Prince Ever After

by A. C. Arthur

  “Sorry about that,” he said when he opened her car door. “I should have immediately come to open the door for you. Please accept my apology.”

  Val jumped at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t even realized he’d gotten up off the step and walked down the driveway. Now he was standing there holding the door open for her. His cologne was strong, or rather, the effect of the pleasantly sensual fragrance was potent. Enough to make her tremble before she gave herself an inward shake and a command to get it together, pronto!

  “No need for an apology, Your—”

  He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but since you were on your way to forgetting, let me remind you that we’ve slept in a bed together. That means it’s okay for you to call me Roland.”

  She’d said his name before. Last night, as she’d watched him sleep, she’d whispered his name. And then in her dream. She still couldn’t see her knight in shining armor’s face, but she’d said his name. Roland.

  She leaned over to the passenger seat and grabbed her purse and the flowers.

  “Thank you, Roland.” She spoke as she climbed out of the car.

  He didn’t back up, as he should have when she stood. In fact, he made no attempt to give her an inch of space to get away from him.

  “I like this,” he said, taking a step closer.

  “You like what?” she whispered as she resisted the urge to back away.

  He grinned. “Greeting you when you come home from work.”

  She shook her head and tried to look away. His eyes were too dark. The brown too intense. The edges of his beard too sharp and clean.

  “I know how to open my car door for myself,” she said, and felt instantly foolish and aroused the moment he took her chin between his fingers and tilted her head until she was staring up at him.

  “I know,” he said. “And you can drive, too. I’ve seen you do it.”

  This time, when she opened her mouth to reply, Roland took it. Moving in, his lips were on hers instantly, his tongue slipping easily inside to duel with hers as if he’d been waiting all day to do just that. Her fingers were crushing the plastic on the stems of her flowers again. He slipped one arm around her waist and pulled her close. She couldn’t touch him. She wouldn’t, even if she could. This was ridiculous.

  She wanted to kiss him and to touch him.

  Tilting her head, Val leaned into the kiss. It was good. Hot and spicy came to mind as his hand flattened on the curve of her bottom, the other one still possessively holding her chin. He sucked her tongue deeper into his mouth. Her legs trembled. He moved forward. She leaned back, vaguely feeling her back against the car. She moaned. It sounded so helpless. He ground his growing erection into her. She moaned once more.

  “We should probably take this inside,” he said, pulling his mouth from hers only long enough to say those words.

  “We should...ah, probably...stop,” she admitted and attempted to turn her face away from him.

  It didn’t matter. He began nipping her jaw. Tiny pricks of his teeth followed by warm strokes of his tongue. This was worse than the kiss because it felt better. So much better.

  “Yes,” she heard herself say.

  “Yes,” he echoed and began moving backward, pulling her with him.

  “No.” She shook her head. “No!”

  At that, his hands instantly left her body. So quickly she almost fell. Of course, he caught her. He was a prince, after all. The prince always caught the—

  What was she doing?

  Val was not a princess and she definitely wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was a grown woman, coming home after a long day’s work, and she was ready to find some semblance of peace in her life.

  After a steadying breath she turned and closed her car door. Pushing her purse up onto her shoulder, she gave a little shake of her head and tried to start again.

  “Hello, Roland,” she stated evenly, finally deciding she was together enough to look him in the eye once more. “Thank you for opening the door for me. It was a very chivalrous gesture.”

  Then she was moving, heading to her front door.

  “However, I’m not sure what you’re doing here. Oh, did you leave something behind this morning?” she asked and looked back at him.

  “No,” he replied and laughed when she bumped right into him as she turned.

  “Oh,” she said, not realizing he’d been following her that closely.

  “I don’t think I left anything. Still, there was this urge to return.”

  Val turned back. Her keys were in her hand. No, she thought as she looked down, they weren’t. What the—

  Roland was laughing again. She looked up to see him jog back to the car, open the door and take her keys out of the ignition where she’d so foolishly left them. Feeling like a complete idiot—and still a little flushed from that sexy-as-hell kiss—Val put her hand out for the keys when he returned to her. Roland held them out of her reach and circled around to open the door.

  “You don’t even know which key it is,” she insisted and felt even more inept as he opened the door.

  “I have an excellent memory,” he told her with another smile as he stepped to the side and gave a flourish of his arm to signal that she could now go inside.

  For the second time in as many days, Val walked into her house like she was a guest. The memory of his letting her in last night was still fresh in her mind. That was, until she pushed it aside because the more pertinent memory was of Malayka and her father’s ex telling her she was making a fool of herself with Roland.

  “How’s your father?” she asked after dropping her purse on her couch. Her steps continued just a few feet away to her dining area.

  There was a vase there, still holding last week’s flowers. Val carried the vase and her new flowers into the kitchen. She’d heard Roland close the door so she knew he would follow her.

  “I just left the hospital,” he said. “The procedure was earlier this afternoon and it went well. He was extremely agitated when he was in recovery so they sedated him. We’ll get to talk to him tomorrow.”

  She’d been changing the water in the vase, dropping the old flowers into the trash and unwrapping the new ones to slip them slowly into the fresh water. When she finished she looked up at him.

  He’d taken a seat at the short breakfast bar, on one of the stools she’d found at Mr. Tuda’s antique shop last summer. After two days of sanding and four ibuprofen to get rid of the ache in her shoulder, she’d been able to paint the stools a cheery yellow to match the curtains in her kitchen.

  He was staring at the flowers.

  “I remember when my mother was in the hospital,” he said. “I was only seven, but I remember sitting in a waiting room and one of the staff bringing me a cup of hot chocolate. I tried to drink it too fast and scorched my tongue. I cried and a nurse came over and picked me up. She took me into the room where my mother was and let me touch her hand. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.”

  Val’s fingers shook on the vase. She was glad it was sitting on the small round table in the center of the kitchen floor, or she definitely would have dropped it.

  “On the table beside the bed in that hospital room was a vase full of flowers. She loved fresh flowers and always had them throughout the palace,” he continued.

  “My mother loved flowers, too,” Val told him. “My dad said she had a garden. It was in ruins by the time I was old enough to walk. But I have pictures, and I see her smiling proudly as she showed off her hard work. My dad used to give her bouquets of flowers when they were dating.”

  “So you buy bouquets of flowers as a way of remembering her,” he said quietly.

  She nodded. “What do you do to remember your mother?”

  “I stay here,” he answere
d. “I won’t move away from Grand Serenity permanently because everything I remember about her is here. She loved it here and would never leave, not even when the natives told her she had no business coming from another country trying to marrying into royalty.”

  “But you don’t really want to be here, do you?” she asked. “You want to go far away, somewhere that nobody knows you’re a prince.”

  “Where nobody knows that I’m supposed to act like a prince at all times. Walk like one, talk like one. All the things a prince does, except rule.” He shrugged. “That’s fine with me, because the last thing I want to do is be responsible for an entire island full of people. It’s not what I’m cut out to do.”

  She nodded because she knew exactly how that felt. Val didn’t believe she was meant to guide tours for the rest of her life. There was another yearning inside her, one she’d yet to fully grasp. She wondered if Roland had something he could reach for.

  “I have leftover grilled chicken and macaroni salad from my dinner last night. I think there’s enough for two,” she announced, then lifted the vase and carried it back into the dining room.

  When she turned it was to see that he was still seated, although he hadn’t replied to her. That was probably better. She shouldn’t have offered anyway. Why eat her leftovers when he had a cook who would prepare his favorite rice pudding the instant he asked?

  “How was your day?” he asked when she went back into the kitchen.

  “What?” she asked, momentarily confused.

  Roland smiled. “Isn’t that what people do after a long day at work? They sit in the kitchen while dinner is being prepared and they ask each other how their day was. So, how was your day?”

  That’s what married people did. Val picked up on that instantly. Roland hadn’t said those exact words, but she knew, and she shook her head to clear the thought away. She wasn’t married to Roland.

  “Three tours, one in the morning and two this afternoon. At lunch I sat in the atrium with my tuna sandwich. How about you? What was on your royal schedule today?”

  She hadn’t meant for it to sound sarcastic, but she knew it did. He wasn’t an ordinary working person, like she was, and it didn’t really make sense to act as if he was. Still, she felt bad. So she turned away from him, going to the refrigerator to pull out the leftovers.

  “I went to a meeting this morning. I suggested we do something to increase tourism on the island. I think it might work,” he told her.

  “Are you on the tourism board, too?” she asked after setting the plastic containers on the counter. “I know the princess is very active on the board. We hear in our monthly meetings how the prince wants us to bring in bigger artists, feature more diverse exhibitions to draw in more visitors.”

  “The more stable our economy, the less chance we have of anyone trying to take over the island,” he said.

  “Is that even a possibility in this day and age?” she asked. “I mean, I know it happened before, when your grandfather and my grandfather fought to end Vansig’s tyrannical reign. But we’re different now. We’ve grown so much since then.”

  Roland shook his head. “We’re an independent province, with a small military compared to the large countries surrounding us. Anything is possible.”

  He’d certainly hit the nail on the head with that statement. Anything was possible, which was why he was in her house about to share a meal with her.

  “So, wait a minute,” she said, just recalling what he’d said. “I thought you weren’t into the business end of things.”

  “That’s what everybody thinks,” he told her. “Remember we were talking about misjudging before.”

  Okay, he was right. “I agree that people shouldn’t rush to judge anyone else. But I can make assessments based on what I’ve been shown. I’ve never seen you at any of the board meetings at the museum. Your brother, your sister and sometimes even your father, but never you. The museum was one of your mother’s famed projects on the island. I’d think if there were one thing you would do—if you were inclined to—it would be to make sure everything was as it should be there.”

  “The museum employs one hundred and fifty-seven islanders. Its annual revenue contributes three-point-four percent to Grand Serenity’s economy. This year two new exhibits were introduced. With each opening there was a four percent increase in visitors and a one percent increase in annual subscriptions. The gift shop alone brings in almost seventeen percent more in retail sales compared with other gift shops throughout the island.”

  He was speaking in a normal tone, watching her watch him as he did. Again, Val felt foolish. She was also impressed.

  “This will be the second time today I’ve had to explain that while I’m not seen at the meetings, that doesn’t mean I don’t read the financial reports that I’m always copied on. I know the status of every aspect of this island’s growth. And because I’m the more social of the royal family, I even know a good number of the business owners personally,” he informed her.

  “And you keep all this hidden because...?” she asked as she finally remembered to put the bowl with the chicken into the microwave and start the warming process.

  “It’s always made sense to do so,” was his reply. “Until now.”

  She’d leaned back then, her arms bent, hands grasping the edge of the counter. When he stood, Val wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Was he leaving? Had she said too much? Made him feel uncomfortable? All of this was uncharted territory for her, so she felt like she might be in over her head when dealing with His Royal Highness.

  “You want to know what doesn’t make sense?” he asked.

  He was crossing the short distance between them and Val’s fingers instantly clenched the counter tighter. This wasn’t going to be good.

  “What’s that?” she asked. Hearing her voice sound confident and steady was a terrific boost to the jumble of nerves dancing in the pit of her stomach. Why did this happen each time he looked at her the way he was looking at her now? Why did he insist on getting closer to her? Barging into her space?

  “This morning was the first time I woke up in a woman’s bed alone,” he said simply.

  Val opened her mouth, a sassy quip on the tip of her tongue. But Roland’s finger lightly touching her lips put the comment on hold.

  “When I walked into the conference room at the palace, that was the first council meeting I’d ever attended.” His voice softened as his gaze fell to his finger. The finger that was now tracing the line of her lips.

  She swallowed, her nails attempting to scratch into the laminate counter.

  “Pulling up here and sitting on your step to wait for you was the first time in my entire life that I’ve actually waited for a woman,” he continued.

  His finger had made its way to the center of her bottom lip where it pressed lightly. Val didn’t know what to do or say next. Apparently her body did, even if her mind was struggling to catch up.

  Her tongue snaked out slowly until it touched the pad of his finger. His gaze instantly came to hers. The deep brown of his eyes grew darker, hungrier, and Val grew bolder. She closed her lips around his finger, suckling slowly until he pushed it farther into her mouth. Their gazes held as her mouth worked over the digit. His breathing grew faster, his lips parting, body moving until it brushed against hers. He was hard. She was aroused.

  “You’re the first woman to ever get to me,” he whispered. “The very first one.”

  Val pulled her mouth away, loving how he immediately moved his hand to cup her bottom possessively, and the finger that had been in her mouth now lightly touched her chin.

  “You’re my first, too,” she whispered. “My first dream.”

  Chapter 9

  That was it. This had to be a dream.

  It just had to be. There was no other explanation for Prince Rola
nd standing in her kitchen, undoing the button of her pants and pushing them quickly down her legs. And if that part was a dream, the moment when she grabbed his face and brought his mouth back to hers was certainly from some sort of pleasure-induced slumber.

  “Off,” he murmured between kissing her and yanking at her clothes. “Now.”

  It took Val a second to realize that, no, this was not a dream, and yes, Roland really was trying to take her clothes off in her kitchen. With her entire body humming with arousal, there was no need to wonder what she was going to do next. Pressing her palms to his chest, she moved him back a couple of steps and then finished what he’d started.

  Val toed off her boat shoes and pulled one leg, then the other out of her work pants. Because his hands had moved to cup her breasts when he whispered the word off, she grabbed the hem of her polo shirt and lifted it up and over her head. He made quick work of unsnapping the clasp in front that held her bra in place. In seconds it was sliding down her arms and hitting the floor. He was impatient, she thought with an inward smile. Why did she find that irresistible?

  He’d taken his jacket off while she was removing her clothes, and his shirt was partially unbuttoned, but he’d stopped to help her with her bra. So chivalrous, he was.

  Val finished unbuttoning his shirt while Roland cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumbs over her taut nipples. She bit her bottom lip to keep from groaning with the spikes of pleasure his touch sent soaring through her. His dress shirt and the tie that had been hanging around his neck went quickly. The T-shirt he wore beneath spoiled her anticipation of seeing his bare chest once again. So if she stretched it a little out of shape when she hurriedly pulled it over his head, Val wasn’t going to let that bother her.

  The belt buckle and the zipper of his pants were a little challenge, but Roland was all too helpful. She wanted his hands on her and her legs around him. Since when had she become so wanton? Val had no idea, nor did she care to try and analyze that fact. There would be time to ask and answer all of her questions. That time just wasn’t now.