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None, except for the fleeting moments when he looked at me like I was his whole world, and he never wanted to blink.
Rhys complied, though he didn’t look happy about it. Then again, he rarely looked happy.
He’d captured it all in exquisite, painstaking detail, and looking at me through his eyes, I believed I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Say the word, and I can make it look like an accident,” I said after Andreas was out of earshot. Bridget shook her head. “Ignore him. He’s been a satanic little turd since we were children, and he thrives on the attention.” A startled laugh rose in my throat. “Tell me the words ’satanic little turd’ didn’t just leave your mouth, princess.” She responded with a sly smile. “I’ve called him worse in my head.” That’s my girl.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them. I might as well be kissing my pillow.
“My hand slipped.” His voice held not an ounce of apology. That was, for lack of a better term, utter crap. Rhys didn’t slip. He may be larger than the average person, but he moved with the lethal grace of a panther. That was what he reminded me of right now—a panther preparing to pounce on unwitting prey. Taut face, coiled muscles, and eyes trained with laser intensity on Steffan, who shifted with discomfort beneath his stare.
“You’re an ex-Navy SEAL and I’m royalty, and we’re in such denial we might as well apply for Egyptian citizenship.”
He hated Eldorra, yet he’d not only taken the job but moved here permanently. For me.
Even when you’re not there, you’re everywhere. In my head, in my lungs, in my fucking soul.
“Perhaps…” Rhys’s touch skimmed down my neck and over the curve of my shoulder. I shivered, my skin blossoming with a thousand more goosebumps. “I was always meant to find my way to you.”
I’d known she was more than a pretty face long before this trip, but something inside me snapped last night. Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me, like she thought I was everything too when I was nothing, or maybe it was the knowledge she could be ripped away from me at any moment. She could get engaged next week and I would lose even the possibility of her forever. Whatever it was, it erased every bit of remaining self-control I had. Costa Rica had been a crack, but this? This was full-on obliteration.
Was what we were doing—what we were about to do—a bad idea? Fuck yes. Ours was a story destined for a tragic ending, but when you were already on a train headed off the cliff, all you could do was hold on tight and make every second count.
I was a rule follower by nature. It was how I’d survived most of my life. But for Bridget, I would break every rule in the book. It only took six weeks of being apart from her and another six of fucking agony for me to accept the truth, but now that I had, there was no going back.
Bridget von Ascheberg was mine and mine alone. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t mine to take. I was taking her anyway, and if I could tattoo myself onto her skin, bury myself into her heart, and etch myself onto her soul, I would.
“But first, I want to make one thing clear. From this point on, you’re mine. No other man touches you. If they do…” My fingers dug into her skin. “I know seventy-nine ways to kill a man, and I can make seventy of them look like an accident. Understand?”
So fucking beautiful. So fucking mine. “Fuck me,” she gasped. Her nails dug harder into my biceps until a tiny bead of blood welled on my skin. “Please fuck me.” “Such a dirty mouth for a princess.” I worked my cock out of my pants and slid on a condom using my free hand before I yanked my fingers out, lifted her up, and hooked her legs around my waist. “You know there’s no going back after this.” “I know.” Bridget’s eyes were wide and trusting and glazed with lust.
My chest clenched. I didn’t deserve her, but fuck it, I was beyond caring. No one ever said I was a good man, anyway.
“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t be doing my job if you didn’t come on my cock at least three times tonight.”
God, this woman. She had no idea the things I would do for her.
“Ground’s wet and it’s dark,” I said. A cloud had drifted over the moon, and I had to walk slowly to make sure I didn’t step in anything I didn’t want to step in. “Better if I carry you, sweetheart.” She didn’t respond, but she tightened her arms around my neck and pressed a soft kiss to my jaw that made my heart twist in the strangest way. Then again, nothing about my life had been normal since Bridget von Ascheberg came into it.
I pinned him with a stern stare even as my clit throbbed again—not from the vibrator, but from the sight of him. The stubble, the tattoos, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world…Stop. Focus. “I was in a meeting.”
“That wasn’t a request.” My nipples hardened into aching points at his authoritative tone, and I folded my arms over my chest to hide them. “You can’t tell me what to do.” “Come. Here.” His voice dropped to a dangerously soft decibel. “Before I bend you over my lap and spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit for days.”
“There. That wasn’t so hard.” Rhys grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me toward him. “Remember. In public, you’re my princess, but in private, you’re my whore.”
His eyes crinkled into a beautiful smile, and my heart soared so high I thought I might float off the ground. If I could have any three things in the world, it would be world peace, my parents back, and Rhys’s smiles forever. “I missed you too.” He gave me a softer, lingering kiss before he slid his hand up my inner thigh again and a low groan escaped his throat. “You are soaked.” His tone returned to the hard, commanding one I was used to. “Bend over and lift your skirt.”
“Not just any cock,” I panted. “Yours. Now are you going to keep talking, or are you actually going to fuck me?”
“That’s right.” He pulled the vibrator out and positioned the tip of his cock at my entrance. “Mine. Only mine. And don’t you forget it, princess.”
We spoke only loud enough for the other to hear, but to my paranoid ears, we might as well be shouting.
I glared at Rhys, who’d fixed himself up in record time and looked like he was trying not to laugh. “This isn’t funny.” “Nice double entendre there at the end,” he said with a smirk. I’m coming.
I’d seen Bridget naked, in fancy gowns, and in lingerie, but she was never more beautiful than when she was herself, stripped of all the pretenses her title forced her to wear.
“Years of grumpiness, and you suddenly have jokes.” “I’ve always had jokes. I just never told them.”
“Maybe. I’m in trouble and I need your help.” I set down my pencil with a sigh. “You’re not in trouble. You are trouble.”
For someone so regal in public, Bridget was a fire-cracker in the bedroom. Or living room, or shower, or kitchen counter.
There were very few things in the world I couldn’t withstand, but Bridget crying was one of them. “Not for me,” I said. “Not for your friends, family, or any of the people whose lives you’ve touched. Your mother made a choice to have you, and no one blames you for what happened to her. It was a medical situation that could’ve happened to anybody. It had nothing to do with you.” “I know.” Her voice cracked. I gripped her tighter, desperate for her to understand. I didn’t know why it was so important. I just knew it was. “Do you remember what you told me during the tour? We always end up where
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I kissed the top of her head, my heart still aching. If only she could see herself the way I saw her. Beautiful, smart, strong. Perfect in every way that mattered.
fuddy-duddies
😭😭💀💀🤣🤣😂😂
“Trust me, princess. I would rather end my own life than ask you to do anything that might hurt you.”
His lip curled with distaste. Christian owned one of the most extensive and expensive rare alcohol collections in the U.S. He had nothing against drinking, but I assumed he took offense at the way I did it.
Christian looked unfazed even though he was two seconds away from getting his face pounded in. “It’s never bothered you before. And careful with the suit. I just got it custom made.”
“I have nothing against love, other than the fact I find it tedious, boring, and utterly unnecessary. People in love are the most insufferable on the planet.” He glanced at a piece of lint on his suit with disdain before brushing it off. “But if that’s what you want, go for it. Just not with the princess.”
“You think I’m being heartless, but I’m trying to help you. Consider it my repayment for Tangier.”
Never trust a Christian Harper bearing gifts. That should be everyone’s motto in life.
And yet, thoughts of dark hair and gunmetal eyes, scars and hard-won smiles still consumed me.
I’d cursed him every day for leaving me alone with Rhys. Insufferable, domineering, arrogant Rhys, who refused to let me walk on the outside of sidewalks and treated every visit to a bar like a mission into a war zone. Who scowled more than he laughed and argued more than he talked. Rhys, who’d planned a last-minute trip for me so I could fulfill my bucket list, even though it must’ve gone against his every instinct as a bodyguard, and who kissed me like the world was ending and I was his last chance at salvation. The ache intensified and spread to my throat, my eyes, my soul.
I wondered if I would haunt him as much as he haunted me.
“Think like a queen. And remember, the best rulers are those who can wield both the carrot and the stick in equal measure.”
“He’s totally whipped. Watch.” She raised her voice to a panicked level. “Oh my God! Ava, are you bleeding?” Alex’s head snapped up. Less than five seconds later, he ended his call and crossed the room to a confused-looking Ava, whose hand froze halfway to the scones on the table. “I’m fine,” Ava said as Alex searched her for injuries. She glared at Jules. “What did I just say?” “I can’t help it.” Jules’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so much fun. It’s like playing with a windup toy.”
“Until the toy comes alive and kills you,” Stella murmured loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I’m not leaving you. If you’re in Eldorra, I’m in Eldorra. If you’re in Antarctica, the Sahara, or the middle of the fucking ocean, I’m there. I’m as much yours as you are mine, princess, and a law isn’t keeping me away. I don’t care what a piece of paper says. I’ll burn down the entire fucking Parliament if I have to.”
“If we do it, we do it together. You and me against the world, princess.”
“Mine to fight with. Mine to protect. Mine to fuck.” My voice dropped. “Mine to love.”
