Prince of my Panties (Royal Package)

by Lili Valente

  She sighs again. “Me, too. And we should probably eat something. I need to keep my strength up if I’m going to sex you all night long and sew all day tomorrow.” Her lips turn down. “How am I going to sew all day tomorrow, Jeffrey? I already know all I’ll want to do is jump on your penis as often as possible?”

  I laugh. “Easy there, killer. You’re probably going to be sore tomorrow.”

  “I’m sore now,” she says, grinning wider. “Deliciously sore.” She giggles. “I’m not a virgin anymore.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I say, judging myself a little for the pride I take in that.

  I’m ridiculous. But I’m also…happy.

  So happy and content. At peace, despite the pleasure buzz still humming in my nerve endings.

  “I’ve never felt like this afterward,” I confess, brushing her hair from her forehead. “Especially not the first time.”

  She sobers. “Like what?”

  “So…right. So easy. So sure that it wasn’t a mistake.”

  “I hope not,” she whispers, worry creeping into her eyes.

  I shake my head. “No. No worry tonight. Only good thoughts.”

  She arches a brow. “Only good thoughts? What about dirty thoughts?”

  “Those, too.” I kiss her, long and slow, before I add in a whisper, “Even filthy thoughts are allowed if you’d like.”

  “Oh, I would like,” she says, pushing on my chest until I roll onto my back. She straddles my hips, the feel of her bare, wet pussy so close to my dick enough to make me hard again, a feat I wouldn’t have believed possible a minute ago. “But first, I want to tell you something serious.”

  “Tell me,” I say, reaching up to cup her breasts, enjoying how the weight of them rests in my hands from this angle.

  “I only know three positions,” she says, her cheeks flushing. I rub my thumb over her nipple, and the flush spreads there. “And that’s only from reading about them. Will you teach me the others?”

  “You don’t need to be taught anything,” I say honestly. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever been with, Lizzy. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  “You’re sweet,” she says, her lashes fluttering as I intensify my attention to her oh-so-responsive nipples. “But I… God, I can’t think when you do that.”

  “Good,” I say. “Go get a condom from my bag by the sink. I’ll show you how to put it on me, then you can be on top.”

  “Oh, yes,” she says, shivering. “That sounds so good. Food can wait.”

  “Food can most certainly wait.”

  And it does, until nearly midnight, when Lizzy and I finally agree we can’t keep going without proper fuel. We eat cold Chinese at the small table in the corner, wrapped in robes from the closet, laughing and feeding each other the vegetables we know the other likes best—mushrooms for her, broccoli for me—and talking about everything and nothing.

  By the time we brush our teeth after, I’m pretty sure I’m irreversibly in love with her. And then she turns to me in the darkness after we shut off the lamp and whispers, “Thank you for the best night of my life,” and seals the deal.

  “My pleasure,” I say, holding her close against my side. “And the same to you. See you in the morning, sweet Lizzy.”

  “See you in the morning, sweet Jeffrey.” She kisses my chest, yawns, and is out a few moments later, her body heavy with sleep against mine as I lie staring at the ceiling, knowing six months will never be enough.

  I’m going to need her for a lot longer than that.

  Forever might be long enough.

  22

  Elizabeth

  So many of the things other people love are, in my humble opinion, overrated.

  Movies?

  Meh.

  Why leave the house to buy an overpriced ticket and even more overpriced concessions when you could stay home, read a book, and imagine the characters exactly the way you like them?

  Jogging?

  Ugh.

  I’ll walk to my destination, thank you very much, and avoid sweat stains, muscle aches, and gargling my heart.

  Same with skiing, bicycling, and other recreational activities, plus pie, barbeque, the beach, fancy cocktails, bars, bartenders, and leaving the house in the winter or after eight p.m.

  But sex?

  Sex is nothing like those other things.

  Sex is even better than all the books and movies and love songs made it out to be.

  “What’s the opposite of false advertising?” I ask Jeffrey over breakfast the next morning after he’s taught me about shower sex and how good it feels to be pinned against the cool tile while he’s hot between my legs.

  God, I want him between my legs—All. The. Time.

  Every second of every day.

  I’m sore this morning, for sure, but his cock is seriously the best toy on the planet. I have no clue how I’m going to keep my hands off of him long enough to put the finishing touches on my designs.

  Since the moment we got out of the shower, all I’ve wanted to do is drag him back into it.

  He arches a brow but keeps his gaze on his newspaper. “True advertising?”

  “No,” I scoff. “Something better than that. Something bigger. Like a truth bomb. Or a divine revelation.”

  He glances over the top of the paper, the heat in his gaze making me squirm in my chair and wish we’d taken breakfast in the room instead of the hotel’s back garden. “Are you thinking about sex again, you fiend?” he whispers.

  I scan the space, making sure none of the hotel staff are close enough to hear before I lean in and say, “Of course I am. Is it always like this with someone new? Like a toy you can’t wait to play with again and again?”

  He gives a small shake of his head, his eyes never leaving mine. “No. It isn’t. You’re especially divine. And…addictive. I want to stretch you out on this table and have you for breakfast.”

  I bite my lip, but I can’t hold back a giddy grin. “Me, too. Sex is the stuff, my friend. I confess I wasn’t sure it would live up to all the hype, but…”

  “But what?” he prompts in a voice that makes my nipples tingle.

  “But it really, really does,” I murmur as I lean closer, needing to see if his lips taste as delicious as they did twenty minutes ago. He angles his head, but before we can dive mouth first into the PDA ocean, our waiter arrives.

  “Two full Rindish, extra sourdough toast, and a half order of the lemon crepes,” she says, setting the plates down with a firm clatter that makes it clear she noticed the almost-kiss and doesn’t approve. “Anything else for you?”

  I glance up, meeting the older woman’s narrow blue gaze with a sheepish grin. “No, thank you. This is lovely.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it,” she says briskly. “Let me know if you need more coffee or milk.” With a final warning glance down her thin nose, she turns and hustles back into the kitchen entrance on the other side of the garden.

  Jeffrey chuckles. “Why do Rindish people hate kissing so much?”

  “It’s not just kissing. They also hate holding hands and dancing too close.”

  “Dancing at all, seems like. My brothers and I went to a concert near here a few years back. Andrew and Nick were the only ones dancing. You should have seen the looks they got from the older set. You’d have thought they were clubbing baby seals on the lawn.”

  I shrug. “As a people, we’re just not into public displays of feeling or passion or anything else that might make someone else uncomfortable. Manners are important.” I cut open my croissant and tuck my herbed eggs inside. “But things are changing. I’ve seen Sabrina kiss boys at bars before, and no one lost their mind about it. But that’s after dark, with booze involved, not first thing in the morning over coffee. We really ought to be ashamed of ourselves.”

  “I’m not ashamed of a damned thing,” he says, and then his lips are on mine and he’s kissing me like I’m the only fuel he needs to survive.

  His fingers thread into m
y hair, and his tongue strokes into my mouth, and my blood bubbles like champagne—bright and fizzy and free. By the time he pulls away, I’m breathless and beyond caring what anyone thinks about public displays of affection.

  “Upstairs,” I say, my hunger for anything but him forgotten. “Let’s go to bed and never get out.”

  “A brilliant idea, but we should eat first.” He spears a raspberry on his fork and lifts it to my lips. “If you’re going to keep up with me, you’ll need your strength.”

  I take the raspberry between my teeth, watching him watch me as I slowly chew and swallow. “I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with you last night.”

  “I was taking it easy on you last night,” he says, meeting my gaze with an intensity that makes me shiver.

  I shake my head. “I never asked you to take it easy on me. I want all of it, Jeffrey. All of you.”

  “Every piece,” he promises, nodding toward my plate. “So eat. Quickly.”

  “Quickly?” I tease, cutting the corner off my croissant sandwich. “I thought you were a fan of delayed gratification?”

  “I am, but I’m a bigger fan of being inside you,” he whispers, sending an electric zing across my skin. “So deep inside you…”

  I’m about to kiss him—and possibly feel him up under the tablecloth because I am a wild, wanton woman making up for lost time—when his phone buzzes beside his coffee cup.

  He glances down, his expression sobering. “I should take this. It’s an official call. Be right back.” He presses a quick kiss to my forehead and stands, crossing the garden and stepping through the back gate into the alley behind the hotel as he lifts the phone to his ear.

  I turn back to my food, knowing I should eat my eggs before they get cold.

  Instead, I grab my cell to text Zan.

  I want to ask her questions I shouldn’t, questions about good sex and sweet love and how you know when it’s one or the other or maybe both. But that would lead to questions from her that I’m not ready to answer.

  I’m not even ready to ask them of myself, just yet. I refuse to let my thoughts race ahead into the future and ruin the incredible now.

  So instead of the real things weighing on my mind, I text—Are you okay? I’m fine, so no need to worry. Just thought I’d check in since I haven’t heard from you in a few days.

  I pop my first bite into my mouth and chew, anticipating a relatively prompt reply. Yes, Zan is a busy woman, but our last conversation was fraught. I expect her to be relieved that I’m okay and eager to reprimand me for dropping the communication ball. My tendency to get distracted and forget to stay in touch drives both Sabrina and Alexandra crazy. It bothers me, too, honestly. I don’t enjoy being the flighty one. I’ve tried to do better, but brains aren’t easy things to change.

  Neither are habits.

  As I’ve gotten closer to that much-dreaded birthday, I’ve gotten in the habit of shutting down both pleasure and pain and reaching for numbness instead. I numb myself with work and call it dedication to supporting my family and nurturing my art. I numb myself with reading and pretend I haven’t taken book-worming to a place where it isn’t cute anymore. I numb my anxiety with exhaustion, making sure I’m never well-rested enough to think too much about my rapidly dwindling days on earth.

  I haven’t felt as alive as I do this morning in…years.

  Maybe longer.

  I’m not sure what to do with all the feelings and questions and sensations flooding me, but for once, I don’t want to run away or numb out. I want to wallow in being vibrantly, electrically alive, to see how much bliss I can stand before it kills me.

  “Sorry about that.” Jeffrey settles back into his chair and reaches for his fork. “One of my people needed my Dropbox information. Looks like I have some files to go through this morning while you sew.”

  My lips turn down. “I don’t want to sew.”

  Jeffrey smiles around a bite of eggs, waiting until he swallows to say, “But you have to sew. The post office closes at four. Though, I suppose we could swing by tomorrow morning on our way out of town if you’d rather.”

  I saw at my sausage link with a sigh. “No, I want to get it off my plate today. You’re right—I want my head to be clear for the trip upcountry tomorrow.” I nibble at the tender meat, some of the fizz going out of my blood.

  I don’t want to think about the curse, not even in a hopeful way. I’ll save my hope for tomorrow when we’ve found Kaula and she’s willing to share any helpful information she may have.

  Until then, I just want to be in love.

  In lust, I correct myself. But as Jeffrey and I finish our meal and go our separate ways—him to conduct his royal business at the café down the street, me back to the room to tie up all the loose threads, steam, and tissue-wrap my designs—my heart is every bit as sad as my lady parts to see him go.

  I stand at the window, watching him walk down the street with an ache in my chest.

  And then I set to work like a woman possessed, determined to finish everything early so that Jeffrey and I can have more time together before dinner.

  I’m so driven, so focused, that everything but the deadline fades to mental background noise. I don’t finish early, after all, but I do pop into the post office with twenty minutes to spare. I have my confirmation ticket in hand when Jeffrey meets me outside the small building at one corner of the square a few minutes after four.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he says, looking as happy to see me as I am to see him. “Are you a free woman?”

  “All free and all yours.” I jump into his arms, grinning as he hugs me hard enough to lift me off my feet. “Want to go back to the hotel and celebrate naked?” I murmur into his ear.

  “Very much,” he says. “But first I need to pick up the camping equipment I ordered from the supply store before they close. Want to come along and help carry my tent?”

  “I will absolutely help carry your tent,” I say, kissing his cheek.

  He makes a happy, rumbling sound that vibrates my ribs. “I like how dirty you made that sound.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say as he sets me back on my feet and we start across the square, hand in hand. “So, what did you do today?”

  He sighs, and his smile fades. “I went through everything the Gallantian genealogical institute had on your family tree, all the way back to the middle ages, but there was nothing about Greta’s secret baby and no date of death for Greta. She was simply shipped off to Italy and forgotten about, apparently.” He squeezes my palm. “I’m sorry. I’d hoped to return with something we could use.”

  “It’s all right,” I say, shrugging it off.

  “But if we hit a dead end in Wettingfeld, Jarod, our genealogy man, said there are a few old journals we could—”

  “Can we…not do this right now?” I pause in front of a statue of another of my ancient ancestors that sits in the center of a fountain in the square.

  This one was a decent human being, celebrated for abolishing workhouses and founding compassionate care homes for aging Rindish veterans, but she also died at twenty-six after tripping over her cat and tumbling down the stairs in the west wing. Her younger brothers were serving with the army, and her parents were away on holiday, so the poor woman’s body lay there for weeks. They later found one of her earrings in the cat’s sandbox out back, a part of the story that baffled me until Zan explained that the cat must have eaten the woman’s ear—and the earring—and pooped it out later.

  I was ten and immediately stopped begging my parents for a kitten.

  Even my heroic ancestors are depressing, and I don’t want to be sad tonight. “I just want to enjoy you,” I say. “Enjoy us and leave the rest of it for tomorrow. Is it okay to pretend to be normal for one night?”

  “You’re normal,” Jeffrey protests, laughing when I shoot him a hard look. “All right, but who wants normal? Certainly not me.” He brings my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “I can do normal. After we pick up the
camping equipment, I’m taking you out to dinner. Some place decadent where we can buy ridiculously expensive wine.”

  “I’ve never had ridiculously expensive wine,” I say, smiling up at him. “Is it really that much better than the reasonably priced stuff?”

  “So much better,” he scoffs. “And much less likely to give you a hangover. And then we’ll get dessert to go and take it back to the hotel room, and you can put your money where your mouth is about all that licking you promised me back in Frye.”

  I bounce on my toes, so excited I barely feel the sewing crick in my neck anymore. “Yes! That sounds perfect.”

  And it is—so perfect that I don’t realize Zan hasn’t replied to my text until, after a blissfully romantic dinner with Jeffrey and an even more blissful close encounter with his cock and the whipped cream from our dessert, I’m awakened at three a.m. by a bleat from my phone.

  Instantly, instinctively, I know it’s Zan and that something’s wrong.

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and gently lifting the arm Jeffrey’s slung over my hip, I slide out of bed and tiptoe across the room to the desk where my phone’s charging.

  Turning off the sound so as not to wake Jeffrey with clicking, I open Zan’s message to read—Call me as soon as you get this. Make sure you’re alone. Your friend isn’t who you think he is. He might not be a friend at all.

  Pulse picking up and a sour taste rising in my throat, I glance over my shoulder to find Jeffrey sitting up in bed, watching me, and nearly jump out of my skin.

  “Is everything all right?” he asks, his voice a deep rumble in the silence following my gasp of surprise.

  “Y-yes.” I take a deeper breath and yank the charger cord from my cell. “At least, I think so. Zan wants me to call her.”

  “Now?” he asks. “In the middle of the night?”

  “It’s okay.” I wave a hand, hoping that, in the near darkness, he can’t see the way it’s trembling. “We’re both insomniacs. She’s used to me being up all night. I’ll just pop down to the lobby and see what she needs. Go back to sleep.”

  “You can call here. It’s fine. I’m already awake.”