by Ella Brooke
“Is that what you think that looks like?” May asked.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever recorded yourself,” he said.
“These days? When you have people’s tapes and pictures going viral? Of course not.” May tapped her fork on the edge of her empty plate. “Don’t you know I’m a practical girl?”
“Ah, yes. Clearly.” Louis gazed at her with a softness that made her a bit dizzy. “The girl who comes up to a man’s penthouse.”
“I had to get dinner out of you somehow. Can’t just give you everything you want.”
“And what do you think I want?” he pressed.
May narrowed her eyes. She took another sip of her wine as she studied him. “Company. Someone to talk to. You have a very public image of moments that aren’t particularly intimate, with people who are most definitely a lot higher class than me.”
Louis started to protest, but she held up a finger and continued:
“You could have dinner with a hundred girls in L.A. You’re having dinner with your maid.” May tilted her head to the side. “Do you try to give everyone what they want? It seems like you do. Am I less high maintenance than those other girls, or more?”
“I don’t tend to talk much about other women when I’m with someone.” Louis wiped the corners of his mouth. “It’s in the training, being part of the royal family, to try to put the needs of others above your own.”
“Is that hard, being an international playboy?”
Louis scoffed at the label. “I’m not sure why it would be, but I don’t have a social club with other men like me. There aren’t dozens of unmarried princes out there. I honestly don’t mean to be a playboy, although I suppose I am. I just want to make sure everyone I’m with has a very, very good time.”
“I can tell,” May said softly. She drew her hair behind her ears and looked out the window at the Los Angeles skyline, with the hills in the background and the sky turning rosy gold as the sun set. “I don’t think you can give everyone what they want.”
“Clearly.”
May looked back to him and frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“You didn’t, I simply . . .” Louis shook his head. “Would you like dessert?”
“I love sweets,” May admitted, letting the tense moment drop.
Louis must have his pressures, too. Everyone did. She decided to let the issue pass. He brought out another two plates: one with cheesecake drizzled with strawberry sauce and a chocolate-covered strawberry on top and the other with a delicately crafted tiramisu. May pressed her lips together.
“Wow. That’s a tough choice.”
Louis set the two plates in the middle of the table. “Then, let’s split them.”
“Perfect.”
Louis took the chocolate-covered strawberry and offered it to her. She sunk her teeth in and wrapped her lips around the sweet berry. The chocolate and fruit blended in her mouth in a delicious explosion. She licked her lips slowly, lifting her eyes to his. He reached over to touch her fingers. Drawing closer, their lips met, mingling in sweetness between them.
Chapter Seven
Louis
May and Louis laughed together a lot. It brought a lot of warmth between them, and Louis enjoyed her sense of humor and joy. May, in general, despite all the work and the difficulty of her life, was a bright little soul who lit up whatever room she was in, and he adored her for it. He strove, every time they met, to bring a smile to her face and hear her laugh.
So far, they had been meeting off and on for a week, with stolen kisses at one workplace or the other. It seemed the only place they’d had real privacy was his suite at the hotel. He was dying to do more, show her more. A man couldn’t impress a woman with expensive room service alone. Unfortunately for him, it seemed, May didn’t seem terribly impressed by expense to begin with. All her stories involved doing things and having a blast with her many, many friends. Clearly, Louis wasn’t the only person to see a light in her. It was difficult to imagine why May was single. She never mentioned old boyfriends, but she didn’t seem completely inexperienced, so it was a bit of a mystery.
It was one Louis wanted to explore more and more. The women he spent time with at parties around the world, he pleased them for a few hours. Gave them as much as they could stand, and then they parted. However, Louis could spend an eternity sitting there and listening to May talk about films, shows, and the action behind the scenes. Even beyond her degree, the woman knew her business. It was possible that she was overcompensating, knowing what a demanding business she was stepping into. Louis adored seeing her passion about it, though. There were few things he enjoyed as much as she enjoyed the art of film-making. He found himself surrounded by focused women who knew what they wanted out of life. He was four years older than May, and his fate was still determined by the needs and whims of other people.
It was rare for Louis to be uncertain, but uncertain he was when he picked May up after her shift at the club and offered her a glass of wine and a pair of sneakers she’d left in his room. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity, but he refused to tell her where they were headed on the ride over.
“Will someone recognize you?” May asked as she got out of the car and looked around at the street where his driver was dropping them off. “And where are we?”
“Hollywood Boulevard.”
Louis stepped out behind her and gestured for the driver to go on. He’d dressed down for the occasion himself. He so rarely wore sneakers, and definitely not outside of exercising, but he was wearing them tonight. And to top it off, he was wearing a navy Michael Bastian hoodie. It was the best he could do, since he knew May would prefer not to draw attention to them, and between the darkness, the venue, and the atypical clothing, he hoped this would do the trick.
“We’re about to head out for a private Haunted Hollywood tour.” Louis put his arm around her slim shoulders and smiled as she leaned into him.
“Wait, are you serious? Mr. Caviar is going to walk around the city with me listening to ghost stories? God, this is so sweet. And so not your thing. You don’t even like suspense, let along dumb ghost stories.”
“You are quite the adorable nerd.” Louis kissed the top of her head. “I’m hoping to spark more ideas in that brilliant head of yours.”
Their guide, Edward Graves (Louis cringed a bit at that, but the man swore it was real), introduced himself as a librarian and historian who did this work on the side, and he took them straight out, telling them about the area as they walked. Louis could tell that while May had been in the city much longer than he had, she hadn’t found the opportunity to explore the city much. Her eyes flickered from one building to another, then around at all the people, taking everything in as she listened. They passed the TCL Chinese Theatre, where Graves told them the origin of the footprints up front and stories about the ghost of an actor who had died there, and sightings that had supposedly occurred.
“You said you get interested in what people want to see when they think they see a ghost,” Louis asked. “What ghosts would you want to see?”
May thought about it for a moment as they passed a group of laughing tourists speaking in Polish. “My grandmother. I think she got me the most. I used to talk to her all the time, and, while I love my parents, they always judged me a lot. It was hard living there and having all of their expectations on me, you know?”
She laughed at herself suddenly. “God, of course, you know.”
“I rather doubt the expectations on me have been the same as those of your parents. Quite impossible in my country to settle down with a nice young man and provide him children.”
May snorted. “They just didn’t believe I should have any interests beyond looking after my brothers and then my own children. And I do care a lot about family—”
“You came out here for your brother,” Louis pointed out.
“And I’m not against having kids, I just . . . think life is bigger than that.”
Louis nodd
ed. He prodded Graves with questions as they continued the tour, hitting hotels (a common place for murders and suicides, apparently), other theatres with unearthly singing women on the balconies, and spots of old mob activity and bootlegging. A lot of it was incomprehensible to Louis, as his education of American history had been related to politics, trade, and military capacity, but May did seem to enjoy their tour, and by the end, she seemed thoughtful but quite happy. Louis didn’t have to understand everything to know she’d enjoyed herself, and watching her was really enough entertainment for him.
“Okay, prince,” May said as their tour guide headed out. “We did my thing. What’s something you’re into?”
“Besides the obvious?”
“Well, we can do that, too.” May slipped her hand under the front of Louis’s hoodie. Their car pulled up, and she opened the door, let him go, and slipped inside.
“I didn’t imagine you’d be quite so appreciative on this one,” he admitted. “I thought you might think I was trying too hard.”
“No, you’re trying just hard enough.” May sunk back into the leather seat and sighed. “Really, though. This was a totally fun evening for an adorable nerd like me.” She bumped his shoulder. “It’s your turn. What dumb thing sparks your fancy? What hobby do you have that no one gets?”
She paused, studying his face like it was a painting. “Whose ghost do you wanna see?”
The bold question surprised him. Though, it shouldn’t have. He’d worked her over, prying loose her interests and insecurities and dreams, and she was intuitive enough to notice he wasn’t offering up as much in return. May had too much kindness in her to let him continue to hide behind a veneer of giving everyone a good time. She’d clocked him on it from their first date in his room.
“I think I’d see my father’s ghost. If I could punch him,” he answered brazenly.
May’s brows shot up. “Whoa. Okay.”
“He and I were in a fight when he died. I didn’t know he’d been battling cancer for some time, and . . .” Louis pinched his mouth closed as he considered his words. “It’s just eternally unresolved. I didn’t want to take the position he’d planned for me. I didn’t really want to go through with the arranged marriage. I wanted him to call it off, frankly, and allow me to make my own choices about my life. And when I told him as much, he . . .” He shook his head. “He stopped talking to me. He rejected me wholly. So, if I saw him again, even as a spirit, I would have to give him what he deserves first. Then, we could talk. It was so incredibly selfish of him to not at least tell Mum what was happening. She thought he might have a pill addiction or something like it.”
“I’m so sorry everything went down like that.” May’s hand touched his forearm, and he stared at it for a moment before trying to relax his shoulders.
“The last time I came to L.A., I was actually a bit of a disaster. I was ruled much more by my passions before he died, and I found out about his death when I was with Astra. It’s why we’re close. I never meant for her to see so much of me, but Dad died, and I wasn’t ready for that relationship to be so irrevocably over . . .”
May rested her head on his shoulder. The way she waited for him to continue, the way she petted his arm so gently with her hand. It made him adore her all the more.
“It-It means something that I’m showing you this, and not by accident,” Louis said. “I hope you understand that.”
“I do.” She pressed a kiss to his bicep and patted his leg. “Let’s go back to the hotel. We can try out that ridiculously huge tub of yours.”
“Sounds perfect to me.”
Less than twenty minutes later, they were back in the suite. Before the elevator closed, Louis pulled May to him, cupped her heart-shaped face, and kissed her forcefully. She returned in kind and reached up to touch the back of his neck. She seemed so small in his arms, but she was strong and eager. Their lips met again and again. The room crackled with energy generated from the tension between them. Instead of guiding her to the bathroom, he headed for the bedroom. Her eyes fluttered as she looked up curiously. Her teasing smile only made him want to kiss her lips more.
His hands pushed down the straps of her top and unfastened her bra. Then, they cupped her high, round breasts as he bowed over and kissed along the curve of her neck. His thumbs rubbed over her small nipples, and he smiled in contentment as they sprang to life and she gasped at the sensation. Leaning her back against the bed, Louis began to pleasure one breast at a time, teasing each nipple with his tongue and feeling his manhood filling with each of her sighs and squirms.
Soon, he was uncomfortably hard, but just as he was beginning to reach to unbuckle his pants, May’s hand was cupping his bulge and rubbing him with a deft touch. Lightning shot through him, and he pulled back, shaking his head. Her hand dropped, and she leaned back on her elbows, blinking at him curiously. Louis reached for the front of her jeans, and as she nodded, he unbuttoned them and jerked them down past her hips. They slid to the floor, and he squeezed her plump, muscular thighs and kissed his way down her stomach. Her thighs trembled as he licked broadly up the line from her lower abdomen to her navel
Her purple panties hit on the floor. Louis rubbed his hands up and down her thighs, teasing her as the scent of her began to rise. She whispered his name hoarsely, and her legs spread further for him. His practiced fingers began to stroke up and down her tender flesh, causing her hips to buck forward slightly, her body too warm. He stroked and teased, bringing her up, up, up . . .
Then, he dove in, slipping his tongue between the folds of her while his fingers continued to stroke down the sides. When she gasped, “The right, the right . . .” he focused his attentions there, careful to give space to that most sensitive part of her. Two fingers reached inside below where he dined expertly on her body, and his stroking, licking, and teasing brought her over the top, causing her to let out a high, staccato cry.
May clutched the bedspread. “There, oh, God, right there!”
Satisfaction washed over him as he persuaded a powerful orgasm from her . . . and then another followed soon after . . . and one more before he released her. May panted on the bed for a minute, then lifted her head to see him watching her devilishly from between her legs.
“Get up here, ya weirdo!”
“In the sake of equality . . .” Louis dropped his trousers and briefs and climbed up on the bed with her. She rolled over flush to his chest and wrapped her arms around him.
“You’re the most generous lover I’ve ever had.”
“What a low bar you have for me, darling,” Louis stroked the back of her hair.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Do you still want that hot bath? I can run it for you?”
“No, I can do it.”
“Oh, stop.” May sat up and caressed his shoulder. “You’ve given me the perfect night.” She winked and looked down at his still hard length. “Let me give back a little.”
“If you like.”
Louis followed her into the bathroom, enjoying the shape of her firm ass in front of him.
Chapter Eight
May
May groaned and flopped over in her bed to turn off the alarm on her phone. Immediately, a pair of strong arms grabbed her around her waist to keep her in the bed. Laughing softly, she swatted at Louis’s hands.
“I have to get up!”
“No, you must stay,” he declared sleepily into her shoulder. Kisses pressed along the line of her naked shoulder, and she sighed, closing her eyes in contentment.
Every day that week, May had woken beside Louis. Surrounded by the sound and strength and smell of him. It had been nothing short of amazing. And not simply because this was the first relationship she’d really had since high school. She and Louis amazingly seemed to click more each day. Ever since that night two weeks ago when he’d opened up to her about his father, she’d seen more and more of him unfold. Not just a witty, handsome prince, but a clever, insightful one. Not just a generous lover, but a passio
nate man all around. He’d been so calm and gentle with her when she’d first met him that it had surprised her when he began to come to life again.
It was as if revealing that one aspect of the pain he’d been living with had allowed him to start feeling everything fully again. May hated to think that he had been walking around for all this time cut off from his feelings because he was so horrified at the depth of his anger at his father. It seemed as though their relationship had been complicated even before the man had died, and the loss of not just a parent, but any hope of resolving that pain, was quite a lot.
May wriggled around until she was facing him again. She could feel his hard length pressing into her thigh.
“Morning to you,” she murmured.
“Stay,” he urged.
“I can’t. I have a shift, and then I have to get together with my co-writers. I’ve canceled on them twice.”
Louis combed his hand back through her hair and kissed her forehead. “I suppose I don’t get to keep you to myself all of the time. Though, it would be wonderful if you could take time off your jobs for the next week or three?”
“Not if I want to still have those jobs.” May laid her head back down and gazed into Louis’s adoring eyes. She hadn’t asked, but she had been wondering something. “You’re going to still be here in a few weeks?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
May shrugged. “I don’t know. Because you came here for an errand. Because you’ve been here a little over a month, and I assume your family might like to see you again sometime.”
Louis raised a brow. “Doesn’t yours?”
“I call my mom and dad every week. And you know—” May rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I call my brothers, too.”
“I haven’t had talked to my brother in some time.” Louis stretched an arm over his head. “But to your question, I don’t have much of anywhere to be.”
