Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
VIVIAN
My mom used to say, “You have to kiss a few frogs to find your prince.”
Well, I’ve finally found my prince. My ex-Bratva prince. “Goddamn, Smokeshow.” He sighs into my hair.
My hands clasped around his neck, I lean back. “You okay?”
“No.” He grins down at me. “I’m fucking in love with you.”
“I’m fucking in love with you too.” I smile, my heart bursting. “But you say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“No, it’s the best thing because this…” He hoists my body. I’m still impaled on his erection. I thought it would’ve fallen by now, but apparently flaccid isn’t in Jace’s dictionary. “This is a done deal.”
“Done?” I ask as he shuffles a few steps and plops my ass down on the countertop.
“Done.” He gazes at where we’re joined before peppering my lips with kisses. “Me inside you. Me loving you. Me never leaving you. It’s done because I told you; you’re mine now, Vivian Tate.”
A flood fills my chest—a rush of love, of family, of a future with him. I can’t see anything else. “I’ll only be yours…” Though I can’t resist the tease. “If you’ll be mine.”
“I belong to you.” Jace is sexy, all postcoital and cute. “Ask Lenny.”
He means our song, our first kiss. Glancing down at our first fuck, where we’re still connected, I point. “Is this ever done too?”
I can feel him stirring inside me, his answer husky. “Yeah. Done. I waited so long for you; I’m never taking my dick out of you.”
“Is that so, my king?” I love saying it, love tracing my fingertip over the ink on his pec. “You’re giving a whole new meaning to ‘his majesty’s splendor’.”
He laughs, jolting his dick inside me. I get flutters… and he gets firm.
“Come on.” Gently, he tugs at what’s left of my dress. “Let’s take this off.”
Curiously, I comply. “What are we doing now?”
He helps me lift my dress, draping its remnants over my bag, not that I can wear it again. I’m naked except for my lewd, ripped cotton panties.
Yep, that’s a kink unlocked.
Releasing two final buttons on his shirt, he shrugs it off, answering, “We’re going upstairs to your studio.”
“We’re staying here tonight?”
“Getting to my place takes too long.” He unclasps his dress pants. His zipper was already down. He’s commando tonight. “Too long when I need to keep fucking you.”
Yep, he’s still inside me, making blue pills take notes. I marvel as he drops his pants, impressed with the shuffle it takes to free himself from his dress shoes, sans socks, then his pants.
I don’t stop him.
To see Jace Ryan completely nude is to see why God says, “Damn.”
After a year of treasuring his perfect face, I’m going to need a hundred to enjoy his body. And forever to relish his penis that won’t stop.
I reach down, tickling his firm base, where his trim dark hair brushes against my soft mound. “I thought men had a refractory period.”
He grins. “Not inside this pussy, I don’t.” Grabbing my torn panties, he snaps their final threads free. “Fuck: kink unlocked.”
“That’s what I thought.” I giggle, and he suddenly grunts. “Damn, Viv, I’m gonna need to make you happy forever because I can feel your tight pussy grab me when you laugh.”
I let him kiss me. Let him control me. Let him have his way because it’s my way too.
Grabbing my ass—we’re still connected—he walks us toward the door. I open it for us, not remembering he closed it, and not caring.
Proudly nude, Jace carries me down the hallway, past his stool.
Past where I fell in love with him.
He doesn’t break a sweat, smiling like a devil, loving the fiendish act of carrying me up the stairs. It makes me bounce on his hard cock. I’m entranced, staring into his eyes, until I hear the clamor of other steps and voices and tense in his grasp.
“I got ya, baby.” He halts in the stairwell. Seeking my lips, he murmurs, “There’s no shame between us, remember? Feel proud when I’m inside you.”
I don’t know this world or feeling, but I’m suddenly surrounded by them. This feels warm and right as we kiss, then turn our heads to greet Axel and Ruby with Sire and Wren.
They round the landing between the second and first floor, holding hands as couples, jolting when they catch us in the stairwell.
“Yay!” Wren bounces, clapping. “He got her! He got her!”
It’s so cute and unexpected, I chuckle, burying my face in Jace’s chest, inhaling his pride and amber cologne.
“Sure looks like he got her, Angel.” I hear Sire admiring our union.
“Don’t mind us.” That’s Ruby. She’s done so much for me, I have to turn my face, my cheek pressed to Jace’s pec, giving her a shy smile as she winks. “We’re just happy for you two.”
Axel smirks. “Make that happy for you three because Jace’s third leg looks tickled pink.”
Sire laughs just as Nick and Zar bound down the stairs, joining them.
Nick elbows Zar. “You owe me a hundred.”
“No, we owe them a round of applause.” Zar beams. “Damn, y’all make porn look like a Valentine’s card.”
“Shut up,” I murmur, softly laughing in Jace’s grasp, slowly feeling the shame melt away and the love flow in.
This is what Jace meant.
How the kings and queens would never judge. They know this kind of love. Share this proud bond. They’ll die, protecting it.
Proving my point, I hear more booted steps and heels before Grant and Delphine appear, pushing past everyone to get a gander.
“You know…” Grant points down the second-floor hallway. “There’s a perfectly good bed in there, far more comfortable for fucking than a stairwell.”
“No shit, dickwad.” Jace cradles my head to his chest as if he’s protecting me, but suddenly, I feel safe in this crowd. “If you all would get the fuck out of our way, I could—”
“You could play hide the sausage?” Grant jokes, looking way impressed. “Goddamn, man, when did your erection become the Eighth Wonder of the World?”
“Since I’m inside the woman I love.” Jace turns, charging up the stairs. “Come on. Get out of our way.”
But I’m so open, and in love, I don’t care.
Sire smirks as we brush past them. “Looks like they’re gonna test the mattress.”
“Looks like he’s gonna crack her belly.” Axel warns, “Careful with your queen; don’t break her before you marry her.”
Marry me? Okay.
“Shut up!” Jace calls over his shoulder, carrying me down the hallway. I’m too blissed out to care.
“By the way, Captain Hard-On,” Nick calls out, “your baby brother and his new queen are still upstairs. Don’t shoot ’em.”
I peek around Jace and catch Nick winking at me with his update.
“Thank you!” I reply with a wave.
All I’ve done is laugh, laze, and love this. This bond Jace has described, I can feel it, and I haven’t even been initiated as Alena just was.
It makes me wonder if I should sneak upstairs and leave her some tea and Tylenol when I hear Wren blurt out. “Who will get to be Vivian’s second king?”
She asks what I’m wondering.
Their voices fade as we turn into my studio with Ruby answering, “Good question. All the straight kings are taken.”
Loudly kicking the door closed behind us, Jace carries me a few steps before lying our bodies on the bed.
“Sorry about that.” He gazes down at me. “They would never judge you, but my brothers will embarrass the fuck out of me. Literally.”
I flick his nose. “Why do I suspect you’re just as guilty?”
“Me?” His sexy brows raise. “Why, I’m too sweet.”
Slowly, he thrusts inside me, making me groan and laugh. “Oh god, Jace. How long can you stay hard? Because now I have some questions.”
He gazes down at me, taking the moment to gently tug my ponytail free before brushing strands from my face.
His pause tender.
His stare intent.
“The answer is yes, Vivian. I will ask you every question a man in love should. And I’ll do it so right and in the most romantic way that I’ll get pit stains the size of Canada again, hoping you’ll say yes.”
My belly flips, sending butterflies through my veins. “Of course, I’ll say yes. Yes to being everything with you. I just don’t know how to be your queen. How does it work?”
He rolls us to the side with my leg slung over his. We’re still joined, but he’s softening at my questions, at my concerns.
Tracing my jawline, he gently demands, “Tell me what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried about the Bratva or the crime stuff. I trust you and your brothers. I know your work with your mom is important: it saves lives. It’s already saved mine.”
Something flashes behind his eyes. Not guilt.
I know Jace has had something done with David. In Florida, we discussed that he needs to interrogate him to ensure there are no more copies of that video. And right now, I don’t need to know when or how.
I just see the fierce protection in Jace’s eyes.
The beast.
The apex predator.
Like the brass lionhead on the door Jace guards, it symbolizes the way he protects me. He doesn’t move during the day; he watches, waiting to stalk at night, hunting with a team. He’ll ambush his prey before the kill.
But he swore he wouldn’t kill David, who’s not my concern right now.
Me and Jace: that’s my concern because he’s right, we’re a done deal. I’ll love him forever. I just don’t know how to be his queen. I don’t know how to have a future with him without the shame from my past.
But my heart aches to try.
“It’s what Wren just asked,” I continue. “Who will be my second king and what will that involve?”
“Honestly”—he exhales—“we’ll have to meet: the kings and queens, just as we did before Alena’s initiation tonight.
Hers was different. Everyone was there for the religious ceremony, when her first and second kings stated their vows to her.
Then Nash and Vale, and my mom and Sasha left, because we never cross those lines, before they… ”
He pauses, searching my eyes for a reaction.
“Before they bonded with their queen. That’s the group part.
But for you, I don’t know because Ruby was right; all the hetero kings are taken.
Nick is the only one who hasn’t made a vow to a second queen.
Not that he wouldn’t protect a queen and die for her.
But… bonding with her?” His face twists.
“I don’t know; for you, maybe he could try, and… ”
“No. No, I’d never ask him.” My heart swells with compassion. “I know Nick would try for me, but it wouldn’t be right. It’s never right to coerce someone.”
“We’d never coerce anyone, including you.” He plays with my hair, furrowing his brows. “Viv, if you don’t want an initiation, we don’t have to do it. No matter what, you’ll be my queen, and we can—”
“I want it.”
I hear myself say the words. I hear a desire taken from me return.
“I want to be initiated. I want to be your queen. I want to join you, and whoever will vow to be my second king; I’ll be honored.”
Teasing his fingertip around my nipple, he makes it pearl with his question. “Will you tell me how you want to be initiated?”
I know what Jace is asking, and this is the part that suddenly grabs my throat.
This is the silence so many women suffer. We can feel the urges, beckoning from deep inside, even the smallest request from a partner, but if you’re ashamed to give it a voice, ashamed of the judgment and rejection, the silence is a prison.
Jace sees me swallow, strangled. He sees me struggling again. This is the last chain I can’t seem to break.
“Wait right here,” he says, kissing my lips before completely leaving my body.
The void feels unnatural; my body now belongs to his.
And his body? Holy hell, it’s a jaw-dropping vision as he walks naked across the room.
“You’re checking out my ass, aren’t you?” He doesn’t look back, opening the door.
“You’ve got a very juicy peach, Mr. Ryan.”
“Good.” He turns down the hall, announcing, “Because my queen is gonna fuck it.”