by Ivy Layne
That wicked grin was so hot, if I hadn't just come I'd be on the edge. But I had, and it was going to take me some time to get there again. I thought. Turns out, when Royal got his mouth on me, it didn't take long at all. He worshiped my breasts, leaving my nipples swollen and hard, each suck drawing whimpers from my throat.
This time he made his way down my body even more slowly, skipping my pussy to nip my inner thigh, to spread my legs wide and explore every inch of me. I was beyond embarrassment, too eager and aroused to think to stop him. Two fingers slid inside, stretching me as they filled me, his mouth sucking my clit again, shooting me straight for the stars.
Out of nowhere, he stopped. I cried out in frustration. Not that I hadn't already had two orgasms, but now I wanted one more. So greedy for him. He was turning me into a monster. Royal disappeared, the bed shifting as he got up and—thank God—grabbed the second condom.
“I need to feel you come on my cock again.” He rolled on the condom a lot faster than I'd managed it before, and he was between my legs, his cock pushing inside, my pussy swollen and over-sensitive. My brain short-circuited from the overload. It felt so good, so fucking amazingly good to have him there, filling me, his big body on top of me, eclipsing everything but Royal and the sheer, knife-edge pleasure of fucking him.
I couldn't think, couldn't even moan his name. My knees came up, lifting my body to him, open, inviting everything he could give me and more. With a low growl, he fucked me harder, every thrust slamming the base of his cock right into my clit, his cock claiming every inch of my pussy, my body, for his own.
I don't think 'orgasm' is the right word for it. The pleasure didn't peak this time. No, it detonated, turning me inside out, remaking me into a different woman. Royal's woman. And the idea of that didn't scare me in the least. Not then, with emotion flooding me, filling every cell in my body, every corner of my mind and my heart.
Every lonely dark place in my soul was bright with Royal.
I held him tight with my legs as he came, his face almost bestial in his release. My arms were free before he had a chance to relax, the tie tossed to the floor as he rolled me into his arms. We clung to each other, hearts pounding, sweat gluing us together, breath panting in unison.
Neither of us spoke. I didn't have words. I couldn't tell him what I was feeling, not yet. I wasn't quite ready for that. But I wasn't going to pretend this was just sex. Wasn't going to make a quip and roll off the bed for the bathroom.
Royal stroked my hair, his face buried in my neck, saving me from having to think of what to say. I was drifting off, so warm and wrung out that it took me a minute to realize he was getting up. “Where you going?” I managed to mumble.
“Nowhere, I'll be right back.”
I heard sounds, maybe from the bathroom. Royal walking around. At one point, he said, “Here,” and lifted my head to slide something underneath. Not a pillow. I cracked one eye. A folded blanket. Much better than the bare mattress.
I cracked my eyes again when the wet cloth stroked down my skin, cleaning off the sweat and leaving me wonderfully cool under the faint breeze from the open window. With a nudge, he rolled me over, treating my backside to the same slow, careful strokes of the cloth. Then the cloth was gone and Royal was there, rolling me into him so my head rested on his chest, a blanket covering us lightly. I drifted off again, one arm flung over Royal's waist, fingers curled into his side, holding on to him even in sleep.
My bladder woke me later. I wasn't wearing a watch, but the sky outside the watchtower was dark, sparkling with stars. The rain was over, the air in the watchtower a little cool when I slipped from the cozy cocoon Royal and I had created beneath the blanket. He'd left one of the oil lamps burning low, making it easy to find my way to the tiny closet of a bathroom. I managed to figure out the composting toilet in the near-dark, pouring water on a towel in lieu of washing my hands.
I paused on the way back to bed to look out the windows, squinting into the dark to catch the sparkle of stars above the dark shadows of the mountains. We'd have to try this again when the moon was full. I'd bet the view would be almost as gorgeous as it had been in daylight.
“Okay?” Royal's sleepy voice came from behind me. I turned to see him propped up on one elbow, his hair falling into one eye, a sleepy smile on that irresistible mouth.
I didn't answer with words. Turning, I crawled back into bed, sliding my body against his, and pressed my mouth to his lips. Our kisses earlier had been so desperate, so hungry, they'd almost been a fight, albeit a fight with both of us on the same side. This kiss was different. Lazy. Sweet. Possessive.
I wasn't giving this man back. He was mine now. And I was his.
I was seriously regretting the lack of just one more condom when Royal turned me on my side and started to inch down the bed. Hmmm, okay, not going to argue about that. But… Maybe I was.
I wanted his mouth on me again, no question, but the idea of it had me thinking about earlier and wishing he'd come when I’d had my mouth on him. I rolled back and managed to flip around without rolling off the bed or kicking Royal in the face.
Settling back on my side, his already hard cock exactly where I wanted it, I glanced down our bodies to find Royal grinning up at me. He slung my top leg over his shoulder, spreading me open, and licked. I smothered my gasp with his cock, taking him as deep as I could. We were lazy, slow, all our frantic need assuaged earlier in the night. I wanted to come, wanted to feel him come, but I wasn't in a hurry to get there.
What I really wanted was to take my time, to explore what made him feel good, what he liked. To absorb the way he tasted, the scent of him, the sounds he made, even while he was doing the same for me. We came together, drawing the pleasure from each other and sending it back. Royal pulled me close for a slow, deep kiss before we settled back under the blanket, arms and legs entwined.
I can't remember the last time I slept through dawn. It never happened. Even on my day off my eyes flicked open well before five am. Not that day. It must have been all the orgasms because I slept like the dead, waking with a jolt to blink furiously at the sting of bright sunlight, heart thudding so loud that at first I didn't understand that the pounding sound in my ears wasn't my heart.
Wood. It was a fist on wood. And a voice. “Royal! Royal! You guys in there?”
“Fuck.” Royal sat up, pulling the blanket to cover me. “Griffen? Is that you?”
A muffled, “Thank God.” Then, “You guys alright?”
Royal shot an amused glance at me. I grinned back. “We're alright, but could you give us a minute before you open the—”
Too late. The trapdoor flipped up and Griffen's head popped through, a smirk on his face. All at once, my amusement fled and heat burned in my cheeks. I was naked, probably reeked of sex, and all that stood between me and my friend's husband was a thin blanket. I dove beneath, my only thought to hide. Royal's hand came down on my back, holding the blanket in place.
“Can you give us a sec? We're not exactly decent.”
A female laugh drifted up from below along with what I thought was a faint, “Told you so.” Something thumped on the floor.
“We were hoping you were here. Hope put that together for Daisy. I'll let the others know you're okay.”
“The others?” I asked from beneath the blanket.
Royal relayed my question. “Uh, who else is there?”
“Just me, Hope, West, and Sterling.”
“Did you need to bring a crowd?” Royal rubbed my back, trying to soothe my sudden tension.
“West wouldn't take no for an answer. Apparently, Ms. Hutchins called him when Daisy didn't show up to open the bakery. Sterling and Hope are just nosy.”
“Worried! I was worried!” Hope. I thought about giving her a hard time. Then I remembered that thump on the floor and that Hope had brought me something. Please, let it be clean clothes. I peeled back the
blanket and looked up at Royal, who was grinning down at me.
“I'll get rid of them,” he promised in a whisper. “Shut the door for a sec,” he called down to Griffen. The door thudded shut. “I'm going to hit the bathroom and pull on some clothes, go down there and send them all back to the house so you can get dressed in peace.”
“K,” I squeaked, mortified by the idea of Weston Garfield busting up my morning-after at the behest of my worried grandmother.
Ignoring the crowd waiting below, Royal pressed a kiss to my forehead, then my lips. “Last night was magic, Daisy. Not quite what I had planned but magic all the same.”
I reached up and curved my hand over the nape of his neck, bringing him down for another kiss. “Magic,” I whispered against his lips.
At that moment in time, it was the truest thing I knew, all the way to the depths of my soul. Together we made magic, and all I wanted was more.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
royal
I strode through the lobby of The Inn, whistling under my breath. Everything was on track for the day. Construction on the first few cottages was moving along, I'd managed the latest guest crisis, and Daisy was on her way to meet me in my office for lunch.
It was hard to believe that almost a month had passed since the night Daisy and I were trapped in the watchtower. Some things had stayed the same, but the framework of my life had turned upside down, and I had no intention of letting it go back to normal. Not ever.
Daisy and I had barely slept apart since that night. I couldn't bear the idea of being alone in my bed, the sheets cold, Daisy's soft body out of reach. She hadn't argued, only interested in sleeping apart from me the one weekend J.T. came home. Whatever was off-kilter between them, I wanted it set right for Daisy's sake, so I sucked it up and encouraged her to spend time with him when she could. The rest of the nights she was mine.
Together we ignored the rest of the world. I hadn't yet met her parents. She was hesitant to introduce us, and I didn't push. I knew she had issues with her father and she'd mentioned they didn't approve of her dating me, but she didn't want to talk about it.
It went against the grain to let a problem fester—if it had been up to me we would have set things straight and gone on with our lives—but Daisy was stubborn and we were talking about her family, not mine, so I let it go for now. We'd deal with them eventually. For the moment, everything was so good I didn't have much trouble convincing myself to focus on Daisy and ignore her family.
My family wasn't as easy to dismiss. Partly because I worked with three of them, but mostly because we had to spend every night at Heartstone Manor. Savannah was more than our housekeeper, she was our prison guard, reporting to the family attorney if one of us missed a night spent in the house.
Savannah was subtle in her duty, keeping an eye on our comings and goings with the help of the security team but never making a big deal of it. We were all well aware of what would happen if we missed too many nights at home. So far, no one was pushing the limits.
I couldn't complain. I had a luxurious suite in Heartstone Manor and a short commute unlike my youngest brother, Brax, who worked out of his office in Asheville and had an hour-long drive both ways, his new condo in town already sublet to strangers.
Having Daisy in my life had changed more than my sleeping habits. Lucky for me, she understood the situation with the will and never complained about having to stay at Heartstone.
My siblings liked her, and Parker's husband was long gone, but Bryce went out of his way to be an ass on a regular basis, just because he could. We both avoided him as much as possible.
It was barely a month, and we were pretty much living together.
It should have felt too fast.
I should have felt trapped.
I should be itching for a new diversion.
I wasn't.
I woke up by four every morning to make love to Daisy before pulling her into a quick shower and driving us both into town. Well before dawn, I left her in her kitchen with a kiss, though some mornings she made me wait until she'd cooked us both breakfast.
I hit my desk hours before the rest of the management staff, at first surprising the night-shift desk clerks. By now, they were used to me coming in while the rest of the town was sleeping. Tenn showed up each morning to find me almost finished with my paperwork, ready to work with Forrest or jump on whatever fire had to be put out next.
Most days I headed to Heartstone for lunch unless Daisy could get away to meet me. She was oddly reluctant to talk details on the bakery expansion, but she was eager to test new recipes for the planned lunch menu, and I loved being her guinea pig.
Evenings, when I was done working with Griffen and Hope, I'd drive back into town for Daisy. Sometimes we'd cook dinner together and eat in her little apartment above the bakery.
Other nights we'd order dinner up to my office and eat at The Inn. One memorable night I brought her back to the watchtower, this time armed with more supplies, and Bryce safely secured at the big house. We didn't get much sleep, but it was worth it.
Every once in a while, we ate with everyone else at Heartstone Manor. My family was a lot to handle on a good day, and while Daisy didn't seem to mind them, I didn't want to scare her off. I couldn't. I'd only been seeing her for a short time, and I already knew I couldn't live without her.
Everything in my life was better with Daisy. Everything. Being with Daisy somehow gave me more patience with the little things. Not that my family and the problems at The Inn were little things.
Bryce and Ophelia had moved into Heartstone, but the sabotage hadn't stopped. Deliberately broken plumbing in a vacant room that caused thousands in damage and lost room charges. An attempt to switch supplies in the kitchen that might have spoiled dozens of meals if the sous-chef hadn't tasted the salt before seasoning her sauce.
As much as I wanted to blame Bryce for the problems at The Inn, we had to acknowledge that he wasn't the culprit. He'd admitted he locked us in the watchtower, sneering that it was just a prank, and we should learn to take a joke.
Ah, the refrain of petty bullies everywhere. I was only joking. Bryce was more of an asshole every day, but he wasn't the one fucking with my Inn, so I mostly ignored him.
My cheerful whistle died as I passed through the back of the lobby and spotted Sterling talking to Forrest in the restaurant. An early lunch? She was wearing a suit, a file folder on the table beside her, looking as professional and composed as I'd ever seen her, but something about the way she leaned in and smiled at Forrest struck me as off. His returning smile was the same. A little too friendly. A little too personal.
So far, he seemed like a good enough guy. He was a great fit for The Inn and got along well with Tenn and me. But being a decent guy didn't mean he was right for my baby sister. She was vulnerable, trying to start a whole new life, drinking less, and working full time. So far, so good. I didn't want some guy to fuck it up for her.
Not your business, I tried to tell myself as I walked past the restaurant and opened the door to the stairwell. A man in an Inn uniform brushed by me, his shoulder knocking me back a step. I turned to say something, and he disappeared around the corner, leaving me with the impression that I knew him from somewhere, and not The Inn.
I might have thought about it longer, but one of my desk clerks caught me, asking me to take a look at a problem before I headed upstairs.
I had a few minutes before Daisy would be here, so I followed the clerk back to the front desk, sending Daisy a quick text to let her know where I was. Good thing, because the small problem turned out to be a major IT snafu. By the time we figured out what had happened and our IT guy was on the case, Daisy had arrived.
She stood across the desk, dressed in khaki shorts and her pink Sweetheart Bakery polo shirt, carrying a big, twine-handled paper bag with the bakery logo on the side.
I sh
ouldn't kiss her in the lobby. That would be inappropriate.
That's what the stairwell was for.
“Ready?” she asked.
I knew she only had an hour for lunch, her afternoon packed with custom projects she had to finish. Fortunately, the IT guy was on top of the problem and the reservations system would be back up soon. How someone got in the system to mess with the settings was a whole other issue. One I'd deal with later. After lunch with Daisy. I had my priorities straight.
“I'm ready. Picnic or my office?”
“You haven't been outside lately?” she asked. I shook my head. I'd had my face buried in a monitor for the last half hour and hadn't bothered to look out the window. “It's pouring. I'm voting for your office.”
“Works for me.”
I took the bag from her, sliding my arm around her shoulder. She fit into my side perfectly, keeping pace as we crossed the lobby to the stairwell. Sterling and Forrest were gone from the restaurant.
I reminded myself to mention their lunch to Daisy. She wasn't close to Sterling like she was with Hope, but they were friendly and getting closer since Daisy was around Heartstone so much. Maybe she'd have a perspective more evolved than, ‘Get your hands off my sister!’
Scratch that, there was no maybe about it. Daisy was intelligent and she was a good listener. I was already in the habit of running things by her. She was good at reading people and seeing to the heart of a problem.
Just before we got to the door on the office level, I stopped, turning Daisy to back her against the wall.
She blinked up at me, feigning confusion. “Did you forget something?”
“I did. This.” It had been hours since I'd last kissed her. I didn't want to wait another minute. Sure, I could have kissed her in my office. I had before, spending hours with her settled in my lap in my desk chair or stretched out on the couch after dinner. But Penny was at her desk and I didn't want to scandalize Daisy. No kissing in the office during work hours. The stairwell, on the other hand…