One thing was for sure—the last time a man asked her kindly to join him on a bed, things unfolded in a way they definitely weren’t going to unfold right now.
“I’m not sure about the two of us sitting together on a bed, what with our adversarial position and all.”
“I can’t think of a better reason,” he said. “After all, what could happen? Worst-case scenario you try to hurt me. Best-case scenario, I don’t die because of the soft bedding. All’s well that ends well.”
“All right,” Isabella said, finally relenting, but keeping a healthy distance between them. She placed her French Seventy-Five, or whatever the thing was called, on the nightstand and put her arm around the brass frame at the top of the bed, scooching the pillows out of the way at the head of the bed to make room for her bottom. “But make it quick. I’ve got things to do.” Like, throw back a few more of those French Seventy-Fives, for starters.
“So you see, I really want to apologize to you for what happened,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but truly, it was all a huge mistake. Well, a mistake compounded by a malicious employee.”
“Are you talking about the first time or the second time? Because clearly they weren’t both mistakes.”
“Oh, but they were,” he said. “The first one even more so. Well, wait, the second one as well, but it wasn’t a mistake for someone.” Poor Sawyer stammered as he tried to make sense of things.
“So you just happened to stick that vibrator in my backpack thinking it was something I, what, needed? Wanted? Would laugh about?”
“God, no. It wasn’t even intended for you,” he said. “It was supposed to go in someone else’s backpack.”
“So you just randomly went around putting remote-control dildos in people’s backpacks, not even checking to be sure it was going in the right one? So was your girlfriend upset I got it instead of her?”
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “Trust me, that was not for a girlfriend,” he said. “Although, damn, wouldn’t I have been the lucky one at the school if it was.” He paused, lost in thought, perhaps fantasizing about being such a fortunate fourteen-year-old.
“I can tell you who wasn’t the lucky one.”
“I’m really, really sorry about that,” he said. “I never even knew who you were. I mean, you were just this random girl and you completely slipped under my radar. I don’t even think I knew you existed!”
Isabella glared at him and crossed her arms, fortifying herself against the man.
“Wait, that came out wrong,” he said.
If Sawyer thought this apology thing was going to be easy, he was in for a hard lesson.
Chapter Fifteen
This was not going well for Sawyer. What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t just spit it out, apologize for the deeds done, and get on with it? Then he’d be back in fine form, his business none the worse for it, and all would be happy and healthy and wise. Or something nonsensical like that.
“It’s not that I didn’t know you existed, but rather I was just trying to get by.”
He stopped and stared into her eyes. Those eyes captivated him for some reason.
“Your eyes,” he said, pausing from his botched apology. “They’re so beautiful.”
Isabella squinted at him as if she was waiting for the punch line of a bad joke. But then she smiled. “Thank you. I think. Assuming that was meant in the manner in which it was delivered.”
Sawyer could feel his breath coming harder, heaving a little bit in his chest. And with that, he could feel things tightening up elsewhere, with those pants no longer feeling quite so loose as when he’d sat down a few minutes ago.
He reached over to tuck a strand of that beautiful, soft, silky hair of hers behind her ear. “It was meant purely as a compliment,” he said. “You’re an extraordinarily beautiful woman.”
Isabella looked around the room, shifting her eyes back and forth. “Are there hidden cameras in here? Is someone going to jump out and tell me I’ve been punk’d? ’Cause let me tell you, I will not be able to maintain my composure. And I will tell you that what I am currently exhibiting is actually shocking composure at that. Considering just a few days ago I wanted to see you struck by a bolt of lightning and incinerated into a pile of ashes before my very eyes.”
Sawyer winced. This one could have some mood swings in her. Yet he could feel his hard-on growing larger. Who knew he must’ve had some sort of masochistic streak? Because the idea of her enjoying his suffering really wasn’t offending him in the least, but rather turning him on.
“I appreciate your desire to see me smited. Or would that be smote?”
“Smitten?”
“Smitten,” he said softly, worried that was precisely what he was feeling right now. “Yes, that’s it.” He held up a finger as if remembering. “Your eyes, they remind me of a kitten I once saw. A beautiful little Ragdoll kitten with the sweetest blue eyes I ever did see.”
Isabella finally smiled a real smile, not one of those pretend beauty queen smiles she probably had mastered what with her position in life. “How funny you say that,” she said. “I’ve always wanted one of those kittens. They’re beautiful.”
Sawyer lifted an eyebrow. “So what’s stopping you? You’re a princess. You can have anything you want.”
“One of my brothers is allergic to cats, so they’ve been off-limits in the palace.”
“Are you talking about that palace that’s about the size of a small island nation?”
Isabella laughed. “It’s not that huge.”
“It’s not exactly a shack on the beach, either,” he said. “Surely there is some corner, maybe some tiny dungeon in which you could secure a hidden kitten, never to be detected by the feline police. Where you could spend your days enjoying your treasured creature, far from prying eyes.”
“I’d hate to go against the rules like that.”
“Aren’t rules meant to be broken sometimes?”
“Not when you’re me,” she said. “A princess doesn’t have the luxuries that others have in that manner. You break rules, it becomes public knowledge, and you never live it down. Speaking of never living things down...what about the cake?”
“Ah, yes, the cake,” he said. “I hope one day I can share with you pictures of the cake I made for you. I think you’d have loved it.”
“You made me a cake in addition to this one that was what, to mock me?”
Sawyer shook his head. “Heavens, no. I’d have no reason to do something like that. First of all, I didn’t even know you, and second of all, I didn’t even know you were you. I mean the you from boarding school. I was and still remain clueless about many things. That cake was intended for some poor old sod of a woman who was suffering through her miserable divorce, and her friends wanted to cheer her up with that cake. Which, by the way, I thought looked amazing. And tasted amazing, as well.”
Isabella’s eyes grew wide. “You ate your penis?” She burst out laughing at how that came out.
“No, mine’s perfectly intact, thank God,” he said, catching Isabella looking down at it just as he did. No masking that his was in good working order at the moment.
“Yes, well, um,” she said, squirming at the head of the bed and pulling her legs up to cross them, no doubt trying to get more comfortable. Sawyer tried discreetly to see if he could get a look up her dress. “I forgot the operative word there was ‘cake.’ So after all that, you actually ate the giant phallus cake?”
Sawyer looked up at her with a sheepish grin. “It was a long night and rather stressful. I hadn’t eaten a thing all day, I’d been so busy putting all the finishing touches on the food for the party. And then, well, everything just went to hell in a handbasket. But I had to keep soldiering on to make sure everything was finished up as promised from the beginning. By the time it was all cleaned up, all that remained was that wretched cake. Which poor Doris didn’t get to enjoy, sadly. She had to make do with the fairy-tale princess fantasy cake
.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t exactly what she was looking for under the circumstances.”
“Not so much. I gave them their money back, even though she got the best cake ever.”
Sawyer turned a little and shifted forward, his hands so close to Isabella’s long, slender legs it made him tremble.
“Your Highness,” he said, lowering his eyes.
“You can drop the formality,” she said. “It’s just me.”
“Yes, but I want to afford you the respect you deserve.”
“’Fraid that was put to bed with the penis cake.” She cracked a smile.
All this talk of putting things to bed was making him a little nuts. He wanted so badly to just bridge the remaining gap between them and show her how he could make things all better in this bed. “So it’s all right if I call you by your name? Or should I call you Princess?” He reached for his glass just as she turned a bit, knocking a healthy splash down the front of her dress.
“What is it with you and pouring drinks on me?” she said with exasperation in her voice. But Sawyer was on it, grabbing for the far edge of the comforter, trying to quickly blot the spill before it set. Only here he was again, his eyes right there, staring at her beautiful breasts, the ones that didn’t even have straps holding them up. And this time, it was just him and her and a soft bed and well-intentioned apologies and he couldn’t help himself. Instead, he let the duvet drop as he reached up and pulled her to him, his lips seeking hers, groaning as they finally met.
At first, she tensed, but only fleetingly, and then she yielded and reached for him as she scooted down the bed just enough so that their bodies met and pressed together as their tongues tangled amid the sounds of heavy breathing and a few low moans of pleasure.
Sawyer managed to shift so that he was in complete control on top of Isabella, his hands combing through that amazing hair of hers as his mouth discovered all sorts of secret places. Isabella moaned as his hands shifted and stroked along her sides while he pressed himself up against her, leaving no question about what part of him was in fine working order.
It didn’t take long for Sawyer’s questing hands to find the side zipper of Bella’s dress and he pulled it down just enough to be able to lower the top bodice of her dress, to give his mouth and hands free access where they needed to be.
His hands massaged her breasts and Jesus, what breasts they were—full and high—and he took his time kneading, exploring, till his fingers paused to work beautiful pink nipples into hard points.
“I’m sorry, I’ll be right back,” he said, out of breath, as his mouth abandoned hers, only to trail his tongue quickly down her chin, past her throat, licking away a very large diamond pendant to get to the prize, where he finally licked and gently bit her nipples till she was moaning.
“Oh, God, Princess,” he said. “You’re so bloody damned sexy.”
“Sawyer,” she could only say between gasps, “Don’t stop.”
Sawyer wasn’t one to disobey orders, particularly from the crown, so while his mouth did wonders with Bella’s breasts, his hands quickly found the hem of her short dress and shoved it upward, happily finding no other obstructions.
“Commando?” he said as he nuzzled her breast. “What a nice surprise.”
“No panty lines,” she said. “Thank God I didn’t wear Spanx tonight.”
“No worries,” he said. “I always like a good challenge. But I prefer it when I don’t have to crack the safe.”
He moved his hands between her thighs, nudging them wider with his knee as he pressed his fingers in to find her smooth and wet. He moaned, long and low, then moved his fingers with finesse through her slickness, working in a circle, trying his best to make her crazy.
“Jesus, Sawyer,” she said. “More.”
“I aim to please,” he said, pressing first one then two fingers inside of her as he used his thumb to work her clit.
He must have done something good in his life to be here right now, doing this. With the most beautiful woman he’d probably ever laid eyes on. In his wildest fantasies, life could not have been better than at that precise moment in time. Which is why he thought he’d die—or perhaps it was the ultimate retribution—when he heard a loud knock on the door.
“Bella!” the voice said far too loudly and with an assertiveness that spoke of entitlement. Someone who was perfectly allowed to break up this amazingly hot, bordering on out-of-control coupling that came from absolutely nowhere.
“Bell, I need to talk to you,” the voice said.
“Oh crap, it’s Clementine,” Isabella said, instantly shoving Sawyer away, pulling up her dress and zipping tight Fort Knox as she pulled her hem down. “I’ve gotta go.”
Sawyer looked at her face as she got up from the bed, seeing the embarrassment practically written across it, then glanced down at his poor unrequited dick, doomed to return to his little hidey hole, untouched, unwanted, unused.
Fuck. Cockblocked by Clementine.
And here he thought she was on his side.
Chapter Sixteen
“Holy crap,” Clementine said after Bella had come slinking out of the room, her face bearing telltale razor burns evident even in the dim light of the hallway. Oh, and sporting a damp spot on her abdomen. “You were going at it with him, weren’t you?”
Isabella sighed. “Geez, Clem, I’m not saying anything, but why’d you do that?”
“What do you mean why’d I do that?” she said. “We always rescue each other and you were in there a long damned time and I started worrying about what was happening in there. I mean, it’s not like the two of you were best friends or anything. I was afraid you couldn’t extricate yourself from the guy so I was doing you a favor. A favor, mind you!”
“The only thing you did is deprive me of a long-overdue orgasm I was right on the brink of, dammit.”
“An orgasm!” she said way too loud for the crowd.
“Shhh!”
“An orgasm?” Clem said, this time in a loud whisper. “You went in there hating the guy and the next thing you know he’s working his way around your sweet spot?”
“Sweet spot?”
“Sweet spot, G-spot. It’s all the same thing. Omigod. Tell me what happened? Did I not tell you the two of you would be good together? He’s hot. Tell me he’s not hot.”
Isabella was starting to come down from her sexual high and reality was kicking in, never a good thing. “It was a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean yeah, he’s pretty good-looking. And he seems really nice and well-meaning. And as we were talking, it was really hard not to notice he had quite the package. I mean, it was straining to get out of his pants. It was sort of cute because I could tell it was a, well, pressing need, but he didn’t dare say a thing. And he told me my eyes looked like this really sweet kitten.”
“He compared you to a kitten?”
“And he called me Princess. I think only because he was kind of awkward, not knowing what to call me. But it was sort of endearing.”
“Well, shoot, Bell. Go back. I don’t want to be the cause of coitus interruptus.”
“We weren’t going to have sex. There was no coiting going on.”
“Coiting? I’m pretty sure that is not a verb.”
“Listen, if they can make ‘medal’ a verb, anything’s fair game.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, like in the Olympics, when those little gymnasts ‘medal.’ That is so not a verb. But now it is. So I’m going to make it official: coit is a verb.”
“I think the Latins would be rolling in their graves.”
“The Latins?”
“Aren’t they the people who spoke that language?”
Isabella put her hand to her forehead, exasperated. “Please, tell me you’re joking. It was the ancient Romans who spoke Latin.”
“That’s what I meant. But I want to hear more: so did you do it? How big is he? I bet he’s huge! You can tell because look at those
hands.”
“I’m sure that is an old wives’ tale.”
“Not at all,” Clem said. “I’m going to look it up on my phone right now.” She pulled out her phone and tapped some words into her web browser.
“Here it goes...’There is absolutely no correlation between body part size and penis size.’ Wait, okay so whatever. But it does say size matters. Actually, it claims it doesn’t, but you know and I know that is a complete crock. Size matters. And I bet he’s no inchworm.”
Isabella burst out laughing. “Thanks to you, I’ll never know.”
“What do you mean you’ll never know? You’re going back there right now, and then you’ll report back to me.”
“I will do no such thing. That was just something that got a little out of control. Now, granted I was trying to be the standard-bearer for all people to learn to let it go, to live in the moment and not hold grudges. But that does not mean I’ll end up having spontaneous sex with the man. That’s just not right!”
“Oh, girl, it is so, so, so right. Trust me. Ask Sebastian about that.”
Isabella plugged her fingers in her ears. “La, la, la, la, la. I don’t want to know about sex with Sebastian. He’s my cousin. That’s completely creepy. La, la, la, la, la.”
Clementine playfully pushed her shoulder with her hand.
“Okay, fine, but listen, go finish what you started. Otherwise, I’ll feel entirely responsible. Now I’m going to go catch up with my man, and you can report back to me once you’ve done the deed. Hear me?”
Isabella sighed. “Yeah, sure.” But she had no intention of following through on that. None whatsoever.
Chapter Seventeen
Sawyer didn’t think that boner would ever return to normal. He lay there on the servant’s bed for a while, occasionally readjusting his dick in the hopes that soon enough he wouldn’t want to run through the party to find Isabella, where he could just grab her by that long, luscious hair and drag her back to this room to finish what they’d started. Too bad he knew that would not be particularly socially acceptable.
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