No Prince Charming

by Angel Payne

  “Killian.” It was my turn to gasp for air. His warm mouth sucked at the sensitive flesh of my nape. And his hands roamed everywhere. He snaked one around to the front, pinching my breasts and nipples. With the other, he teased at my inner thighs and clit, rolling the bud of my desire until I cried out in need. “Killian, dear God!”

  “That sounds so perfect, sweet one.” He bit the bottom of my ear to grind in his point. “My name always sounds wonderful on your lips, but even more when you beg me with it.”

  “Th-then I’m—officially—begging. Please, Killian. I need you inside me!”

  “Mmmm. I could get really used to this.”

  “Killian! Dammit!” I was going insane. He’d started to pitch and roll his hips. It always felt like paradise when he did it from the front. Now, it felt like purgatory—a hot, sinful, decadent damnation that I longed to burn up in, cell by glorious cell.

  “Are you wet for me, Claire?”

  I managed to nod. I could barely think. And was embarrassingly ready to have him inside me.

  “Say it, baby. Say the words.”

  “Yes, I’m wet for you, all right? God…Killian…my pussy is always so ready when you’re around.”

  “That’s my beautiful, dirty girl. Now bend forward and let me see.”

  I mewled a little, beyond self-conscious with the action. He’d already felt my readiness; why did he have to observe it, too? But when he pushed me forward to my hands and knees and prodded my legs apart, exposing his gaze to all of my girl parts, I couldn’t deny the hot sluices of new arousal that coursed from me.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “My sweet Claire. Look how juicy and ready you are.”

  I felt one hand on my hip and another swiping my folds, gliding easily through my wetness. My head dropped. He knew how to make me feel like the trashiest slut and the most treasured lover in a single, amazing moment.

  “Show me more,” he ordered. “Spread wider for me.”

  I complied without thinking. I would do anything he wanted right now. Both his hands gripped my hips. He seated his cock again at my core, working his shaft into my wetness, pressing in with aching slowness. Inch by searing inch, he filled me deeper and deeper until his thighs butted against my ass and his hands slid to my waist.

  “Finally.” Though his voice was a whisper, his grip was a command. “Home. Right where I belong.”

  He slid out fully, then slammed back in. Again. Again. His thrusts rocked me forward, making me cry out from the agonizing pleasure.

  “Killian!”

  “I know. I know, baby.”

  “Please…don’t stop.”

  “Never.” He spoke it against the top of my spine, before pressing a kiss there. “I never want to stop with you, my fairy. Ever.”

  “Oh,” I whispered. His words wove as much magic into my soul as his sex pounded into my core. I became aware of every breath he took. Every groan he emitted. Every thrust he dealt. We were twined. Joined. One fire. One fever.

  “Hold on, baby. Hold on tight.”

  He started moving. Really moving. If that wasn’t enough, he braced a leg next to my waist, positioning his cock to drive deeper into me. I swore my eyes crossed. I could barely breathe as my orgasm mounted, fast and furious and blinding. I couldn’t find my voice to warn him to slow down. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Killian,” I finally panted. “I c-can’t s-stop it.”

  “That’s it,” he growled back. “Let it go. Come with me, baby.”

  We both stilled as our releases tore through our bodies. I could feel his cock twitching in my sensitive channel as he exploded, spilling his hot fluid. I cried out and gripped the rug while my pussy clenched him tighter, my eyes rolling back in my head while my orgasm continued in wave after wave of shimmering, stunning bliss.

  Holy hell, what this man could do to me.

  Finally, I closed my eyes and collapsed to the floor. Killian fell with me, still inside me. We lay together, joined intimately for long minutes, enjoying the numb gel of our bodies while rain pelted harder at the windows. After a while, Killian pulled the fur up around me, and we listened to the fire and the rain duel each other.

  The world, in all its drama and threats and strife, was nonexistent. We were untouchable.

  “I want to freeze this moment.” I knew it was silly, but it was what I felt. Pure. Uncomplicated. Or as he’d expressed, in another context that still oddly applied, home.

  “I know what you mean, baby girl.” He played with my hair, his naked form spooned behind me.

  I pulled in a deep breath. The time had come. There would be no moment more perfect than this for leaping into the hugest trust I could show this man.

  “Killian?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Ask me now.”

  It was the ideal time. I had to keep telling myself that. I’d just shared the deepest parts of my body with him. Why shouldn’t the darkest parts of my past follow?

  “Hrrrm?” Though confusion edged his voice, he continued stroking my hair and back in a languid flow. “Ask you what, fairy?”

  “The game. Truth or dare.” It felt easier to do it that way. If it was a game, the confession couldn’t really hurt me, right? “Ask me now.” I rolled over and gazed at him, conveying my deeper meaning. “Ask me, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  His return stare held the solemnity of understanding. “Truth or dare, fairy.”

  I breathed in deeply. “Truth.”

  He did the same. He knew. I sensed it just by studying his face. Somehow, he already knew that this information might change everything for us. But he asked, anyway. “What is Margaux holding over your head?”

  I settled in his arms and told him the entire story. I didn’t leave anything out, from the day she and I met in college until the day our parents became engaged. I cried—more than once. He wiped my tears every time, then held me closer. Not once did I feel his judgment or condemnation, only his listening ears and open mind. I was stunned, yet wondered why. I should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt sooner.

  When I finished with the last ugly detail, I finally had the nerve to look up into his eyes. For some weird reason, I still expected to see disgust and rejection hiding at the back of his gaze. Killian only wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer.

  “That’s what you were afraid of all this time?” A grin snuck across his lips. I fired back an exasperated glare.

  “Would you be serious? I’m a criminal! I’m scared to trust anyone.” I lowered my head, pushing it into his chest. “I was terrified to trust you.”

  “Because from the second we met, you felt the walls on your heart start to crumble.”

  I shot my gaze back up. “You could tell?”

  “Don’t worry. You covered it well. I only know it’s what I felt.”

  Despite how his words made my pulse race, I ran a soft hand over his sculpted chest. “So now you get it. The last time I trusted someone with my heart, he shattered it—and turned me into a drug-fencing accomplice. When keeping someone’s secrets has led a girl to a broken heart and a potential rap sheet, you can understand why she isn’t so eager to try again.”

  He laughed—laughed—in answer to that.

  “Being young, naïve, and in love doesn’t make you a felon.” He kissed the top of my head. “But it does add wicked appeal, which means I’m doomed.”

  I turned my caress into a little smack. “I was an accessory to a crime, Killian. And Margaux knows it. She won’t stop holding it over my head until the statute of limitations runs out on this thing, and maybe even after that. If anyone finds out…if my father finds out…” I hadn’t spoken the words in so long. Doing it now made my voice crack, unlocking the dam on a torrent of helpless tears, too.

  “Whoa, Killian murmured. “Fairy…come on. It’s not horrible.”

  “No,” I sobbed. “It’s worse. It was stupid and now it’s hopeless. Futile.”

  He huffed, clearly perplexed. “
I don’t understanding how this involves me. And us.”

  I sighed and gripped his neck. “Because Margaux wants you for herself, okay?”

  Killian echoed my sigh, though his was angrier. “Oh. That.”

  “Yeah. That. From day one, she issued a warning to the rest of the team, right in front of her mother, laying ‘dibs’ for herself.”

  His brows shot up. “‘Dibs’?”

  “She’s into you, Killian. If she finds out that we are …whatever we are…learning that I’ve knowingly ‘outdibbed’ her—”

  His growl was sharp and instant. “Neither of us planned this, dammit. It just…is.”

  “A woman like her doesn’t understand that. She’s been brought up to think of relationships like everything else in her life, as controllable commodities. She won’t be above taking retribution, and she’ll bring back all the dirt about Nick and the drugs to do so. And it doesn’t just affect me now. It affects my dad—and now you, too. Do you get it now?”

  “Claire. Look at me.” His words were firm, yet warm. He pulled me a closer. “I’m not afraid of bullies like Margaux Asher,” he asserted. “Do you understand that?” The certainty in his beautiful eyes and the steadiness in his grip, now beneath my chin, restarted the sting behind my eyes. My chin wobbled all over again. “I eat pushy bitches like her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. She’s not going to stand in my way. In our way.” He leaned and kissed the tears off my cheeks as he continued. “I will find a way to deal with her and keep you safe, as well. I will not let her come between us. Now do you understand?”

  I swallowed, struggling for the nod he demanded, but unable to deliver. “She’s worse than she looks, Killian. Under all that makeup and hair product is a woman who covers her issues with ruthlessness, power plays, and bartering other people’s confidences.”

  “Pfffttt. Trust me, baby, she’s an amateur in the secret-keeping world. A wobbling lamb.” His voice was lethally soft on the declaration. I watched an odd darkness move through his eyes, reflected by the storm clouds outside the windows. Unbelievably, the effect made me shiver, even in his embrace. The second I did, he blinked and moved away, offering to put more wood on the fire.

  I observed him with adoring eyes—and for the first time in three years, with hope in my heart. Maybe I’d met someone who really did have the power to stand up to Margaux, to deliver me from the dark cloud she held, and would hold, no matter where I went on the planet. The icing on that big, amazing cake? If that knight of salvation was also the man who’d captured my heart…the prince I’d fallen completely in love with. Killian Jamison Stone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Killian

  “…So in conclusion, Mr. Stone, we are—how do you say it in America—kicking ass.”

  I leaned forward at my home office desk, giving an obligatory chuckle in response to the Chinese man whose image filled one of the two other boxes on the video call. Cheng guffawed like he’d just performed the hottest stand-up comedy act in Vegas, while Kim, who occupied the other square, lifted a thin smile in an effort to laugh at the man’s “humor.”

  “I think we can all agree that Mr. Stone’s Beijing visit yielded optimal results,” she stated. “We’re glad to know your production orders are back up so soon, Mr. Cheng.”

  “Up, up, and away!” The man flashed a double thumbs-up.

  “Oh, isn’t that…cute,” Kim muttered. “Well, I’m certain you’ll agree now that that your company is fortunate to work with a man like Mr. Stone, who was willing to fly the extra miles to demonstrate Stone Global’s commitment to your success.”

  I could practically smell Kim’s relief through the screen when Cheng turned solemn again. “Well said, Ms. Xu. And I apologize, Mr. Stone, for the judgments we all made about your family’s character. Clearly, your success has come at a price, including those who improperly attack you. How do you say it in America? ‘Those in glass houses should not throw stones’?”

  I didn’t dare inform the guy that the expression originated from a source higher than all of us combined, though I gave another confident smile. “I appreciate the support, Mr. Cheng.”

  “You always have it. The character of your family has prevailed through this crisis. It is clear to many of us that your enemies should focus less on flinging their sludge at you and more on cleaning their own pigsties.”

  Kim’s face showed the perplexity I shred. As she covered the slip with another broad smile into her computer cam, I heard her cell vibrate across her desk like it had turned into a time bomb. Mine detonated the same way. We rapidly wrapped up the call with Cheng. As soon as he disconnected, Kim shot me a stare that didn’t need accompanying words. Her message was crystal clear.

  What the fuck?

  My nerves tightened and my gut clenched. A string of texts lit up my screen and, despite Cheng’s effusive prelude, I braced for the worst.

  What the hell have you done this time, Trey?

  My stare narrowed in shock as I punched the incoming texts to life, giving first priority to Claire’s note.

  Sometimes, the stars simply align. Let’s celebrate. I’m on my way over.

  While her concluding sentence spiked my heartbeat, I still frowned with confusion. Maybe Trey’s message would shed some light on the mystery.

  This means I can get the fuck out of Keystone, right?

  I promise I’ll be good this time, boss.

  “What the hell?” I mumbled it while bypassing messages from a few close business colleagues as well as some of the guys from the polo team, though noticed that all of them contained phrases like “Congratulations” and “Thank God.”

  With mounting curiosity, I skipped to Andrea Asher’s message, which wasn’t a message at all. She cut to the chase with a forwarded message straight off CNN’s “Breaking News” feed. The time stamp was from thirty minutes ago.

  Just in: The Beverly Hills Police Department now confirms that their raid of a house party at the mansion of Rayze McCloud, lead singer for the heavy metal band Bro-Hoof, led to the discovery of the singer in his bed with four females, among them Amanda Berne, daughter of Senator Edward Berne, and Emily Wooten, daughter of Senator Gerard Wooten. The two girls, aged seventeen and eighteen respectively, stated they’d been invited to the party as VIPs after McCloud made substantial campaign contributions to both Berne and Wooten, and were “only watching” the activities in the bedroom. Claims of a hidden camera in the room, apparently on at the time of the party, may prove otherwise. Ms. Berne and Ms. Wooten were also allegedly involved in an incident with billionaire hunk Trey Stone in February, though the evidence in that case was declared inadmissible due to Ms. Wooten’s age at the time.

  I exhaled heavily while setting my phone down. No less than a thousand thoughts bombarded my mind. Liberation. Relief. Happiness.

  Agony. Heaviness. Emptiness.

  “It’s over.”

  Kim dotted her declaration with a laugh. I peered up, forgetting she was still connected on the video call. Feigning joy with her would be useless, so I didn’t even try, even as she fist-bumped the air.

  “Nice,” I muttered. “Maybe you should audition for Bro-Hoof. I hear they may need a new lead singer.”

  She let her arm fall. “Your excitement about this is infectious, darling. Let me see if I’ve got any sepulcher tunes and razors for my wrists.”

  I didn’t respond. Her words, uttered with such joy, throbbed through my head like—well—sepulcher bells.

  It’s over.

  The world had finally found a hotter mess than the Stones to ogle. I’d have staked my left nut that half the press were already booked on flights to California. And within a few days, after post-program reports were filed, Andrea and her team would be, too.

  Including Claire.

  A sense of loss crashed over me like a sudden storm off the lake. I angrily fought the fucker. Fought myself.

  Why was I suddenly so miserable? I’d endured shit like this before. Had been even
only six years old when it happened the first time. Unlike the moment Da told me Mam had left, I’d expected this moment. Prepared for its inevitability.

  Hadn’t I?

  The answer struck like a second storm front—filled with lashing ice.

  I thought there would be more time.

  Dammit, we need more time!

  “Don’t you have a boy toy waiting with a ball gag in his mouth and your name on his ass?” I finally snapped at Kim. She prefaced her answer with flared eyes and grinning lips.

  “Well, listen to whose dick has been bitten by the grouchy bug.”

  “I’m not grouchy.” I’m screwed. Unraveled.

  She leaned in, studying me through our joint camera lenses. “You’re something. Two pieces of spectacular news in the last fifteen minutes and you look like your balls are in a vise.”

  “I don’t look like—”

  “Yes. You do.” She’d jammed on her Mistress K voice. Normally I wouldn’t give a shit but I didn’t care enough to spar with her. “Okay,” she went on, “so not the grouchy bug. It was the redheaded bug, wasn’t it?”

  Some days, I adored the woman for picking me apart so well. Other times, like now, I despised her. “Excuse me?”

  “Nope. There’s no way you’re excused.” She straightened before letting out a steady breath. “I’m right, aren’t I? The end of Treygate means the end of Asher and her team—and the woman you’ve fallen for. Hard.”

  I dipped my head, pinched my nose, and let out a growl. “I don’t have time for this.”

  Kim huffed. “Maybe you need to make time, Jamie. For fuck’s sake, you’re twenty-eight years old. You took one month off after graduating MIT, then started at SGC. To the best of my knowledge, the only time you’ve taken for yourself was when you had that violent flu two years ago, after you insisted on that three-day turnaround to see the clients in Mumbai. Even then, I almost had to handcuff you to the hospital bed.”

  I glared. “What’s your point?”

  Kim leaned closer to her camera. “That you deserve this, Jamie. A little happiness in your world. If nothing else, think of your mom. Trey’s not going to change his playboy stripes, and Lance won’t be giving her the fairy tale she wants, even if he lived closer than Sedona.”