by Geneva Lee
I need away from this—away from these fake people playing their given roles. I need someone real—and there she is again, plucking at my subconscious. Clara is real. I’d felt her. I’d held her. I want to tell myself no. I want to stay away, if only because I have no desire to drag her into the battle between my father and me. Because if he finds out, I’ve seen her, he won’t let it rest.
But I belong to no man. No country. Not yet. I can only answer to myself, and somewhere in London, I’ve left Clara Bishop to hide out in her flat while I sipped champagne at a garden party.
I can think of a number of ways to make it up to her, and she’s going to enjoy every minute.
“Fuck.” It’s like I have no choice. Pulling out my mobile, I call Norris and issue one command. “Find her.”
“Are you certain?” He doesn’t ask me who I’m referring to because he doesn’t have to. He’s seen the papers. He expected this call.
“Yes,” I say for once being completely honest. “Find her. I need to see her.”
I’ve never been more certain of anything.
Chapter Three
The club’s music filters into the private room, and I know she’s finally here. When had I sent Norris to collect her? An hour ago? A lifetime ago? All I know is that it feels as though an eternity has passed, and now she’s arrived. I turn from the orgiastic dancing below to find Clara standing behind me. A smile creeps over my face as I take in her jeans and t-shirt. I’ve caught her off guard. This isn’t a girl who bothers with bars and clubs. She was home, but doing what? I want to ask her. I want to know everything about her. All I know now is that she’s just as pretty like this as she was in that tight, black dress. She didn’t change to impress me, and for some reason, warmth spreads through my chest at the thought. Before I can process what that means, her eyes narrow, and her chin lifts. She’s mistaken my grin, assuming that I’m mocking her appearance.
What she doesn’t know is that it only makes me want her more.
She saunters toward me like a queen and stumbles. My arms shoot out to catch her, but she corrects herself before I do.
“I’m fine,” she says, stepping to the side like it will be that easy to get rid of me.“Should I curtsy or something?”
“Please don’t.” I can’t help grinning. She looks so defiant that my palm itches as I imagine putting her over my knee. I almost hope I can’t tame her. Almost.
“I wouldn’t want to offend you, Your Highness,” she tacks on the title like a jab, but it doesn’t strike.
I want this moment to last. It’s foreplay. I know she feels it as well: this tension building between us. There’s only one outlet for it. As eager as I am to claim her, I want to enjoy this. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes.” But she frowns as though surprised by her own answer.
“What is your poison, Miss Bishop?” I ask her slowly. I want to tell her she’s mine. That the only thing I want to taste in this room is her. I want her on my lips. On my tongue. No poison is sweeter than a beautiful woman.
“I just graduated university, so I’m not picky,” she says, her voice slightly strained.
“Used to the old plonk then?” I ask, flashing her a smile. “Sadly, Brimstone tends toward—”
“Real booze?” she says with a snort of laughter.
“Exactly.”
“Then I’ll take what you give me.”
I suck in a breath, wanting that to be true. I’ve imagined exactly what I would give her for days. I’ve pictured her on her knees with those wide eyes staring up at me, her mouth full of my cock. I’ve wondered what shade of red that pretty skin will turn under my palm. I have so much to give her, but I’ll start with a drink.
Clara peers down at the club, riveted to the scene. Brimstone has that effect on people. The club, decorated to look like the pit of hell, is hot enough to be the real thing. The owner is an old friend if a man like him can be called that. He doesn’t seem to mind me making use of the upper room. Another night I might have found a girl downstairs and invited her up. No one here holds a candle to Clara.
“Can they see us?” she asks as I hand her a Scotch.
I shake my head. “It’s like those mirrors on police procedurals. To them, it reflects back the club.”
She takes a long sip, and my attention focuses on her lips. I watch her throat glide as she swallows. Her long neck is elegant, and she carries herself with artless ease. Clara Bishop is the definition of a good girl. I can already see that. It makes me want to play with her. I want to free her from herself and see what she’s like when she’d come undone.
“You must come here often,” she says.
“I’ve been told to go to hell a number of times,” I say tightly. “I decided to take the advice.”
“Ahhh,” she says, a nervous giggle slipping from her. “Brimstone.”
“My natural habitat.”
“I doubt that.” Her words soothe me, and her hands begin to reach as though she wants to touch me. The desire in the movement is different from the energy crackling between us. I don’t have a name for it. It’s nothing I’ve felt before, but it radiates off her like sunlight on a warm day.
“I owe you an apology,” I say, moving next to her and brushing my shoulder against hers. Her response is what I hope. Her lips part, her nipples harden under her shirt until they poke against the thin cotton shirt. She’s as attuned to my body as I am to hers.
“No harm done,” she says, adding, “Your Highness.”
I can’t help laughing at her stubborn adherence to decorum. We’re past the point of her acting like I’m above her. Although I’m increasingly interested in having her under me. “Alexander, please. Norris informed me that no less than two dozen members of the press are camped in front of your flat.”
“Alexander,” she says, my name tripping over her tongue like it’s new vocabulary. “Once they see how boring my life is, they’ll go away.”
“They’ll make your life hell until then.” I need to remember that I’m no good for her. This interest I feel shouldn’t go farther than this room, not while we have the media’s attention. I know all too well how relentless they could be when pursuing a story. I won’t do that to her.
“Is that why you went to Iraq?” Her eyes flash like the question escaped without her permission.
I want to tell her it was Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to tell her why I went. I want to share the blood and pain and hatred I’d felt. But I don’t do any of those things.
“Back to our game? I suppose I advised you to save a few.” There’s a sparkle in her eyes. I don’t understand, but I like it. I like it too much.
“Yes,” I answer her. It’s simpler than the truth. “Yes, it was.”
“I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. It’s only…”
“Only?” I press.
“I wish you hadn’t gone,” she murmurs, and a chain that weighs my heart loosens at her words.
I can’t look at her. I don’t know what to say. This woman who doesn’t know me—this woman I don’t know—makes me wish I’d never left, too. There’s a lost life in her words. One I might have had if I hadn’t been sent away. I’d have gone off to university. Oxford, perhaps? I’d meet her in a class. I’d take her to a proper bed and fuck her senseless, and then maybe breakfast. Maybe more.
It’s the life I didn’t have. The life I will never have.
“I can handle it. It’s very kind of you to be concerned,” she says when I don’t speak. Turning, she puts her glass down like she’s decided to go.
“Clara,” I say her name automatically before she can walk from this room and out of my life.
“Yes.” She swallows, and there’s that sparkle in her eyes from before. It glints like a beacon to me.
“As much as it pains me to say this—and believe me, it pains me—for once, those leeches did me a favor. I tried to find you at the party, but no one knew who you were.” I need her to know that she’s different,
even if I don’t understand why or how. “I’ve thought about you a lot.”
She stares at me, her breath catching, and it’s all I can do not to kiss her.
“Since last weekend?” She’s surprised, but I don’t understand why. Can’t she feel how much I want her? Hadn’t she felt the electricity in that kiss? It had lingered long after the party ended like a beacon calling me back to her.
“Is that so hard to believe?” I move closer until I feel the heat of her skin. She smells like rose petals and promises I won’t keep.
I circle her trying to decide how far I can take this—how long I can get away with making her mine. Maybe we can see each other again if we’re careful. Maybe this relationship isn’t doomed to me talking her out of her knickers here and fucking her against the wall. I smile as I imagine how she’ll moan. Pausing behind her, I lean in so that my lips brush her earlobe. “If you knew what was good for you, you would run.”
“Am I in danger?” I hear the effort it takes her to ask the question.
“People around me tend to get hurt,” I whisper. I can see the freckles that dust her shoulders and start up the back of her neck.
“Will you hurt me?”
I get the strangest feeling she wants me to say yes. The darker fantasies I’ve allowed myself to imagine flash like a slideshow. Riding crops and ropes. Metal and creamy skin. Slender wrists bound.
“You’ve been reading the tabloids,” I force myself to say, knowing that whatever this attraction is between us, I’m alone in those dark desires. “Don’t believe everything you read, Clara. I have never done anything to a woman that she hasn’t asked for…begged for.”
She spins around, words on her lip, but they fall away. I’ve dazzled her, but what she doesn’t know is that she has the same effect on me. All I can think of is her lips. I want to brush my hand down her cheek. I want to slip my hand around her waist.
She takes a deep breath. “Do you like that? Do you like women to beg?”
I laugh to disguise the growl threatening to rumble from me as she says beg. Fuck, I want her to beg. “I enjoy making women ask for more. I enjoy making them whimper and cry out and call my name, and I’d very much enjoy making you beg.”
“I’m not really the begging type,” she says weakly.
“You could be,” I say. “I can see it in your eyes: the desire to be commanded and taken. You’ll enjoy it when I fuck you.”
“Yes, please.” Her voice is so quiet I wonder if I’ve imagined it.
I trace her collar bone, wishing it was my mouth on her. I won’t be satisfied until I’ve tasted every inch of her skin. My arm circles her, drawing her against me until she can feel the promise of my cock against her soft belly. I know she’ll love it when I fuck her. I know she won’t be able to get enough.
But I won’t be able to either. “You should go.”
She sways as I let her go. “I probably should.”
Clara studies me for a moment like I’m a puzzle she can’t piece together. I want to take her hands and guide them to all my parts. I want her to put me back together. I want to be the man she hopes to see now.
But that’s impossible. “You asked if I would hurt you, Clara. I can’t lie and say that I won’t. I want nothing more than to strip you bare and pin you to that wall. Hold you there until you beg for my cock, and when I finally give it to you, you’ll beg me never to stop.”
Despite my intentions, I step toward her. I’m trying to give her a choice, but even I don’t know what it is. I’m warning her away. I’m asking her to stay. I tell myself that I don’t know what I want, but it’s a lie.
I don’t want Clara to walk out that door.
I run a hand through my hair, shaking the thought from my head. It’s unfair to do this to her—to drag her into my life when I can’t be what she needs. “But if I do that, it will only ruin you.”
“This isn’t an old novel,” she retorts, but I hear the way her words break like I’m breaking her. “I’m not a hapless virgin.”
I don’t think. I need her to see that I want her, but that I’m giving her up because… I grab her and pull her against me. “I’ve thought about your lips all day. I’ve pictured you on your knees with that pretty little mouth wrapped around my cock, sucking me off. If I had you now, I would want more. Once wouldn’t be enough. But enough is something a man like me can never have.”
“Because I’m not royalty?” she asks, her lashes fluttering like I’ve overwhelmed her with my mood swings. The feeling is mutual.
“I think they’d be more pissed that you’re American, but really no one cares about that,” I say darkly. I try to smile, but it can’t ease the situation I’ve created. How had I expected this to end? “Because nothing beautiful can survive around me. Do you understand that? They’ll destroy you, and if they don’t, eventually I will.”
“Maybe I can take care of myself.” She twists in my grip, but I hold her. I’m not ready to let her go. Not yet.
“Maybe you can,” I admit. “But don’t tempt me into risking it. I can’t be held responsible.”
I drop my hold on her, hoping she’ll leave before I change my mind. Instead, her hand shoots out, and she grabs my shirt. The growl I’ve been holding back escapes as our lips meet, and I feel Clara shiver. Her body feels so fucking amazing in my arms. I want to explore it, and I slip a tongue into her mouth in invitation. When she accepts, I slide my hands down and lift her off her feet. I thrust my tongue into her mouth, giving her a preview of what’s to come. She has no idea all the places I plan to explore. She’s strong, but there’s a natural submissiveness to her. I feel it in how her legs wrap around my waist and how her body molds to mine like she can fit herself into my life. I want it to be true. If only so I could take her now. Clara’s hips rock against me, and I know she wants release. Her movements are urgent, as raw and vulnerable as she is. Even as I continue to taste her mouth, I know the truth.
She may not be a virgin, but she might as well be. She’s never been fucked by a man like me. She has no idea what to expect, and as much as I want to show her exactly how good it feels to be owned, she might not be ready. My hand reaches for her ponytail, and I pull until her mouth breaks free of mine.
“This is your last chance,” I warn. I can feel her slipping under my control. She’s going to be mine. And then pain flickers through her eyes.
“No,” she whispers.
I don’t want to let her go. I want to kiss her until her no becomes a yes. I’d seen it there. What changed? Lowering her to her feet, I spot the tremble of her legs, but I don’t trust myself to steady her.
“You’re a smart girl.” I pause, wanting to ask her why. Instead, I kiss her forehead. One final taste. “Norris will see you home safely, and I’ll have my people work on getting rid of those reporters.”
“Thank you.” The regret I feel coats her words.
“Goodbye, Clara Bishop.” I stop myself from telling her I don’t want her to go.
She backs away from me as though she can’t trust me not to follow her. When she reaches the door, there’s nothing left to say except one thing. “Goodbye.”
The glass panel closes behind her, and I force myself to stay here. In this room. In this spot. It’s more difficult than I’d imagined. Maybe that’s because this is the second time we’ve walked away from each other. Maybe because this time she said no. I respect that. At least, I want to. I’ve almost fooled myself into thinking I could let her go. I’m out the door and on my way down the stairs before I realize I can’t.
I can’t explain it—to myself or her. But I’ll make her understand.
Clara Bishop belongs to me.
Chapter Four
Pushing my way through the crowd, I make my way through Brimstone. But I’m caught in an endless, circular hell, glimpsing Clara and Norris but never quite reaching them. Around me, mobiles come out, but I don’t give a fuck if I’ve been recognized. I can only think of getting to her before she leaves again.
<
br /> And then I make a decision.
If I do, I won’t let her go again. If I don’t, it’s a sign. I’m playing a stupid game with myself, but I’m a man who’s willing to gamble. I’ve never believed in destiny, but since I met Clara, I’m starting to have a little faith.
Spotting Norris’s salt and pepper hair in the crush of club-goers isn’t difficult, given that he’s got twenty years on everyone else. Forcing my way to him, I discover he’s alone.
“Where is she?” I demand, the noise carrying away my words. He gets the point and gestures toward the main entrance. I can’t hear him, but I know what he’s saying.
She ran.
Smart girl. Stupid girl. I don’t know how to feel. She listened to my warning and took action. I just wish she hadn’t run outside where a swarm of paparazzi has been camped out all night.
I don’t think. I follow. There’s no time for apologies when I push people to the side or shove between couples. Norris catches up and helps to clear the path.
When we reach the door, the bouncer’s attention is on the scene unfolding on the street. I hear the reporters before I see them.
“Miss Bishop! Smile, love!”
“Miss Bishop, how long have you been involved with the Prince?”
“Miss Bishop, is it true that the King has condemned your relationship?”
“Were you secretly married in Oxford?”
I open my mouth to redirect their attention to me—to give Clara a chance to run. I didn’t reach her first—they did—and it’s all the reminder I need that I won’t drag her into this. I won’t let her endure the mud-slinging and invasions of privacy. Clara wasn’t cursed with this life; I was. It’s not her burden to bear. But before I get one word out, she steps in front of the lot of them.
“I’m sorry to inform you all that I have no relationship with Prince Alexander. Someone has made a dreadful mistake. I do not know the Prince. I am not in love with him. And I highly doubt the King gives two figs about me.”