Crown of Thornes : a modern day royal romance

by Delaney Foster

  I slid the tank top over my head and pulled myself together. “You’d have to let me touch you first, and so far, we’re zero for two.” I pinned him with a stare.

  Why won’t you let me touch you? Why won’t you give me your secrets?

  Sutton jutted forward, pinning me against the wall again. “You think I don’t want you to touch me? That I don’t want your hands and that smart fucking mouth all over me?”

  “Do you? Because you act like I don’t know my way around the male anatomy.”

  His body pushed into me, forcing the small of my back against the wood trim on the walls and my breasts against his chest. His mouth curled into a wolfish grin. “Say the word, little sheep. Tell me what you want.”

  My choice of vocabulary had nothing to do with being prude and everything to do with manners. He wanted dirty? I could give him dirty. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and leaned up on my tiptoes, close enough to whisper in his ear. “Your cock.” The sound of his hard swallow encouraged me to keep going. “I want you to feed it to me until I choke. Then I want you to fuck me like you hate me. Because that’s what this is, right? A hate fuck?”

  I dropped back down to normal height and met his eyes. My pulse shot into overdrive as I waited for his reply.

  “No. That’s not what this is,” he said, his voice low and sure. “And I promise I’m going to give you everything you want and more. So much more.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “I’m not going to fuck you in this hallway, Katie. Or in the library. Or anywhere but my fucking bed or yours, because your moans, your screams…” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, inhaling a breath through his nose as though he were savoring his next words. After a second he opened his eyes and trapped me in his intense gaze. “That goddamn face you make when you come. Those are for me. Only me.”

  “A bit hypocritical, don’t you think? Considering what just happened… where it happened.”

  “I lost control. I started something I didn’t have the power to stop. I won’t do that again.” He looked tortured, at war with himself over who he wanted to be and who he was supposed to be. I knew that look because I saw it every time I looked in the mirror.

  I immediately felt bad for judging him. I no longer saw an arrogant prince who refused to be touched by his father’s enemy. I saw a man holding on to the last sliver of his self-control.

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  He took a step back and all the air returned to my lungs. “Now we go see my father,” he said as he fixed his tie.

  My eyes dipped to the obvious bulge beneath his zipper. “What about that?”

  He chuckled then adjusted himself through his pants. “That’s nothing. My dick’s been hard since the moment I laid eyes on you.” He nodded down the Great Hall, his eyes sparkling with his smile—the first genuine one I’d seen on him since we met. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour along the way.”

  I smiled back and followed him down the hall, cherishing the moment but knowing it was too good to last. I was screwed. So very screwed. We both were.

  He led me past the Ambassador’s Room where I knew the royals held all their galas. We passed a massive staircase leading from the Grand Entrance on the ground floor to the first floor.

  Sutton caught me peering in through open doors and archways as we walked past rooms with extravagant furnishings, marble paneling, and painted ceilings. I knew from listening to kitchen chatter that the royals employed a lot of people, but outside of the kitchen I never saw any of them. I never saw anyone walking the halls or heard echoes of conversations as they walked past the library. Hundreds of employees, and they all appeared to be ghosts. Like now. Endless rooms and miles of hallways and there was only us. It felt… lonely.

  “There are three-hundred and thirty-five rooms in the castle,” Sutton said as we passed yet another empty room with even more lavish furniture and no one to sit on any of it.

  I knew Thornebridge Castle was big, but three-hundred and thirty-five rooms? What would anyone possibly ever do with that many rooms?

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the next room we passed. “Eighty-nine bedrooms, and I’m going to fuck you in every single one of them.”

  Okay well there’s that.

  I doubted even the slightest chance of that happening, but it was pointless to argue. Even if it were a possibility, eighty-nine rooms meant a lot of sex. My ladybits might not be mentally prepared to handle all that.

  “This is the Collection Room,” Sutton announced when we stepped inside.

  Glass display cases filled with silver vases, medallions, and rare gemstones lined the gray marbled walls. He dropped my hand and let me explore the room. I ran my fingertip along an intricate gold design engraved into the marble on one wall, tracing the outline of the cross in the middle of a shield. On top of the shield was a crown and on either side was a lion. A thin, wavy banner at the bottom read in honore et fide.

  “My great-grandfather’s coat of arms.” Sutton’s voice startled me. “It’s twenty-four karat gold.”

  I kept staring at the design even though the mere sound of his voice at my ear made it nearly impossible not to look at him. “And the words? What do they mean?”

  “In faith and honor.” He sounded proud.

  “That’s very royal.” Sutton laughed and the sound of it sent a tingle up my spine.

  I realized that was the first time I heard him laugh. There were so many things I still had to learn about this beautiful, haunted man. What did he do for fun? Did he have friends? How did he sound when he came? Would he hiss or growl or throw his head back and shower me with filthy words? The anticipation of that moment had me buzzing out of my skin.

  As if he had a secret track to my thoughts, Sutton stood directly behind me, sucking up all the air in the room. His chest dusted my back as he stood dangerously close.

  I pointed at a large wooden ship on a fancy table in the middle of the room to keep from pressing my butt against his crotch. “What is that?”

  He pulled his body away from mine and stepped around me, looking at the flawlessly detailed wooden replica. “That’s the King’s Vessel. When my ancestors first came to Torryn, there was a huge battle. The land was nowhere near what it is today. There were even fewer roads, making it harder to get from one side of the island to the other. After a hard rain, the mud bogged down the horses and made it hard for them to travel. The soldiers would leave their horses and make the journey by foot. They spent days, weeks sometimes, wandering around until they died of exhaustion or heat stroke. So, we took the battle to the sea, surrounding and protecting the island on all sides. No one got on or off without facing one of our ships.”

  Sutton was a different person when he talked about Torryn. All the passion and fire that laced his words in every other conversation disappeared. It felt methodical and rehearsed, the way a bored guide would give a museum tour. Something about that made me sad.

  I met his sea-blue eyes and offered him an encouraging smile. In a matter of days, I went from wanting nothing to do with Sutton Thorne to fighting this heart-stopping need to seep into his soul and learn all his secrets, even the dark ones. Those were the ones I craved the most.

  He stood there, shoulders straight, jaw tensed—the kind of chiseled that artists sculpted Greek statues after. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as his eyes bore into mine. Everything about him emanated privilege and power. How could someone so beautiful be so sad?

  “You know a lot about your country,” I offered.

  Too bad knowing and caring were two different things.

  “I’m the ki—future king. That’s my job.” His voice held no emotion, but his eyes said it all. Blue-green orbs blazed in a mix of fire and sadness, anger and defeat. Anger at what, I didn’t know yet. But I would find out.

  “Right. Well you’re a lot more interesting than Mrs. Fernsby.”

  “I sure the fuck hope I’m more interesting than someone n
amed Fernsby,” he said, and I laughed picturing her round face and wire-rimmed glasses. Yeah, Sutton had her beat by a mile. He held his hand at the small of my back and led me back into the Great Hall.

  The castle seemed to go on for miles. I guessed with three-hundred and thirty-five rooms, it kind of had to. I’d only ever seen my little corner. The library was close to the kitchen and both of those were near the exit leading to the South Garden. Other than a rare trip to Mama’s office, I never ventured anywhere else because I never needed to. There was so much history here, so much wonder. Sutton told stories of assassination attempts and alleged witchcraft, and I soaked it all in like a sponge. Some of it put the stories I read in the library to shame. I was almost sorry that in a few months I would leave this all behind.

  Or would I?

  I had to. There was no way this thing between us could last longer than a moment. Even the brightest fires eventually burned out. Sutton would find someone like the brunette he brought to the library, someone with nobility running through her veins, someone his father would approve of, and he would marry her. I tried to imagine how it would feel to see him every day and not feel his gaze or know his touch. He was a prince on the path to becoming a king, and I was a girl who wanted more for my life than to be trapped in a library and getting excited about making brownies. My reaction to that revelation bothered me more than it should.

  A minute later, Sutton brought us into another room. “The Abundance Room,” he called it. The more rooms he showed me, the more relaxed he became, like sharing his home with me made it less intimidating in some way.

  His home. I mentally laughed at the word. I grew up in a two-story, five-bedroom brick house. Some might have even called it an estate. We had stables, a guest house, and a nine-acre farm. There was plenty of room to play hide and seek but still never feel like you were lost. A tiny creek ran along the back acre. The water was always ice cold and felt like jumping straight into a pool of glass, but I never cared. I splashed and played in it until my lips turned blue. Mama would get so mad. That was a home. This was not a home. But it was all he knew.

  Huge archways framed all the windows separated by square marble columns. Detailed paintings of clouds and angels playing harps and blowing trumpets covered the ceiling. Large, round tables were lined up across the floor, cloaked in white linen and topped with large, colorful floral arrangements. It looked primed and ready for a wedding reception or a really fancy tea party, the kind where I imagined white-gloved, sharp-nosed waiters passing out petit fours on silver trays.

  I walked up to one of the tables, my sandals clapping against the stone floor, and smelled the flowers. The sweet scent transported me back to the South Garden, and I wondered if that’s where the flowers came from. “It’s beautiful.”

  Sutton leaned against a wall, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankle, and watched me take it all in. “This is where we have coffee and wine.”

  “You have an entire room just for drinking? And to think I feel accomplished sipping from the corner chair in my living room.”

  I inhaled one more scent of the fresh flowers then turned to face Sutton. Our eyes locked, and a nervous shiver tingled across my flesh. The way he stared at me made me feel exposed, bare, stripped down to my very soul.

  I sucked in a breath. “What?”

  He pulled his hands from his pockets and walked across the room, stopping just in front of me then ran the back of his finger down the side of my bare arm. “You’re so damn perfect.”

  My heart seized at his words. I wasn’t perfect. Not even close. And I both hated and loved that Sutton saw me that way. This pull… this force… was getting stronger. Like a shadow with a lantern at the bottom of a dark staircase. Beckoning. Calling. It was always there, but now I’d given myself to it. I followed the light… straight into the darkness. I needed to slam on the brakes before I crashed heart-first into a brick wall.

  “I fart in my sleep,” I blurted out like it was the most natural thing in the world. I mean, I guess it was, but most people preferred not to talk about it.

  His eyes flashed with amusement, and he choked on his words. “What the fuck? How would you even know that?”

  “I don’t. I just needed to get you away from whatever is going on inside there right now.” I swirled my fingers in a circular motion around his head.

  I needed to remind us who we are, who we were meant to be.

  He stepped forward, dominating the space between us while his eyes searched my face. “You don’t want to know what’s going on inside my head, little sheep.”

  There he went with the little sheep again. One day I would find out what the heck that meant.

  “I know I’m going to break your heart.”

  It was a lie. Sutton didn’t have a heart, and even if he did, it was probably a muddle of darkness covered in branches and thorns, just like his name. It was my heart that was in danger, shattered and broken from everything I had lost. Still, here I was placing the pieces in his powerful hands and waiting for him to put them back together.

  His gaze captured mine. Something dark and dangerous lurked in the blue-green depths. “And I’m going to break your fucking bed.”

  Every time I looked at Katie, I had this overwhelming sense of possessiveness, an unstoppable primal reaction. She belonged to me. Only me. All her fiery spunk and her insane curiosity. Her sinful moans and the way her lips part and she holds her breath, slowly closing her eyes and tipping her head back when she comes. This wide-eyed, innocent way she soaked in her surroundings, hanging on every word I said as I talked about the castle. It was all mine. Every last fucking bit of it. The name Bellizzi was no longer a curse word. I had a taste of heaven, and it was fucking perfect. Tangy like a tomato with the tiniest hint of copper. Smooth like butter. Musky like bourbon. Everything a pussy was supposed to taste like. The aftertaste lingered on my tongue.

  I licked my lips and tasted her.

  I swallowed hard and tasted her.

  And the minute I ever stopped tasting her, I would bury my face between her thighs and taste her again.

  We got to the East Wing where the King’s Apartments were, and I showed her the theater and the King’s Study. She drank it all in like a kid at a theme park. Seeing my world through Katie’s eyes made it feel different, not so suffocating. It reminded me that there was so much more to the castle than formal offices and ballrooms. She made being royal seem magnificent and exciting when all I ever saw it as was a curse.

  A footman exited the Billiards Room as we were going in. He stopped to bow before continuing to the hall. That same surge of possessiveness swelled in my chest when he spent a little too much time letting his eyes linger on Katie. Five more seconds, and that fucker would have been jobless tomorrow.

  “Why don’t you ever speak to anyone? They curtsey and bow, and you don’t even acknowledge them. It’s so rude.” Her eyes gleamed with challenge, and it made my dick throb.

  That guy was eye-fucking you all the way into next Sunday. He’s lucky I kept my mouth shut.

  I walked past the leather Chesterfield sofa to the rack of pool cues on the wall. There were only a handful of rooms in the castle that felt masculine and warm. The library, my father’s and my offices, my bedroom, and this. Everything else was white and polished and felt untouchable. Here, the dark wood walls and rich red rugs with cognac leather furniture made it feel… I grabbed a stick and turned to face Katie. “What would you suggest I do? Since you know so much about being royal.”

  “I don’t know. Say hello maybe? Ask about their day?”

  She was serious. Like we were all supposed to hang out in the theater watching Star Wars marathons and tossing popcorn into each other’s mouths. My entire life and everyone in it would be on the front page of every magazine and internet gossip site out there if I let that happen. People sold their souls for less than what the media paid for dirty royal gossip. Which was why I carried my trust close to my chest.

  Still, I let Katie i
n. I showed her parts of me that no one else had ever seen. She was an exception to the rule. She was an exception to all the rules.

  I grabbed another stick. “We don’t say hello. We don’t ask about anyone’s day. That’s not how it works. We don’t talk to—”

  “People?” she interrupted. “Because that’s what they are. People. Just like you and me.”

  “It’s called favoritism and it’s frowned upon.” I handed her a cue.

  Give them an inch, they’ll take the throne.

  “But arrogance isn’t? God, it’s a good thing I’m not royal.” She eyed the stick then looked back at me. I thought for a second she might not want to play. Then she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and smiled. Fuck, I loved that. “You sure you want to do this?”

  If you mean bend you over the table and shove my dick balls deep in your pussy, then yes. I’m absolutely sure.

  She was talking about the game. Unfortunately. So, I answered with a smile and grabbed the chalk.

  “If you win, I’ll answer your question.” My eyes narrowed in on her and I watched as her breath hitched. “If I win, you’ll answer mine.”

  “I already told you what you want to know. What else is there?”

  “Do you prefer my mouth… or my cock? Do you like it deep? Fast? Slow? Hard?”

  Her lips parted and all I could think about was how they would look wrapped around my cock as I slid all the way to the back of her throat.

  “Oh,” she said on a breath.

  I reached forward and toyed with the delicate silver cross around her neck, wondering who gave it to her and if she ever took it off. Then imagining it glistening with sweat against her naked body. My fingers brushed her collarbone. Her body quivered at my touch. So fucking sensitive. Always so sensitive.

  I racked the balls, knowing she had every bit as good of a chance at winning as I did. Dad loved the Billiards Room. Me, not so much. The stench of cigar smoke and entitlement was a bit overwhelming. When I wanted to escape, I went to The Cliff, just me and three of my closest friends—three of my only friends. I could count on one hand how many people I actually trusted enough to let my guard down. “Ready?”