Go Luck Yourself (Royals and Romance, #2)

by Sara Raasch

I really was making a concerted effort not to be a prick today.

wait oh ew is hex you did i fall for someone who is basically my brother but goth Better than someone who is Dad but goth.

This situation. Might be getting away from me. I’m in too deep now. So I hold, seething, and the guy chuckles dryly.

Like, for instance, for a totally innocent example, tinsel. Enough to fill a whole study room? This is a horrific use of magic.

There’s a moment. Where I’m staring at the door. And I think to myself, This is my rock bottom. But I might as well find out what the full depth of my rock bottom looks like. Maybe there’s something interesting down here, like my dignity.

Coal beams at me. “You tinsel-bombed the St. Patrick’s Day Prince,” he says. “I have never been more proud of you in my life.”

All these fears, all this anxiety—fuck it all.

“And send me that video. I’m going to put it in one of those digital photo frames and set it above my fireplace.” “Piss off.” “And I’ll engrave it to say Baby’s First Political Incident.”

“Wren.” Coal ignores me. “Can you send him the profiles for—” My phone pings. His jaw drops. “A few hundred years ago, you’d have been burned as a witch.” She makes a noise I swear to god I’ve never heard from her. It takes me a beat to realize she’s laughing. “Thank you, Nicholas. I appreciate that.”

“If you mess up that Eldredge knot, I will personally garrote you with it.”

I know its intent is to represent his home, but all I can think is that he’s trying to look like a ginger Chris Evans from Knives Out. He does look like a ginger Chris Evans from Knives Out. Motherfucker.

I toss back the rest of my whiskey before I can psych myself out. Holy fucking shitballs goddamn.

Like all these books hold possibilities and if I pick the right one, I’ll get swept away somewhere better and righter and truer.

One, you’re going to stop drinking whiskey, you lightweight dumbass.

I’m going to commit a murder at a charity 5k family fun run. That is not how I thought I’d ruin my life. But I’m good with it.

kris. KRIS. surely you have five minutes to text back your king and brother KRISTOPHER pretty sure this is treason

“I think that was the first time in a long, long while when you did something because you wanted it. Not because it fulfilled some requirement you felt was put on you. And I’m proud of you.”

but it’s impossible for me to not make sure joy is my priority. And your joy? Top of the list. Always has been.”

I want to know if he always talks like that when he’s kissing or if he was drunk, because if that’s what he does when he’s sloshed then whatever that tongue of his can do sober is going to completely annihilate me.

I NEED TO STOP HAVING REVELATIONS ABOUT MYSELF AROUND LOCHLANN PATRICK.

“I don’t want better.” My thumbs dig circles into his hips, marking this spot, this moment. “I don’t want a fantasy. I don’t want sweetness. For once in my life, I want to be ruined.”

“Look at you, Kris.” His eyes drag over me again, heavier this time, pupils dark and predatory and visceral. “So sexy standing there, letting me play with you. So fucking good for me.”

I’m falling, falling, and he glides his arm under my back and braces me and I think, maybe, the final landing won’t hurt. Because he’s falling too, and we’re knotted up together, each a parachute, each in a terrifying free fall.

There is no greater measure of value than that which you give to a piece of art. And if the stuff you’re working on is valuable to you, I wanna see it.”

I told you, Kris; I’m na ready to share you with anyone yet. And that includes washing my marks off you.”

“There’s paint everywhere. Ev-ery-where, Loch.” I wave at my crotch. “You turned my dick into abstract impressionism.”

I’m hit with a careening bolt of terror. It doesn’t happen this fast. I cannot have fallen for him this fast.

So be unworthy with me, in this moment, right now. We’re here. We have all day. I showed you part of my soul and we’re next to a bed. So kiss me, you idiot, and be with me.”

I want to know the evolution of his kisses. How today’s will be different from tomorrow or next month or five years from now, how the texture of his lips will change, how sometimes he’ll be aggressive and sometimes he’ll be this and I want to be able to track the differences like constellations. I want to know what it’s like to kiss this man at every stage of his life. Word by word. It’s too big to think of anything else. But I want his forever.