Imperfect Princess (Modern Princess Collection Book 1)

by Sonya Jesus

  She chuckles and playfully smacks me in the arm before I can turn the finger on myself. “You’re the only hole I see.” She flicks her hair over her shoulder and angles herself toward me again. “Asshole,” she clarifies, though it falls flat.

  I trap her hand in mine and rest it on my thigh. “Are you baiting me into giving you a compliment?” I’d be the fishing hole, and she could have as many compliments as she wanted.

  “So, I call you names and you give me compliments?” She crinkles her nose and smiles wide.

  “I’ve already dished out the insults. It’s only fair you get yours in.”

  “I can live with that exchange.” Her body gravitates toward me, and I don’t think she even notices. Her words are meant to keep me away, but her skin begs for my touch.

  I move my hand to her thigh, placing it near the hem of her dress. “Not the kind of bait I was thinking about.” I lower my gaze to her lips.

  She traps the bottom one between her teeth, at the corner of her mouth.

  Right there. That. It looks just like Thorn. And I’m lost in that moment of time. When my whole world was hers and only hers.

  I don’t give her time for words—not when they are meant to push me away. Gently, I release her bottom lip and brush my thumb over the uncoated pillows. “Thorn.”

  She blushes a little and her eyes flicker at the name. Recognition or hope—I don’t know—but as if on command, her tongue darts out, tracing the path my finger left.

  My mouth lowers, and just before my lips touch hers, she says, “Prick.”

  “Uh.” I chuckle nervously while working through my brain for a swift comeback. Great. All this college education, and I rely on a word that’s probably not even in the dictionary. “Did you just call me a prick?”

  “You called me a thorn.”

  I rub my forehead. “Shit. I’m sorry.” The real Thorn would have understood that. “I didn’t mean to ruin the moment.”

  She bites down on her lip, holding back the laughter, and clears her throat in an attempt to reset the mood.

  I blew it. I stretch my legs and roll the tension out of my neck. I shouldn’t have tried to kiss her. I shouldn’t have called her some other girl’s name. I’m so confused. It could be her, and it might not be. But I hate that she doesn’t remember me.

  Her phone light goes out, diminishing the light flowing between us. “Out of battery?” I ask, trying to salvage the night. I get up to get my phone, and when I turn around, she’s behind me.

  She leans in and presses her lips to mine.

  Softly, nervously… and perfectly. I let her set the pace, and the second her tongue caresses my lips, I’m hooked in the hottest fucking kiss I’ve ever had in my life.

  12

  Meteor & Pennies

  Thorn

  Heaven.

  Kissing Kai is heaven. And if it means I’ve died on his lips, then I’d gladly die over and over again. Because Kai is the most beautiful murder weapon. It doesn’t matter who he thinks I am. I know who I am with him, know what an us feels like.

  With a shaky palm against his rapidly beating heart, I soak up the moment and pretend years didn’t age us.

  Didn’t change us.

  Didn’t make the need between us stronger.

  He’s spent years kissing girls as a prelude, and I’ve spent years fantasizing about sharing the same space again… about his thick, succulent lips rendered speechless by a wordless me, trapping any words, any breaths, inside me.

  I’m a breath away from risking safety, from falling so far into Kai, I’ll never emerge again. It’s as if between us, recognition happens without confessions. And that’s so very dangerous… for both of us. If I tell him who I am, Del Rio will take Kai’s life to insure my own.

  In the briefest moment of lucidity, between the gasps of air our lungs demand, I take one hesitant step back, effectively pulling away from my happy ending—and immediately feeling the distance in my gut—like a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.

  Strong arms wrap around my waist, tugging me closer.

  “My turn,” he whispers directly to my lips, telling them to gear up for another round—a fight they will surely lose.

  Holy hell. Throbbing lips on quivering me.

  My courage dies in a whisper, stealthily hidden between the lips I’ve never forgotten. They feel the same. Like acceptance and an invitation to stay. A promise of closeness I’ve so longed for.

  Tongue-tied and unable to stop the collision of souls—the massive impact of two magnetic-sized hearts forced apart by time—I do nothing but shiver under his gaze. My weakness meets his strength, lips connect again and again, and I’m unassembled.

  Broken to pieces by a kiss.

  Disintegrating into his arms with every shared breath and loving it.

  His tongue slips between the vale of my lips, erupting goose bumps all over my skin—even the grafted parts. His presence seeps in through the pores and leaks into every tiny muscle.

  I’m a pulse of nostalgia. He’s the feeling of home.

  In seconds, only two of us exist in a universe. It forms around us, like a bubble, isolating two bodies in a tiny space, no room for air between us. The rest of the scene transforms into ambient noise. Ocean sounds shy in comparison to the waves of glee in my heart, and the chill of the night has been cast away by the heat in my chest—the one pooling in my core.

  Teenage hesitancy dissipates, and his hands slip under my dress. Dangerously close to the words tattooed on my skin.

  To his dismay, I pull away, needing distance. “I…um—too fast.”

  Slow is something forced upon us by circumstance.

  DEA. La Expansión. Del Rio. All of them want the fairy-tale book when all I want is a fairy tale. A happily ever… start. I’d pick up where we left off before I died.

  Unfortunately for us, forward can only come when a rewind option exists, and I can never be his Thorn again. But I can be Rose. Just not a naked Rose. The tattoo seemed like a great idea at the time.

  Ugh. When does life stop being a mess?

  “Sorry.” He clears his throat and runs his hand through his hair, sitting on the third step from The Landing. “Sorry, Thorn…” His voice trembles, and my heart breaks at my name on his lips.

  It’s dangerous. The last time, I slipped and lied about peonies. “That felt so good.”

  “Better than good.” I hate the words stirring in my throat, but Del Rio doesn’t make idle threats. “Rose,” I correct. “Getting called another girl’s name after all that—”

  “You feel like her,” he mumbles, cutting me off to filter through his thoughts aloud. Somewhat angry in the delivery. “You taste like her. You sound like her.”

  Because I am her. Being privy to those thoughts doesn’t make lies any easier.

  He props his elbows on his knees and rests his head in his hands. “Maybe you just don’t remember being her… being with me?”

  Sighing softly, I ease the dull ache in both of us, by asking, “Was she your girlfriend in high school?”

  “I would have really liked to have asked her out.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I take a seat on the step below him, nearly sliding off. Thankfully, I catch myself.

  He looks off to the side and swallows. “When she turned fifteen, I had this whole thing planned. A speech… I had all these pennies to get her to open up to me. I kept them in a jar.”

  I loved his pennies. I had no idea he had a jar.

  “I snuck into her room and found her holding this book to her chest, tears streaming down her face.”

  Del Rio’s book!

  “God, I had never seen her cry before—not once, and she went through some things—but that night, she saw me through a waterfall of tears…” He rolls his head back to glance up at the stars. “She died in a waterfall.”

  To hide my tears, I tilt my head up and wish on all of them, that the girl sitting next to him had the liberty of truth. “I’m sorry I’m not h
er.”

  He must be sorry too because we’re just silent. Like when we were teens and star gazing in the rose garden.

  After a while, he asks, “Are you looking for shooting stars?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Stars don’t shoot. Those are meteors.” He smirks at me.

  “All those astronomy lessons coming to the surface?” I joke, my intention to keep that smile on his sad face.

  “Stars burn in place until they run out of fuel. Then they lose their light. Always stuck without ever being able to touch anything. It’s kind of a lonely existence.”

  I fiddle with the hem of my skirt, pulling it down to conceal his words on my skin. “And meteors?”

  “Meteors are motion, and when they burn through the atmosphere, they always leave a mark… like Thorn.”

  “I think she would have liked to know that.” I look off to the side and massage the kink out of my neck.

  “Always looking up has its downfalls.” If he means optimism, then he’s absolutely right. “Does your neck hurt?”

  “Just not used to staring at the sky for so long.”

  “Come here.” He slides up a step and pats the space he created between his legs. “Rugby kicks my ass. We learned some techniques.”

  My lips twist into a smile. “Is that your way of saying you massage Ledger after practice?” I slide into the spot between his thighs.

  “I really want to lie and say no.” His hands find my tight shoulders; his thumbs press right under my shoulder blades, applying pressure to the soreness. But it’s not that muscle that aches; it’s the one in my chest. “But yeah, Ledger gives kick-ass massages.”

  “Good to know,” I whisper as his hands travel over the slants and nestle around the back of my neck, travelling down the upper part of my spine that’s uncovered. When his fingertip trails the dip from the base of my neck, between my shoulder blades, I shudder and shake it off with a giggle.

  “Does that tickle?”

  It more than tickles. His raspy voice adds to the arousal, and I clench my thighs, tucking my hands underneath them as he gently pulls my head back. In Canada, anytime I had pictured myself with someone, it had always been Kai. His touch, his lips, his guidance. He’s been my first hundreds of times over, and yet imagination never did him justice.

  Our eyes meet. I look up into his, and he looks down into mine.

  We remain there for a second, arousal rolling off of us in waves. Naked me is not an option, I remind myself and ask about my target. “So, what book was it?”

  “That I learned all this from?” He laughs and winks at me. “Or the astronomy? Because stars and meteors… that’s where my vast knowledge of the universe ends.”

  “No.” I shake my head and lift it back up. Staring ahead is easier than staring into his eyes. “I mean, what was your friend clutching to her chest?”

  “An old fairy-tale book,” he rushes out. “Old and kind of tattered.” He drops hints as if they could stir a memory to life. “Yellowed pages… Old and probably super expensive. Grimm Brothers Collection.”

  My heart quickens. “Have you read it?”

  “Sometimes,” he says. “Did you ever have one of those?”

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “All girls have fairy-tale books, don’t they?”

  “I don’t think Thorn ever did.”

  I sigh as I recall him sitting beside me the day of my fifteenth birthday, placing his arm around my shoulder and holding me until he brought a copper penny under my nose.

  “Do you know why she was crying?”

  With a swallow, I shrug the shoulder he’s working on.

  “She had never gotten anything before. It was her first gift.” His hands leave me for a minute, and he adjusts himself on the step.

  “Did she tell you that?” I take the opportunity to do the same and close my eyes briefly. Del Rio comes to mind, his threats infiltrating my heart. He cared for me in his own way. He spared my life that day, but he wouldn’t spare Kai’s, and I rather live in a world where Kai exists than one where he doesn’t. My resolve is all but made, but then I smell it, just under my nose: the scent of metal and sweat. A penny that’s been held in a sweaty palm.

  “I had to bargain for her truth.”

  I’m undone by a penny.

  “I had one thousand forty-eight. Then I got drunk on the anniversary of her death and threw them all into the ocean, save for this one.”

  I swallow, my fingers flutter up to the coin. I hold it in my palm, recalling the penny trails I stumbled upon after The Reef. “You carry it around with you?”

  He lowers himself one step, threading his arms around my waist and securing me in place. He brings his lips to my ear. “Tell me the truth… please.”

  His plea appeals to my soul, to where he had embedded himself so long ago. “What truth?”

  “Have you ever lost your memory?”

  “Yes,” I whisper softly, squeezing the penny in my hand. “But I never forgot you.”

  His forehead falls to my shoulder, his wet eyelashes brushing against my skin just before his lips gently press kiss after kiss at the base of my shoulder. He sniffs back his tears and tightens his arms around me, pulling me up into his lap and turning me so I’m sitting sideways on his thigh.

  Our eyes meet, and when he opens his mouth to speak, I briefly press my lips to his, silencing him.

  Someone may be listening.

  13

  Scars

  Kai

  “Can we get out of here?” she asks, insinuating we go somewhere private. So many questions are on the tip of my tongue, but I knew Del Rio was dangerous, mixed up on things neither of my parents wanted to talk about. Mom once told me he was the reason why my grandmother had been killed along with his wife. Granted, Mom was drunk then, and my dad quickly debunked the myth, but the cautionary tale always remained.

  “Sure,” I say, letting her get up. My eyes take in every glorious, healthy inch of hers, devouring every ounce like a man, starving for forever. God, I want to hold her close and never ever let this girl out of my sight again.

  “Want to go back to my room?” I ask.

  She glances around nervously as she steadies herself on two feet. “It may be too soon for that.” Her voice changes, the slightly elevated pitch laden with anxiousness. “Too fast, remember?” She glides her palms against her dress, slipping the penny into her pocket and smoothing the dress down as she gathers her phone, checking to make sure it’s still dead.

  “You tell me where then,” I play along, threading my fingers through hers after bunching the blanket and hanging it on my shoulder. “We can walk along the beach?”

  She shuts that down with a rushed movement toward my phone. “I have a better idea.” She slides her phone into her dress pocket and cautiously moves up the steps, my phone lighting the way. Sometimes her hand moves a little farther up and to the sides, as if checking for someone.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and I take her paranoia as a sign that she’s afraid. In an attempt to lessen suspicion, I carry on conversation. “So, there’s this thing at the castle tomorrow night. A ball.”

  “Yeah,” she answers, just as the stone steps widen a bit more. Shrubs move in the wind, startling her. “Corbin mentioned it.”

  “Oh, are you going with Corbin?” Gay or not, the idea of her with any other guy really pisses me off. I just got her back.

  “Yeah,” she says absentmindedly. “I mean, not with Corbin, but I need to go to the ball.”

  That’s a weird way to put it. “Have you bought a ticket yet? I think they’re sold out.”

  “We need tickets?” Before we enter the shrub patch, she turns around.

  We… “I have two, actually.”

  Vanessa had left them at my place on Wednesday. “It’s fairy-tale-themed,” I remind her, just in case she doesn’t have a dress. “Gala attire.” I still have my tux from the last time in my closet. It should still fit.

  “I can borr
ow a dress,” she murmurs, and soon we are back on the well-lit campus and walking up the small hill to the castle. When we pass it, I know exactly where she’s taking me: The Imperial Theater.

  The dark theater, only illuminated by the lights on the stage, is perfect for our private conversation. Mirrors line the sides—some shattered, some with glued glass pieces stuck to them to add dimension, others with frosted paint and crinkled plastic wrap. Small twinkling lights blend in with the setting, and the cool blue-toned light, reflecting on the glass, seeps into the cracks.

  Flecks of ice, I think, recalling the posters around campus. In the center, a large, expensive white chair sits at the axis of a circular platform. The mirrored lake looks fragile, so I steer clear of it. A makeshift window, surrounded by multicolored lights, resembles the aurora borealis, refracting color between surfaces. The pink, yellow, and blue tones beam, and due to the plastic, glide through the air like soaring light.

  “It’s safe to talk here?” I whisper.

  “I think so,” she replies as she points to my pocket. “Corbin says this set had to be locked because Vanessa snuck in here.”

  “Sounds like her.” She does what she wants when she wants and thinks the world is hers for the taking.

  “Got any music?”

  I hit play on my playlist and throw the phone on the blanket before following her backstage.

  “Classes are held in the Keane building. I don’t think anyone would follow us here.” She searches the costume rack and pulls out a light blue dress. Flipping it over to check the size on the tag. “It’s weird he knows my size, right?”

  This whole situation is weird. “He may have just guessed it.” Guys do that sometimes. When they are interested.

  “Yeah, let me try it on. Don’t look.”

  “Never say ‘don’t look,’ Thorn.” Now all my eyes want to do is look. I lean against the wall, sometimes poking my head to the stage area, checking for unwanted guests, all the while respecting her privacy. Then a thought dawns on me. “Is Corbin following you?” My head turns toward her. Luckily, she’s half-hidden behind a divider, so I turn back around.