My Royal Temptation

by Riley Pine

  “There’s a hot spring running down the wall here,” I rasp.

  She hums. “This feels amazing.” The warm water seeps between her legs, splashing my own thighs.

  She arches with pleasure like a naughty kitten and I slide the final inch. Fuck. Her pussy milks me in micropulses. Savage pleasure claws my chest. She is so close already. My darling Kate is responsive as hell. But I won’t find my release until she gets hers.

  I dip over her sensitive nipple and trace the rosy bud with the flat of my tongue while I enter her over and over, deeper and deeper. Her nails claw my back helplessly. Those micropulses become quakes.

  “Watch me, Pet. Watch us. Watch your sweet pussy take all that I have to give.”

  We stare through the crystalline water, hypnotized at the erotic sight of my thick root working through her pink entrance. It’s the most goddamn beautiful sight that has ever existed.

  “This is where I belong,” I say. “In you. Giving you everything you deserve.”

  “I love watching you take me,” she gasps.

  “Love watching you get it.”

  Then her dizzy gasp turns to a small cry. “It’s so good. It’s too much. I’m coming.”

  “And who is giving it to you?”

  “Nikolai.”

  As she breathes my name I shoot inside her, my own groan losing itself in her mouth as I taste the ecstasy on her tongue.

  We spend the day like this. Lovemaking in the Grotto of Diamonds. Nibbling Nutella sandwiches. Sharing funny stories about our childhoods. Each moment is the best one of my life.

  When at last I fly us home, she falls asleep in her seat, too satiated to fear the helicopter, and among the night sky, I tell the stars my secrets, the truth that’s burning a hole in my heart. The one that I am not yet ready to confess to her face.

  For now, the truth lies in the sky above—and buried deep within my long-darkened soul.

  Kate

  I feel his fingertips softly caress my face, and I stir in my seat. I’m vaguely aware of my surroundings—a helicopter, I think—but I don’t want to leave the dream, one where Nikolai tells me he loves me.

  “We’re home, Pet. Time to wake.”

  His voice is soft in my ear, and my body betrays me as my eyes flutter open, exiting the fairy tale I so long to stay in. Because of course he never spoke those words, and I’m not the princess who gets her happily ever after. Yet after this day, I can’t help but hope for the possibility that one day I will be.

  The propeller blades are still, and Nikolai no longer wears his helmet. I reach a hand to my own head and find that neither do I.

  “Wow,” I say. “I was really out. What time is it?” It’s only then that I realize the setting sun—that I remember Maddie spending the day at the hospital with Gran.

  “It’s nearly six,” he says. “Is everything okay?”

  I fling off my seat belt and fidget with the door. “I’m sorry. Today was—it was everything, but I’m late. It’s a family thing. I—I have to go.”

  I must sound as frantic as I feel because he rushes from the helicopter and around to my side, helping me out.

  “Whatever you need. Where do you have to go? I’ll take you there myself.”

  We race from the helipad where I expect to see X waiting with the Rolls-Royce, but instead I find two guards along with Queen Adele. Christian Wurtzer. And a young woman I recognize from the covers of various magazines—Catriona Wurtzer. She stands with a self-satisfied grin plastered on her face and one hand distinctively rubbing her flat belly.

  “What is all this?” Nikolai asks, more annoyed than concerned.

  Christian’s jaw is tight, and I can tell he is using monumental restraint. Whatever is going on, this man looks at Nikolai like he wants to tear his throat out.

  The queen purses her lips and narrows her eyes at me. “Come now, Nikolai. Really. Dallying with the hired help. I’d like to know how she plans to earn double her fee for getting you down the aisle if she can’t keep her legs crossed in your presence.” She sets her cold gaze on me. “And you.” The queen raises her brows. “I know I told you to earn his trust, but I had no idea you’d seduce him, as well. I guess that is one way to go about it.”

  Her lips part into a satisfied, victorious grin.

  “Double fee? What the fuck is this about a double fee?” Nikolai asks.

  The world seems to spin around me. I might be sick.

  Christian’s jaw ticks. Catriona stifles a laugh. And when I look at Nikolai, the light in his eyes snuffs out as I watch his gaze cool and then turn completely to ice.

  “Double your fee?” he repeats, his tone achingly bitter.

  “The contract,” I say, but it comes out as a strangled sob. “You have the copy. The money wasn’t a secret.” But he told me he hadn’t read it, which means I let the lie of omission stand. I let myself believe that what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I let myself believe that we could beat the queen at her own game, but I never really stood a chance. Did I?

  “I trusted you,” he says. “But I guess that was just part of your job too. I didn’t think I needed a contract to prove to me that you weren’t like every other woman who’s schemed to get in my bed. If it wasn’t meant to be kept from me, then why not say something?” he asks, his words biting and bitter. “Is this why you challenged me? Why you were so confident you’d succeed? Because you were allied with the person who despises me most?”

  He steps toward me, his face inches from mine, but I don’t for one second think he will kiss me, not with his teeth clenched. Or that vein in his neck throbbing with the hot anger rising from his body.

  “Was. Any. Of. It. Real?”

  Each word stabs me like a poisoned dagger.

  “Nikolai, you know it was real,” I say, but how can he trust me now when the queen speaks the truth? She didn’t request my help. She demanded it, under veiled threats. I was her ally. I had no choice but to comply. And even though I gained his trust, I never really gave him mine. Or I’d have been brave enough to tell him everything.

  I knew I was falling for him today, and the possibility of us made me think I wasn’t afraid of her anymore—that I could tell Nikolai about Gran. About why I needed to succeed even if it meant breaking my own heart.

  She played me. She played him. And now she is going to win.

  “Money,” he says, his voice so distant I almost don’t believe it’s the same man who woke me moments ago. “That’s what you really hoped to gain. Wasn’t it?”

  I shake my head, refusing to believe things can change with one utterance from the queen. “You know that’s not true. She made me agree. I had no choice. I should have told you everything, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Stop,” he says. “Just stop. Why would you say anything if seducing me could earn you double your fee?” His eyes flash to the queen and back to me. “Do you want to know why I refuse to marry?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Because the last woman I asked to be my queen was willing to accept my hand even though she loved another. All because she thought the title more important than all else. Now she is gone, my brother banished, and I right back where I started, fooling myself that any woman could see past the facade.”

  He takes another step closer to me, and I flinch. I do not know this Nikolai. This is not my prince.

  “I told you. I will. Not. Marry.”

  Laughter bubbles from the queen’s lips, and she claps her hands slowly.

  “Lovely speech. Really. Lovely. But here is the thing. It was only a matter of time before your—dalliances—got you into trouble. Thankfully, the countless times you’ve dallied with the baroness seem to have worked in your favor.” Her lips curled into a malicious grin. “Catriona is pregnant with your heir. You will marry and secure an alliance with Rosegate...or lose the throne.”

 
Nikolai’s eyes widen as his gaze meets that of his former lover, and then falls to where her hand rests on her belly.

  My tears fall hot and fast because I know now we never had a chance—Nikolai and I. The queen had said she would find his match and that I would support it. Benedict searching for a loophole was nothing more than a distraction. This was always going to end.

  “Take her away until I decide what to do with her,” the queen says.

  And before I can comprehend that she means me, both of her guards appear at my sides, my arms firm in their grip.

  “What are you doing?” I cry.

  “Your Highness,” Christian starts. “You never said anything about locking her up!”

  But the queen waves him off.

  “Take. Her. Away,” she says again, and the guards start dragging me toward a car at the edge of the grounds.

  “Nikolai!” I call. “Listen to me. You know it was never about the money. I know you do.”

  But he doesn’t respond as the guards pull me farther and farther from him.

  I want to cry out again, but for whom? Nikolai stands there, dumbfounded and shattered. I have no ally.

  As I collapse into the back of the car, my eyes blur with tears—so much so that it takes me several seconds to get my bearings.

  A minibar. A bottle of cognac. And when I look up, the window between me and the driver lowers.

  “To the dungeon, then, Miss?” the driver asks, and I dare to let myself hope.

  “X?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Nikolai

  “TSK, TSK.” ADELE clicks her tongue. Her mouth’s sympathetic purse only serves to make the triumph in her eyes more grotesque. Not for the first time I wonder just how she managed to capture my father’s heart. She hails from an old Edenvale family, aristocratic to the core, but besmirched by a long line of traitors who over time have betrayed our throne’s integrity to cut lucrative deals with Nightgardin, hoping to profit in the destabilization. A few of her ancestors’ heads decorated the palace bridge as a warning to other transgressors.

  I flex my fist, wishing for an ancient ax and a chopping block.

  “Naughty, naughty, Nikolai, leading that pathetic matchmaker on. I hope you had fun with your little game. I’m sure she’ll get over it in, oh, ten or twenty years.” She glances to Catriona, and they share the same tinkling, malevolent laugh.

  I don’t know what the fuck to think. Two hours ago I was making love to a woman who I’d have sworn looked into my pitch-black soul and saw a man worthy of her heart. Now I’m being told it was a lie? That she was in it for a double fee. It’s not even the money that gets me this time. It’s that she kept her alliance with the queen rather than me. I’ve been enough of a royal idiot to be duped into thinking Kate had grown to care for me for my own sake.

  Idiot.

  Self-disgust roils through me. But I don’t allow a trace of feeling to reveal itself on my face.

  Instead, I twist my own lips into a sneer. “Pity.” I ensure my words are ice, that they drip with scorn. “For a commoner, she was uncommon good fun.” I allow my gaze to fall on Catriona. Her white-blond hair. Her porcelain perfect skin and pale blue eyes nearly the same shade of water. Nothing warm or welcoming. No. Twin pools of an Arctic lake. I take my time scanning every inch of her perfect body. “Darling,” I drawl. “You didn’t need to fake a pregnancy to keep my interest. The way I recall, we have unfinished business. You promised me a backstage pass and never delivered.” I arch a brow.

  “You bastard,” Christian says, lunging for me. The two guards, already returned, restrain him.

  “I think you meant to say Your Highness.” I dust off my shirtfront. “I do believe the proper terminology in addressing your liege lord is Sire, Prince, Majesty. You could go for Your Most Exalted Worshipfulness for extra credit. You always were an ass kisser back in school.”

  And he was. Perfect grades. Awards for chivalry. While my extracurricular activities consisted of fucking Miss Teatree, the student French teacher, in the back of my Rolls-Royce during lunch breaks.

  “I am going to cut out your disgusting tongue,” he hisses.

  “Your loyalty to your sister is commendable,” I answer easily. “But problematic. Because either she is lying, in which case you are a fool, or she is telling the truth, and you are threatening violence not only on your future king but also the father of your nephew. A child who will be the only one to carry on your noble line given your...dilemma.”

  Christian stares at me with fire in his eyes. He contracted mumps during our school days, and the nurse told him he was probably sterile. A pity as it puts his small but highly coveted territory in jeopardy. Rosegate needs an heir. Edenvale needs to solidify the alliance. Despite the circumstances, it would be an advantageous match.

  “My money is that you are a fool,” I say, turning back to Catriona. “How do you know that you are pregnant? Will you have me believe you are some sort of modern-day Princess and the Pea? That you can magically sense if my child is growing within you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Adele snaps, beckoning to a butler who stands off to the side, holding a silver platter covered by a swan-shaped lid.

  He hurries over and removes the lid with a flourishing bow. On the tray lies a pregnancy stick with two lines.

  “I do not read hieroglyphics,” I mumble.

  “Idiocy doesn’t become you. It’s obvious that’s a positive sign.” Victory is stamped on my stepmother’s every smug feature. “You coated her womb with your depraved seed. Time to do your duty.”

  “A little baby,” Catriona says, her mouth curving into an uncertain smile. “A future king or queen. Plus, Rosegate will unite with Edenvale at last, and Nightgardin won’t ever have a chance of taking it over.”

  My stepmother inclines her head as if truer words had never been spoken. What is her poisonous endgame? I have to think, but my brain is flatlining, my neurons only able to process one thing. That I let another woman pretend to care for me. That I let down my defenses and gave Kate entry into my inner keep.

  My stepmother hates me, blames me for her daughter’s death, but why the fuck is she so intent on marrying me off to Catriona, or marrying me off period? I am not buying her giving a flying fuck over solidifying ties to Rosegate.

  The cogs in my dulled brain begin to creak back to life. Doubt slides up my spine like a serpent. I used condoms with Catriona. She said she was also on birth control. If Kate was working with Adele, why not Catriona, too?

  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

  “The wedding will be in three days’ time,” Adele says. “A very private, very legally binding ceremony.”

  The queen might be crafty, but she isn’t exactly a rocket scientist. And about as subtle as a doorpost.

  “I don’t think so.” It takes all my strength not to gnash my teeth. “I know I’ve been nothing but a crushing disappointment to your selfish motives, so just add this latest mistake to my tab.”

  I turn away, thoughts reeling. If Catriona is carrying my child, I can’t abandon her or the innocent baby, but I can’t marry her. I’ll order a blood test and then figure things out. Even if the ache of betrayal floods my body as I think of the woman who just disappeared into the night, I know it was real for me, so much so that I can barely breathe thinking it was all a game for her. I want to fall to my knees and scream. I want to find a wall and punch it until my fists run with blood.

  Love is my curse, never my salvation. When Father dies, I will sit on the Stone Throne, but my heart will be as impenetrable as a block of uncut granite. Perhaps Catriona will bear my bastard, but she will never be my queen.

  X. I need X. He’ll know what to do. Even if it is to get me mind-numbingly drunk until today is blacked out of memory—he’ll know.

  “I will make you happy,” Catriona says,
putting the perfect quaver in her voice. She’s such a drama queen that I’m half tempted to give her access to the throne, just to watch the spectacle.

  “Sweetheart, there is only one reason why I stuck my dick in you. Fine, two. But the primary reason was this... I was trying to find out if your brother was selling me out to the tabloids again.”

  “What are you bloody talking about?” Christian yells.

  “Every time I went out in the past year, images would appear of me online and in the print media. Despite my reputation, I do value discretion when it suits me. I knew someone in my entourage was spilling the proverbial beans. Squeaking to the press. But it was you all along. You were the little mouse.” I’m unleashing the asshole attitude that’s made me infamous, going full scale royal prick.

  There is no one that I can trust. I am as I have always been—alone.

  Catriona presses a hand to her heart. “How could you accuse me of such base behavior?”

  My shoulders shake with my cold laugh. “The minute Christian found me with you, I knew it wasn’t him. He was so upset. Then nothing leaked afterward. Except there was an attempt to sell something to a national magazine, wasn’t there?”

  She blanches. If she was pale before, now Catriona is a living ghost.

  “X intercepted the messages. You were going to sell a tell-all exposé to the highest bidder. Did you think that texting your brother to come find you in my bed was going to force him to badger me to marry you? Or that you’d achieve notoriety as my lover?”

  Catriona draws her hand back and slaps me hard on the cheek. “You are a monster. No wonder Victoria ran off with Damien. You can’t love. Your heart is complete and utter stone.”

  “Enough!” Adele commands in her usual imperious tone. “Someone escort my sniveling future daughter-in-law back inside the palace. And her brother, before he murders the heir to the throne.”