The Royals Series

by Bay, Louise

  “Is it odd for you?” She slid her free hand up my arm, instinctively comforting me. Outside of my grandmother, I didn’t know anyone who cared about my happiness.

  “No. I mean, it’s beautiful,” I said, staring up at the dove-gray stone set against the bright-blue sky. “But I don’t have any memories of growing up here.”

  “I’m surprised we’re here. I always assume men will choose denial over anything else.”

  “Denial?”

  “Yes, or compartmentalize. Men seem to be able to just pull down the shutter and move on to the next thing when they face disappointment. Ryder is the best at that. I’ve always envied him for it.”

  “I can do that when the need arises.” I placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I want this weekend to be fun, though, and not all about my family’s past.”

  “Fun?” She stopped stock-still and held my upper arms. “But you’re Logan Steele—you don’t have fun.”

  I rolled my eyes and hoisted her over my shoulder, like I had to get her into the helicopter during the “kidnapping.”

  Just like the first time, she squealed and squirmed, trying to break free, but I held her tight and marched toward the entrance to the hotel.

  “Logan, you’re in big trouble,” she said.

  “Lighten up and have some fun, Darcy,” I replied setting her down on the slate-slabbed floor. “Anyone would think you don’t know how.”

  “Mr. Steele,” the receptionist said, interrupting our faux fight. “We have your suite ready for you. It’s a beautiful room—the last earl had it as his bedroom suite.”

  Darcy squeezed my hand and pressed a kiss to my upper arm.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “Is this weird?” Darcy asked as we climbed the stairs. “We could ask for a change of room.”

  “No, it’s not weird. It’s probably bullshit anyway. And it’s likely to be the nicest room.”

  “I don’t care about having the nicest room—I’m here to spend time with you.”

  “But I care about you having the nicest room.” I’d never taken a woman away before, never shared stuff about my family. I wanted Darcy to enjoy herself, but it was good to remember that Darcy didn’t care about the trappings.

  “When did you get so cute?”

  “Cute?”

  She shrugged as we got to the top of the stairs. “Yeah. Cute.”

  I shook my head. “Oh no, Miss Westbury. Now I’m going to have to prove how very not cute I am.”

  A blush spread across her cheeks. “I’ve been counting on it,” she whispered as I unlocked the bedroom door.

  Somehow, our bags had made it up here before we had, so there was no reason for us to be interrupted. “Put the do not disturb sign on the door,” I said, my cock hardening at the thought of her bent over the four-poster bed in the middle of the room.

  I stood between the big bay window and the end of the bed, looking out onto the manicured lawns. Without asking, once she had closed and locked the door, she came over and began unbuttoning my shirt.

  She pressed her lips against my skin as it was revealed. Such an intimate and welcome addition to what was now a pre-sex routine. She moved quickly, her fingers so used to my shape and movements that I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began. Things were so perfect between us that sometimes it was difficult to remember a time before we were together. A time when I had to direct her more. When I was naked, she stripped down to her underwear and stood before me, coyly awaiting further instruction.

  For the first time, I understood the appeal of monogamy. Why would I want anyone else when I could have Darcy?

  I circled my arms around her, just wanting to hold her close for a few moments.

  She pressed her cheek to my chest and relaxed against me, our bodies molding together. She sighed, and nuzzled closer. God, I loved when she was feisty and clever, but soft and vulnerable Darcy nearly ended me each time I saw her.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” she whispered.

  “Don’t say I’m cute,” I warned.

  She giggled, the sound reverberating in my rib cage.

  I slapped my palm against her ass. “Turn around and hold on.” I tipped my head toward one of the four wooden posts of the bed.

  She bent forward, giving me a fantastic view of her bottom and I followed her, standing close, my thighs brushing against hers as I dug my hand into the front of her underwear. She shivered against me. “Hold tight,” I said. “We’re just getting started…and you’re already so wet.”

  Hooking my thumbs into the sides of her knickers, I pulled them down, allowing me free access to her pussy. She needed to come, fast, then I could take my time, finding new ways to pull pleasure from her incredible body.

  “I’m always like that when I’m with you,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “And it’s all for me. You hear me?” I hated the idea of another man touching her. It had never occurred to me with other women I’d been with, but I hated the thought of any man seeing Darcy how I saw her, having the privilege of fucking her or making her come.

  “Yes,” she panted. “Just for you.”

  I rolled a condom on my straining cock and pushed into her. She gasped, one hand flying behind her as if determined to stop me from going any further.

  “Too much?”

  “I don’t know if I can keep quiet. It’s too good.” She tried to catch the breath I’d chased from her.

  “So don’t,” I said, pulling out and thrusting in harder this time.

  She let out a muffled moan. “Logan,” she said. “Everyone will hear.”

  “Yes,” I said, beginning my rhythm, racing after her orgasm. “Anyone passing our door will hear me fucking you, will hear how good it is—they’ll know what I can do to you. How crazy it makes you.”

  Her groans came regularly, echoing around the room. There was no holding back. Why she thought she could, I’d never understand. It wasn’t who we were when we were together. We were open and honest and completely ourselves—it didn’t matter if we were talking or fucking or toasting marshmallows.

  Desire for her intensified with each thrust, and the effort it took to hold myself back created a sheen of sweat over my skin. I grunted and reached around for her engorged and throbbing clit.

  “Logan,” she screamed and with just a gentle stroke, her legs began to shake and her body arched. The thought that I had such power over her set my orgasm free, and I covered her back with my front and pushed into her, unable to stop, wanting to be as close to her as I possibly could be.

  Panting and breathless, I guided her to the bed and pulled her into my arms. “Sometimes I worry I like you too much,” she said, her tiny voice aimed toward my chest.

  “Don’t worry about that.” I understood what she meant. I’d wondered what it meant and where it would lead, but I had to push it to the back of my mind or those alarm bells got too loud. “I think we just stay in the here and now. Just the two of us.”

  Her rib cage rose and fell, her breasts expanding against my chest and causing my cock to twitch. I’d have to have her again soon.

  “Here and now?”

  “Yeah,” I said, tipping her onto her back, rolling on a condom and positioning myself between her legs, my dick laying gently against her wet pussy.

  “I think I need more than that. What are we aiming for?” she asked. “How do you feel?”

  Her questions were getting more difficult and would require me to think about things that I wasn’t used to considering. I’d been waiting, almost daring my feelings for Darcy to fade or disappear, but instead with every moment I spent with her, they strengthened, pulling me into a place I’d never been before.

  She wanted to know who we were to each other, if this would last forever, if I loved her. “I don’t know,” I whispered in response to all of them. It was the only answer I had, but it was an honest one. I had no idea of how to navigate a relationship, no skills at having anyon
e other than my grandmother counting on me.

  I plunged into her slowly, getting as deep as I could, relishing the pressure of her around my erection, the way her eyes watered, and her mouth opened as if she were readying herself for her sounds that would rip, unconstrained, from her throat.

  She exhaled as I withdrew and slid her hands up over her head, readying herself for more. I kissed her collarbone in a thank you. We didn’t need to ask each other anymore, we knew what the other liked, responded to, what would make each other wild. And in that moment, one thing became obvious.

  She was everything to me. I wanted this to last forever.

  Was that love?

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her as our bodies moved together. A low hum dragged across my skin—half my pleasure, half hers. She fascinated me. Everything about her was interesting, and I wanted to know more every time I found out something new. Like how long into the autumn would her freckles last? Why had she never had her ears pierced? Had she ever been in love before?

  I grabbed one of her hands in mine. This wasn’t just fucking anymore. What we had together was so much more than that. Emotion coated every physical move we made. I dipped my head and kissed her, our tongues melting together, through our pants, groans and declarations of pleasure.

  Her body tightened underneath me and I could tell she was just seconds away from coming. I wanted to share it with her. I tightened my fingers in hers, deepened our kiss and pushed in, in urgent, desperate strokes. Fuck, she felt too good.

  “Logan,” she cried, her orgasm washing over her as mine unraveled, shooting up my spine and spilling out of every pore.

  “Fuck,” I spat and collapsed on top of her. Her fingers stroked delicately up my back as we descended from the airless atmosphere we’d travelled to.

  “Logan,” she whispered again. “I love you.”

  The words boomed in my ears. She didn’t have to say it. I felt it in every look, every touch. But she had said it. And the alarm bells rang through my thoughts.

  I rolled off her and pulled her into the crook of my arm, wanting to keep her wrapped up in me until it was dark and hunger made us move.

  “I need you to be patient with me.” I’d never believed in love. Not really. Not for me anyway. The idea of it was always too ephemeral for me to take seriously.

  I was always so focused on the goals I could measure, on the things I could see. The deals, balance sheets and profit margins. Love had never been a focus. Deliberately so.

  I’d mapped my life out years before and I’d stuck to my path ruthlessly and without compromise. My plan hadn’t included love or a family—anyone or anything that I could let down or disappoint I’d erased as a possibility.

  My father had let his heart rule his head at every turn, which had caused everyone in my family pain. I’d spent my life trying to be everything he wasn’t. He’d had a wife and a family—was that what had caused his spiral of decline? Is that what commitment, promises, duty did? I was avoiding being like him at every turn.

  And now, faced with Darcy, my plans didn’t seem enough anymore. I wanted more. I wanted her.

  “I know,” she said, smoothing her hand across my chest.

  She knew me better than to push and demand. More than that, she didn’t want a response on those terms. We weren’t playing quid pro quo—we weren’t playing at all. This was real life, and I couldn’t imagine my world without Darcy in it. I just didn’t know whether abandoning my plans for her was worth the risk.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Darcy

  I was trying to stay calm and not worry about how a million people were about to descend on Woolton Hall tomorrow for the summer party. How my list of things to do was growing, not shrinking, and what the consequences might be of my next trip to the bathroom.

  There was no need to freak out.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Aurora said.

  “Can you promise that?” I asked, taking the paper bag from her.

  “It’s probably all the stress from the summer party—you know how you can get.”

  I nodded. That had to be it. Disrupted periods and headaches were always how I could tell I was stressed out. Except I hadn’t had a single headache in the run up to the summer party, but my period was nearly two weeks late.

  “I don’t know how you could have left it this long to test. I freak out if I’m a day late.”

  “I’ve had a lot going on. I only checked the calendar yesterday, and anyway, we’ve always used condoms.” And of course, I hadn’t wanted to consider the possibility of being pregnant. But the longer I’d waited to test, the more the anxiety had grown in my chest until it was threatening to overwhelm my entire body.

  “Should I have told Logan?” I asked, picking at the cellophaned box.

  “That your period is late?”

  “Yeah, and that I’m taking a pregnancy test.” Things had evened out a little since Scotland and we’d gone back to our routine of spending much of every weekend together without interruption from family. The questions I had about our future had faded as his warm smiles and strong body had taken over. He was with me, and that was all that mattered.

  “I don’t know. I’ve not spent much time with you two together, so I don’t know what your relationship is like.”

  Logan and I still didn’t spend much time together with anyone—I wasn’t even sure if his grandmother knew about us. I didn’t know if he considered me his girlfriend.

  He’d asked me to be patient. And so long as we remained cocooned from the world, it didn’t seem like a big deal. And it allowed me to get comfortable with loving him. To settle with the knowledge that it was the first time I’d ever been in love. It was less scary for me now.

  “We’re taking things slowly.” I knew he cared for me. I believed him when he said he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else. His face lit up when he saw me, he tried to steal moments from his life in London to be with me. All the evidence was positive. That was enough.

  For now.

  Aurora winced. “I don’t get it. He’s coming tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “And how will he be introduced? As your friend who you hang out with?”

  “Don’t.”

  Aurora had liked the fact that he’d had dinner with Scarlett and Ryder, but suspicious that nothing had moved on from there. But when I was with Logan, everything was perfect. But when I saw us from a distance, I understood where Aurora was coming from.

  “You’ll have to tell him if the test is positive, and there’s only one way to find out.” She tipped her head toward my bathroom.

  I blew out a breath and headed through the door. “There’s no need to freak out,” I told myself.

  Peeing on a stick sounded simpler than it actually was, but eventually I managed to catch enough pee for the test.

  “Are you done?” Aurora asked through the bathroom door.

  I set the stick on the counter and stared at it. “Yeah. I think so.”

  Aurora opened the door and we both continued to stare. “How long does it take?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s find out, Miss Practical.” She took the instructions from the box. “Three minutes. And we’re looking for a blue cross.”

  “A blue cross is negative?” I asked.

  “Positive.”

  “So a blue cross is not what we’re looking for.” I didn’t want to be pregnant, did I? Logan and I hadn’t discussed next week, let alone a life together. But I couldn’t deny that there was part of me that was hoping to see two lines and not one.

  “Right.”

  We both stared at the stick, waiting for something to happen.

  “Okay, that’s four minutes, according to my phone,” Aurora said. “And that’s just one blue line. No cross.”

  “Give me that.” I pulled the instructions from her and re-read them. A blue line meant negative. A blue cross was positive.

  And I was staring at just one
line.

  That was good. Right? “So I’m not pregnant.”

  “How do you feel?” Aurora leaned on the counter.

  “Relieved, of course.” It was the quickest, cleanest, easiest outcome for everyone involved. But a baby? A family of my own? Gurgles and giggles echoing through Woolton Hall? That could have been wonderful.

  “Did you play out in your head what would have happened if it had been positive?”

  “No!” I paused. “Well, maybe a little. I mean, I love being an aunt and everything, I really do, but I want my own children at some point.”

  She pulled me into a hug.

  “If I’d been pregnant, even if Logan hadn’t been interested, I would have handled it, you know?” I tried to keep my voice from faltering. I’d gotten the result that I’d wanted, but at the same time, an alternate reality had been snatched from me. Having seen that single blue line appear, I was clearer than ever that a family was what I wanted. That was what I was aiming for. I just wasn’t sure it was what Logan wanted.

  “This way, you have more control. You have a chance to figure out if Logan is the one—find out if he really wants a family.”

  I nodded against her shoulder. “I know. I know. This is good. I’m not ready. Logan and I certainly aren’t ready. It’s all good.” I pulled back and leaned toward the mirror, wiping under my eyes, and removing the escaped mascara. But I would have gotten myself ready. And next time I wanted to be ready.

  When I took my next pregnancy test, I wanted Logan to be with me and I wanted us both to be hoping for a blue cross.

  “And it means you can get drunk at the party tomorrow.”

  “Double win,” I said, grinning a little more widely than was necessary.

  “Is everything ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Scarlett, Ryder and the kids are coming up from London this afternoon. They’ve been doing museums. Caterers arrive tomorrow.”

  “Caterers? How do Cook and Mrs. MacBee feel about that?”

  I sighed. “Well, Cook’s doing puddings and the caterers will do everything else. I’ve even had them do the drinks. Lane wasn’t happy at first, but I want the staff to enjoy the day. Lane will still have to organize and supervise, but someone else will be doing most of the work.”