night."
"An intruder, huh?"
She sips her coffee. "He tied me to the bed, Max," she says, looking at me with wide eyes. "And he did things to me. Dirty things."
My cock stirs at the memory of exactly what I did to her last night. "That bastard," I declare. "I'll need to make a detailed report." I sit down on the bed beside her and slide my hand up her thigh, eliciting a squeal from her.
"Hot coffee!" she shrieks. "It's going to spill!"
I take the cup out of her hand and set it on the table. "I'll need to have you walk me through the events of last night," I say, my tone mock-serious.
"Will this require a reenactment?" she asks playfully.
"It might. I haven't decided yet. Tell me: did he touch you here?" I ask, my hand going between her legs.
"Hmm. I think I recall something like that happening," she says softly. "It's all a blur, really."
"Well, then, I should probably refresh your memory," I tell her. She's slick and wet and immediately ready for me. I thrust inside her with my fingers and it's a matter of seconds before she's clenching them, her muscles squeezing me so tightly I think she's going to come any moment … and she does, surprising both of with a loud cry. When she finishes, she looks up at me with her cheeks flushed pink, her hand going to her face to cover it in embarrassment. "Um, that was fast."
"Don't be embarrassed. I'm going to feel smug as hell about that," I tell her. When I pull my fingers from her and taste her sweetness, my cock presses hard against my pants, begging for release.
"Are you going to take off those clothes and get back in bed with me?" she asks, her voice seductive.
"Not now." I try to ignore my hardness and congratulate myself on exercising some control around her. It requires superhuman willpower, especially with the way she's looking at me right now. "You have to get back to the summer house. You're supposed to help out with planning some kind of charity thing."
Alexandra sighs. "Planning a charity thing?" she asks. "Is that coming from Sofia?"
"That's coming from your father. The helicopter is waiting for us."
She lets out a long sigh. "You and the rules," she says.
I'm about to remind her of just how many damn rules I've already broken here and just how much I've breached every standard of propriety, but then she rolls over onto her stomach, her bare ass and legs splayed out on the bed as she reaches for the coffee again.
I can't help but let out a low rumble at the sight. "The plans I have for that ass…"
I don't even realize I've spoken the words aloud until she stands up, the coffee cup in her hands, and walks over to me. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do, Bodyguard."
"Is that a challenge?"
"Maybe."
"I told you I'm going to claim every part of you, princess. It wasn't an idle threat."
"I do hope not," she says, her voice light. "I'd be ever so disappointed if it were."
I curse under my breath. This girl will be the death of me. I run my hand over her perfect bare ass cheek as she looks at me mischievously and takes another sip of her coffee. "Go put on a skirt," I tell her, my voice terse. "A skirt and no panties."
Her eyebrows go up. "Haven't you learned that you can't dictate what I wear?" she asks. "Did my see-through dress teach you nothing?"
I look down at the dress crumpled on the floor. "Did it teach you nothing?" I counter.
She grins. "It taught me I should definitely wear whatever the hell I want."
"Wear a dress or a skirt," I tell her firmly. "Something appropriate. Something with actual fabric, nothing see-through, and nothing that shows your ass cheeks or your tits to anyone else. From now on, those are mine and only mine to see."
She laughs and takes another sip of her coffee. "Oh really. You think so, Max?"
"I know so, sweetheart," I tell her, turning toward the door. "The other bodyguards are waiting. You have fifteen minutes. Remember: appropriate and demure."
"Demure?!" I hear her ask from behind me. I think she might be choking on her coffee.
I grin, stifling the laugh I feel building in my chest. "That's right. But no panties underneath. In fact, you should never wear panties again, now that I think about it."
When I turn around, she's looking at me with her hand on her hip, her other one holding her coffee, amusement on her face. "Let me get this straight. I should wear a demure dress with no panties."
"That's my new rule," I declare, deciding that at just this very moment. "I'm going to need access to your pussy any time I choose."
"Oh, you are, are you?" she asks. "I let you tie me up one time and the power's already gone to your head. Now you want me ready and waiting all the time?"
I grin. "I don't want you ready and waiting, sweetheart – I know you'll be ready and waiting. That's especially true now that I saw that little display a minute ago – or have you already forgotten that it took you a grand total of ten seconds to come once I slid my fingers inside you?"
She leans over and pulls a pillow off the bed, tossing it in my direction. It bounces off my leg. I laugh as I open the door. "Don't forget your dress code, princess," I say, my voice professional for the benefit of anyone who might hear me from down the hallway.
Another pillow hits my back before I leave.
Fifteen minutes later, Alexandra comes out of the bedroom wearing a little blue sundress, the skirt billowing around her legs as she walks. It's perfectly appropriate, yet I can't look at her without wanting to bend her over and flip the skirt up so I can grab a handful of her ass.
As we're walking to the helicopter, the wind flips it up for me. Before she can hold all of the material down around her thighs, it gives me a perfect view of her white panties underneath.
I help her into the helicopter, standing far too close to her to be appropriate in any way, but it's just us and the pilots out here. She pauses with her back to me, and I breathe in the light floral smell of her hair. "I saw what you're wearing," I tell her. "I think I was clear about what not to wear."
She half-turns toward me with a sly grin on her face. "Oh? I think I was just as clear that I do whatever I want, James."
I hide a smile as we get into the helicopter.
I wouldn't expect anything less from her.
34
Alexandra
I slide my finger over the phone screen and sigh. "I have, like, a hundred text messages," I groan.
"Those fucking photos of you in that fucking dress," Max grumbles. His hatred of the dress shouldn't make me as secretly thrilled as much as it does, and doubly so after what happened last night all because of that dress.
My fingers go instinctively to my lips, still swollen from his kisses. The dull ache between my legs is a more acute physical reminder of what happened between us and how good it was.
"A bunch of them are from my father," I note, groaning.
"I know," Max says tersely. "I'm under orders to deliver you to him first."
My heart races at the thought that I might be going straight to my father because someone might have seen us outside at the palace or noticed that Max didn't leave my bedroom until this morning. Despite the lack of cameras in the residence wings of the palace and the greatly reduced summer staff, it's still possible someone could have seen us and relayed that to my father.
Max pauses at the door near my father's office, his jaw clenched because he's obviously thinking the same thing.
"It's about the dress," I reassure him despite not being entirely certain about that myself.
"The dress," Max repeats. "Yeah."
Of course, it does end up being all about the dress. My father stands behind his large desk with Sofia at his side. In the middle of the desk is the morning paper, displayed with the headline facing my direction. When I enter the room, Sofia looks at me disapprovingly while my father is just plain angry.
"This is what I woke up to this morning," he bellows, gesturing to the newspaper. The headline blares ac
ross the front page:
Princess Alexandra Out Of Control!
"Good morning to you, too." I roll my eyes at the newspaper article. "That's not even true. I wasn't drinking or doing drugs or anything remotely –"
The Ice Queen cuts me off, holding up an tablet that displays a photo of me in the transparent dress. In the color version of the photo online, the dress is really, really transparent. The sequined areas seem to cover even less than I thought they did when I put on the garment, just barely covering my nipples and between my legs. The website headline reads:
Princess Alexandra Bares All For The Cameras!
I shrug. "It's not entirely inaccurate. That is me baring everything, I guess. Well, almost everything. I mean, you can't see absolutely everything. That's what the sequins are for."
Wordlessly, Sofia scrolls to another website where I'm in a photo posing with Charlotte, my hands on her shoulder as I vamp and look over my own – with my very-nearly-bare ass on display for the cameras.
"Okay, that photo is slightly worse," I admit.
"What were you thinking?!" my father demands to know. "You're twenty-one, not a child, Alexandra! You're a princess, a representative of the royal family, and you're –" He pauses, shaking his head. "Naked all over the internet."
"It's couture," I argue.
"You need to grow up," my father says sharply. "There will be no more clubbing. There will be no more public displays like this. There will be no leaving the summer house to hang out with your friends and party all over Europe. Do you understand?"
"Yes." I stand there with my hands folded in front of me, not objecting to his demands at all.
Sofia blinks several times in quick succession before opening her mouth and closing it again like a fish. She was clearly about to chime in to support my father, but my response seems to have taken the wind right out of her sails.
It's apparently done the same thing to my father as well, because he's staring at me like he's not comprehending what I just said. "You said yes?"
"Yes," I reiterate. "I understand your concern. I'll be here for the rest of the summer until the wedding. No clubbing, no running off to Monaco or Ibiza with my friends, and no going back to the palace or to the capital. They're all reasonable expectations and I'll comply with them."
Is it bad that I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing at Sofia's reaction? The Ice Queen looks like she's about to faint from shock. Apparently, both of them came to this little meeting prepared for a fight. I'm not sure what they planned to do, exactly, since I'm not a minor, but they clearly anticipated arguing with me at the very least.
Sofia looks at my father, her eyes large. "Well, that's … unexpected," she says. "I mean, it's delightful, of course. Delightful and unexpected."
What she doesn't realize is that my reaction is just as unexpected to me as it is to them. I'm so used to arguing, so familiar with rebelling, that actually agreeing to do something is foreign to me. But the idea of staying here for the rest of the summer with Max actually feels okay.
My father clears his throat. "Good. Great. Fantastic. I'm glad we're all clear."
"Crystal clear," I say.
"Obviously, there is damage control to be done," Sofia interjects, not content to just leave everything as it is. "The photos are everywhere, and they're not flattering to the royal family."
"Oh, I don't know about that," I argue. "I thought the angles were really flattering. I'd say that my running has been paying off, for sure." Sofia blushes and my father glowers at me. "Oh, is it too soon to make jokes about my scandalous photos?"
"Christine will put out a statement," Sofia goes on, referring to our main public relations person. I've kept her more than busy over the years. "You didn't realize the dress was transparent and … something about a wardrobe malfunction."
"No," I say firmly.
"No?"
I shrug. "It was a dress. It's not the end of the world. I wasn't drunk and I wasn't high and I'm not apologizing for wearing a scandalous dress that I wanted to wear, and I'm not pretending to be some kind of dumb girl who didn't realize the dress was sheer."
"Excuse me?" Sofia asks.
"You can put out a statement that clarifies I'm not out of control and I'm not on my way to rehab – and that I was totally aware of what I was doing. But I'm not apologizing for what was a fashion choice. I'm sorry if you think the dress was inappropriate, but I'm not sorry for wearing it."
Sofia bristles. "Well, that's just not going to –"
"Hold on," my father interrupts, putting up his hand and silencing her. "Alexandra, you've agreed to no more public stunts."
"Yes," I answer. Well, within reason. It's not like I'm agreeing to stop climbing out of the palace entirely. Let's not be ridiculous.
I don't say that out loud.
"You just agreed to no drugs, no clubbing, and no booze," he continues. "Did you say you were running – running with sneakers? Outside?"
"Yes. But I'm not changing my clothes, and I'm not dying my hair an appropriate color, and I'm not pretending to be someone I'm not. This is who I am. I might not be the kind of princess the kingdom expects, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm not going to change all of that just to fit –"
Sofia interrupts again. "I would think that you'd want to –"
My father speaks quickly. "Agreed, Alexandra."
"Deal." I spin around before Sofia decides to interrupt again and add anything else about public relations and image managers and fixers. There's a little bounce in my step that wasn't there earlier as I leave the room.
That's the first time I've seen my father thrown for a loop in a long while. I think I even surprised myself a little bit.
Outside of the door, Max cocks an eyebrow. "You look happy."
I'm taken aback for a moment, and then I realize I might just be. "I think I am."
That's the most surprising thing of all.
35
Alexandra
I step out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and humming to myself. It's eight in the freaking morning, and I've just come back from a run and showered and already had coffee.
Max sneaked into my room last night and we had sex again – no tying me up or tearing off my clothes or any games.
Regular, boring sex.
And I'm still bouncing around the room, humming to myself.
I think the sex might be doing something to my brain, rewiring me into some kind of morning person – a morning person who bops around her room wearing a towel and singing to herself after going for a run.
Oh, God. What if the sex makes me all perky, a
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