by Amelia Wilde
I’m perplexed. Jessica still looks mildly disappointed.
The tension is thick as we ride through the streets of Sainthall, and it doesn’t help that Jessica, with a wicked grin, slides her hand over the front of my pants, cupping my visible bulge before she gives my cock a squeeze. She keeps her head turned toward the window.
“Oh, what’s that?” she says innocently, as she strokes me through my pants, pointing with her other hand toward an art gallery with an interesting facade.
“An art gallery,” I say, my voice hoarse, as I clear my throat.
Nate intuitively knows to keep his eyes facing forward on the road the entire drive.
We pull up a few minutes later in front of the Diamond Circle, without a doubt the highest-caliber dining establishment in all of Saintland and many of the surrounding European nations. Ultra-wealthy members of high society come from all over the continent to eat here.
I precede Jessica out of the car; she steps out gracefully, only looking a little surprised when cameras start flashing.
I slip her hand into my elbow and pat it, leaning down to speak softly in her ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t prepare you for the press on the way over—it slipped my mind.”
She beams up at me, her cheeks a little flushed, and I know her panties must be soaked already. “I can’t imagine how you could have forgotten.” Then, because she continually finds ways to surprise me, she turns and gives the photographers standing in a group next to the red carpet runner leading into the building a little wave. They go wild, whistling and calling out questions, which she ignores.
Once we’re inside, being led to our table by a uniformed waiter, I say in a low voice, “So you’ve encountered the press before?”
“I should have mentioned it,” she says casually. “Our mutual friend Christian has been known to attract some attention from time to time.”
A woman who can handle media attention with grace. Damn. The more I learn about Jessica, the more perfect she seems.
As we make our way through the restaurant to the best table in the house, I pause every few steps to nod in greeting to one citizen or another. As we move through the tables, I notice there’s a wavelike hitch in the conversation. The citizens of Saintland want to remain casual in my presence, but they’re a little starstruck, too—likely by Jessica and not me.
The waiters begin their dance, bringing sparkling glasses of wine and plate after plate of delicacies, and Jessica delights in it all. It doesn’t take long for us to run out of small talk, but there’s something I’m dying to know before this budding relationship goes any further.
“Jessica,” I say, and she finishes a bite of scallop and looks up at me, her eyes glittering with happiness in the candlelight.
“Yes, Prince Alexander?” She giggles a little after she says it, and I can’t blame her. It must seem so strange to an American to have fucked a member of royalty.
“What made you reconsider?”
“Reconsider what?”
“Your no-strings and one date policy.”
She puts down her fork, her face turning serious, and then she glances around to make sure no one is within earshot. After taking a deep breath, she speaks. “That…that’s a rule I set for myself after a bad experience I had with a guy.”
I notice the worried reaction in her eyes, and I reach for her hand, covering it with mine. “You don’t have to—.”
“No. No, we’ve come all this way—.” She looks to the side and bites at the inside of her cheek. After a moment she looks me straight in the eye. “I was in a relationship for two years with a man named Michael. He was…he wasn’t a good man, and he had a lot of anger issues. He was volatile and vindictive and awful, and I stayed with him because I was afraid of starting over. I don’t know why. Shit, I—” She censors herself, glancing around at the dining room. ”I’ve always made a point of being independent. The moment I feel something’s wrong in my life, I make a plan to change it. But with him…” Her voice trails off, and she looks down at her plate again. I notice she is trying not to let me see her tremble. “He terrified me, but he also made it seem like leaving him would be a fatal mistake.”
I remain silent, but it’s hard to keep my lips pressed together, to keep the words in my mouth. My chest is filled with rage, thinking of this man, thinking of what he must have done to frighten a tigress like Jessica.
She blows a breath out through her perfect lips and her eyes are sad. “After I finally got up the courage to leave, I swore to myself that I’d never go on a second date with a man who didn’t seem a hundred percent worthy of my time. Since then, nobody has cleared the bar. Until you.”
I can’t help smiling when I hear that.
“I don’t know how—how to say this more plainly, Alec,” she says, her voice soft, her eyes locked on mine. “I’m going out on a limb with this situation. I’m taking a big risk by being here with you. But I feel, deep down, like there’s something between us that’s going to make the gamble worth it.”
The conversation has turned heavy, turned deep, yet it doesn’t make me want to turn and run in the other direction. It makes me want to hold Jessica tightly in my arms and kiss her so hard and passionately that every terrible memory is wiped away.
Instead, I keep it simple. “I feel that, too.”
Her face breaks into a wide, dazzling smile, and she squeezes my hand. “Well, thank God,” she says with a laugh. “That would have been so unbelievably awkward if all you wanted were a few all-night sex-fests.”
It’s so incongruous—the opulent setting, her perfectly coifed hair, her flawless makeup, her sexy gown, her stunning smile—that I burst into laughter, causing heads to turn to look at us.
That’s the moment when I know: this is the start of something very, very real, pure and true.
All I have to do now is keep my father from destroying it.
Chapter Seventeen
Jessica
After dinner, Nate drives us back to the Northern Crown, and Alec takes me up to my room while the Phantom idles outside.
The moment the elevator doors close behind us, he’s on me, his fingers tracing my jawline, our lips fused, his tongue dancing with mine in my mouth, tasting me deeply.
He tears himself away without a word when the doors open onto my floor, and practically drags me by the hand all the way to my door. His impatience is mirrored in the frenetic beating of my heart, and I feel breathless with desire.
Inside my suite, he kicks the door shut behind us and lifts me up in his strong arms, making a beeline for the bedroom.
He throws me down onto the bed and, though I want to laugh, I moan instead as he tears—literally tears—my dress off my body, ripping the red material in two.
“I need you right now,” he growls, and it hits me then that teasing him in the car on the way to the restaurant must have made lingering over our meal nothing short of torture. Now it makes sense why he seemed distracted on the ride back, and his usual collected cockiness nonexistent.
“Fuck me,” I plead, and he stares longingly into my eyes, breathing deeply. Without further hesitation, he rips my lacy panties from my hips and flings them to the side of the room.
He leaves me to unfasten and remove my bra while he strips off his own clothes, and I lay back on the bed, taking in the glorious sight.
His body is unreal.
Chiseled abs that taper down his happy trail to a narrow waist, and muscled arms that can lift me effortlessly. A handsomely carved face that begs me to lick its cut lines, defined cheekbones and kissable lips that beg to be touched.
I need him, too.
More than I’ve ever needed anything or anyone.
The knowledge of this hits me in the same wave as a powerful bolt of lust shoots to my center, and my breath hitches in my throat.
Then his hands are back on me, working in tandem with his lips to drive me close to the brink.
He strokes every inch of me with the soft pads of his fingers, w
orking his way down past my waist and right to the already-soaked folds between my legs. At his touch, I spread my thighs wide for him, the throbbing building up mercilessly in my core. He pulls back to look at me, the half-smile lighting up his face threatening to ignite the sheets on fire.
“God, you’re hot for me.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I need you.”
“Only me.”
“Only you.”
Then he flips me in one swift motion and I know exactly what he wants. I arch my back as I steady myself on my hands and knees, pressing my pussy and ass back toward him as he stands at the foot of the bed. Without hesitation, he buries his face between my legs, devouring me with such intensity that I can barely tolerate the sensation. I cry out as my hips jerk back and forth, trying to get away from a pleasure so powerful it hurts, but Alec’s hands clamp down on my hips, holding me in place.
“Take it,” he says between long strokes of his tongue. “Take it. You have no choice. Take it.”
At his words, I come so hard that the edges of my vision blur and I press my face into the mattress to muffle my screams.
Only when my quaking has begun to subside does he push me forward on the bed and climb on behind me, lining up his cock with my entrance.
“Ask for it,” he commands, and my body responds with another gush of wetness.
I can’t find the words.
“Ask for it,” he says again, his voice sharper, the head of his cock insistent at my slit.
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please, fuck me. Please. Please. I beg you.”
Only when I’m crying out for it does Alec thrust his hips forward, filling me to the hilt in a single stroke.
I come again right away, my muscles clenching around the incredible thickness of him. Despite all the hours we’ve spent in bed since we met, my body still has to adjust to his size, and as it does I can feel every ridge, every vein.
He stays embedded deep inside me, a hand on the back of my neck, holding my head down, until my hips start to writhe again, and then he draws himself out slowly. He stops when just the head of his cock remains inside of me, and I can’t take it. I want him back inside of me, I have to have him, I need it now, now, now.
My frantic attempts to push myself back onto his length are met with the sexiest laugh I’ve ever heard, and then he humors me by slamming in again.
He’s driving me wild.
Alec fucks me right to the edge of another intense orgasm, and then—when I’m right there—he ups the ante, taking his hands from my waist and sliding them down to my ass, spreading my cheeks even wider. He presses his cock in another inch, then licks a finger…
…and presses it right against my asshole.
I gasp, but I don’t fight it, so lost in him, so filled by him, that arguing doesn’t even cross my mind.
“Let me in,” he says, his voice soft but filled with authority.
“How?” I breathe, almost unable to speak.
“Relax.”
At this order, I feel every muscle in my body loosen. Alec presses his finger inside my ass up to his first knuckle, and the sensation is so intense, so unfamiliar, so dirty, that I cry out.
“Let it happen,” he says gently, and I let a breath out, trying to relax, trying to do as he says.
He drills his finger in farther. It feels huge, he’s stretching me out and going so deep. I want to wriggle my hips, but I stay still, because pleasing him in this moment is all I want to do…
He pushes in, in, in as I let out little whimpers, little cries of pleasure and pain, and after a minute my asshole is clenching around the full length of his finger.
Then comes the master stroke.
Alec reaches around with his other hand and puts one finger on my clit, then drags his cock out of my pussy again, inch by inch.
“Ready?” he says, lust lacing his voice.
“Yes, yes, yes.” I am so far gone that my words come in threes.
In the same moment he drives his cock home, he swirls his finger over my clit, his finger held firmly in my ass.
The blinding orgasm that engulfs me assails all my senses and consumes my entire being. It overwhelms me. Ruins me.
Saves me.
Chapter Eighteen
Alec
We’re twenty minutes in to a skull-numbingly boring meeting about goddamn public relations strategy and a trip I’m supposed to take to a local school next week when my father abruptly changes the topic.
“Have you sent the girl home, Alexander?”
The girl.
Jesus.
There is no way on earth that she could ever go back to being just “the girl.” Not after the conversation we had at dinner three days ago.
I learned something about her during our dinner date that I’m certain I would never have known otherwise. Jessica doesn’t seem like the type to wear past hardships on her sleeve—she’s too confident, too self-assured for that—but clearly she wanted me to know that the boundary she set on our first “date” wasn’t something she pulled out of thin air. She had her reasons.
I only wish we’d had more time to talk about the things that matter.
Instead, I’ve spent the last two days attending events all over the capitol city and throughout the rest of the country. It’s media appearance after media appearance. I know it’s part of being a prince, but the scheduling has been oddly heavy. I bet it’s to keep me away from Jessica.
That girl.
Aside from that, my father is the fucking King of Saintland. He doesn’t need to ask me this question. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s had people keeping tabs on her since we arrived.
I look at him as he sits across from me at his desk and choose, at the last moment, not to make a snide comment. “No,” I answer.
He puts down his pen and looks up at me. “What’s causing the delay?”
“What’s causing the hurry?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Alexander,” my brother says, clearly agitated. “For once, can’t you—?”
My father silences him with a wave. “I thought my directive was clear, son.”
I look from him to Marcus with narrowed eyes. “What’s clear to me is that you find her presence distasteful and you want her out of the country. I’m not sorry to say I disagree with that assessment.”
The King of Saintland leans back in his chair.
“Alexander, this isn’t a personal judgment against the girl.”
“The girl,” I repeat after him, my tone acidic. “Her name is Jessica Reeves, which I’m sure you’ve already learned from Nate. I know he slips you pertinent information.”
He holds up his hands in deference. “I’m sure Ms. Reeves is a fine young woman, but the important thing to do right now is to rebuild your reputation.”
“My reputation?”
“Yes. It does us no favors if the tabloids—.”
“The tabloids will print whatever they damn well please, and we all know it.”
“This is a matter of…”
His voice fades out as I’m gripped by an idea that rises in my mind like the sun, at first just peeking over the horizon before popping forth and blinding me with its light.
I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.
I can’t believe I didn’t see all this for what it was.
I stand up abruptly from the table. “This discussion is over.”
“Sit down, Alexander, we’re not through—.”
“We are through, unless you’re ready to swear that you haven’t been manipulating my schedule for the past two days to keep me away from her.” If my gut feeling proves right, the breakneck scheduling will continue until Jessica is safely back in the United States, away from the prying eyes of the Saintland media, and I’m free to become just another pawn in my father’s political games.
The silence hangs between us for one beat, two, and then my father cuts his eyes away from me to look at Marcus.
The glance tells me all I need to know.
“I see. Your majesty,” I say, keeping my voice steady, its tone frigid, “I’ve been called away on urgent business. You’ll forgive my abrupt departure.”
Before he can say another word, I’m out the door and gone.
I can hear Jessica laughing as I approach her suite in the Northern Crown. It sounds like Claire is inside the room with her.
Sure enough, the companion I’ve contracted to make sure that Jessica wants for nothing while she is here answers the door. Behind her, Jessica sits on the floor amongst a pile of shopping bags and parcels. The two women have obviously been sorting through and admiring her purchases.
“Your highness!” Claire says, inclining her head at me.
I smile back at her. “Are you two enjoying yourselves?”
“Yes!” Jessica says, although when she catches sight of my face, her smile slips a little. “Claire took me sightseeing earlier today, and then shopping. You’re too much, Alec.”
“Not possible,” I say, crossing the room and leaning down to kiss her cheek. When I straighten up, Claire has her purse slung over her arm and is standing next to the door. That woman can really read a room.
“Goodnight, your highness,” she says, giving a little wave. “Ms. Reeves.”
“Please, call me Jessica!”
“Jessica.” With a grin, Claire slips out the door, pulling it quietly shut behind her.
Jessica rises to her feet and puts her arms around my neck, kissing me softly. The tension goes out of my shoulders at her touch, and after a moment she pulls back to look into my face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Is it so obvious?” I ask, giving her a half-smile meant to throw her off the trail leading to my irritation with my father and brother.
“Yes,” she says, her expression serious.
For a long, silent moment, I search for the words to describe the situation with my father and brother, but there’s no way I can say it without further complicating things.
It’s then that I decide, once and for all, that this entire thing is bordering on the absurd. I am the second prince of Saintland. I will never be the king. I will represent the royal family, yes, but it’s my brother who will reign. There is no reason why I can’t have a private life of my own choosing.
