by Winter James
That’s not going to be Belleza under my rule. Not now. Not from today.
And what else should I do? I should send her on her way with a stern warning. I should sit at my desk and call my advisors back in and forget about her. I should not be thinking of the way she bends to reach the center of my bed, and I should not be imagining how she’d look bent over my desk. I’m on my feet before I can control my urges. Fuck it—this one day, this hour, this minute, I’m not going to.
“Come here.”
Blue eyes meet mine and her other hand flutters across her apron to join the first, twisting it up into a starched-white mess. “But—your highness—”
“I gave you an order..”
Tessa dips her head and comes nervously across the room to stand in front of my desk. Wide-set windows look out over the royal gardens. Men and women with garden shears and watering cans cross back and forth, their eyes on their work. A pair of my advisors walk along a center path, popping in and out of view. They can’t see in here, but Tessa probably doesn’t know that. I come out from behind my desk and circle her, getting closer, making her inch toward the desk. She smells so fresh. Like simple soap and flowers. Innocent.
“Theft from the crown—from me—is treason.”
Her shoulders go up at that, but she doesn’t turn to face me. Tessa only watches me from the corner of her eye. “I—I know. And I’ll take the punishment.”
“Do you know what I’ll do to you?””
All the blood drains from her face and she turns to me, head on, as American as I’ve ever seen her. “I was only trying to help a starving little boy. Everyone says you’re a cruel man but you—you can’t possibly be cruel enough to kill me over some bread and apples.”
Tessa’s all heat and fire over this, and fuck, I want it. A hazard of doing my job well is that my staff are, in general, afraid of me. They, along with the people of Belleza, have to be if I’m going to get control of the situation.
But first I’m going to get control of her. First I’m going to let myself lose a bit of it.
I put my hand on the back of her neck, below the blonde twist of hair at the nape of her neck, and draw my thumb across the peach fuzz at the edge of her hairline. Tessa shivers.
“Kill you? Do you really think I kill people for feeding a hungry child?”
“Maybe you do.” Her breath comes fast and shallow and I would give my entire palace to see her naked breasts right now instead of the polyester maid’s uniform. “I don’t know. Everyone is scared of you, and I am, too.”
“Good. You’d be a fool if you weren’t afraid right now.” I inhale more of her with every breath. “I’m not a serial murderer, if that’s what you’ve been thinking. But I do believe in consequences for one’s actions. In the end, you’re much more at fault than that boy off the street. He might not know better than to steal, but you—you certainly do. That’s why you’re so pale right now, and why your body jerks when I touch you.”
“I was trying to help,” she whispers.
“You know what they say about good deeds.” I deliver this into the shell of her ear and she shivers again. “Now you’ll find out what it costs you. Bend over the desk.”
Tessa’s pretty lips drop open. “What?”
“Hesitation is a form of disobeying me. Bend over the desk and take your punishment.”
“I thought you said—”
“I said I wouldn’t kill you. There will be consequences. Pain. Suffering, even.”
Tessa hesitates, a deep flush spreading from her cheeks to her forehead and down her neck. She has no other choice but to submit to me now, and I won’t deny myself the pleasure of it. Not now that she’s brought it to me all wrapped up in the bow at the back of her apron. My need for her swells and crests, making me harder than I’ve been in years. What is it about her that makes me want to throw away all the iron rules I’ve set for myself. Consequences. That’s what we’re here for. Consequences that I’ve wanted all along without letting myself know, not fully, that I wanted them for her. And for me.
She takes a deep breath and seems to make a choice. Tessa approaches the desk the way you’d approach a dog that was close enough to bite. There’s enough room for her body down the center and she bends just like she did over the edge of the bed.
Fuck, if I had the edge of a bed now—
“Stay still or this will last longer.”
Tessa reaches out, as if on instinct, and grabs the other side of the desk. I’m ready to explode. That one motion is like the stretch and reach she does to make it to the center of the bed with my sheets. I want this to last all afternoon, but if I wait any longer I’ll die.
I reach down and flip Tessa’s long skirt up to her back, which earns me a gasp. Her head comes up and she arches her back. I suck in a breath through my teeth and try not to do something truly forbidden, like bite her. Does she know what she’s doing? She must, she must. The only alternative is that she doesn’t know, in which case I’m going to have to teach her.
Under the maid’s uniform she wears simple white panties. If I had to guess, I’d say they were issued to her right here in the palace. Everything she has now is mine. I’m going to take the rest. The elastic of the panties comes away from her skin under my fingers and with a few quick tugs I have them down below the curve of her ass. She’s vibrating on a high frequency now, faster than a humming bird, and I deliver two sharp slaps to her bottom to get her to settle the fuck down.
Tessa bites her lip and makes a strange little noise, but she doesn’t let go of the desk. Surprising, that a woman who’s so willing to obey me is also the first to break the rules.
She’ll learn.
Two more slaps, and Tessa’s knees fall together, like collapsing is going to stop me. I put a foot between her legs and kick them back out into position.
“Do you want to go on trial for treason? Is that it?”
I know in this moment that I will never, never put her on the stand. I’d sooner die than watch my men put their hands on her to drag her to jail. My hands need to be on her.
“No,” she says, her breath hitching. “No, I really don’t.”
“Or maybe you’d like that. Maybe I should do this in the royal courtroom in front of the lords. Maybe they should each have a turn. Would it make you wet?”
“No, your highness.” Her voice breaks.
“No, because I’m the only one who gets to see you this way.”
I brace one hand on the small of her back, pressing her down, and I make good on my word. A hard spank, right against the seat of her ass, enough to sting my palm.
Tessa holds it together for the first five slaps, which are hard and uncompromising and make her ass turn a bright pink, and then the sounds start to escape her. Her ass reddens and the little noises become a cascade of ow, ow, ow, please, ow and there is no way I can stop myself. It’s too good. I move down to the sensitive crease between her bottom and her thighs and lay them on one by one. That brings the tears, slipping down her cheeks and making her blue eyes brighter than the sky.
It also does something else to her. Something far more interesting than making her cry.
The position I’ve put Tessa in leaves her completely exposed to me. She can’t hide the slickness gathering in the dark spaces between her thighs, and I can’t resist it.
“Are you wet, darling? Does this turn you on?”
“No,” she says, desperately, willing herself to believe it.
That’s not the right answer, so I finish the spanking with six more hard ones. She yelps and cries and her hot skin flushes deeper under my hand. God, I want it so much that I can’t wait to touch her. The stern warnings I was planning to give her crumble in my mind and instead of saying a single word I reach between her legs and stroke.
Another gasp, another toss of her head, but she holds on tight to the other side of the desk, so tight her knuckles have gone wet. She’s soaking wet and when I lift my fingers to my mouth I discover she tastes as intox
icatingly sweet as the scent of her. Untouched, I think wildly. Untouched, except for me. There’s no way to prove it’s true but I know it like I know the sun will rise in the morning. She’s mine, she’s mine.
“Little liar,” I say, feeling unaccountably tender. I put my hand back between her legs, forcing her open wider, and slide my fingers forward until I find her clit. It’s the easiest job I’ve done today, because Tessa is ready and wanting. She can cry if she wants to—she can’t hide the truth. I sink my thumb into her pussy, leaving my middle finger free to play with her.
“Oh please,” she says. “Please.”
It’s a mistake, and I know it. Because with my thumb inside her like this I can feel the way she clenches around it. How fucking tight she is, and how responsive. She must be sensitive after her spanking and from the way she shakes, I doubt anyone has ever spanked her like that or touched her like this. I circle her clit with as much gentleness as I can summon and let myself work my thumb in and out, in and out.
Tessa squeezes her eyes shut, her face as red as her ass and her lips parted to let out noises that quickly turn into embarrassed moans. I lose myself in the sound. She won’t let go of the desk but she can’t help but let herself rock back into my hand. Innocent Tessa is fucking herself on my thumb, harder with every movement. I pull my hand away and reward her with another set of spanks. This time, she doesn’t cry—she takes them well with small panting gasps that might as well be begging. Her face is so red and when I put my hand back where she wants it she lets her head drop to the desk. Tessa is up on tiptoe.
She’s close.
She’s so close, and I can feel it in every movement. It’s as if she’s getting struck by tiny bolts of lightning that make her push back into my hand. My cock pulses in my pants. I’m desperate to let it free and sink into her, but I don’t.
“Beg me again,” I say, my voice like gravel. “If you want to come, you’ll need permission. And I’m not going to give it, no matter how hard you hump my hand.”
A moan of denial. “Your Highness. Oh please. Let me--”
“Say it, darling. It must hurt by now, that sweet little clit.”
“It does. It hurts. Let me come, I beg you.”
I focus everything in me on the maid bent over my desk with her skirt in mortifying disarray and her juices sliding down the insides of her thighs. She rocks forward once, twice, and I give her a rolling counter-pressure on her clit until she is forced to come.
A low cry tears from Tessa’s mouth and she freezes on the edge of the fall, and then she’s a bucking, writhing thing. All her self-consciousness is gone as she explodes onto my fingers—gone as if it were never there in the first places. Tessa comes with her head thrown back and a death grip on the desk and red, red asscheeks from the spanking she’s taken for committing treason.
Fuck, I’m in deep.
Before she’s even finished, while she’s still holding onto the desk, I yank her dress down and let the hem fall to the floor. She must recognize this as the signal that it is, because she stands up straight and puts the back of her hand to her lips to stifle the last few sounds she can’t control. I’ve made a mess of her, and better yet, it’s a hidden mess. Under her dress her panties are still down in an awkward line across her thighs and her arousal has to be almost to her knees.
She doesn’t dare move, I can tell. And I want to fuck her so badly that it threatens to bring the walls of the palace down on both of us. Outside, the gardeners go about their oblivious business, and more of my advisors have gathered on the path. They take sly glances at their watches. I have half a mind to tell them the rest of the work day is canceled—that I’ll be spending it in private reflection. Tessa could use quite a bit more private reflection, I can fucking tell you that.
But making her come is one thing. Turning into my father is a different beast. And I might be a cruel man—like she says, everyone knows that’s the truth about me—but I’m not a dishonorable bastard. In fact, I might be the only one of my father’s sons who isn’t one.
“Go,” I tell her through clenched teeth.
Tessa steals a glance at me, and I can see her thinking of asking a question.
“Unless you need more punishment...”
She turns and flees, her steps slightly out of rhythm, and I put my hands on my desk and will myself not to follow her.
Chapter Seven
Tessa
What just happened? What, for the love of everything on earth, including traveling and shady hostels and getting kidnapped for nefarious purposes, just happened?
Out in the hall outside Prince Sebastian’s office, nobody seems to see me. I’m as invisible as any of the other maids, which is how maids are supposed to be. But I feel like they know. How could they not know what just happened? A clutch of advisers strolls back toward the door, talking to each other, and I run away before they can come level with me. They have to be able to see it on me. They have to be able to smell it. My ass cheeks smart against the cheap fabric of the uniform, with no protection. I haven’t even pulled up my palace-issued panties. What am I supposed to do, duck into one of the alcoves and fumble with my clothes? They’d notice me then.
I take the first available door out of the main hall and collide with the thick, unyielding body of the head housekeeper.
“Tessa,” she hisses. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going back to work.”
She glares at me, and I want to melt into a puddle on the floor and let myself evaporate. I’m already a puddle in human form. I have just been punished by a prince, and it’s going to take me days to come to terms with it.
“I find it hard to believe that his highness would keep a thief in his employment.”
“We discussed the consequences.” And he meted out the consequences. Holy shit, did he ever.
Her mouth opens, then shuts, and I swear to god I will die if she forces me to tell her what happened. It’s too fresh, the reality of being bent over his desk like a naughty rulebreaker and spanked until I cried. Salt sticks to my cheeks and my face has to be as red as my ass feels. There’s no way I can say those words out loud. And then, to explain what happened afterward—
Jesus, why did it feel so good? Why did I like it? The last thing on earth that should drive me to orgasm is a mean prince punishing me for doing the right thing. I’m not even sure he was doing it on behalf of his precious palace, or because I broke the rules. I think he might have done it just because he enjoyed it. And if he enjoyed that, then what does that say about the way he made me...
“Don’t just stand there,” the head housekeeper snaps, a hot color splashed across her cheeks. She’s pissed. I might not be the first person she’s dragged in front of the prince, but maybe I am the first to come back to work with my apron disheveled and a shameful secret hidden under my dress. “If the prince sent you back to work, then I won’t have you disobeying him.” Her voice hints at criticism, but she doesn’t dare say it out loud. Not in the light of day, on palace grounds. Which is not coincidentally the very time and place he decided to spank me like he owns me.
I duck my head and move past the head housekeeper, who doesn’t move out of the way, makes me creep along the wall next to her. If I have to keep this up my panties are going to slip all the way down to the floor. If anyone sees that I’ll have to explain. There’s nothing in the world I want more than to run to the little room on the lowest level of the palace and put myself back together again, but that’s not an option. Not with the prince the way he is. Not with the head housekeeper watching me go.
The prince’s rooms wait for me.
I’m just inside the foyer, straining to hear if there’s anyone else on the other side of the doors, when my panties give up the ghost and drop to my ankles. At least it didn’t happen in front of the guards. At least I’m not in the main hallway, in view of other people, when I have to bend over and tug them up over the horrible proof that what he did turned me on. It did more than turn me on.
It made me fall apart, all over his fingers.
The list of things to straighten flies out of my mind and I spend several frantic minutes straightening pillows and going from one end of the room to the other, only to catch myself back in that moment again. Guest bathroom. Gym. Second bathroom. I spend extra time on the counters and the sinks. I run my cloth along the trim, removing every speck of dust. The cleaning chemicals bring my brain back to some semblance of not-crazy. Scrubbing is one of those nice, repetitive motions that works your muscles without overtaxing the thinking part of you that wants to vividly imagine other repetitive motions that certain other people, namely the Prince of Belleza, might have just done to you, and—shit. It’s an endless cycle. The only way I’m going to get out of it is to get that file and get the hell out of here.
Or sleep with him, another voice says. It’s seductive as hell, that voice, but there is no way I’m going to sleep with the cruel prince. No way whatsoever. I can’t imagine my first time being with him.
Only I can kind of imagine it.
It wouldn’t be the candlelit slow burn I’ve always pictured in my head. Prince Sebastian would not whisper nice things to me. It would be rough. It would be—
My phone buzzing cuts into the dream, twists it in two, and jerks me out of it with freezing hands. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Oh, this is not ideal. If someone catches me on the phone while I’m in his rooms, then I’m completely, totally screwed. But if I don’t answer, they’ll take it out on me. There’s no good choice.
I twist my neck around and hold my breath. No sounds echo from the outer rooms. I have a few seconds before anyone will walk in on me so I face the bed and pull out the phone.