Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “I have some ideas,” he said.

  With my hand pressed to him, Royce’s heartbeat was a slow, steady drum. If the roles had been reversed, he would have felt mine hammering in my chest. His thumb moved, brushing slowly over the back of my hand, and tension coiled in my body. I thought he’d back down, but instead he’d returned the challenge, upping the ante. How far was he willing to take this? And . . . how far was I willing to let it escalate?

  Each tiny stroke of the pad of his thumb made me want to push further. Every quiet breath we took with our stares locked on each other gave me the courage to keep playing the game.

  “Was the girl down the hall not enough for you?” I asked.

  “Girl down the—” Confusion darted through him, only to be replaced with a slow smile. “Vance was fucking some blonde when I walked by the guest bedroom. You thought that was me?” When I didn’t answer, his voice dipped lower. “My brother probably left the door open because he wanted an audience. Did you watch them?”

  “Maybe.” I dropped my book, and it thudded onto the leather of the ottoman. I graduated from pressing my hand to him to my whole body. The crinoline beneath the skirt of my dress crushed softly between our thighs. Pleasure washed through his expression and simmered into something else.

  Something darker and hotter.

  His hand was gone, only so he could slip it behind me and lock me in place to him. My white dress was demure in the front but backless, and a shiver glanced down my spine as his fingertips settled on my bare skin. I tilted my chin up, wanting to look strong as his unwavering eyes threatened to undo me completely.

  “I like this dress,” he said, trailing his fingers up my back, dragging them along each ridge of my vertebrae like he was counting stacks of money. “But would Medusa wear white? She wasn’t a virgin, after all.”

  There was so much sex laced in his voice, I was going to combust and spoke without thinking. “Well, I’m not Medusa.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted like it was on a hook. “Is that so?”

  Was I supposed to feel shame I hadn’t fucked anyone when I was twenty years old? Like there was something wrong with me? Or was I supposed to feel pride I was a good girl and had kept myself pure?

  Because I felt neither. “So what if I’m a virgin? Who fucking cares?”

  Royce did, and I disliked the way he looked at me now, like I was a prize. I hated how society, even today, placed so much value on something entirely worthless. Yes, I hadn’t done it yet, but I was sure sleeping with someone wasn’t going to change me.

  “How is that possible?” His hand continued to stroke lazily up and down my back, perhaps hoping to elicit another shiver. “No boyfriend while you were off at Etonsons?” A smile dripped off his lips. “Oh, that’s right. It’s an all-girls college.”

  It was a strange feeling how my body liked being in his arms and yet the rest of me detested it.

  Etonsons was one of the most prestigious schools in the country. They only accepted four percent of the women who applied there, and the private tuition was outrageous. Emily and I both attended, although her acceptance had been more on the strength of our mother’s legacy, whereas mine was my grades.

  “What’s the reason you haven’t fucked anyone?” He studied me critically, searching for the answer.

  “Economics keeps me busy,” I said casually. “I just haven’t found the time.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Maybe I’m not into guys.”

  He leaned down so his face was a scant inch from mine. “Try again. Your pupils are dilated. You’re out of breath, and I can see your pulse pounding in your neck. I’m sure if I put my hand up your skirt right now, my fingers would come away wet.”

  “They wouldn’t,” I lied.

  It was like he knew. “I bet you’re soaked.”

  “Fine. Go ahead and do it,” I challenged, “and let’s see who’s right.”

  I was glad I’d been gutsy enough to say it, and a thrill ghosted down my legs. He couldn’t accept my challenge. He’d have to cede ground. Everyone knew which Northcott sister he was supposed to end up with, and I wasn’t her. If he put his hand up my skirt, there’d be hell to pay.

  But rather than act disappointed, satisfaction flooded the handsome face looming over me. “Oh, don’t you worry. I plan to.”

  Breath stuttered and broke down in my lungs, sapping my confidence. He was older and had been playing this game a lot longer. What if I was in over my head? It had seemed like a bluff at first, but now I was less convinced. I lifted my arms and set my hands on his shoulders, drawing us toward the edge of danger.

  He brushed the long sweep of my seaweed colored hair back over my shoulder, making room for his warm breath to fill the space and remind me just how close his lips were to my skin.

  “You’re doing it again,” he said.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Turning me into stone.”

  My knees trembled but I locked them in place. “I don’t have that ability. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter. You’d have to actually see me for it to work.”

  “I see you.”

  “Come on,” I said with irritation. “No, you don’t. I’m a faceless girl to you, Royce. A nobody.”

  Fire scorched his eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I fucking see you, Marist.”

  And as if it would prove his point, he slammed his lips down on mine, crushing everything I believed into a million pieces.

  Chapter Three

  Royce’s kiss wasn’t a three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne you could sip, it was a shot of the cheapest whiskey you could get your hands on and had to take as quickly as possible. He invaded my senses. His taste stormed past my lips, seared against my tongue, and burned all the way down my throat.

  Was he the prince of fire?

  His kiss ravaged and consumed.

  I cried out against it, a mournful sound escaping my chest as my eyes slammed shut. The idea this wasn’t real sliced deep and left me gasping from hurt. This thing between us, it couldn’t be pretend. It was too powerful, too desperate to be a lie.

  His lips moved against mine, demanding I meet his level and match his urgency. His hand on the small of my back drove me deeper against him while his other grabbed a fistful of my hair, tangling my strands in his rough fingers.

  Kissing me was forbidden, and I wondered if it was gasoline on the flame between us.

  Not to be outdone, I curled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled. He made me mad. Not angry—but crazy. Out of my mind. Reality sifted through my grasp. I could claim surprise at first, but letting him continue to kiss me was a bad idea, and there were major consequences for actively participating in it.

  In some versions, Medusa didn’t start as a gorgon. She’d been a beautiful mortal who worshipped Athena and had the terrible misfortune to catch Poseidon’s eye. He followed her into a temple and raped her. Outraged at the desecration of her temple, Athena engaged in the ultimate victim-blaming—she cursed Medusa to become a gorgon with snake hair and banished her to live out her days on a secluded island. There were different versions of the myth, but the ending was always the same. Perseus came along, cut her head off, and was hailed a hero.

  Would it be the same for me? Macalister decreed Royce and Emily should be together, and I’d seen what he did to people who created obstacles when he wanted something. Nothing as nefarious as death, but just as bad, really. A single negative word from him meant the offender would be shunned. Their status would evaporate overnight, and soon after, their money. It was what Royce had done to me in high school, but on a much grander scale, and one that involved the whole family.

  It was a different kind of murder.

  And Macalister wouldn’t blame his golden son for anything. No, the blame for this dangerous and potentially destructive kiss would fall solely on my head, regardless of who had started it or whether I wanted it or not.

  You do want it. You
want more.

  Heat sizzled across my skin, a mixture of desire and anger. I was upset Royce had put me in this position and pissed at how good it felt as his tongue slicked over mine. I didn’t like him, but my body didn’t care. I tugged harder on his hair, not to pull him off me or break the kiss, but to create a manifestation of the discomfort he’d caused.

  He grunted so softly it was barely audible, but satisfaction warmed in my center. It died as quickly as it had arrived, because he tore his lips from mine, jammed his face in my neck, and sank his teeth into my flesh.

  “Fuck,” I gasped, more surprise than pain, although he’d bitten hard enough it was likely there’d be a mark. The sharp edge of his teeth was replaced by the damp velvet of his tongue, and the shiver that flitted through my shoulders was unstoppable.

  “I see you,” he murmured. “And now I’ve tasted you.”

  Oh, God.

  In addition to Macalister’s threat, my sister’s face flashed through my mind. “No one can know.”

  “Who the fuck would we tell? You don’t have any friends.” His mouth latched onto the spot where my neck met my body.

  I tried to shove him away but put no effort behind it. His kisses sucked all my strength. “I have friends.”

  He straightened and gave me a hard look. Then I was turned roughly in his hands until I was facing the bookshelf and his chest was a wall at my back. “Fictional friends do not count.”

  I had to move forward to try to turn and protest, but he just used it as an opportunity to advance on me. We shuffled two small steps until I was trapped and all I could see were the different colored spines of books. And then his lips were on the curve of my neck again, and his fingers traced a line down my bare back.

  I peered at the titles before me and slipped deeper into his seduction.

  I wished for a lot of things at that moment. To know if my sister had legitimate feelings for the man at my back, whose erection was poking against me. I wanted the door to this library to have a lock on it, and for Royce to use it. And I needed to know, since everything was going to hell anyway, when he was going to make good on his threat of sliding his hand up my dress and discovering how badly he’d turned me on.

  I didn’t have feelings for him. At least, not in the way a normal girl would. He used people, and I was eager to do the same to him. He could satisfy my curiosity about sex, and hopefully be very satisfying while doing it.

  His hot, hungry mouth roved over me, like he needed to press his lips to every inch of my defenseless flesh he could find. I put my hands out and grasped the dusty shelf before me. Once again, he pushed my hair over my shoulder and out of his way, exposing my back, and I tilted my chin down to my chest.

  “This is my favorite part of a woman.” He drew a line across my shoulder blades with his tongue. Goosebumps pebbled on my skin. Of course, this was his favorite spot. Not the breasts, or the ass, or the legs . . . but the place that controlled all of a woman’s physical power.

  The place where she was most vulnerable.

  If someone walked in right now, they’d have to think the scene was beyond strange. A girl with green hair in a virginal cocktail dress, clutching the bookcase for dear life as the man in the suit behind her worshiped her back with both his hands and his mouth. It was relatively benign what we were doing, but it was the most erotic moment of my life.

  Pleasure radiated from his kisses, and the warmth spread deep between my legs. It got worse as he gripped my hips and ground himself against me. I wasn’t sure which was more shocking, the sensation of his hard length, or that he found kissing me arousing.

  Royce’s words twisted with lust. “I want to fuck you under this white dress.”

  He kept one hand tight on my hip but slid the other up the curve of my body. All the way until it was cased around my throat, forcing my head back onto his shoulder. His fingers flexed, constricting just enough to make me feel his dominance but not outright fear.

  He growled roughly in my ear. “I want to see your red lipstick smeared all over my dick.”

  I exhaled a sharp breath.

  His voice was abruptly so low and smooth, it sounded like he was inside my head. “Would you like that?”

  Would I? The image of me on my knees, his belt and pants undone flickered through my mind. It was undeniably hot, but what about Emily? What about the door that anyone could walk through and catch us?

  He sensed my hesitation not by my lack of answer, but by the tension in my body.

  “No?” His question was rhetorical. The hand on my hip snaked down to the center of my skirt where he pressed his thick fingers between my legs. The dress had many layers of fabric, but as he rubbed me, the sensation was pleasurable enough to make my heart stop.

  When a moan drifted past my lips, a satisfied chuckle rattled in his chest. My legs shook as he deliberately worked the layers of the skirt up, and I jolted when his palm found my inner thigh. What we were doing was bad.

  But—God—it would be worse if he stopped.

  I couldn’t control my breathing as his hand inched upward and brushed the damp crotch of my panties. His tone was pure evil. “What’s this?”

  I didn’t defend myself. I just stood there, waiting patiently for him to cross the line. His phone chimed in his pocket, but he ignored it. He was more interested in teasing and balancing me on the knife’s edge of desire.

  Royce finally stroked his hand between my thighs, touching me through the thin satin. He wasn’t gentle about it either, and I was glad. It made it easier to remember I didn’t like him. Plus, the heat between us was searing and urgent, and I’d rather have his touch now than wait for him to be careful.

  “I want this,” he said. “Give it to me.”

  He couldn’t have sounded more like the spoiled rich brat he was if he’d tried.

  But a shudder wracked my body. This was a demand from the prince and one I would have to obey, but I’d do it gladly, even when I didn’t understand exactly what I was surrendering. My body? My virginity? More?

  It was poetic justice that the man who’d caused the delay in my sexual journey would be the same one who’d start me on it. And he fucking owed me.

  “All right,” I whispered.

  My agreement was a release. It was a signed contract, a done deal, and tension poured from my muscles. It made me malleable in his steady and no doubt experienced hand.

  He dug his fingers inside my underwear, and I tightened my grip on the bookshelf, clamping my teeth together to hold back a breathy moan. His touch was so different than my own. Rougher. Confident. Greedy.

  It was so much better.

  Could he feel my pulse roaring in my neck? His hand still collared me, but there wasn’t aggression there. He saved all of that for the hand strumming between my legs, stirring my clit. I was going to melt. Drip down his fingers, pool onto the floor, and seep into the fibers of the Persian rug.

  His phone chimed again.

  Its mechanical noise didn’t belong here. The only sounds I wanted ringing in my ears were my whimpers of pleasure and his hurried breaths. But the second text alert was a trigger. It felt like a bomb had been armed and we only had so much time left before it blew up in our faces. Someone was eventually going to come looking for him.

  Royce’s tie swayed against my back as he moved his arm, working me over. Then he slid a finger inside, and I wanted to curl up onto my toes.

  “Oh, fuck,” I groaned. I tilted my head forward, letting it thud onto the bookshelf with a soft bang. It wasn’t that his intrusion felt particularly good, but the idea of it? That, I enjoyed very much. I liked his possession.

  His tongue was at the shell of my ear, and although he wasn’t saying anything with words, his hot breath whispered dark thoughts directly into my mind. I spread my legs wider, increasing my stance, and rocked on the finger pulsing inside me.

  “You sure you’re a virgin?” He nipped at my earlobe, and his tone was teasing. “Because you’re fucking my hand like you’r
e not.”

  “Shut up,” I gasped.

  He laughed and tightened his hold on my neck, wordlessly telling me I’d better watch it. I didn’t get to tell him what to do. His firm hand was a reminder of who was in control right now.

  His long, fat finger withdrew, only to rub lazy circles on my swollen, sensitive clit. It was overwhelming, everything that was happening. He returned to kissing my neck, his lips working just under the hand he pressed to my pulse point. I jolted and stretched at the fingers twitching inside my panties, writhing like a mindless animal.

  Royce boiled the thoughts in my head down to single words. Want. Need. Come.

  “This is mine now,” he said.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I pictured his expression. It was the same one he’d wear someday in the boardroom during a hostile takeover. Absolute.

  He said I was his. I tried to understand what he meant, but I was fracturing. He increased the intensity, and pleasure spilled from my center, running down my legs. I was coming apart.

  “You wait for me. You understand?”

  Wait for him? My confusion made the orgasm brewing in my system hesitate.

  It was less of an order from him, and more like a plea. “I get to be first, Marist. No one else touches you.”

  I tried to step away, but his strong arms crushed me back against him, trapping me. And as I settled into my new prison, he rewarded me. His hand fluttered until it became too much. I cried out, my voice soft but soaked with bliss as I came.

  It was violent.

  I flinched and contracted under the weight of the pleasure, its intensity so strong for a moment it felt like dying.

  I hadn’t finished recovering when Royce turned my head toward his and captured my mouth in a brutal kiss.

  “You’ll wait,” he demanded. “Say you’ll do it.”

  Nothing made sense right now, but I was under his influence and would agree to nearly anything. His magnetic voice was a siren’s call, luring me in.