The light goes on. “Which is why His Royal Hotness the Second was always the playboy and why you were always—”
“The stick-in-the-mud. Yep. Definitely the reason.”
“I was going to say the sexy, responsible one…”
He laughs, but it lacks his usual humor. “Yeah, I bet that was what you were going to say.” He takes another, longer, sip of his wine.
“You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met,” I tell him. “And since my omelet told you everything there is to know about me, you know I don’t give compliments where they aren’t deserved.”
He glances down and I know he’s thinking about his scars, about all the terrible things that were done to his beautiful body. To him. And I want to say something; I really, really do. But I don’t know what to say or how to say it. Don’t know how to tell him that the strength it took to endure that and come out still sane and good on the other side is one of the sexiest, most awe-inspiring things about him.
I settle for bringing his hand to my lips and pressing a kiss in the center of his palm.
“What’s it like?” I finally ask. Then, because I don’t want him to think I’m asking about the torture, I hasten to add, “Living in a fishbowl your whole life, I mean. Growing up knowing that one day you’ll have the responsibility of ruling a country.”
“It is what it is, you know?”
“Actually, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.” I snag his gaze with mine and hold it. “And that’s a cop-out answer.”
“No, it’s not.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course it is. It doesn’t say any—”
“It says everything,” he interrupts. “Unlike a kid who grows up thinking maybe he’d like to be a doctor or an astronaut or run for president someday, I knew who and what I was going to become from the time I learned to speak. Being king isn’t a job. It isn’t something you put on in the morning and take off at the end of the day. It’s who you are every second of every minute of every day. So, yeah, it is what it is.”
“And now your father—and members of Parliament—are trying to take all that away from you.” The ugly truth seems to echo off the walls around us. Or maybe it’s just that it’s echoing in my brain, repeating again and again and again as the reality of his situation finally sinks in. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I squeeze his hand in a pathetically ineffective attempt at comfort.
His chair squeaks across the floor as he shoves back from the table—from me—in a hurry. “It is what it is.”
Maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the most unfair thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Garrett has given everything to this country his entire life—he was tortured for this country—and now his father is going to snatch it all away from him? Not just the position of being king, but his whole identity? Everything he’s ever been? Everything he’s ever been allowed to be?
It’s one of the most awful things I can imagine. It makes me want to storm the castle and give the King a piece of my mind—and a couple of good, hard punches to the nose. More, it makes me want to pull Garrett close, to hold him tight and promise him that it’s going to be okay. That we’ll find a way to make this ridiculous scheme work.
No wonder Kian and the palace press secretary were willing to jump on the first thing that came along that might pressure the King to do right by his son. Garrett has given his life to Wildemar—would have given his life for Wildemar if that’s what the domestic terrorists who took him had demanded. That kind of sacrifice and loyalty should be rewarded, not shunted aside because he’s damaged freaking goods.
I want to tell him so, but I’m afraid of overstepping my bounds here. I’m just the pretend girlfriend who is barely an hour out of his bed for the first time. It doesn’t exactly give me the right to cast aspersions on his father, no matter how big of a jerk he is.
But I can’t leave him like this, either, jaw clenched and shoulders rigid as he scrapes half his omelet into the trash. As he pours himself another glass of wine and downs it in one long swallow.
So I do the only thing I can, the only thing I know he’ll accept from me. I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist. I pull him close, until my breasts are pressing into his back and my warmth can seep into his suddenly cold skin.
Garrett shudders once, twice, his body going limp against mine.
We stand like that—me giving comfort and Garrett taking it the only way he knows how—for several long minutes. It soothes me as much as it does him, which is strange considering I didn’t know I needed to be soothed.
It feels good, so good that I could stand here like this all night. Just holding him. Just feeling him breathe against me. It’s an odd feeling for a woman who has spent her life perfecting the fuck-and-run, but it’s not an unsafe one. At least not now, when I can hear his heart beating beneath my ear.
I kiss him because I can’t not kiss him, my lips skimming across his back, right below his shoulder blades. It’s one more gesture of comfort for both of us, one more way for me to feel close to him right now.
And maybe it works that way, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But I do know that it shatters something inside of him—some restraint or control I didn’t even know he was struggling with.
Because, suddenly, he’s turning around and pulling me straight off the ground.
Grabbing my legs and wrapping them around his waist.
Slamming his mouth down on mine.
Ravenously taking what I am suddenly just as desperate to give him.
Chapter 19
Garrett
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My brain stops working the second Lola wraps those warm, shapely legs of hers around my waist and all I can think is fuck.
Fuck, I want her.
Fuck, I need her.
Fuck, I have to have her.
I don’t care if this is a bad idea, don’t give a fuck if our relationship is supposed to be for the gossip columns only. The plan doesn’t matter right now. Nothing does but getting inside her and feeling her come on my dick.
I’ve fucked a bunch of women since I lost the throne and none of them made me feel like this. No one has ever made me feel like Lola does—like the whole prince thing doesn’t matter. Like she wants me, Garrett, and not His Royal Hotness.
It’s a strange feeling but an exhilarating one. An intoxicating one.
She shifts a little, trying to get closer, and I slide my hands under her robe so I can cup her ass and support her. Now that I’ve got her exactly where I want her, the last thing I want to do is drop her. Or let her go.
I rip my mouth from hers to say, “Lola, sweetheart, I need—”
“Yes!” It’s almost a wail as she pulls my mouth back to hers.
“You didn’t give me a chance to ask—”
“It doesn’t matter. The answer’s yes.”
“Thank fuck.”
I start walking her across the room and she moans at the motion, tilting her head back so that her long, slender neck is exposed to my gaze. I take instant advantage, sliding my mouth across her jaw and down her throat to her collarbone, licking and nibbling every inch of soft, sweet skin in between. I pause at the hollow of her throat, sucking at the sensitive skin there until I’ve left a bruise that can’t be ignored. Until I leave a mark that can’t be ignored.
It’s not like me, this marking up a woman like she’s my personal plaything. But with Lola, I can’t help myself. I want something tangible on her skin, something I can look at that proves she’s mine. Something that tells every other man out there the same thing.
She calls out when I finally lift my mouth from her skin, then rocks her lower body against mine in a desperate invitation that has me hanging onto control by my fingertips.
She really is the sexiest fucking woman I’ve ever lai
d eyes—or hands—on. Is it any wonder she brings out every primitive instinct that I’ve got?
I tighten my grip on her ass as I speed my progress across the room and I don’t stop until I’ve got her backed up against the wall. Her legs and arms are still twined around me, but at least now I have the leverage to do what I want with her. Which is every fucking thing I can think of and some that haven’t even been invented yet.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her, pressing kisses to her mouth, her throat, the tops of her breasts. “So fucking gorgeous that I can’t believe I even get to touch you.”
She moans, calls out my name. In response, I slide my hands under her rear, run them up and down her spine, and tell her over and over again how hot she is. How much I want her. How fucking sexy she is and how fucking hard she gets me.
By the time I’m done, her breath is coming in a series of hot little pants. Her hands are tugging at my hair, her legs wrapped tight around my waist, her sex nestled hot and wet against my cock. And all I can think is don’t lose it, don’t fucking lose it. Not now, not yet.
Not when I haven’t gotten her there yet.
But already I’m close, so fucking close. Already I want nothing more than to bury myself inside her and feel her clench around me when I come. I thought she’d be disgusted when she saw the scars on my body—God knows I am—but she didn’t say a word. Hell, she barely glanced at them.
I’ve kept them hidden from everyone but the doctors, too ashamed to let anyone see what was done to me. What I let them do to me. But with Lola—she doesn’t make me feel like less of a man for having been tortured. She doesn’t make me feel like less of anything. In fact, she’s just seen them and still she’s practically begging me to take her, to make her come.
No way am I going to disappoint her.
With that thought in mind, I rip her belt open.
Slide her robe over her shoulders onto the floor.
Slam her back against the wall.
Swallow her cries as her bare skin hits the cold wall and she arches against me.
“You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen,” I tell her, kissing my way along her collarbone and over to her shoulder. It’s ridiculous how hot I find this little patch of her—then again, I find everything about her sexy. Especially the little clusters of freckles that dance across her shoulders. And the little mole on the outer curve of her left breast. And the soft pink of her nipples.
“Everything about you makes me hot,” I whisper against her skin. She moans a little, rocks her hips against mine, and I see fucking stars at the feel of her pussy—warm and wet and welcoming—against the hardness of my dick. In self-defense, I grab her hip, pressing more firmly against her in a last-ditch attempt to hold her still as I continue to press wet, open-mouthed kisses across her shoulder and down her bicep.
“The way your skin turns pink when you’re turned on.” I lick across the upper curve of first one breast and then the other.
“The way your nipples always harden before I even touch them.” I take one in my mouth and suck hard enough to have her calling out my name.
“The broken, breathy sounds you make when you want me inside you.” I bite down gently, then lave my tongue around her areola as she lets loose with the sounds I just described.
“The way your hands rake down my back when I touch your pussy.” I slip a hand between us and circle her clit with my thumb.
She cries out then, a loud, desperate sound that has my dick leaking pre-cum and every nerve ending in my body standing on end.
I do it again, reveling in the way her hands clutch at my shoulders.
At the way her head rocks back and forth against the wall.
At the way her legs tighten around my hips and her fingernails dig into my skin as she begs, “Please, please, please.”
“Just looking at you makes me harder than I’ve ever been. And being inside you—” I thrust against the very heart of her at the same time I pinch her clit between my thumb and forefinger. “Being inside you makes me—”
I break off as she comes, her arms and legs and hands tightening around me as she brokenly calls my name.
Thank God.
“Fuck, Lola.” I keep my thumb on her clit, working her through it even as I slip two fingers inside of her because there is nothing, nothing, that I love more than the way she clenches around me. The way her body holds onto a part of me like she never, never wants to let it go.
I hold her there, pressed against the wall, until the tremors stop.
Until her breathing returns to normal and she sleepily opens her eyes.
Until she smiles at me and reaches a still shaking hand up to cup my cheek.
“You okay?” I ask her, pressing a kiss to the soft, tender spot where her shoulder meets her neck.
“More than okay.” She rocks her hips against me. Once, twice. Then again and again, until it’s all I can do to keep from coming like a fucking fourteen-year-old before I ever get inside her. “But you didn’t—”
I slam my mouth down on hers, cutting her off with a kiss. Because if I hear her say the word come right now, there’s no way I’m going to keep it together. No way I’m not going to wrap her legs around my waist and shove myself inside her. No way I’m not going to fuck her and fuck her and fuck her, until neither one of us can breathe, let alone stand and talk and function.
She kisses me back, bites at my lip, then thrusts her tongue deep in my mouth to tangle with mine.
And then her hands are fumbling between us, guiding me to her.
“Lola—” It’s all I can say, all I can think, as her hand closes around my rock-hard dick. “Lola, Lola, Lola—”
“Fuck me, Garrett. Please.” Her voice is breathless, her eyes pleading as she starts to jack me off, her thumb rubbing back and forth over my tip. I’m so turned on that I’m leaking pre-cum and I know if I leave her to it—if I let her keep doing this for much longer—I’m going to blow like a fucking teenager with his first girl.
The thought takes me higher and I can feel the heat starting in my back, can feel it gathering right at the base of my spine and working its way through my dick. Through my drawn-up balls.
I try one more time to pull away, to set her down. “Condom!” I gasp out with my last bit of willpower. I need to protect her.
“I’m on the pill and I’m clean.” She wraps one hand around my hip and cups my ass in her palm. Her other hand is on my dick, lining me up at her entrance so that all I have to do is take a deep breath and I’ll be inside her.
I hold my breath, try to stay completely still. But it’s so hard, so fucking hard, when she’s spread right in front of me for the taking. I’ve never trusted a woman with birth control before, not when I’ve been schooled since puberty not to take the chance of bringing an illegitimate heir into the picture. But this is Lola and I do trust her, probably more than I should. Definitely more than I want to.
“I’m clean too,” I tell her.
“Then what are you waiting for?” she demands, those beautiful sky-blue eyes of hers fuzzy and a little wet as they stare imploringly into mine. “Garrett, please. I need you, IneedyouIneedyouIneedyouIneedyouIneed—”
It’s the last straw. My control deserts me and with one forward thrust of my hips, I’m buried deep inside of her.
Her wet heat clamps around me and she feels so good—so good—that I nearly come with the first stroke.
With the first lift of her hips against mine.
With the first moan that falls from her lips.
But this is Lola and I need to make it good for her. Need to make her come one more time before I finally let go of everything slamming around inside of me.
“Lola, sweetheart.” I kiss my way up her neck, pausing occasionally to lick at the rivulets of sweat that are running down her skin. Her sweat. My sweat. At th
is point I can’t tell whose it is and I don’t give a shit anyway. Don’t give a shit about anything but feeling her come around me.
“You feel so good,” I tell her as I kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear. “I need you so much. I need—”
“Then fuck me!” she demands, using her free hand to grab my other hip and yank me against her, inside her, hard. She cries out and so do I. Then I’m pumping inside of her in a hard, steady rhythm that has both of us gasping for air as sweat continues to pour down our bodies.
I’m so close that the need to come is a fire in my blood, a haze in my brain, a drive deep within me that I couldn’t hold back even if I wanted to. Being inside Lola feels so good that I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but feel as she tightens her beautiful legs around me and takes me again and again and again.
Dipping my head, I draw her nipple into my mouth. I suck hard at the same moment I slide my thumb around her clit and start to stroke her.
She cries out then, and it’s my name on her lips. My name beating through her blood as she rocks her head against the wall and lets me take her higher. Lets me take her all the way to ecstasy.
She’s coming now, her body clenching rhythmically on my own, and it feels so good that I lose my last tenuous hold on control and fly right over the edge with her. Lola feels it—feels me—and she arches her hips, bites down on my shoulder.
The sharp little stab of pain takes me even higher, has me gasping for her as my orgasm goes on and on and on.
I hold her tight as I empty myself inside of her, pressing my fingers into her hips and my lips against the side of her breast. But she holds me too, her arms wrapped around my shoulders, her fingers tangled in my hair.
“Garrett.” She whispers my name against my skin as she strokes over the scars on my back, delicately tracing them with her fingertips.