Christmas In The City

by Shen, L. J.

  Meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

  Budget review.

  Fuck your queen.

  I was a task in the list of many, and after I bore his heir, I wasn’t a task he remembered to handle as often.

  But this.

  This is not me on a list. This is me as the list. The singular focus of Grim’s cock on my pussy, of his eyes boring into mine in the dim lamplight, it’s almost too much.

  And the endurance. I don’t know how long he’s inside me, but he’s made himself at home. I grab his shoulders, finding them slick with sweat from the vigor of our bodies grinding like well-oiled gears. He fucks me hard and long until all I can do is mumble his name over and over, like a chant. I’m devout. I’m devoured. I’m a woman, clawing a man’s back and shouting with desperate pleasure. I don’t care if the guard beyond my door hears. The whole of Manaroa could gather in the next room, and I wouldn’t be able to stop the begging, mewling, wailing sounds I make when I come. In this moment, I’m not a queen. Not a regent or a ruler. I’m his.

  I scream Grim’s name.

  And even if you paid me, I couldn’t tell you mine.

  Chapter 6

  Grim

  A bucket of hot, buttery movie theater popcorn has been placed on the bedside table.

  In the few minutes while I was in the bathroom, Vashti, I assume, has satisfied her queen’s craving.

  Well, one of them. I satisfied the other.

  And Lani satisfied mine.

  Sitting with her slim back against the headboard that climbs the wall, nearly reaching the ceiling, the rose-colored silk sheet keeps slipping, revealing her berry-tipped breasts. She raises the bottle of vanilla rum to her lips, takes a long swig, her eyes locked with mine. A drop of the liquor slides from the corner of her ripe mouth, makes a slow, leisurely trip down her neck, and glides between her breasts. When I reach the bed, I lie down beside her and lean forward to lick the rum from her skin. She chuckles and runs her fingers through my hair.

  “When can we do that again?” she asks, her voice scratched from screaming.

  “I could squeeze you in . . .” I lift my wrist to check my watch. “Now?”

  She laughs and crawls over me, one firm thigh on either side of my hips. She reaches for my cock and lifts, her pussy poised over me.

  “Wait.” My chuckle, usually a rare phenomenon, has been used more tonight with this woman than it has in years. “I was joking.”

  She cocks a dark brow and settles her round, naked ass on my thighs. “Scared you can’t get it up? I won’t judge your performance.”

  “Surely after only once, you already know better than that.”

  “You’re cocky.” She grins.

  “You like it.” I grip her slim hips, and my hands enclose them almost completely, reminding me how vulnerable she is, how small. When she resettles on my lap, she plucks at the chain hanging around my neck, twisting the two rings suspended, watching the tiny diamond grab and hold the light.

  “What are these?” she asks, eyes still fixed on the two rings.

  “My parents’ wedding rings.”

  “Really?” Her eyes, surprised, curious, find mine. “Why do you wear them?”

  “It’s all I have left of them. They both died.”

  “I’m so sorry, Grim.” She brushes the back of her hand along my chest and shoulder, the sympathy in her eyes also in her touch.

  I clear my throat of uncharacteristic emotion. “Him first, then her a few years later. My mother said she left the rings to me as a reminder that true love was possible. They were married thirty years and neither ever loved anyone else. She knew I never . . .”

  I trail off. Feeling so much with this woman so quickly, it seems wrong somehow to admit I’ve never had the kind of connection my parents experienced with anyone. If I hadn’t seen that vital bond between them, and later between Maxim and Lennix, I wouldn’t believe it was possible.

  “She knew I would need the reminder,” I finally continue, finding her eyes in the dim light.

  Lani holds the two rings in her palm, my father’s plain gold band and my mother’s ring with the almost microscopic stone, all my father could afford when they married. He always said he’d upgrade it one day, but my mother forbade it even when he could have bought something finer.

  “It’s beautiful,” Lani says, her voice a reverent whisper, and I know she doesn’t mean the rings themselves, but the sentiment behind them.

  “You’re beautiful, little queen,” I say before I even mean to. It’s just the truth, and she seems to draw that out of me.

  Pleasure darkens her eyes and curls her mouth at the edges. She leans forward to capture my lips, her small, pink tongue demanding entrance I would never deny. I open for her, allowing her a few seconds to command the kiss, then easily assuming control, cupping the elegant curve of her neck and sending my tongue so deep she gasps, pants over my lips. Desire sparks between us as surely as if I’d thrown kindling on a fire. She rubs her nipples against my chest, laughing when my breath catches. Lashes lifted, eyes burning, she reaches between us, running her thumb over the pierced head of my cock. I know there was something I wanted to discuss, but my dick in her hand dashes all thoughts from my head.

  Almost.

  I gently move her hand from the eager, hardening pipe between my legs.

  “We need to talk,” I say firmly.

  The look she angles up at me says seriously? But she just rolls her eyes and tosses the hair back from her face. I can’t blame the long strands for clinging to her smooth shoulders and plump breasts.

  “Talk about what?” she asks.

  “Your security tonight.” I frown, remembering her guard across the room paying her no attention. “It needs to be tighter.”

  “God, no.” She lifts her arms to scoop her hair up and off her shoulders, which thrusts her tits in my face. She knows what she’s doing, the vixen. She doesn’t want to talk about this and she knows I can’t miss this chance. I lean forward and take one fat nipple between my lips. Her hands clasp my head closer.

  “Suck harder,” she commands, and I do. Her little hips start grinding over me, and my dick hardens, but if she thinks I’ve gotten this far without discipline she’s wrong. I love ass like any other guy, but I’ve never been ruled by pussy. Though glancing down between us and seeing her sweet clit peeking from between those smooth lips, if ever a pussy could rule me, it would be this one.

  “If we don’t talk now,” I say, licking her nipples and squeezing her ass. “We don’t fuck later. How’s that sound?”

  She goes still, letting her fingers slip from my hair, settling back on my legs.

  “What do you want to know about my security?” Her tone changes from amorous to reserved, and she crosses her arms beneath her breasts.

  “Are you always left alone like that? In a strange country? With people you’ve never even met before? For that long?”

  “Sometimes,” she says, her face giving nothing away. “Why?”

  “Lani, your husband died, vacating the throne. Your son is too young to rule, which leaves you in a precarious position. Many men will see that as an opportunity to get to the crown.” My teeth slam together as I look at the gold-dusted beauty of her body and the midnight fall of hair nearly to her waist. “To get to you.”

  “Is this supposed to be new information, Grim?” She contorts her pretty lips into a bitter smile. “I’m well aware, but you’re wrong. There aren’t many men. Only one. He makes sure of that.”

  “Who?” I frown and lift her chin, forcing her to meet my eyes. “Who makes sure?”

  She slides her chin away, slides her gaze away and to the side. “Never mind. Let’s drink.”

  She takes a quick swig of rum and then offers it to me. When I shake my head no, she shrugs and takes another, the muscles of her throat working with each swallow. I could snap her neck before that liquor makes it to her belly, and look how easy it was for me to get to her. Sure, she had left instruc
tions to let me in, but what if my intentions were devious, instead of merely dirty? Vashti is not the same as a comprehensive security presence.

  I snatch the bottle from her and stretch to place it on the bedside table out of reach.

  “I said who.”

  Defiance creeps into her eyes, arrogance into the jut of her jaw. Even naked and splayed across my dick she’s a queen. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “But you want to.” I cup one side of her face. “I saw that tonight. Do you think you’re the first woman to proposition me?”

  “Proposition? I did not—”

  “Semantics. You wanted me. I wanted you. It’s not complicated, Your Majesty,” I drawl, dipping the words in sarcasm. “I usually ignore spoiled women who want a big dick.”

  Her eyes narrow. “How dare you—”

  “But I could see from the beginning you weren’t that.”

  She presses her lips together, but the tense line of her shoulders relaxes a little. “I saw a beautiful, fascinating, lonely woman looking for something real, and what we have may be fast and it may be temporary, but it is real.”

  She lowers her head, not denying what I said, not confirming.

  “You can trust me, Lani.”

  Her unladylike bark of laughter fills the room. “Trust you? I don’t even know you. I don’t even know what you do.”

  “Yes, you do. Security.”

  “Security?” She gives me a long, knowing look, brows lifted. “For Maxim Cade?”

  “And others, as needed.”

  “If I can trust you,” she says, challenge invading her dark eyes, “then tell me the truth. Do you kill people?”

  No one has ever asked me that question outright. Why would they? Those who know the answer have no need to ask. Those who suspect know better than to ask.

  If it were anyone else, I’d put on my clothes and leave without answering. I don’t only know where the bodies are buried—most of them, I put there myself. But this small woman with her arms folded over her heart and her lonely eyes begging for something real and true, her I can’t deny.

  “Yes.”

  Shock widens her eyes and parts her lips. “You do?”

  “If people need killing, yeah. I’ve done it.”

  My jaw ticks in the silence following my admission. I never give a flying fuck what anyone thinks, but I find myself tensed in case she leaps off the bed and orders me out. I’m braced for her contempt.

  “Did they deserve it?” she asks instead, a frown knitting her brows. “Were they bad people?”

  “Every one of them.”

  A parade of faces passes through my memory—each one a murderer, a molester, a villain who would have only caused more hurt had I pardoned him. I hesitate, not sure I should tell her the real secret—that even though mercy never occurred to me, I’m still haunted by each life I’ve taken. I did what had to be done because I could; I was trained to, but I still wonder every time if it was my place to decide.

  “So the end justifies the means?” she asks.

  I wind a lock of her dark hair around my hand, tempted to jerk her to me and eat the questions out of her mouth. Instead, I loosen the hair, watch it fall over her breast in the dim light. “No, the end is just the end. Justifying killing someone is a dangerous habit. It fucks with your moral compass. If you kill a man, you have to be prepared to live with the fact that it may have been wrong. You can’t tell yourself it’s right just to scrub your conscience, or just to face yourself. You did what needed to be done. Full stop. If you keep telling yourself it was right, one day you’ll wake up a monster. Better to carry the wrong of what you’ve done than lose sight of what wrong is altogether.”

  She studies me for long, tense seconds, biting her bottom lip. Then she shifts from my lap, rolls off the bed, and leaves the bedroom.

  Okay. Well, there’s my answer.

  I gambled, telling someone the truth for once, and I lost. I throw my legs over the side of the bed just as Noelani walks back in. Her silk robe is back in place, tied firmly at her waist. She comes to stand directly in front of me, between my knees, and pulls the downy comforter over my lap.

  “I, um . . . was having trouble concentrating with all this naked skin,” she says, rose rising under the dark gold of her cheekbones.

  “If you want me to talk . . .” She glances up at me. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 7

  Noelani

  Grim yanks me back into his lap, as if my being anywhere else right now offends him. His hands find my hair again, threading through the strands and tilting my head to his. His thumb traces the outline of the gem-studded flower in my hair, the action reverent even though I feel his cock doing very irreverent things underneath the blanket as he caresses the innocuous little flower that brought us to this moment.

  But flower and interested dick aside, the rest of Grim is all focus. His eyes search my face as he asks me again. “Who, Lani? Tell me who it is, and I’ll fix it.”

  It’s a habit to bristle when people ask about the ugly parts of my life. For years I had to pretend that Rua was perfect—attentive and patient and generous—and then after his death, any kind of honesty would have been tantamount to admitting weakness. That sounds like pride, I know, and I am a proud woman. I am descended from queens and I am a queen myself, after all. But in Ka’eo’s regency, there’s more than pride at stake. Any scent of weakness will bring the sharks, both from within Manaroa and from without. The last thing I need is our country’s politicians or oil companies aware of how fragile the palace peace is.

  So yes, I was defensive earlier when Grim asked, and I’m defensive now. But his steady, no-bullshit gaze reminds me that there’s no hiding from the truth.

  It reminds me that he cares. A lot.

  Even though we’ve only known each other for one night, even though we will never see each other again. He wants me safe enough that he’s willing to be growly about it, and that sends a small jolt of happiness right down to my toes.

  No one’s ever been growly about me before.

  I take a deep breath and confess. “Kimo. My brother-in-law. You met him at the reception tonight.”

  Grim’s anger, I find, is not like mine. It doesn’t gather like a sudden squall on the water, furious and crackling one second and then dissolve back into blue skies the next second. Grim’s anger is slow and hot, a kind of deep, geologic anger that rolls through his body like lava. I can feel it under his skin, turning his breathing into precise, controlled sucks of air, turning his muscles into sizzling stone.

  Grim’s not quick to anger, I think, but as his eyes glint in fury back at mine, I instinctively know that for the people he cares about? For the few people he holds close to his well-guarded heart? He will burn down the world.

  “The weasel,” Grim says flatly. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong with him.” His jaw tenses as he seems to mentally replay his interaction with Kimo. “He’s your Claudius.”

  I recognize the Hamlet reference immediately, unsurprised by the layers of this man. Grim’s an iceberg, showing only the smallest percentage of himself to the world. I love that when I explore beneath the surface, I find Shakespeare.

  “Maybe,” I admit wryly. “But I’m no Gertrude.”

  Despite how pissed he is, the corner of his mouth twitches the tiniest bit, tempted to smile. “No,” he murmurs, “you’re really not. Gertrude had no control over her fate or her son’s. But you’d never allow that to happen.”

  “And I’d never allow Kimo in particular to have control over me or Ka’eo, even though he’s proposed marriage a number of times.” It’s the most polite way to convey Kimo’s interest, but Grim doesn’t let me get away with polite.

  “Some proposals. Is that all, little queen? Are you telling me the whole truth right now?”

  I press my hands to Grim’s chest and toy with the two rings suspended on the gold chain. I think I’ll dream of his big, hard body for years, but right now, I’m soaking
up his strength and his courage in order to tell the truth.

  I’m learning it takes more courage to be vulnerable than it does to conceal all the reasons why vulnerability stings.

  “He’s made it clear that he wants more than the crown and complete control of my son,” I admit, trying to squeeze the unpleasant words out as quickly as I can. “He wants me. He comes to my room in the palace sometimes, especially at night. He tries to push his way into my hotel rooms when we travel. He’s touched me . . .” I break off, because I can barely talk about those brief moments without wanting to curl into myself. Such small, tiny moments—such small, tiny touches. A thumb brushing between my shoulder blades while we have to dance at state functions, or an intentional graze of my breast as he embraces me. Small, tiny assaults against my humanity. Small, tiny reminders that I’m running out of ways to politely refuse him.

  Grim’s thumb tightens a little against the flower in my hair. “He’s touched you?” His voice, though controlled, is nearing full growl.

  “Small things,” I sigh. “Still wrong, but he does it when other people are around, so that if I push back, it will make a scene. And I know what you’re thinking,” I add, to head off the storm brewing on Grim’s face. “You’re thinking that I should make a scene, but it’s not that easy. You’re a man and you’re a man with years of training and tactics, and you can’t know what it’s like to be a woman having to defend her dignity every single day—not just from Kimo, but from courtiers and politicians and the companies outside waiting to gobble up Manaroa. If I don’t keep the status quo, I could end up hurt. More importantly, Ka’eo could be hurt. That’s not an option, Grim. It’s never going to be an option.”

  Grim’s hands move down to my back and then suddenly I’m crushed against his chest, against the hard pounding of his heart, and the way he keeps flexing and squeezing his hands against me makes me feel like he’s trying to remind himself that right now I’m safe, that right now I’m in his arms and he can keep every terrible thing away from me.