I pretty much floated off the Tube despite the seven hundred thousand other people clogging South Kensington station. It was a relief to breeze into the Victoria and Albert and see that the crowds were thinning out, despite the fact that it was open to the public until eleven tonight.
Per the instructions in the second email Rob had sent me today, I went to the ticket counter and gave my name. A docent immediately whisked me down a long marble hallway. He removed the velvet rope in front of a pair of sliding glass doors that were covered on the inside with brown craft paper.
“Madame,” he said, holding out his arm. “We do so hope you enjoy the exhibit. You’re the very first visitor to see it.”
I was so excited—and so nervous, always so nervous and excited when it came to Rob—I could hardly breathe.
“Thank you.” I smiled and stepped through the doors.
The space was cavernous, with soaring ceilings and white walls. There was music playing. Something soft and classical. I caught a glimpse of the entrance to the exhibit. A History of the Dress.
My heart skipped a beat.
Before I could get any further, another docent appeared, this one bearing a flute of champagne.
“I’m allowed to drink in here?” I asked, taking the flute from her.
She winked at me. “Not usually. But we make exceptions for special occasions. Robert is due to arrive presently. We invite you to look around in the meantime.”
Sipping my champagne, I made my way toward the exhibit. My footfalls were loud on the wood floors, echoing off the high ceilings.
I gasped—literally gasped—when the dresses came into view. Each was displayed inside a plexiglass case that you could walk all the way around so you didn’t miss a single detail.
There were dresses of every shape and size. An enormous ball gown with an impossibly small waist and an Elizabethan ruff at the collar. A sparkling flapper dress. A tiny gown of fine white muslin that looked like something straight out of a Jane Austen novel.
As I made my way into the exhibit, I noticed there were green and yellow post-it notes stuck to the glass beside the display cards. Standing in front of the flapper dress, I furrowed my brow and lifted the post it note with my finger. It was scrawled with close but neat handwriting.
A—I imagine you’d wear something like this to a ridiculous themed party Kit and Em would throw.
I bit my bottom lip, smiling. Looked up, expecting to see Rob. But it was still just me in the exhibit.
I headed for the next dress, nursing my champagne. This one was a riding habit from the eighteenth century. The yellow sticky note said This is what you’d wear when I taught you to ride. A horse, I mean. Not me. Although if you wanted to ride me, too, I’d be okay with that.
My smile was getting so big it started to hurt. My throat was thickening, too.
You wouldn’t be wearing this for very long at all. I’d tear it off you, said the note on a Balenciaga mini dress.
My eyes filmed over when I read the message he left on a Grace Kelly-style 1950s evening gown. You’d look so beautiful in this.
“Robert,” I breathed, putting my hand over my mouth.
“Do you like it?”
I startled at the sound of his voice. He stood at the entrance to the exhibit, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. The display lights caught on his hair and eyelashes. He was looking at me, hard, brow a little puckered. Eyes a little uncertain.
I could. Not. Breathe.
“I love it,” I said. I plucked the sticky note off the plexiglass. “I especially love your notes.”
One side of his handsome mouth kicked up. “I was hoping you might.”
I looked at him. “This is so perfect, Rob. Really. You didn’t have to—”
“I did.” He began to walk toward me. Slowly but confidently. “I do have to try as hard as I can to show you how lovely you are to me. When you were looking at those dresses in the shop window—you said you wanted to be the sort of woman who’d wear them. I need you to know that you’ve always been that woman to me, sweetheart. The ballsy, accomplished, sexy-as-hell woman who knows what she wants and who she is. The one who deserves romance and the happily ever after.”
Tears were streaming down my face now. Rolling down my neck.
Rob knew. Knew who I was and what I wanted and what I dreamed about.
He was making those dreams come true right this very moment.
“But I thought we agreed we didn’t know who we were,” I replied. “Remember? On the boat?”
Rob stopped in front of me. He didn’t touch me, though. Didn’t reach out.
“Of course I remember. I’ve thought a lot about that night. And I want to amend our statement. One of the things I love most about you is your soft heart. You know who you are, Aly. But you also keep an open mind.”
I blinked. “I do?”
“You were willing to keep an open mind about me for far longer than anyone else would have. You were willing to rethink things you thought you knew were true. I learned that from you, sweetheart. I rethought my assumptions. You made me question everything. Well. Almost everything. I never—not once—questioned how I felt about you.”
He held up his hands. “What happens next is up to you. I’m not going to press you. But you know how I feel, Aly. I would give anything”—his voice broke—“to be with you. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“But your heart.” I put my palm on the center of his chest. His tie was silky and warm against my palm. “Your heart was always in the right place, Robert. You’ve got a soft one, too.”
He scoffed, even though his eyes were wet. “A pair of softies, are we?”
“Whatever we are,” I said, “we’re a pair. I wanted to get over you. I won’t lie, Rob—I fought this. But you’re the real deal. More than any other guy will ever be for me.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I need to hear you say it.”
I stepped closer to him. I could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.
“Yes,” I said simply. “Please, God, yes!”
And then his hands were on my waist and I was jumping into his arms, straddling him with my legs as I kissed him, hard and messy and desperate.
I said yes to us. I said yes to happiness, despite uncertainty. I said yes to now and to him and to myself, too.
This was it. Rob was it. I’d never felt more certain of something—someone—in my entire life. Especially when he kissed me like the world was ending.
At last he pulled back, breathless, his eyes and his hair where I’d run my hands through it a little wild.
“I can’t promise you I’ll be perfect,” he said. “But I do promise to love you as well and as hard as I can, sweetheart.”
Love.
“I’m in love with you, Aly.”
I plucked at his lips with mine. “I love you, too, Robert. And I don’t want perfect. I just want you.”
His smirk returned. So handsome. So him.
“How much of me d’you think you can handle?” he asked, adjusting me on his hips so I could feel him pressing against me. Right there.
Right where I wanted him.
“Not so soft now, are we?” I murmured, grinning.
He laughed. “Can’t help it when I’m around you.”
“Let’s go home,” I said, nodding at the entrance. “As much as I’m enjoying the exhibit, I think I’m going to enjoy you more.”
He cocked a brow. “Home?”
“Your place. Mine. As long as you’re there, it’s home to me.”
Rob may have been hard as a rock between my legs, but his eyes, like his heart, went soft.
“Really?”
I grinned. “Really.”
“Good.” Now his eyes flashed with mischief. “How about some riding lessons, then?”
I nipped at his earlobe. “What are you waiting for?”
He turned around, still holding me at his hips, and took me home.
Home, where our hap
pily ever after began.
THE END
Epilogue
Rob
Six Months Later
Primrose Palace
I set the hammer down on the top of my ladder, and reached for the string of café lights I’d draped on the next step down. I hung them on the hook I’d just installed on the garden wall. Then I stepped down and admired my work.
Looking up from setting the long trestle table in the middle of the garden, Aly smiled at the ceiling of lights. “It’s perfect!” She turned that smile on me. “Thank you. It’s even more beautiful than I imagined.”
“Good thing I’m handy,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “Otherwise you’d have to ask Marty to help you set up for your parties. And you know what a curmudgeon he can be.”
“Only with you.” Her eyes flicked to my lips. “He likes me.”
I grinned. “Who doesn’t?”
I pressed a kiss onto Aly’s mouth. Her lips were warm. Soft. She tasted sweet, like the champagne we’d been sipping on for the past hour or so.
My body jumped, the way it always did when I was around her. We’d been together for months now, and I kept waiting for the rush of desire I felt for her to subside. Kept waiting for the excitement to fade.
But it hadn’t. The more of Aly I had, the more I wanted. She made me so damn happy.
And I made her happy, too. Mostly by helping her host dinner parties like this one. (Just kidding…sort of). Tonight’s party was for Kit and Emily and the newest addition to the Thorne family. Little Princess Josephine (named after mum) had arrived two months ago, healthy and happy and beautiful. Josie’s doctor finally cleared her for visitors—we’d had a terrible flu season this past spring—so Aly and I had offered to have some friends and family (and maybe a dignitary or two) over to our place for a small meet and greet.
“Do you like your garden?” I asked, slipping my arms around her waist.
She stepped into me, pressing her body against mine. “Our garden. And yes. I love it.”
“So you don’t regret moving in with me, then?” I teased.
I’d been ready for Aly to move in with me the moment I’d told her I’d loved her at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I knew she’d wanted to take things slow, however, and I respected her timing. So I’d romanced the hell out of her in the meantime. I took her out on dates. Sent her flowers. Sent her flirty emails to let her know I was thinking of her. And of course I’d called in more favors from my friends in the Royal Navy. Aly had very much enjoyed our sunset tour of the Lake District via helicopter. And the plays we’d gone to see at The Globe—she’d enjoyed those, too.
We’d spent our Saturday nights staying up late, talking about everything and nothing. Then we’d go to our favorite brunch spot every Sunday morning, where we’d sip coffee and read the paper over our eggs (omelet for me, benedict for her).
We were sickeningly cute. Sickeningly in love.
It wasn’t perfect. Balancing our careers with our relationship took work. But it was bloody fantastic all the same.
I’d let Aly know she was welcome to move into my cottage at Primrose whenever she was ready. Last month, she’d told me she was.
Now here we were, hosting our second dinner party. I’d made a real effort to introduce Aly to my friends and colleagues. Now they were her friends, too, and she loved hosting them at our cozy little place on the palace grounds.
Aly’s eyes glittered as they met mine. She was in her element. And that fact made my heart soar. I never, not in a million years, believed I could make such an excellent girl like Aly Mason happy. Never thought I could make someone’s dreams come true. Or that anyone could ever be my dream come true.
But I was living that dream. Right here. Right now. On a summer night in our garden, the evening sky above us streaked with pinks and purples and just a hint of blue.
“Only when you leave the toilet seat up,” she replied.
I grinned. “Hey. I don’t ever leave the seat up.”
“Exactly.” She plucked at my lips. I groaned, my cock springing to life. “I never regret moving in with you, Robert.”
“You know.” Moving one hand to Aly’s ass, I lifted the other to check my watch. “We’ve got half an hour before our guests arrive.”
Aly pressed her groin right where I wanted her to. Right into my erection. Her eyes went hazy.
“Can anyone see us?” she murmured.
Backing her into the table, I tilted my head at the high brick wall that separated the palace’s private quarters from its public ones. “Not a soul.”
“Good,” she said, looping her arms around my neck.
She grinned when I lifted her and set her on the edge of the table. I settled myself between her legs, the insistent throb of my cock making me grit my teeth. Bloody hell, I’d barely touched her and I was ready to come.
I ducked down and kissed her neck, teasing her skin with my tongue. Her breath caught.
Aly was wearing a long, gauzy purple dress—another Emilia Wickstead creation—that I gathered in my hands and hiked up around her waist. My fingers trailed over the smooth skin of her legs. I slid my palms up her thighs.
My thumbs stopped just short of her groin. I pulled back a little, looking down.
She was wearing a pretty pair of panties. Black lace, to match the flowers on her dress.
I pressed my palm against her, the heel to her clit, the tip of my middle finger to her ass. I could feel her heat through the lace.
She moaned, a soft, sweet sound, and rolled her hips into my hand.
I slipped my first finger inside her panties, toying with them, the back of my middle knuckle grazing her wet heat.
Christ she was wet. Always so wet for me.
“Robert,” she whimpered.
I pressed my knuckle to her clit. Began to circle it. Aly’s head fell back, her hair trailing down her back and arms.
“I want,” she panted. “I want you inside me when I come.”
I grinned. “What the boss wants, she gets.”
I made quick work of my fly. When I grabbed my dick, I nearly winced. The tip was already slick with precum. Aly reached down and swirled her thumb around it, making me wet. Making me buck my hips.
I reached back down and circled her clit. Then she was guiding me toward her, and I was pulling those pretty little panties aside, and I kissed her, hard. She lined me up, and I canted my hips, surging into her in one smooth stroke. We both cried out. I stepped forward, curling an arm around her waist to hold her against me.
Her pussy was tight and hot. So hot.
“Let me,” I said. Let me have you.
And she did. She let me take the lead, holding her as I began to move inside her. Her knees were bunched up against my chest. Her mouth was on my jaw, my chin. My ear.
I reached down with my free hand and pressed my first two fingers against her swollen clit. Her cunt fluttered around me.
“Come, sweetheart,” I said.
And she did. The flutters became pulses. She whimpered again. Her kisses became frantic. Then her orgasm hit both of us, her pussy clenching me, milking me, and then I was coming, too, my body going taut against the force of it.
I found Aly’s mouth and kissed her. Our tongues and lips moving with well practiced ease as our orgasms subsided. Her cunt pulsed one last time, a hard, decisive beat, and then she went limp against me.
Blinking, I came to.
“Jesus Christ,” I sputtered.
Aly pulled back and met my eyes. She looked dazed. Satisfied. A small grin played at the corners of her mouth.
“Sorry,” I said, nodding at the table behind her. “I’m afraid we’ve made a bit of a mess.”
She glanced over her shoulder. We’d knocked down a few glasses, and some of the candles had fallen from their candlesticks. She turned back around, that grin now a smile.
Aly curled her hand around my jaw. “Worth it,” she said, and kissed me.
Everything we’d been through t
o get to this moment—it’d all been worth it.
Bringing his cocktail to his lips, Kit’s eyes caught on my neck.
“What the devil is that?” He tugged my collar aside. “Good God, man, is it a—”
“Hickie?” I took a tip of my gin and tonic. “Yes.”
I met Aly’s eyes across the garden. She was with Emily, my sister Jane, and one of my aunts. Aly smiled, this sly, secret thing.
As if I couldn’t love her any more than I already did.
“You do know the Prime Minister is coming,” Kit said.
I nodded. “I do. But she’s not nearly as uptight as you are, so I daresay she’ll appreciate the fact that I’ve got a bit of a love nibble on my neck.”
Kit rolled his eyes, and muttered something about God saving us all.
I watched as Emily passed Josephine to Aly. Aly’s smile grew. I tilted my head toward her, and Kit followed me over.
“The two of you make beautiful babies,” I said, looking down at Josie.
Em patted me on the back. “You guys will, too.”
“I know,” I replied. “I can’t wait.”
Aly looked up. Directed that smile at me. “Me neither.”
“Goodness, look at all you Thorne children, settling down,” my aunt said. She turned to Jane. “Well. Except for Jane. What about you, my dear? Ready to find your own prince charming?”
Jane scoffed, rolling her eyes.
“Hell no,” she said. Then she turned and made a beeline for the bar.
“Famous last words!” I called after her.
Without looking back, she flipped me the bird.
Aly settled her head on my shoulder. “Give Jane some space. She’ll find her prince. And when she does, she’s going to fall hard.”
“Just like you did?” I said, pressing a kiss onto the top of her head.
She smiled. “Just like me.”
Look out for Princess Jane’s story in Spring 2018!
Royal Rebel: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Flings With Kings) Page 21