by Katy Regnery
The city I’d originally regarded as shabby has become the jewel in Ireland’s crown.
I also wonder if it’s possible to fall in love so fast, over the course of the last few precious hours; cherished minutes when I was just Tina, an Italian girl visiting Ireland, who found her handsome champion in a dark alley, and felt more in one night than she’d felt in her entire life up to now.
I cannot be the same person I was when I walked into that theater tonight.
It’s impossible.
I feel completely new.
In the People’s Park he took me to a red and white gazebo where we danced to a melody floating on the breeze, like the young lovers in The Sound of Music.
On Mathew’s Bridge he put his arms around me from behind and brushed his lips along the back of my neck, murmuring my name—Tina…Tina…Tina—like he was drunk from the sound of it.
In a shadowed corner of St. Mary’s Cathedral, he stole a kiss from me: a quick peck on the lips after we’d each lit a candle.
And with the medieval towers of King John’s Castle looming behind us, he drew me into his arms and kissed me like a man kisses a woman he loves: with our bodies pressed intimately together and his tongue sliding like satin against mine.
A fitting place for a royal princess to lose her heart to a street punk: in the shadow of a castle.
And now, hand in hand, as every ancient clock in this city chimes three, we approach the Limerick Palace Hotel where my family is staying.
My heart is in my throat because I don’t want to say goodnight or goodbye to Ian. I want every possible second with my hand in his, my mouth pressed against his, my body doing things with his that are forbidden. For the first time in my life, I know what desire is, and it’s a feeling so sharp and intense, I’ve never known its equal. I want more. So much more.
“Don’t look now,” he says, pulling me sharply against his side and stopping abruptly on the sidewalk half a block from my hotel. “But that’s a whole lot of coppers, Tina.”
Dio Mio! Blue and red lights blink wildly, reflecting garishly off the massive, white marble hotel. “Surely that’s not…”
The words die on my lips. A princess has gone missing. And my parents have called out the local cavalry to find me.
“For you?” asks Ian, pulling me into the shadow afforded by a cafe’s dark doorway. “I’m certain, love, that’s exactly why they’re here.”
I look up at him, into the face of the young man who’s been the center of my world tonight. “What should we do?”
“I have an idea.” Ian reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his phone. “I know one of the maids who works there.”
“How well?” I ask, unable to keep the jealousy out of my voice.
He smirks at me. “Not that well.”
Somewhat mollified, I cross my fingers, hoping she’s working tonight.
“Mollie!” He grins at me as he presses the phone against his ear. “Yeah. Yeah. Aw, shite. Ye’re a ball buster, woman.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “I need a favor.” Cringing as she answers, he follows up with, “C’mon, Mol. Never promised you nothin’, love.”
I look down at my aching feet, realizing that they haven’t bothered me until now. I was walking on clouds until Ian called this—this…Mollie.
As if sensing my mood, his arm snakes around my waist and he pulls me closer. When I look up, into his eyes, they search mine. After a moment, he grins at me and kisses my forehead.
“Sneak me and a friend through the kitchen to the service elevator, yeah?” I can’t hear Mollie’s exact response, but from Ian’s grimace, I gather it isn’t especially encouraging. “Please, love. I’ll never ask for anythin’ ever again, yeah?” I feel him hold his breath—the way his inflated lungs push against mine as he waits for her response. Finally he exhales. “Thanks, Mol! See you soon.”
He pockets the phone and puts his other arm around my waist, holding me tightly against his body in the narrow doorway. A wicked grin lifts his lips.
“Ye’re jealous.”
“Who’s Mollie?” I demand.
He drops his lips to mine and my mouth opens instantly, helpless to resist him. Lingering on my lips, I can feel another part of him prodding my belly. He’s hard for me, and I can’t lie. It’s thrilling.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand and walking us back out onto the sidewalk.
We cross to the opposite side of the street, quickly pass by the hoopla at the front entrance, and cross back over, making our way down an alley. Ian knocks on a nondescript door twice, and it opens to reveal a young woman in a dark green and white hotel maid uniform.
“Yer gonna get me fired, Ian Ladd,” she hisses, checking me out as we slip inside. “Who’s this, now?”
“Tina, this is Mollie. Mollie, this is Tina.”
Her eyes widen in recognition. “Fuck, Ian. It’s the—her highness—the princess—oh, shite! You kidnapped the princess?”
“I was not kid-napped,” I say, lifting my chin so I can look down at this Mollie.
“But the hotel said—”
Ian chuckles beside me. “Me and Tina’s just been seein’ the sights.”
“Tina? Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, yer gonna get yerself arrested, Ian, you thick eejit.”
He leans forward to press his lips on her fat cheek, and I stiffen beside him. If I was the princess of Ireland, I’d have this woman beheaded presto.
“Nah. I’m lucky and you know it.”
“Luck runs out, ya mad bastard,” says Mollie, flicking a nervous glance at me.
“We’ll get outta yer hair,” says Ian, tugging on my hand to pull me down the dim hallway. “I know the way. Mum’s the word, Mol.”
As we leave Mollie by the service entrance and race through the basement hallways of the old hotel, I giggle like Kate Winslet in Titanic, glorying in the feeling of Ian holding my hand tightly and hosting me to this wild night. I wouldn’t give up a moment of it for all the world.
“How do you know your way around?” I ask him when we stop in front of a battered elevator.
“My mam—and Mollie’s, for that matter—worked here when we were small. We ran around these halls together for hours.” The door slides open. “What floor are you on?”
“Fifteen.” I step into the lift beside him. “What’s the plan?”
“To sneak you back into your room.”
“Is that possible?”
He plants a kiss on the tip of my nose. “These old hotels have service corridors where maids and valets could slip in and out of rooms unseen.”
“Do I want to know the sort of mischief this led to when you and Mollie were small?”
He grins at me, shaking his head. “Nope.”
“So we will…slip back into my room?’
“That’s the plan,” he says, a shadow passing over his face as he looks down at me.
My heart squeezes. I don’t want to say goodbye either.
When the lift stops, he pulls me into another dimly-lit service hallway. As we walk down the carpeted corridor, I realize that there are brass plaques on the plain white doors: 1501 Bedroom #1, 1501 Living Room, etc.
“What suite are you in?” he whispers.
“1506,” I say.
“We’ll have to guess which bedroom,” he says. “There are two, if memory serves.”
“One’s mine and one is Nico’s.”
“Will Nico rat us out if you get it wrong and walk into his?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
1504 Bedroom #2…1505 Pantry…1505 Bedroom #1…
I squeeze Ian’s hand. “What if—”
He pauses in his long strides, turning around to look at me. “What?”
“I don’t want you to go,” I whisper, looking up at his handsome face. I reach up to trace the scar on his cheek with my fingertip, my body swaying into his. “Stay.”
“Princess,” he murmurs, putting his arms around me. He bites his bottom lip then lets
it go. “How? There are going to be cops in there, hotel people, your parents—”
I glance at the door that reads: 1506 Bedroom #1. “Give me fifteen minutes to get rid of them. Wait in the hall. If I knock on the door, you can come in. If I don’t…”
He takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly. “Then this is goodbye.”
“It’s not,” I say. I refuse to say goodbye to him. “Wait here.”
Turning the knob, I slip into the dark bedroom, relieved to discover it’s mine, not Nico’s. No one is waiting for me inside the room, though I can hear voices in the shared living room area just beyond the double doors. Quickly undressing, I throw my nightgown over my head and pull my hair into a ponytail. I consider messing up the bed, but decide on a different tactic instead. Tiptoeing to the armoire, I take the extra pillow and blanket from the top shelf and make a messy bed for myself on the small chaise lounge in the corner of the dressing room.
I squint my eyes as I would if I was awoken from a deep sleep, then walk through the double doors into Nico’s and my shared living area.
Several Irish police officers scurry about while my parents’ security team, including Gaspare and Iago, sit on the couch, their heads together in conversation as my mother weeps quietly. Nico sees me first. His face registers surprise, then relief, then fury.
“Where the hell have you been?” he cries, rushing across the room.
I fake a yawn, scratching a nonexistent itch on my shoulder. “What’s…going on?”
He hugs me close, whispering in my ear, “You are in so…much…trouble.”
“We’ll see,” I mumble back, pushing him away.
“Valentina!” shrieks my mother. “Where have you been?”
She leaps up from the couch with my father right behind her.
“Dio Mio, Valentina!” he exclaims. “We were so worried!”
“Uh…the princess has been found. I repeat: the princess has been found,” says one of the police officers into his radio.
As my mother envelops me in her perfumed embrace, I fake-yawn again. “What in the world is going on?”
“You were missing!” yells my father.
“I was asleep,” I say, blinking like I’ve just woken up. I gesture to my room. “You don’t believe me? Look.”
My parents hustle into my room and turn on the light to find my bed still freshly made. “Your bed doesn’t have a wrinkle!”
“Not there,” I say with a long-suffering sigh. I point to the dressing room, where the small, antique chaise sits overlooked in the far corner. “There.”
Nico leans against the doorway to my room, watching us with annoyance. “I thought you were going to a party.”
“I went. I came back. I fell asleep,” I say, looking at all of them like they’re crazy.
“Madame, sir, is everything in order?” The hotel concierge stands beside my brother, wringing his hands.
“Va bene,” says my mother, waving him away. “She’s been here all along. We were worried for nothing.”
“What a relief,” he says, nodding to all of us before backing out of the room.
“Tina, you know you’re supposed to take a bodyguard when you go off on your own,” says my father, eyeing me sternly.
“When I think of what could have happened to you in this horrible city,” my mother adds, still dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
I roll my eyes at them, turning down the pink satin comforter and slipping into bed. “I’m sorry I worried you, but I’m fine. I’d just like to go back to sleep.”
“I’m sure we all would,” says my father, kissing my forehead before shepherding my mother out of the room and back to their suite.
“Sei come una gatta,” says my brother, telling me I’m like a cat. “You have nine lives.”
“Meow,” I answer. “Turn off the light and shut the door, huh?”
“Someday you’ll tell me how you snuck back in.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
I grin at him, waggling my fingers in farewell as he pulls the double doors shut.
Taking a deep breath, I count to ten, just to make sure that no one’s coming back, then jump out of bed and knock twice on the hidden door that leads to the servant’s hallway. A moment later, Ian steps into my room, pulling me into his strong arms.
“Aw, Tina,” he murmurs, his heart thumping against my chest. “How’d you manage it?”
Without my heels on, I’m four inches shorter than I was before, which means my head nestles perfectly under his chin. “I made them think I’d been asleep in my dressing room the whole time.”
He leans away from me, screwing up his face. “They bought that?”
“They did.”
“That’s the thing about the well-to-do,” he says softly. “They never smell a rat.”
“And if they did,” I tell him pertly, “they wouldn’t be rude enough to mention it.”
We hold each other tightly, together again after the eternity of fifteen minutes apart, and I close my eyes, leaning my cheek against his chest as he kisses the top of my head with soft, sweet nuzzles.
As one second slides into the next, however, I become aware of the electricity between us: of how much I want him in ways forbidden to me, and how eager he would be to oblige me. My breathing becomes shallower and more ragged as I feel his fingers flex and tighten on my lower back.
“Now that you have me here, Yer Highness,” he asks in his low, gravelly voice, “whatever will you do with me?”
“Your Serene Highness,” I correct him, suddenly feeling a little shy. Being felt up in a dark garden by a fellow royal doesn’t quite compare with having an extremely male, undeniably sexy, Irish street thug visiting you in your hotel bedroom.
“What do you want, your Serene Highness?” he whispers.
“Everything,” I answer, so softly I doubt he hears me.
“Come again?” he murmurs, lifting my chin so my eyes meet his.
“Kiss me.”
He cups my jaw as he leans down, tilting his head at the last second so that his lips land flush over mine. We’ve kissed a dozen times tonight, but this time I’m only wearing a thin nightgown; the armor of my clothing is gone. I can feel the heat of his body through the flimsy fabric, but I am hungry for more. Trailing my fingers down his chest, I push at his t-shirt, grateful when he reaches behind his neck and pulls it off, leaving his skin bared to me.
My hands are flat against his chest when he unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his fly. I skim my fingers from his chest to his back, surprised when they slide still lower, and I feel the soft, rounded skin of his buttocks.
“You don’t wear…underwear!” I say, leaning back and blinking at him.
He chuckles softly as he toes off his shoes and jeans. “Nope.”
“You’re naked,” I add, uncertain of where to look.
“Uh-huh.” He places his hands on his hips and grins at me. “Is that okay, princess?”
“Mm-hm,” I hum, taking a step away from him so I can see him.
Moonlight—or impending dawn?—floods my room, bathing it in a soft, lavender light as I stare first at his face before dropping my eyes to his chest. In the luminous glow, I can make out a plethora of scars—some larger and discolored, others only ripples under my searching fingers. I land on one that’s purple and the size of a five-cent coin.
“What’s this?”
He covers my hand with his. “Stabbed.”
“With a knife?”
“Screwdriver,” he tells me.
My breath hitches as I look up at him. “Did it hurt?”
“It did,” he answers softly.
I slide my hand from under his, tracing a jagged line under his left rib. “And this?”
“Glass,” he tells me. “From a broken bottle.”
My shoulders fall. “My God, Ian.”
“It’s nothin’,” he tells me.
His hand covers mine, flattening it against his taut stomach before sliding it l
ower, until I feel curly, wiry hairs under my palm. I don’t fight him. I don’t protest. He holds his breath as my fingers touch the slick head of his erect penis, the pad of my middle finger circling the slippery crown.
By my hips, his fingers bunch in the fabric of my nightgown. “Can I take this off?”
He is so much bigger than me. So much stronger. It makes tears spring to my eyes that he asks my permission for something that he could so easily take without it.
“Sí,” I murmur, holding my arms up like a child as he tugs the cotton over my head and lets it fall to the floor in a whisper. My nipples tighten in the cool air, and I move instinctively closer to Ian. As my breasts skim his chest, he inhales sharply, cursing under his breath.
“Tina…Tina…Tina…” he groans, pulling my naked body flush against his. “I’ll never recover from tonight, love.”
Neither will I. I know it in my soul and in every beat of my heart. I care for this boy as I’ve never cared for anyone. After tonight, I will be changed. Forever.
“I want to…I want us to…” I murmur, grasping his arms and pulling him back with me until we fall onto the bed together, his broad chest covering mine.
“What do you want, love?” he asks, his hands tangling in my hair as his erection prods the delicate folds between my thighs.
“I want you to be…my first,” I tell him in a rush, my cheeks flushing hot as a blush fans out over my whole body.
“Your…first? Wait, you’ve never…?”
I shake my head, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “Not yet.”
“I can’t believe you’ve never had the chance,” he says, rolling to my side and searching my face.
“I have,” I admit. “But technically, it’s, um, proibita.”
“Forbidden?” he translates. “Why? Because you’re a princess?”
I nod. “Because my husband will expect to take my virginity.”
“To…take it?” His forehead creases. “That sounds medieval. Is that what you want?”
“It’s my duty,” I tell him.
“Then maybe we shouldn’t…”
“We should.” I place my palm on his face, leaning up on my elbows to kiss him. “Some decisions in my life won’t be mine, but this one should be.” I kiss him again, lingering on his soft, full bottom lip until he groans. “I want this. I choose you, Ian Ladd.”
