In Love Again (Unruly Royals)

by Mulry, Megan

  Initially, he’d taken a little convincing. They’d had their first real fight when she accused him of being too careful with her, of that being one more example of him putting her up on some unrealistic pedestal instead of just loving her full stop.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, then continued in a deep, commanding voice. “Take everything off the bed except the fitted sheet,” he ordered as he stalked out of the room, stark naked and glorious.

  She smiled as she leapt from the mattress and began tossing all the pillows and bedding onto the floor. Moving quickly, she was slightly winded when he walked back into the room a few minutes later. He stopped by the door and stared at her. She was holding a king-size pillow in her arms, and the white mattress was an empty canvas between them. He was holding his tie in one hand and her red scarf in the other.

  “We’re going to need to improvise.” His smile was deadly and Claire nearly shrieked in delight, but it came out as part-moan, part-cry.

  Once Ben had overcome his hesitance, they both thrilled to the extremes of their passion, agreeing that it was the final expiation of everything that had held Claire in purgatory for most of her life: the delicacy, the perfection, the caution. When he tied her to the bed or took her from behind or grabbed her hair in a greedy tug, Claire felt a sense of elation and freedom she never could have imagined.

  “Drop the pillow.”

  It fell from her arms before he finished saying the words.

  He narrowed his eyes, contemplating her. The flush of pleasure spread across her chest and up her neck as he stood there watching her, rubbing the silk tie absentmindedly between his fingers. Her gaze dropped to the movement of that hand, and her pulse raced.

  “Ben…” she said, turning his name into a plea.

  “Eyes up here,” he snapped.

  She took her time, appreciating the power of his erection, the turn of his hip, the hard ridges of his stomach, the dark hair on his chest, the straining muscles in his neck, then looked up at his gorgeous green eyes, dark and menacing, clouded with desire.

  “Feeling leisurely, are you?” he asked.

  She nodded and smiled.

  “Very well. I’ll be taking my time then.”

  Her stomach flipped with joy and anticipation and a heavy pressure settled low in her belly.

  “Sit at the end of the bed.”

  She did as he said, knees together, hands folded primly in her lap.

  “Spread ’em.”

  She huffed out a sigh of delight and slowly spread her knees a few inches apart.

  He shook his head and furrowed his brow in mock disappointment. “All the way.”

  She looked at the ceiling and spread her thighs until the outsides of her calves were pressed back into the mattress. The move caused a wonderful hint of straining muscles to shoot up the inside of her legs.

  “Eyes.”

  Her head came back down so she was facing him. Damn him. He was touching himself. He’d dropped the red scarf and put the tie loosely around his neck. Taking his time, all right. He was stroking his length as if he had all the time in the world. Claire could feel the evidence of her own desire saturating the confining yellow lace between her legs. She reached to touch herself—

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  She should have known he’d want to torture her. Beautiful torture. She moaned as she continued to watch his hand. He was leaning against the wall by the door staring at her, his right hand firm and sure around his cock. Long, powerful strokes, over and over. Her breasts felt like they no longer fit into her bra. Her underwear was a wet mess.

  She tried to tilt her hips to see if she could sneak a little contact with the lacy fabric against her throbbing center.

  “Nice try.” He pulled at his balls and took a deep, thoughtful breath. “If you’re having trouble sitting still…”

  She moaned again as he removed the tie from his neck and walked slowly toward her.

  “Ben…”

  “Yes, darling…” He was on his knees in front of her, his face scant inches from her needy core.

  She kept her lips pulled between her teeth while he knotted one end of the tie around her ankle and attached the other end to the leg of the bed.

  “One down…” he said, looking up at her and leaning in close to inhale her, but never touching her.

  “You are a devil,” she cried.

  He looked up at her with a grin that proved her right. “If I am, it’s because you made me one.”

  She reached for his face, and he let her touch him, briefly, then he set her hand back on the mattress.

  “No hands.”

  “I hate you so much right now.”

  He laughed and stood up. “Your body tells a different story, sweetheart.”

  He retrieved the red scarf and attached her other ankle in the same way.

  “Very resourceful,” Claire complimented.

  “Eagle Scout, that’s me.”

  She stared down at him, desperate to touch him, but bunching her hands into tight fists instead.

  “Feeling a little antsy, are you?” He trailed a single finger up her calf, and she moaned at the contact. By depriving her, even for a few minutes, that single touch sent a fire deep into her.

  Her eyes slid shut.

  “It’s a shame about your underwear.” He leaned in and kissed her through the lace and her hips pitched involuntarily off the bed.

  “Oh god,” she cried through clenched teeth. She could feel the vibration of his rumbling laughter as he kissed and sucked and nipped at the fabric covering her swollen center. “Ben! Please!”

  “Patience, Claire.”

  She felt so raw and exposed, nothing to grab, nothing to bury her face into. Her breasts were heavy and desperate for the weight of him.

  He licked the inside of her thigh, then rubbed his rough cheek against the spot. “What to do? What to do?” He kept rubbing against her like that while he weighed his options. His warm exhalations were a maddening reminder of what she was not getting.

  “Me,” she whispered.

  He smiled and looked up at her. “What’s that?”

  “You asked what to do, and I answered. Me. Do me.”

  He burst out laughing. “Claire. You have no idea what it does to me to hear your aristocratic voice wrap around the phrase do me.”

  She smiled. “Please.”

  He didn’t say another word as he tore off the yellow lace and pressed his hands with near-painful firmness on her upper thighs, effectively pinning her to the bed. The first slow lick sent wild shocks through her and forced a scream from her throat. Within seconds, she was quivering and shaking on the edge of release.

  He stopped and looked up at her and shook his head once, the silent command reminding her that she was to hold off as long as she could.

  She took a deep breath, and he started again. The long, slow strokes of his tongue followed by that delicious thing he did with his lips, then more tongue and a bit of teeth. The teeth were going to be her downfall.

  “Ben!” she cried out. “I can’t!”

  “You can,” he finally whispered. “Go.” Releasing her at last, he sucked so hard, she exploded into a million pieces, her hands flying to grip his skull, holding hard and fierce, as wave after wave crashed over and through her and her screams of joy pierced the air around them.

  They stayed in bed all day Saturday, ordering room service, watching movies, rolling around, touching, laughing. Most of the time, Ben kept a hand resting on Claire’s lower belly, talking to the baby like he or she was in there with an old fashioned telephone pressed to its little baby ear.

  “It’s like the size of an apple seed. You know that, right?” Claire pointed out as she sipped a milkshake in bed on Saturday afternoon.

  “Apple seeds need love too.” He leaned down and kissed the gentle slope of her stomach. She reached her fingers through his short dark hair. He’d had it cut recently, and she loved the combination of bristle-soft sil
k against the hard turn of his head beneath. He moaned into her touch and turned his head to look at her. “Do you want to find out if it’s a girl or a boy?” He rested his cheek on her thigh and then began toying with the hair between her legs with one hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked slowly.

  “Nothing,” he said with wide-eyed innocence.

  She adored him like this, utterly languid, touching her almost thoughtlessly. Slurping noisily on the last drops of chocolate milkshake, she kept looking into his eyes. She set the glass on the bedside table and turned on her side and patted the pillow. “Come up here.”

  “Okay!” he answered enthusiastically, as if she’d just suggested a round-the-world cruise, leaving in five minutes.

  She laughed and pulled him in for a kiss, tracing her fingers slowly along his neck and his hairline as her lips molded to his. They paused, facing each other on the same pillow, their limbs entwined. “We can find out if you want.” She gave a small shrug. “I’m just going to be happy no matter what. I already am.” She laughed out the last few words.

  “So am I. I was just thinking you’d want to decorate or something, you know, for the baby’s room.”

  She looked into his eyes. “Maybe. But mainly I want the baby to have your eyes. How lucky will that be for me to be able to look into your eyes while I hold the little one in my arms?”

  Ben made that delicious rumbling sound in the back of his throat and pulled her hard against him. Their faces were nearly touching, so his breath fluttered across her skin. “You’re such an angel when you talk about the baby. Your voice takes on this tenderness that makes me…” He ran his hands along her back and shoulders, down her arms. “I can’t describe it.”

  “You don’t need to describe it. I can see it in your eyes,” she said while she traced the turn of his eyebrow. “And your lips.” She caressed him there with the tip of her finger.

  “I think we’re going to have to deal with my family soon,” Ben said. “Before Christmas. They’re going to be so bummed if they find out and you’re already far along—”

  “I’m more like one day along.” She tried to make light of it, but something about meeting his herd of sisters was making Claire want to avoid it as long as possible.

  “You know what I mean. Technically, you’re like four weeks, right?”

  “Right…but a lot of people don’t tell anyone anything until twelve weeks…”

  “I’ll never make it that long. I want to tell the whole world. Plus, we need to get married. Obviously.”

  “Ben.” Her voice sounded ominous.

  He only pulled his face a few inches away from hers, but it was more like a recoil. “Ben what?” he asked, with the approaching storm of his temper beginning to show in his pupils.

  She put the palm of her hand on his cheek. “Relax. We don’t need to get married just because I’m having a baby.”

  He sat up and pulled his legs out from between hers, and it felt like he was ripping off a bandage, at the warm places they’d been adhering to one another. His face was your basic scowl. Claire took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter.

  She pressed on. “Ben, you know my marriage was a mess. The last thing I want is to dive right back into—”

  “You did not just compare me to that pathetic excuse for a human being you used to be married to, did you?” He was beyond furious.

  “Of course not. Stop being so dramatic.” She knew she sounded frosty and he wouldn’t appreciate it, especially in his current state.

  “Dramatic?” He got off the bed and found his boxer briefs behind a chair in the corner.

  “What are you doing?” Claire asked, worry lacing her words.

  “Putting my underwear on, what does it look like?”

  “Are you leaving?” she asked.

  “Claire! This is me!” He was standing at the end of the bed, scraping his fingernails through his hair. “I’m never leaving, remember? Never.”

  “Then why did you get out of bed?” Her voice was shrinking under the assault of his coiled anger.

  “Because I can’t fight with you naked.”

  She smiled.

  “Don’t you dare smile at me!” But he smiled too. “This is serious, damn it.” He forced the scowl back into place.

  She folded the sheet neatly over her breasts, which had been exposed until then. “Is that better?” she asked.

  “Don’t try to make a joke out of this. I am not Mr. Right Wing Conservative and you know it, but this is my baby—”

  “Our baby,” Claire whispered.

  “Fine! Our baby, but you know what I mean. I want the baby to have my name—”

  “Well, what if—”

  “Stop!” He held up his hand like a crossing guard. “I was raised by feminists, not misandrists! I know my rights. You will never win this argument. I don’t care if it’s Heyworth-Hayek or Hayek-Heyworth…” He smiled despite himself. “Has a nice ring to it, actually.”

  She looked down at the bed. “Of course the baby will have your name, but even so, that doesn’t mean we have to get married. It’s just so…”

  “So what, Claire?” He was still angry, but his tone was softening around the edges.

  She kept avoiding his eyes. “I just dread it.”

  “Oh my god. You still don’t… I’m not even going to say that. It’s too ridiculous.”

  “Say it.” She looked up at him.

  “You’re still ashamed of me in some way.”

  “That is absurd. I love everything about you. And what do you mean by still? I’ve never been ashamed of you.”

  He kept staring at her. Fuming.

  She pressed on. “You’re coming to meet my entire extended family over Christmas and New Year’s in the Bahamas—God save and keep you—and I don’t think there’s anything more I could do to declare to the world that you’re mine.”

  “Really? You can’t think of anything more?”

  “You know what I mean. Marriage is not necessary.”

  “Necessary?” He crawled up onto the bed, pulling her hands into his. “What’s come over you? What does necessity have to do with how we feel about each other? Is it the money? I’ll sign any prenup you want. I don’t want anyone to think—”

  She barked a laugh that was almost the beginning of tears. “Money? I’m a portrait of financial ruin. If anyone should draw up a prenup, it’s you, to protect yourself from my husband’s creditors.”

  “Ex-husband,” Ben muttered as he stroked the backs of her hands with his thumbs.

  There it was. The Big Lie. Claire took another deep breath. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell him outright that she was still—technically—married to the most reprehensible man on the planet, otherwise known as the Marquess of Wick. She shut her eyes to avoid revealing too much. Ben would probably figure it out soon enough with all of her hedging.

  “Claire?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s fine.”

  She opened her eyes. “It is?”

  “Yes. You’re right. If it’s terrifying or awful or just the whole idea of matrimony is”—he tilted his head while he looked at her—“not on, as you would say, then I’m okay with that.”

  “You are?” She reached up to touch his face.

  He nodded. “Not forever, I hope. I mean.” He shook his head and gave her a baleful look. “I guess deep down I do have this sort of caveman desire to imprint myself on you in some codified, legal way. It’s my hang-up. I’ll deal with it.”

  “Oh. It’s not a hang-up,” she said softly.

  “It’s just a piece of paper,” he added. “I know you love me.”

  “So, now that we have that bit sorted—” She sounded so relieved to be done with the discussion that Ben almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not all the way.

  “Temporarily sorted—”

  “Okay. Temporarily sorted. So, in the meantime, will you take your smalls off again?”

  His sly grin was
all the answer she needed.

  “Allow me,” she offered with a saucy wink, letting the folded sheet drop away from her body as she crawled toward him and slowly took off his fighting gear.

  Chapter 19

  By Sunday morning, they were both raring to go. They’d spent thirty-six hours in bed, and—as romantic as that sounded in theory—the reality was that they both adored the outdoors and were craving a big dose of cold fresh air and winter sunshine.

  They showered and changed into the clothes they’d arrived in Friday night. Chatting in the elevator about what time Ben’s band was playing in the Village that night, they weren’t paying attention when two people got on at a lower floor.

  “Claire?”

  The elevator wasn’t big to begin with, but with the entrance of Freddy and his redheaded…companion… Claire felt immediately short of breath and claustrophobic. She froze.

  “It’s like something out of Oscar Wilde, darling,” Freddy continued without missing a beat, almost chuckling. “Is this your lover?”

  Ben tried to lunge at the marquess, but Claire stepped between them at the last second. As the elevator doors opened at the lobby a few seconds later, Freddy maneuvered himself out first, holding the woman’s hand in his. “How delightfully brutish your man seems.” The redhead laughed, a deep husky roll, and the two strolled out of the hotel as if the four of them bumping into each other was nothing more than a pithy joke.

  “Take me home,” Claire whispered. She didn’t realize Ben was practically holding her upright until he tightened his grip around her waist and steered her to one of the couches in the lobby. She felt like her feet were barely touching the ground. “Ben.”

  “Claire, sweetheart.” He was touching her and saying soothing nonsense, anything to erase that look of stricken horror on her face. Her usually diamond-bright eyes were a cold shade of dull steel.

  “He’s such a bastard,” she whispered, her jaw clenched. Ben realized he’d never heard her sound vicious before.

  “Claire darling, look at me. He’s nothing. He’s less than nothing.”

  “What is he doing here? He was supposed to be broke…and under indictment by now…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head in angry confusion. When she looked up into Ben’s eyes, he barely recognized her. Her lips were pressed together, angry and stubborn. “I need to go.” She stood up quickly, as if she thought he’d let her sally off by herself.