“Meet with the what?”
It’s in advance of the trip to New York. This apparently requires I step up the complexity of my dress. Back to the princess outfit, but I don’t mind it this time. Green again, he likes me in green. I think I look ridiculous but after I’m all laced up and adjust my skirts, he looks at me reverently.
“I’m glad you decided not to wear a cream-colored dress when I asked. I don’t want to see you in a lighter shade until our wedding day.”
I almost correct him but stop myself. Every hour that passes, the trip to New York grows closer. I was hot for it not long ago, somehow convinced even after I slept with him that I would be able to leave, but now I’m not so sure.
My home, where I come from. Not New York, but the United States. I’m going to see my parents again…if I call them, which I haven’t yet.
The meeting is at eleven in the morning, in the great hall. I can’t follow much of it, since it’s, you know, in German, but I smile and try to pick out a few words. They sound angry, I know that.
I end up…hanging out with the ambassador’s wife. I say a few sentences to her through a translator, and we eat brunch. I can’t wait for it to be over and when it finally is, I try to keep myself from leaping up to run over by the prince so he can rescue me from Castle Awkward.
“What was all that about?” I ask him when it’s over.
“The Americans wished to convey through him that they wish your immediate safe return. Your parents have made quite a noise with the authorities demanding you come back.”
I stop in my tracks.
God, why did this have to happen? I start to wonder if I was hoping they’d just forget about me completely.
Dinner is very quiet. I stare at my plate and push the food around, not really bothering with it. That night I sleep on my side, facing away from him. He doesn’t press me, though in the morning we wake tangled again.
This feels so good. I feel like I was made to be here, like he was made to hold me. From his steady breathing I can tell he’s still asleep as I blink and yawn, stifling the noise with my hand so as not to wake him. Very slowly, over the course of several minutes, I turn around in his arms and face him, so when he does wake up my face will be the first thing he sees.
Sleeping naked still takes some getting used to. His hands are rough and the long scar across his midsection is bumpy and coarse, but the rest of him is almost too smooth, his skin too soft. Touching him comes naturally. I explore gently, feeling his ribs. From my slow touch, I can feel where they were broken once, or maybe multiple times, just a little bent and thick where the fracture healed over.
He makes a small sound and I think he’s going to wake, but his eyelids stay pressed shut, his eyes darting back and forth in a dream. His expression hardens a little and he pulls me closer to him, his face sinking into my frizzy bed-hair. His breath tickles my forehead and his lips graze my skin.
He’s so warm, and of course he has a raging hard-on. I tuck myself closer to him, twining our legs together, so I can feel his cock against my stomach. He shifts in his sleep and grinds against me, and I urge him on with a gentle stroke, my fingers move slowly up his shaft then back down again. I squeeze the thick head in my palm a little and stroke him again.
A little lick wets my palm, and I start to stroke him off in earnest. I can’t tell if he’s awake or not, exactly, as he gasps. Then his eyes flick open, distant and unfocused until they lock on mine. I greet him with a little kiss and faster strokes with both hands as he holds me tight against him.
He grunts hard, and hot cum coats my belly in thick spurts, sticking to my hands in the process. I bring my hand up, flicking the covers away with my arm, and taste him, sucking his seed from my fingers with pursed lips.
Overcome and still hard, he pushes me on my back, lies on top of me, and buries himself to the root in a single thrust. I cry out in pain, squeezing his hips to lock him inside me and stop him from moving. We stick together as he begins to thrust, my pleasure mounting with each push, filling me. Whether he’s half awake or the sight of me tasting his cum from my fingers drove him wild, he’s not gentle. At all.
I like that. I don’t want gentle this morning. I want him to make me feel it later. I’m certainly feeling it now. It’s a good thing I was sopping wet for him as he takes me in long, full-body thrusts that slide me back and forth on the featherbed. He lifts up, pushes his knees under me, takes me by the hips, and pulls me into him, his fingers leaving red marks in my sides and ass as he drives into me hard, his thrusts growing more urgent at the sight of my back arching and my stomach quivering and sucking in every time his thick shaft reaches all the way in and draws back.
I dig my arms into the bed and launch myself at him. He topples backward and them I’m on top, our lips locked as I thrash my hips of him in a steady, rapid rhythm. The faster I go the more intense it grows until my breath comes in ragged gasps as I hold it in, trying to stop the inevitable.
When he comes for me I grip him hard with my legs and squeeze my whole body before falling back in a quivering heap, his cock sliding out of me as I flop on the bed. My legs shake like leaves as I get up, the aftershocks still slipping through my body in cold twists, bend over, and wriggle my ass at him, urging him to chase me.
He catches me in the bathroom and pushes me into the shower, up against the wall. The water cascades over us both and I cry out as it starts out freezing and quickly turns steaming hot as he takes me again, holding me by the ribs and entering me with a single thrust, ramming home with an urgency born of the unspoken fear that today I will leave him, this will be the last time.
I wriggle loose of his wet hands and he bends his knees and thrusts into me against the wall, our bodies locked together, staring steadily into each other’s eyes. He comes so hard it hurts, and I join him shortly after, my toes curling in the air as he lifts me bodily from the shower floor with his thrusts.
Pleasure falls over me like a curtain, pulls through me like ropes, slides through me in waves, crashes from the tips of my toes to the cold, tingly shock in my scalp as I grip him iron tight with arms and legs and body, and it feels like all the barriers between us fall, like I’m sinking into him, lost forever as I draw him deeper inside me and swallow him up.
When he lets me down, my legs shake and I can barely stand, but I feel sultry, wicked, and grind my ass against his cock, wiggling it as I look back over my shoulder.
He pushes me against the wall and I feel a quiver of fear.
“My princess is ready to give me everything, it seems?”
Does he mean…
He backs off when he sees the look on my face and uses his fingers to sweep water-sodden locks out of my face. I grin.
“Maybe,” I tell him, raking my nails down his stomach toward his throbbing cock, “if my prince is worthy.”
He pushes me against the wall and kisses me. He never stops kissing me even as he washes my hair and scrubs my stomach with a bar of soap, and his hands rarely leave my body. I like it when he touches me while I’m wet, the way his rough hands glide so smoothly over my skin, raking me with shivering delight, and the little nip he gives me at the back of my neck makes me want to bend over and wiggle my ass at him again. Mount up, your grace.
It’s time to go, though.
My stomach drops as he dries me off. He insists on doing it himself, as I sit on a wooden bench. He dries my hair and my arms, and rubs the towel around each of my fingers, my legs and toes. All the attention makes me self-conscious, and I end up sitting there hugging myself to hide my chest, legs squeezed together as if I didn’t just jerk him off all over my stomach before he fucked me. Twice.
“You are cute,” he says as he stands to dry himself.
“Uh-huh,” I say, watching him sweep the rivulets of water from his sculpted form, almost drooling at the sight of his big cock between his legs, still half hard from giving me a pounding that, yes, I am going to still be feeling later.
“We do not have to g
o at all if you do not wish it so,” he says softly, touching my shoulder.
I rest my cheek on his arm. “Part of me just wants to stay. I like this. I like it being like this. But I have to see my home again. I have to know. Hades let his bride go home for half the year, but you don’t seem the type to let yours leave for that long.”
He kneels in front of me, takes my hand, and kisses it.
“Tell me you love me and I will give you the world.”
I stare at him.
“Ah, figuratively. I assure you.”
“I need to get dressed.”
“If I could I would bar you from ever wearing a stitch again. I like you like this.”
To prove it, he grabs my ass and pinches me as I stride past him, and chases me out into the bedroom. We almost end up on the bed. When I say almost I mean I fall back over it and he almost fucks me right there but pulls back at the last second, tracing his fingers down my stomach as he steps to the wardrobe to take my clothes.
There must be some reason why he insists on dressing me. I don’t argue. I like it, and I like returning the favor.
He looks different from when I first saw him. Smiles come easier to his lips and he laughs when I say something silly, and he pulls his hair back instead of letting it hang all over his face, and he puts on black clothes as though he resents them now, not like he’s swathing himself in his chosen color.
It’s time to leave. It’ll be a nine-hour flight.
I’m going home.
I think.
Chapter Ten
I’ve flown exactly once in my life, three times if you consider the connectors different flights. From Philadelphia to Madrid to Basel to Solkovia. The plane that carries us to New York unnerves me when I first see it. It’s so small, and sleek; more like a rocket ship. I’m a little scared to ask how fast it goes.
Once inside, though, it’s just a plane. I don’t notice any difference in speed and let out a slow breath once it levels off. My seat is huge and plush, twice as wide as an airline seat. To my surprise, though, I don’t drift off to sleep, even after I drink a tiny glass of sweet liquor to calm my nerves. I feel a growing sense of dread as the land below gives way to ocean, sapphire blue as far as the eye can see.
Kristoff says little while we fly, taking the time to review a bunch of documents, both paper and on a computer. When he takes my hand I curl my fingers around his palm as I stare out the window. I feel the way I felt when we would come home from a trip to the beach when I was little, an overwhelming and continuously growing sense of dread and fatigue as the fun world of the boardwalk and ocean and rides and candy faded back into a dreamworld and the dreary prospect of going to school next month or next week or tomorrow would float back to the forefront of my mind.
“You’re very quiet,” he says to me. “That is unlike you.”
“I know. I’m just thinking.”
“Tell me what you are thinking.”
“I don’t know.”
He laughs. “I am not surprised. You’re always bouncing from one thought to another to another, never still.”
I don’t say much else until we land. I grip the arms of the seat hard, and squeeze his hand as the plane tips back and begins circling in to land. I tense and grit my teeth when the tires touch the runway, and shake for a moment afterward.
I don’t like flying, I’ve decided.
I wait as the plane taxis around and comes to a stop. A stairway rolls up, and the crew open the door. New York air, stifling hot and humid and with that strong scent, comes flooding into the cabin. My prince stands up and offers me his hand and we walk down together.
My stomach does a back flip when the first flash goes off. It takes me a moment to realize why I’m being photographed and I stand there with a dumb, dull stare on my face, until I shake myself out of it and walk down with him, along a freaking red carpet to a limousine.
Hi, Mom, I’m on TV.
I’m a little concerned about what happens next. I haven’t really been told.
Once we’re alone again in the car, he turns to me.
“We’re here. What would you like to do?”
“Do I have to choose now?”
“No, of course not. I only ask what you want to do with your day. You can come with me. I’m told your parents are here, expecting to see you.”
I haven’t spoken to them yet. Day after day passed and I always had something to do, some reason not to. I twine my fingers nervously and try to figure out what the hell I should do with myself.
“I need to see them. I want to go home, to my home, but I want you to go with me. Can we do that?”
“Ask what you will of me and it is yours, you know that.”
I smile weakly, trying to choke down the rising nausea in my stomach. I wrap my arms around myself and curl up, staring out the windows.
The city can be so amazing, but I’m not feeling it today. At all.
“They’re here,” I say.
“Yes. The State Department brought them here and requests that you be allowed to see them. They speak to me as if you are a prisoner.”
I sigh. “They don’t know you like I do.”
“No,” he says, squeezing my hand. “What do you wish to do? I can send them away.”
“No, I’ll meet them here, where we’re staying.”
“I’ll have my people nearby. The Americans may try to take you. By force.”
I swallow, hard. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt over me.”
“Then make it clear to them you are no prisoner…if you intend to return, that is. I will not force you now. I have business to attend to after we arrive. I’ll send word to the Americans that you wish to see your family.”
I nod.
We enter the hotel through a private entrance. It jars me to see good ol’ fashioned American cops, NYPD no less, holding back crowds of people at the far end of the alley. I lift my skirts like I’ve been wearing a poofy dress every day of my life, to keep the hem out of the muck water behind the hotel.
Once inside we’re escorted to an upper floor. We have it all to ourselves, and the security detail that arrived ahead of time. I see Americans mingling with Kosztylans. It’s easy to pick out the Americans. They’re all in suits with those things in their ears. The Kosztylans wear uniforms, sharp black ones that give them a morbid but authoritative air. The blonde-haired guard I saw before is among them.
I have my own room. I feel a pang of guilt when I realize it. I head inside and sit in the sitting room. It’s a huge suite, but I’m too exhausted and depressed to pay much attention to the details. I’m sure it’s nice. There’s trim and stuff and a big bed and I have a nice bathroom with a fancy shower.
“I want to go home,” I tell no one in particular.
The knock comes at the door an hour later. I’ve been sitting near the door the entire time.
It’s that blonde guard woman.
“My lady, your party has arrived. His grace has secured a private room on the third floor. If you would follow me, please.”
Sighing, I follow her to the elevator and stand straight as it carries me down. I feel like I’m sinking into the earth’s crust. The sense of dread grows as I fall.
I furrow my brows when we pass the third floor.
“Hey, wait,” I say, “What’s…”
I feel something hard jab into my back. It feels like a gun.
“Shut up.”
I freeze.
Oh, oh God, no, please no.
The door opens and she nudges me forward, into the basement of the hotel. Oh God, I’m being kidnapped. I move slowly and deliberately, flexing my hands at my side. The gun in my back feels like it wants to go off, like the bullet is urgent to smash into my back, crack bone, and tear flesh.
I tremble and stop moving when she tugs on my arm.
“This is her, take her.”
Two men yank my arms painfully behind my back. When I cry out from the twist of my shoulders, they backhand me across the
face and my split lip wells with blood. I spit some on the floor and go quiet as they pull zip ties and stiff cords that feel like wires around my wrists and then my elbows.
Then a thick, rough sack pulls down over my face and steals the world away. I can barely breathe, and in few heartbeats it becomes stifling hot inside the sack. Pushed forward with a gun in my back, I stumble to an unknown destination in the dark, my feet scuffing over rough concrete ground.
“Who are you?” I say quietly.
“Shut up,” she says, though I can hear the smirk in her voice.
“Are you the Resistance?”
“Shut up, you stupid American whore.”
“Please, you have to let me go.”
The gun jabs hard into my back. I stifle a cry of pain.
“Why should I do that?”
“I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“You don’t want him to hurt us?”
She laughs, but she doesn’t know how serious I am. I mean it. When he finds out about this he’ll kill them all.
Oh God.
I know why they did it now, why they waited. Oh sure, snatching me from the castle would have been difficult, but this same woman has been in and out a dozen times, I’ve seen her everywhere. They could have grabbed me anytime they wanted.
They waited until right now because he doesn’t know if I’m coming back. I stifle a sob and tears well in my eyes. Not like this, please. He’ll think I left him. He’ll think I abandoned him.
As they sit me down on a thin seat—I think they’re putting me in a van—I do something I have not truly done for a long time. Not with intent. Out of panic or fatigue, without sincerity or thought. Very deliberately, silently, I pray.
Please, God. Don’t let him think I abandoned him. Gentle the rage in his heart. If you do not find it within your divine plan to guide him to me as you did before, then I beg of you at least, do not let this be the end of the man he could become. I beg of you, if this is the end you mean for me, give him a better one. Help him. Help him. Help him.
Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) Page 45