Prince Ever After

by A. C. Arthur

  Val had been insistent that she would never get a moment’s rest at home and that she would prefer to stay at the hospital. Roland had announced that he would take care of her. That obviously entailed bringing her to a lovely house on the cliffs. In all her years living on this island, Val had never been inside one of the houses that were nestled quaintly into the mountainside. And she’d certainly never expected any of them to look this good.

  The winding roads brought them up the mountain, where the lush green landscape seemed to split open, giving way to light rocks and a contemporary white haven perched right on the cliff’s edge. Inside was a blend of sleek and natural designs, from the light wood floors to the glass dining room table and the heather-gray couches with darker gray pillows.

  There was a sitting area that she was particularly drawn to and Val immediately walked there when Roland instructed her to make herself at home. It was on the other side of the living room, where the floor-to-ceiling windows stretched into a quaint little area. There were two oddly shaped chairs there, and deep-cushioned black leather chairs. They were positioned with their backs to the window, so that the occupant could benefit from the suspended gas fireplace just a few feet away. The fireplace was the eye-catcher here, with its hammered steel casing. Val did not sit but, instead, stood there staring as Roland started a fire with the flick of a switch.

  When he was finished he came around to where she stood and finally took a moment to answer her question.

  “Not entirely,” he replied. “Your father and this man apparently knew each other from years ago. They exchanged words about Hugo’s continued attempts at connecting to my family. Like those ladies that visited your house earlier were saying, word is spreading around the island about you and me. Your father, of course, defended your honor. The man did not like what he said and the fight ensued.”

  “That sounds like it was about me, Roland,” she responded grimly.

  He’d slipped his hands into his pockets and turned toward the windows. “That depends on whether or not everything your father said was accurate. I’ll check it out in the morning. For now, we should have something to eat and try to get some rest.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she replied.

  The view was breathtaking. From this window, there was at least a hundred foot drop down to the turquoise sea water. Night had fallen, and the sliver of moon cast minimal strips of light over the water. It seemed so peaceful, even in the midst of the turmoil that Val felt swirling around her.

  “I know what you’re feeling,” Roland said as he came up behind her.

  When she thought he was going to wrap his arms around her, at which time she fully intended to lean back into his embrace, he did not. Instead, he simply stood in that spot, as if letting her know that he was there if she needed him, but not overstepping in any way.

  Val didn’t know what she needed right then. Cora and Idelle had done exactly what they’d intended to do, upset her. Only she was certain the women wanted her to be upset over her nonexistent chances with Roland and not solely because of her father’s injuries. To be perfectly honest, before they’d even arrived she’d been feeling some of what they’d intended. Even though she’d told Roland to leave, and she’d felt like that was the right thing to do, there hadn’t been a day that had passed since that morning after the poker game that she had not thought about him.

  She’d never envisioned herself with a prince. Ever. But Roland wasn’t just a prince. In fact, there were moments when she could completely forget about his birthright and simply enjoy the man. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “He’s going to be alright,” Roland told her. “Padget, one of the guards assisting, sent me a text that your father made it out of surgery and is resting well now. The doctors expect a full recovery.”

  Val nodded, happy to hear those words. It had been a bar fight. Her father had been involved in plenty of them before, but this was the first to put him in the hospital. She cupped her hands over her face and let those thoughts run through her. Then, as if something had just hit her, Val turned to face Roland.

  “What do you expect, Roland?” she asked. “From me, that is. What is it that you think is going to happen between us?”

  For a second, Val thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he lifted a hand and touched the strands of her hair that had been tickling her forehead. He pushed them back, his fingertips gentle against her skin.

  “I think it’s already happened,” he told her.

  She looked up into his deep chocolate-brown eyes, trying desperately to find the trickery. She wanted to hear the slickness in his tone, to possibly thwart the smooth moves and orchestrated plans. That’s what he did, wasn’t it? He played women, used them for what he wanted and then tossed them back. If that were true, Val hadn’t been a witness yet. Nothing he’d done for or with her in the time that she’d known him personally gave her any indication that his plan was to take her for the same ride. Nothing at all.

  Still, she wondered if she should be cautious.

  “All that’s happened so far is sex,” she replied.

  He appeared hurt by her words. His head tilted slightly as if he’d been physically struck, and she thought his shoulders slumped, at least a little.

  “Is that what you really think?” he asked. “Search yourself right now, Valora, and tell me if that’s all you really think has happened between us.”

  “Roland, it’s been a little over a week. Nine days, to be exact, since the night my father tried to give me to you. We’ve had a couple of dinners and a night of sex. Great sex, but still just sex,” she said.

  He nodded as if to say he heard her words, but Val didn’t believe for one moment that he was going to accept what she’d just said.

  “For me,” Roland began, touching her cheek with the same fingers he’d fixed her hair with, “it’s been like a breath of fresh air.”

  Val didn’t know what to say.

  “I told you before that you were a first. That wasn’t a lie. There were moments in the past few days that I wished it were. It would be simpler that way, if this were just some conquest or something for me to do to pass the time. I guess it’s unfortunate for you that its not,” Roland admitted.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s unfortunate.” The words came out before she could think to stop them. Val had a sinking suspicion that might be a good thing.

  “You wouldn’t?” he asked and stepped closer to her. “What would you call it? What would you say is happening between us, Valora?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered.

  And that was the truth. She had no idea, at least, she didn’t think she did. But her body and her mind were on different pages because before she could say another word, Val’s hands were lifting to touch his arms.

  She rubbed upward until they cupped his shoulders.

  “I think you do,” he whispered as he lowered his face to hers. “I think you know exactly what’s happening.”

  If she did, she wasn’t going to say so right now. Val was determined to leave it all behind tonight. Cora, Idelle, her father and that fight, the royal and the painter scenario, all of it was flitting away slowly but surely, from her mind as she came up on her toes and slanted her mouth over his. She was in control of this, the desire that always swept through her when she was near him. The instant punch of need that flourished when his lips were on hers. This was what was happening, every bit of this.

  * * *

  She was in his arms once more.

  This was exactly where Roland wanted her to be. It was the reason he’d gone back to her house, even though the act contradicted everything he’d ever done in his life where women were concerned. But Roland hadn’t cared. As he’d stepped out of the car and walked up to her front door, he hadn’t cared one bit about any other woman he’d had the pleasure of kno
wing. None of them mattered. Not after Valora.

  Those women and what had happened to her father had thrown his attention in a different direction, but it always came back to her. Each and every time, he was realizing, it came back to her.

  He kissed her hungrily, not willing to give her any other impression at this moment other than that he wanted, no, he needed her desperately.

  “I need you, V,” he whispered into the line of her neck as he dragged his mouth eagerly over her skin. “I don’t know why or how it happened, but it’s true. I just need...you.”

  She held the back of his head firmly now, her own hunger showing as she pressed eagerly into him.

  “I know,” she gasped. “I know what you mean. That’s all there is. The need.”

  He wanted to nod and then yell, jumping up and down because she was absolutely right. There was nothing else. No crown. No gossipers. No threats. Just them and their need for each other. That was all.

  Roland pulled her dress up and over her head in seconds. He unsnapped her bra and pushed her panties down her legs. While she stepped out of her shoes, he hurriedly retrieved a condom from his wallet, then tossed the leather billfold onto the floor. His clothes immediately followed.

  She grabbed the condom from him and unwrapped it. Roland was certain he’d never seen anything as sexy as the way her small hands moved over the foil wrapper. When that wrapper hit the floor he sucked in a breath. She took him in one hand, gently, rubbing her thumb over the slit of his arousal. He gritted his teeth and fought to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. She stroked him then. From the base to his tip, she let the warmth of her hand surround his length and Roland knew he’d never felt anything as blissful in his life before. With her other hand she touched the latex to his tip and smoothed it down over him. The second she was finished, Roland was lifting her into his arms.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist and he walked them to the window where he pushed her back against the glass. Behind her were the mountains and the water and space. Inside her, he thought as he pressed his length into her waiting center, was absolute peace.

  He pumped instantly, in and out; he moved with the ferocity of a starved animal. Her blunt-tipped nails dug into his shoulders, her head fell back against the glass. She was breathing heavily and so was he. The sound of their bodies connecting echoed throughout the living room, spurring his desire until he wanted to simply devour her.

  His hands shook as he held on to her, his body tensing all over as the pleasure simply occupied every space in his soul.

  “V!” he called out to her. It was a simple letter, one syllable, one moment, one woman.

  There would not be another. Roland knew that as surely as he knew the sun would always rise. He’d waited all these years, all this time to find her, and she’d been right here all along. His father had said if he’d just slow down he would be surprised to see who was standing beside him. Roland was surprised and enamored and dangerously close to falling in love.

  * * *

  With his arm still tight around her waist, Roland let Val’s feet touch the floor. He took her mouth in another heated kiss, this time nipping her bottom lip with his teeth before sucking it into his mouth for what seemed like endless spine-tingling moments. When he finally pulled away, he turned her so that her back was now facing him. Before she could ask what was going on, he grasped her wrists and lifted her arms up over her head. When her head lolled forward, he kissed the nape of her neck. He nipped the skin along the back of her neck and across her shoulder blades. He flattened her palms on the window and continued to kiss her.

  Val was breathless. She was spiraling out of control, and when she chanced opening her eyes, she saw the water below. It was fitting, she thought, because one more touch from him, one more stroke, one more word of adoration and she was going to topple right over. It would be just like free-falling off this cliff. She knew it before it even happened. She welcomed it even though she knew there would be consequences.

  Then he was moving, dragging his hands down her torso until he could cup her hips. Adjusting her slightly so that her bottom was thrust in his direction, Val felt his length touch the crevice of her bottom and she groaned. He pressed right there, letting her feel the long hot length of him trying to get inside her warmth once more. She moved her hips, desperate to help him get to the spot they both wanted him to reach. When he grasped her cheeks and spread her wide, she gasped.

  “Open for me,” he groaned. “Please.”

  “Yes,” she screamed. “Only for you.”

  Val spread her legs wider and was rewarded with the feel of his erection pressing into her in one intense motion. Her body shook with the action, her fingers slid along the glass as she attempted to grip something, anything.

  “Perfect,” he said when he leaned over her to lick the line of her shoulder. “This is just perfect. You. Everything.”

  She was shaking her head, hearing his words. Memorizing them, absorbing them into her system. He’d been saying things like this since they’d begun and it was driving her insane. If they were true, they were fabulous. If they weren’t, she didn’t care, she loved hearing them. Loved feeling how worked up each admission had him. She loved...

  “Roland!” His name rolled off her tongue just seconds before her release took her.

  She trembled all over, parts of her seeming to melt away into thin air.

  “More,” he said as he thrust faster and deeper into her. “Just a little more.”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes.”

  “Yes!” he echoed. “Yes!”

  And then both their hearts were racing as he pushed into her one final time. Her body was plastered to the glass, his right behind. Their breaths fogged the window, their release filled the room with an air of satisfaction.

  “You asked me what I thought was happening,” she said after a minute or so of silence as they caught their breaths.

  “Yeah,” he said, still gasping. “You have an answer now.”

  Val nodded.

  “It’s already happened,” was her easy reply.

  He kissed her back and rested his forehead against hers once more. “I agree,” he said. “I totally agree.”

  * * *

  Hours later, after they’d eaten bologna sandwiches and drunk bottled orange juice, Roland and Valora lay on his bed. She was turned on her side so she could look out to the sea. He was right behind her, his body spooned against hers, his lips at her neck. In a few moments they would undoubtedly fall asleep.

  “I don’t want to be kept a secret,” he began. “I don’t want to have to sneak around with the woman I’m sleeping with, not anymore. If I’m going to be in a relationship with someone, it’s going to be all-in or nothing. We’re both going to work on a real and healthy relationship, or I’m not getting involved. That’s what I deserve and that’s all I’ll accept.”

  Val went totally still at his words. She remembered them—it was exactly what she’d said to him that day she’d pushed him away.

  He didn’t ask for a reply, and because it had taken her so long to even think of one, he’d already fallen asleep. That was good, she thought, because she wasn’t sure that what she was going to say was what he wanted to hear.

  Actually, she wasn’t sure that what she was going to say was what either of them were ready to take on, no matter the words they’d both spoken on how totally right and magnificent this thing between them felt.

  Chapter 14

  Valora was in a casino.

  She was wearing a maxidress with a black halter top and a black-and-white-striped skirt. The extra twenty minutes she’d taken to curl her hair had paid off, because as she walked past the mirrored wall in the front entrance, she’d caught a glimpse of the cute short style. She’d smiled and continued to walk as if there was a new and exciting
destination ahead of her.

  Aside from the fact that, because of her father’s sickening habit she hated gambling with a passion, the casino was a fabulous place to be. At least, it was tonight.

  Three days had passed since Val spent the night at Roland’s cliff house. In that time, a tentative deal had been struck between Kip Sallinger, Quirio Denton and the royal family. This deal—as Val understood—was to build a new resort, complete with a golf course, spa and high-end shopping. The resort would be built on land that adjoined the spot where Mr. Sallinger’s casino now sat in the town center. Roland was already working on a proposal to present to the Tourism Board and the cruise lines, selling the resort, casino and golf club combo as a package deal for tourists.

  All that meant that the past three days had been filled with one dinner meeting after another. Val would work at the museum during the day, go to Roland’s cliff house at night, attend a dinner meeting and then go back to Roland’s cliff house for brainstorming and lovemaking until the early-morning hours. Tonight was Friday, and Val had left work an hour early because she wanted to take the extra time to not only pick out an outfit, but to make sure her hair and makeup were on point. At the dinner last night with Kris, Landry, Gary and Sam, Val had noted how together both princesses looked. She wasn’t a princess, but she figured if she were going to be on Roland’s arm, she should at least be presentable.

  She was on Roland’s arm. Going out with a prince. No matter how many times she said those things to herself, it still seemed unbelievable. As unbelievable as Tuesday afternoon, when she’d arrived at Roland’s house to find a rack of clothes in his living room and shoe boxes stacked by his couch.

  “Are you packing?” she’d asked.

  “No,” he’d replied as he came over to kiss her loudly on the lips. “I’ve been shopping.”