by Maren Smith
When exactly the room had gone quiet, I don’t know. I couldn’t look away. Distantly I was aware that Jax was addressing our royal guests, but everything inside me was locked upon my father. What Jax said, I haven’t a clue. What my father said was, “A king must have a wife, Mazi. Tradition demands that I make that choice for you. I only hope I have chosen well.”
The room was so silent I could hear the door to my family’s private entrance open and everyone turned, eager to catch sight of my newly announced fiancée. And that included Zahra, who hardly seemed disappointed when Norah walked into the room.
Her floor-length gown matched her eyes and the streaks of violet in her long blonde hair. She was right. She wasn’t princess material.
She was better. Especially when she started walking toward me, her eyes full of nervous apology, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth and wringing her fingers in the folds of her dress.
“Your future bride,” my father confirmed when I snapped back around to him.
I vaulted out of my chair, jogging down the stairs to meet her halfway across the floor.
“I—” was all I gave her the chance to say before seizing her face in my hands and kissing her, fiercely, in front of all these people.
She burst into tears before our lips had even parted. “You’re going to be so angry with me!”
“You left me,” I said, brushing at her tears with my thumbs and trying not to laugh.
She nodded.
“Daddy’s going to bust your ass,” I whispered, locking lips with her hungrily all over again. “And again and again,” I threatened for her ears only. “Get your cool washcloth ready, because I’ve been worried sick all day and your little booty-hole is going to pay the price.”
She shook her head as best she could with her face still caught between my hands. “You can’t...”
I nodded. “You left me without a word. You had me going all day long. Baby girl, Daddy’s cock is going to punish your little bottom until you cry. And quite frankly, in the mood I’m in right now, I don’t think I’m even going to let you come.”
Grabbing my arm, she pulled me away from the both the audience and the dais, sandwiching us into the nearest corner. Desperately, she whispered, “No, Daddy, you can’t!”
This time I listened. “Why not?”
“Because I just spent four hours at the dressmaker’s standing in front of their calendar!”
If she thought sore feet were going to save her ass, she could think again. “So?”
“So, we’ve been here five weeks!” She stared at me with huge eyes, but whatever she was trying to say, she was not saying it in English I could understand.
“I’m sorry I missed our one-month anniversary?” I said, taking a wild stab at the problem. It sounded a little high school to me, but she wasn’t just any little girl, she was my little girl and I’d just spent eleven hours thinking I’d lost her. Whatever was important to her, I was more than ready to make my priority.
“No!” She shook her hands, flustered.
“Honey,” I said with exaggerated patience. It had been a hard day for everybody, herself included. “Daddies are guys, and guys are idiots. I’m going to need you to be a little more blunt than this if you want me to know what’s going on.”
“I’m sixteen days late!” She winced almost as fast as she said it. “Are you mad? Please don’t be mad.”
I wasn’t mad. I was floored.
I was also immediately cautious. “Is that why you came back?”
Teary-eyed, she shook her head. “No, I was already back when I figured it out. We’ve been so busy—”
“Does my father know?” I interrupted, not at all sure if I ought to be upset yet.
She blinked twice. “N-no, why would you ask me that? Do you really think I would tell him before I told you?”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“No!”
“And that’s not the reason you came back?”
“I came back because the pilot turned the plane around and brought me back. Then your father and Jax met me at the airport and he asked me if I loved you...” She faltered and her eyes teared again.
“Do you?” I softly pressed.
She nodded. “With all my heart. I’m just really scared that I might become the reason why everything falls apart later on.”
“Nothing is going to fall apart,” I assured her. “Do you know why?”
She shook her head, not looking particularly comforted, at least not until I sank to one knee in front of her. Sometime during our hushed conversation, Jax had tried to get the music started and our guests interested in other things. To some extent, his distraction had worked, but even so I could feel people watching us from all over the room. I suppose I ought to get used to it now. I was royalty. If I had my way, Norah was going to marry into it. Privacy for both of us was about to become a thing of the past.
“You’ve told me time and time again that you weren’t cut out to be a princess, and yet from the moment you came into my life, everything has changed. And I do mean everything. I am a better man because of you, honey, and that alone will make me a better king. I know for a fact that you make me a better daddy. Could I be these things without you? I don’t know, maybe. What I do know is that I don’t particularly care to try. I’d much rather have you by my side, in my life, and I sure as hell would rather have you in my bed.”
She covered her mouth with both hands when I lay my hand over the soft violet cloth that covered her still flat belly.
“I love you,” I told her. “You asked if I’m mad. The answer is no. If you’re pregnant, baby girl, then I’m going to do everything I can to be the daddy both of you need. If you’re not pregnant, I still won’t be mad. We’ve both been under a lot of stress these last few weeks. This whirlwind of a ride had to take its toll somewhere, and what kind of man would I be if I blamed you for that? I told you once already that we were meant to be and I still believe that. You say you stood for four hours in a dress shop. I’m pretty sure you didn’t do it not knowing at some point tonight you were going to see me getting down on one knee, but let’s go ahead and make it official. Will you marry me, Norah? Please say yes.”
Her yes came out in a breathy whisper meant for my ears only, but the room had gone quiet again despite all of Jax’s best efforts and when she helped me to my feet again everyone watching erupted in triumphant cheers.
For my part, I couldn’t have cared less what Osei tradition said about public displays of affection. I kissed my future bride, my baby girl, and the mother of our child.
Later tonight, she would be over my knee and in my bed, kicking and crying while I spanked and punished her sexy little ass.
Tomorrow morning, I had every expectation that most if not all the people in this room would go right back to whispering, mocking me, and calling me the Stripper King.
But that was tonight, and that was tomorrow, and right now, in this moment, Norah Baxter was in my arms, in my life, and I was the luckiest man alive.
Epilogue
Mazi
Norah bore down with the last bit of strength that she had. Teeth bared, sweat shining on her face, she growl-howled as she pushed and pushed and finally, to the cheering delight of the midwife and her two female attendants, our first child was born.
“Congratulations, Mama,” the midwife cried. “You have a boy!”
For those who were counting (and there were a few), he came just over three weeks early, but one would never have known from his size or his lungs that he was ‘premature.’ He wasn’t. There was also no doubt that he was mine. From his hair to his skin, to the dimple in his chin, he was, every squalling inch of him, his father’s temperamental son.
“Congratulations, Papa,” the midwife said, after cleaning and wrapping, and laying him in my arms.
I took him to my little girl first. Although exhausted, Norah roused enough to hold him, and for the longest time the two stared into one another’s eyes.
Something I’m sure she meant with all her heart, although I was equally as sure she’d be singing a different tune a week or so from now when she’d finally recovered enough for us to start working through the extensive Naughty List she’d accrued over the last few months. Now that the baby was born and we no longer had to worry about doing something that might hurt him, I was more than ready to resume my normal daddy activities.
I was also more than ready to assume my brand-new daddy activities.
Six hours of labor had taken their toll. Too tired to hold him anymore, Norah let me take our son back again. “Go,” she said, smiling even as she closed her eyes. “Introduce him to your father. I know you want to.”
I did want to. I had promises to keep, both to my son—who’d heard me whispering them every night before his mother and I went to sleep—and to my father, who had finally passed two days after Norah’s and my wedding.
Bending to lay a kiss upon my good girl’s head, I stroked her hair. “I’ll be back soon,” I promised, before my newborn son and I took our very first walk together. It was a short walk, relatively. We only went down the hall, from the royal family apartment to the head of the main stairs, where a life-sized portrait of my father in the prime of his life now hung.
“Hi, Dad,” I greeted, tipping the baby up so the two could better see one another. “Ona-Mazi,” I formally introduced. “Meet your grandson, Ona-Azid.” My father wasn’t in the picture and I knew that, but we’d had such a short time together. It comforted me still to be able to see his face, especially as I admitted, “You were right. He’s a boy.”
But then, my father had been right about a lot of things. Even in his mistakes, he’d been right and to my last breath I would forever be grateful that he’d reversed his last one in time to keep me from making the same.
I had done a lot of things in the months since he’d been gone. Tourism was up and so was the local economy. Slowly, day by day, decision after decision, I was proving myself to be an effective King of Osei. Some still whispered, calling me the King of Strippers. Some called me my father’s son. Now and then, Jax was one of them, although I still had a long way to go before I earned the same level of loyalty from that grumpy old man that my father had enjoyed.
That was okay.
“Trust in fate, son,” I told my baby as he sleepily chewed his fist in the crook of my arm. “We’ve got all the time we need to win him over.”
The baby hiccupped. Somewhere in the hall below, I heard footsteps.
“Time to go back to Mama,” I whispered, bidding a silent farewell to my father’s portrait. I tried not to let the staff catch me talking to it. Considering all the other rumors my reign had started out with, the last thing I wanted was for ‘crazy’ to be added to the list.
And yet, I didn’t take more than a step before I found myself pausing. Grudgingly, I turned back and looked again at the visage of a man I’d barely known and yet would also go to my grave wishing I’d have known him better. Crazy or not, I reached out and lay my hand on his.
Thank you, Dad, for bringing me home.
The End
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More Stormy Night Books by Maren Smith
The Dance Card (included in Ladder 54: Five Firefighter Romances)
Rylee Mercer has never had the courage to stop watching the world around her and actually play with anyone at the local BDSM club, let alone handsome, commanding firefighter Walker Daniels. But when she wins a date with Walker at a kink-themed charity auction by less than honest means, he takes it upon himself to make her confess, teasing and tormenting her naked, quivering body until she admits her naughty behavior and begs for the punishment she deserves.
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Maren Smith Links
You can keep up with Maren Smith via her blog, her Facebook page, and her Goodreads profile, using the following links:
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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2886639.Maren_Smith
Rayanna Jamison Links
You can keep up with Rayanna Jamison via her Twitter account, her Facebook page, and her Goodreads profile, using the following links:
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