My Royal Hook-Up

by Riley Pine

  Her breath catches—a tiny yet dangerous sound.

  “Calista’s lady in waiting led the palace guards and those the King of Edenvale brought with him right to this spot. It is said the king raised his own hand to his dishonored daughter, but Maximus put himself in harm’s way instead. They didn’t get a chance to plead for their lives. Swords were raised on either side, a declaration of war. Either way, they were already dead. So the two joined hands and backed away from the skirmish until no ground was left to tread.”

  I straighten and see a tear leak from the corner of the princess’s eye.

  “I will never have a love such as they did,” she says, voice trembling.

  I let out a bitter laugh. “You want a love that will send you to your grave? If that’s the case, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”

  She raises her hand, but I catch her wrist midslap.

  “How dare you judge me?” she asks through gritted teeth. “You roam the continents taking anything and everything that your heart desires, yet I will never have such a luxury. Don’t you get it? You may be banished, but you are free.”

  My grip tightens on her wrist, yet she does not struggle to free herself.

  Everything my heart desires. What a fucking joke.

  “My heart,” I snap, “died in the wreck that killed the only person I was stupid enough to love. So don’t you speak to me of freedom. I am a prisoner, just like you.”

  And if I give her what she came looking for tonight, I’ll likely rot away in Nightgardin’s highest-security prison—if the king doesn’t kill me first. It would be reckless as hell to assume anything less.

  But I stopped playing it safe the second I bedded my own brother’s fiancée. I have nothing—nothing—left to lose.

  “Are you refusing my request?” she asks, jutting out her chin.

  I bait her. “What you’re asking for is an act of treason. I may be a man without a country, but yours has tolerated my presence for some time now. It’s the closest thing I have to a—” I bite my tongue before uttering the word home. I am not foolish enough to think I belong anywhere, let alone here. But an act against Nightgardin, even by a banished Edenvale prince, would put the rest of my family at risk. “I will need some sort of...insurance...that you won’t have your way with me and then immediately report me. Or...if that is your endgame...at least something that will work in my defense in a Nightgardin court. Though I doubt I’d even be given a trial.” I’m mostly joking, because I know this night can end in only one way—with me behind bars and my family none the wiser. But she clears her throat.

  “Very well,” she says. “What do you truly know about Nightgardin law?”

  I chuckle. “Enough that I understand a night with you could cost me my life, but I’ve already admitted as much. What are you playing at, Princess?”

  She dips her head. “If they find out I lied—that I came to the city to consort with an Edenvale prince instead of cloistering myself in prayer—you will not be the only one guilty of treason.”

  My throat goes bone dry. “They would hang you in the palace square.”

  “Perhaps,” she says. “Or worse. It would be justified. That would be up to the king and queen to decide.”

  It would be up to her parents to decide whether or not to kill their only child for the crime of fucking me.

  “This is the only time in my life that I get to decide, Damien. Let me choose who gets to take the most precious gift I have to offer. Because I choose you.”

  She reaches beneath the skirt of her barely there dress and tugs her panties down her thighs, over her knees and ankles until they lie in a ball on the Alfa Romeo’s floor.

  My nostrils flare. There it is again, the faint tang of her sweet, intimate scent.

  “No one knows I’m here,” she says. “And by the time they find me, you’ll be long gone.”

  She takes my palm, places it high on her thigh and simply says, “Please.”

  Somehow, with one hand, I maneuver the car into Reverse and onto the road as my other hand skims soft skin, sliding higher, until I’m there.

  I dip one finger between her soft, wet folds, and she cries out, bucking in her seat.

  “Fucking hell,” I growl, then put the pedal to the floor, speeding off to certain death.

  Juliet

  I’m going to die.

  No, really. I’ll be dead before my next breath.

  My back arches and my hips circle to an uninhibited rhythm.

  Damien takes another hairpin turn, one-handed, because he’s delved the other between my thighs. His palm dances over my clit, working me until my sensitive skin throbs in time with my pounding heart. When he plunges his fingers into my tight slit, the Alfa Romeo wheels aren’t the only things squealing.

  My whimper dwindles to a soft pant as I writhe, drenched with an unfamiliar need. Damien can’t maintain expert control of this sports car and me all at the same time. It’s too much. No man is this dexterous. He’s going to drive us off a cliff to our doom.

  But his long, relentless fingers plunge inside my folds, filling me up, taking me to the gates of Heaven. My front teeth clamp hard on my lower lip. I won’t tell him to stop. Death might be close at hand—but by the old gods and new...mine shall be a glorious end.

  “Jesus, doll. You’re a hellcat, aren’t you?” He does that magic swirling trick with his fingers again, confident and in control, playing me like a virtuoso violinist, and my scream is a sound between a breathless yelp and a squeak of delight. My whole body begins to shudder. My derriere clenches as my thighs tremble.

  Good lord, what is happening to me?

  “Fuck, I love a woman who makes some noise while she comes,” he growls.

  Another perfectly aggressive stroke, and my inner walls pulse in a series of mind-blowing contractions that milk his fingers. When I grow still, he cups my sex and teases my silky strands with a soft tickle.

  “You have a fucking amazing pussy,” he growls.

  But I’m too greedy for games, and too starved for touch.

  “More.” I grab his wrist and grind my pelvis against his palm without a shred of decorum. I can hear my wetness sucking against his rough skin and don’t recognize this woman, wild and roused, filled with savage yearning. I’ve touched myself before. A couple awkward fumbles beneath my quilt in the dead of night, but I never knew exactly what I was doing.

  It’s humbling that Damien seems to know my body’s responses better than I do.

  “Shit,” he snarls, slamming the brakes. We skid to a stop in the middle of the road. I turn around, tensing at the anticipated impact of another car, but the hour is late. No other vehicle is in sight.

  “Climb aboard, love. But be a good girl and grab the bottle of lube in the glove box.”

  “Excuse me?” Climb aboard? Lube?

  “Time to get your sweet ass out of that seat and straddle me. You want to fuck? Fine, but we’re going to do it my way, Princess. And behind the wheel is my favorite position.”

  I blink once. Twice. But he says nothing, just regards me with those magnetic steely eyes.

  Oh my god. He’s not joking. I try to swallow. “Let me get this straight. You’re planning to drive while having intercourse with me?” I grew up riding horses, but something tells me that losing my virginity to a man behind the wheel of an Italian sports car is nothing I could have possibly prepared for.

  “Are you up for the challenge or not, Princess?” His eyes are dark as sin. “Because if the answer is no, I can turn this car around and take you back to the club.”

  “No! Wait!” I cry. “Don’t do that.” My hand trembles as I move to unbuckle my seat belt, nerves churning my stomach. But despite my unease, I want this; I want him—badly.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “Hold up. One final thing.” His voice is a war
ning, silk sliding over gravel. “Have you heard everything the maids said about my...prowess?”

  “Just that you are an expert in the arts of lovemaking.”

  There is no humor in his chuckle. “And what do you think of my nickname?”

  “Nickname?” I frown.

  “The Backdoor Baron?” He sounds exasperated. “Ring any bells?”

  My frown deepens. “I do not understand. You are a baron? Weren’t you stripped of all titles? And what’s all this about a back door?”

  His intense gaze threatens to undo me. “You really are a sheltered innocent, aren’t you? The nickname is a joke, but not without an element of truth. I give women pleasure, but when I’m inside them, I only enter one way. Through the back door.”

  I wait for him to elaborate, but nothing is forthcoming. “You speak in riddles.”

  “Are you joking?” Two lines crease between his brows. “Isn’t this why you sought me out? To have me give you pleasure while keeping your technical virginity intact for your husband?”

  Confusion presses against my skull. Silently I curse my parents for keeping me so cloistered and ignorant of the world. And I curse myself for letting them.

  He huffs a curt sigh. “All right, look. When I fuck, I don’t do it here.” He reaches under my dress and enfolds my sex. “I do it here.” He slides his hand away and squeezes my backside.

  Clarity hits me like a bolt of lightening.

  Backside. Back door. Like...butt.

  Oh!

  My cheeks are surely turning the color of rubies. “People do that?”

  “Sure.” He winks. “They do with me.”

  “I...no...no... I do not want to try such a thing. I wanted... I mean... I expected...the front door?” I grimace. This conversation is by far and away the most awkward dialogue I’ve ever endured.

  Beep! A loud horn breaks the quiet night, and a Porsche swivels around us, the driver making a vulgar gesture as he passes.

  “Right back at you, buddy.” Damien hits the accelerator, resuming our journey. He quickly glances in my direction before looking back to the road. “I’ve met your betrothed, you know. The Duke of Wartson. We’ve played poker together once or twice.”

  “Oh?” The sudden change of topic confuses me.

  “You really have to marry that horny old goat?”

  Tears prickle in my eyes. “Indeed.”

  He’s quiet a moment before breathing out a rough sigh. “Fine. I’ll give you what you ask for. But not here. Not while I’m driving, and not in the back door. For you, I’m going to make an exception.” His smile is rueful. “Consider it an early wedding present.”

  He drives slower, but just as masterfully. The perfect, chiseled lines of his face are made for brooding. I find myself hypnotized.

  “Damien?” I ask at last. It’s strange how his name tastes so familiar on my tongue. “Why do you only ever take women in the...back door? Have you never tried the, uh, front door either?” A mad sort of hope flickers in me. Perhaps I’m not so stupidly naive and innocent. Perhaps he is like me, a virgin.

  That faint glimmer of hope is doused by his bitter chuckle.

  “Yes, Princess. I’ve tried the front door. But only ever with one woman.” His knuckles go bloodless on the steering wheel. “A woman who is now dead.”

  Realization dawns on me. “Your brother’s fiancée. Your once future queen. You seduced her, didn’t you?”

  “Technically, Victoria seduced me,” he rasped. “But I suppose I should be proud of my notoriety.”

  “She was your lover?”

  “I had rather thought that she was my one true love.” A shadow falls across his face. “But I was nothing but a boy, and it was all a lie. Yet when it came to our lovemaking...sex meant something with her. And I’ve never felt that way about another woman. So I still fuck. I just do it on terms that make it bearable.”

  My heart aches at the pain lacing his words.

  We arrive at an exquisite hotel, and he pulls past the main entrance. Instead, we approach a gated drive from a side street. He punches a pass code into a keypad, and the great brass doors swing wide open. He pulls forward.

  “So what makes me different?” I don’t look at him. I focus my gaze on the ten-story hotel before us. I breathe a small sigh of relief that although we are in a public place, no one will see me enter. I don’t want to be found out before I get what I came here for.

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” he mutters. “And I don’t have a good reply. At least not an easy one. So why don’t we go inside and see if the answer is hiding in your perfect pussy?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Damien

  WE RIDE THE elevator in silence. With any other woman, I’d have made her come at least twice before we reached the top. But something about Juliet is different, and it’s more than knowing she is Nightgardin’s virgin heir. I can’t place my finger on it, but I want to take my time with her.

  When we reach the hotel’s penthouse, the doors slide open, and Juliet sucks in a breath.

  Rich mahogany wood covers the floor that leads us to the main living space where the sofa—the color of the deepest ocean—sits before a roaring fire.

  “How did you...?” she asks, and I grin.

  “I tip well,” I tease. “And in return, I get special—favors.”

  She blushes, then moves toward the couch, running her fingers across the lush fabric. She’s barefoot now, having removed her one good shoe, and something about her seems so casual and comfortable in what must be the most foreign place she’s ever been—a strange man’s home.

  I stride up behind her. “The only thing better than Italian velvet against your skin, Highness...is me.” I brush a soft kiss on the nape of her neck, and she shudders. Then she spins to face me.

  “Damien?” she says, demure and shy.

  “Princess?”

  She licks her lips, then reaches behind and unzips her dress. It drops to the floor.

  “God in heaven,” I say, my strangled voice unrecognizable.

  That same flush from before creeps up her neck to her cheeks, and she grins. “Do you—like what you see?”

  I take my time drinking her in, ignoring my cock’s urgency to free itself from my jeans and plunge between those lithe legs.

  Her full breasts are milk white, her pale pink nipples pebbling at their tips. Beneath the left one is a constellation of birthmarks that, if connected, would draw an arrow straight to her heart. I trace the shape with my index finger.

  “You should be allowed to love,” I say, not knowing where the words are coming from.

  Her breasts rise and fall as she breathes in and out.

  “I will learn to love my husband,” she says flatly. “It is my duty.”

  I brush my thumb over her nipple, and she bucks into my hand.

  “I want to see you,” she says, her voice barely more than breath. “Before you do any more, I want to see you while I still have my wits about me.”

  I nod, but because I am a greedy bastard, I dip my head quickly and swirl my tongue around that perfect, hardened peak.

  She cries out, and I step away, grinning.

  She narrows her eyes at me, then takes a bold step forward as she starts to unbutton my shirt. She opens it, running her palms over my chest, and pushes it off my shoulders until it falls to the floor.

  Her hands skim over my biceps and my forearms. They slow as her fingers run over the raised scars I’ve made invisible beneath the ink.

  She looks up at me, wide-eyed.

  “There was a lot of shattered glass in the—accident.” That last word tastes so bitter on my tongue I wish I could spit it out. Or take it back. Because I was behind the wheel. I was the one responsible for taking the life of another. Accident is far too kind a word for what I did. The Roya
l Police blamed the weather and absolved me of any technical crime. But I know the truth, as does my brother Nikolai, the man who loved Victoria too. If we hadn’t run, she’d still be alive.

  She reaches for my face, and I flinch. But she is not deterred. Her gentle hand traces my most visible scar, the one that runs from my left temple to the line of my jaw. The one no one ever talks about anymore because what is left to say? Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of the monster I truly am.

  “You punish yourself,” she says.

  “Stop,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.

  “Maybe you aren’t as free as I thought you were. Maybe,” she continues, unbuttoning my jeans, “we’re more alike than I ever could have imagined.”

  I step out of my shoes and let her lower my pants and briefs to the floor. Then I step out of those as well.

  “Oh!” she says, staring at my erection. Then, “Oh.” This time with less shock and something more like reverence. “Can I...touch it?”

  I chuckle, grateful for her act of levity, even if she didn’t mean it.

  “Here,” I say, taking her hand and wrapping it around my shaft. I growl at the feel of her gripping me, and her mouth falls open in a perfect O.

  “What now?” she asks, her voice cracking on the second word.

  “Stroke it,” I demand. “From the root all the way to the top, keeping the pressure firm.”

  She obeys, teasing me as she moves achingly slow until she reaches the tip, precome leaking onto my sensitive skin. As if she’s done it a hundred times before, she swirls her thumb over my slick skin.

  “Fucking hell, Princess,” I grind out over gritted teeth. “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”

  She lets out a nervous laugh, and her dark eyes meet mine. “It’s instinct, I guess. And something about you makes me feel at ease.” She slides down over my length and repeats the movement again. Then again. And Christ if I don’t think my knees are about to buckle.