Bad Princess

by Julianna Keyes

  She prepared for him to praise her for finding this place, or perhaps even to admonish her for keeping it a secret or venturing down here when it was so obviously dangerous, but instead he rubbed a hand over his jaw and stared at her, candlelight flickering in his gray eyes.

  “You would prefer to be in the dungeon than the castle?” he asked. “It’s that bad for you?”

  Hearing it phrased that way made Brinley cringe. “What? No, I—”

  He braced a hand on the door to her private room—her private dungeon, she supposed—and contemplated it. “You could live here for a week.”

  “It’s just in case of emergency.”

  “How often do you come down?”

  “Ah...not often.”

  “Brinley.”

  “I have been away at university for nearly four years...”

  “Brinley.”

  “Every time I am home,” she admitted hastily.

  “And before that?”

  She lifted a shoulder, petulant. “Maybe once a week.”

  “You hate it here so much that a dungeon is preferable.”

  “No,” she protested weakly. “I just...”

  “You what?”

  “Sometimes I need to escape. But I don’t really want to leave.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am a bad princess but this is still my home.”

  “You are not that bad.”

  “Did you see the Estau Tattler Brinley Cantrella Special ‘Bad’ Edition?” she demanded.

  Finn studied his toes and she was pretty sure she saw him trying to hide a smile. “Yes,” he admitted. “I recall seeing it. Very briefly.”

  “Sometimes it feels like this is the only place their judgments can’t reach me. Where I can truly be at peace.”

  “And now?”

  “What about it?”

  “Why are you hiding now?”

  Brinley stiffened. “Why are you?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You were looking for an escape route!”

  “I was just hoping to explore before...”

  “Before you left.”

  Finn glanced away. “Before our...divorce.”

  The word pierced her heart. “We can ask for an annulment,” she offered quietly. “They will take your word that we have not...” She cleared her throat. “That way you can still be king. Elsewhere.”

  Finn looked at her. “There is no one else.”

  Brinley blinked back tears. There is no one else. There is no one else to marry at this castle in order to secure the throne. His brother will be King of Lenora, and he will not.

  “Another royal family,” she said finally. “With a daughter—”

  “There is no one else I want to marry,” he interrupted, voice sharp.

  They were silent for a long time, the words absorbed by the thick walls, pulling them in, holding them close. Brinley did the same, even though she told herself not to. That she must have misunderstood, that by daring to believe she was setting herself up for even greater heartbreak. He had said something similar that night with the meatball, but she had not allowed herself to trust it. It was so rare that someone said something kind to her that she did not know how to respond.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in a small voice.

  “We were not wed on our own terms,” Finn said, studying the thick gold band that encircled his ring finger. It was plain and unadorned, the best they could manage with so little time to prepare. “But I did not marry you against my will. Just under...pressing...circumstances.”

  “But...why?”

  “Because of the library photo, Brinley.”

  “I mean, why would you want to marry me?”

  He exhaled and studied their surroundings, the candlelight, the rusted bars, the box of foodstuffs. “Because you are so interesting,” he said finally, with great emphasis. “Because you see pretty mushrooms in the woods and eat them.”

  “I was hospitalized for six days. I have not been allowed back in the woods since.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Because you built your own wings and tried to jump off the front parapet.”

  “I got stuck in a rose bush and had to be cut out with shears.”

  “And you slide down banisters.”

  “I fell off. Not just the time you saw, either, one time I nearly—”

  “And you went to university and studied what you wanted to study.”

  “Everyone can—”

  “Brinley, you are not a bad princess, you are a real princess. You are not a cardboard cut-out stolen from the airport gift shop. You are not a puppet. You are not a doll someone dresses up and parades around town.”

  “Because they are afraid of my behavior.”

  “Because these kingdoms need something new, and they are afraid of change.”

  “But you—”

  “I am all of those things,” Finn said. “I am a good prince. A cut-out. And I am boring.”

  Brinley was beyond flustered. She wondered fleetingly if being so far below ground was muddling her thoughts, if perhaps the atmospheric pressure was making her see and hear things that couldn’t possibly be true.

  “You’re not—”

  “I have never found a hidden passageway. Never hit the Swedish king in the head with an airplane—”

  “He has not returned to Estau again, and then he raised the tariff on steel—”

  “I have never dared order spaghetti and meatballs sent to my room—”

  “You can easily—”

  “And I have never made love to my own wife.”

  Brinley’s heart stumbled to a halt in her chest.

  “I thought...” she began, voice wavering. “I worried...”

  “What?”

  “That you... That I...”

  He waited.

  “That I was your duty. That to secure the forestry agreement you would marry me and...”

  “The forestry agreement is antiquated and useless. Everyone knows it.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Jedrek has always said so. I thought it unlikely he would agree to renew it when the time came.”

  The forestry agreement—in addition to hoping people would forget about the library scandal—was the underlying excuse for their forced marriage. Hearing that Finn knew it would not be an issue was like having the ground fall out from under her feet. “But the agreement is the one sticking point between the kingdoms. With it gone, there is no need to continue to force us to marry one another.”

  “I was not forced,” Finn said.

  “No,” she amended. “Not forced, but...strongly urged.”

  “I was strongly urged to marry Elle,” Finn corrected her. “This is different.”

  “How so?”

  He shrugged. “I want you.”

  In all her life, Brinley had never heard those three words followed by a period. I want you to behave. I want you to smile. I want you to tell me where you have hidden your sword. Again.

  But never simply, I want you.

  “I have always...” she began, mouth turning dry as she tried to utter words she had kept locked inside for so long. For all her daring, Brinley had never even imagined telling Finn how she truly felt. She tried again. “I have always...wanted you,” she said carefully. The words were cautious, like pressing her toes against the fragile ice that covered the pond on the castle grounds, the one she had fallen into when she was twelve, though they had posted signage that specifically said Brinley, do not walk on the ice or you will fall in.

  She felt infused now with the intense heat and cold that had filled her then, her skin prickling, sensitive and numb all at the same time.

  Finn watched her, his gaze level. “Come here,” he said after a moment.

  He had said that once before, in her room, to show her the story about the orphanage visit. She had thought then that he might hurt her, but he had not. There were only a few feet between them now, and Brinley took a step to cover the di
stance.

  Finn took her hands in his and studied their joined fingers, his thumb stroking lightly over her wedding ring, a diamond solitaire on a white gold band, something his father had rustled up from the Lenora castle coffers. They likely could have provided something much nicer, much more significant, but they had chosen not to. Brinley had not been surprised or disappointed; she had been expecting little.

  Finn now lifted that hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the warm metal, as though he knew it had not been given to her with love or care, only a mild sense of exasperation. Her chin wobbled as she watched, unprepared for the sweetness that warred with his seriousness, his sincerity. His other hand came up to touch her jaw, his fingertips light on her skin, steadying her nerves.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Brinley replied. And unlike her wedding night, she had no thoughts of princesses forced to wed, made to consummate a marriage they had not wanted. She thought only that this was the third time Finn had kissed her, the second time as her husband, the first time she truly believed it.

  His lips touched hers and she trembled, lust and passion tempered by vulnerability. She had enjoyed the sex she had at university, had liked her partners, believed that they liked her. But there was always the thinnest veil between them, a way to protect herself, her private self, her royal self. Just in case.

  There were no defenses here, even though she knew there ought to be. For a princess so often ridiculed for making foolish mistakes and taking unnecessary risks, she felt there should be some precaution taken now, something to protect her heart, but she could not muster up the strength to devise a shield.

  Finn took kissing as seriously as he took everything else, and now he confirmed that his earlier passion had not been fuelled by alcohol, but by her. His lips were firm and soft, assertive and questioning, figuring out what she liked and what she wanted and what was still up in the air.

  They both groaned when their tongues touched, when he sought entrance and she allowed it, and Brinley realized that at some point he had released her hand and was gripping her ass like a man possessed. Another second’s thought revealed that she was clutching his shoulders so tightly he would have imprints of her stubby nails in his skin for days, even through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.

  “These...surroundings,” he said, dragging in a raspy breath as he broke away to look around. “They are not very...”

  “They will do,” Brinley said, yanking his mouth back to hers.

  Her hat fell off, and it was soon joined on the floor by two gray shirts and two pairs of jeans. In an amusingly chivalrous effort to keep her bare feet from the dungeon floor, Finn carried her in his arms to the lounge chair it had taken Brinley three days to cart all the way down here, and laid her on the pile of blankets. They smelled faintly of damp and mildew, but they were soft and she felt cared for and protected as Finn balanced one knee beside her on the chair and carefully hooked a finger beneath the front clasp of her bra.

  She tipped her chin to watch his finger stroke lightly over that delicate spot, and had to agree that “heaving bosom” was an apt description. The swells of flesh above the lace trim of the bra rose and fell with each ragged, impatient breath. Finn seemed to be committing the view to memory, then finally flicked open the clasp.

  He closed his eyes for a second at the sight of her bared breasts, color rising in his cheeks, and Brinley pushed herself upright to kiss him, then pulled him down on top of her. He came willingly, their hands bumping as they pushed his boxer briefs off his lean hips, the rasp of hair on his legs tickling her skin as they nudged hers open. He braced himself above her on one arm and kissed her as his hand found her breasts and kneaded them, plucking her nipples until they were impossibly hard, then lowering his head to replace his fingers with his skilled mouth.

  The boys at school had been more fascinated with her chest than her royal title, but they had never worshipped her like this. They had never treated her like she was the single most desirable thing they had ever seen, emitting tiny satisfied groans as they tormented her. Brinley writhed beneath Finn but he was surprisingly strong, the muscled expanse of his back shifting but not yielding, his torso keeping her legs spread, her body pinned.

  She tossed back her head and bit the inside of her wrist, desperate to reach between them and slip her hand inside her wet panties to soothe the ache there. “Finn, please,” she begged, when she tried to do just that but he caught her hand and stopped her. “I must... I can’t...”

  He knelt up between her knees and held her gaze as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties, straightening her legs as he slowly rolled the damp fabric over her thighs, her calves, her toes. He tossed the scrap of material to the floor and gripped her ankles, his palms unexpectedly rough and calloused, the steady glide back down to her hips making goosebumps spring up in their wake.

  He parted her legs purposefully, his golden tan stark against her paler flesh. When he reached her knees he pressed, urging her to bend, displaying her lewdly and completely. He looked into her eyes before dropping his gaze to the shining pink flesh between her legs, then hooked one of her feet over his shoulder and used his free hand to stroke her very, very lightly. His fingers were warm but felt cool against her overheated skin, gliding easily through her wetness as he learned her, studied her, and slowly worked her open.

  Brinley had been touched before.

  She had been looked at.

  But somehow, never quite like this.

  Like he was just getting started.

  Finn worked his middle finger into her pussy, her greedy muscles clamping down on the digit, desperate for more. He stroked her, in and out, his fingers and knuckles shining with her juices, his free hand holding her other leg against the chair so she could do little more than take it.

  I want you, she remembered him saying.

  She had believed him then, but even if she had not, she would be convinced now. Especially when he raised that gleaming digit to his mouth and touched his tongue to the tip, smirking at her slightly as he did so. Then he put his hand back between her legs and worked two, then quickly three, fingers inside.

  Brinley groaned and twisted her head away, burying her face in the side of her arm. She could smell and feel and hear herself, seeing it would be too much. And when Finn used his thumb to circle her aching clit, it became too much. She shuddered helplessly, the convulsions traveling from her curled toes through her legs and her hips, everything focusing and seizing in her belly before releasing in an intense swell of clenching pleasure.

  Finn continued to fuck her with his fingers, his thumb easing its pressure but not stopping, working her through the orgasm but somehow not allowing it to finish, not letting it be over. When she had the strength, Brinley blinked her eyes open, dazed and half convinced she was waking from a fever dream. But it was not a dream, it was reality, Prince Finian Bellamy of Lenora was between her legs, his fingers were inside her body, and he had just given her the best orgasm of her whole life.

  She pushed up onto her elbows, feeling the sweat at her temples trickle down behind her ears. “Do you...” she began, breaking off to swallow weakly. His erection strained between them, the head swollen and dangerous-looking. What must it have cost him to spend so much time on her and so little on himself? When would he learn to ask for—demand—what he wanted? “Let me,” she said more firmly, reaching for him.

  “Absolutely not,” Finn replied, snagging her hand.

  Brinley blinked at him. “What?”

  “I have waited a long time for this, and I want to come in your body, not your hand. If you touch me, it will be over. Don’t move.”

  He rose from the chair and she watched his perfect ass as he left the room—the dungeon—to scoop up his abandoned jeans from the main area. His thighs were muscled and strong, his biceps well-defined, his stomach flat and tapered. Behind his royal uniform was a body fit for an underwear model, not a prince. The airport cut-outs did not do h
im justice. But perhaps that was for the best. With so much of their lives made tabloid fodder, these details were something they alone could share.

  Brinley watched as he pulled a worn leather wallet from the back pocket and retrieved a condom from within.

  “You carry a wallet?” she asked, eyes on his hand as he rolled the condom over his thick length and stroked himself. “And condoms?”

  “Just one,” he said. “In case of...emergency.”

  Royals were not allowed to carry cash or cards; when they went shopping, an assistant made the purchases. As such, Brinley’s purses held lip gloss and chewing gum and sunglasses, but no wallet. She could not see what else Finn had in there besides the condom, and she supposed she did not really care.

  He knelt back on the chair, stroking his cock with his hand as he idly traced circles over the sensitive skin on the inside of her knee. She still had her legs splayed open, too well-used and sated to care about propriety.

  Finn arched a brow and glanced at her pussy. “May I?” he asked again.

  Brinley smiled and blushed. “Of course,” she said again.

  He smiled too, finally. A full smile, one that showed his straight white teeth and the dimples in his cheeks, the ones featured on so many of the dolls that flew off the shelves of stores in all the neighboring kingdoms. Finn was the prince of so many girls’ fantasies, but right now, he was all hers.

  And right now he was working his erection inside her, her body tight from the recent orgasm, slick for the same reason. He gritted his teeth as he pushed and Brinley canted her hips to allow him better entrance, feeling him slide past the initial resistance until he was buried completely.

  His head fell forward like his neck had grown too weary to hold it up, and she heard him pull in a shaky, steadying breath. She lifted a hand to stroke his back, feeling the ridges of his spine beneath her fingers, the sweat that beaded on his skin. He was waiting for something, composure perhaps, or even more permission, and Brinley opened her legs wider and pressed her heels into the cushion to spur him on.

  He started to move, deep, languorous thrusts that reignited nerve endings she would have sworn had been extinguished, and slowly their hips found a compatible rhythm, the slap of their skin growing louder as the intensity increased, as the thrusts lengthened and deepened, as Finn fucked her.