by Imani King
I could see what he meant, and I knew exactly what he had been alluding to. It was all of those things that had made me question what I was doing with Eva to being with, and if inviting her to stay at my villa had been the wisest decision. I had always been certain of my place, my role, and my responsibilities. Hell, they had been drilled into my head since I was born. The responsibility of my country and the duty that I had a birthright to uphold were irrefutable. And one young woman from Texas had, in the course of the week, thrown all of that into question.
It was crazy to me. But there was no denying that I wasn’t ready to let Eva out of my sight yet. That was why I had proposed to keep her in Sorenia. I needed to get her out of my system. I figured if I had three months to do it, surely I would grow tired of her by then. After all, no other woman had ever managed to keep my interest that long.
As soon as we finished breakfast, having moved the conversation to much less awkward topics, I had the car pulled around. We were scheduled to meet Abby and Eva to spend the day at Sorenia National Park. We were going to go on a hike and have a picnic lunch. I was surprised that Kian wanted to do anything outside of the bedroom with Abby, especially the day after the wedding, but I also knew my brother was eager to introduce his new bride to all the wonders of our country.
As we drove to the park, Kian kept bringing up an endless array of conversational topics that I barely listened to. Eva was the one who was fully in my mind. I would have expected that after bedding her the night before, that it would have taken some of the edge off of my desire to see her again. It shouldn’t have bothered me that she asked me to leave her room after our encounter either. But it had. That was another part of the whole situation that was confusing me.
At the surface level, I understood everything she said and even agreed with it. But something inside of me said it didn’t feel right. She was the one who was doing a much better job at keeping the boundaries of whatever we were doing clearer than I was. I had been straight with her and set the right expectations, and she was doing nothing but behaving exactly according to that plan. I should have been grateful. And yet, in the moment, it had hurt.
After taking her body, I had wanted nothing more than to settle into bed and fall asleep with her in my arms. But that had been denied to me. I went back to my room and tossed and turned for the majority of the rest of the evening. So far, my brilliant plan seemed to be coming apart at the seams. In the end, nothing I was doing was making my desire for Eva go away. In fact, it only seemed to be growing stronger.
CHAPTER FIVE
I had to admit that I was having more fun than I expected. I wasn’t a girl who was afraid of the outdoors. I’d grown up on a farm in rural Texas, for heaven sakes. Abby was the one who was struggling a bit with the hiking portion of our day’s adventure. She was a city girl, after all.
The three of us had poked fun at her several times over the hike, and she started to get frustrated. Luckily, it seemed that Kian had the perfect approach to keeping her calm. It was a technique that I could only describe as basically kissing her silly. It also proved to be effective from what I observed. Every time he grabbed her and began to kiss her, I looked away with a flush in my cheeks.
Aidan had caught my eye several times when it happened, and with a look and the cock of his eyebrow, I knew he was telling me that if I wanted him to do the same thing, he gladly would. I shook my head. Even though Abby had pressed me for details about the evening before, I had told her nothing happened. I was still uncertain about all of it. If I were in my right mind, I would get on a plane and head back to Scotland as soon as possible. I shouldn’t be tramping around the Sorenian wilderness with Aidan. Everything about the situation had danger written all over it. Not risk in the physical sense, but danger to my emotional well-being for the near future.
I had to admit that Aidan looked sexy as hell in his tight jeans and casual button-down shirt. At least he wore hiking boots. I had been surprised when I had heard about the day’s agenda and wondered what it was all about. After we all had gathered in the parking lot, we hadn’t even started up the trail before Aidan and Kian began to take turns telling Abby and me about the history of Sorenia. I found that I was fascinated as I listened, and the trail in front of me almost felt as if it disappeared as we were reeled back into the past.
Sorenia was a small country that was just about the same size as Luxembourg, but it had a long history. Although it had mostly enjoyed a peaceful history, that hadn’t been the case in World War Two. It had been one of the key outposts for the Nazis after they invaded. Sorenia hadn’t had an army to defend itself. It had been a time of hardship for the Sorenian people. It was only through careful negotiations between Aidan and Kian’s great-grandfather that they had managed to preserve much of the countryside and escape the destruction other countries around them had experienced.
I had to admit that the landscape in front of us was breathtaking. We were high on the hills above the capital city, and it seemed as if we had disappeared in a vast wilderness despite the fact that the capital city was less than twenty miles away. Everywhere I looked around us was green and peaceful. Although it an entirely different landscape from what I was used to in Texas, I felt the same kind of calm that I felt when I was home and exploring the countryside around my family’s small farm.
“Are you having fun?” Aidan asked as he slipped to my side. Abby and Kian were further ahead of us giggling and laughing about something that I couldn’t hear. I had purposely hung back to give them plenty of space, but I realized by doing so that put me directly in Aidan’s.
“Surprisingly, yes,” I admitted.
“You want to see something amazing?” he asked.
He knew I would be intrigued. “Okay,” I said.
He pulled me to a stop. He put his finger up to his lips to keep me quiet as Abby and Kian disappeared around the bend in the trail in front of us. “It’s right here,” he said. He tugged on my arm and pulled me through the brush. There was a small path on the other side that wasn’t visible from the wider path we had just been on. “Where are we going? Shouldn’t we tell Kian and Abby where we’re going?”
He shrugged and gave a wave of his hand. “Kian will know that we’ll find them eventually. I’m sensing that those two wouldn’t mind a little alone time, if you know what I mean,” he said, wagging his eyebrows.
I couldn’t help but laugh at him. It was only another hundred yards or so off the main trail before we came upon the shoreline of a small pool of water. It was so clear and blue that it looked almost like a mirror on the surface. Everywhere around the pool were tall trees that gave us perfect shade from the sun high in the sky.
“This is beautiful,” I said, and it was.
“I found this place when I was a kid. I used to love coming here and going swimming when I wanted some quiet time away from the palace,” he said. He gave me a suggestive look. “What you say? You want to try out the water?”
I laughed at him. “I didn’t bring my swimsuit,” I said.
“Who said you need a swimsuit?” he asked with a cocky smile. He began to unbutton his shirt, and I realized that he was inviting me to go skinny-dipping. There was a part of me that said this was crazy. Kian and Abby could come upon us at any minute. But as I watched Aidan strip down to nothing and dive in, I realize that a little skinny-dipping had never hurt anyone.
Aidan came up out of the water and splashed water toward me as I stood there still deciding what I was going to do. “Get that sexy ass in this water.”
Making my decision, I started to take off my top. Aidan called outbursts of encouragement that made me blush. As quickly as I could, I stripped out of my clothes and slipped into the water. The chill immediately made my teeth chatter, but Aidan swam to me and wrapped his arms around me pulling me against his warm body.
“Let’s get you warmed up.” There wasn’t a single thing about him saying that I felt like I could argue with.
We twirled slowly in the wat
er for a moment with our limbs intertwined, and I felt myself finally begin to get warm. That’s when I pushed him away with a laugh and started a long stroke to the other side of the pool to further warm up. The water was perfect. As I dove underneath the surface, I realized I could see clearly all around me. That included a preview of the ripple of hard muscles swimming in my direction. I came up out of the water with a laugh even as I splashed him as Aidan got close to me.
“I can’t even imagine growing up in a place like this,” I said.
“What you mean? I grew up in a family in a place just like you did,” Aidan said. He treaded water next to me, giving me a calm, self-assured smile. He knew what I meant, and he was deliberately playing dumb.
“I mean that I just can’t even imagine what it must it be like being you. All those rules and responsibilities. What amazes me is that it seems like you have any life at all. I have to admit when I found out about your family, I expected you to be stodgy,” I said.
“Stodgy? How flattering. Despite all of the appearances of rules and responsibilities, I still have a lot of freedom in my life,” he said.
“Like for you to decide who you get to marry, for example?” I asked the question offhandedly, even though I was intensely curious about the answer. “What if you don’t even like this Imogen? Shouldn’t we all get to choose who we spend the rest of our life with?”
Aidan’s smile faded. “It’s what’s expected of me.”
I pulled my hand out of the water and pointed a finger at him. “That’s what I’m talking about. I think maybe you have the illusion of freedom. But, at the end of the day, you live in a gilded cage that you can’t get out of because you don’t even realize it exists.”
“Why? Are you trying to tell me that you’re interested in the job of being queen?” Aidan asked in a mocking tone.
I splashed the water at him as a way of distracting him. “We’re not talking about anything about you and me and a theoretical relationship, remember?” I scowled at him. “This is all strictly fluff and pleasure. Nothing serious here.”
“I do remember,” Aidan said. He appeared to be annoyed at this idea. I twirled around in my spot. I tried to appear as nonchalant as possible. “So tell me about this Imogen. What do you know about her?” I could tell that Aidan was uncomfortable with my line of questioning, but that didn’t stop me from asking. “Do you even know what she looks like? She could look like a troll from underneath a bridge somewhere.”
Aidan swam into a casual backstroke going in a wide circle around me. “Of course, I know what she looks like. It’s not like we live in the Stone Age. She’s a very lovely person from what I understand. I’m sure I will find out more when we meet at the end of the summer.” Then suddenly he switched his stroke so that he was in my space. It caught me completely by surprise as he grabbed me around my waist. “Do you really want to spend this beautiful summer afternoon talking about my future fiancée?”
Before I could say anything else, his mouth closed on mine. All thoughts blew out of my mind with that. His hands were tracing circles around my lower back distracting me even more as his tongue did the same in a sultry dance with mine. I wrapped my arms around him, and he pushed me backward into the water. It should have been awkward moving in the water together, but as always, it seemed as if Aidan and I were perfectly in sync.
When his hand reached down to caress the space between my thighs, I felt a sigh of satisfaction. No, I didn’t want to talk about his fiancée. He had an excellent point. It would only serve to build the pit of dread growing in the bottom of my stomach. This time was for us. We could be young and naïve and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. It seemed so easy here.
As his fingers moved in between my folds and brushed my clit, I arched my back. He let me drift on top of the water as his fingers played me like some type of finely tuned instrument. We drifted through the water of the pond, and I felt the sensual build in my core even as his fingers stretched to move inside of me.
“That’s it, baby. I want to hear you,” he whispered in my ear.
Even though I knew Abby and Kian couldn’t be that far away from where we were, I followed his request. I didn’t hold back as I let him know in the low moans and hisses what I felt like his fingers were doing to me. What he was doing to me. It was like a beautiful dream that I was floating on, and even as the wave of my climax took me over, I felt warm and secure in Aidan’s arms. I could, unfortunately, get used to that feeling and, that thought scared me more than anything.
His mouth closed over mine as he swallowed my cries of pleasure. In the afterglow of my orgasm, I moved my hand to his stiff cock to return the favor, but he gently brushed my hand away.
“We should go find Abby and Kian,” he said. “It’s about lunch time, and I assume they’re going to come looking for us soon enough.”
I felt a pang of regret, but I knew that he was right. As he pulled me towards shore, I couldn’t help but smile at him. His cocky, self-assured attitude, while it frustrated me, seemed to serve him well.
“I guess I’ll have to thank Kian for that tip,” he said as we were getting dressed.
“What tip?” I asked.
“If you want an effective way of making a woman be quiet, just kiss her silly,” he said.
I knew I should’ve been angry at him for the comment, but I couldn’t help but chuckle and shake my head. I had seen the evidence of such proof earlier with Abby. It wasn’t a bad idea when you were a kisser as good as Aidan was.
“Well, it might work in the short term, but you’re going to have to figure out a better longer-term strategy,” I quipped.
He looked at me as if he was afraid that I was going to continue to press Imogen issue, but I knew that he had been right in stopping my line of questioning earlier. In the end, I didn’t want to know anything about Imogen. What I wanted to know could come through Google easily enough.
Instead, I could look forward to three luxurious months of living in a villa with servants and potentially having a summer fling that would that I would remember for the rest of my life, all the while being on the arm of a prince. It’s something I could tell my grandchildren about. I wasn’t going to waste any more time talking about the future, especially when I knew there was no future between me and Aidan. If anything, the twinges of angst that realization gave me were warning enough to me to leave the topic alone.
Once we were fully dressed, and Aidan gave his nod of approval that I looked appropriate again despite the wet hair, he reached out his hand. I took it, and he began to lead me back down the path. “We’ll get the picnic lunch from the car and set it up. I’ll text Kian on where to find us,” Aidan said.
I nodded in agreement, but the thing that was most surprising was that even as we continued to walk, Aidan never let go of my hand.
CHAPTER SIX
The day had exceeded my wildest expectations. I had had a fantastic day enjoying feeling like an average person, hanging out with my brother and his new wife, and a woman who intrigued me more than any other woman I had ever met. After our covert encounter in the secluded pool, Eva and I rediscovered a banter that had developed between us during our time in Gibraltar. By the time we got the picnic basket lunch set up, Abby and Kian emerged from the trail’s underbrush looking a little rougher for wear but thoroughly satisfied as well.
I observed Abby’s questioning glance at Eva’s damp hair, which thankfully was almost dry by that point. It was something that was beneficial about having short hair I supposed. I watched Kian pick a few random twigs and leaves out of his wife’s longer locks with the widest, shit-eating grin on his face. It seemed that both couples had had a similar thought when we had split up.
We hiked for the rest of the afternoon, and then it was evident that being out in the sun and being up late the evening before was starting to wear on everyone. When Kian suggested that we head home, I could see that both of the women were more than in agreement.
As I drove back to
the villa, Eva sat in the seat next to me silence. It was comfortable, though. Neither one of us seemed to feel the need to fill the space between us with anything mundane. It was as if neither one of us wanted to risk ruining the perfect mood of the day. We had a quiet dinner in the kitchen, and then I offered her a tour of the villa. Obviously, it was something we had missed the evening before.
I found that I was proud to tell her about all of the different historical aspects of the house. Instead of appearing interested but clearly thinking about something else, something I’d encountered with several other women when I had given them the tour in the past, Eva was attentive and asked challenging questions. It was clear that she was paying attention to every word I was saying and was absorbing the details, which I appreciated more than I could ever have realized.
I left the best for last when we finally arrived at the doors of the last room on the upper floor. It was my bedroom. I flung open the doors, and I heard her gasp. “So this is the bedroom of a future king,” she said reverently as she stepped inside the room. “It’s like three times bigger than mine.”
“I have no idea why anyone thought that one person needed so much space,” I said. It was the truth. I had grown up with these kinds of accommodations all my life, but I never quite understood them. If anything, it always served to make me feel even more alone than I might have felt otherwise. “But the best part is in here,” I said as I led her towards the bathroom.
She squealed in delight as soon as she stepped foot across the threshold, as I knew she would. Every woman in the world loved a decadent bathroom. The room was the size of a small apartment, and marble tile gleamed pristinely everywhere that the eye could see. The shower was large enough to accommodate a sports team and had been my goal since we arrived back at the villa.