Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Jin: A prince is never alone, except for when he is sleeping.
He’d hit Send just as his brain registered exactly how sad and lonely that statement was. He wished he could take it back, but it was already too late. Wonderful. Could he look any more pathetic to West?
Sighing at himself, he was about to put his phone aside when it flashed with a new message notification. He opened the window again to see a text that made his heart stop and then race nearly out of his chest.
West: You won’t be alone tonight.
9
WESTIN ST. JAMES
Just before midnight, West slipped into Jin’s private chambers when his first soft knock failed to get a response. He tiptoed through the parlor and past the library to the bedroom, where golden light spilled through the open doorway. He thought maybe Jin was on a phone call and hadn’t heard his knock or was in the bathroom.
No, he was in bed. Asleep.
A half smile crooked the corner of his mouth, and he stood staring at the crown prince as he sat on top of the blankets with his back against a mound of pillows. Around him lay several pieces of paper along with a laptop and a tablet. He’d fallen asleep working. The sexy man was dressed in the same outfit West had picked out for him. Except he’d glimpsed a news report from that morning where cameras had followed the prince to the hospital on his visit to see the emperor. He’d been in another sharp, dark suit. The prince had put on the clothes West had picked out again.
West was careful to ignore the strange feeling of warmth that crept across his chest and wrapped his heart. It was indigestion. Nothing to do with the prince.
He wished he could creep out and allow the prince to sleep, but this contract nonsense needed to be settled as quickly as possible for his own safety and the well-being of the entire country.
As silent as a ghost, West crossed the room and sat on the edge of the mattress. His hip pressed to Jin’s and only then did his mind choose to remind him that he’d also picked out a pair of bright-red briefs for Jin to wear. He’d picked them to take Jin’s mind off what had happened in the closet, since they didn’t appear to be the normal kind that he wore. But now he wondered how they’d look against his pale skin, the silken, slightly stretchy material hugging his package.
He jerked his gaze back to Jin’s slumbering face, cursing himself. Enough being a total perv. He was there to protect the crown prince of Gaoxing. Nothing more.
Lifting his left hand, he brushed his knuckles across Jin’s cheek, trying to wake him as gently as possible.
The prince jerked awake on a harsh gasp, as if he were a diver coming up for air. His near-black eyes flashed wide, and he grabbed West’s arm with both hands as he sat up.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” West reassured him in a whisper, even though there was no one around to hear him. “It’s just me. You’re safe. No one else is here. You’re safe.”
“West?” Jin’s sleep-rough voice did dangerous things to his heart. He released West’s arm to rub his eyes with his left hand but continued to hold on with his right as if he were afraid he was going to disappear as he woke up.
“Just me. Sorry to disturb you.”
“No! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” His brain cells must have turned on enough to realize what was going on because he pulled his remaining hand from West’s arm and smiled awkwardly, which only made him appear cuter. His hair was still up in a touji and wrapped in an elegant silver xiaoguan dotted with some small red stones that resembled rubies, but a few light tendrils had slipped loose and were hanging about his face, softening his appearance.
West wasn’t thinking when he reached out and touched one of those loose stands. “How do you sleep with your hair up like that? Doesn’t it hurt?”
Jin reached up and touched the xiaoguan. “I don’t usually. It doesn’t hurt, but it can start to feel heavy by the end of the day. I was going to take my hair down after our meeting. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but tonight’s reading was dry.”
West’s gaze drifted to the reports, and it was enough to snap him out of his fantasies of freeing Jin’s long hair and running his fingers through it. Jin Long Wei wasn’t just some guy he’d crossed paths with in a bar. He was the fucking crown prince of Gaoxing, and West needed to remember that. He wasn’t fit to touch one hair on this man’s head. If anything, he should be apologizing for all the touching he’d done early that morning.