Her Secret Prince

by Madeline Ash

  They’d been running from the crown.

  Chapter Five

  ‡

  From: Oscar M

  02-05-2015 (4 hours ago)

  To: Jed Brown

  Subject: Meeting

  We could meet tomorrow for lunch. Café Georgette, in the city centre, at midday. It has a blue sign. Would that suit?

  Oscar

  Jed read out the latest email as Dee parked in front of a thatch-roofed stone cottage. The clouds were darkening from grey to graphite, but even the biting, cold evening couldn’t lessen her delight at the lodging and country garden before them.

  “We could do midday,” she agreed. It would only take them a couple of hours to reach Legaurday. “And then I’ll have to come back here. I need to write in that window bay, overlooking those flowers.” Scratch flying straight home. She would spoil herself with a garden view.

  Jed didn’t answer. As she got out of the rental car, she noticed him typing a response to Oscar. His mouth was a thin line—thin for those lips, anyway—and he’d hardly spoken since the airport. They’d found a quaint café in Paris where he’d stared into the middle distance. Distracted, she knew, and he’d always been the kind of person that needed space to process change, so she’d kept quiet, kept the coffee coming, and let him be.

  She’d be processing too, if she was this close to meeting her father for the first time.

  “I’ll take our bags in,” she told him, but he didn’t seem to hear.

  Inside, with the luggage by the door, Dee lost herself in the split-level wonderland of the cottage. White walls and exposed structural beams, clean tiled floors, and dinky corridors. She found a small bedroom clinging to the end of one such passage, abundant with lace and frills and all things floral. She grinned at the cheery little kitchen, with green wooden cupboards, drying herbs strung above the bench and a jar of wildflowers next to a plate of pastries. Bonjour et bienvenue! read the note beside it. Fire is lit and champagne is in the fridge.

  A narrow staircase set off from the wall beside the pantry—four steps and a bend took Dee into a tiny raised laundry. Back the way she’d come, she passed through a sunken living area with a stoked fireplace. She stopped to test the mismatched couches that huddled close to the heat, all heavenly soft, and then climbed half a staircase to the mezzanine that overlooked the crackling fire. It was enthralling, this home of hidden rooms and crooked stairwells.

  Still smiling, she continued up the stairs that curved, sharp and narrow, and emerged in a sparse loft. It had a wide side window at waist height, loaded bookcase, and wooden beams forming a steeple over a large bed.

  This would be Jed’s room. Flowers and lace should keep her chaste.

  Downstairs, she was sitting at the table, eating a second pastry, when Jed finally came inside. The door closed and there was the thud of one boot falling to the floor, then another. He appeared, socks soundless on the tiles, raindrops seeming to weigh him down through his grey jacket. His hair was wet. Wetter than it should be from darting from car to door. Even his face held streaks of water. He must have stopped and looked up at the rain, the miserable goof.

  Jed’s attention locked on the window, his mouth grim and eyes haunted.

  “Hi,” Dee said, chewing.

  He looked to where she sat with knees pulled to her chest, hair braided roughly back from her temples, and airplane slippers flopped on over her tights. She knew her skin was pasty with exhaustion, her eyes squinty. She looked a mess after the flight, but he looked worse. Way, way worse.

  He smiled faintly. “Hello.”

  “You look terrible.”

  Dee suspected his fixed grimace was an attempt to keep smiling. His hands were balled by his sides, his posture rigid. “I know.”

  Concern had her asking, “You sure you’re okay?”

  Lines met in a frown on his forehead and his gaze focused on hers. “Apparently I’m—” He stopped, looking pained. “You’ll never believe…” That ended in a shake of his head. “I’m overwhelmed,” he said, running a hand harshly over his face.

  “I wouldn’t think any less of you for deciding not to meet him. You’ve gone this long without a father. There’s no need to do this.”

  “I’m doing it.” That was firm. “I’m just…”

  Not finishing sentences.

  Dee said, “I’d say it’s natural to be anxious right now.”

  Panic bolted across his features and disappeared beneath a strained mask. “I’d say you’re right.”

  “I’m only a little bit sorry to say that I’m feeling the opposite,” she said, because with nothing to do but wait for tomorrow, he needed distracting. “I’m beside myself. We’ve found paradise.” She extended the plate towards him as she took another bite of the buttery lemon sweet. “You can’t have the one with chocolate oozing out the ends. That’s my next victim.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  She put the plate down. “Champagne?”

  “No,” he said, before pausing. “There’s champagne?”

  “I booked for two. They must have assumed we’re a couple.”

  He frowned.

  “I don’t plan on telling them. For all I know, these are honeymoon pastries.”

  His brows lowered further. “I’m sorry, Dee.”

  Uncertainty tumbled in her stomach. She stopped chewing. “For what?”

  “Wasting the romance of this place.”

  She pulled a face, waving it off, internally wondering what that meant. “It’s not wasted on me,” she said softly, but he didn’t seem to hear. His attention was back on the window.

  He asked, “Have you chosen a room?”

  “You’re in the loft.”

  He nodded once and turned towards the stairs. “Then I’ll be in the loft.”

  *

  Jed sat on the chair beside the window, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. As still as a boat on calm water, his mind completely at sea.

  A prince.

  He didn’t know what that meant. What it could mean or could never mean for his future.

  His mum had tried to call him since the airport. Seven times. In the car outside the cottage, he’d texted back. Unless you think I’m in physical danger, let me do this.

  She hadn’t rung again.

  The danger was to his identity. An easy target. Jed floated through life, feeling detached and unfinished. His identity had as much form as the ghosts in his comic. Meeting Oscar could fill him in, but the worry was how he’d end up looking, who he would become.

  He knew little about Leguarday. Perhaps being royalty was in name only. But no—he’d read Oscar’s approximate value and “only” didn’t come into it.

  Conflict hauled at his abdomen. The pull to tell Dee, and the shove to wait. He had tried, but words had failed him. Not surprising, when he had yet to get his head around it. Reactions hurtled through him like snapping dogs, horror, disbelief, alarm, with the momentary bite of relief that finally, there was change.

  Jed shifted, lowering his hands and looking dully out the window. A thicket of trees grew behind the cottage, looming in the darkening light. There was no point dragging Dee into this confusion. Not before he’d met Oscar; confirmed facts and made a decision. He’d torn her life up enough in the past forty-eight hours. It wouldn’t be fair to keep tearing blindly.

  Dee.

  Jed stood and paced the loft. She’d travelled across the world for him. Had planned on suppressing what she’d believed to be unreciprocated desire, simply to stay by his side. She’d booked a romantic cottage to please herself, because she hadn’t forgotten why they were really here. She could push people, but also knew when to give them space.

  He wanted her. All of her. Always.

  Since yesterday he’d felt it, a hook snagged firmly beneath his solar plexus. The very space one would pump to revive him, torn out if he left her. There’d be no moving on from her this time. If she’d have him, she woul
d be his last move.

  At that, tension eased off his shoulders like a released grip. A second change. One for his head, the other for his heart. Jed could promise Dee his life, if that was what he wanted to give her.

  And it was. No one could make him stay in Leguarday. No one could make him do anything. He’d finished reading the information Felix had linked—a crown prince already existed in Oscar’s nephew. They didn’t need Jed. He was a spare sovereign, a secret heir, an unclaimed bastard. His return to the principality would change nothing but his relationship with his father.

  Resolve set in him, a steely determination that cast the whole situation in black and white. He was of royal blood—that was irrelevant. He was meeting his father—that was very relevant. He was still in charge of his own life and could do what he pleased—that was nonnegotiable.

  A wry smile overtook him. Of course he could do what he pleased.

  He was a goddamned prince.

  *

  Amber tea rocked in the teacups as Dee navigated the stairs. It had been half an hour since Jed had retreated and all she’d done was sit in front of the fire, fighting sleep as she waited for him to come back down, despite knowing he wasn’t going to. Finally finding sense, she’d decided to take him a goodnight cup of tea—as an excuse for checking up, because he really didn’t seem okay—and then she’d go to bed.

  “I’m coming in,” she called softly, cresting the top step to the loft. “I’ve made tea.”

  Jed was standing by the window, hands braced on the heavy wooden frame. There was no light, only the gloom of winter twilight coming through the glass, casting his figure into a striking silhouette. The magnificent shape of him straightened and turned towards her.

  “Come look at the view,” he said.

  Carefully, she crossed to stand beside him, pausing to place the cups on the nightstand. Dusk smothered the garden, grey giving way to black, creeping into the trees behind their lodging. With rain still falling, the sight inspired stories of ghouls and forest beasts, red eyes and distant howling. As she looked, Jed stepped back.

  She thought he’d retreated to the bed. Then the skin at her nape prickled and she realized he’d moved close behind her. Very, very close. She held her breath, unmoving, as his body slowly molded against hers. His feet straddled her slippers, trapping her stance. His thighs pressed into the backs of her legs, imprints of hard muscle. His chest was flush against her back, and some very hard inches lay against her spine.

  “Hello there,” she said, as breezily as she could with arousal taking her body prisoner. Shackled by it, she didn’t turn.

  His mouth found her ear. Her insides curled, delighted at the warmth of his breath. “Hi,” he murmured.

  Oh, God. She needed floral and lace, stat.

  He made a deep humming sound as his hands settled on her shoulders. The power of his touch melted through her and she held still, struggling to remember Alexia’s words, why this was a bad idea, and recalled nothing but the way his hand had pressed between her thighs in her apartment, a grip loaded with power and promise.

  Surrender circled her, desperate to make her yield. His hands moved down her sides, forming cracks in her resistance. She had seconds at most.

  “What had you forgotten?” His words rumbled in the silence.

  She exhaled shakily. “What?”

  “Before we left your apartment. You said you’d forgotten something.”

  Dee’s eyes closed as Jed’s hands spread down her hips to bunch the hem of her dress in his fists. “Just my self-control.”

  His mouth was at her neck as he asked, “Did you find it?”

  Apparently not.

  He bit down gently, incensing her desire. Dee spun and found his mouth waiting. Hot and fast, he kissed her, hands moving to her butt and gripping hard. Need rippled across her skin, burning to touch his bare body, and as if reading her mind, Jed drew back to shuck his jacket and strip his shirt from his back. Then he closed in, propelling her until she sat on the wide window frame.

  “Jed,” she said, gasping as he yanked the dress over her head. Not wasting a moment. His hands were on her breasts, thumbs swiping over the fabric of her bra, over her nipples, until they budded with a sharp tug and a moan escaped her.

  “What do you like?” Her bra fell away as he kissed her again. “Tell me.”

  As far as she knew, “Anything.”

  “At all?”

  And he dropped to his knees, shoulders pushing apart her thighs.

  “That’ll work,” she answered, more breath than voice as he peeled off her tights. Then he wound an arm beneath her leg to grasp her hip firmly and set the other hand to her core. Jed, this gorgeous man, was finally touching her. That alone was enough to rush her towards bliss. When his lips found the soft, tender skin of her inner thigh, she whimpered, and when his thumb nudged beneath her underwear to stroke her slick heat, she cried out. Pleasure struck as he pushed inside, a spear of white light that blinded her. She felt his shoulders rise up even as his fingers pierced deeper, knotting tension as they went, bonding her to heat and pleasure. As if she’d ever want to escape it. Her back arched, pushing a breast directly into his impatient mouth. Her next breath shuddered as he sucked hard.

  “No.” She was slipping too near the edge. “Closer.”

  He withdrew, dragging off her underwear as he went. For several seconds he was gone, rustling by the nightstand, and then she could make out his naked body before her, his face, the clutch of his gaze. Heaven help her, he was all she’d ever wanted. Heat built in Dee so rapidly that she foiled his next move out of sheer instinct.

  He lifted her, intending her for the bed, and she hooked her legs around his waist, lined up the blunt tip of his erection, and slid down over him.

  With a startled groan, Jed froze.

  “Come on,” she murmured, and using the windowsill for purchase, rolled her hips, drawing him deeper. That got him. His grip shifted, one hand fastening on the flesh of her waist, the other on the window frame above her. Then he started to move. Slow thrusts that pushed high inside her, filling her, sure and slick and sweet. His lips found hers as the rhythm increased, a languorous, open-mouthed kiss that consumed her as fully as his sex.

  It didn’t take long. Not nearly long enough.

  Pressure clutched her core, gathering heat and pleasure, gathering so greedily that she couldn’t hold it all in, not with the pace urging her to let go. “No,” she gasped, as her climax broke like lightning around her.

  A sigh, a kiss, and Jed had her on the bed, on her back, and drove in hard. “Dee,” he said, a single syllable that had her blood surging and pleasure mounting in her once more. Like it wasn’t this act he wanted, but her, just her, and no man, no matter how aroused or affectionate had made her feel so precious. Her heart swelled and her ribs seemed to part, drawing him in to a place no man had ever ventured before.

  Jed kissed her neck, teeth scraping skin, and then he staggered her with another orgasm, deeper, longer, more luscious than the first. He pinned her with a final thrust and she curled around him with a cry, body and heart.

  It was only once she collapsed that emotion charged in, puncturing her right through, because this feeling of being desired should have been all she knew of sex, of making love, all she knew of men. Instead, she’d spent years with fleeting bed partners, searching for a connection like her first love, desperate to convince herself that she’d found another, as pure and magical, each and every time.

  Pressing her face into his neck, broken, she whispered, “You were supposed to be my first.”

  *

  Dee let him hold her. She let him stroke her hair and kiss her lips. All the while, dread gripped her at a second icy realization, so obvious now without sex hazing her mind. With an ease she didn’t feel, she slid out from under him and pulled on her dress.

  “Dee.” Her name travelled sadly from the sheets.

  “Mm?”

  “I heard you. And I’m sorry that I wasn�
��t.”

  Her heart tore. “Oh look, the tea’s gone cold,” she said, alarm scarcely contained. “I’ll make more.”

  The stairs disappeared beneath her as she fled. By the time she’d reached the kitchen, distress had struck in full force. Tears pushed out, streaking down her face, and she covered her mouth with a palm to muffle a sob. She’d moved too fast. So weak, so stupid. Jed wasn’t some guy she hoped would be the miraculous answer to her soul’s call. Jed was the answer. He’d always been the answer. No one ever had a chance of replacing him.

  And she’d rushed in like a fool. She’d told herself to wait, known that her usual haste wouldn’t mean lasting satisfaction. She tried to calm her breathing as she moved to the stove, but had no longer than that to pull herself together—even as she lifted the kettle to fill it, footsteps carried from the stairs. Swiftly, she darted up into the laundry and held her breath.

  “Dee.” Jed’s voice growled through the kitchen a moment later. She scrubbed her face, staying silent. “Dee,” he said again, voice coming from the base of the tiny flight of stairs. “I saw you go up there.”

  Oh. She slunk down, keeping her eyes on his feet. They were bare below the worn hems of his jeans.

  “You’re crying.” He sounded dismayed as he stepped back to let her out. “Is it—I should have been your first?”

  Dee shook her head, running a hand beneath her eyes again.

  “Then what’s upset you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  Sniffling, she made herself meet his concerned stare. “I just ruined my chances of being with you and that makes me want to cry and never stop because I hate how I always wreck these things, and I can’t believe I’ve done it with you.”

  “Hey.” He stood close, confused. He took the kettle from her hand and ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. She turned her face away. His hand dropped. “How could what just happened possibly ruin anything?”

  “It was too soon. It’s like some default setting I can’t rewrite, I always end up falling head over heels and not being caught at the end of it because no one ever realizes that I want to be caught. Moving fast means getting dropped fast, but I keep doing it.” Another tear ran hot down to her chin and she choked on a sob. “I keep doing it.”