53. Sebastian #2
“Is that what you meant?” Granny cut him a quelling look. “Well, let me educate you. Most people from Scotland have a Scottish accent, and if Barton ever heard you use that tone, you’d never be invited back for Boxing Day shooting ever again.”
My lips twitched with laughter. Barton was a stout Highlander and head gamekeeper at the Queen’s Scottish estate in the Highlands. Grant practically panted after an invitation every other year.
“I’ve only been invited once, anyway,” he muttered like a spoilt child.
“Grant, do be quiet,” Uncle Michael uttered wearily before taking a bored sip of champagne.
“Are we done then, Your Highness?” Juno popped her head over my shoulder. “I’m starving and would like to eat now.”
My grandmother peered at Juno. “I heard you said something inappropriate in front of Olivia.”
“I might have.”
Granny nodded. “Very good.” She waved her hand. “Off you go and grab me something to eat too while you’re at it.”
And just like that the interrogation—I mean, introduction—was over.
Hotels were booked to the rafters around the racecourse, so I’d hired a private car and driver to take us to our hotel a whole county over.
We’d been chatting about our day, laughing over Juno’s absolute disregard for royal etiquette and how my grandmother seemed to love her more for it.
The driver dropped us off at the hotel and Lily and I got into the lift alone. “She seemed to defend me,” Lily suddenly said, confusion coloring her tone as I pressed the button for her floor. “Your grandmother. When that man got all snotty about my accent.”
“That was my cousin Grant. He is a complete arse and nobody likes him.”
“I don’t understand your grandmother. She tried to break us up and now she’s defending me?”
“Mum says she agreed to keep out of our relationship when she learned how Zac had gone about trying to break us up.” I gestured for Lily to get off the lift first as the doors opened on our floor.
“Now that she’s decided not to be a villainous royal caricature, she won’t let you be insulted.
She has a strange sense of honor that way. ”
“You forgive her, then?”
“Not quite. I did enjoy watching her put Grant in his place. Granny might have her own set of standards regarding the institution’s public face, but she hates people who act superior to others. And she has a lot of Scottish friends. She didn’t like his tone.” I let us into the room.
After I shut the door behind us, I stopped Lily, looping my arms around her waist to pull her back to my chest. The thick skirts of her dress rustled with the movement, and I pressed my lips to a spot on her nape that turned her to jelly.
“Oh,” she moaned softly, melting into me.
I brushed my mouth over her ear. “You know I love your accent, right?”
Lily sighed happily. “I love yours too.”
“And you know I know you hated every single second of this event and I’m so grateful to you for coming with me?”
She turned her head toward mine. “I know.”
“We never have to do it again. I am under no obligation now to attend royal events.”
“But won’t that cause problems with your family?”
“Very doubtful.”
“We can go to the events,” she replied half-heartedly.
“You were so uncomfortable, which makes me even more uncomfortable than I already was at these things to begin with.”
“They’re your family.”
“We can visit them in private.”
“Sebastian—”
“Unless twenty-nine members of the royal family are struck down by some fatal mysterious plague, there is no need for my attendance.”
“Well, if that’s what you want. But know I can pull up my big-girl knickers and attend one of these things … once in a blue moon.”
I kissed behind her ear, grinning. “Thank you for the generous offer.” My hands slid down her poufy skirt. “Now, how do I get underneath all this fabric?”
Lily giggled and the sound made me grin with wicked intent.
“Is this an attempt to challenge my skills?” I teased, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. “A kinky version of Where’s Wally?”
She let out a cackle of laughter, making me grin harder. I patted down the skirts, pulling at the fabric.
“Seriously? Are we playing a sexy version of Hunt the Thimble?”
“Hunt the What?”
“You’ve never heard of Hunt the Thimble? Well, in the usual version, there’s a thimble or a small object involved. In this version”—I raised my head to whisper hoarsely—“I’m referring to your pussy.”
Lily shivered and waved an agitated hand toward her back. “The buttons. Just unbutton it.”
“Really? You want to do it the ordinary way?”
“Sebastian!”
Laughing even as my cock throbbed, I started unbuttoning the back of the dress. Lily pulled the sleeves off and then shoved it and the petticoat beneath down and stepped out.
Then I almost came in my trousers. I gaped at her as she turned in her heels to face me. “What are you wearing?” I sounded like I’d been smoking for twenty-four hours straight.
Lily smoothed her hand down her hips. Her black lace-edged bra barely contained her lovely breasts … but it was the black lace-edged suspender belt, garters, and thigh-high stockings that were making all the blood in my body rush toward the appendage desperately straining for freedom.
Lily recognized the look on my face and smiled sexily as she unpinned her little hat and threw it on the floor. I watched her unpin all that magnificent hair and fisted my hands as it tumbled around her shoulders.
“Don’t,” I insisted quietly when she went to remove her heels. “Keep those on.”
She raised an eyebrow, eyes dancing with mischief. “As you wish, Your Highness.”
Impatient heat rioted through me, my words gravelly as I prowled toward her. “Inaccurate, but effective.”
“You like that, do you? Your Highness .” Her laughter turned into an excited squeal as I swept her off her feet and carried her over to the bed.
As I tumbled down over Lily, intent on ravishing and loving her until she was replete and warm in my arms, I wished for the first time since I was sixteen, a year I’d stopped wishing for anything because I didn’t believe I deserved to.
Now I wished.
I wished for a lifetime of this.
A lifetime of her.
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