The Proposal Problem: A Billionaire Royal Hangover Romance

by Natalie Knight

  “Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he asks, his voice lustful and mischievous at the same time.

  “I think I do,” I reply with an anxious nod, flames of desire crawling under my skin.

  “I’m not sure about that,” he mutters under his breath, but he smiles all the same. “But I’m going to show exactly how much I want you.”

  “Then do it,” I groan, anxious to feel him inside of me.

  I don’t want to waste any time on idle conversation: with my fingers curled tight around his cock, I pull him into me. He comes willingly, grabbing his member and rubbing its fat head against my inner lips.

  His tip goes up and down over my folds and, when I least expect it, he finally thrusts. Fuck, I’ve missed him. There’s something ethereal about it; in a sense, it has to do with the size, but that’s not the most important thing… It’s the way he’s capable of wielding it that leaves me pining for more.

  If fucking were an art, then he has reached the pinnacle of mastery.

  Thrusting hard, his cock strains against my inner walls as it goes in, pleasure whipping my brain like a foreman. It doesn’t matter how many times I’m with him, it’s always transcendent whenever he slides his cock in for the first time.

  He keeps ramming me, his hands on my breasts, squeezing hard.

  “God…” I mutter under my breath as he starts to go faster, his cock ravaging me with such intensity that I’m afraid my own soul might just shatter into a thousand little pieces. He doesn’t care about any of that; of course, he keeps pounding and pounding, my body giving in to ecstasy.

  Moaning, I let my body fall back over the table. I arch my back as I climax, my body burning from the inside out. Like a wave you can’t fight off, his thrusts pull me deep into an abyss of pleasure and, for a second here, I almost pass out.

  Then, my body still adrift in a sea of pleasure, something lewd and wild crosses my mind.

  I’m not done yet.

  I want more.

  “I want more…” I say, echoing my thoughts as I try hard to speak between breaths.

  He doesn’t even respond. He simply pulls his cock out of me and leans forward; he picks my limp body up from the table and, going down to his knees, puts me down onto the floor. Breathing hard, I roll to the side, anxious for what comes next.

  “Lay down,” I whisper at him, placing my hands on his chest and pushing him down. He does as I say and I climb on top of him, holding his cock with both my hands and pointing it straight up.

  I ease myself down, leaning forward and placing both my hands on his chest.

  He starts to thrust then, but he does it at a gentle pace, Slowly, I move my hips at the same time, rolling them over his waist as I feel his cock sliding in and out of me.

  Slowly, he starts to up the pace, bucking his hips harder at me.

  “Harder,” I find myself moaning, my voice echoing in the empty restaurant. He understands what I mean pretty fast.

  I close my eyes, surrendering to heavenly bliss has Palmer buries his cock inside of me. I can’t even start to describe how it feels. It’s almost as if I died and went to Heaven.

  He’s thrusting as hard as he can, his cock sliding in my pussy to the hilt while he keeps his lips pressed against mine. My nerve endings are a mess, pleasure coming at me from all angles. My brain is shutting down, all of my senses becoming overloaded. And, amidst all this chaos, all I do is scream as loud as I can, the fact that my throat is sore as hell long forgotten.

  “You’re mine,” Palmer says, his hips slapping against my ass.

  “No,” I somehow manage to mutter between screams. It’s hard to get the words out—scratch that, it’s almost impossible. Even so, I struggle and do it.

  “You… You’re mine,” I say, my heart tightening up as the words roll out from between my lips.

  I feel his hand on my hair then and, twisting it, he grabs a handful. I throw my head back as he pulls, my back arched as he starts to thrust at a completely maddening pace. My sense of self disappears, and all of my senses shut down. I don’t feel pleasure — I am pleasure.

  I come hard. No, that doesn’t give justice to what I’m experiencing right now. I explode. I go off like a nuclear bomb, my body burning in ecstasy.

  Supporting myself with my hands on his chest, I breathe out sharply, trying not to pass out. My mind is running on fumes, all of my thoughts nothing more than a scattered collection of images and sounds.

  I roll to the side, a cascade of moans falling from my lips, my body sensitive to every single touch. His cock pops out of my pussy, and I close my eyes as I lay down on the floor.

  A few seconds—that’s all I need. God, I need to catch my breath. Have I ever felt this exhausted?

  “Need a break?” I hear him say, and that wakes up something inside me.

  Of course I don’t need a break.

  Not when I’m with him.

  Grabbing me by the waist, he forces me to roll to the side, making me lay belly down on the floor. He climbs on top of me and, sliding one hand under my belly, makes me stick my ass up.

  "Fuck me..." I whimper, my voice tinged with what sounds like begging. I raise my ass back in his direction, my back tracing an upwards line towards him. He grins as I beg and slaps my ass, a red mark appearing immediately as I moan loudly. "Fuck me, please, Palmer."

  His fingers go under my ass and between my legs, rubbing against the wet lips of my pussy. I’m desperate right now, I need his cock more than anything.

  Luckily, he doesn’t want to make me wait: he presses his hips against me, the tip of his cock finding my wetness and, parting my folds wide, slowly entering me, each inch of his long, hard cock earning a gasp from my mouth.

  He’s going slow, but I want it all, and I want it here and now. I press my body back against him, forcing his cock to go all the way in one swooping motion, like a sword sheathed to the hilt.

  I don’t need to say a thing; he knows what I want, and he knows how I want it.

  He grabs me by the hips, both his thumbs resting against the dimples in my lower back and, holding my body still, he starts going back and forth, his cock sliding in and out of me furiously.

  My ragged breathing turns into wild moans, and these moans turn into low screams of furious pleasure. My fingers turn into claws against the floor, lines of pain and pleasure forming around my eyes. My lips are pursed, my teeth gritted.

  He’s coming at me hard and mercilessly, the sound of his thighs slapping my ass growing louder as his cock keeps on ravaging me.

  "Harder! Harder!" I scream out and Palmer obliges, upping his rhythm to a tempo so rough I’m amazed I can keep up with him. But not only can I keep up, I also want and need to keep going like this; I need to feel ravaged, to feel utterly and completely destroyed with a pleasure so intense it scorches all of my thoughts.

  He wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, both our bodies glistening with it. Palmer grits his teeth in effort as his body keeps on rocking against mine, my whole body hurting with the ferocity with which he’s fucking me.

  "Yes... Yes..." I moan, over and over again, my head resting against the mattress as if I have no more strength left in my body to raise it.

  “So… fucking… tight,” he groans and, even though I can’t see him, I can already imagine the wide grin he has on his face. He slaps my ass hard as his cock ravages me, my inners walls tightening around his member, each stroke of his driving us closer to the brink of madness. And he simply won't stop.

  He’s fucking me wildly, my mind completely overwhelmed by the sensations jolting through my body.

  I feel like his prey right now.

  "Don't..." He doesn't need to hear the rest of my words to know what I want, but I carry on. "Don't stop! Don't stop!"

  He keeps going and going until my pussy tightens so hard around his cock it’s almost a miracle he still manages to keep on thrusting. He savors my tightness with each stroke, burying himself deep inside me and then retreat
ing until only his tip remains in me.

  One final and deep stroke and a wild scream scratches the back of my throat, bubbling up to my lips as a desperate cry of pleasure.

  Palmer tightens his grip on my hips, keeping me in place as he fucks me into obliviousness with a savage fury, my whole body spasming in a seizure of ecstasy. I twitch and spasm until all strength leaves my limbs, my body collapsing onto the bed completely spent.

  Following after me, Palmer rests his body on top of mine, his cock still firmly planted inside my pussy, his chest and stomach lying against my back. He rocks his body against mine like that, his cock moving back and forth with a will of its own; Palmer’s rhythm only changes when the insanity of release takes over him.

  I can almost feel the adrenaline raging in his veins, crawling under his skin and making him feel as if he’s about to burst. His muscles tense hard and, for a moment, he even stops breathing, his mind directing all vital functions to the only thing that matters right now—pleasure.

  He chokes a groan in his throat, and I feel a current going from deep inside of him to his cock. He exhales between gritted teeth as his cock spasms violently inside me, his cum darting out and filling me up. He buries himself as deep as he can go, drawing a cry from me as he does it; he holds there, feeling the spasms of his cock spread through his whole body.

  “This…this was perfect,” he whispers against my ear, and then rolls down to the side and sprawls his arms to the side.

  “It was,” I agree, rolling to my back and looking up at the ceiling. Yes, this was perfect…but I still haven’t told him all about Percy.

  And I’m afraid of what might happen when I do.

  26

  Nicole

  “It feels so different,” Palmer whispers, looking up at the ceiling. We’re still lying on the floor of his restaurant, my head resting against his chest as he holds me close.

  “What?” I ask him, slowly moving my face so that I’m looking at him.

  “The restaurant,” he replies, his eyes still focused on something that I can’t quite see. Maybe he isn’t looking at anything. Maybe he’s just looking inward, rummaging through all the thoughts he guards so well.

  “It’s always full, you know?” he continues, distractedly running one hand through my hair. “It’s different when it’s empty. It feels like an empty shell.”

  “Tomorrow it’ll be full again,” I tell him, turning to him and placing one hand on his chest. “You’ll see.”

  “I doubt that,” he whispers, the tone of his voice so casual and indifferent that I can’t quite decide what he’s feeling right now. It almost seems like he’s trying to detach himself from his restaurant, the one thing in the world he seems to care about.

  It breaks my heart to see him talk like this.

  “You can’t doubt yourself,” I try and tell him, my mouth going dry as the words leave my lips. How can I be telling him all this when I’m the one that took the leash off Percy?

  It’s my fault The Pearl on Park is having issues. If I hadn’t behaved like I did, complaining about a man I knew nothing about, none of this would be happening.

  Sure, the slow march of progress would eventually force me to close down my restaurant, but so what? That’s the cycle of life. If it isn’t Palmer’s restaurant, it’ll be a shopping mall next week, or some high-rise condo.

  But no, I had to bitch about the competition to Percy, and he took it upon himself to start a war against a man who doesn't deserve any of it.

  “It’s over, Nicole.”

  His voice... so casual; cold even. It’s almost as if he doesn’t care about what happens next. It hurts to hear him speak about his restaurant like this; I know that, more than anything, he wanted it to be a success.

  And now his dreams seem to have been crushed.

  “It doesn’t need to happen like this,” I insist, not sure if I believe my own words. What do I know about anything?

  I’m just the owner of a small bistro restaurant; I never had to deal with investors or anything like that. I know absolutely nothing about the inner workings of a multi-million dollar enterprise.

  “Forget about it. Whatever happens, happens,” he whispers, his vacant gaze reaching for some place where I can’t reach him. I just stay there, nestled against his body and staring at his face, the dim lights of the restaurant making his features sharper.

  He’s smiling, but there’s a certain sadness to it.

  It’s almost tragic.

  More than just it being about the restaurant, I see a deeper worry in his eyes. He feels as if the clock is running out on him, and I know he believes his next breath might be the last one. I can’t even imagine how it must feel to know he won’t have the time to see his dream come true.

  Then, almost as if we we're commenting on the weather, he simply shrugs and sits up. He stretches his arms and then goes up to his feet, jumping inside his boxer briefs and pants.

  He starts making his way toward the kitchen and I follow after him, throwing his button-up shirt over my shoulders.

  “Hungry?” he asks me, opening the large fridge that seems to take over half the wall of his industrial kitchen, large enough to house a small army of cooks and waiters.

  “I’m fine,” I reply offhandedly, still thinking about how I should tell him. Because I have to tell him that I’m to blame; if it weren’t for me, The Pearl on Park would be a success.

  “No, you’re not,” he chuckles, more to himself than to me. “Nothing good happens on an empty belly, you know?” He continues, grabbing a couple of eggs and bacon from inside the fridge.

  He grabs one of the frying pans hanging overhead and lights up the stove, and I just watch as he cuts a small square of butter and lets it fall from his fingers into the pan.

  “Palmer... there’s something I must tell you.”

  I don’t even know how I summoned the courage to tell him that. But, somehow, I did. He raises his eyes, his gaze meeting mine, and then he just waits for me to continue.

  “I was the one that -”

  The words lose themselves on the way up my throat as I catch a glimpse of something on the counter next to me. There’s an open notebook there, a fountain pen resting between pages, and my eyes are immediately drawn to what’s written in there.

  “Nicole?”

  I hear Palmer’s voice, but I’m not even processing what he’s saying. I’m just reading what’s written on the notebook; it’s a long list of ingredients and procedures, all of them a step toward reverse-engineering my grandmother’s recipe.

  No, it can’t be.

  I try and tell myself that I’m dreaming, but there’s no mistaking it. It’s all there, in his little notebook. He’s been trying to figure out my family’s recipe, and without telling me.

  But why would he do that? Unless... unless he was planning to use it as a hail Mary attempt at saving his restaurant. Maybe he hasn’t given up on The Pearl on Park. Maybe he’s still trying to save the only thing he cares about, even if that means stealing from me.

  Even if that means betraying me.

  “Nicole, are you okay?” He asks me, taking one step toward me, but I can’t even look into his eyes. I just purse my lips, throw his shirt over the counter, and walk back to the dining room.

  He follows after me, surprised, but I remain silent as I pick my clothes up from the floor and get dressed.

  “I just remembered,” I tell him, lying with every single tooth I had, “there’s somewhere I need to be right now.”

  “Nicole—” he calls after me, but I don’t stop. I just walk out of his restaurant, tears stinging my eyes.

  How could I have been so wrong about Palmer?

  27

  Palmer

  One minute I'm offering to make Nicole bacon and eggs, and the next she's running out of the restaurant as if her feet are on fire. She couldn't get out of here fast enough. She didn't so much as give me an explanation, or even a look.

  I've never seen her act that way
before.

  Things were going so well… maybe even perfect. At least more perfect than I've ever known a relationship with another person to be.

  My mind replays all of the moments we shared this week, to see if anything was amiss. Was there something I didn't pay attention to? But the more I think about it, the more I think that all of the moments were perfect.

  Like the other day—sharing one of the best steak recipes with her.

  I stirred the chocolate sauce on the stove. The kitchen smelled amazing, and we were still standing there in an after-sex glow. I was shirtless, and she couldn't keep her eyes off of my body. I couldn't keep mine off of hers, either.

  I mixed in heavy cream, dark chocolate, and chili pepper. To give it some kick, I said with a wink.

  "And you're serving this on a steak?"

  It's going to be mind blowing—just wait and see," I promised her with a smile.

  "When I think of chocolate, I think of ice cream, or sundaes, or strawberries, or cake, or even truffles… but steak?" she said.

  "Trust me."

  "I do," she said.

  The way she said that with the depth of her eyes, more than her words, made me know she meant it. And it also made me melt faster than the chocolate in that saucepan.

  I continued to whisk the chocolate until it was thick and glossy like a silk robe. I added a splash more cream, and a sprig of rosemary to top it off.

  "Perfect," I smiled. "Could you grab me that filet?"

  She nodded, and brought me the perfectly caramelized steak.

  "How did you get so good at cooking steaks?" she asked.

  "That's a secret," I smiled.

  She watched me as I drizzled the chocolate sauce over the fillet and carefully sliced off a piece.

  "Here," I said. "Taste this."

  She leaned in and carefully parted her lips. I brought the fork to her mouth, carefully placing it on her tongue with my free hand underneath it.