Chapter 18 – Bellamy
BELLAMY
The autumn sun is shining high overhead, the air cool and crisp. It’s a perfect day. Even if my insides are a disaster.
We left Sebastian’s study shortly after he agreed to today. He walked me to my room and said good night.
That was it.
I didn’t push as I had already pushed him enough. He was quiet and more stoic than he typically is. While my mind was anxious to dwell on all things Sebastian and me, I had bigger things pressing on me. Like today.
Because here we are, riding in the car on our way to the picnic spot about an hour from the palace.
It’s a piece of land with a lake set at the foot of the Alps that the royal family has owned for thousands of years or whatever, so this is where Sebastian suggested as it’s still private, secluded, and controllable.
Now it’s on me.
I set this in motion, and it would be a lie to say I’m not freaking out a bit.
Not because I’m worried about the curse I still don’t believe in, but more because everything today has to be absolute perfection.
I have to prove that this was the right call or there won’t be others after it.
It’s as if it’s on me to try to bring this family out of their shells of seclusion and back into the world.
It’s a battle I’m desperate to win. For him. For them. For the country that misses them.
I rose early and worked with Margarite to make the perfect picnic lunch.
I spoke with Javier, who assured me he has the security all worked out.
The children are going nuts in the back of the car, so worked up and excited they’re hardly able to contain themselves or sit still.
Sabrina especially, and that’s saying something.
Sebastian sits beside me, his eyes cast out the window, his face an emotionless mask.
He barely said good morning to me and hasn’t acknowledged me since, and while I admit I have no frame of reference after a hookup, I’m a bit out of sorts with that, too.
A hookup. Is that what that was? A one-night slip-up?
We made no promises of more. There were words and suggestions, but I’m worried he regrets it.
So, yeah. You could say I have a thing or two on my mind.
Things I don’t even know how to begin bringing up with someone like him.
The car slows once we enter the grounds and meander our way along a gravelly dirt road lined by groves of trees, their leaves an autumn collage of red, orange, yellow, and gold.
About a mile or two in, we come to a clearing, the massive lake on the left, sprawling and twisting as the base of the mountains cuts in and slices up.
On the other side, in a field of endless grass, is a pink-and-blue castle-shaped bouncy house with a slide attached.
I don’t know how he did it, but I guess being the king has its perks.
The girls start to scream, climbing over each other to get a better look through the window.
The second the car stops, they spill out, running straight for it as fast as their little legs will carry them.
Poor Zayer has to wait, screaming and crying that he can’t join them until he’s unclipped from his car seat.
I make quick work of it and then he, too, is running at full speed, following the trail of blonde hair his sisters make.
“Thank you for this. It’s incredible,” I murmur since Sebastian hasn’t moved to get out of the car.
The SUV behind us is loaded with royal attendants.
Emily and Javier, who were riding up front, get out, and Emily goes about setting up the picnic blanket in the middle of the field while Javier walks a perimeter with three attendants, instructing them on where they need to be and what they have to do to keep everyone safe.
Sebastian hasn’t said a word, and I’m not sure what to do. I twist around and stare at the back of his head since his gaze is still trained out the damn window.
“You’re thanking me for taking my children out for the day? My children?”
“Yes.” I say it slowly. With far too much uncertainty. It’s his tone that’s setting me off.
“You shouldn’t be thanking me. This goes against my every instinct.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him, squeezing his arm even though I want to touch his hand. It feels too intimate, and right now, I’m not sure what we are or what’s happening or isn’t happening between us.
I shift to slide out of the car when he reaches out and grasps my hand, slamming the car door shut before I can exit.
In a flash, he has me pinned down on the seat, his body over mine, and his lips are there.
Kissing me. His fingers interlace with mine, stretching my hands over my head as he tilts his and deepens the connection.
His tongue invades my mouth, brutal and thrashing. Rough and frantic.
The kiss, while passionate and incredible, is off. He’s seeking something. Or, more likely, chasing something away with it.
Fear.
It’s radiating off him.
He’s already lost so much. His sisters, his father, and his wife. And I’m pushing him. But how do we ever know what we’re capable of if we don’t push ourselves? How do we grow if we don’t fight the fear?
“I should punish you for this,” he snarls into me. “I should flip you over and spank your beautiful ass until it’s shining red with my handprint. I’m losing my mind here, Bellamy, and it’s all your fault.”
“Look out the window, Your Majesty,” I say to him, breathing the words past his lips. “Take a look at your children.”
He snarls, fierce and angry, nipping at my bottom lip to the point of pain and a little blood, only it doesn’t scare me. He is punishing me for this, but I won’t back down. I can’t. I love him too much for that. I love his children too much for that.
Reluctantly, he pries himself away and peeks out the car window. I can hear the kids from here, screaming and laughing, and I know he can, too. His gaze latches on to them, and he blows out a shaky breath, a softness that hasn’t been there all day slowly crawling through him.
Resigned, he breathes, “They look happy. They look like children.”
“Yes. Now let’s go and enjoy this with them.”
His stormy eyes return to mine. “Tonight, after the children are asleep, I expect you in my bedroom.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Your bedroom? As in your suite?”
He gives me a bemused look. “Is that a problem for you?”
“No.” I lick my lips. “It’s just that Althea said I was never to enter your suite.”
A smile curls up his lips. “When did she tell you that?”
“My first night.”
Now he’s laughing, and it’s a good look on him.
Not something he does with any frequency.
“That’s likely because your predecessor was found wearing very little in my suite, and I told her to get the fuck out.
She wasn’t the first, either, so I believe Althea was protecting your virtue and your job. ”
“My virtue? But you said—”
“The others didn’t hold a candle to you, Bellamy. From the first second I saw you, I wanted you. If you had come in my room dressed as those women had been, there would have been no resisting you.”
I blush at the compliment and the meaning behind his command. “I wouldn’t have, though. Flirting aside, I would never have crossed the line with you.”
“I know.” He lets it end there, even though it feels as though there is more he’s not saying.
“Tonight, then?” I can’t contain my excitement at that.
“Tonight, Bellamy. After today, after where my children are, I’m not to be held back or restrained.”
Jesus. I’m practically panting. And a bit nervous if we’re being totally honest. Virgin over here, but I’ll get over it.
With that promise holding steady between us, he rights his body, releases me, and I exit the car.
“There you are,” Emily says to me as I make my way toward the picnic that’s mostly already set up.
“Sorry,” I tell her, a bit embarrassed. “His Majesty isn’t so happy with me right now and he wasn’t shy about letting me know it.”
She purses her lips, her gaze casting over my shoulder toward where I assume Sebastian is now approaching.
“He’ll get over it. This is good for him.
For them.” Her eyes meet mine. “No one has managed this, Bellamy. No nanny has cared enough to try in three years. He wouldn’t listen to me or Althea when we tried.
This is what they need. You are what they need. ”
My heart floods with warmth, and all I can do is offer her a grateful smile in return.
Because they’re what I need, too. I already know my feelings for him run much deeper than his do for me.
I don’t pretend this is anything more than physical for him.
But with every encounter, every brush of his lips or touch or even look, I’m more his than I’ve ever been mine.
Now that I’ve had this physical connection with the promise of more to come, I don’t know how I’ll ever return to how I was before.
I promised him that. That when this side of things ends between us, I would be fine.
That I wouldn’t allow it to impact my work and I…
shit, I’m doing my best to hold true to that, and it hasn’t ended or even begun yet.
I’m a physical and emotional virgin in love with a strong, domineering, older man.
I don’t stand a chance of walking away from this whole. The wounds he’ll inevitably inflict will scar, and those scars will run deep.
He’ll ruin me for eternity.
Every man who dares to come after him will pale in comparison.
But it’s too late. I can’t stop now. Not when I know how he wants me.
I can’t go back in time. All I can do is keep moving forward and hope and pray that the thundering affection I have for him swelling in my belly doesn’t consume me. I need to keep a level head, and after that kiss and his promise, that feels nothing short of impossible.
It’s his sweetness that wrecks me. His vulnerability that flays me alive. All that soft perfection hidden beneath his gruff, broken, filthy-mouthed exterior is my ultimate kryptonite.
“Bellamy!” Sabrina cries out. “Come bounce with us!”
For the next hour and a half, that’s what I do.
I bounce and I slide and I play, and I push everything else aside.
We have lunch and relax in the sun, enjoying the cool autumn air, and then the kids go at it again until they’ve completely worn themselves out.
Zayer is half asleep in Sebastian’s arms as he carries him to the car, tucking him into his car seat and buckling him in.
“It’s the first time he’s used this,” Sebastian whispers to me as I settle Sabrina in her booster. He leans in and plants his lips in Zayer’s hair, then does the same with each of his girls. “Was today fun?” he asks them.
With yawns and happy sighs they murmur yeses, their eyes closing as the cars start to pull away from the grounds.
Sebastian raises the privacy partition and takes my hand, threading our fingers and keeping me close to his side.
His eyes are on his children, and when he’s positive they’re asleep, their breathing even and eyes fluttering with dreams, he unbuckles me and drags me onto his lap, sitting me sideways across him, twisting me until my back is tucked into him.
His face is buried in my neck, breathing me in, his arms wrapped tightly around me.
For minutes that’s how we travel in the emerging darkness.
I want to hold on to this feeling and never let it go.
The feeling of being held in his arms, wrapped in his embrace, the feeling of his chest, his steady beating heart against my back.
“They won’t sleep tonight,” he whispers finally. “It’s not even dinnertime and they’re napping.”
“Do you think we can outlast them then?” I question, tilting my face to meet his eyes. Eyes I always find myself seeking out. Eyes that are the only true windows to his soul when the rest of him is locked up tight.
“I sure as hell plan to try.”
I can’t fight my giggle.
“You laugh so easily.”
“It’s kind of funny.”
“No. I mean, you laugh so easily. How?”
“I’m not sure I’m programmed to be any other way.”
His hand cups my jaw, his thumb rubbing across my lips and up along my cheekbones until his entire hand threads in my hair.
“It’s infectious. You’re infectious. Your laughter and smiles and light.
Your enthusiasm for fucking everything you do.
” His forehead meets mine. “You have no idea how lovely you are to me. I watched you today with my children. I couldn’t stop.
I watched you run and laugh and play with them.
I watched how when Zayer fell and bumped his knee on the ground, you picked him up and kissed his cut and put a bandage on it.
I watched how effortless it all seemed to be for you, and I realized I’m going to lose. ”
“Lose?” The word shocks me.
“Yes. Lose. Everything I am is going to become yours. My mind. My body. My heart. All yours. Then what?”
“You make it sound as if that’s the worst possible outcome on the planet.” I’m trying to hold humor in my voice, but the despondency in his tone hurts.
“It’s not. Not even close. That’s what worries me.” He takes my hand and places it on his chest over his pounding heart. “It hasn’t beat like this in years. I’m not sure it ever has. What you’re doing to me, Bellamy, cannot be undone.”
“Then don’t fight it. Embrace it.”
With the tilt of his chin, he closes the minuscule gap between us, kissing me despite the sleeping audience not even two feet from us.
He kisses me the entire ride back. Sweeps of his tongue and whispers in my ear and smiles along my jaw and nips up my neck.
It’s kissing for the sake of kissing. It’s kissing because we can and any separation in this moment feels strange and unwelcome.
It’s not kissing with an end goal of sex or orgasms.
It’s kissing to taste and feel and breathe the other.
We kiss so long and so well and with so much meaning that by the time we pull into the palace gates and he sets me back in my seat and the children start to rouse, we’re still lost. Lost in that moment and in each other and in our thoughts.
So lost that we don’t see the unexpected visitor until he’s tapping on the back window of the car.