he breathed, lowering his lips to mine. I closed my eyes, holding back a moan when his tongue slipped into my mouth to taste me. "What?" I asked in a daze when his mouth left mine. His lips curved into a smile and he let me go. "My name is Alejandro. Alejandro Orlov," he added, and I took a shaky step back because I knew that name. "I'm little Carlos's uncle."

"So," Ethan Hayes said as he helped me out of his car, "are you going to invite me in for coffee?" It was almost midnight and, to be honest, I was glad our Friday night "date" was finally over. My plain apartment building had never looked so good. "Coffee?" I raised a brow. "Unless you like pain or plan to stay up all night for some reason, coffee is the last thing you should drink this late." Bright light spilled across the parking lot, so I could see the funny look of confusion on Ethan's pretty-boy face. "Um, then how about tea?" he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the lobby. I yanked away from him, skipping the polite stuff. "I hate tea. Look, Ethan-" "Juice, then? Soda? Water?" "I know coffee means sex, so cut the crap." I sighed and decided to pull out the big guns. "You're a nice guy so I'll be honest. I don't know what Maria told you but... my ex runs with the Russian mob. He thinks he still owns me somehow, which is why the last guy who took me out..." I stopped and put on a scared look. "Well, let's just say the poor man blinks once for yes and twice for no these days." Ethan fixed his collar, his big puppy eyes wide. "I, uh, see. Well, I'll be on my way and I, um, hope you have a nice life. I mean, night. Bye, Paula." He scrambled back to his Mercedes, tripped and fell, cursing out loud. "Are you okay?" I called, holding back a laugh. "I'm fine!" he yelled, getting up and jumping into his car. Seconds later the tires screeched as he got the hell out of there. "Pussy," I muttered, turning and walking into the building. They usually were. It didn't matter if it was the Russian mob, the Italian mafia or a Mexican cartel. The end of my story was always the same. My dates ran faster than a sprinter on steroids from my made-up dangerous ex. My phone rang once I was in the elevator. I thought about ignoring it until it was clear Maria was not going to stop. "If it isn't Miss Matchmaker herself," I said cheerfully. "Did you tell Ethan the mob story?" Maria shouted in my ear. "The poor guy just threatened to kill me. At midnight, no less! How did you make someone as quiet as Ethan turn scary?" "It's not my fault he's a gullible idiot. Sadly, all the guys you try to set me up with barely have two brain cells to rub together." "All the men I send your way are smart, make good money and look pretty good," Maria said with a sigh. "Don't you want to be happy, Paula?" I felt a quick flash of anger and pushed it down. Maria Mehta was my best and most trusted friend in the world. We had known each other since we were six, but now that we were twenty-four, I sometimes wondered what my life would have been like without her sticking her nose in my private stuff. Like my love life. Married to her high school sweetheart and an old friend of ours, Juan Bennett, Maria had decided to set me up with every single guy in Florida. "You know I do," I said seriously, stepping out of the elevator and walking to my apartment door. "I want what my parents have. But not now. You know about my plan." I could picture Maria rolling her almond-shaped hazel eyes as she snorted. "Oh right. The Plan. Get a good job. Get your own house. Blow your nose and take a dump every two days. Get married at thirty. Did I miss something?" I laughed, unlocking my door and pushing it open. "You're ridiculous but yeah, you get the idea. I'll meet the guy of my dreams when I'm good and ready and not before." Envelopes were scattered in the entrance, clearly pushed under the door. My brow wrinkled. "Damn it, I told this man not to push things under my door. That's why mailboxes were invented." "The super?" I had totally forgotten Maria was still on the phone. "You're still fighting with the old guy?" I picked up the stack of letters and put them on my coffee table. "We're not fighting," I lied. Edgar Fenwick, the building's superintendent, and I had a short history of clashing. He was nosy and I was apparently rude. "He does things on purpose to annoy me. That's it." "Get over it. The guy is like ninety. So Juan has this coworker that I-" "No way," I cut in, shutting that down fast. "No more. Ethan was the last straw." "What was so wrong with Ethan?" I chewed my lower lip. Good question. What was so wrong with Ethan? He was smart and didn't think the Rosetta stone was a piece of jewelry. As an accountant, he was good with numbers yet didn't brag about it. He wasn't the hottest guy but then again, I wasn't shallow. Anymore. Still, he had a nice face and white teeth and maybe if he hadn't asked for coffee, I would have thought about going out with him again. Who was I kidding? "He didn't excite me," I admitted, picking up a thin envelope I knew held my electricity bill. I was no longer a naive teenager who believed in true love and boys like Carlos Orlov, but surely a man had to at least make my heart race and lower parts throb. A long silence came from the other end of the phone before Maria said carefully, "I didn't know that was what you were looking for." "I'm not looking for excitement," I stressed, throwing the envelope back down and picking up another. "Jeez, Maria, this isn't When Harry Met Sally." "And we're back to Miss Cynical. I wondered when she'd show up again." She paused. "Well, Juan has this friend who's been in prison. Tax evasion, but that's still exciting, right?" "Not that kind of excitement. I'm not interested in Wesley Snipes." I turned the cream-colored envelope over without thinking and nearly bit my tongue. "Crap." "What? What is it?" Looking back at me was the Orlov royal seal, a red circle with the black outline of a fox in the middle. Just that picture brought back the memory of the first and only time I had ever set foot in Ruslavia, ever set foot in the royal palace. It had happened years ago yet it felt like only a day had passed since I had my first and only orgasm at the hands of my crush's uncle. Feeling the shame again, I remembered how I had made some weak excuse about being called to join my parents in Corfu for Christmas. My friends, Carlos included, had taken me to the airport and I hadn't been to Ruslavia since, even though I had gotten plenty of invites. Just the idea of seeing Alejandro again made me sick. Something more had happened that night, something I didn't want to think about too hard. He had ruined me for other men. The sad thing was that while it was a strong sexual wake-up for me, it was nothing more than a sleepy roll in the dark with a warm body for him. Desperate to feel wanted, I had thrown myself at Alejandro and didn't even get the luck of being able to say I had no idea who he was. Carlos had talked about his uncle thousands of times before so I knew he had been twenty-six when he gave me the best sex of my life. Carlos's father, the current king, was twenty years older than Alejandro and had pretty much raised him after their father, the old king, died. Eight years older than me, Alejandro should have known better. How could I ever look Carlos in the eye knowing I had slept with his uncle? It was wrong, which was why I hadn't seen my friend in almost six years. What does he want? I thought, holding the envelope away from me like it was a disease. Despite the distance and years, Carlos and I were still friends and I knew I could call him whenever. I knew Carlos's father was alive and well, even remarried, so Carlos wasn't in line for the throne anytime soon. Whatever was in the envelope was so important that he couldn't just pick up the phone and call me. Maybe it's him. "Paula? You there?" "Can I call you back, Maria?" I asked in a rushed voice, and without waiting I hung up. Taking a deep breath, I tore the envelope open. And laughed. Carlos Orlov III was getting married to Elena Sokolova in a month's time. Two first-class plane tickets came with my invitation.