Chapter 3 – Marcella
MARCELLA
Ineed to say no to him. I’m not a friend.
I’m not going to be his lover. I’m a woman sent here on a mission by some truly evil people with a connecting revenge agenda of my own.
It’s a mission that involves his family, not in a kind of fluffy way.
They believe the ancient curse on the royal family has been broken, but if my stepmother and her niece, Antonia, have their way, the curse is about to get a second act, and I’m the villain who will make that happen.
I’m a pawn in a bigger game of chess controlled by a ruthless hand.
So I should say no.
But I don’t want to. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t have fun.
I have nothing for myself. I never have.
Not since my father died when I was a girl, and I was forced to see the life I thought I knew ripped away from me.
I quickly came to realize the cold, unfathomable truth about who and what I am.
My father slept around, and I’m the result of one of his trysts.
A daughter not even worthy of sharing his last name.
Now I’m a servant. A slave. A snake hiding in the grass, waiting to strike with fangs and deadly venom. That’s not only who I had to become to survive, but also what I’ve been trained to be.
But that night is not tonight.
The wedding was a bust in terms of recon, and there’s something about the prince that’s annoyingly irresistible.
He gives me ridiculous girlish butterflies.
The kind I’ve read about but never experienced.
One night with him won’t change anything.
I’ll still do whatever I have to do. Sex is sex, or so I’ve been told, and that’s all this will be.
What my stepmother and Antonia don’t know won’t hurt them, so it won’t hurt me.
I push Rowan back until his lips are no longer touching mine and stare up into his oh-so-blue eyes, ringed in thick, soft, dark lashes. His expression is intense and earnest. Hopeful. It almost makes me smile. It certainly makes my heart beat faster.
My fingers pad along the lines of his straight nose and smooth, sharp, square jawline and full lips that I bet can kiss me into next week. He leans into my touch as if he’s anxious for more of it, and I wonder if one day I’ll ever have a moment to be free like this again.
I doubt it.
Regardless, he’s so good-looking it hurts. “All right, Rowan. Take me upstairs.”
His eyes shift around my face, his hand on my cheek going near my hair, and I freeze. Shit. My wig. Then there’s my back to consider too.
He misinterprets my freezing and whispers, “Don’t worry, it’s just us left in here.”
With that, his lips meet mine, only now they’re not resting, they’re taking. Claiming. His lips split my own, and his tongue slides inside. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, so I do my best to follow his lead. He tilts his head and groans when our tongues touch and he gets a better taste of me.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he mumbles against me, stealing another kiss, then pulls back, his lips a little wet, and his eyes smoky and dark.
He takes my hand and walks us through the empty space.
The sound of dinner in the neighboring ballroom filters in, and a hiccup of unease hits me.
I was supposed to leave by now. I had no place at dinner, and I knew it.
The cocktail hour was my time, and I feel as though I failed, even if I was able to break in and bypass royal security.
I learned nothing except useless gossip and baseless jealousies. Other than one strong sticking point.
The king and his bride actually seem to be in love.
Which means we won’t be able to use Queen Bellamy as a weapon.
If anything, she could be leveraged against him, but the former prime minister already tried that and failed.
It wasn’t a stretch to believe the king fell for the beautiful younger nanny.
But the reverse, that the younger, beautiful American nanny actually fell in love with the king, was.
Now it seems we may need to figure out another angle.
Rowan takes me onto the elevator, and the moment the doors close, he pushes me up against the wall and buries his face in my neck. My head falls back against the wall, and my eyes close as my hands find the soft strands of his hair. He kisses and nips and licks at my skin, and my head spins.
He’s good at this. At seduction. He’s not mindlessly groping and ripping at clothes to shove himself inside me the way I imagined men did. At least that’s what the men who have tried with me in the past did, only they didn’t make it all that far before I either killed them or ruined them.
The elevator doors open, and with reluctance, he draws back from me so he can lead me down the hall.
“Your dress is a lot of dress,” he grumbles, his lips on my neck, his chest to my back while he attempts to get under it.
I can’t help it. I giggle. His struggle is real as he pulls and tugs and lifts and adjusts a million layers of fabric. Finally his hands locate my thighs and glide up until he reaches the globes of my ass.
“I knew it. You’re perfect.” He gives me a firm squeeze and a soft smack. “Shit, I’m so fucking hard for you. Your ass…”
He lets it end there as we reach a door, and he swipes a plastic room key against the keypad.
There aren’t many rooms on this floor. Two other doors, but that’s it.
The lever swishes down, and he holds the door open for me, allowing me to enter first. It’s a suite, of course, spacious and luxurious with every trimming and refinement you’d expect in a five-star hotel and fit for, well, royalty.
On the bar is a bottle of champagne on ice, two flutes, and an assortment of chocolate truffles, but that has nothing on the red rose petals scattered everywhere. I turn and arch a brow only to be treated to a shrug and the most outrageously boyish smile, complete with fucking dimples.
“It was supposed to be Sebastian and Bellamy’s honeymoon suite, only they decided to stay at our family’s chalet up the road, so I took it over. For security, we told no one.”
“Oh.”
He chuckles and goes for the bottle of champagne, removing the foil and cork with a loud pop. I take the glass and drink half of it down, nerves striking me in a very innocent, virginal way.
He takes a sip of his drink, his eyes all over me, adding to those nerves to the point where I can hardly stand it. I head toward the bedroom, finishing off my drink as I go. I hear ice shift around against metal, then suddenly he’s behind me.
“Another?”
I shouldn’t. I’m already rocking a fierce buzz or am perhaps drunk.
But I think I need it all the same. I nod, and he refills my glass, the head of white fizzy bubbles effervescing, blanketing out the rush of blood in my ears against the otherwise quiet of the room.
I force two more gulps down, ignoring how they tickle and burn my nose, before I set it on a nearby table and turn to face him.
I don’t want him to see my back. I don’t want him to touch it.
Reaching behind, I work the zipper down, and he stands before me, his eyes hooded. His thumb glides along his bottom lip, the tip of his tongue following the motion, and it’s so fucking sexy, I push aside my nerves and let the dress fall to my waist.
He sucks in a rush of air as his gaze drops to my bare chest, and when he fully takes me in, he curses under his breath in Russian, of all things.
Firm hands cup my breasts, lifting them to test their weight and thrusting them together. His thumbs brush over my nipples, and my head falls back of its own volition because holy fuck. How can his touch feel infinitely better than when I do it myself?
His lips meet the soft skin of my neck, his breath hot and heavy against me as he toys with my tits, squeezing and pinching my nipples.
His lips are all over me, kissing and licking my neck and shoulder and up to my jaw.
I move my fake hair over one shoulder and work the dress lower.
The bottom half is another matter, clasped around my waist with a hook and another zipper.
Before I can do it, his fingers catch the hook.
I freeze, hoping he doesn’t venture north.
Thankfully, he doesn’t, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
He removes my dress, helping me step out of it until I’m in nothing but a thong and heels. Pretty underwear. Pretty shoes. Pretty diamonds in my ears. None of them are mine to keep.
His lips trail down my chest, sucking and licking at my tits as he moves lower and lower until he’s kneeling before me.
A prince on his knees for me, and I shake my head, utterly at a loss.
I should tell him this is my first time, but I don’t.
I can’t force the words out, and I don’t want to have the conversation that will inevitably come with it.
He gazes up at me, giving me a wickedly sinister grin as he tugs on my nipples and kisses my mound over my thong.
His hot breath tickles the wetness pooling and makes my clit throb.
Holy fuck! I nearly collapse. As it is, I make an embarrassingly loud moan.
“So beautiful,” he rasps against me. “You’re so fucking beautiful. And you smell”—he takes a deep inhale of me over my thong, and my eyes roll back in my head—“so fucking good.”
I comb back the thick strands of his hair and stare down at him, shaky and bewildered by all of this.
Men have called me beautiful. I have a pretty face and good-sized tits.
I’ve never been insecure about that. Honestly, I’ve never given my body much thought until now, but I’m far from perfect.
Scarred back and muscular thighs and arms. But his saying how he thinks I’m beautiful when I’m standing in front of him like this hits me differently than any man who’s said it to me before.
Probably because I’ve never been nude in front of anyone.