He grabbed her jaw, the tips of his fingers digging into her cheeks, forcing her to meet his eyes. His voice was raw and strained as he said, “I want to take your jeans off and get on my knees and lick your cunt. Tell me you want it.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then tell me what you do want, and I’ll give it to you.” He reached down and grabbed his cock through the thick cotton of his joggers, the muscles of his biceps rippling as he squeezed himself. Hard. His hips jerked forwards between her legs and he rasped out, “Tell me. Or at least tell me to fuck off before I come in my pants like a teenager.”
“Maybe I want you to do that.”
He pressed a thumb against her lips, forcing it between her teeth. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you. Anything. Right now. Tell me.”
She gazed into his eyes, her breath coming in ragged pants, her pussy clenching as if desperate to be filled. The spread of her legs brought her jeans tight against her crotch, creating a hint of pressure over her clit, but not enough. He was staring at her with eyes heavy-lidded and lustful, his full lips parted, his hips still jerking as he stroked himself roughly through his clothes. He’d do anything to make her come—she knew that as surely as she knew her own name. He’d make her come, and he’d fucking enjoy it.
She made her decision.
“I want—”
The front door slammed shut, the noise reverberating through the house. “Yoo-hoo! Where is my guldklump?”
“Shit.” Cherry shoved at Ruben’s chest, laughter bubbling in her chest where there should be panic. “Agathe has a key?”
“Of course she has a key.” He pulled back, straightening her camisole. “She’s my grandmother.”
“Which is why you need to disappear,” Cherry whispered, casting a meaningful glance down at his crotch. Then her brows shot up as she finally caught sight of the erection she’d only felt before now.
Jesus Christ.
He shoved a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. As if they had all the time in the fucking world. Agathe’s heavy steps echoed through the house. “Ruben? Hans?”
Jesus, Hans. How had she forgotten that he could be around here somewhere?
“Go,” she hissed, smacking Ruben’s shoulder. “Now!”
“Okay, okay!” He stepped back. But then, with a mischievous smile on his face that was way cuter than it should be, he leant in again and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Want to come to work with me today?”
She blinked, stunned. “Um…”
“Say yes, or I’ll stay here.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
“Fine,” she whispered, holding back her laughter. “Yes. Now fuck off.”
He kissed her other cheek. And then he left.
When Agathe came into the kitchen, her arms loaded with shopping bags, Cherry was still sitting on the island like a damned fool. And she didn’t even mind.
Cherry didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this.
She stood in the bright, January sun, wrapped up in a thousand and one layers—Ruben had insisted—and leaning against a huge maple tree. If she raised a gloved hand to protect her eyes and squinted just a little, she could watch a gaggle of children running around on the white-frosted grass, laughing and screaming and chasing a football.
A gaggle of children, and Ruben.
In the car over, he’d told her that these kids were aged 9 to 12. Some of them looked tiny; a few seemed huge for their age. She’d worked in a school long enough to notice that some of them probably had learning difficulties, and one of the girls might be autistic. But they were surrounded by staff members in matching purple jackets who made sure that everyone was involved, and that every child was comfortable.
It was as different from the Academy’s approach as anything she’d ever seen. She remembered her first date with Ruben—their only date, she supposed, since lying in bed with your fake fiancée, whispering your feelings into the dark, didn’t count. Ruben had seemed uncomfortable with the idea of sponsoring the Academy, had pushed for her opinion on the matter. And she hadn’t wanted to say anything, hadn’t wanted to badmouth her place of employment.
But when she thought about education, this was her personal ideal.
Not that she knew shit. She was just HR.
The kids clearly loved it, though. And when they’d seen Ruben approaching, they’d all run to him like he was their long-lost-father.
It was disturbingly sweet.
“You are impressed?”
Cherry jumped slightly, even though she recognised that impossibly deep voice. Hans. He was standing beside her, his arms folded, his eyes on Ruben and the kids. And his thin lips were tilted slightly into that half-smile he occasionally displayed.
“Yes,”she said, truthfully. “I didn’t expect him to…”
“To give a shit. I know. People are always surprised.” He leant back against the broad trunk of the maple, like her, as if they were friends. At first, she’d thought he didn’t like her at all, but recently she’d realised that he was just a prickly guy. She liked prickly people. She liked people who couldn’t be charmed.
“You and Ruben are close,” she said.
There was a slight pause, as if he were surprised. Then he said, slowly, “Yes…” And she knew he was surprised. “We haven’t been acting like it,” he added. “Since you came.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I noticed. Absence takes up a lot of space.”
He grunted.
“So what’s up? You’re still angry with him about… This?”
Hans sighed. “I am angry with him because he never looks out for himself. He thinks he can handle anything. He thinks if he can’t handle something, it’s a weakness and the end of the world, instead of a normal human limitation.”
“Always slaying dragons?” She suggested.
“And coming home half-dead, thinking no-one will care.”
She digested that for a moment. Then she said, “Tell me about his brother.”
And Hans said, “No.”
Cherry nodded slowly. “So it’s bad?”
The man’s bass voice was almost small, hesitant, as he murmured, “My loyalty is to the crown. If it weren’t, I could not stay with him. I would not be fit for this position.”
Cherry watched Ruben laughing in that cold, cold sunlight, letting the children foul him left and right, separating them when they got too rough or over-excited. He was beautiful. He was wonderful. He was perfect.
Oh, dear.
“I think this has gone on long enough.”
Ruben looked up from the stack of cones he was putting away. Hans was looming over him like a giant, his face serious as ever.
Ruben raised his brows. “What’s gone on long enough?”
“Don’t be petulant.” Hans shifted slightly, the only sign of his discomfort. The sort of sign only Ruben would notice.
Still, he turned away, stacking the cones neatly. “Use your words, Hans. I believe in you.”
His bodyguard released a sigh so loud, Cherry probably heard it from the classroom down the hall. The classroom where she was currently getting to know the children while Ruben helped put away this morning’s sports equipment. Every so often, he heard her laughter. Far more often, he heard the children’s.
“I think we should get over this… disagreement,” Hans finally said.
Ruben stood, dusting off his hands. “You want to kiss and make up? Already? Usually, you last longer than this.”
Hans shrugged. “You need me.”
“Oh, I do?”
“Yes. You want to talk to me. About her.”
Ruben grinned. “I do?”
Hans rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He turned to leave, but Ruben grabbed his old friend’s arm in a move they’d executed countless times over the years. They were both too stubborn for this friendship to work, and yet, somehow, it did.
Sometimes, people were meant to
be in each other’s lives, and nothing else really mattered.
“Stay. You’re right. I want to talk to you.”
Hans sighed again. He was a master of sighs. Then he shut the door of the little equipment room and leant back against a shelf. The shelf, sturdy as it was, creaked dangerously under his weight. Hans stood.
“So talk.”
Funny. All of a sudden, Ruben had no idea what to say. But in the absence of certainty, his mind spit out a thought that seemed both ridiculous and true. “I don’t want her to leave.”
“She’s not going to leave. You’ve got a year.”
“I never want her to leave.”
Hans looked slightly alarmed. “You’ve known her for—“
“Less than a fortnight. I’m aware.”
“Hm.” The rough-hewn lines of Hans’s face appeared blank as stone, which meant that he was thinking. “You know, your father once said he fell in love with your mother at first sight.”
Ruben arched a brow. “Have you been watching interviews?”
“Please. You know my mother is obsessed with yours. The beautiful and tragic Lady Freja.”
“Still?”
“Of course. The people loved her.”
“Thank God somebody did.” Ruben felt traitorous as soon as the words left his mouth. Plenty of people had loved his mother. He had loved his mother, more than anything else in the world. So had his father. “I don’t think emulating my father is a good thing, when it comes to love. Things turned out badly for him.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hans said slowly. “He got everything he ever wanted. He died, but everyone must die. And not all die happy.”
Ruben turned those words over in his mind, but couldn’t quite get a handle on them. They felt ephemeral, like something beautiful but impossible to hold. Something that didn’t apply to people like him. He put the problem away for later and focused on a more pressing issue.
“I don’t want her to meet my brother.”
Hans shrugged. “That is natural. I wouldn’t want Demetria to meet a python.”
“…Demetria?” Ruben frowned. “What does Demi have to—”
“You know, people you care about,” Hans said. “Would you want her to meet a python?”
“I—what?”
“Would you lock Demi in a room with a python?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“No! You wouldn’t! No-one would. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ruben stared at his friend. Hans was almost… emoting. And right now, he looked panicked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Look, don’t worry about Cherry. You have a whole year to convince her that you’re the love of her life.”
“Well, I don’t know about love—”
“Shut up. A whole year, Ruben. If it’s meant to be…”
“I don’t know about meant to be—”
“Shut up.” Hans opened the door and strode out into the hall . “Come on. Let’s go.”
Ruben felt slightly dazed. He wasn’t entirely sure what that conversation had been about, or if they’d agreed on anything, or why Hans kept using words like love.
But he and his best friend were okay again. So he shrugged it off.
Chapter 18
Cherry was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her laptop resting on her knees. There was a white ear bud in her left ear and a pink one in her right, and a smile on her face.
“Ooh, shit. I felt that.” Maggie’s voice came through the pink ear bud. A sickening crunch came through the white one, as Jessica Jones crushed some gang member’s fist with her bare hand. Then Maggie said, “Would you fuck Jessica Jones?”
Cherry thought. “Hypothetically.” Her mild interest in women had never developed into anything more concrete, but Jessica was cute enough.
“What if she, like, accidentally killed you?”
“Ummm…” That was actually a good point. “Okay, maybe not. Imagine the obituary. Mum would die of shame.”
“Exactly. I’d fuck the actress, though.”
Cherry hesitated. Talking about sleeping with a fictional character was one thing. Talking about sleeping with an actual person, even if they’d never meet, felt the tiniest bit more… real.
And for some reason, kind of like a betrayal. Which was weird. Very weird.
“What?” Maggie demanded. “You wouldn’t fuck her?”
“Ah… No, I would.” In theory. But when she tried to imagine it, her mind threw up different images. Memories rather than fantasies. Dark hair that wouldn’t stay in place and rough hands and hard words.
“Oh, God,” Maggie said. “Are you too in love to think about fucking other people?”
“What? No. I mean…” She should probably say yes, right? That’s what she wanted her family to think. But lying to Maggie felt like that moment when a dentist put cotton or whatever in your mouth to stop it from closing, and you couldn’t control your own spit and everything tasted disgusting and you kind of wanted to choke or hit something or down a litre of water all at once.
“You are,” Maggie insisted. She sounded delighted. Cherry’s sister was 23 but she had never been in love and insisted that she never would be. She was probably planning years of sibling torture based around this very moment.
“Oh, shut up. We’re missing the show.”
“I can multitask, sis. And I am finding this conversation far more interesting than Netflix right now.”
“You’re the most annoying person on earth, do you realise that?”
“You literally ran off to a foreign country to marry a prince without warning. You won’t tell me shit about him, and I had to use Biblical quotes about judgement to stop Mum from Googling him, and I’m the most annoying person on earth?”
Cherry winced. “Okay, fair.”
“Right.” Maggie paused. “So he’s had it kind of rough, huh?”
“Wait—did you Google him?”
“Of course I did. And you should thank your lucky stars I got there before our parents, cuz Jesus Christ—“
“What? What did you find?”
There was a slight pause. Then Maggie said, clearly shocked, “You don’t know?”
Cherry stiffened. Her sister meant well, but the incredulity in her tone was threaded with something else—something dangerously close to concern or worry or pity, as if Cherry was in the dark. As if she was a fool. She wanted to say, I know what I’m doing. She wanted to say, You don’t even realise how in control of this situation I really am. But she couldn’t, and not just because she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement.
She couldn’t say either of those things because she wasn’t sure that they were true.
So instead, she tried to sound casual and unconcerned as she said, “Oh, I know about all of that stuff. Just, I heard it from him. I didn’t want to invade his privacy.” She sounded casual, unconcerned, totally confident.
It worked. She felt her sister relax through the phone, through the miles between them. “Fair enough. Honestly, I feel really sorry for him. I mean, that Kathryn bitch…”
Cherry paused Netflix. She remembered the headlines she’d seen, the one and only time she’d Googled Ruben.
Prince’s Perversions Exposed: View Kathryn Frandsen’s Social Media Live Stream!
Pushing the memory away, Cherry shut her laptop with a click.
“I should go. I’m getting a migraine.”
“Oh, God, really? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I think I’ve spent too much time looking at screens today. I’ll probably go to bed early.”
“Okay.” It was a flimsy excuse, but Maggie seemed to believe it. Probably because Cherry didn’t lie. Usually. “Hope you feel better in the morning, sis.”
“I’m sure I will,” Cherry said. “Love you.”
“Love you. Bye.”
Cherry put the phone down and stared at her laptop for a few minutes. It felt like an hour.
But she wouldn’t do it
. She couldn’t. Of course, she probably should; Maggie’s reaction proved that. Researching Ruben would be the sensible choice, and she could do it while avoiding headlines like the one she’d seen.
But when she thought about his smile and his sweetness and the warmth of his hands against her skin…
Then she sighed and turned away. It was time for bed.
He crept into her room like it was a habit. Two nights, and they’d fallen into some kind of illicit routine. Cherry lay on her back, staring into the darkness and wondering if she was weak for wanting a man she hardly knew. Maybe.
She wasn’t concerned about the fact that she wanted his face between her thighs, because that was simply to be expected. He was… Ruben.
But she also wanted him to lie here and tell her everything. Anything. All of it. Like they had that kind of relationship—like they ever could, in this sort of situation.
Yeah. She was probably weak.
She’d never had a chance to be weak before. Maybe she should enjoy the freedom of it while it lasted.
His weight made the mattress dip, and she allowed herself to roll towards him—just a little bit. As if she couldn’t help it. But he didn’t touch her. He lay down, close enough for the sensation of almost-feeling to prickle across her skin, like that sense of wary excitement before a summer storm, when the air became hot and electric.
If he was surprised to find the blankets turned down—as if waiting for him to appear and slip inside—he didn’t say anything. He just lay there. He was going to let her speak first. He was going to let her dictate the tone of this midnight meeting.
So, since she was being weak and all, she said, “Tell me about Kathryn.”
He paused. Then she felt movement beside her as he… shrugged? Maybe. That would fit the vague tone of his voice as he said, “We slept together. Repeatedly. It was fun, until it wasn’t.”
“You got bored of her?”
“Yes,” he said dryly. “Like a child with a toy. I got bored of an entire woman. That sounds just like me.”
She smiled into the dark. “Sorry. You are a prince.”
The Princess Trap Page 13