by Nikki Chase
“You know what,” I say as I put my hand on his hair, my voice hoarse with lust, “I think we’ve covered everything for now.”
Who am I kidding? There are no terms to negotiate. I’m his, and he knows it. Like the birds and squirrels in the palace garden, I can’t go back into the wild, after knowing what it’s like to belong to someone.
“I agree,” he says as he lays me down on the bed. Lying on his side, he frowns when his fingers touch the top button of my blouse. “What do you need so many buttons for?”
“It’s just something old I wear for cleaning.”
“I really need to get you back into those dresses,” he says as he climbs up on top of me.
I was about to say something about not actually being into dresses, but this is not the time for talking anymore. The sight and the feel of him on top of me dominates my mind, and I forget everything else.
Prince James grabs the collar of my blouse and pulls it apart, sending buttons flying all over the room.
Maybe I should protest, but I’m overwhelmed by the need to be taken. I want that same passion that has ruined my top to ruin me, too. I want it to consume me, to destroy me like it has done to my blouse.
The prince takes off what remains of my blouse and my bra. When he undoes my fly, I lift my butt off the bed to let him pull my jeans and panties all the way down.
I reach up to pull his suit jacket off, but he grabs my wrists with one hand.
“Did I tell you to touch me?” he asks darkly.
“No, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir,” I answer automatically, suddenly his sweet little Submissive again.
“We need to do something about these hands,” he says.
He fumbles with his belt and yanks it out of the loops in his pants. He pins my wrists over my head, then he wraps the belt around the posts in the headboard and my wrists. When he’s done, I pull on my hands and find them restrained by the cool, smooth leather.
“Now, what am I going to do with you?” he asks with danger glinting in his blue eyes. The one table lamp on my bedside table illuminates one side of his face, while casting the other side in sinister shadows.
I know this man, and I want him to claim my body, but my heart starts to race like I’m terrified.
It’s not that I want him to stop, though. I remember my safe word, and I don’t want to say it.
There’s just something about the prince that sucks me in. His eyes, darkened by lust, are like deep pools that pull me downward, threatening to drown me. Yet I can’t help but keep swimming down.
“Have you been missing me, sweetheart?” James asks as his knee forces my legs apart.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Do you dream of me when you fall asleep?” He lies down on top of me, pressing his hard-on against me. I can feel the heat and hardness through the fabric of his pants.
“Y—Yes, Sir,” I admit, my face growing hot with embarrassment.
“What do you dream about?” James caresses my cheek and studies my face, making me feel even more self-conscious.
“I dream about you… doing what you’re doing.”
“And what am I doing?”
“You’re on top of me.”
“So I was on top of you in this dream. Were you naked, too?”
“Y—Yes.”
“What did I do with your naked body?” James asks with a smirk as he runs his big, masculine hand up my side.
“You… Uh, you kiss my breasts.”
James trails kisses down my neck and into the valley between my breasts. “Like this?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“This dream version of me sounds boring in bed,” he says as he sucks the flesh of my breast into his mouth, hard. Just when it starts to feel painful, he lets go.
I look down to find a deep purple mark on my otherwise creamy skin.
“Did I do that in your dream?” he asks.
“No, Sir.”
“How about this?” he asks before he takes a nipple into his wet, warm mouth. His hand grabs my other breast and kneads it.
Without even realizing it, I arch my back, offering more of myself to him. My breath grows heavier, and my fingers are grabbing at the leather around my wrists. I cry out when the prince takes my nipple between his teeth and bites down.
“Did the me in your dream do that?” James asks, cocking an eyebrow.
“No, Sir.”
“I’m going to fuck you better than you can imagine in your wildest dreams,” he promises, locking my gaze as he drags his lips down my belly and over my mound.
I sigh when I feel his lips, hot and firm, on my pussy. Actually, he did that in my dream, too, but this real version feels better already.
“Look at me,” he says as he sucks my lower lips into his mouth.
Obeying his order, I fight against the compulsion to close my eyes or throw my head back.
I glance down to see him staring at me. I’ve known him in person for a while now, but it’s still a trip to see his face—the same face I’ve seen on TV and newspapers my whole life—between my legs.
He traps my gaze as he eats me out. While his lips and tongue tease my clit, he grabs my thighs with both hands, immobilizing all my limbs. He sees every little twitch of my eyebrow, every little jerk of my arm against his belt around my wrists.
My lips are parted, sighing and moaning my desire, telling him just how much I want him. As if my soaking wet pussy isn’t already doing a good job at that.
When I come, my fingers grab the headboard, while my legs splay open to give the prince better access. And there, on my bed in the inn, I shudder and shake against the prince’s mouth, his rough stubble grazing on my thighs.
I try to pull away when the sensations start to feel too much, but the strong hands around my thighs won’t let me. I look pleadingly into the prince’s eyes.
I’d beg him to stop, but I can’t say anything. I’m biting my lower lip so I don’t make any noise that’s too loud. If I open my mouth, I’d scream for sure.
My head rolls back. I arch my back as I lose control of my body, my muscles spasming from an overload of pleasure.
Finally, when my whole skin has been covered by a thin film of sweat, the prince takes his lips off my pussy. I can still feel it throbbing, the muscles contracting and expanding from the prolonged orgasm.
Before I have a chance to recover, the prince lies down behind me and pulls me back against his hard chest. Something hot and hard pushes at my opening. In my surprise, a moan escapes my lips as the prince slides into me smoothly, aided by my abundant wetness.
“Come for me,” he whispers in my ear as his arms wrap around me. His hands grab my tits and play with my clit.
Maybe it’s because I’m still sensitive from having come so much already. Maybe I’ve been trained well to obey the prince’s commands. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that the prince harbors some inconvenient feelings for me, too.
I don’t know what it is, but I come harder than I ever have before.
“You may tell me with your words that you don’t want to stay with me, but your body is more honest than that.” The prince wraps his hand around my neck as he continues to pump into me. He fucks me mercilessly. Punctuating every word with a hard slam into me, he growls, “You. Are. Mine.”
The primal, animalistic way he claims my body turns me into a heap of orgasms. My muscles tighten around his thick, hard cock, massaging him until finally, he comes with a groan and a bite on the back of my neck.
He really is a beast in bed. He has pumped my womb full of his seed, and he has marked my body as his own.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I already belong to him. I’m just not ready to admit it to myself.
But ready or not, James is here, and he’s not letting me go.
“I’ll see you again here tomorrow night,” he says with his arms wrapped possessively around my body as I come down from my climax. “And that’s an order.”
Rosemary
“Oh my god, it’s so
beautiful.” I drag air into my lungs and let out a big sigh. The view is literally breathtaking from up here.
James’ arms wrap around me. The warmth of his body feel comforting as the air gets thinner and cooler. “Not as beautiful as you.”
“That’s really cheesy,” I laugh, but my heart swells at his words.
I’ve heard similar comments from other guys, like Graham, but somehow it’s different when I hear it in James’ voice. I’m happy that’s how he sees me.
As the sun peeks over the mountain ranges in the horizon, the prince draws a deep breath and simply says, “Look at that.”
“Yeah. I’m glad we caught the sunrise.”
“So you agree now that I had a good, valid reason for you to stay over?” James asks as he tightens his hold around me and kisses me on the cheek.
“Maybe,” I admit.
Prince James asks me to stay over at Ardglass Palace every time I go there for dinner. To be perfectly honest, even though I act like he’s a pest for bugging me about it, I enjoy sleeping by his side all night. And I often accept the invitation—or obey the order—even if there’s no hot air balloon ride to get up for in the early morning.
The problem is, staying over messes with my work schedule at The Alcove too much, although Wanda doesn’t mind it. She doesn’t ask too many questions, even though she must know there’s something between the prince and me.
It has been six months since the pictures of us at The Dungeon were published.
Since then, we’ve been keeping a low profile.
We’ve mostly met up at The Alcove. Sometimes Prince James stays over in my room, but usually he’s gone before morning. We can’t risk him getting spotted by someone and us ending up on the gossip tabloids again.
In the past couple of months, the news about us have started to die down, so I’ve been able to start visiting the palace again.
There’s a bigger risk of getting caught at the door that has been discovered, though, so I’ve had to use the secret tunnel every time.
For a while, people were really curious about that door. It took an order from the capital to stop people from blowing it open with dynamite or something.
That royal order has saved the secrecy of the palace, but it has also confirmed that the government has something to hide. People’s speculations have only been getting wilder and wilder.
The craziest theory I’ve heard thus far is the one about a secret labor camp. The mysterious door apparently leads to prison where the government’s dissidents are forced to do dangerous work in some sort of a modern Gulag.
There’s another theory that’s almost equally wild. They say that the door hides a secret facility where the government stores classified information about extraterrestrials and even communicates with actual aliens.
As if James can read my mind, he says, “See? There are no emaciated political prisoners or aliens down there.”
I’m enchanted by my first look at Ardglass Palace from above, but I have to laugh. “I’m not one of the people who believes those stories. Maybe you should show this to the rest of the kingdom as proof.”
“What, take a whole kingdom on a hot air balloon ride? You think there’s enough room for all those people in this wicker basket? You’re cute, but you’re not very smart, are you?” he teases me.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m spending so much time alone with an infamous abuser.”
“Well played.” The prince chuckles.
Below us are natural rock structures. Through holes in the rock, I can see certain rooms in the palace.
The prince had already told me that Ardglass Palace is built into natural caves in the rock, but I didn’t expect it to look this beautiful. (To be fair, I didn’t know what to expect as this is the first and only secret palace I’ve seen.)
“See that green patch over there?” the prince asks, pointing ahead with his index finger.
“Yeah.”
“That’s the garden.”
“Oh, so that’s how it gets so much sun,” I say as I look at the big hole in the rock below us. “How is it that nobody has ever spotted the palace from above?”
“The airspace in this area is restricted. That’s why people haven’t taken to the skies as soon as the rumors about the palace got out. Without the no-flying ban, those TV stations would’ve definitely filmed everything from their helicopters.”
“And that restriction is also one of the reasons why conspiracy theorists feel justified, right?”
“Yeah.”
“See? I’m not just a pretty face,” I say, twisting around to flash James a big grin.
“Of course you’re not,” he says.
“Do you think maybe it’s time to let people know about the palace?” Quickly, I add, “I mean, I’m not telling you what to do. But I’m fascinated by the history and the architecture of Ardglass Palace. I think it’s a shame that people can never know about it.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that as well,” he says.
“I mean, obviously it would be better for people to appreciate the palace for its historical significance than for them to suspect it as part of the government’s evil scheme.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles, “but that’s not the main reason why I want to reveal it to the public.”
“It’s not?”
“My reasons are more selfish than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Prince James lets his sentence hang in the air. He grabs my shoulders and turns me around. His blue eyes appear brilliant under the first rays of the morning sun.
He runs his fingers through his hair and says, “Rosemary, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. It’s been a long while since I was happy. I think the last time was when my mother was still alive, ten years ago… but I digress.”
James takes a deep breath. He seems nervous. His fingers on my shoulder are squeezing me a little too hard, and he’s speaking a little too fast.
What has gotten him this worked up?
“What I really want to say is… I love you,” he says finally.
A smile blooms on my face.
That’s it? That’s why he’s so anxious?
That’s… kind of adorable.
“I love you, too,” I say.
“You do?” he asks as a hopeful smile appears on his handsome face.
I nod. Did he really think I’d respond with anything other than a declaration of my love for him?
The prince grabs my face with both hands and kisses me passionately.
I’ve known how James feels about me for a while. He always wants to spend time with me, he goes to great lengths to meet me despite the risks, and he’s always so sweet and passionate when we’re together.
Let me put it this way. He’s always either working or spending time with me.
So yes, this is not a surprise.
I just thought that maybe he’s not used to expressing his feelings openly, with his father being so distant and his mother having been gone for so long.
Many times, I’ve wanted to tell him how I feel about him, but I didn’t want to make things awkward for him. And I guess, even if I believe in equality, I still want the man to be the one to profess his love. Is that hypocritical?
Ah, who cares?
The man I love, loves me back. And he has arranged a hot air balloon ride just to say it right.
Nothing in the world can bother me right now.
When James pulls away, I put my hand on his face and get on my tippy toes to get him to kiss me again, but he only gives me a light peck.
“I love you, and kissing you has got to be one of my favorite things to do, but I need to tell you a few things about what it means if we’re going to make this relationship official.”
“Okay…”
The uncertainty of not knowing what he wants to discuss makes my heart race, but I know I don’t have anything to worry about.
Despite all the opportunities he’s had to exploit my trust, the p
rince has always shown himself to be capable and willing to look after me. I know he’s got my back.
“This is the reason why I’ve been rethinking the secrecy of the palace,” James says as the breeze flirts with his hair. “I told you I’ve been really happy, and the only thing that can make me happier is if I don’t have to sneak around to see you. I want to take you places, but we can’t even be seen together in The Dungeon again, regardless of whether we wear masks.”
“It’s also been getting harder and harder for me to field the questions from my family,” I say. “My sisters have been going through my stuff at home and even visiting The Alcove just to check on me. And my father sometimes asks questions I can’t answer. He’s never too pushy about it, but I feel bad about hiding something from him, something that’s really important to me.”
“So we agree that things can be better.” James levels his gaze at me and asks, “But do you know what it means if we’re going to tell the public about our relationship?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re going to confirm all the stories that have leaked. We’ll have to admit that it’s us in those pictures from The Dungeon.”
“Yeah. And we’ll have to explain the secret door. I’ve been thinking about just telling the truth about Ardglass Palace. I’ve spoken with a few of my father’s advisors, and they agree that there’s no big reason to keep it a secret anymore, especially now when the people have found the secret door and they’ve come up with all these crazy theories to explain it. The advisors agree that it might be better for us to be transparent about our relationship.”
“I didn’t know you’ve told people about us. I haven’t told anyone.”
“Well, there are rules about what a crown prince need to do to prepare for something like this,” he says.
“There are specific procedures for revealing a secret palace? How often does this happen?”
James laughs. His hand dips into the pocket of his suit jacket and he drops down to one knee.
What is he…? Did he drop something?
Or is this…?
It can’t be…
