by Lucy Lennox
His brown eyes were shining as he gazed at me like I wasn’t real. “Are you kidding? I’ve never been better. I’m so proud of you, Lio. I can’t believe you just did that. Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
I brushed my fingers along one of his cheeks before leaning down and kissing the hell out of him. He tasted so fucking good, I could have gotten lost in his kiss for hours.
If only the air hadn’t split open with catcalls.
“Go get it, boy!”
“Show us some skin!”
“Felix gettin’ naughty with Prince Charming.”
“What do you call french kissing in French? Is it just kissing? That’s boring.”
“I call dibs next!”
“Introduce us to your boy toy, Felix.”
I pulled back and stared at a room full of people I could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment before. At least fifteen people in their twenties and thirties grinned at us from various seats and perches around the big kitchen and family room combo. Were they having a party?
When I glanced back at Felix, I saw his face ignite with embarrassment. “Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “Prepare yourself. We’re called Wilde for a reason.”
Doc and Grandpa Wilde stepped forth from the throng and welcomed me to their home. I slid a possessive arm around Felix’s waist with absolutely no intention of letting him go anytime soon. His body melted against mine in response.
“Everybody,” Felix said loudly enough to carry across the group. “This is William Triannon Frederik Harald Christien Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco and King of Liorland. He prefers it if you bow deeply and kiss his ring, but—”
I interrupted, feeling a blush steal across my own face as I barked out a laugh. “Shut the hell up. Leave my ring alone, but you can kiss something else, smartass. How did you even remember all that?” I looked at the collection of Felix’s extended family. “Please call me Lior,” I said. It had taken me a while to accept the new version of my name, but I’d finally done it. Now, when Felix called me Lio, it was like staking a claim on me not many people were close enough to have.
As Felix walked me around, introducing me to everyone, I noticed how happy and relaxed he was. Seeing him ensconced in the house he grew up in surrounded by so many people who obviously loved him made me feel warm and full. I felt especially thankful to Doc and Grandpa Wilde for giving him the life he deserved, and I wondered, not for the first time, about whether or not it was fair to drag him away from the people and place he loved so much.
After an hour of getting to know his family and being teased for the lovesick way I stared at Felix and kept a tight grip on his hand, I heard him tell Doc he was taking me home.
“I thought you lived here on the ranch,” I said as he extricated me from his cousin Hallie’s tight hug.
“I do, but not in the main house. I have my own cabin just behind the first pasture,” Felix said with a blush. I heard a muffled laugh behind me and caught Arthur winking at Grandpa Wilde.
“We’re going to Felix’s house,” I told him, trying to reclaim my professional air.
“No, sir. Just you. The rest of us are being put up at the bunkhouse out back. These gentlemen have graciously offered to entertain us in your absence,” he said with a smirk.
I swallowed an audible sigh of relief and nodded my thanks to Doc and Grandpa Wilde.
Once we said our goodbyes and promised to return for a late dinner, Felix led me down a gravel path to a narrow space between two long fences. The early-spring grass was green and young, trampled from what was most likely daily foot traffic between Felix’s cabin and the main farmhouse.
“It’s so peaceful out here,” I said to Felix’s back. The narrow passageway between the two fenced pastures didn’t allow us to walk side by side. “You must love it. How often do you go into the town itself? Hobie is charming, by the way. You described it perfectly. I even saw the bakery and the old theater.”
“I’m not sure I’ve heard your nervous chatter before,” he said with a grin over his shoulder.
Felix was right—my stomach felt like there were a thousand angry bees swarming around in it, and my skin itched like I’d rolled in nettles.
“All I can think about is getting you alone,” I admitted. “My hands are shaking with it.”
Felix turned around and grabbed my face, crashing his lips into mine and smiling against my mouth.
“Mpfh, you taste good,” he mumbled. “I want to get you naked and suck hickeys into your skin. And then I want to lick your cock before riding it. And then I want to—”
It was my turn to attack, and I did. My tongue thrust into his mouth, surprising a squeak out of him. I walked him backward, hands roaming all over his back and ass before he finally dislodged himself from my person and took off running toward the tiny cabin in the distance.
I raced after him. Once we were through the door to the place, he slammed and bolted it. His clothes were off in a blink, and I stood there staring like a fool at his slender, fit body.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” I murmured, stalking closer to him. “I want to eat you for dinner.”
His grin was playful, but his eyes were intense.
“Only if you ask nicely,” he teased, stepping backward toward what I assumed was a bedroom. “Take off your clothes, Your Highness.”
If you insist.
Chapter 42
Felix
I felt like I’d just sucked in three helium balloons and could fly. But the reality was, I only got the squeaky voice.
When Lio stripped and threw me down on my bed, I squealed like a little kid being tickled to death. Lio teased me mercilessly.
“What’s with the giggles, giggler?” he asked, hands roaming over my ribs, which only made it worse.
“I’m just so freaking happy to see you, to touch you, hopefully to fuck you,” I admitted with glee. “I feel like… my fairy tale is coming true.”
Lio was lying on top of me, his naked body bringing up all kinds of feelings against my own bare skin. His gaze turned from playful to intense.
“Do you have any idea how much I missed you, Felix?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “If it’s anything like what I felt for you, I’m sorry.”
His hand came up to brush the hair from my face. “I don’t want to be apart from you anymore, Fee. Will you come home with me? I know it’s asking a lot. I know you’d have to put up with the media and leaving your family and—”
“Yes,” I breathed, feeling the tangle of emotions that word entailed.
Lio squeezed his eyes closed in relief and dropped his forehead onto my chest. “Thank god. I hate to even ask you this in case the answer is no, but are you sure?”
“Babe, I don’t really have a choice,” I said, bringing my legs around to cross ankles behind him. “My heart’s already decided. It’s picked you. I didn’t really have a say in it.”
He lifted his head. “And if you had?”
I shrugged. “Meh. You don’t seem all that worth the trouble you bring. I was hoping to find a nice ranch hand here in Texas. You know, someone who could support me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed.” I gestured toward the window where we could see a barren pasture with some abandoned, half-rotten hay bales next to a broken-down tractor. It was a fairly normal part of living on a giant ranch but looked pretty pathetic compared to the opulence of his life in Monaco.
He laughed. “Baby, what if I promised to have the palace staff chuck some straw piles haphazardly here and there around the courtyard? We could even bring in some chickens to peck around at the roses in the gardens.”
I pretended to think about it for a moment. “Hmm, that sounds lovely. Add in a farting cow or twelve and we have ourselves a deal.”
I shrieked when he rolled me around on the bed, biting at my neck and digging fingertips into my ribs to get a rise out of me. And rise, I did. Or, rather, a certain desperate dick did.
“Fuck me
,” I gasped before I lost all ability to speak. “Please stop goofing around and get inside me, Lio. I need you.”
He stopped tickling and met my eyes. “I was sort of hoping you might want to top me this time.”
My heart rate skipped up, and my dick jumped. “Oh hell yes. You sure? Never mind. I don’t care if you’re sure. Move over and let me grab what we need.”
When I stretched for my bedside table drawer, I felt Lio’s palm come down with a smack on my right ass cheek.
“Yikes! What was that for?” I asked, turning back around with the condom and lube bottle.
“Your ass is fucking perfection. I think I changed my mind about bottoming.”
“Too late. Your ass is mine. We can switch later.”
We started kissing again, and I forgot all about the lube and condom. Our hard cocks slid against each other with the slick from our precum, and I wondered idly if we were even going to get to anything more than a good frot.
Honestly, I didn’t care either way. I had Lio naked in bed with me, and I was going to make him feel good. That’s all I could ask for.
After sucking a spot on my collarbone and thrusting his hips into me, Lio gasped. “If you don’t fuck me soon, I’m going to come all over your stomach.”
I finally grabbed the lube and slicked up my fingers before reaching down to find his entrance. “You’re going to come all over my stomach anyway,” I said with a smirk, teasing the rim of his hole with the pad of one finger. I felt his body react to my touch, and it only made my cock harder.
“More,” he grunted. “C’mon baby, please.”
I captured his mouth with mine before sliding the first slick finger through his tight ring of muscles into the warmth of his body.
Oh god.
“Ngh,” he moaned. “More.”
“Bossy fucker,” I muttered, twisting and pulsing my finger before adding another. “You’re so damned tight, babe. Have you bottomed before?”
“Yes, but only a couple of times and not with something like that,” he said, reaching for my cock. “It’s looking bigger and bigger every second.”
I pulled my fingers back. “We don’t have to—”
His eyes flashed wide with frustration before he scrambled for the condom and thrust it at me. “Stop talking, Fee. Please.”
As I opened and rolled the condom on with shaking hands, I muttered, “Give a guy a bejeweled crown and a shiny new chair and he thinks he owns the fucking place. Bossy mother—jesusfuckingchrist!”
Lio’s slick finger hit the hot skin of my own hole and pushed right in before pulling back out again just as quickly. I whined at the loss of it and noticed him shoot me a look of satisfaction.
“Quit your muttering and fuck me.”
“Sure thing, Your Majesty,” I snapped before slathering my cock with lube and positioning it at his entrance. His knees were pulled back against his sides, and his eyes were wild. “Permission to invade, sir,” I said with a snort. The man looked about as faraway from a royal leader as he could possibly get, and I couldn’t help but tease him.
I was just so goddamned happy.
Before I could snicker, Lio tossed me over on my back and shoved himself down hard on my cock.
His body thrust up and down with desperate abandon, but his eyes were smiling. Between heaving breaths he was able to tease me back.
“Such a fucking smartass. You need a gag and restraints.”
The tight squeeze of his body on my cock was too much. I didn’t stand a chance at responding to him with words.
“Unh!”
My hips canted up into him as he slammed down on me.
“Ffft,” I tried, gasping for breath and clutching his ass like it was my last tenuous hold on this life.
“Fuck, Felix, baby. You feel so good. You feel so good inside me—god!” He seemed to lose his rhythm then, and I instinctively took over. After pushing him off me, I pressed him face-first into the mattress and pulled his hips back until his poor abused hole was in front of me. I slid home again and rocked into him over and over while he whimpered and begged underneath me.
“Fee, Fee,” he chanted. “I can’t…” The final whimper was followed by the tight clasp of his body and the cry of his release. Neither one of us was touching his cock, and the realization that he’d been turned on enough to come hands-free brought me to my knees. I collapsed onto his back with one final thrust deep inside him. My release shot off with rapid pulses from my cock and tingles up and down my groin. I sunk my teeth into his shoulder as I gasped through the orgasm, and when I was done, we both lay in a sweaty heap, sucking in breaths like we’d just finished a sprint.
After I pulled out to dispose of the condom, Lio rolled over and quirked his lip up.
“Go again?”
I burst out laughing as I stumbled to the bathroom on noodle legs.
“You’re a king, not a superhero,” I called over my shoulder.
When I crawled back onto the bed with a warm wet washcloth to clean him up, Lio grinned at me.
“What if I feel like a superhero?”
“Smug bastard,” I murmured before tossing the cloth away and snuggling against him. “You may feel like a superhero, but I feel like I’m about three months out of shape. I’m going to have to go back to bottoming if fucking you leaves me this winded.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Why haven’t you been exercising since you got home?”
I shrugged. “Feeling too sorry for myself, I guess. I’ve been hiding away in my glass workshop.”
His hand stopped carding through my hair before he shifted so he could look me in the face. The concern he had for me was apparent, and it made me feel warm inside.
“I’m sorry, Felix,” he said sincerely. “I should have come out sooner.”
My jaw dropped. “No you shouldn’t have. You did things exactly the way you needed to do them. I should have gotten off my ass sooner. Stop blaming yourself! I’m the one who insisted we not talk to each other, so it was my own damned fault.”
Lio sighed. “Well, it’s done. We’ll go home and start exercising together. How does that sound? I’ll have to find us some horses to ride or something since that seems to be what you’re used to.”
I pictured the Lipizzaner Stallions marching daintily in the forecourt of the royal palace while Lio looked excitedly at me. The laugh bubbled out before I could stop it.
“Jogging in a park is just fine, babe.”
Lio’s face darkened. “Well, you know you’ll have royal guards, right? I mean, I wish I could say you didn’t have to but…”
My stomach flipped a little with nerves. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. The treadmill it is, then. That… that’s going to take some getting used to.”
We lay quietly after that, just touching each other softly and exchanging kisses here and there. After a while, I realized Lio had fallen asleep. I finally realized the low-level intermittent buzzing I was hearing was the silent ringer of his phone.
I slipped out of his arms to retrieve it from the other room where it lay abandoned in his trouser pocket. Twenty-three missed calls. No doubt his office’s public relations people were working overtime to deal with the media fallout from the interview.
I wandered back into the bedroom and set his phone on the table next to the side of the bed he was using. Lio’s face looked so relaxed in sleep, I didn’t dare wake him. Instead, I slid between the covers and nudged him onto his side so I could spoon him.
As I curled my body around his, my entire soul seemed to let out a sigh of relief. Lio Grimaldi was in my bed. My Lio was safe in my arms in tiny Hobie, Texas, and for at least the next couple of days, we could hide out from prying eyes and relax.
But of course that’s not what happened, because fate was an asshole like that.
And so was my mother.
Chapter 43
Lio
During a huge Wilde family dinner that night and the bonfire that followed, I was treated to a h
ealthy number of adorable Felix stories as I got to know many of his cousins. The beer consumption matched my Texas-sized expectations, and only two of Felix’s cousins kept offering me something prissy instead. I guessed they assumed someone from Monte Carlo couldn’t stomach something as plebeian as a simple beer.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cosmopolitan?” Hallie asked while batting her eyelashes. “I hear they’re all the rage in Monte Carlo.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “So is drag racing, but he doesn’t do that either.”
I smirked at him, and he rolled his eyes a second time. “Let me guess,” he said. “You do, in fact, drive a race car.”
“No, baby, but the royal family never misses a final in our local Grand Prix,” I added. “You’ll have to learn the difference between Formula One and drag racing though. One is what we do in Monaco, the other is for street thugs.”
A little while later, Felix’s cousin Hudson wandered over with his girlfriend, Darci. He handed me a drink that seemed an overly vibrant shade of green.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Appletini shooter,” Darci said with an excited grin. “Otto said it’s the only thing you guys drink back home.”
Hudson looked like he was going to wet his pants laughing while Otto snickered from the other side of the bonfire. I took the glass and lifted it in tribute to both of them before tossing it back.
“Now can someone please get me a goddamned beer?” I asked after swallowing the tart shot.
The crowd around the fire roared with laughter, and I noticed Arthur enjoying himself with Grandpa and Doc’s only great-grandchild, Pippa. She was sitting on his lap while he tried blowing bubbles from a cheap bottle of bubble soap into the night air.
The Texas weather was mild, and the bonfire chased away any lingering evening chill. I looked around at the casual interactions of the Wilde family, hoping it was the first of many to come. Felix and I would have to find a way to stay close to these wonderful people despite the distance between our homes.
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Felix said softly beside me.
