by Imani King
I moved to the shower and turned on the bronze faucet. Three separate showerheads came to life. I saw Eva’s questioning glance even as I stripped off my shirt.
“As much as I love swimming in nature’s waters, I think it’s probably a good idea for both of us to get clean before we go to bed, don’t you think?” I asked as I gave her a wicked smile.
She grinned at me even as she started to take off her jeans. I loved this side of her. There was something demure and conservative about her on the outside, but once you got to know Eva, you knew that there was a wild child underneath. She never stopped to think about the consequences that other people might. She grabbed onto a situation with both hands and let herself go.
That was something that, despite my comments earlier about feeling like I was free to make my own decisions, was a sensation that I knew I would never be able to fully replicate. Eva was right. I was like a bird inside a gilded cage, but she had been wrong on one point. I was far too aware of it.
Once she was undressed, I took her hand and helped her into the shower. I wasn’t going to rush this experience, especially since our time had been cut short earlier.
I took the bar of soap off the ledge and began to slowly and carefully run wide circles all over her body with it. She moaned and let me move her deeper into shower under the water’s spray as I made sure every nook and cranny of her body was clean, but I didn’t touch her in any other kind of sexual way. I wanted the sensations to build even as I could feel them building in myself.
It gave me pleasure to do these small things for her. I couldn’t help but admire the toned leanness of her body and the lusciousness of her curves.
I saw her look at me then and glance down at me. Everything that I was thinking had manifested itself in my rock hard cock.
A slow, sultry smile crept across her face. “And what are you thinking about, Prince?”
I pushed her backward against the tile. I told her with my mouth and with the grinding of my hips exactly what I was thinking. She giggled underneath my lips even as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I felt her hands start to massage my back, and it felt heavenly. It was as if she found every ball of tension under my skin and made each of them go away. Being with Eva relaxed me completely.
I was feeling emotions that I knew were wrong given the circumstances, but everything about being with Eva felt right. I couldn’t actually say these words out loud to her, though, so I had to leave that to my hands and my tongue and the rest of my body to show her that what I was feeling for her went beyond mere sex. I could find that with anybody. But I didn’t want to experience these feelings with anyone else other than Eva.
I wondered if she felt the same way, and I thought about her questions earlier that day. Her curiosity, while seemingly casual, had a pointed tip to it. Almost as if she was curious about her competition. In my mind, though, there was no contest. Imogen was a fuzzy part of a future that I wasn’t sure that I wanted anymore. It was what was expected of me, but at this moment, with Eva in my arms as I kissed her neck and tasted her skin, I went wild wanting her.
I took her by surprise as I suddenly flipped her around. I pressed her arms up above her head and held them there. Then I feasted on the back of her neck drawing out small moans of pleasure from her lips. I ground my hips into her plush buttocks and felt her press back against me. Using one of my hands to keep her wrists firmly above her head, I let the other one slip down to sweep across her abdomen and then lower. I slid my fingertips right into her folds and found her clit, which I began to tease with small tweaks. The pressure of her hips grew more insistent as they pressed back against me.
“Naughty girl,” I whispered in her ear. “I know what you need. Open your legs further for me, baby,” I said.
She widened her stance without any further instruction. I increased the pressure of the tight circles against her clit and felt her body begin to quiver. Still holding her in place, I dipped my fingers inside of her finding her wet and ready for me. Not waiting for any further invitation, I thrust deep inside of her. She came up on her tiptoes with a sharp gasp, and I held her hips firmly pressed against mine. Like the rest of this encounter, I had no intention of moving quickly. I was going to draw it out slow and hard.
I gave her a moment to adjust to feeling me deep inside of her. It felt completely different than when we had done it before, and it had been a long time since I had taken her like this. As soon as I started to feel her muscles relax, I pulled out and thrust up into her again. I heard the catch of her breath at my movement.
Slowly, with a sweet kind of ease, I began a series of slow, hard thrusts deep inside of her. My other hand released her wrists, and I cupped her breasts even as I braced her backward against me. It was slippery in the shower, and there was no way I was going to risk letting her fall. Her head fell back against my shoulder, and I began to nip my teeth along the exposed side of her neck. Her arms came up and clasped around my neck, which arched her breasts further into my palms while I teased her nipples.
Her breath started to come in sharper gasps telling me that she was close. I was going to take her all the way before I gave into my own pleasure.
“Aidan, I’m so ready,” she whispered. “Harder.”
I was going to give her everything she wanted and more. Turning her a half turn, I pushed against her back to bend her over. Her hands came down to brace herself on the rod three quarters the way down the wall. She held onto it as I finally let myself go with a with a loud growl. I slammed into her softness and felt her muscles clench tightly around my cock. Her entire body seem to vibrate even as I heard her cry out to release her pleasure. My own was right on top of it. For one blissful moment, I felt complete.
Our banter afterward was of the slow and sultry kind. I felt relaxed and in tune with her in a way I couldn’t describe if asked. She helped clean me, and I cleaned her again. Thoroughly satisfied, I helped her out of the shower and wrapped a huge, plush towel around her. Then I kissed her softly. “Stay in my room tonight,” I said. I realized I hadn’t quite managed to keep the pleading tone out of my voice as I had hoped.
Her green eyes seemed to shimmer as she looked up into mine. Then I saw the expression that told me even after everything, she had closed herself off from me.
“I can’t, and you know why.” She gathered up her clothes and slipped out of the room without another word. It seemed that our perfect day was over, and it had ended on a sour note.
I dried myself off and thought that it was better this way. The war between my brain and what I felt inside was starting to make me question things that I had never questioned before. As I lay in my bed waiting for sleep to come, my thoughts and senses were filled with Eva.
What if I told my parents I didn’t want to marry Imogen? What if I told them I wanted to decide for myself who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with? What was the worst that could happen?
I could be disowned. I would absolutely lose my right to my inheritance. Or, perhaps they would consider changing the law so that I could marry anyone that I wanted. That thought was nothing but a daydream. My mother was old-school to her core, traditional and conservative in every way. She thought there was enough of the new world intruding on the old. There was no way that she would go for both of her sons marrying Americans. It was simply unheard of.
I turned onto my side and tried to turn my brain off. But before I did, I decided that I would check the royal archives. Perhaps there was something in the law that I missed during my previous studies that could be useful given the current circumstances.
With this plan of action firmly in my mind, I finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next three weeks seemed to pass by in a kind of hazy, pleasurable blur. I had settled into a routine. I was still studying, knowing that I had big decisions to make about my life in just a couple of months. I had started researching Ph.D. programs, and there were some that were interesting. I had also gotten s
ome leads on potential jobs, knowing that a Ph.D. program could wait another couple of years. But I couldn’t help but be reluctant about all of it when I saw how far away from Sorenia all of those opportunities actually were.
It was a surprise to me how quickly I had come to love the small country. Abby and I spent almost every day together. I went with her on some of her new royal duties that were expected of her; charity visits, luncheons and even a formal tea or two. So far, she hadn’t had to do anything too stressful, and usually either Kian or Aidan accompanied us, probably to keep us from doing anything that wasn’t ‘acceptable’ in the royal view.
It was all just a warm-up. Soon she would have a royal itinerary of appearances just like Kian and Aidan did. For their parts, when they weren’t with us, the boys were often absent tending to their royal duties around the country. The sheer number of those appearances felt overwhelming to me; sometimes, Aidan told me he had two, three, or more in a single day. It seemed as if Aidan was far busier than I would have expected, but he was the future king after all. Appearances were expected.
So far I had only been forced to endure one dinner with his family. Although I loved Abby and Kian, his parents were a completely different matter. His mother looked at me as if she was sizing me up and finding me unworthy. I could only imagine what she was thinking about the fact that I was staying in Aidan’s villa at the same time he was. It seemed as if it was a foregone conclusion that we were having sex, which of course, we were. In my bedroom, in his bedroom, in the kitchen; so far we had christened almost every room, and I wasn’t arguing one bit. When I wasn’t in a semi-blissful orgasmic state, I was talking and hanging out with my best friend just like before.
I knew that it would all come to an end soon enough, but I wasn’t ready to think about that future quite yet. I knew that I was going to miss Abby terribly at summer’s end, and so I made sure that I enjoyed every minute that we were able to spend together.
This particular evening, Abby and I were having a girls’ night. Kian and Aidan had gone into town to blow off some steam. They had come back that afternoon from a particularly heated debate with their parents about something or another. Some rule of state that I didn’t quite understand and didn’t really want to yet. It wasn’t as if I was a resident of Sorenia, and it wouldn’t have an impact me at all anyways. I understood that the roles that they had to play were stressful, and I thought it was nice that the two brothers got along so well that they could back each other up when necessary.
Abby and I had on a trashy reality TV show in the background as we painted each other’s nails. We were laughing about a particular incident that happened earlier in the day where Abby had said something inappropriate to one of the servants. It had been an honest mistake, an American euphemism that was taken completely out of context.
“I just don’t know if I can get used to this,” Abby said.
“This is your new reality,” I said in a too sweet tone mimicking the fake voice that we had heard far too many times during Abby’s engagement.
I let myself fall backward against the plush pillows of Abby’s couch and spread my arms wide. Abby and Kian’s home was even more luxurious in Aidan’s villa. I’d found out that the estate had been meant for the future king, but Aidan had given it to Kian as a wedding gift. Some wedding gift.
“So how are things going with you?” Abby asked.
“I see you every day. What do you mean, 'How are things going with me?'” I asked. I had a sense that I knew where she was going aiming to go with the conversation. So far, over the last three weeks, Abby had barely asked any questions about me and Aidan, which was entirely unlike her. I knew what it looked like, and I thought it myself. It seemed like it was a foregone conclusion to probably everyone that the two of us were together, even though we were careful in public not to have any sign of anything other than friendly affection for each other.
“You’ve been here living in Aidan’s villa for three weeks now,” she said. “I’m just wondering how things are going between the two of you. You seem to be getting along quite well.” She winked at me when she said this and gave me a more than meaningful look.
I rolled my eyes at her innuendo. “I’m having fun. Isn’t that what a girl my age is supposed to do?”
“Seems like a little bit more than just having fun,” Abby said. She avoided my eyes as she said this, though. “I’ve known you for a long time, Eva. Your longest relationship lasted two weeks. But now, it seems like you and Aidan are happy together.”
I pulled my hand away from her and gave her a frown. “We’re not together.” I put air quotes in the air around the invisible word. “It’s just having fun for the summer. Then I’m going to go back to Glasgow, and he’s going to meet his future bride, and that’ll be it.”
Abby looked at me with a look of sympathy on her face. “Is that what you really want?”
I was ready to argue with her. I was going to deny that I had any feelings of any kind for Aidan, but I saw the look in her eyes that told me she wasn’t going to believe me if I bothered to try, and quite honestly, I had been struggling with dealing with all of the tumultuous feelings on my own. Having feelings for someone was a concept so foreign to me that I didn’t know what to do with it. It would feel good to confide in someone, and if it was going to be anyone, shouldn’t I be confiding in my best friend?
I sighed heavily. “I don’t know what I want. But I do know that no matter what, if I wanted something more or not, that’s not something I can have. He has a protocol that he’s bound by birth to follow. It’s something that he takes very seriously, and he was upfront with me about it. So even if I wanted something more, it’s not something that can be in the cards for us.”
“That’s just sad,” Abby said.
“What about you?” I asked trying to deflect the question. “Let’s talk about happy endings. You look beautiful these days. I’m so happy for you that you found your Prince Charming.”
Abby smiled. It seemed as if she lit up inside, which was always what happened when the subject of Kian came up. “Can I tell you something secret?”
I leaned in closer to her as if it was some kind of super-secret, and we were surrounded by people. “Of course,” I whispered in a conspiratorial tone.
“On our wedding night, I threw out my birth control,” she said. “Kian and I are ready to start a family as soon as possible.”
I was shocked. For as long as I had known Abby, she had been driven and focused on what she wanted in her future. I had never heard her mention kids before as part of her short-term plans. “What about your graduate program?”
She shrugged. “I can still do that and be a mother. I don’t know, Eva. I know I’ve never said anything about wanting a baby, but now that I’m married, and I found this wonderful man, I can’t wait to share that experience with him.”
Somehow there was something about that comment that resonated deep inside of me. I knew exactly what she was talking about, but at the same time, that wasn’t going to be my happy ending. At least, it wasn’t going to be a happy ending with Aidan. Realizing that I hadn’t validated my friend’s feelings as I focused on my own problems, I started to laugh and gave her a big hug. “If that’s what you want to do that’ll make you happy, I’m thrilled for you.”
She gave a short chuckle of relief. “Thank you. I was so worried you were going to tell me I was nuts because I was too young or something like that.”
“I’m not one to judge anyone for what they want. I think it’s great. And Kian will support you in whatever you want to do. He would give you the moon if he could,” I said.
“Well, just be sure that you don’t wind up pregnant too,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been doing this whole having sex thing for a while, and I get how birth control works. I know how to use it.” It was as close as I would get to actually admitting that Aidan and I were sleeping together.
My friend shook her head at me again sadly. “I
want you to be happy too, Eva. I see how you are with Aidan, and he does seem to make you happy. That stupid law. It doesn’t make any sense.”
That was another sentiment that I can definitely relate too. I’ve been thinking the same thing for weeks. “Aidan is supposed to be king. He has to do what he has to do.”
“You know, I saw him yesterday in the royal archives. That’s such a funny expression. Royal archives,” Abby said with a chuckle. “He was looking through some big, dusty old books. Maybe he’s looking for the answer on how to get around that law.”
I wanted to believe that with all of my heart. For every minute that we spent together, I sensed that there was something more than a fling between us, and I thought it was possible that he felt it too. But whenever the topic strayed anywhere close to the possibility of us being in a relationship, I quickly cut it off. There was no way I would allow myself to get my hopes up about something that would never happen.
“Even if we said hypothetically, of course, that I had any kind of feelings for Aidan beyond a simple summer fling, I know that it’s not possible. I’m just enjoying myself and not questioning anything right now, okay? When I go back to Glasgow, I’ll get over him just like I’ve gotten over every other guy that I’ve ever met.”
“You’ve never been into a guy like you are into Aidan, though,” Abby said.
I reached out and touched Abby’s shoulder. “Some of us are just going to have to find our happily ever after a bit differently than others. Not all of us get to marry a prince. But, the right guy is out there for me somewhere, and in the meantime, I am going to focus on me and my future. Don’t worry about me, okay? It’ll all be fine.”
Abby gave me a quick hug, which I appreciated more than she could imagine. I was eager, though, to turn the conversation away from the serious topic of Aidan and me. I called out something I saw on the TV screen, and soon we were mocking the individuals on the show wondering how in the world that was considered reality.