by B. B. Hamel
“Trip—”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s swim.”
I reached out and grabbed her hips, pulling her onto my lap.
“Trip!” she protested, but it was too late. I had her. I plunged us both into the pool.
She came up next to me and splashed.
“You asshole,” she said.
“Didn’t want to get your hair wet?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I also didn’t want to get dragged into the water.”
“Too bad. It’s already done.”
She swam at me, smiling, and tried to dunk me under. I didn’t budge.
“Are you made of stone?”
“If I were, I’d sink. I’m just a good swimmer.”
I dove under and grabbed at her ankles. She kicked and swam away. I came up and she was laughing, splashing at me.
“Are you attacking the king?” I asked her.
“Damn right. Not the first time either.”
“Your foreign temptress,” I said. “You’re corrupting the king.”
She giggled as I came at her. She splashed and swam away. I chased her but let her stay just ahead of me.
Finally, I grabbed her ankle and pulled her back. I took her hips and pulled her ass and back against me. She struggled, but I held us both up above water, kicking my feet.
“Let me go,” she said, laughing.
“I don’t think so. You’re mine now. You’ve tempted me long enough.”
“I don’t think I’m anyone’s,” she said, and then she tried dropping underwater.
She went straight down, but in the process her bikini top caught on the front of my swimsuit, yanking them both off. I dove underwater and managed to grab my trunks and her top before she even realized it was off.
She surfaced a few feet away, and a second later she figured it out.
“Trip!” she said.
I held her top up, grinning. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
She instantly covered her perfect breasts with her arms. I couldn’t get a good look, since the water was covering them, but I could tell she was gorgeous. I was hard as hell, my heart hammering.
“Trip, give it to me.”
“Come and get it,” I said, swimming away.
“Not funny. Come on, Trip!”
I laughed as she started swimming toward me, covering herself with one hand.
Just as she neared me, a motion toward the door pulled my attention away. Al was standing in the doorway, frowning down at me. “Your Highness,” he called.
Bryce caught up with me and snatched her top from my hand.
“Asshole,” she mumbled as she turned away and got it back on.
“Your Highness, they need you back in the situation room. General Dune is calling.”
I sighed. “Fun’s over, I guess,” I said to Bryce.
“Who was having fun?”
“You were. We both know it.”
“I was too busy having my top stolen to have fun.”
“Pretend you didn’t like it all you want, but we both know where this was going.” I swam over to her, close behind her. “You want me to fuck you rough up against the edge of the pool. You want me to fuck that wet pussy until you can’t stand it anymore.”
“No,” she whispered, but I knew she meant yes.
I swam away, pulling my trunks back on. Al had already left, so I got out and toweled myself off.
“Stay as long as you want,” I said to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good luck being the king,” she answered.
I laughed. “I don’t need luck for that. I just need to be myself.”
I waved and then headed out, back toward my apartment.
That girl could drive me crazy so easily. I could barely control myself around her, even in these difficult and complicated times. There was just simply something alluring and intense about Bryce.
The girl was a distraction, but the best fucking kind of distraction.
15
BRYCE
The next morning, I couldn’t believe I had sent the king a nude selfie.
Well, it wasn’t completely nude. I had a shirt and panties on, actually, so it wasn’t really nude at all. Still, it was a sext for sure, and there was no other way to read that message.
I didn’t know what I had been thinking. I guess I had wanted to rile him up, but I’d also wanted him to know that I was sorry. It had felt right at the time, and I didn’t regret it, but it was outside my character.
I was a good girl. I didn’t do things like flirt with kings in swimming pools. Except now apparently I was that kind of person.
And I still was worried about his whole dictatorship thing. I didn’t know how I felt about flirting with a man who was possibly telling people to commit war crimes. Trip was a good person, but he was right: War was more complicated than I realized, and that meant maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought he was.
I had two dueling sides in my mind. On the one hand, I wanted Trip the man. I wanted him to kiss me again, to let me get inside his defenses, to find out what made him do the things he did. But on the other, I was afraid of Trip the king. I was afraid of the person I would become if I got involved in his world, and I was afraid of the person the crown made him.
He had so much power. He ruled over an entire country. You didn’t get much more powerful than that. And they always said that absolute power corrupted absolutely.
Trip didn’t seem corrupt. Trip seemed like a cocky asshole, but he wasn’t corrupt.
Or maybe I didn’t know him.
I sighed, lounging on the couch. I was waiting for my dad to come get me so we could go for a walk, and my mind was moving a mile a minute.
After ten minutes of agonized waiting, he finally knocked. I got up and answered. Dad smiled at me. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
I stepped out into the hall.
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked.
“No clue. Do you?”
“Nope,” he said, laughing. “Let’s get lost.”
As we began to walk, I reflected on how supportive my father had always been of me. He was always there no matter what. In fact, as far as I could tell, this was the first time he wasn’t doing exactly what I wanted him to do. Instead, he insisted that we stay.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Why did you want me to stay? I don’t think you actually want me to marry the king.”
He laughed. “No, I don’t.”
“So why did you want us to stay?”
“Honestly, honey, this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. This castle, these people, we’ll never have any of this again. I wanted you to experience it before we went back home.”
I nodded. “I get that. But still, what if I did marry him?”
He laughed, shrugging. “Well, I guess then you’d be the queen.”
“You’d be okay with that?”
“I’d be okay with anything you wanted to do, Bryce,” he said.
I believed him, but still I couldn’t imagine he didn’t have any reservations about entering into the royal family of a country we knew nothing about.
We walked through the twisting hallways, looking around at all the expensive paintings and sculptures. Dad pointed out some paintings he recognized, which were apparently pretty famous.
I couldn’t help but have a sudden sense of vertigo in that hallway. There I was, a completely normal, regular girl, walking through a castle full of famous paintings. It was so incredibly strange that I could barely stand it.
“Dad,” I said after a while of wandering, “how do you feel about this monarchy thing?”
“It’s different,” he said.
“Yeah, but, wasn’t the whole point of America to get rid of the British monarchy?”
He laughed. “Basically, but I think it was more about being annoyed over taxation without representation.”
“But aren’t people in a
democracy freer?”
“Maybe,” he said, “and maybe not. People have been debating this for thousands of years, honey. This country has been very stable for a very long time under the monarchy. Who’s to say that’s a bad thing?”
I nodded. That made sense to me, but still. I had been conditioned to love democracy; the whole idea of a king seemed so totally off to me.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “I can’t imagine being the queen.”
“Then don’t be,” Dad said. “Or, just imagine being Trip’s wife. That’s more important. If you like the guy, maybe it’s worth pursuing. If you don’t, well, that’s okay. At least we got an awesome vacation out of all this.”
I sighed, shaking my head. He wasn’t helping all that much. “At least Lucy would love it if I married him.”
“Look, forget about Lucy and forget about politics.” Dad stopped and faced me. He put on his serious face, the expression he saved for only important conversations. “This is about your future, kid. This is about you and Trip and nothing else. Forget about monarchies and democracies and all that stuff; it just doesn’t matter. Focus on you and Trip.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. That makes sense.”
He gave me a stupid grin. “Does it feel weird taking love advice from your father?”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, laughing, as we began to walk again. “There’s no love here.”
“Whatever you say.”
As we went along the hallways, I had to admit that I did feel a little better. Dad was right. In the end, whatever I decided to do was between me and Trip. It wasn’t about politics. It was about love.
We finally finished our walk after having to ask directions a few times. Dad went back to his room and I slipped back into mine, feeling tired but better. It was still early and I had most of the day ahead of me.
As I walked into my room, I stopped and noticed something. The servants must have come in and cleaned, because everything had been tidied up. There was also a black box on the bedspread.
I walked over and opened it. Inside was a brand new bikini plus a note.
“Hope I didn’t ruin the last one. Trip.”
I smiled to myself, shaking my head. I grabbed my phone and sent him a text.
“Thanks for the bikini. I’m wearing it right now.”
“Hold that thought,” he answered almost right away. “I’m coming to you.”
“Don’t bother. Already got changed. How’s the country?”
“It’s going. I want to show you something.”
I bit my lip. “What is it this time? Going to tear all my clothes off and throw them off the battlements?”
“Yes, if you’d like.”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ll come get you soon. Wait for me.”
“Okay.”
I tossed my phone aside and lay back in bed. I had nothing better to do, and besides, hanging out with Trip sounded pretty good.
My dad was right. Maybe it was weird to talk to him about it, but I had nobody else. In the end, this was about me and Trip as people, not about politics.
I had to forget about being a queen and forget about the king. I had to focus on Trip.
And focusing on Trip wasn’t hard at all.
16
TRIP
Troop movements and supplies. Tactical advantages and numerical superiority. That was my entire morning, one war issue after another, over and over again.
It was important work. I couldn’t deny that. It held the fate of my country. Everything I did could sway things one way or the other.
But I was just one man, and as soon as I got that text from Bryce, I knew what I wanted to do with my break.
And so I found myself striding through the halls, smirking to myself. There was nothing I wanted more than to take a break by seeing Bryce, the only person in the entire country who made me feel anything anymore.
Few people understood the stresses of being king. Few people could possibly understand the toll that sort of constant pressure could take on a person. I needed an out, a release. I needed something to take my mind off the horrors that were happening in my country, at least for a few minutes.
And Bryce was perfect. She wasn’t just a distraction; she was a welcome distraction. She made me feel something other than stress, and that was what I needed.
Although what that feeling meant was maybe a little more complicated than I wanted to admit. At first I thought I simply wanted to possess her. I thought she was just some gorgeous, fiery, and exciting foreigner I wanted to make mine. But as I got to know her, I realized she was much more than that. She was more than I could have ever imagined.
I knocked on her door. She answered quickly.
“Hi, Trip,” she said.
“Bryce.” I grinned at her. She was wearing a cute, short dress that made her eyes look gorgeous. “Ready?”
“Sure.” She stepped into the hallway. Our security detail moved back to a respectful distance. “Where are we going?”
“I want to show you the last interesting part of the castle.”
“I thought I got the full tour already.”
“Not quite.”
We strode through the hallways and took a short turn. Ahead was a doorway. I pulled it open and we stood in front of an old stone spiral staircase.
She frowned. “Looks like a tight fit,” she said, stepping up onto the steps.
“Yes, it does,” I replied, looking at her perfect ass. “But I think I’ll fit into it sooner or later.”
She turned and frowned at me. “What?”
“I was just admiring your fucking perfect ass. That’s what you were talking about, right?”
“I meant the staircase. Very funny. Do men in your country joke about that sort of thing?”
“I don’t joke about wanting your ass. I don’t joke about it at all.”
She shook her head and began climbing the stairs. I grinned and followed her, twisting up and up.
“It was built like this on purpose,” I said to her. “Back in the day, it made it so it was hard to swing a sword in these tight spaces. Defenders would have shorter swords and they’d have the advantage of height. Plus, attackers wouldn’t know who was coming or how many there were.”
“Interesting,” Bryce said. “I thought they just didn’t know how to build staircases.”
I laughed. “No. They built them very, very well.” We climbed and climbed until finally Bryce pushed open a small wooden door.
And the outside air came rushing in.
“Whoa,” Bryce said. “Are we on the roof?” Ahead of us, a relatively wide stone walkway stretched out toward the other wall.
“Something like that,” I said. Al and the security detail stepped up to the top. “Al, stay here. Do not open this door unless you hear me command. Understood?”
“Your Highness—” he started, but I stopped him.
“I’ve had a rough morning, Al. Stay here.”
He nodded. “Very well.”
I stepped outside next to Bryce and shut the door.
“Alone at last,” she joked.
“Entirely,” I agreed. “Nobody can see up here.”
“Where is this exactly?”
“These are the battlements. Come here.” I walked farther ahead to where there was a break in the wall.
Bryce stood up next to me. “Holy shit,” she said.
Spread out around us was the city of Stehen. It was a beautiful view from the very top of the castle. The city was absolutely gorgeous from the battlements.
“Very few people see this anymore,” I said. “Defenders used to stay up here all day and all night. Now just a few people get to come up.”
“I’m honored,” she said. “This is so beautiful.”
“Come on. There’s something cool over here.”
She followed me down the battlements toward the center of the wall. There was another break in the stone, but this time in the center of the stone was a statue.
Bryce laughed. “A gargoyle?”
“That’s right,” I said, nodding. “We invented the gargoyle. It was meant to scare attackers. I guess they were superstitious.”
The wall was at least five feet wide, and the gargoyle stood in the center of the wall.
She leaned forward, trying to look over the edge. “Thanks for bringing me up here,” she said. “Honestly. This is amazing.”
“I’m just happy the weather is nice. It’s usually raining this time of year. But apparently you make Stehen more beautiful.”
She looked back at me, smiling. “What a bad line.”
“I’m the king. I order you to be flattered.”
She turned to face me, her palms on the stone. “I’m flattered then.”
I stepped closer to her, my heart beating fast. I took her hips and lifted her up until she was sitting on the wall with her back to the gargoyle. She bit her lip as I pressed my lips against her ear.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re nowhere near the edge. The gargoyle here will keep you safe.”
“What about you? Will you keep me safe?”
“Always,” I said. “Until I decide you need a little danger, and then I’ll give you exactly what you need.”
I kissed her hard and she didn’t resist. Her lips were soft and delicious as our tongues touched and I wrapped my fingers through her hair. She spread her legs open and I pushed myself against her, feeling her heat against my stomach.
I kissed her hard, knowing that this was exactly what I’d been needing for too damn long. There was nobody to interrupt us and only the whole city of Stehen spread out before us, though nobody down below could see up at us.
She tipped her head back and steadied herself with her hands, her back against the gargoyle, as I kissed her neck. My hands roamed slowly up her thighs until I found her soaking pussy, her panties drenched through already.
“So fucking wet,” I said. “I knew you’d be dripping, you dirty fucking girl.”
“Only for you,” she said.
I began to rub her clit, working her in soft circles over her wet panties as I kissed her. She moaned into my mouth, and my cock was hard as hell, straining against my pants.