by Thorne, Gigi
I turn woodenly and stop halfway through the turn, facing Princess Charlotte. She’s not looking at me. Why would she be? “Congratulations on your wedding, Princess Charlotte,” I say.
She doesn’t hear me.
Portia taps me on the shoulder and leads me out of the room. Bastian comes along, walking at my side, and I want to ask him what all this is about. If I don’t need a dress, maybe this is a dungeon punishment scenario. It sounds…
Honestly, it sounds kind of hot, but I am not prepared for something like this. My heart leaps into my throat as Portia beckons for me to sit down in her chair and steps briskly behind me, pulling the elastic out of my hair in one swift movement.
“Okay. What are we doing today?” For the millionth time in the last ten minutes, my cheeks go hot. Portia sounds like she always does in the salon for any other client. Only I could never afford to have my hair cut there. And I knew I wasn’t on their level—I couldn’t trade cuts with any of the assistants or anything like that.
I open my mouth, but before I can speak, Bastian cuts in.
5
Bastian
I see why my sister chose Marissa Leigh’s salon to attend to her on her wedding day.
They do excellent work.
In the space of thirty minutes, they’ve transformed my little thief into something approaching royalty. They’ve coiled her hair at the back of her head, pinned and sprayed it into place, and patted it to perfection. Three of them swarmed her to do a full face of makeup, and when they stepped back to show me their handiwork, my cock lunged in my pants. She’d been beautiful before, but the delicate pink on her lips makes me want to bite her.
That’ll have to wait.
“Beautiful,” I declare, dismissing them all with a wave. They’re gone in an instant, their black-clad forms melting back into the crowd of afternoon dresses. My little thief stares at herself in the mirror in front of her for a lingering second, then tears her eyes away and back to me.
“Where are we going?” she asks tentatively. “I’m assuming you didn’t have them make me over to leave me here.”
“I told you your penance wasn’t over. Come with me.”
I don’t wait for an answer before I turn and walk away. What prince waits? I know she’ll follow, so I don’t look back. I cross the threshold of the bridal suite and hear her soft footfalls behind me.
“Up here. At my side.”
She scampers to obey me. “Tell me,” Adele says urgently. “Are you taking me to the dungeon?”
I laugh out loud. “The dungeon?”
Adele looks straight ahead and takes faster steps to keep up with my long strides. We turn a corner and the noise from the other hallway dies away. Adele probably didn’t register the presence of the guards in the alcoves—I barely notice them—but they’re one of the barricades between the semi-private and private areas of the palace.
We’ve crossed over into the private areas now.
“I’m assuming you have a dungeon. This is a castle, after all.”
“You make many assumptions,” I say lightly.
“Am I wrong?”
“Do you honestly believe the palace still keeps a working dungeon?”
She presses her lips together into a tight line. “I—” I can feel her cutting her glance at me. “I think you might have a working dungeon.”
“We stopped keeping prisoners on palace grounds two hundred years ago.”
“There are other kinds of dungeons.”
Her voice is even and soft, but at the mention of other kinds of dungeons, a fine electricity moves over my skin. So she has a kinky side. No wonder she didn’t kick and scream when I told her she’d need to pay for her thievery.
“Ah.” My cock pulses so painfully at the thought of Adele in a dungeon that it steals my voice. “So you’d prefer I took you to the dungeon.”
“No,” she says quickly. “I—I don’t know what I’d do in there, for one thing—”
“The only question would be what I would do to you.”
She breathes in, a sharp little inhale, and that’s when I stop. We’re in front of one of the palace’s many gleaming mahogany doors, and this one is no exception. “The dungeon is on the second floor?”
“My little thief,” I tell her with a laugh. “The royal family no longer keeps a dungeon. We have terrace storage.”
She breathes a little sigh of relief, but something like disappointment flashes across her face.
“The point is, I don’t need a separate dungeon to do what we’re going to do next.”
God, the lead-up is so delicious. Adele is practically panting in her wedding-caliber makeup and sleek hairstyle, and I swear I can smell anticipation and desire coming off her in waves. I felt the way she leaned into my touch. I know she wants more of it. I want more of it. My hands on her body will make this day bearable.
I reach for the door handle and push it open.
Adele takes a cautious step forward, then another.
“Go in.” I let a little impatience creep into my tone. “We’ve got forty-five minutes before the wedding.”
She takes three more steps, crossing the threshold, and that’s when the automatic lights turn on, illuminating the space. Adele freezes, a little gasp coming from between her lips. I watch her process where we are and slowly, ever so slowly, her shoulders relax.
I step in behind her and let the door close. It closes with hardly a whisper, but Adele must be listening with everything she has because the moment it clicks she whirls to face me.
“You brought me to your bedroom?”
“No, my little thief.” I can feel her breathing, feel the little movements of her breath on the air. The scent of her melds with the neutral, clean scent of my clothes, and I know in this moment I’ll never forget her fear and her excitement. She’s off-balance, off-script, and she knows it. I want to savor it like a fine wine, and I have forty-five minutes to do so. “This is not my bedroom.”
6
Adele
It’s not easy to breathe, here in what is obviously a private area of the palace with the door shut behind Prince Bastian’s ripped frame. He could be some kind of painting, the polished wood shining behind the faultless fabric of his tux, his hands in his pockets. So it takes his words a few seconds to sink in.
“This isn’t your bedroom?” I take another look around, feeling his gaze on my body. “It’s—it’s furnished. This is—wow, this is a nice sitting room,” I offer.
I want him to touch me again.
That’s the desire that’s been thrumming through my veins since he made me hold that priceless relic above my head and submit to a body search. And I know—even though he’s royalty, I didn’t have to let him do it. I could have screamed and run out of the room, but I didn’t want to. I can’t remember the last time a man touched me that way, much less one who dresses and smells and looks like Prince Bastian. And that low, smooth voice—
“You and your assumptions, little thief. Turn around.”
Every inch of me thrills at the fact of him behind me, where he’s out of sight but definitely not out of sense. I’m a human seismograph, and every step he takes toward me is an earthquake. No matter that the floors in here are perfectly level and made of some kind of shining wood that looks even more expensive than the door. I can feel the wealth working into the soles of my feet. Soak it up, I think wildly. Maybe the floor here can lead me to a better future once this—whatever this is—is over.
His footsteps might be earth-shaking, but the hand that he places just below my shoulder burns gently. “You’re looking at your feet, little thief. Look toward the back wall.”
I don’t know how I missed it before.
A rack of elegant formal dresses.
Eight of them in all.
“You can’t be serious,” I breathe out incredulously.
“I’ll be as serious as I please,” he says, his voice deadly calm. “Choose one.”
“A dress?”
/> His laughter isn’t loud, but I feel the shake of his body through his palm. “Those are gowns, thief. And this time, I’m offering one to you for the afternoon.”
“For my penance?”
He turns me toward him then, putting two fingers underneath my chin and lifting my face so I have to look into his eyes. They’re so, so blue. Blue like cut glass. Blue like the ocean. It takes my breath away. What crime do I have to allegedly commit to have his mouth on mine, just so I can get a little closer to those eyes? “For your penance,” he says. “You will wear one of these gowns.”
“And then what?” My heart races. He can’t be thinking of taking me to the wedding with him. This all has to be a game for Prince Bastian—one that will end before we’re out in front of the press and the other guests and his entire family. It would be a disaster for me, and I saw the way Marissa looked at me when I came into the bridal suite with him. I’d almost certainly be fired out of spite.
“That’s none of your concern.” He leans in an inch and I can’t help myself. I don’t rise up on tiptoe but I do...rise up. Just a fraction of an inch. Just an invitation. I’m already living in a complete fantasy. Why shouldn’t he kiss me in the sitting room?
“Why do you keep clothes racks in the sitting room?”
He cracks a smile, brilliant and sexy and bemused. “This isn’t a sitting room, little thief. This is my closet.”
I shouldn’t be shocked. I shouldn’t. But this is the size of my entire apartment. And furnished. Furnished. He could sleep in here, if he had to.
But Prince Bastian will never have to.
“Gowns,” he says. “We don’t have long before the ceremony begins.” He releases my chin from his grasp and slips that same hand down my shoulder, down my arm, and loops it around my lower back.
Then he sidles us over to the dresses.
* * *
How am I supposed to choose?
There are eight gowns, and the moment we reach the rack, I know—I just know—that they’re all my size. And new. Brand new. They smell like the kind of clothing I haven’t been able to afford....ever. And each is different from the last. They range in color from a shimmering silver to a pastel pink. I lift one hand to the fabrics and just—I just touch them. It’s like the September Sapphires. They draw me right in, and my eyes flutter closed.
I open them again to find myself two hands deep in a yellow gown that’s absolutely stunning on the rack.
“Excellent choice, my little thief.” Bastian plucks it off the rack with one smooth motion and steps back with it, stopping next to a low, padded bench. The kind of bench that a man with all the riches in the world would sit on to put on his shoes. Only I’m not entirely convinced that Bastian has to put on his own shoes. He probably has a person for that.
We stare at each other across the empty space, and I’m torn between the blue of his eyes and the yellow of the dress.
A slow grin spreads across his face.
“Now it’s time to pay the price for what you did.”
7
Bastian
The thing about my little thief is that as much as she blushes and rolls those pretty shoulders forward, she doesn’t run away. And absolutely none of the heat in her eyes is diminished when I tell her she has to pay the price for what she did.
It’s a heady game, and this is the first climax.
I didn’t feel any stolen jewels under her clothes in the collection room, but now she’ll have no choice but to prove it.
“What’s the price?”
The question falls softly between us and everything in my being wants to move closer. I don’t. I keep my feet planted on the floor.
“Prove to me you’re not a thief.”
Adele bites her lip. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Change into this gown.”
She blinks, and then she understands. “In front of you?”
If I had all the time in the world, I’d toy with her for the rest of the day and into the evening. I’d push her until she begged for a way out. But I have to be in front of the press and the world in forty-five minutes, making my entrance into the national cathedral.
So does Adele.
“In front of me.” I inject a note of irritation into my voice. “Right now. And, little thief—”
“Yes?”
“I need to see everything.”
This is it. This is the moment where everything could shatter like a champagne glass on a hard tile floor. This is the moment my little thief could balk, clam up, fold her arms over her chest and turn away. And if she did? If she did that, I’d let her go. Despite what my family thinks of me, I’m not a scumbag.
Adele looks into my eyes, the six feet between us humming with unreleased energy.
And then the corner of her mouth lifts in a little smile.
I try to keep my face steely, but I can’t help giving her a faint echo of the sheer anticipation flashing across her expression. “You’ll need to be quick about it. We have a schedule to follow.” That, and if I don’t see her soon, I might explode. The little yoga pants she’s been wearing all day have been taunting me. And I want to see what’s underneath. I need to see what’s underneath.
“Okay.” Adele looks me in the eye and then she reaches for the hem of her shirt.
It’s over her head in a few quick tugs, and my God, my God, she’s better than I could have dreamed. The curve from her waist to her hip is something out of a painting by the old masters. She’s supple and gorgeous and her perky tits fill out her bra like it was made for her.
“Bra, too.”
“All right, Prince Bastian.” The obedience in her voice—a playful obedience, utterly genuine—makes my cock twitch inside these damned tuxedo pants.
The bra hits the floor next to her shirt.
“Fuck,” I murmur under my breath, and it saps a little more of my control. I cross the space between us in two steps and press the pad of my thumb to one of her nipples.
Adele tips her head back and a little moan escapes through her parted lips.
“You’re not finished yet,” I growl. “Don’t steal more from me than you already have.”
Her dark eyes snap back open and, trembling, she reaches for the waistband of the yoga pants. “I’m hurrying,” she says, then wriggles herself out of them. Every sway of her hips is a revelation. A revelation that I want neatly bent over the nearest piece of furniture.
And then, without a hint of shame, without a hint of resistance, Adele stands naked in front of me. She’s nervous—I can see that by the way she shivers underneath my gaze—but she looks back at me like she’s not afraid to be seen.
And I look at her. Jesus, how I look at her.
Adele takes a step closer, and I watch as her nipples tighten into little buds. She takes a breath in and arches her back a little and I see it for what it is—another invitation. I reach up and roll one of those nipples between thumb and forefinger and it’s like I’ve taken a match to an old piece of parchment. She’s instantly in flames.
“Oh, oh—” I roll it again. “Oh.”
Then, even as I’m standing there, her nipple in my full control and the rest of her body following suit, she spreads her legs, planting her feet wide on the floor. She took off her socks and shoes along with the pants, and the white pieces of cotton are discarded next to her bare toes. The sight of it wrenches something in my heart.
“My little thief,” I say, and this time it doesn’t sound like a cruel nickname, even to me.
“Well?” Adele says, and then—my cock about to explode—she raises her hands above her head and clasps one of her wrists in the other hand. “Please, Prince Bastian. Help me prove I’m not a thief.”
8
Adele
I don’t know what’s come over me, but I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand being this close to Prince Bastian and not having his hands everywhere.
Absolutely everywhere.
I’ve never thrown myself at a
man like this. Stripping naked for him. Spreading my legs and pressing my feet against the cool tiles beneath me. The soles of my feet are cold, but my pussy is hot between my legs. The air whispers against the folds there as Bastian’s eyes flash. He tosses the yellow dress onto the bench behind him.
“Help you,” he murmurs thoughtfully, tracing the line of my face with one fingertip. My entire body curls toward him, a throbbing line of heat reaching from the center of his chest to the depthless sea of his eyes. “Are you certain you want my help?”
There is too much oxygen in the air. It’s too rich, and abruptly I feel like my lungs might burst with it. I knew from the moment his fingers first brushed against my shirt that we were playing a dirty game, but now it’s far more delicious. My pussy clenches at the question. He’s tossed it into the air like it doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t care much what my answer is, but I know from the heaviness between us that he does.
And if I go any further, I’m agreeing to the aftermath. The fact that this is a game, not a binding contract. A dirty, filthy game swathed in fine fabrics and professional makeup, but a game nonetheless.
“Yes,” I whisper, because I can’t get my voice to work in this moment. “Please.”
I want to play.
I’ll fall to my knees and beg if that’s what he wants to do, but he only smirks at me and then steps forward. “I thought so.”
Bastian is so close that the sleeves of his tuxedo brush against me. “Stand still,” he orders, and without thinking I stand a little straighter, a little stiller.
He circles me slowly and I am desperate—desperate. It’s my main goal in life to do what he says in this moment, but my blood sings with the nearness of him, with his breath hot on the back of my neck. The base of my core coils, winding tighter and tighter with every step he takes.