by Vivian Wood
I nodded, my eyes guiltily connecting with Safiya’s. She was staring at me across the room, her expression a mix of sadness and disappointment. I felt her eyes burning into my skin, and I couldn’t hold the weight of her gaze.
Horrible thoughts consumed me, reminding me of just how much I’d fucked up. I was everything Bruno had called me. A toy. A whore. I’d wanted him to kiss me. And I begged him to do it.
“Amber,” Zara said, motioning to the entrance to the ballroom. “I think he’s looking for you.”
I turned around, nearly bumping into Olivier who’d crossed the distance between us in mere seconds.
“Amber,” he said roughly. “I haven’t seen you all day. Where were you?”
“Around,” I managed. I felt guilty now for avoiding him. I’d thought being felt up by Bruno was his idea, part of his plan to make me the perfect wife. Now I knew it was the Queen and Bruno working together to widen the gap between the Prince and myself. And it’s fucking working.
“Come with me,” he said, gripping my arm. It was too hard for comfort and I yelped at his touch. He didn’t even flinch. “We’re leaving, Amber. Now.”
He pulled me away, so hard I stumbled in my heels. In a flash, everyone’s eyes were on us, and I picked myself up, flushing to the roots of my hair. Before I was even up yet, another strong figure appeared next to me, pulling me to my feet.
“Let go of her,” Bruno hissed. “You’re hurting her.”
“You’re intruding,” Olivier snarled. “Amber, come on.”
“Don’t,” Bruno muttered in my ear. “He’s drunk.”
I pulled free of both, wrenching my arms aside and blushing at the thought of the whole room watching. It was a scene I didn’t want. I could already imagine the Queen’s quips about this turn of events.
“Let me breathe,” I demanded when they both crowded me again. “I need to breathe. Just let me go.”
“Amber,” Olivier growled, and his half-brother repeated the same word, albeit in a slightly less threatening tone.
“Let go of her!” Safiya appeared in front of me like an unlikely savior. She took my hand and I only realized then I was shaking. She led me away, turning around to spit out, “You should both be ashamed of yourselves.”
She gave me a compassionate look and a huge weight fell off my shoulders.
Despite everything else hanging in the air, I knew I’d made one true friend in the competition.
Chapter Fourteen
Amber
The flutter in my stomach wouldn’t go away, not even in the middle of the night.
I tossed and turned until I finally decided to get up and take a midnight stroll to take my mind off everything. It was three a.m. according to the alarm clock on my nightstand, and I knew I wouldn’t be disturbed.
The castle was a different place at night. The hallways which seemed intriguing and mysterious in daylight were full of shadows and secrets at the late hour.
In my knee-length baby blue nightdress, I would have been cold had I not grabbed the white waffle-knit robe that was waiting in my room when I arrived the first day. It even had my initials embroidered on the front. Now, I wrapped it around my body, grateful for the small amount of warmth it provided.
My feet carried me over to the library from the other day, my heart pounding as I made my way over. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to visit that place again… Why I was desperate to be back at the scene of the crime.
I came to a stop in front of the large, intricately decorated doors, admiring the stunning Alice in Wonderland artwork yet again. My fingers brushed the wood, and the moonlight glinted off its surface.
“What are you doing here, chérie?”
I gasped when I felt his fingers ghost over the top of my neck, brushing my hair off my shoulder. His mouth was on my neck next, his teeth biting down into my tender skin. My knees turned to jelly. I felt the secret I was hiding rearing its ugly head, the first sign of a wedge between us. The first lie.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “Just a lot of excitement these past few days. I’m sorry I’ve been acting a bit…”
“Cold?” he finished for me. His knuckles met the small of my back and I gasped when he pushed them up my spine. “You’ve been a little bitch, haven’t you, Amber? Disrespecting me.”
“N-No.” I was stuttering, my mouth watering when I felt him reach in front of me, undoing my robe.
“I don’t like it when you’re a bad girl,” Olivier grunted in the shell of my ear. He pushed the robe off me, and it pooled at my feet. “Spread your legs.”
“I c-cant-”
“Now.”
My legs shuffled open, allowing him to press his hand over me, cupping my pussy and making me drip onto his palm in a matter of seconds.
“Holy shit, chérie,” he growled. “I knew you’d want it, but I didn’t know even your pretty pussy would beg for it. Look at you drip all over my fingers. Gonna clean them up, baby?”
“Yes,” I whispered, and his free hand went to my throat, gently clasping it beneath his fingers.
I let out a choked mewl, and he grinned at me. “What pretty sounds you make, chérie.”
He lifted his fingers from my cunt, bringing them to my lips. I licked, slowly at first and with more and more need as he fed me my own juices.
“Nothing you do here goes unnoticed,” he growled in my ear. “Remember that, baby.”
Shivers went down my spine. Does he know?
No, surely he couldn’t. Safiya had been so nice to me after what happened in the ballroom. She wouldn’t have gone and told him.
All worries went out the moment he grabbed me by the hair, pulling me down the hallway behind him. I let out a loud scream at the feeling.
“Shut the fuck up,” he growled. “Or I’ll make you crawl behind me.”
My mouth closed, and I followed as he tugged on my hair. I’d braided it, and Olivier wrapped the hair around his fist, pulling on it hard enough to make me cry out every time.
It was a side of him I hadn’t seen. My heart pounded with fear, my thoughts going to mine and Bruno’s conversation about Olivier. That he was keeping a secret. What could it be?
“Here we are,” he finally said after we stopped in front of a door.
I saw a keypad in front, and Olivier blocked my view to put in the number. The doors opened with a whoosh, and he pulled me into the room. The doors closed behind us, a mechanical lock clicking into place. My heart and mind were a mess. I was so cared I could barely breathe.
Olivier let go of my hair and I stumbled backward. He was on me on seconds, and when he grabbed me, I felt shame for the dripping mess between my legs. I was every bad word he’d used to call me. Why had I fooled myself into thinking I’d escaped my past?
I was still just a toy.
A whore for Olivier to do with as he wanted. Even after we married – if we married – I would be his puppet. His pretty doll that didn’t have a mind of her own and followed her Master blindly.
And the worst part was, I wanted it.
“Do you know where I brought you?” he whispered in my ear, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. I shook my head no, and he smiled against my skin. His lips were hot. “We’re in the royal treasury, Amber. I wanted to show you a few things.”
He turned me around like a real gentleman, every trace of the monster from before gone with a flash. It was disturbing, how fast he changed. One person one second, and someone else the next.
“Come here,” he said with a warm smile, helping me to join him in front of a glass case. “This is where we keep some of the crowns.”
I looked down, my eyes landing on a golden tiara.
“That’s your mother’s crown, isn’t it?” I asked, touching the glass pane.
“Yes,” he replied with a cool smile.
He opened the pane with the touch of a fingertip, and I gasped when he took the tiara out. It shone like nothing I’d ever seen before, the gold encrusted with tiny
diamonds sparkling like stars.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him as he came up to me. “Olivier, what are you doing?”
“I want you to wear it,” he grinned at me. “Just for me.”
“But…” I started, nervously biting my lip. “I’m not the Queen.”
“Not yet,” he growled, placing the tiara on top of my hair. He led me to an ornate gilded mirror in the corner of the room and made me look at myself.
My skin was flushed, not just my cheeks but the top of my tits and my arms, too. I looked at the floor to avoid the sight of myself.
“Don’t look away,” Olivier whispered in my ear. His finger pressed under my chin and gently lifted my head back up, so I was once again faced with my reflection. “Look at your pretty face. Look at your sexy body. See why I’m so crazy about you, Amber?”
I stared at him instead. He was so handsome. Every feature so perfect, like it was carved out of marble. He was ridiculously good looking. I’d never feel good enough, but for now, I had to hide it.
“Don’t you want to fuck me?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Do you want me to fuck you?” he asked, nuzzling my neck, his eyes on mine in the mirror.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He touched my waist, sending shivers down my spine.
“Listen to me, and listen good, chérie,” he growled in my ear. “I don’t like this game much more than you do. I want to be done with this goddamn competition, so I can finally claim you and start fucking my babies into your belly. I want to be done so I can put you on my lap on the throne and watch my mother lose it because she hates you so much.”
“But I-”
“No,” he interrupted, pulling my nightdress over my bare ass and eliciting a gasp from me. “You shut up while the Prince is speaking. The thing is, we must see this thing through, Amber. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I managed. “I understand.”
“At the end, you’ll be mine,” he promised. “But until then we have to meet in secret, because so help me God, I’m not going to deprive myself of this sweet, tight ass.”
He slapped my behind and I jumped at the feeling.
“Lean forward, look at me in the mirror,” he ordered.
I put my hands on the mirror, looking at him above me. His fingers were on my ass and his eyes were on mine. He moved them in circles, moving closer and closer to the hole he hadn’t had yet.
I cried out when his finger met resistance and he grinned at me in the mirror.
“Right there, baby? You want my fingers in there?”
“I do,” I whispered, feeling defeated and dirtier than ever. “Please, Olivier. How many can I have?”
“One,” he replied. I felt his spit gliding down my asshole next, and then his thumb touched the puckered hole again. “Open for me, baby. Let me feel that ass clenching down on me.”
My moans were never-ending. He forced his way inside and I couldn’t stop, my knees trembling, his free arm holding me in place.
“Shh,” he whispered to calm me down. “It’s okay, chérie. I’m where I’m supposed to be. You know how I know that?”
I shook my head helplessly when his finger started rubbing me from the inside. I was going to come. I closed my eyes tightly to stop the feeling of sparks flying from his touch.
“I know it because your face says it all,” he told me. “And not just your face, your body. You’re such a pretty, smart girl, aren’t you, Amber? Maybe not from the best background… But you did your best to adjust, didn’t you? Tried so hard, baby.”
I glared at him in the mirror and he chuckled.
“Don’t get offended, chérie,” he murmured. “You’re an intelligent woman, Amber. But the moment a man touches you… the moment his lips brush yours, the second his cock teases this pretty cunt, you stop being that person.”
The truth of his words washed over me like dread, and it made me him laugh cruelly.
“I know you can’t help yourself,” he said. “I know deep down this is all you are. A broken little girl who lives to be wanted. To be used like a toy. To be treated like a whore. You won’t be happy with someone who doesn’t treat you like that, will you?”
As if in a trance, I shook my head, my eyes on his in the mirror while his thumb moved in and out of my ass.
“I know you won’t be,” he replied. “I know you need a rough, fucked-up guy like me, Amber. That’s why I found you. That’s why I’m taking you. And that’s why I’m going to keep you forever.”
He slipped a second finger inside me and I squirmed in his grip. He grabbed me, pressing his body tightly against mine. I could feel his engorged cock digging into my back and I got embarrassingly wet for it.
“And don’t pretend like that doesn’t excite you,” he finished sweetly. “Because your pussy is already fucking leaking at the thought of being my little toy, isn’t it? That’s what you need, Amber. To be treated like property. Like my best jewel. Like my prettiest art piece. I’ll give you that, chérie. I’ll treat you like a work of fucking art.”
“Please,” I responded. “I need to feel your cock, let me feel you inside me.”
He chuckled, fucking me faster and faster.
“You can barely take two fingers, baby. I won’t fit in your ass,” he said.
“Just force it,” I begged when he made me look at him in the mirror again. “Just force it in. I want it to hurt. I want you to hurt me.”
“No, you don’t,” he growled.
“I do,” I cried out, and he buried his fingers in my ass up to the last knuckle. “Please, Olivier! Hurt me!”
“I don’t want to,” he said, and even in my state I could hear the surprise in his voice. “I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to ruin you. I don’t want to break my toy before I’ve even seen all it can do.”
My knees buckled when his fingers touched a spot inside me, the feeling of him pushing into my ass so filthy it made me flush even more.
“Come for me,” Olivier muttered, his other hand going to my pussy and finding my clit. “Come for me and I’ll let you come like this next…”
He rubbed my clit in circles, making me lose my mind. Every time he brought me to the edge he’d stop. He touched me there less and less until he was making me scream just from having his fingers in my ass.
“Unless you don’t want to?” he asked sweetly. “You want to just come from having your ass fucked?”
“Yeah,” I replied deliriously. “Fuck it harder, Olivier. Hurt it.”
Those words again. This time, they made him stop, pull out of me and press me against the cold mirror with such force I thought the glass might shatter. My heart was pounding as we looked into one another’s eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you, chérie,” he told me. “Why do you want to hurt?”
“I… I…” I started, tears welling in my eyes. “I thought that’s what you wanted. I thought that’s what it took.”
“Took?” he repeated, his lips on my neck. “It takes this, Amber… This body that drives me insane… Those eyes hiding your secrets from me… Your lips whispering in my ear, so sweetly begging for more. It takes your dripping pussy, your little asshole, your pretty mouth that fights back and makes me want to put you over my knee. It takes me wanting to know every one of your mysteries, every one of your daydreams and nightmares. That’s what I want, Amber. I want a happily ever after with you.”
“You do?” I whispered when he nipped at my throat. “You want that? Despite the… the Queen?”
“You’re the first woman who’s made me feel this way,” he muttered in my ear. “The first one I would do abso-fucking-lutely anything for. I’m a selfish man, Amber. And when I want something, I’m going to have it one way or another. I don’t give a shit what that woman says.”
Why is he calling her that woman? I thought. She was his mother, after all. But it didn’t matter. He want
ed me just as much as I wanted him.
“I kissed Bruno.”
The words left my lips before I could stop them. He raised his head, staring down at me with calmness I hadn’t expected.
“I know,” he growled.
I stared up at him. So Safiya had told him.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“No,” he replied. “You’re mine. He’s not getting you. Over my dead body.”
It didn’t seem like I had much choice in the matter, and for some reason, the thought of them both being so possessive turned me on.
“He’s a good kisser,” I whispered, and Olivier glared at me.
“What did you say?” he ground out.
“I think he would have tried more if we hadn’t been interrupted,” I added. “I think he would try to touch me again, like that time in the library.”
“He touched you?” Olivier growled. “During the challenge?”
I nodded, muttering, “I liked it.”
“Don’t you dare fucking say that,” he snarled at me, pushing me against the mirror. “Listen to me. You’re my property.”
“I’m no one’s property,” I ground out. “I’m a person!”
“No,” he spat out. “You’re a toy, Amber. Just accept it.”
“You don’t get to treat me this way,” I cried out. “I’m not for sale?”
He laughed at that.
“You should talk to your friend Rose,” he smirked at me. “Ask her about the pretty jewels she got when I paid her husband for your tight little ass.”
“They bought me clothes with the money you paid at the auction,” I snapped, blushing.
“That’s not the only money they got for you,” Olivier informed me. “I paid them for a month of your company. If I decide to keep you, I will have to pay an even bigger sum to a certain Rueben Thorn. Maybe it rings a bell?”
My heart was pounding as he laughed out loud.
“And now my baby has gone quiet,” he tutted, his fingers slipping my nightdress off my shoulders, over my hips and down to the ground. I shivered before him, completely naked. “You don’t want to know how much?”