Be My Queen

by RayeAnn Carter

  He could definitely help her expend the extra calories. "If we stay out late tonight," Diego could hope, "we might get hungry again."

  "We might?" The look she shot him over her shoulder was enough to suck all the blood from his head.

  "I could lie with you and just forget the world," he sang. She bit her lip over a grin.

  Their turn arrived. Diego asked Lavender to pick her favorite things and she created a very delicious-looking sandwich. He had the sandwich maker cut one of the halves in half, in case he could entice Lavender to share it with him. Then while she picked a salad, he ordered a second sandwich with lots of meat and cheese. He didn't want to drive her home with his stomach growling.

  Plus, a full belly might stave off the worst of his other needs if she said no.

  *~*~*

  Lavender gazed out the window. She'd never been this far up the coast. Diego sang while driving—he hadn't done that before—but it was to what was playing on the CD. If he'd just sung whatever was in his head, she might have discovered what he was thinking. He'd been quieter today.

  He couldn't have found out. He was taking her on a picnic at the beach. He wouldn't do that just to break up with her.

  Of course, being broken up with so far from home would be very inconvenient. Diego was a nice guy. He'd take her home, but the hour-long drive back would be awkward. She had to be careful tonight.

  *~*~*

  Diego wished the sunset was more spectacular. It had its golds and peaches, plus a bit of orange, but where were the pinks and purples? Still, this was Lavender's first sunset over the ocean with him. He watched her drink it in.

  She was on her belly on the blanket. He had a spare, but gave an excuse for not laying it down, which wasn't that he didn't want sand on it if they were going to pull it over themselves after sex. He could wish for more even ground, but luckily the layers of sand and beach grass kept them off the rock that made up the cliff. This park was too far from the city to be popular. The last person to stop never left the parking lot. They were alone.

  He reached out and touched her back. She grinned at him and returned to watching the sun. They should honeymoon at the beach.

  He moved his hand onto her firm ass. She swatted it away. He grinned at her and tugged at the short beach grass. Lavender slapped his hand. "What did that grass ever do to you?"

  He tucked his hands under his thighs. "I'm trying to keep my fingers busy. Can I touch you here?"

  He stroked the back of her knees. She bent her leg. "You're very distracting."

  "I'm very distracted." He needed his hands on her.

  She took a deep breath. "Then give me a foot massage."

  That he could do. How far up her leg would she let this massage go before she stopped him?

  *~*~*

  Lavender sighed. The last of the sun faded. She'd seen sunsets before, with buildings and trees in the way, or with many people around her. Today was the first with nowhere to go and nothing to do afterward. Except spend time with Diego.

  He kissed her thigh. She stayed firmly on her belly. Her girdle hadn't been made to hide a bit as hard as hers. "Diego."

  "Lavender." His lips moved higher.

  "Please."

  He moved up beside her. "You're very beautiful."

  "Is that why you can't keep your hands off me?"

  "Do you want me to keep my hands off you?"

  She bit her lip. Yes, because she didn't want him to find out her secret, but no. She wanted his hands all over her.

  He laid his cheek against her shoulder blade. "When I take you home with me…"

  "When?"

  "You'll wear your pretty nightgown in my kitchen as I make you breakfast."

  The image was vivid. Lavender needed it to come true. "You're making it?"

  "Yes." Diego set his hand on her back and moved it down to her thighs.

  She didn't have anything to hide back there. He moved his hand back up, staying on top of her dress. How much better would his hands feel against her skin? If only she didn't have to wear this damn girdle.

  *~*~*

  Diego didn't know how to tell her. He didn't know what to say. He needed her now and forever. He gently rolled her over and rested his cheek against her breasts.

  Her laughter set his body on fire. He moaned into her dress.

  "Diego?"

  He looked at her face. He ached to strip her bare, or at least the top half, where she let him touch earlier, but perhaps this conversation would be better with her fully clothed. "Lavender."

  He sat up and pulled off his shirt, but that didn't cool him off one bit.

  "Striptease?" She was wearing her sexy expression again. She wasn't helping him think.

  "Lavender…" What to say? He hated any conversation that started with 'We need to talk' or 'I have something to say.' They marked the beginning of the end of a relationship. This one couldn't end, not so soon, not ever. Why wouldn't the words come out? "I…"

  She lost her smile. His heart broke.

  "You are the most beautiful woman in the world."

  She pulled her knees up under her chin. "But?"

  But nothing. He loved her. "I…"

  She turned away.

  He was dying inside. He should have planned his part better and had something to say. How could he ever dig his way out?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lavender pulled her skirts tighter around her legs. The night had grown chilly. She shouldn't have let him take her so far up the coast.

  He was breaking up with her. Well, she'd known it wouldn't last.

  "The house I'm staying at…" Diego cleared his throat. "Patrick's brother. He goes to school with the brother of someone who dated one of your friends."

  Lavender's breath caught in her throat and her mind went blank. She'd known someone would tell. So much for her week.

  "I…" Diego put his hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. How dare he? How dare he paint a picture of a happy home and snatch it from her? He was the worst jerk in existence.

  She wiped her eyes. Her hand came away all glittery from her makeup. She must look a sight. "Let's go back."

  "Here." Diego offered her a napkin. "I'm sorry that I hurt you."

  He was sorry that he’d hurt her? He hadn't even started to be sorry yet.

  "I still want you to move in with me." He set his hand on the back of her neck.

  She turned to him with a glare. "Do you think you are off the hook? Do you think that just because my friend is… one of those, doesn't mean I am? Why would a… normal girl want to hang out with one of us?"

  His arms came around her. "You are a normal girl."

  His arms felt so good, but her dream had turned to a nightmare. She pushed him off. "Normal. Do you think this is normal?"

  She stood and undid her buttons, including the one in her full skirt's waistband. She kicked off the skirt. "Normal. This will never be normal."

  She rolled the girdle down her hips. It got caught on her foot when she tried to kick it off. She bent down and, with a grunt, got it free.

  "Normal." She reached for her panties.

  Diego put his hands over hers. He was too disgusted with her to even look at her disfigurement.

  "Not exactly the striptease I was hoping for." He knelt and kissed her belly. Then he took her hands and looked up at her. "Quite a bit of strip, but I think the tease was missing."

  He was crazy. Insane.

  Her nose was running. "So you need tease?"

  And disgusting. He was disgusting, too.

  He pressed his face against her belly. He was a creeper. That's what he had to be.

  "You are turned on, aren't you?" She sighed. He had seemed so nice. "You are turned on by my ugly body."

  Diego stood and lifted her chin. "You aren't ugly."

  "How can you say that?"

  "For one," he grinned, "you have beautiful breasts."

  He cupped them and moaned.

  "And a lovely throat."

>   He kissed her neck.

  "And gorgeous hands."

  He kissed the pads of her fingers.

  "And a lovely figure."

  His hands slid up and down inside her dress, from the bottom of her bra to the top of her thighs. Her breath caught, but she wasn't ready to forgive him yet. "You already said lovely."

  Diego buried his face in her chest, breathed in, and looked up. "Fabulous. A fabulous figure."

  Now he was just being silly. "Really?"

  He got down on his knees. "Lavender Blue, please be my Lavender Greene."

  She put her hands on her hips. "You are insane."

  "Probably."

  "And you don't care?"

  "That what? That I'm getting the most gorgeous wife imaginable? That everyone will be envious of me?"

  "Diego."

  He hugged her around the hips. Her bits were touching him and he didn't seem to care.

  She closed her eyes. She had dreamed the whole thing. She'd wake up in a minute when Vish's phone went off, and she'd entertain her friends with the twists and turns until Miss Magnolia came by and told them that belly laughter wasn't feminine.

  Because this could not be real.

  *~*~*

  Diego sat down and held up his hands. Lavender got down on her knees on the edge of the blanket. He tugged her closer. "Even knowing, I find you beautiful."

  She hesitated.

  "Let me show you."

  The light was fading fast and he had to see her when he touched her. Going all the way should wait until she'd had a chance to think about the fact he knew about her.

  She put his hand on her breast. "Show me."

  He did his best. She was so beautiful, so perfect. He would be happy to be seen anywhere with her, but he yearned to see her in his bed, in his house, in his life.

  She responded well to his touch with her gasps and moans and soft sighs, with her hands and mouth and skin. The way she said his name was paradise.

  He made her come without touching the jewels still hidden in her silky panties. He licked his lips. She was magnificent lying there, trying to get her breath back. She tugged at his waistband. He put his hand over hers. As much as he desired to be inside her, he didn't want her to have second thoughts tomorrow. Slow was better.

  He tried to make himself believe it.

  She pushed his hand away and unbuttoned his shorts. "Do you have condoms? Mine are in my new purse."

  Which was in the car.

  Diego dug through his pockets with shaking hands. She swatted them away and found both the condoms and the lube after a very thorough search of his front pockets. What was left of his brain stopped functioning altogether when she demanded that he be inside her.

  He obeyed. The light was gone, he had to make sure not to touch certain parts of her, and they didn't remove any more of their clothing, but he was swept away by just being with her. She was his heaven.

  *~*~*

  Lavender cuddled against Diego. Her eyes closed, but the wind was picking up and forcing its way through the blanket. He kissed her neck. "I don't want to leave."

  "But we need to."

  "Come home with me tonight."

  She turned to look at him, but the lights from the distant parking lot didn't reach as far as his face. "You asked me that this morning."

  "Nothing has changed since this morning."

  She pulled her bra closed and adjusted her breasts. "Is that when you found out?"

  "No," he kissed her thigh. "Last evening. Austin's really stuck on your friend. Ariel, I think."

  "Does she know that he knows?" Lavender buttoned up her dress and checked the hem to make sure she'd buttoned it straight.

  "Yes."

  No wonder Ariel had been so apologetically nice yesterday.

  Diego rolled over and set something white in her lap. Her skirt. She stood and stepped into it. He sat up and pulled on his shirt. He was beautiful in silhouette. He held up something. "Please don't put this on."

  She frowned. "I don't mind you knowing, but I'm not about to tell the world."

  "I respect that."

  He had better.

  "As we are going straight to Mrs. Raleigh's…"

  "Are we?"

  "Please, Lavender, will you spend the night with me?" He was down on his knees, begging.

  She took his face in her hands and kissed him. "I'd go without, but you make me so hard…"

  He pressed the girdle against her arm.

  She laughed. "I could fall in love with you."

  "Do, please."

  He was telling the truth: he really did want her. She stepped away before his hands got under her skirts. Where were her shoes? They had to be here.

  "Shoes on the left." Diego lifted her shoes. "Our pop bottles are on the ocean side. Trash to the right."

  Of course, as they were on a bluff, the ocean was on three sides, but he found everything. He tossed the blankets over his shoulder and led the way to the parking lot. Under the lights, they looked through their stuff to make sure they hadn't lost anything. She couldn't think of anything that was missing.

  Diego pulled a bag out of the trunk when he put the other stuff inside. "Are you hungry?"

  He had a second sandwich and another bottle of water. She wasn't a roast beef type of girl, but just a whiff made her stomach rumble. She sat in his lap on a park bench and shared his sandwich. He crinkled the wrapper into a ball and kissed her neck. "Ready to go?"

  He threw away the garbage and returned to her. He was her man now, wasn't he? Please let him be her man.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Diego opened Mrs. Raleigh's front door and looked around. Good. Travis wasn't home. He set Lavender's bags by the couch and held her hand. Mrs. Raleigh was in the kitchen. She smiled and made polite inquiries about their day. Diego brought the conversation around to where Travis was. She smiled. "He's at practice, but I told him that if he used offensive language again, his nose wouldn't be the only thing broken."

  She patted Lavender's hand. "I was holding his controller at the time."

  Mrs. Raleigh had been all sympathy to her youngest son until Diego had informed her, in the vaguest possible way, how offended Austin was on the girls' behalf. She had taken Travis to the emergency room while Diego, Austin, Patrick, and Jessica ate her famous meatloaf. They made sure to finish it before Travis returned.

  Lavender's eyebrows rose as she turned to him. He hadn't told her that Travis had used offensive language when referring to her and her friends, had he? How would the kid react to having her in his house? Diego should have thought about that sooner.

  An apology from Travis might be as bad for Lavender as hostility, given that she wanted her secret to stay a secret. Better to keep them apart.

  Diego carried two of her bags to his room, while Lavender ensconced herself in the bathroom with the third. He fluffed up the pillows and made sure the blankets were even, so he wouldn't pull all the bedding from her in his sleep. He got them both glasses of water and reset his alarm. They'd go to a museum tomorrow. He didn't think she'd been to the Getty yet.

  She came in, looking like a fairy. She hugged her belly. "I feel funny wearing this here."

  He sat on the bed and held out his hands. "What do you want to wear?"

  She squeezed his hands and looked away. "Something of yours."

  He quickly found her sweat shorts and a dark T-shirt. The color of her nipples might show through a white one.

  She pulled the string in his shorts tight and billowed the shirt over it. He enjoyed the view. She looked really good in his clothes and totally feminine. "My beautiful girl."

  He gestured her to where he was sitting on the bed. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his cheek against her belly.

  She peeled his head back. "Why aren't you ready?"

  He hurried off to brush his teeth. When he returned, Mrs. Raleigh was standing outside the spare room doorway with an extra blanket. Lavender thanked her and smiled at Diego. M
rs. Raleigh wished them both a good night.

  Lavender sat on the bed. "She said to pull the chest in front of the door."

  Diego spotted the chest she must have meant. "Do you want me to?"

  She shrugged. He loved the way her breasts moved when free. He repositioned the chest. If it would help him taste those beautiful mounds again, no effort was too great.

  He stepped up to her. "Which side?"

  She slipped under the covers in the middle. He leaned over her and turned the light out on the far side, then took off his shirt and shorts and lay against her.

  She snuggled close. "I've never slept beside anyone."

  Diego'd had his share of overnighters. Some lovers rolled up against him, some rolled away, some stole the sheets, some kicked them off, and some snored. One complained that Diego snored. He had liked all of them enough to take to bed, but Lavender was different. After all the time he'd spent looking love, he finally found it.

  Lavender flipped and turned and stretched and snuggled down again in his arms, where she belonged.

  *~*~*

  Lavender blinked her eyes open. Diego massaged a circle into the top of her thigh. What a wonderful way to wake up.

  She rubbed her ass against his front. He moaned. She grinned and opened her eyes. "Good morning, handsome."

  Diego pulled her tighter against him. "I must be dreaming. A beautiful woman is in my bed."

  She rolled over and he lay back, so her front was pressed against his hip. "Don't kid me. You were no virgin."

  He couldn't have been with how well he read her body. Other girls talked about experiences like that, but she'd never thought she'd have one herself.

  He grinned. "So how do I measure up? You—"

  She pressed a finger against his lips. "Don't talk about other lovers."

  He ran his hand up her backside. "You started it."

  She rubbed one of his nipples. "Guess what else I'm starting?"

  He rolled her onto her back and lay on her. She pushed his lips from her neck. "But give me a second first."

  He rolled off her. "Tease."

  She sat up and looked at him. "You like teases."

  He looked her up and down. "I guess I do."

  The chest in front of the door was heavier than she'd expected. Diego moved it easily. Strong boyfriends were nice.