He leaned in and whispered, “We’ve had nicknames for each other since high school.”
Dree began to smile, just a little. “What were they?”
Chapter Fifteen
Prince Monster, The Earl of Givesnofucks, and . . .
Maxence
Maxence whispered to emphasize the naughtiness of what he was telling Dree because her eyes were brightening with interest. “Arthur is an English lord, the Earl of Severn. When he inherited the earldom, it became evident to us that he cared far too much about what was happening on his estate and in the world. He brooded about it like Heathcliff on the moors. His nickname became The Earl of Givesnofucks because that’s what we thought he should aspire to be, or at least lighten up a little. I suppose we could have called him Lord Givesnofucks.”
A bit of a sparkle returned to Dree’s eyes. “And Casimir?”
Maxence sighed at this. “Casimir named himself, I want to stress. He was in a car accident, you see, when he was very young. He wasn’t belted in quite right, and he went through the windscreen. There were—” he sighed, “facial injuries, bad ones, both to the bones of his face and his skin, in addition to sizable scars on one side of his body. He was shuffled off to Le Rosey because the paparazzi kept jumping out of bushes to startle him, which made his facial deformities all the more pronounced. Indeed, when he was surprised, it was quite horrific to see.”
Dree’s lips parted. “Oh no. But he looks fine. I mean, he looks great.”
“Plastic surgery, the best in the world, and it took years.” Maxence paused before he went on. “During school, though, kids can be cruel. In upper school, some of the girls were fantastically cruel. My cousin was one of the worst, no matter how many times I told her to lay off. She led him on the longest before they all laughed at him. We wanted to call him The Handsome Prince to lift his spirits, but he was not having it. He named himself Prince Monster.”
Dree winced. “Which cousin?”
Max squeezed his eyes shut. “Marie-Therese. She’s grown up a lot since then. That was fifteen years ago, half a lifetime. She’s one of my few family members who was at school with me. Most of my cousins attended day schools here like”—Max’s chest clenched, and he took a breath to steady himself before proceeding—”like Nico did. Alexandre and Christine were at Le Rosey, but she never got involved with taunting him. She was a music and theater kid and didn’t have time for teenage angst-drama.”
“And what was your nickname?” Dree asked, smiling a little more.
Maxence smiled at her in return, though his was a little sheepish. “Just a minute, let me text the security detail very quickly.” He typed texts for Major Richard Bernard, who was Quentin Sault’s second in command in the Secret Service, instructing him that Quentin Sault had been relieved of all duties, and Magnus Jensen and Rogue Security would now be his superior for the immediate future. He instructed that Jensen and his operators would need to inspect and evaluate the throne room immediately. Dree’s moment of upset had distracted him from the task, but as usual, he was back to taking care of the minutiae of running Monaco.
Max turned back to Dree and ignored the texts that immediately pinged his phone. “Arthur nicknamed me Pope Fuckitall.”
Dree snort-laughed at that, and even covered her mouth. “Pope Fuckitall? That’s hysterical.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“So even then, you were telling people you wanted to be a priest, huh?”
“Ever since I read about Henry VIII and his older brother, Arthur Tudor, amusingly. Arthur Tudor was the heir to the throne, and Henry wanted to go off to Rome and be the Pope. But then, of course, Arthur died, so Henry Tudor became Henry the Eighth. I think it got into my head pretty deeply.”
“It’s funny that your nickname is sarcastic, too.”
“Not really,” Max said, thinking back over it.
Dree nodded. “Yeah, like Arthur, who’s the Earl of Givesnofucks, because he gives too many and wants to be the lord of everything. And Casimir is Prince Monster because he was reclaiming the word that hurt him and because he’s anything but a monster underneath.”
“Well, yes,” Maxence mused, but his nickname wasn’t sarcastic like theirs.
“And you’re Pope Fuckitall because Monaco is so important to you. No matter how much you tried, you couldn’t just say ‘Fuck it all’ and leave forever. When you were trying to hide who you were, you called your country ‘Monagasquay’ because you couldn’t stop talking about it. It’s always at the top of your mind.”
No. No, that wasn’t it. Maxence had been trying to walk away from Monaco and the line of succession ever since he was old enough to figure out he was trapped.
“And then when Monaco needed you,” she said, “you immediately got on the helicopter and then the plane, even though we both thought it might be a trap, because Monaco was calling you. And then you just walked in and took over like you were always meant to be here,” Dree continued. “You walked into the Prince’s business office and set up shop like you owned the place because you do.”
“That’s not it. Somebody had to run Monaco. Even a city-state as small as Monaco can’t function if someone isn’t at the helm. I just did what needed to be done to stabilize the government until someone else could take over. I was grooming Nico to be elected this evening.” They had a few hours before the Crown Council meeting to rest and eat.
“Yeah,” Dree said, gazing at the long windows looking over the sea, “because you’ve always loved Monaco, and it’s your home. The country is your family because that’s what you love.”
She was laughing, so Max said, “I guess so.”
They stared at each other, still smiling, as their laughter died down.
“We’re safe,” she said, a little like she didn’t believe it.
“Yes,” he said.
“We’re safe, and you’re here, and you’re not on a boat somewhere being hurt, and I’m not in a closet listening to people discussing how they’re going to kill me or worse.”
When she said boat, thin slivers of ice branched through Maxence’s veins, but he stomped on them, no.
“We’re safe,” he told her, threading his voice with persuasion. He held her lovely little face in his hands, framing her cheekbones. “Look at me. We’re safe, my love, my chérie, and I will do anything, absolutely anything, to make sure nothing ever happens to you again. I’ll always come find you. I’ll always be there.”
Her blue eyes were huge and liquid, and he fell into them forever as she said, “I’ll always come back for you. I’ll always notice if you’re missing, whether if it’s because your motorcycle has a problem or someone else takes you away. I’ll always come find you.”
His chest clenched, and the palace seemed to dissolve into fog. She was his whole world, his everything. She was every single beat of his heart.
Dree searched his eyes with her gaze, and he saw the moment she chose to believe him. She inhaled, deep and with a gasp, and then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, her mouth slanting over his.
When women made the first move, their eventual surrender was so much sweeter. Max just needed to hold back, just a little, for a few minutes.
He opened his mouth and stroked her tongue with his, and running his hands up her hips and over her waist to her ribs, Maxence lifted her to her knees so she felt like she was kissing him.
Even as his brain filled with testosterone-fueled fire and his body heated, Maxence let her take the lead, though her fingers running through his hair and her other hand stroking down his back was winding him up.
His blood rushed in his body, heading downward.
He let his fingers trail down the white silk of her dress to rest on her waist and then her hips, and he strengthened his grip on her, his fingers beginning to dig into the softness of her flesh.
Her gasp against his mouth drove him wild, but he needed her to be wild.
Maxence needed what she could do to him.
; Tension crackled on his nerves, nearly turning into pain, with anticipation.
He pulled her up again, a little more roughly this time, and she giggled against his mouth like they were playing a game. He flipped his legs around so that she straddled one of his thighs, and he pressed her hips on the broad muscle of his leg.
Dree hummed, and she let her head loll back while she held onto his shoulders.
He lunged forward, dragging her and raking his teeth over her throat. He shoved the tiny jacket that matched her dress down her arms and then twisted it around her wrists, binding them behind her back.
He bit the side of her neck a little harder, and at her gasp, he whispered in her ear, “Are you okay with the hands?”
“Yes.” Her lilting voice was breathy like she was gasping too much, which he loved.
He twisted the dress’s little jacket restraining her arms, tightening it so she would feel he was in control now. He yanked down on the wrap, which forced her shoulders back and her breasts up, and he used his other hand to pop one of her breasts out of the bodice of her ball gown so he could suck hard on her nipple.
Her skin tightened to a knot in his mouth, and he laved his tongue over her peak to torment her.
The kittenish sounds she made when he pressed his teeth into the pebble of her flesh were exquisite.
He traded his hand that was holding her wrists behind her so he could stroke her other breast with his thumb through the silk of her dress, and then he pinched it through the silk when he bit the bare one.
Her squeak was almost a scream, but not quite.
Maxence would have to work harder. He growled, “Don’t let your hands come loose,” and he released the cloth around her wrists for just a second while he stripped his black tee shirt off over his head.
Dree’s eyes, already looking sleepy with passion, lowered, and he could practically feel her gaze stroke from his shoulders to the waistband of his trousers like water trickling over the rounded muscle and between the bricks of his abs. As he breathed, his ribs expanded under his skin, and she bit her lower lip while she was looking at him.
Maxence curled himself back, contracting his abs to open space between them for him to slide one of his hands between her legs and begin to slowly stroke her underneath.
As he stroked her softly and then more deeply between her folds, Dree caught her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Her back arched as he massaged her secret, sensitive spots that made her gasp. His mouth went wet at the thought of toppling her backward and burying his tongue in her, but her hips rocked forward on his hand and her body brushed his massive erection through his pants.
Even the slight pressure of her soft thighs through his trousers spiked the testosterone in his blood.
Max couldn’t think, couldn’t wait, couldn’t even discern that his phone on the coffee table had flashed and was making some sort of an irritating beep, and he pressed his fingers inside of her, stroking her and rolling his thumb around the soft nub buried between her folds. She arched backward, and Maxence grabbed her around the waist with his other arm to force her forward onto his hand.
She tossed her head back and forth, whimpering little cries, and his hand between her legs was slick.
He kept doing it, breaking the rhythm of his hand’s movements just when she was about to orgasm so she couldn’t, until she was whispering, “Please,” and begging in his ear.
That was where he wanted her.
He wrenched off the white silk cloth that bound her wrists, and her arms whipped around. She unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, reaching inside.
Her soft, fragile hand on his naked erection nearly made him lose it right there. His blood was roaring in his ears, his heart pounding like he was trying to punch through a wall. He leaned back and groaned. When teeth raked his neck with the sharp sting of a bite that was nothing at all, Maxence’s mind became a storming sky of need.
He dragged her legs around his waist and rose to his feet, his hands lifting her ass as he stood.
The nearest wall was only a few steps away, and her weight was nothing but fluff to him as he strode and slammed her back against the plaster. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips.
He held her up with one arm vised around her waist as he got one hand between them to yank her panties aside and guide her wet core onto the head of his shaft.
Even for that brief moment, as the thick bulb of his cock pushed inside her, her heat and the slick walls of her center were almost too much, and his mind began to fade.
Max panted, gasping to control the instinct to lunge into her blindly and release.
He needed more.
Instead, he lowered her onto him and ground up against her, deeply penetrating her body all the way down his erection to his balls. He pinned her against the wall with his chest and his shaft, rocking his hips back before slamming into her again.
As he pressed up against her, one of the wires from her bra or some of the boning in the bodice of the dress poked his chest.
She was crying out now, begging him for more, for release, and her strangled screams of his name interspersed with “Oh God, yes!” ran over his flesh.
Her fingernails pressed the skin on his shoulders.
“Do it,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She bit her lower lip as he stroked into her.
“Do it,” he commanded. “Your nails, right now, do it.”
Her hands curled on his shoulders, and pain sparkled and turned cold on his skin.
He forced himself into her harder, bending his knees and driving harder into her body.
“God, yes!” she cried out, and her fingernails sliced his shoulders.
God, yes.
The pain was a catalyst that flipped the switches in his mind, and he became a beast, blind with instinct, pounding into her. Her cry rang in his ears as she shredded his skin, sparking a spiral of ecstasy. Her body clenched his as her voice broke in mid-scream, and her back arched so hard that she pushed her body away from the wall and farther down onto his cock.
His mind whited out as he took her, and his soul found silence and stillness in the midst of the nothingness until he was throbbing, emptying himself inside her as she lay with her head on his shoulder, panting and hanging onto his neck.
Her soft lips pressed against his neck and his temples, and she murmured to him as the pieces of his mind fit themselves back together.
Maxence’s legs trembled, and he slowly slid to the floor, cradling her in his arms as their bodies disconnected.
“Are you okay?” he managed to ask, his voice catching in his throat.
The deep scratches on his shoulders felt like veins of ice. His mind still sparkled with relief because all his attention concentrated on that pain instead of the excruciating cracks in his soul.
The ebb of the pain in his soul was a rush better than cocaine.
She said, “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, I’m going to be a little sore, but it was totally worth it. Are you okay? I got kind of enthusiastic with my nails, and—” She peered around his shoulder. “Oh no. You’re bleeding.”
Warm lines stroked down his skin, eroding ice. “I know.”
“Jeez! I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be.”
“I thought you were egging me on.”
“I needed it,” he admitted, his mind still floating with relief.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “I won’t do it again.”
Before he could even think, he’d grabbed her shoulders and pressed her against the wall. “Don’t say that.”
Her eyes widened, startled. “Whoa, Max.”
He lifted his hands and stepped back. “I’m sorry. That was over the top. But your fingernails aren’t a problem.”
Her eyes were still a little wide, and she was looking right at him and had her face angled away. Her lowered eyebrow looked like she was angry, not afraid.
Maxence tilted his head, smili
ng at her and holding out his hand. “Come on. Let me shower you. We’re home, and we’re fine now. The Crown Council meeting isn’t until six o’clock tonight. We have time.”
She paused, and his soul cringed in that flow of time until their hands touched.
But they did.
Her soft fingers slid over his palm, and he closed his hand around hers.
Maxence bent and scooped her up under her knees and shoulders and carried her to the bathroom, looking down into her eyes and smiling the whole way.
She smiled back at him.
And then her smile widened.
And then she was laughing as he shouldered open the bedroom and then bathroom doors and stood her on her feet while he twisted on the hot water in the shower and began stripping her clothes off of her.
She said, “Oh, I’ve got—”
“Shhh,” he hushed her. Maxence didn’t stop removing her clothes, peeling ragged, destroyed white silk from her skin as she giggled and spun to let him get to her zippers. “Don’t speak. Don’t even whisper. We’re safe, and you’re mine, now.”
She shrugged and nodded.
When the dress lay in a ragged heap on the tile, she was still wearing some sort of engineered underwear. He twirled her around so her back was to him and unfastened the row of hooks running down her back.
Oh, how he loved the ridiculous corsetry she wore. Undressing her was like solving a puzzle to unwrap his favorite candy bar and devour it every night. They were so feminine and girlie and delicate and everything he liked to look at and touch.
When the sides of the undergarment gaped apart, Dree caught it and seemed to be holding it against her chest, which was oddly modest for her. She knew he liked to look.
The thin platinum chain that held the cross he’d given her for Christmas in Nepal still looped around her neck, a miracle after everything that had happened since the Sea Change Gala the night before. He reached around behind her neck and gently unclasped it, letting it coil into his palm.
Royal: A Royal Billionaire Novel (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 6) Page 10
