by Shen, L. J.
“Kimo,” Noelani says, her tone stiffening. “Did you need me?”
“It’s time to go.” He glances pointedly at her elbow still in my hand. “Sir, release the queen.”
Not surprisingly, I do not.
I search my Manaroan lexicography for the word weasel and stare the man down.
“It’s fine, Mr. Grimsby.” Noelani pulls away from me and offers a starchy smile, so different from the wide, natural one a few moments ago. “Kimo is my brother-in-law, my son’s uncle. I’ll be fine with him.”
I’m not so sure. Years of dealing with crooked, dirty motherfuckers has honed my instincts to a fine point. My gut is fail-proof, and there’s something I don’t like about the royal weasel taking Noelani’s elbow. There’s a misplaced possessiveness in the way he looks at her, the way he touches her. I don’t know if he covets her body, her crown, or both, but something about me touching her threatens him.
So I do it again.
I gently take her elbow from him and start walking toward the door. He sputters behind us, insulting me in Manaroan he thinks I don’t understand.
“What are you doing?” Noelani asks, slanting a startled look up at me as we exit the ballroom and enter the outer hall. Immediately, four suited security guards fall in step behind us.
“Walking you out.” I stop and turn to the nearest guard. “Is Her Majesty’s car ready?”
Wordlessly, he takes the lead, guiding us in the right direction down a long red-carpeted hall.
“You don’t have to do this,” Noelani says. “I’m fine. I’m used to him.”
“What are you used to?” Inexplicably I tense awaiting her response. She’s the queen. He’s not beating her, I’m sure, or harming her, but something about him makes me hesitant to leave her in his care. Only a fool would be careless with a woman like this, and Kimo strikes me as a fool.
“He just thinks he owns—”
“You?” I cut in, a serrated edge in my voice.
“I was going to say my time.” She shakes her head, a small wry smile kissing her full lips. “I’m not sure why I’ve told you half the things I have tonight, but I hope nothing I’ve said led you to believe I’m being mistreated. I’m not.”
“A person can be mishandled, but not mistreated. I hope you’re not either of those.”
Her dark eyes cloud with recognition, understanding, but before she can respond, a beautiful young woman with dark skin and a scarlet headdress approaches with the queen’s wrap.
“Thank you, Vashti.” Noelani stands still as the young woman slips the wrap over her shoulders.
One of the guards holds the door open to the front entrance where several vehicles are queued up, awaiting dignitaries and leaders. I walk with the queen to the front porch and down the stairs. City lights illuminate the night sky and shine down on the beautiful woman in front of me. She glows, a net of snowflakes startlingly, fleetingly white in her dark hair for a few seconds before they melt. We’re surrounded by her entourage and standing at the center of power for this nation, the center of attention, but there’s a newborn intimacy in the look that binds us together on the steps. It’s too quick and too deep for the few words we’ve exchanged, but everything we said to each other was real. Too few people know how to be real, how to be themselves. That she, who has been molded and shaped all her life, constantly scrutinized and sheltered, has found a way to be real is extraordinary.
“I guess this is it,” she says when we reach the bottom of the steps. A black SUV idles, two guards flanking the open back door. Vashti stands there, too, waiting for the queen to climb in.
“It was an honor meeting you, Your Majesty.” I take her hand and bring it to my mouth for a swift kiss. I’m sure that’s a liberty I’m not allowed, but I wanted to see how her skin would feel under my lips. It’s like warm velvet, and I want to take that tiny thumb into my mouth and suck. She’s so small, and I can only imagine how tight she’d be on my dick.
She’s the queen, you horny motherfucker.
I swallow my ill-timed lust and release her hand. When I look back to her eyes, they’re dark and smoldering. Burning. Longing. She dips her head, acknowledging me and turns on her heel to stride toward the car. I watch from the bottom step, and am about to leave when she strides back, determination in her gait and the set of her mouth.
“You said you grew up in Hawaii, right?” she asks, her voice abrupt and husky.
“Yes.” I frown, unsure why she returned or where this is leading.
“Then you know the significance of the flower in a woman’s hair.”
A woman wears a flower on the left side if she’s taken, and on the right if she’s available.
“Yes, I know.”
With deliberate movements, eyes never leaving mine, she raises her hands to the dusky fall of hair pinned back on the left side. She removes the flower and with visibly shaking hands, repins it behind her right ear. Her breath comes heavy, blowing frosted clouds from her mouth and heaving her breasts.
“I’m at the Imperial Hotel,” she whispers. “The presidential suite. If you’d like to come after midnight, Vashti can be trusted to get you in.”
Shock and frigid air freeze my response for a second, and then my dick and every part of my body except my head answer with a resounding holy shit, yes. But a quick survey of our surroundings tells me her actions have already garnered unwelcome, disapproving scrutiny. It would be one night with her, one wild night if she would give this hot little body over to me to do with as I would like, but tomorrow, I’d be on my way. I’d have memories of that beautiful queen I fucked, but for her . . . the consequences might be more severe.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Your Majesty,” I force myself to say the right words, even though they’re at odds with everything I want from and for her tonight.
The honey brown skin stretched across her cheekbones goes that rose gold with a flush of embarrassment. She tilts her chin, pride and defiance not quite hiding the startled hurt in her eyes.
“Yes, of course, you’re right.” She gathers the long hem of her dress and turns. “I understand. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grimsby.”
“Noelani,” I say before wisdom convinces me that to even say her first name is a violation of protocol, much less all the other ways I want to violate her. “It really is for the best. Trust me.”
She holds my stare over her shoulder, and a bitter smile twists her full lips. “I’m surrounded by men who think they know what’s best for me. Why would you be any different?”
And with that, Her Royal Highness walks away briskly, climbs into the back seat ahead of Vashti, and rides off, trailed by a caravan of cars and guards.
Chapter 3
Noelani
“Will that be all, Your Majesty?” Vashti asks, pausing in the middle of the suite’s sitting room. “I can have some food sent up, if you like? Or drinks, if you don’t like the selection up here?”
I wave a hand. What I want isn’t on any menu, and what’s worse, the more I think about it, the tighter the knot in my throat becomes.
What I need, however, is to wipe the makeup off my face and then scream into one of the presidential suite’s two-thousand-dollar throw pillows. And then maybe cry into a nice, big drink. All things that can only be done alone.
“Thank you, but no,” I tell my secretary. “I think I’ll take a long shower and get some sleep. You should too.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” She hesitates. “If I may be so bold…”
“You always may,” I tell her, forcing a little laugh. “But I’ve got to warn you that I might not always like it.”
She looks down at her stylish but sensible heels as she speaks, like she knows what she’s about to say is embarrassing but she’s determined to say it anyway. “Before the missionaries came to Manaroa, unmarried women—and even married women—had a lot more control over their bodies. Who they took to bed. And often royal women in the palace were able to, ah, discreetly seek comp
anionship from the palace guards.” Her hands twist together, but she keeps going. “My queen, it pains us all to see you so alone. You’ve raised a healthy young son to follow in King Rua’s footsteps, but you don’t have to sacrifice the rest of your life now. Forgive me for saying so, but I saw you and Brock Grimsby tonight, and if you’re interested in a man like him, there are good men in the palace who would be honored to serve their queen in this way.”
A man like him…
How can I explain to Vashti that I have never, ever in my life met a man like Brock Grimsby? Never seen a man of such brooding sinfulness, of such massive, possessive strength?
He didn’t want to possess you, though. Remember?
The knot in my throat pulls tight at something in my chest. Shame maybe, or anger, or hurt. A scrape bloodying the soft curves of my heart.
People call me brave often; people call me generous and strong. But my bravery and strength has always been for Manaroa and its royal family, and for the first time in my entire life, I wanted to be brave for myself. I wanted someone to lavish generosity and strength on me.
I wanted Grim. I wanted his body and his intensity and his gruff, gravelly voice telling me all the things he wanted to do to me in Manaroan and English and every other language he knew. I wanted to feel those giant, muscular thighs against the back of mine as he bent me over a table; I wanted his large, capable hands in my hair pulling my head back so he could suck and lick at my neck. I wanted that magnificent bulge I saw between his legs.
I wanted just one night with someone who saw me. Who wanted me. Someone so strong that for an entire night, I wouldn’t have to be strong at all, because he’d have enough strength for us both.
But we don’t always get what we want.
Or in my case, never.
I force another little laugh so Vashti knows I’m not angry or offended. “I’ve heard the old stories too,” I say, as she lifts her head, looking visibly relieved. “And I know you only want the best for me. Hehu hinted at something similar tonight, and I can’t promise that I’ll find a palace guard to entertain myself, but I can promise that I’ll try to be more cheerful.”
Vashti looks sad. “Your Majesty, you are cheerful. And polite and kind and confident. That’s why we worry. You need something just for you.”
She’s right about that, but talking about this anymore is going to cinch the knot so tight in my throat that speaking will be impossible, and I can’t have that. That would hardly be the way to convince her I’m completely fine and not lonely in the least.
“I’ve got plenty just for me,” I lie, coming away from the window to walk her to the door. “And right now, I have a long shower and Netflix waiting more patiently than any palace lover ever would.”
She seems doubtful, as she should, but she doesn’t press, and for that I’m eternally grateful. Because the minute we say good night and I close the door behind her, my face crumples and my nose stings. I see Grim in my mind’s eye, snow falling feather-soft on those powerful shoulders and on the rugged, masculine planes of his face. I see the small snowflake dissolving on his lower lip as he carefully refused me.
I don’t think that’s a good idea, Your Majesty.
It really is for the best.
Just like everything else in my life. For the best, but not for me.
Vashti already helped me out of my dress and shoes, so I pad silk-robed and barefooted into the bathroom to clean the makeup from my face. I reach up to pluck the diamond flower from my hair—and then stop, deciding to fortify myself with a drink before I relive that embarrassing moment in the snow with Grim.
I wander out to the bar area near the sitting room, mulling over all the high-end booze I find there. Plenty of expensive wine, plenty of champagne, and even some single malt scotches—but no vanilla rum.
Apparently not having any vanilla rum is the last straw. Humiliated tears burn at my eyelids, and I sink to the floor as I feel everything from tonight, from the last year, from my entire life.
Groomed to be Rua’s but unwanted by him.
Groomed to be a queen but not a woman.
Groomed for high-end wine and views over Lafayette Square but not vanilla rum and Netflix . . . spiked liberally with filthy, thigh-trembling orgasms.
The knock sounds at the door as the first sob escapes me.
I scramble to my feet, swiping hard at my face. I can’t ignore the knock; the terrible price of being a queen is that you lose the right to ignore anything, even if it comes while you’re trying to cry. At least if it’s Vashti or Hehu, they’ll know to make it brief, and I can return to my moping soon.
If it’s Kimo…then I don’t know. It won’t be the first time he’s come to my room, both at home and abroad, and so far, I’ve been able to dodge what he so clearly wants. But I’m starting to wonder if my time dodging him is at an end.
I peer through the door’s peephole, beyond relieved to see the bright red of Vashti’s headwrap. I open the door after another quick swipe at my wet cheeks and hope it’s not too obvious that I was crying. But my scraped-up heart gives a lurching jolt.
Vashti isn’t alone.
Grim steps forward, filling the doorway with tuxedo, muscle, and sheer male potency—the last of which rolls off his carved body and glints promises from behind those dark eyes.
In one hand, he carries a bottle of vanilla rum.
“I brought you something, Your Majesty.” Grim’s voice is low, as always, speaking the Manaroan words with the same no-nonsense efficiency he used in English with Maxim and Lennix. But then his voice goes slow and warm and interested as he adds, “That is, if you’d still like it.”
There’s the tactful click of the hotel door, telling me that Vashti has made a quiet exit, leaving the two of us alone. Grim extends the bottle of rum, his hand so big that he doesn’t carry it by the neck, but by the girth of the bottle itself, his fingers meeting easily in the middle. I imagine that big hand palming my breast. Cupping me between the legs with impatient hunger.
I don’t think I can breathe.
“Your rum,” Grim says quietly.
I look down at the bottle and then up at him, my heart hammering hard against my ribs. An ache throbbing between my legs. Every part of my body is drawn to him, wants him.
Well, almost every part.
My head has its doubts. My head helpfully reminds me that I’ve been a fitful mess for the last two hours and that I was about to cry over the vanilla rum he’s holding so casually in his hand.
How dare he just swagger in here like this, like my invitation is something he can throw away and then pick back up like a flyer for a party?
“Why did you change your mind?” I ask, still tasting the dregs of my hurt from his rejection. I assume my most haughty and regal posture, and I pray tears aren’t clinging to my eyelashes as I demand, “You thought it would be novel to fuck a queen?”
“What makes you think I’ve never fucked a queen?”
He gives an answer so unexpected, so Grim, that I have no response. A small puff of surprised laughter is all I can manage under his steady, unblinking, un-joking stare.
He steps closer to me, so close that his shoes cage my bare feet in and close enough that I have to lean my head almost all the way back to look at his face.
“What if I told you,” he says, trapping my eyes with his. “That the novelty is not in fucking a queen, but in knowing one?”
Dammit.
That was the right thing to say. And with just a few sentences and the solemn glitter of his intense gaze, he’s melted away so much of the hurt I was feeling before he came.
“No popcorn?” I ask weakly, needing a distraction from all the things our bodies are saying without words.
“No popcorn.” He shakes his head. Holds my stare. “But I brought something else.”
“What?” The word barely makes it past my lips with no breath to support it.
“This.”
He slides his free hand into my hair, crad
ling the back of my head and fastening his lips onto mine.
If I thought Grim looked like sin incarnate, it’s nothing compared to how he feels. How his kiss feels. His lips are firm and demanding, slanting hungry and silky over mine. He licks at the seam of my lips, once, twice, and when I let him in, he gives a low, male purr of approval and pulls me even tighter to him.
The bottle of rum drops onto the carpet with a thud, and I’m hauled up into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist as his hands slide under my bottom to keep me lifted to his lips.
He doesn’t just kiss me. He fucks my mouth with breathtaking decisiveness and hunger. This is the man he is, I think dizzily. He surveils, then he conquers. Strategy, then victory. Watching, then war. Even in this most intimate claiming, he’s a soldier. It’s heady, it’s pure delirium to have a man like Grim methodically but ruthlessly ravaging my mouth with his own.
Tonight, I’m his crusade, his to plunder, and I can tell from his fierce hold on me and the vanquishing flashes of his eyes that victory is the only outcome he’ll tolerate.
Suddenly, that knot is back in my throat, but for an entirely different reason, which is that I’ve never felt this. I’ve never had someone take hold of me like if they didn’t touch me, they’d roar in anguish, and I’ve never had someone kiss me like they’re already imagining what it’s like to be inside me. I’ve never had so much rippling male strength moving against me, around me, silently promising that I can use that strength, that intensity, however I want.
I was never a desire, only a duty, and maybe I can pretend that’s the only reason why I’m kissing Grim every bit as hard as he’s kissing me, why I’m impatiently yanking at the hem of my robe so my bare thighs grip his waist, my bare stomach rasping against the starched cotton of his shirt.
But I can’t pretend, not when he groans against my lips and as I knead the sturdy contours of his triceps and biceps. I pull back enough to catch another breathtakingly wicked flash of his dark eyes.
No, it’s not just being desired.
