She just had to rinse her face with cold water. Cold, COLD water. A girl did not house a Prince in her bedroom every day. A Prince who appeared out of a plain red rose she had found abandoned in a park on her way to work at the cafe.

Usagi patted the moisture from her flushed cheeks with a fluffy pink towel while warily staring at the...surprising turn of events that was currently sitting on her kitten-decorated bed. This 'turn of events' was actually a HE. A very handsome HE. And that HE had just, moments ago, finished explaining his How's of being here, in her room. He couldn't tell her the Why's - he had no idea.

"...And so I told my mother exactly what I thought of that princess. I do not intend to marry a girl who anybody chooses for me, let alone one who had such cold eyes." He explained in a smokey, relaxed voice while turning a stuffed, smiling marshmallow-looking toy in one hand and observing it with a raised brow.

Usagi inhaled slowly and let the wet towel fall, forgotten, to the floor. She took a hesitant step toward this man whom she could fully imagine as a Prince from another realm. After all, she'd read countless romance novels. And, like the women in those novels, she could not ignore the strong planes of his face, the arrogant lines of his pale jaw, his aquiline nose. Try as she might to listen with concern as he continued his tale, she could not stop her eyes from lowering to his well-formed lips - the lower one finely shaped, a long bow, and the upper lip moving with a satirical curve on each word. Not to mention how his tongue curved on each spoken vowel. Pink. Pink lips. Pink tongue. How could she have ever thought of pink as only a feminine color?

"..Do you understand me, girl?" He snapped, his eyes sharply on her, forcing her shadowed gaze immediately to his - she nodded her head in a daze. But Mamoru was not stupid. He was not the Crown Prince of his kingdom for nothing. Did not spend all of his life in training to take on the role. He was a master of people's actions, reactions, their true thoughts and feelings. He must be, after all, to rule a kingdom. And so, all of his training did not fail him in recognizing that this slip of a girl was nodding uselessly like a puppy after he had wasted his royal breath telling her the important facts of his sudden arrival in her strange land.

He pursed his lips in annoyance, which Usagi noticed immediately and stiffened her back. Head raised high, white neck long and graceful as a Queen, she condescended upon him: "I'm no girl. I am 23 years old, Your Highness." She finished with a cocked, sarcastic brow.

At her declaration, he lowered his gaze to the floor for a moment and a thrill of victory passed through her spine; she hid a smile. Finally! She had talked back to someone...anyone! It felt wonderful! The corner of her mouth quirked in pride as she stared at the top of his glossy black hair, falling forward over his forehead in silky tendrils as he stared down. Her eyes slid lower again - just for a moment, she promised! - to peek through the gaping 'V' of his white lawn shirt, the official clothing of his lands, he had explained. She could see the smooth expanse of the top of his chest, the fine bones of his collar...his...

...belt?

Usagi's eyes snapped up and her body involuntarily (for self-preservation) took a step back as Mamoru silently unfolded from her bed, then raised himself slowly to his full height. He stood unwaveringly in front of her, staring down at her with those cool, azure-blue eyes. He was not smiling, yet Usagi felt her cheeks flood with heat at the seriousness of his gaze. She did not know why, but for a moment she wondered about Rapunzel from fairy tales and how intensely lonely she must have been in her tower, all alone, cherished yet unable to tear her gaze away from her window to the outside world. She blinked away the image yet saw a ghost of that same loneliness now, in the Prince's cool blue eyes. She saw the almost-invisible lines of strain between his jet-black brows and the slight lines at the corners of his mouth which only told her one thing - he did not laugh much.

And at that thought, a strange sense of sorrow filled her chest like boiling water. Her lips parted on an intake of breath as she tried to gather together all of these jumbled thoughts - coming at her in such hurried groupings.

Mamoru, meanwhile, watched her with a quiet strength, considering. Thinking, planning. Finally, the thick line of his dark lashes swayed low, following the line of her slim ankles up to her girlish thighs, the gentle slopes of her upper arms to the her curious cornflower-blue gaze. What can she do, he wondered. How could she have found me and nobody else? His lightly-tanned hand raised slowly, fingers curling to grasp her cold fingertips. Usagi's body started like a deer shaken by the sound of a sudden gunshot miles away. Mamoru's grip tightened around the tips of those fingers, unknowingly warming them, trying to soothe her as his body responded to her fear.

"I do not..." he bit out with difficulty, jaw clenched.

Usagi's golden brows furrowed together in confusion. He tried again.

"I do not often...apologize..." he blew out the last word as if it had tortured him for years.

And then, to Usagi's utter surprise, he fell to his knees with a soft thud on the carpet, pressing his forehead into her tshirt-covered stomach, his hair in silken disarray over the pink fabric. His hand had slid from her fingers, unknowingly smoothing over her skirt-covered hip, a downward trail to gently grasp at the outsides of her naked thighs. She almost closed her eyes at that last sensation. His body shuddered with a powerful intake of air yet Usagi held her breath. For so many years she had prided herself on being a woman that her parents could be proud of. She did not kiss on first dates. Why, she was still saving herself for the man of her dreams! Yet here she was and all the cells in her body were almost quaking to be released from their confined spaces and wrap around this man who had, so suddenly, turned from an arrogant ass into...

"Please...I apologize for my rudeness...I..." Mamoru breathed, interrupting her thoughts. His smooth lips spoke against her flat stomach, breath stirring the fabric. His eyes were lowered in cowardice of using such a phrase to this girl whom he had just known this morning. His strong fingers on her thighs, however, twitched in masculine awareness of her closeness and scent. That knowledge, and the desperation of his situation he felt, made him turn his face to press a cheek against her body.

"You are my only link to this place...and so I must beg you...humbly beg you..."

Usagi's eyes widened as Mamoru shifted his head to gaze up into her eyes. He was serious, she suddenly thought in amazement. There was no sarcasm, no trickery in his voice. Only the pure, raw desperation of a person who has woken up, dazed, and found himself apart from all he has known.

"Will you help me return to my rightful place and land?"