Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5)

by Blair Babylon

  A force impacted between her shoulder blades, and she fell forward onto her hands and knees. A breeze flipped her skirt up to her waist, baring her thighs and ass, and the cool breeze from the window caressed her skin.

  She looked back and caught a glimpse of Maxence’s strong jaw and broad shoulders lined with candlelight. He’d stripped his shirt off, and the tattoo on his forearm with Monaco’s red and white diamond shield at the base pointed down toward his wrist.

  Oh, jeez. He was going to cram himself inside her. She didn’t brace herself but tried to open and relax, even though she was cringing inside.

  She wasn’t even close to saying her safe word, though. For weeks, Max had been busy with events in the evenings. He’d barely had time at the office to rip her panties off and stroke her once or twice, all to frustrate her with no release. Dree wanted anything she could get from him.

  A rough hand forced her head down, rubbing her face in the thick carpeting and lifting her ass higher in the air. He slid her panties down to her knees.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as she braced herself for his entry.

  Instead, a warm, wet tongue slid through her folds.

  Oh.

  Warmth and tenderness licked through her, a muscular and yet soft intrusion that made her body bloom with desire for more. Her relief and desire coalesced in her throat, and the sound came out as a low moan.

  His tongue left her, and Maxence growled, “Quiet, or I won’t let you come.”

  Dree choked back another sound. She suspected he liked nothing better than seeing her frustrated and horny while he zipped up his fly.

  His tongue moved on her again, stroking her soft skin in ever-expanding and deeper waves.

  She dug her fingers into the thick carpet, panting.

  When his tongue left her skin and his erection nudged her, Dree gulped air, unaware that she had been holding her breath.

  Her body filled with oxygen, and fairy lights danced around the edges of her vision.

  He slid in, taking her slowly as she keened in the carpeting, already so close that the friction inside her almost sent her over the edge.

  But not quite.

  It was like he was holding her back.

  Maxence grabbed her shoulder and hauled her up off the floor. He held her back pressed against him, one arm locked around her shoulders and his staff grinding up inside her. Her face was crammed against his smooth cheek, his sharp jaw furrowing her soft flesh below her cheekbone.

  His breath hissed through his teeth, and his whisper was rough in her ear. “I said no sound. If I have to shove it in your mouth to keep you quiet, I will.”

  Dree pressed her lips together and tried to breathe through her nose, but she was panting so hard that there wasn’t enough air. He jabbed up into her, and his other hand cupped her mound possessively but didn’t rub her.

  It was like he was deliberately denying her the sensation that would send her over the edge. She tried to angle her hips to rub against his hand, but his fingers were bowed, and she couldn’t.

  She wanted—

  She knew what she wanted.

  Release. She was dying for that last little bit that would send her over the edge. She was obsessed with it. Every molecule in her body screamed to end this tension, even if it killed her.

  Trying not to make a sound, trying not to whimper or moan, she’d forgotten to breathe again. The next oxygen she sucked in flowed through her body, sparkling, and she almost went over the edge. Her body contracted with the nearness of it.

  Still, he pressed her down over his massive erection and took her from behind, keeping his hand still and denying her that last little bit of spark she needed.

  She was close, so damn close.

  Every time she unclenched her lips and gasped another breath of air, the world lightened for a moment and the air almost lifted her to that point where she could fly, and then she slowly declined into darkening struggle with Maxence’s arms clamped around her as he raided her body.

  If only she couldn’t breathe.

  If only Maxence would keep her from breaking for air until she could reach the heights she needed to.

  But she couldn’t ask. She couldn’t be that woman who wanted something so taboo, so forbidden.

  But she wanted it.

  Instead, she lifted his arm, slid his hand over her shoulder, and wrapped his hand around her throat.

  And she pressed on his hand and fingers.

  From behind her, a sharp intake of breath rasped.

  He squeezed, his strong fingers clamping around her windpipe.

  His other hand rolled one rough finger over her.

  Her heart flailed, the anoxia rising in her body that was desperate for oxygen.

  He pounded inside her and choked her, and when the orgasm roared and expanded inside her, his hand opened.

  She gulped air.

  The throb and light became a blast, a violence that torpedoed through her and destroyed her mind and her body from the inside out.

  The sudden influx of oxygen slammed into her, inducing the release again. She had flown up into the sky and fallen limply toward the Earth, but a geyser of ecstasy caught her and tossed her into the air again.

  An eternity later, the carpet scrubbed her face as Max dug his fingers into her raised hips in a last, ragged spasm of passion, and the shout behind her was masculine and utterly out of his mind.

  As she gasped, breathing, the air rushing down her raw throat into her lungs and blood, a second thrill of coming back to life, one thought assailed her—

  —He’s done that before.

  The aftercare took hours.

  She was sobbing with the horrendous emotions of it, the wanting it and showing him and yet terrified by it. Maxence held her in his arms against the bare skin of his chest, and he wrapped them in a blanket as they sat in a chair, murmuring to her how incredible she was, how she enchanted him.

  Those few minutes of ecstasy had been fleeting, but the memory of them shook her. The fact that she had literally risked her life for an orgasm—even an amazing one—was so different than everything she knew about herself. She despised the sniveling creature huddled in Maxence’s arms.

  He must be disgusted by her, even as he stroked her hair and pressed kisses to her forehead.

  She’d brought it on herself. He would tell her to get the hell out, and she would have to figure out how to survive and where to go in a horrible and ridiculous world.

  She should run away, and yet she clung to him.

  Maxence poured her a glass of wine and held it to her lips, telling her to drink. After that, his fingers held strawberries dipped in sugar, and the low tone of his voice commanded that she eat.

  Soft music drifted in the apartment, soothing her further.

  After a time, the panicked trembling subsided, and she sighed into his neck where black feathers from the tattoo inked on his back curled over his shoulder. She touched them, the ink so dark that it was amazing that his skin was smooth.

  “There is my girl,” Maxence whispered into her hair. “There’s my little chérie. You don’t have to cry. I know you’re not the kind of girl who likes to be choked. I made you do it. Everything is what I do to you.”

  Dree whispered, “But what if I am?”

  Maxence chuckled. “Then you’re in luck because I’m the kind of man who will choke you.”

  “Maybe I am the kind of girl who likes to be choked, or more, or worse.”

  His hand slid down over her bare hip underneath the blanket and cupped her butt cheek. “I’ve always thought you might be curious about more than you let on.”

  A delightful frisson cascaded through her body.

  Before she could stop her mouth from talking, Dree said, “Hey, if I’ll sleep with a priest, I guess I am a depraved slut who will sleep with anything.”

  Maxence leaned back and gazed down at her in the dim light. A few of the lamps in the room had been turned on, though Dree really didn’t remember any
of that. “It’s still bothering you.”

  Dree looked down, breaking eye contact with him. “Of course, it’s still bothering me.”

  He dragged a finger underneath her jaw and tipped her head up. His fathomless dark eyes were solemn. “As soon as a new prince sits on the throne of Monaco, I’ll renounce my vows as a deacon and be officially laicized by Pope Vincent de Paul.”

  A stupid spark of hope floated up to Dree’s head. “You will?”

  “I can’t do it now. My Holy Orders as a deacon and theoretically, someday, as a priest, are the basis for my argument that I am fundamentally ineligible to be the Prince of Monaco. If I renounce my vows now, the Crown Council will try to elect me, and my life will surely be in danger. Too many people want that throne. As a religious, I’m safe.”

  Doubt filtered in.

  Her ex-boyfriend, Francis Senft, had lied to her about everything, and she’d believed every single lying word Francis had ever said with all her heart, even when her B.S. detector had tingled her neck like she’d hit the funny bone on her whole spine.

  Francis loved her. He wanted to get married. He was a nice guy and not a criminal and a drug dealer at all.

  She’d wanted to believe Francis so much. Her church, her family, and her friends all told her that if she was sleeping with him, then she needed to marry him, so she’d demanded it.

  What a sap she was.

  Part of her didn’t want to believe anyone about anything, even Max, who’d only lied to her when she’d told him to. “Oh. Okay.”

  “I will,” Maxence said. “Look at me. Listen to me.”

  His fingers trailed up her bare arms and cradled her head on both sides, his palms warm against her jaw.

  Dree’s thoughts quieted. Her focus turned to Maxence, to his dark eyes, to his sensuous lips.

  “I am going to renounce my vows,” he said, pronouncing it carefully as if he were cementing it in his mind as much as emphasizing it to her. “I want—”

  She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t even breathe from the intensity rolling off of him.

  “—I care about you,” he said slowly.

  She felt his words through her body like a wave of sensation from the movement of his lips.

  He stopped talking, and he blinked.

  Dree gasped in a breath of air because she hadn’t been able to inhale while he was telling her that.

  He said, “Breathe. Don’t hold your breath.”

  Dree gulped air. “I’m okay.”

  “Keep breathing, but believe me.”

  “But you said you’ve always wanted to be a priest, and I saw you give the homily in Kathmandu. You should be a priest.”

  “I doubt my vocation. Every priest I’ve ever met, given enough time, has doubted my vocation. Two popes have doubted my vocation. I have prayed and prayed, but I feel nothing.”

  Dree frowned. “I feel like I’m interfering in something I shouldn’t, like I’m destroying something good.”

  “I want to be a priest, but even billionaires can’t have everything they want.”

  “I don’t want to be the reason you give it up.”

  “If it’s wrong for me, then I should walk away.”

  “But Max—”

  Hope softened his gaze, and wonder lightened his voice. “We’ll go away together, someplace else, someplace where we can think and be together, someplace far away from Monaco.”

  Anything like that seemed impossible. “There are an awful lot of people depending on you here. I don’t know if you can leave. What if no one else can be the prince?”

  Maxence brushed the air impatiently. “Many others could sit on the throne. It’s a matter of convincing someone decent to take the job.”

  “But I think people are counting on you.”

  He continued, “There is a defined line of succession. It doesn’t stop with me. And even if it did, the loopholes that were exploited when Princess Charlotte was named successor can surely come into play again. She was the illegitimate daughter of the prior prince, who hadn’t managed to sire a surviving child with his legal wife. He adopted Charlotte when she was over eighteen, all of which is specifically outlawed by the French treaties, though it’s quite certain she was his biological daughter. If all of that can be forgiven, skipping a few people in the line of succession shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Dree said, “So, I was talking with some of the other staff, and they seem to be fixated on you.”

  He shrugged. “Yes, the royal family of Monaco and Monegasque citizens have a special, affectionate relationship that is unique in Europe. Many of them probably believe that the line of succession should be adhered to, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best outcome for Monaco. It doesn’t mean that I’m the best person for the job. As a matter of fact, I can guarantee I’m not.”

  “It seems like you know everything about Monaco. In all those meetings about the land reclamation project and the price of fish and stuff, it seems like you always have something interesting to say. I think you’re making good decisions.”

  Maxence blinked, and his expression fell. “In many ways, you know me better than anyone else in the world. I have older friends, but they haven’t seen me like I am with you. They haven’t seen me lose control like I do with you. They haven’t seen how easy it is for me to lose control. You, of all people, should know that I would not be a good Prince of Monaco.”

  She shook her head, reluctantly contradicting him. She didn’t like to. It was a Western thing to agree with people, but this was important. “You’re too hard on yourself. You’re better at this than you think you are.”

  “If you think that, maybe you don’t know me so well. So, while we’re here, I want you to know who I am, all of who I am. In the end, whether it’s weeks or months from now, the Pope will laicize me, and we can decide where to go from there. But you need to know who I am.”

  Dree leaned down and rested her cheek against his warm chest. She braced one leg on the floor so she wouldn’t slide off his lap. “I know who you are. I saw you every day in Nepal when you worked yourself to exhaustion to try to help people there, and then you took care of me when I was too tired to work anymore, and then you stood up and fought against corruption that would have hurt them. That’s who you are.”

  Maxence’s arm behind her back firmed and cuddled her more closely to his chest, but his other hand touched her knee. “No. That’s what I wish I was.”

  “It was enough for me.”

  His fingers wandered up past her bare knee and sneaked past the edge of the blanket. “It’s never been enough for me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kir Sokolov, Again

  Maxence

  That evening’s event filled the main floor of the Grimaldi Forum Convention Center, the enormous structure with the roof tiled in the multicolored waves of the Hexa Grace. While that night’s reception for a French pharmaceutical corporation was moderately large, the Sea Change Gala scheduled for the next weekend would dwarf it by an order of magnitude because it was one of the largest events in Monaco’s winter season.

  This soirée was merely another black-tie occasion where a prominent corporation paid handsomely for the privilege of associating themselves with Monaco’s royal family for a few hours. The downstairs staff referred to such occasions as “pimping out the royal family,” and they weren’t wrong. Maxence was, essentially, a hired escort for the evening for the multinational pharmaceutical company Gattefosse, although he wasn’t obligated to put out afterward.

  Much of the royal family and sundry nobles were in attendance because a frisson of excitement had begun to spiral through their blue blood, anticipating that the next Crown Council meeting would be soon.

  Rumors abounded.

  Everyone sensed midnight was nigh.

  Tick, tock.

  Marie-Therese stood over by the forum’s glass wall overlooking the Mediterranean. She wore a black beaded sheath dress and was laughing with a small knot of pharmaceutical ind
ustry executives surrounding her.

  Maxence was speaking with a different cohort of pharmaceutical industry executives when his cousin Nico entered the main doors. Max excused himself and zig-zagged through the crowd to intercept him. “I didn’t think you came to many events like these.”

  Nico nodded solemnly. “Considering our discussion, it seemed that I should reacquaint myself with what they’re like so I can make an informed decision.”

  Max had worried that Nico had only been humoring him about possibly standing for the election, so this development was a relief. “I’m glad you came.”

  Nicostrato Grimaldi was a few inches over six feet and nearly as tall as Maxence, so the two of them looked over most of the crowd around them.

  Max said, “I thought I saw you at the cocktail hour for Wanderlust Yacht Design at the casino last night, too.”

  Nico nodded. “I’ve attended four events over the last week. These things aren’t quite as bad as I remembered, or perhaps I’ve just changed a bit in the last decade.”

  Maxence turned so that they stood shoulder to shoulder and surveyed the several hundred people milling about the main floor of the convention center. The moon cast a trail of light over the Mediterranean Sea beyond the glass walls. “We’ve all become a bit more tolerant.”

  The crowd moved in swirls and eddies, flowing like the shifting sands at night. The men in the room wore black-tie tuxedos, and many of the women had chosen black formals. The crystals and metallic embroidery on their gowns glittered in the darkness like stars. A few of the more daring women wore colors other than black. A flash of peacock blue in the corner, a swirl of scarlet silk over by the bar, and glimpses of white, silver, and gold caught Maxence’s eye as he surveyed the enormous space.

  Curving staircases rose from the floor to the upper levels of the convention center. People moved along the steps, climbing to the larger supper buffets set out above. Chattering voices clung to the crowd like fog. Classical music—strings—filled the cavernous space that soared to the ceiling, parts of which were glass.

  Many of the women in the room were friends or acquaintances of Max’s from over the years, but his gaze was restless, searching.