Page 13 of Claimed By the Crown Prince
Dax was on the other side of the kitchen, having just walked in from outside.
He was bare-chested and wearing a pair of short sweatpants. He was drinking from a bottle of water. Laia was aware that he must have been running, or maybe he’d found the gym.
Her gaze seemed to be glued to his chest. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a bare-chested man, but it felt like it.
He was...sublime. Broad and exquisitely muscled. A light smattering of hair across his pectorals met in a line that dissected his abdominal muscles and continued down under the top of his shorts...
Laia raised her eyes, cheeks on fire. Dammit, why couldn’t she be cool? She’d never needed to be cool more than now. She felt ridiculously overdressed, in a loose linen sleeveless shirt and loose trousers. Then she noticed something else. A dark mark high over one pectoral.
He walked closer. She could see that it was a tattoo.
‘You have a tattoo.’
She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. It wasn’t as if this man didn’t have a reputation for being a rebel already.
The ink drawing was surprisingly delicate and beautiful. An intricate birdcage with a closed door and a bird inside. For some reason it made Laia feel a little sad.
‘The bird is caged.’
She looked at Dax and saw he was watching her with a wary expression. It diffused something inside her...as if she’d discovered a chink in his armour.
‘Yes, the bird is caged.’
‘Does it mean something?’
An expression crossed his face so fleetingly that she might have imagined it, but she knew she hadn’t. It had beenpain.
He shrugged minutely. ‘It was done on a drunken whim. It means whatever you want it to mean.’
‘Drunken tattoos aren’t usually as...considered.’
He arched a brow. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell me what you think it means?’
The air around them seemed to have grown thick and charged. Laia was glad of the big solid island between them.
She changed the subject. ‘Did you go for a run?’ she babbled. ‘We have a gym, too, fully equipped.’
‘I found the gym, thank you.’
She put some fruit and yoghurt into a bowl and said, ‘Please, help yourself to whatever you’d like. There’s fresh coffee.’
She moved to a table on the terrace before Dax could get too close as he filled his own plate with a little of everything. He was a big man—he undoubtedly had a healthy appetite.
Not just for food, whispered a little wicked voice.
Laia tensed all over as Dax came over and joined her at the table.
He stopped before sitting down. ‘Do you mind?’
Yes. She shook her head. ‘Of course not.’
He sat down. Laia felt uptight. His chest filled her peripheral vision. She wanted to ask him to put a top on, but they were in the tropics. It was entirely practical to wear as little as possible. His skin gleamed. From the humidity or from exertion? She had an urge to go closer, to breathe in his scent.
This awareness of herself as a woman and him as a very masculine man made her skin prickle uncomfortably. She cursed silently. Why couldn’t she be immune to him?
‘So, this island...it belongs to you?’ he asked.
Laia nodded, glad of a diversion from her increasingly heated thoughts. ‘It was my mother’s—left to her by an uncle who lived here his whole life.’