by Geneva Lee
The house in Notting Hill is lovelier than the pictures. I hadn’t stepped foot inside until the papers had been signed, and Norris had arranged a private security team—all necessary measures to keep the matter as anonymous as possible. It’s meant as a gift—or, rather, an olive branch. It will be our private sanctuary, tucked in a discreet corner of her favorite neighborhood.
I can’t help marveling as I pad down the steps and into the garden at the sheer freedom. The stone path is warm underfoot, not yet heated by the summer sun, but the flowers are opening, spreading in welcome toward the daylight. A warm morning breeze carries their perfume as if to say hello. I find the rose that caught my eye from the kitchen window and clip it. Spotting it felt like an omen, and I know what I need to do. Taking the flower with me, I pause and tuck it into the door handle. It’s a message and a warning.
Clara must know I sent the key. I’d used my seal even if I hadn’t signed my name. But if somehow she didn’t, the rose will confirm it for her. One final choice. One final crossroads.
I return to the hob to find the water boiling in the kettle. I turn off the flame as a car door shuts on the quiet street.
My heart stops—knowing before I do. I dare to look out the window again, and it restarts. She’s standing at the gate. She looks at the key. She looks at the house. I step back enough that she won’t see me gawking at her from the window and feel like a coward. The sound of the gate creaking open inflates me with hope again. I make it to the door, my hand on the knob before I remember the choice I’ve left her.
A heartbeat passes. Another. Time slows, then stops altogether. I feel her on the other side of that red door. It takes all the restraint I can muster to wait, but as the seconds tick by in agony, I give in, unsure if I’ll find her there or already gone.
It’s harder to open the door than it should be, as though part of me doesn’t want to do so. But she’s on the other side, bathed in sunshine, the rose in hand. Her head whips up, cornflower-blue eyes meeting mine and instantly welling with tears. I drink in the sight of her. Her luscious curves are sharper than the last time I saw her, and there are bluish smudges under her eyes. And she is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
I continue to study every inch of her: the rose flush of her cheeks, the freckles dusting her bare shoulders, the white shirt and the nipples peaking through its threadbare fabric. My gaze lands on a single drop of blood welling on her fingertip. She pricked herself on the rose. I reach for her hand, lift the wound to my lips, and swipe it away with my tongue. A copper tang floods through my mouth, and I feel my knees buckle slightly. I kiss the spot before hooking an arm to pull her to me.
I slant my head over hers and take her mouth before the heat burning in my eyes falls freely. The tears escape on contact, a strange mixture of relief and anxiety and hope and longing. She pulls away, blinking, and before she can process any of it, I’m on my knees. I draw her to me, rest my head against her belly, pleased to find some lingering softness there. But it’s too easy to circle my arms around her waist.
“You’re thinner.” It slips out. It’s my fault. I’d thrown her to the wolves. I’d failed to protect her. And she’d born the cost of those choices.
But she’s here now, and that has to mean something.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs. “I haven’t had much of an appetite, but I am eating.”
And now she’s reassuring me as though she needs to defend herself against the pain I’ve caused her.
“You can’t…” I say in a strangled voice. “Not because of me. Promise me, Clara.”
There’s a beat of silence before she does as I ask. “I promise.”
I linger there, holding her, afraid that if I move, she’ll slip away once more. Finally, she breaks the silence, “Where are we?”
I take it as an invitation. Standing, I weave my fingers through hers and lead her into the house, not yet trusting myself to speak. Part of me wants her inside as if a stupid door is obstacle enough to keep her here. I watch as she takes in the living area. It had come mostly furnished, but I’d managed to trick Edward into helping me choose the rest of the decor on the pretext of giving a shit about my own apartment at Buckingham. I suspect he realized the truth, but he didn’t press for answers. My brother is good like that. Her eyes skip over the deep sofa, upholstered in cream linen to the marble hearth to the paintings on the wall. She doesn’t say anything, so I find myself answering the question she asked on our doorstep. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”
I can almost swear I smell her dampen with arousal, but maybe it’s wishful thinking.
“Twenty questions again, X?” she asks, sounding tired. Too tired. Maybe she didn’t sleep last night either.
I shake my head and dart a nervous tongue over my lips.“No games, poppet.”
“Why are we here?” she asks a new question.
Maybe she wants to play after all. I take a step toward her, drinking in her scent: rosewater and vanilla, and under it a soft, heady musk that beckons me to the apex of her thighs. I resist the urge to follow it. “You’re getting warmer.”
“Whose house is this?” She practically mouths the final question.
I lean in to whisper, “Ours.”
Clara shoves against my chest, glaring at me. “I don’t understand.”
“This is our normal,” I say with a note of careful surrender. “This is our sanctuary.”
“How?”
“The house is in Norris’s name,” I explain as she begins to pace the living area. “I pay for it, of course, but this way, we maintain our privacy.”
I’d considered all the angles after my talk with Edward. We needed a space of our own. We needed normalcy. We needed things my world could never give, but my power could easily take.
But Clara sounds rattled. “You mean to maintain secrecy.”
“Privacy. Secrecy,” I say with a shrug. Of course, I want to keep this from the tabloids and my father and the whole rotten lot. Doesn’t she? “Here we can be Alexander and Clara. Nothing between us.”
“Except the secrets.”
How can I make her see? I cross to her, take her in my arms, certain she’ll find the answer she truly needs there. “Not between us. Nothing between us.”
“Oh, X.” My pet name is heavy on her lips. “Everything is between us. Can’t you feel it?”
“I don’t want it to be.” With time, it won’t be. I just need a chance to show her.
“Your father expects you to get married. He has it all planned,” she speaks in a measured, neutral tone, but there’s a rumble of thunder under her words.
“I can’t control what he plans, but that doesn’t mean he can force me to do anything.”
“Did you know about his plans?” she asks.
I can lie and shrug off her concern, but then I’ll be putting another obstacle between us. But not an invisible one: a glass wall that she’ll see through but have no hope of shattering. Or I can tell the truth and hope she recognizes that I’m trying to give her all I have to give. “Yes.”
Is what I have to give enough?
She jerks away from me like I’ve hit her. “I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Because I don’t believe loving you is wrong.”
I hate that word on her lips. I hate how much I want to hear it. I hate the way it cracks open my chest and reminds me there’s nothing inside the hollow space. “Perhaps not for you. I stayed away because I felt it was unfair. I felt like I was leading you on.”
Loving me can only hurt her, destroy her, steal all the light inside her.
“And this isn’t doing just that? Why are we even here?”
Suddenly, I realize she’s right. And wrong.
I’m not leading her on, but that doesn’t mean I can give her more than this. I’ll never ask her to carry the burden of my life. She thinks I’m keeping myself from her, but I’m protecting her. Why can’t she see that? Why can’t she give us whatever scra
p of happiness we can salvage? “Because I need you.”
It’s harsher than I mean it to be because I’m angry. Not at her but at myself.
“But you don’t love me,” she murmurs.
Lie. I try to say I don’t. The words won’t come. I can’t tell her I love her. I can’t tell her I don’t. I shove a hand through my hair, frustration taking hold of me. I’d expected a fight but not this much resistance. “I told you I don’t do romance. I don’t do long-term.”
“What mixed signals you give me, Your Majesty.” There’s venom in her voice, the result of weeks of stewing in her own anger and pain. “That’s a dangerous thing to do with a girl like me. What is this? A place to fuck me in? A little hideout your father doesn’t know about so you can keep your tart a secret because you can’t have me showing up in the press?”
That’s what she thinks? “That’s not what this is!”
“Then tell me what it is,” she says, shifting into a wide-eyed offering before me, “because I’m trying to understand. I really am.”
I look away. I can’t stand the need I find there because I know I will never, ever be enough to fill it. And that even if I try…
I’ve told Clara about my past—some of it. She knows about my mother. My sister. If she knew the truth…I set my jaw, determined not to make my ghosts her own. When I turn on her, she takes a step back as I find the only words I can to explain, “Every woman who has ever loved me is dead.”
“I’m sorry, X,” she says softly, and my rib cage cracks open a little wider revealing more of the emptiness inside until she continues, “but I’m not dead. I’m right here—and you can’t make me stop loving you.”
For how long? I lock the question away. I have to make her see. I have to make her understand. I take her in my arms, lifting her chin, so her eyes meet mine. “I won’t destroy you.”
“You already have,” she whispers.
Instinct sends my arms falling to my sides. “I never meant for this to happen.”
I didn’t. Clara was just a pretty girl at a party, and then one kiss changed everything.
“I know, but I’m a big girl, X,” she says. “You can’t control me. You can’t control who I love.”
“Stop.” It’s an order—a stupid one that she’s no more capable of following than I am.
“That’s why I can’t stay. I can’t pretend that everything’s okay. I can’t pretend not to love you. I think that would hurt worse than leaving you. I’m sorry, X. I can’t be your secret.”
She’s slipping away like stars fade into the sun, just as impossible to catch. I try to hold on to her anyway.
“One night,” I blurt out. “Stay with me one night, and if you can walk away in the morning, I’ll let you go.”
It’s the last play in my hand. I’ve shown her all my cards, but she can’t resist. I know it. The desire hums between us, filling the air with a crackling tension. But this isn’t about fucking.
I finally realize the truth. I can’t say it. “Let me show you.”
She studies me for a moment, and I resist the urge to reach out and take her. She’d let me. Her body is as much mine as hers now. But that’s not the way to show her that I…
I can’t even think it.
Finally, she answers but not with words. She pulls her shirt over her head, discarding it to the floor, followed by jeans and a bra. She strips away all the tangible barriers between us and stands before me, exposed and vulnerable. “One night.”
I only need one.
I claim her. Carry her to bed, devouring every inch of her neck and throat. Trailing greedy kisses along her jaw. Her palms are hot on my chest, sliding over my scars like she can heal them—heal me.
God, I want her to. I want to be the man she needs.
I will be that man.
Placing Clara on the bed, I steal over her, tasting her as I move between her legs. But I don’t wait. There’s only one way to show her she belongs to me. I kiss her breast gently and plunge inside her. She arches at the sudden fullness. I swallow the sound of pleasure she makes, more precious than my own. That’s when I realize my mistake.
Clara Bishop doesn’t belong to me.
I belong to her.
I’ve taken from her. I’ve taken so much. I need to give her what she really needs. I have to find a way. I sit back, and her eyes flash, a frustrated cry escaping her at being abandoned.
It takes effort to bite back a grin. I love to drive her crazy, but that’s not what this is about. If I only have today and tonight, I will give her everything I am. I will fill her with me. I will give her pleasure, but I’ll give her every bit of myself I can.
Scooping her up, I gather her into my arms. She understands, aiming carefully as she sinks into my lap. Her eyes meet mine. Neither of us can look away. I don’t think we would if we could.
A tentative finger finds my face. She traces its lines and curves, runs it over my lips. She asks questions with each touch. I lift my mask and let her see all the things I hide—all the things I can’t say. Her hips circle furiously, her breath growing shallow and desperate. I see that thing I dread shining in her eyes. I see the thing I crave.
I see what we can’t escape because I want it too much to let it go.
I swallow against a dry throat, “Say it, Clara.”
“Alexander,” she murmurs my name like an incantation and then casts her lovely spell, “I love you.”
I break at her words, erupting into her as she shatters on my cock.
“I love you.” Another surge.
“I love you.” Another.
“I love you.” I collapse at the final spurt, dragging her onto the bed with me, our bodies still entwined. She says it again and again until the spell fades to a whisper and finally gutters out.
A strange sensation grips me as I hold her. I will it to take shape. I carve each letter in that vacant hole in my chest. I bid them to travel up my throat. But they don’t spill out. Others do.
“I will never have my fill of you.” The words are halting and slow—the wrong words. “I crave you, Clara. I crave your body, your taste. Without you…” I can barely bring myself to consider it because I’m in love with her.
I’ll always be in love with her.
“I…I…”
I thrust into her. Once. Twice. Three times. Saying with my body what I can’t with my lips. Clara’s arms twine around me, clinging to my shoulders, as she lifts her mouth to mine, saving me from my efforts. Her sex tightens around my cock, claiming me again. I empty with a roar, pouring all I am into her, giving her every last piece of me.
Hoping it will be enough.
Knowing it never will be.
Clara lies in my arms, our skin slick with sweat. I press a kiss to her shoulder as her stomach grumbles.
“You need to eat,” I murmur.
She twists around, sighing, as she nuzzles my neck. “We already had dinner.”
“I think we might have burned through that already,” I say wryly.
I hesitate before sliding out of bed. We’ve left it a few times. More than once, I’d convinced her to stay, naked and waiting, while I dashed down to the kitchen for water. The truth is that I want to stay here, pinning her to my life, with my cock, with my mouth, with whatever it takes.
Stepping into my jeans, well aware that security teams circle the property on the hour, I start toward the door. As I reach it, Clara shoves back the sheets and gets up. I freeze, dread sluicing through me like icy water. But she tiptoes to the closet and returns wearing nothing but one of my white button-down shirts. Her own clothes are somewhere else. The entry? Stairs? We’d dressed and undressed so many times, I’ve lost track.
She doesn’t bother to button the shirt as she brushes past me with a smile. I don’t relax until she bypasses her crumpled jeans and continues down the stairs. I follow and find her studying the leftover curry from dinner.
“I need to go shopping,” I say, wishing I had more to offer her. “Or we coul
d…”
Her head appears over the fridge door. She holds up a carton. “Do you want some?”
I can’t bring myself to eat, but I nod, worried she might change her own mind if I don’t. She passes me the carton of biryani while I pull two forks from the drawer.
“Do you want to heat it? There’s probably a pan somewhere,” I say.
“This is fine.” She takes a few bites, turning to study the night sky out the window. My shirt falls neatly over her ass, covering more of her from behind. But its hem curves high, revealing the tantalizing swell of her shapely thigh and the curve of her ass.
Her back is to me, so she doesn’t see me abandon the curry on the kitchen counter. I move slowly so as not to startle her and gently place my hand on her hips. Clara releases a contented sigh as I wrap my arms around her.
“What are you looking at?” I ask in a low voice.
“The night. I used to be scared of the dark when I was little. I refused to sleep without a light on,” she admits, leaning the back of her head against my shoulder. “It drove my mother crazy. They went out to dinner one night and came home to every light in the house on.”
“That doesn’t sound unreasonable,” I say, grateful for these tiny glimpses into her life.
“I was fifteen,” she laughs. The sound plants itself in my chest, and suddenly I feel less hollow.
“Oh.” I kiss her ear. “And now? Are you still scared of it?”
She hesitates. “Now? Now, I see it’s beautiful.”
I swallow at the meaning carefully hidden in her words. She’s not scared of the night or the darkness. She’s a woman now. That’s the simplest explanation. Or maybe…
“Beautiful, but terrifying,” she adds softly. “I still wonder if I’ll get lost out there.”
“I’ll find you,” I promise her, sliding my palms to her hips. I’m on my knees before she can say anything else, gripping her hips. I nip her backside on my descent. The gesture startles her, so I kiss the spot in silent entreaty. She seems to understand because she widens her stance. My tongue dips and licks a stripe down her center. The container falls into the sink, and Clara clutches the counter, a loud moan spilling from her.