A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember

by Jill Shalvis

  Misty was indeed attempting to get into his back pocket with her soft mouth. He batted at her, but couldn’t have made himself heard over the amazing decibel level Mrs. Pig and Pickles had created. “Come on, we’re out of here.”

  She had her hands over her ears. “What?”

  “I said—Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Grabbing her hand, he led her out of the pen. Instead of heading back toward the house, he took her on the path toward the barns, only he didn’t turn in there, either. He led her behind them, to a slight rise, where they could sit on a grassy knoll in peace and relative quiet, and look over his land.

  It was inky dark, but the moon, hung in the sky like a glowing beacon, lit the way. So did the stars, so many they were nearly on top of each other. And as they sat, their shoulders and arms brushing, he slid his arm around her waist and drew her slightly resisting body a little closer. “Better.” He cupped her face and looked into her troubled eyes. “Tell me. Do you want to leave now? Is that it? Do you miss home? Is my sister being a pain again? What?”

  “You…really think I’m beautiful.”

  Her nose was running, her eyes red. Her hair was loose about her face, framing it. She had a streak of dirt on her jaw, probably from one of his animals, the ones she said she didn’t like, but fed at every opportunity. His chest tightened. “You are beautiful.”

  “You mean me, as a woman.”

  “Yes.” Who did she think he meant? “Surely you’ve heard that about yourself before.”

  “Only as a princess, and then, not so often really.” She sent him a watery smile. “But never as a woman.”

  He’d nearly forgotten the princess thing. Had nearly convinced himself she’d forgotten, too.

  “It’s why I did this,” she said. “Why I wanted to come here. I wanted to see what it was like to be an independent woman. Nothing more, nothing less, and…” Her voice hitched a little. “I have to tell you, Tim, I’ve never had such a great time.”

  He thought of how hard she’d worked, of how much crap she’d taken from Sally. Of how she obviously had never lived in a world like this before, and yet she’d done it anyway, even after she’d earned enough to go where she wanted to go. “I figured by now you’d be running for the highway. This isn’t an easy life.”

  “No. But it’s lovely. Here nothing matters, not what I look like or what I’ve done to stir up the press, nothing. It’s…real.” From somewhere behind them a cow let out a long cry. An answering cry came, then another.

  And then the distant squeal of Mrs. Pig, which made them both laugh a little.

  “Real,” Tim repeated with a shake of his head, relieved to see the smile on her face. “This life is definitely that, Natalia. For what it’s worth, I don’t care how you dress, either, or what you’ve done.”

  Her eyes misted again. “I know. But I’m leaving tomorrow, Tim.” She took a shaky breath. “I have to. I want you to know, though, I’ll miss this. And you.”

  He wasn’t sure how it happened, but one moment he was staring down into her face at her lovely mouth, parted slightly, and the next moment he’d put his right over it. Just a little kiss. Just a comfort kiss. A you’re-not-alone kiss.

  A goodbye kiss.

  Only she made the sexiest little sound from deep in her throat. Grabbed his hair in her fists and held him close.

  What could he do but keep kissing her? He couldn’t pull away, not when she threatened to pull the very hair from his head.

  Her tongue against his ignited all the heat he’d been attempting to hold back. She made it impossible to remember he wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to take advantage of her in any way—

  But she made that sound again, and pressed closer so she practically sat in his lap, her breasts against his chest, her nipples drilling holes into his skin.

  Then she was in his lap, her bottom pressing against the part of him begging for more. His hands moved to her hips, gripping, shifting her back and forth over his hard-on until his eyes were crossed with lust.

  And again she made that rough sound, the one that assured him she was feeling as needy as he.

  Good. That was good.

  No, wait. It was bad, very bad. One of them had to be in control, one of them had to be able to pull away.

  But, God, it wasn’t him.

  With a little whimper, she plastered herself against him, rotating her hips back and forth in a telltale sign that made him groan. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be her in control, either. “Natalia,” he said thickly, trying to pull back. “We need to stop.”

  She tightened her grip on his hair, angled her face the other way and kept kissing him. She also did something pretty amazing with her tongue and his body jerked, getting aroused to the point of pain from just a kiss.

  Just a kiss. What a joke. This was no “just a kiss.” They were practically sucking the air right out of each others’ lungs, letting out dark sounds into the night that were earthy and needy and arousing all in itself.

  “Natalia,” he said again. Valiantly.

  But then she twisted, straddling him. Which meant that her thighs were open, her legs around his waist, the hottest, most neediest part of her was rubbing against the hottest, most neediest part of him.

  “I wish I was wearing my skirt,” she said, coming up for air. “Because then I could just lift it and…”

  Just the image made him tremble. “Natalia, we need to get a grip.” He had a grip, two luscious handfuls of her perfectly rounded butt, but that’s not what he meant. “This is getting out of control.”

  “I want to take this with me, this memory of you and me. What’s so wrong about that?”

  “Because it’s not enough, not for you. One night isn’t enough.”

  “It is.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “Here, in this miraculous place, with you, I’m a woman, and I want to feel like one.” Her eyes were wide and dark on his. “Please.” Then she rocked against him until he could hardly remember why he resisted. “There’s no one else who makes me feel this way.”

  Which pretty much made him feel like a superhero. “Be sure, Natalia. Be sure.”

  Lifting his hand from her hip, she placed it over her breast. “I am.”

  His heart nearly stopped. Beneath his fingers, her nipple was a hard, pouting point, and when he stroked it, he elicited a sweet little whimper from Natalia. His other hand got into the game, too, so that both were filled with her. She sighed and pressed against him some more, her head tossed back a little so that her throat was exposed right at mouth level.

  He couldn’t help but lean forward and nibble at it.

  She gasped and rocked to him. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

  Tim felt good, too. And in spite of the very sexual nature of the moment, he felt a rightness of it all that came from his heart, not the hard-on currently making sitting a challenge.

  Then Natalia reached down and pulled off her T-shirt.

  If he’d thought his heart had stopped before, he was sorely mistaken. Her breasts were barely contained in a white, lacy little demibra with a front hook, her nipples dark and thrusting against the material.

  She reached for his shirt, too. “Lift,” she demanded, and when he obliged, lifting his arms, she tossed his shirt over her head and slid herself against him. “I’ve always wanted to be like this, skin to skin with a man.” With a frown, she suddenly sat straight up, unhooked her bra and tossed that over her shoulder as well. He caught a quick glimpse of the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen before she plastered herself back against him with a heartfelt sigh. “There.” Her breasts were pressed to his chest. “Yes, there. Much better. Yes?”

  If he so much as moved, he was going to actually come in his pants. A fact he’d so far managed to avoid all his life, even during high school horn-dog make-out sessions.

  “Tim?” She lifted her head, which sent her hair sliding over his jaw. With each breath she took, her breasts lifted, which meant her n
ipples tantalized and teased his bare flesh, as well.

  She was driving him crazy, and he gripped her hips. “Hold still.”

  Against his fingers she managed to still move, managed to arch and writhe, and he let out a rough groan.

  “Natalia…Wait.”

  She froze, then removed her hands from his hair and put them over her breasts. “I’m sorry.”

  “What? No, I—”

  “I pressed myself on you. Again. It’s just…inexcusable, really.”

  She made to move off him, but he grabbed her, rolling her beneath him so that she was flat on her back in the grass with him sprawled out over the top of her. Taking her hands off her breasts, which he wanted to see again, he pulled them over her head and held her still. “Don’t move,” he said gruffly. “Or I’ll be a goner. Do you understand? I’m saying you’re going to make me come right this second if you move another inch. Now I need to touch you, quite badly. Is that okay?”

  She blinked. “I thought—”

  “You thought wrong.”

  She stared at him for one more long moment before slowly relaxing.

  “There,” he whispered encouragingly, dipping his head to taste her jaw, her throat. “That’s better.” He nipped her collarbone. “Much better.”

  Natalia had to agree. Tilting her head back, eyes open to the dark, starry night, surrounded by nothing but wide-open space, she absorbed his weight and when he nibbled at her again, gasped.

  “Where’s the nipple ring?”

  “I don’t have one. I’m…too chicken.”

  He lifted his head. “Know what I think? That you’re tough as tough can be on the outside, where you’ve needed to be, and yet soft as soft on the inside, where no one can see.” He smiled a very sexy smile. “But I can see, and I like it.”

  He rocked against her, then rained hot, openmouthed kisses to her shoulder, down her arm and yes, finally, over her breast. She tried to remain cool, tried to act as if she’d done all of this before, but when his tongue swirled over her nipple, she jerked and nearly sobbed out loud. She couldn’t help it, she was burning up, from the inside out, and couldn’t stay still. Her hips rocked, her heart pounded, the blood roared in her ears, and she thought she would die if he didn’t hurry up and touch her everywhere.

  “Mmm. You like what I’m doing.” He kissed and tasted and sucked his way to her other breast. “Don’t you?”

  This time she did sob out loud and nearly bucked him off her in her haste to get more.

  He let out a low chuckle as he took that talented mouth back to her first breast.

  She amused him. While she was on her deathbed, dying from this…this unbearable, shockingly consuming need, she amused him. “Don’t stop,” she demanded, shameless, and she didn’t care. “Don’t you dare stop.” She fought with his hands to get hers loose, and when he let go, she gripped him by the ears and held his head to her breast. Who would have thought sex would feel so amazingly good? She’d have tried it long ago if she’d had any clue, any clue at all.

  But while she was wild, he was…not. Somehow he’d regained control, and was just fine while he nearly drove her out of her mind. Unacceptable, really. She’d let go completely, and he would, too. Together. She ran her hands down his sleek, strong and oh-so-delicious-feeling back. He was amazing, no doubt, but she was getting sidetracked. Determined to make him as out of control as she, she danced her hands down farther, to his very nice bottom, and squeezed.

  Obliging, he thrust against her. Oh, yes, that was very nice, and before she could help it, she’d spread her legs, further accommodating him. It made her whimper for more, but no. She was not going to lose it.

  At least not until he did, not even if she had to calculate complicated math problems to keep her thoughts together. She worked her hands around his sides to the button on his jeans, which she popped open. “Off,” she demanded, tugging on the denim.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He obliged her, then kneeled at her side, sliding hers off, too, running his hands down her bare legs while he stared down at her with a hunger that made her arch off the grass.

  “Is it too itchy?”

  She blinked, then realized he meant the grass beneath her. “I can’t feel anything but you touching me.”

  “Good.” Her panties sailed over his shoulder the way their pants had gone and he bent, kissing her, long and deep and wet, just the way she’d discovered she’d liked it.

  No one had ever kissed her this way, though it was fair to say many had tried. She just hadn’t seen what all the fuss was about. Sex had seemed sweaty and rather nasty, and a lot of work. And, according to several of her friends, unsatisfying.

  She hadn’t bothered to find out for herself. She wasn’t a prude, or even shy. She knew how to pleasure herself. She just hadn’t let a man do it.

  She would let Tim.

  His hands glided over her body, paying special attention to her breasts, before he replaced his fingers with his mouth. That left his hands free to dawdle lower, and dawdle they did, dancing down her belly, which quivered at his touch. Oh, good. Down, down…oh, please to the right spot…but…no. He passed the goodies and swept his fingertips over her thighs and down her legs and…yes. They were coming back!

  “Please,” she whispered without meaning to, thrusting her hips toward him in an attempt to help him find the right spot.

  He missed it again.

  Instead, he played with her thighs while he stretched out at her side, leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world. His mouth played at her ear, at her throat, and those fingers—the center of her world at the moment—came…very…close…but…no. “Tim.”

  “Mmm, you’re so sweet.” He nibbled his way to a nipple while he continued to tease her with that barely there caress. Now his tongue brought a new sort of tension, making her arch and writhe.

  She was wound up, no doubt, her every muscle tense, shaking. She was starting to sweat, too, and if she didn’t get some sort of…more, she was going to scream. “Tim.”

  “Right here.”

  Maybe he didn’t know what to do. That was all right, she was a new-millennium type of woman. She could show him.

  She spread her legs. Wide. Rocked her hips. And when his fingers skimmed up high on her thigh, she moaned her encouragement. Rocked some more. Tried to give him a clue.

  “Ah,” he murmured in a silky voice that brought shivers to her heated skin. “You’re getting ready now.”

  “I am ready! I’m really, really ready!”

  “Are you? Let me see…” And finally, oh, finally, his fingers caressed the spot, the right spot, over the ohmigod spot, and as a result of that one very slow, very sure caress, she let out a sound that might have horrified her in its neediness if she’d had any modesty left at all.

  She did not.

  Then he did it again, moaning when his fingers came away wet. “Yeah. You’re right. You’re just about ready.”

  “Not just about,” she panted, because he did it again, that just oh-so-perfect glide of his fingers. “I’m there!”

  “Well…” He deepened the touch, in just the right rhythm, assuring her he’d known what he was doing all along.

  This was no ordinary orgasm she was currently on the cusp of, that much was certain. Her toes curled, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she lost all ability to think as her body hovered on the edge. Hovered and hovered, while he held her there purposely, then finally, finally, did something amazing with his thumb while his fingers—

  And she exploded. Burst right out of herself. Saw stars, a kaleidoscope of colors, the whole shebang.

  When her senses returned, Natalia found herself still on her back, still in the grass, blinking up at the stars glittering far overhead.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She’d just had her first man-made orgasm. A screaming orgasm. And lying there, her skin sheathed in a fine sweat, slowly being cooled off by the lovely night, she laughed.

  “I’ll take that as a
yes.” Tim’s face came into her view as he leaned over her, also wearing a grin.

  His seemed a bit tight, though, and she remembered. She’d lost control after all, damn it, and he hadn’t. Not yet. “I believe there’s more?” she asked. Please let there be more.

  He arched a brow. “When you speak like that, you do indeed sound like a princess.”

  “More,” she repeated.

  “Well, yeah, about that.” He grimaced. “We seem to have a little protection problem.”

  That she could handle. “In my back pocket.”

  He gaped at her. “You have a condom?”

  “Amelia always insists I carry one.”

  “Amelia?” He went to her pocket and shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know right now.” He opened the packet and removed the condom.

  Natalia sat up, reached for it. “Can I?” She’d always wanted to try this part, but when she took it from his fingers, she nearly dropped the thing. “It’s…slimy.” But gamefully, she held it up to the moonlight. “Uh, Tim? This isn’t going to fit.”

  With a rough laugh, he took it back. “It’ll fit.” He started to roll it on. “See?”

  She could hardly breathe, and certainly couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight of him stroking the condom down his own length. “That’s a very sexy thing,” she decided. “Do men like to watch a woman touch herself, too?”

  “A man would die to watch a woman touch herself.”

  Something in his eyes made her bold. Whether it was the plain hunger or the even more obvious affection shining there, she didn’t know, but she lifted her hands and stroked them down her own body. She was about to ask “like that?” but before she could open her mouth, he’d growled low in his throat and tumbled her back to the grass, running his hands down her arms, her sides, down her thighs and up the backs of them, spreading them wide so that he could—

  “Oh!” she cried when he slipped an inch inside her. She’d had no idea how perfect it would feel—

  Then he bent over her, his forearms flat on the ground on either side of her head, sinking his fingers into her hair, kissing her long and hard. “You feel good,” he whispered against her lips.