by Parker Grey
I imagine hilting myself inside her with a single stroke, fist pumping frantically, and then I come with a long, loud groan, stickying the sheets as I orgasm in spurt after spurt, eyes closed.
I need you to fuck me.
Finally, I’m finished, suddenly exhausted with the sheer force of it. I’ve made a mess, but it’s not the first time I’ve made a mess in these guest chambers.
I just roll over in the huge bed, away from the wet spot, and fall asleep. Housekeeping will see to it in the morning.
Chapter Nine
Aurora
“I’m not even sure why you’re here,” I tease Declan. “If you’re going to whine about having to visit Naralta’s National Chapel, you could have just stayed back at the palace.”
“And done what?” he asks, leaning back in the limousine. “Watched old men play tennis? I’d much rather be here, bothering you lot.”
“The palace does have television and internet,” I say. “And aren’t you in the guest chambers that are just loaded with video games? I’m pretty sure we’ve even got that new thing, the one where you wave it and stuff happens?”
Now my stupid brother Grayson laughs.
“That’s been out for ages, it’s not new anymore,” he says.
“You stay out of this,” I tell him, smoothing my respectable skirt over my knees.
Not that I feel particularly respectable around Declan. His offer is all I could think about last night, tossing and turning, my bed either too hot or too cold. When I finally fell asleep, I swear I was five minutes from calling Bianca and asking if I could borrow a vibrator.
Even though, given my history, I doubt it would work.
And even though I know that borrowing a sex toy is probably the grossest thing you could possibly do. She’d never have said yes.
“I swear she’s nineteen, not ninety-eight,” Grayson says to Declan, and I just sigh dramatically.
I’m trying not to be disappointed. I might have had a slight fantasy about him, in which it turned out we were the only two going to this cathedral for some reason, so in the back of the limo he slid his hand up my leg until it was under my skirt, kissed my neck as his thumb edged beneath my lace panties...
Yeah, I own lace panties, and yeah, I wore them today. I’m a virgin, not a nun.
“Aurora,” says Grayson.
“What?”
He grins.
“Jeez, I was just gonna ask you a question, you don’t have to bite my head off,” he says.
I roll my eyes. Even if he’s married with a baby, Grayson still pulls this big brother shit all the time, irritating me just the right amount until I snap, and then suddenly I’m the unreasonable one.
I keep my cool, reminding myself that it’s been this way since I can remember and it probably always will be. Hurray for family, right?
“What’s the question?” I ask, my tone perfectly reasonable.
“Are we going to St. Alice or St. Ingrid?”
“Seriously?”
“Look, Stefan was up all night last night, and he’s been really fussy lately, so I wanted to let Ella get some sleep, and I kinda forgot where it is we’re going today,” he explains.
On cue, Stefan in his car carrier fusses for exactly two seconds, then goes back to gurgling happily.
“We’re going to St. Alice.”
“Is she the battle nun?” Declan asks.
I just look at him. Not that I’m an expert on the various saints of the region, but I don’t know that there’s a battle nun among them.
“No, she’s the... other one,” I say.
I do happen to know the story of St. Alice, and I don’t particularly want to tell it to Declan, of all people. Not now.
“What other one?” He asks. Of course.
I sigh.
“The daughter of a noble family who didn’t want to get married?”
Blank stare. I sigh again, nervously twisting the hem of my skirt between my fingers.
“Alice was the only daughter of a noble family, and she was very dedicated to her religion,” I say. “Her father wanted her to get married, but due to said dedication, she was also a committed virgin. Because this was happening like fifteen hundred years ago, though, she didn’t really get much of a choice in the matter, and despite her numerous protests her father forced her to go through with it.”
“Okay,” Declan says, like he’s still waiting for the good part.
“Only when her new husband came into their bedchamber on their wedding night, he found her praying fervently in the middle of their bed for God to allow her to keep her vows of virginity. He wasn’t the nicest guy, so he was pretty much about to rape her, until God answered her prayers and turned her into a puddle. Now there’s a spring where their marital chamber allegedly was, and Alice got to die a virgin.”
Lucky her, I think sarcastically. Not that marrying someone you don’t want to sounds great, either, but I think I’d take that over becoming a puddle.
“Sounds like he was a lousy lover,” Declan says, leaning back in his seat.
The limo slows, turning, and then suddenly the street gets bumpy. I glance out the window: cobblestones, so we must be close.
“He should have gone a little slower, obviously. Shown her some pleasure first instead of trying to just jump in there. Makes a world of difference.”
Sitting next to him, Grayson growls, glowering. His eyes flash in warning, and Declan casually crosses his arms in front of himself.
“You disagree?” Declan asks him, but Grayson just keeps on glaring.
“Oh, come on,” Declan says. “Stefan’s way too young to understand, and I didn’t even use any dirty words.”
The limo stops. I can’t get out fast enough, gulping in the fresh air of the early spring day. Anything to get away from telling Declan about famous virgins and then having my brother snap at him.
“Just fucking behave yourself,” I hear Grayson mutter.
Please don’t, I think.
Chapter Ten
Declan
Aurora’s right. There was no reason for me to come, and I probably shouldn’t have. But the thought of playing a dumb video game, or watching TV, or playing tennis with some foreign minister while she’s here?
Sounds terrible. I’d much rather watch the way she bends over as she gets out of the limousine, her demure skirt perfectly outlining her perfect ass for a few seconds before she disappears.
“Just fucking behave,” Grayson growls, still seated next to me. He’s unbuckling Stefan, and I give him a hand since it turns out that baby car seats practically require nautical knot training to figure out. Ella’s in a separate car, with some friends of hers who are here for the christening, getting twenty minutes of respite from Stefan.
There are photo ops. I just stand there, in some of the photos and not in others, and I behave.
We walk the kid around the church, which is beautifully decorated, if a bit baroque, ornate, and gold for my own personal tastes. We sit through a long prayer given by the priest, who then blesses Stefan with a smidge of holy water.
Stefan mostly sleeps.
After all that is over, the priest wants to give the dignitaries — that’s us — a tour of the church and grounds. I stick close behind Aurora and ignore Grayson’s glares, even if I can’t keep my eyes off her ass.
At last, nearly done, we’re in a tiny chapel off to one side. There’s a winding spiral staircase in one corner, a little rickety, and it looks like it goes up to the beautifully painted vaulted ceiling.
“Are people allowed up there?” Aurora asks, pointing.
The priest nods, slightly.
“It’s very old, but it can hold a few people at once. It also has an amazing view of the hand-painted Griglioni paintings of the Ascension, in which he uses the spring as an inspiring metaphor for the new life which we find in...”
I’m not listening, but neither is Aurora. She’s got one hand on the bannister, looking up at the catwalk, her foot already on the bottom step
.
“That doesn’t look stable,” Grayson calls out.
“It’s fine,” she says.
In his arms, Stefan whimpers, his tiny face beginning to crumple. Grayson jiggles him immediately, comforting him, but his face keeps getting redder and redder.
I don’t think it’s working.
“Shh, it’s fine, you’re fine,” Grayson murmurs to his kid, not paying attention to me anymore.
“He might be hungry,” Ella offers, sounding a little tired. “Is there anywhere private we can go feed him?”
Aurora’s already on her way up the spiral stairs. They creak slightly under her weight, but she doesn’t notice.
The priest leads Grayson and Ella out, the three of them totally forgetting about me and Aurora.
Alone together.
I grin and follow her. Moments later I’m behind her on the stairs, watching the hypnotic sway of her ass as she ascends.
I think about grabbing it as she bends over the railing, full and firm in my hands. The way I’d slide my hands up her skirt, yank her panties off, her knuckles white on the bannister.
I wouldn’t even fuck her, not at first. I’d keep my promise that I could make her come and make that first orgasm all about her, standing there, mostly-clothed while I teased her clit until she whimpered, her legs shaking, barely able to hold up her own weight.
Right here. In church. It’s just a building, I don’t particularly care who it’s here for.
“You’re particularly interested in the Ascension?” Aurora asks, her red hair cascading over her shoulder as she turns her head and looks down at me.
Fuck, I’m hard already. Even though I jerked off in my shower this morning, trying to prevent precisely this, my dick could cut glass already and I’ve just been staring at her ass.
All right, and imagining the things I’d do to that ass.
“Sure,” I say, as we both come out of the stairway and onto the catwalk.
It shudders slightly under our weight, but it’s already held for hundreds of years, and apparently it’s going to be good for another afternoon.
“I kind of just wanted to get away,” she admits, turning to the railing, grasping it with both hands.
We’re up near the ceiling now, only a couple of feet from the apparently-amazing paintings that the priest was telling us about. I’m sure they’re good, but I’m no connoisseur, and they just... look like paintings.
“From your brother?”
“From Grayson, from all the press, from everyone watching me constantly,” she says, turning her head to look at me again.
She leans slightly, and even under her below-knee skirt and long-sleeved blouse, I can see the outlines of her stunning curves. I can practically feel her under my hands, imagine the way she’d flush pink when I make her come for the first time.
“There are plenty of eyes on you,” I say, looking at her myself. I’m not making a secret of the fact that I’m just staring at her.
But up here, where there’s no one else around? Aurora is staring right back. She’s bolder when her big brother isn’t breathing down her neck, when her parents aren’t watching her like a hawk.
“I’m sure they’re all thinking about what I said yesterday,” she murmurs, not breaking eye contact.
“I’d bet most people have already forgotten,” I tell her, moving a step closer.
Now I’m towering over her, and even though we’re in full view of the entire church, we’re tucked up in this corner where it feels like no one can see us. And sure enough, of the few people scattered below, no one is looking up here.
“I haven’t, though,” I say.
Aurora blushes, but she doesn’t break eye contact.
“And my offer is still on the table, Princess,” I murmur.
I can’t help myself. I reach out, trace my thumb along her jaw, from her ear to her chin, then run it along the outline of her lips, stopping right in the center.
“You know I can’t,” she whispers.
I step closer. Now my face is right above hers, only inches away. The heat between us is palpable, and even if an entire pack of hungry wolves showed up and tried to drag me away, I don’t think I could tear myself from Aurora right now.
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” I whisper. “Only one of those matters to me, Princess.”
“I shouldn’t,” she whispers.
I just grin at her, and she looks down, her eyelashes fluttering just as little.
“Some things are expected of me,” she goes on, her voice quiet. “I’m supposed to be pure when I get married, I’m not supposed to bring embarrassment on the kingdom, and getting caught in a scandal with my brother’s notorious friend would definitely do that.”
“None of those things are what matters to me,” I murmur. “I don’t give a single flying fuck about anyone else, Princess. But if you say that you don’t want to, and not that you can’t, I’m gone in a second.”
She says nothing, just looks up at me, and I lean in.
“We don’t even have to fuck, Princess,” I whisper. “As much as I’d like to hear you moan while my cock fills you up—”
She gasps, softly.
“—I know about a hundred ways I can make you come without ever technically deflowering you.”
Aurora is bright, bright pink. I think she’s holding her breath. Slowly, I take my thumb from her mouth.
“Now,” I growl. “Tell me you don’t want me to.”
Chapter Eleven
Aurora
Oh, my God, I want him to. Only I’m not that brave, and despite everything, despite my internal monologue screaming yes, just say yes, worry about the consequences later, I can’t bring myself to say yes, your proposition sounds delightful to me.
I think my legs are shaking. I finally gasp in a breath after not taking one for far too long, and it feels like I’ve swallowed a fire that keeps on burning, melting me all the way down to the core, heat pooling between my legs.
“I can walk you through it, Aurora,” he murmurs. “I’m happy to walk you through anything, after all.”
I clear my throat.
“Yes,” I whisper, so softly I think he might not have heard me, but then his eyes burn into mine with a heat I didn’t know existed.
He heard me. Oh dear God, he heard me, his hand sliding along my jaw, cupping the back of my head.
“Here’s your first lesson, then,” he rumbles, his voice quiet and deep. I squeeze my knees together, my core throbbing. “Repeat after me: Declan, I want you to give me my first orgasm.”
I close my eyes, summon all my bravery. There’s a part of me that thinks this is still some kind of prank, that Declan is recording this so he can laugh with my brother and their friends at the stupid things he made me say.
“Declan,” I murmur.
His hand tightens.
“More,” he growls.
I take a deep breath and grab the railing a little tighter.
“Iwantyoutogivememyfirstorgasm.”
My heart thunders in my chest, breath held, eyes closed, and for a long second I wait for Declan to laugh, whip out a tape recorder, and run downstairs. But he doesn’t.
Instead, suddenly, his lips are on mine. He kisses me roughly, his fingers tight in my hair, his tongue prying my lips apart until I open up to him with a soft moan.
No one’s ever kissed me like this, not even close. Declan is perfectly all man, demanding what he wants, taking it from me, totally in control.
And I like it. This kiss makes me want to give him everything. I’m turning into a puddle of molten lava right here on this catwalk, just about ready to do anything he wants.
His other hand moves down my back, into the hollow at the base of my spine and presses my body against his.
He’s hard again. Either that or he’s still got that cucumber in his pocket, but from the way he groans softly into my mouth and grinds his hips into mine, I’m pretty sure it’s not a vegetable.
Then his
hand is past my back, onto my ass. He slides one finger between my cheeks, still over my skirt, delving between my legs until he’s pressing right against my heat.
My body jolts, and I gasp again, my hand tightening on the catwalk railing.
“Declan,” I say. “We’re—”
Before I can finish my sentence, there’s a horrifying shriek of metal and the whole catwalk lurches nauseatingly to one side, the railing jerking out of my hand.
“Oh!” I yelp, stumbling backward, suddenly off my balance with nothing to hold onto.
“Aurora!” Declan yells.
The catwalk lurches again, and this time one knee buckles under me. I can’t help but look down at the floor, seventy feet below.
The curse was right, I think, my mind suddenly detached. I didn’t make it to twenty.
But then there’s a strong arm around my waist and I’m heaved forward, practically lifted until my feet are on the stone second floor of the church, solid ground underneath me.
I sink to the floor, momentarily not giving a damn about whether Declan can see up my skirt, and lean against the comforting stone wall, gasping for air.
He kneels in front of me, grabs my hand in his.
“Are you all right?” he murmurs, his voice low and desperate.
“I’m fine,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m totally fine, that was just... surprising.”
There’s a long pause, Declan just watching me while my breathing evens out and I stop shaking. Finally, I push myself to standing, and he offers his hand.
Then he looks wickedly into my eyes, and I feel just as shaky as I did moments ago.
“Which part was surprising?” he murmurs, grinning.
Before I can answer, he’s leading me down the stairs and back into the tiny chapel, where I light a candle in thanks for brothers who have sexy friends.
Chapter Twelve
Declan
I can’t think about anything else. The christening festivities for Stefan are still ongoing, and I’m still being called on to discuss delicate matters of politics, foreign affairs, or even whether Naralta’s military uniforms are a bit outdated or not.
