by Ashley Hall
Isabella's body lurches with each snap of Gabe's hips. A hand curls tight in her hair. Gabe uses it to pull Isabella's head backwards, devouring her mouth with his own.
The kiss does nothing to lessen the pain.
For a while, nothing makes it any less.
But then, slowly, a blip of pleasure blooms in her loins. Eventually, those powerful thrusts are making the young princess cry out for all the wrong reasons. The lube makes up for her virgin muscles, which flutter and clench around Gabe's dick.
She's aware, distantly, of the way her words sound—desperate, begging.
“Fuck me harder”, she says.
“More, Gabe. Fuck more.
Please, please, please. “
Gabe listens, as best he can. His own mind is clouded with arousal. It's hard to focus on anything except for getting off. Oddly enough, Isabella thinks that she's okay with that.
Chapter Twenty
The sheets are tangled up around Isabella's legs. It's cold in the suite. Distantly, she thinks that it would be nice to get up and turn the heat on. The thought is quickly crushed when Gabe rolls onto his side, draping an arm over the young woman's stomach, fingers brushing idly over her ribs.
“Are you up?” Isabella keeps her words soft, just in case the man is still asleep.
He is. The room is silent aside from their breathing and the occasional shift of sheets. It's the sort of thing that Isabella has always longed for, being able to curl up with someone that she actually loves, that she actually cares for.
It's the sort of thing that, if Alexandra has her way, will never happen.
Isabella's lips pull into a thin line. She pushes the bangs out of her face. “I can't do this.”
The words are little more than a whisper. All the same, they seem to carry the weight of the world.
Gabe yawns. It's nothing but a brush of hot air against Isabella's neck. “What?”
“I didn't mean to wake you,” apologizes Isabella, rolling over so she can hide her face against the biker's chest. He smells like stale sweat and motor oil. “Sorry, Gabe.”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You're talking to yourself at, what, six in the morning? Either something's wrong or I just fucked a crazy girl.”
“Maybe you did,” whispers Isabella, because she's feeling pretty crazy right about now. The very thought of having her “Happily Ever After” so close makes her heart beat faster, her mouth feel too dry, and her skin feel too tight. “Maybe that's all I am—completely insane.”
Fingers run idly along Isabella's spine. They splay out, palm settling between her shoulder blades. “If anyone knows crazy, it's me. Trust me when I say that's it’s not you. So, seriously, what's wrong?”
Isabella shakes her head.
Gabe snorts. “After last night, you actually have something you're embarrassed about?”
“I'm not embarrassed,” whispers Isabella. Already, there are hot tears pricking at the edges of her eyes. “I'm upset.”
“Over what? Listen, if last night was too much for you—”
“No!” Isabella is quick to answer, shaking her head harder this time. “No, it's not you! It's nothing that you did, Gabe. It's something that…that I can't do.”
“Okay,” says Gabe, stretching the word out a bit too long. “Then what can't you do?”
“This,” admits Isabella. “What my mother wants. I can't marry the Duke. I can't spend my life with someone that I don't really love.”
“But you could spend it with me.”
“I love you,” admits Isabella. “I love you, and it's so unfair that I can almost reach out and choke myself with the thought. I love you so much, and I can't ever be with you.”
“You're with me now,” says Gabe. “You can be with me tomorrow, too. That's what you're thinking about, right? You're thinking about tomorrow and the day after and raising that fucking baby.”
Isabella bites back a sob. She presses herself as close to Gabe as she can, fingers scrabbling at his chest in an attempt to get even closer. “I can't do it with him. I can't raise her with him!”
“Her?”
“I know. I know it's going to be a girl. I don't know how, I just...I don't know how, but I know I'm going to have a daughter.”
“We're going to have a daughter,” says Gabe, and it's like he loses every last breath when he says it. “I'm going to have a kid. You know, I've never actually thought that would happen.”
“That's the problem,” says Isabella. “We can't have a daughter. I can't…I can't be with you! My mother, she won't let it happen. She would never let me be with you, and she's never going to let me choose who I'm with.”
Gabe buries his nose in Isabella's hair. It's a tangled, knotted mess. The thin blonde strands cling to his upper lip. “Just tell her to fuck off.”
Isabella gives a wet laugh. “I can't. You don't understand, Gabe, I'm not just her daughter, I'm her heir apparent to the throne. I'm the next in line—the only one left in line—and that means I don't get to choose.”
“Bullshit,” spits Gabe. “Everyone's got a choice! Look at me!”
“My mother would hate that example,” says Isabella, finally pulling away from the man. She rolls onto her back, arms splayed out to either side, fine hair forming a crown on her pillow. “My mother would hate you.”
Gabe pushes himself up onto one elbow. “Does that matter?”
“I don't know,” admits Isabella. “All I know is that it would kill me to spend my life with the Duke. How my mother has done it is beyond my comprehension. I don't understand how she's done it, and I don't want to understand.”
Isabella lets one hand rest on her stomach. She's only just starting to show. Her other hand stretches up, curling her fingers through the air like she could almost touch her dreams.
Gabe sits up all the way. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, feet resting on the floor. “You want a smoke?”
“What?” Isabella blinks, tilting her head to the side so she can stare at the scarred expanse of Gabe's back.
Gabe repeats himself. “Do you want a smoke?”
“I…no?”
“Well, I need one. You care?”
“We aren't supposed to smoke in the suite.”
“No shit. I saw the sign. I was asking if you cared.” Gabe gets up and grabs his pants from the floor. He pulls a pack of Marlboro's from the back pocket and fishes out a single cigarette and a lighter. When he turns back to face Isabella, there's a slight grin on his face.
Isabella sits up. She smiles back at him. “No, I don't mind, on one condition?”
Gabe flicks the lighter. A flame dances over the end of his cigarette. “And what's that?”
“Come sit back down?”
“I planned on it.”
“Good,” says Isabella, and the moment Gabe is seated beside her once more, she wraps an arm around his waist and leans against his shoulder. “I don't want you to leave just yet.”
Those words, it seems, end up being a flaw in the plan, for no sooner do they leave Isabella's mouth than the door to the suite opens.
Chapter Twenty-One
There's something horrible about knowing that your entire world is about to come crashing down around you and not being able to do anything about it. Isabella makes a grab for the blanket, but she barely has time to pull it up over her breasts before Alexandra sticks her head into the bedroom.
A moment passes where no one says anything. There are footsteps in the main room. Her father is here, too.
Isabella feels faint. She sags against Gabe, the man who’s stuck here, forced here, unsure of what's about to happen. “Mother,” she says, voice weak and wavering. “What happened to knocking?”
Alexander stutters for a moment. She lifts up one hand, pointing a finger at the bed. It's trembling.
“It's okay,” tries Isabella, desperately trying to think of something to say that might make things a little better.
&nb
sp; She can't come up with anything.
This entire situation feels like Hell come to Earth.
Isabella says, “It's okay,” a second time and tries to smile. She can't.
“You little bitch,” is what Alexandra is finally able to say. “I can't believe you would do this to us! I can' believe…I can't believe you would be such a little whore!”
The words sting. Isabella flinches back, as though struck. “Mother!”
“Don't talk,” says Alexandra. “No, just don't say anything. I can't…I can't bear hearing any more of your lies, Isabella.”
“I haven't lied to you about anything!”
“You told me that you would stop,” hisses Alexandra. She gestures towards the bed, towards a stunned Gabe.
He might be a biker from the South, but even Gabe's never been faced with a situation like this before. He sits there, stunned silent, and watches the horror unfold.
And that's what it is, at the very end of it. This is a horror movie, sure as any that Isabella has ever seen. She feels like she's moving in slow motion when she sits up, unable to stand lest she uncover herself before her mother or worse, lest she uncover Gabe in front of the Queen.
“Mother,” she tries. “Mother, please. You know that you don't mean that!”
“No,” says Alexandra. “I've been trying to guide you, Isabella, but I can tell that you just aren't going to listen. You've never planned on listening, have you?”
From the living room, the King asks, “What's going on, darling?”
“What's going on? What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on! We have a skank for a daughter! We have a skank for a daughter, and she has a man in here!” Alexandra spins around, hands up in the air like she's trying to knock the image out of her mind. “I didn't think that I'd raised a whore! Where did I go wrong?”
“Mother,” insists Isabella, but she's drowned out by the Queen's rambling.
“No! No! I don't want to hear it! I will not bear any more of your lies or your excuses! A whore! A harlot! It's a wonder that you haven't gotten yourself knocked up before,” rages Alexandra. “Or have you? Have you just destroyed the others?”
Tears burn at Isabella's eyes. She bites back on a sob. “There haven't been any others, Mother, children or otherwise! This is…this is him; this is the father.”
The king doesn't step into the bedroom. He lingers in the hallway, unwilling to see his daughter in such a state of undress. He's not, however, unwilling to add his two cents to the fight. “I don't think I have ever been so disappointed in you. Isabella, what were you thinking?”
“I'm thinking that I love him,” sobs Isabella. She hides her face in her hands. In doing so, she lets go of the blanket. It falls down around her waist, revealing bare breasts and dark bruises where Gabe's teeth had sunk into tender flesh the night before. “I'm thinking that you have no right to marry me off. I'm no slave!”
“You're our daughter,” insists the King. “We have every right to make sure that, as heir apparent, you do what's best for the kingdom!”
“I want to do what's best for me,” rages Isabella.
Gabe, uncertain what else to do, tries to grab the pair of dirty jeans off the floor. He throws one leg out from under the blanket but makes sure to keep himself covered when he bends down to grab the denim. “I should leave. Izzy, I should—”
“Izzy?” Alexandra spits out the word like it’s some sort of insult. Her face is twisted up, pinched in a way that Isabella has never seen before. “How dare you? How dare you come into my home, defile my daughter, and demean her in such a way? Do you even know who she is, who we are?”
Alexandra gestures at her chest. “We are royalty! You have slept with royalty!”
Gabe looks from the Queen to Isabella and back again. He clearly doesn’t want to stay quiet, but he doesn’t know what to say, either.
In the end, he sits there and says nothing.
This isn’t his fight, after all. This isn’t his battle to rage in.
Isabella finally pushes the blanket off her. She stands up, grabbing a pair of panties from her top dresser drawer. Even though she’s sobbing, the young princess tries, and fails, to keep her voice at least somewhat steady. “Please leave.”
“I will not,” hisses Alexandra. She marches across the room, grabbing Isabella by the shoulder and spinning her around. “Did he do this to you? Is that why you slept with him, because he made you?”
Isabella sputters.
Alexandra takes hold of her wrist, the one where Slade left a bruise in the shape of his fingers. “Did he do this to you? I will have him shot, Isabella. Tell me—tell me that he made you do this!”
“You would rather I have been raped than understand I love this man?”
“There’s nothing here to love!”
“There is so much to love,” counters Isabella, yanking her hand away from the older woman. “There is everything to love! He didn’t make me do anything, Mother! I had sex with him because that’s what I wanted to do!”
In the chaos of the fight, no one hears the door open again. They do, however, see the blinding flash of a camera.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paparazzi are a nuisance. They are the roaches of the news world, the rats that latch onto the crumbs of society, twisting pictures and statements for their own warped game. Anyone worth their salt has had a camera snapped at them while they walk down the street or a microphone shoved in their face while they ate, desperate to try and get even a single word.
Isabella, as a princess, is no difference. In Davaria, there are always people trying to catch her image. They want to have the next big head line, the next big hit.
Royalty, that’s always the way to go.
During the start of this trek through the States, there were hardly any reporters. But about two weeks ago, after Queen Alexandra announced the engagement of Princess Isabella and the Duke of Cambridge, they seemed to surround the family.
Men and women crawled out of the woodwork, holding cameras in place of swords and microphones in place of shields. Everywhere Isabella goes, someone is trying to take her picture. Everything she does is recorded for the entire world to see.
And now, there’s a reporter standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
Isabella doesn’t know where her father’s gone. The King has left, storming off in a rage, and now she’s standing there, naked, with Gabe in her bed and her mother holding her tightly by a bruised wrist.
Even now, Isabella can see the headlines. Even now, she knows, with a sinking feeling, that this is it. Her life, as she knows it, is over.
“Holy shit,” says the reporter, a gawky-looking blonde woman by the name of Carol Dougel. “Holy shit! I can’t believe this. Would you give me a quote? Come on, one of you has to have something to say!”
Gabe lurches to his feet. He pulls his jeans on, only just thinking to zip them up. His boxers are still in a heap on the other side of the room with his shirt. The cigarette gets pushed out on the bedside table, leaving behind a dark smear on the wood. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing in here?”
It is the first time—and possibly the last time—that Gabe and Alexandra are on the same wavelength. The Queen lets go of Isabella’s hand in favor of spinning around, pointing angrily at the reporter. “Get out of this room at once!”
“I’m not in a room,” says Carol, standing firmly in the hall. “The door was unlocked; I wasn’t breaking and entering. Tell me, do any of you have something to say on the matter?”
Isabella pulls her panties on, wrapping her arms around her chest the first chance that she gets. Her skin is red and hot, embarrassment and shame leaving her skin dark and her stomach twisting. “On what matter?”
“The fact that you’re cheating on the Duke of Cambridge,” says Carol. “And that you’re in love with a supposed rapist.”
“Get out,” spits Gabe, taking a threatening step forward.
Reporters, however, have spines made from stee
l and brains the size of a gnat. Carol shakes her head. She takes another picture. “There are no legal reasons for me to leave. If the door wasn’t locked, it’s perfectly legal for me to be in here. Isabella, what can you tell me about the way your mother was speaking to you? Is she abusive?”
Isabella almost says yes just to spite the older woman. Thankfully, years of dealing with the paparazzi have given her much better sense. Instead, she stands up straight as she can, looks Carol Dougel straight in the eye, and says, “My name is Princess Isabella, and I am formally requesting that you leave my suite. The door may have been unlocked, but you are not invited. I know that this is being recorded, and I will press charges if you use anything that we’ve said in your papers.”
