Chapter 32 – Marcella
MARCELLA
My bedroom door shuts behind me, and I twist my back to work out the kink that just won’t seem to go. Even my hot shower didn’t help. My shoulders are bunched tight, and no amount of deep breathing or mental pep talks will unwind them.
Then there are the things sitting on my bed.
Jesus, Rowan. Really?
I let them sit for a moment, even as my curiosity is practically screaming at me. I brush my hair and get changed into my sleep shirt and shorts. Once I run out of things to do, I sit on my bed and stare at them.
“This prince is going to break my heart.” Whether that’s because I walk away or he does when he discovers the truth, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker.
Nothing real can happen between us.
I’m a palace servant. A slave to a family that won’t even allow me the respect of their last name.
A prisoner to lies and secrets I don’t want to keep, but still have to.
I don’t know what a relationship is, but I know enough to know that they don’t survive the secrets I’m holding or the lies I’ve been telling.
I rub at the pang in the center of my chest.
With an annoyed shake of my head, I tear into the first box and find…a fucking vibrator. Seriously, Rowan! There are two, actually. One is a wand of some kind, and the other is hot pink and curved, one side thicker than the other. There’s also a water-based lubricant in the box.
A laugh slips past my lips. He bought me sex toys, knowing I don’t have any, because the asshole snooped around my room.
I glance toward the back corner of my bed at the invisible earring beneath the mattress.
He didn’t find that, though. If he did, I can’t imagine I’d be sitting here.
He has the other one, and if I can steal it back from him, I can sell them, and that will more than pad my wallet for a while.
I shake that off and go for the second box. This one has two sets of headphones in it. One goes into my ears, the other over them. They’re both expensive, but why would I need two pairs?
A text comes through my work phone, and I reach for it, thinking it’s Rowan, but it’s not. It’s a message from a music app letting me know that my six-month subscription is ready for me when I download the app to my phone.
He bought me music and a way to listen to it.
The third box is the largest and—fuck. This asshole. This perfect, amazing asshole. He bought me clothes. New sneakers, new work shoes, new shirts and pants and fucking panties and bras. Sexy ones too. Pretty ones. Ones I’d pick out for myself if I had money.
Tears burn the back of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. I can’t.
I pick up the phone and call him. He answers on the first ring with, “You must have opened the boxes.”
“How did you know that?” I flop back, my head bouncing against the pillow before it sinks in.
“Because you would never have called me otherwise.”
Fair. “Your Highness, I can’t accept these gifts.”
“You can. I wasn’t sure what kind of listener you’d be, so I bought you both kinds of headphones.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper, my voice cracking on the end.
The phone makes a ringing noise, and I peek open an eye to see he’s FaceTiming me again. Nope. I hit decline, but he calls again, and on the third try, I relent and hit accept. I get under the covers and pull them over my head.
“Where are you? Or I suppose the question is, where am I?”
“In my blanket. I can’t accept the gifts.”
“I want you to have them. It’s nothing extreme. I didn’t buy you diamonds or extravagant designers, though truth be told, I wanted to. I bought you things that most people have. Things you should have. Things I want you to have.”
I shake my head, my hand over my eyes. “And the vibrators?”
He chuckles, the sound warm and enticing as it curls through me. “Have you tried one yet?”
“No. Nor am I going to.”
“If I were there, I’d start with the Hitachi.” His voice drops, the sound low and gravelly. Rough and unrefined.
“Which one is that?” I ask, though I already know. It’s on the box.
“The white wand. I’d turn it on and run it all over your body, along your muscles to relax you, and across your nipples.”
My eyes pinch tight, and I bite into my lip. “Are you trying to have phone sex with me?”
“Video sex, and absolutely.”
“How many women have you done this with?”
“Just you. Come on, torture me a little. You know you want to.”
I pull the blanket off. “How is it torture for us to have video sex?”
He smiles, and that fucking smile and those motherfucking dimples. Damn him for being so good-looking and charming. “I can’t touch you. I can’t smell you. I can’t taste you. That’s torture. Watching you pleasure yourself when I can’t be there to do it myself is agony.”
“You’re way too into me.”
He tilts his head. “Baby, my obsession with you has its own definition because the current one doesn’t do me justice. Come on. Torture me. Make me hurt with how badly I need to fuck you.”
After the day I’ve had, I could use a good orgasm. Fuck it.
I sit up and open the white box, pull out the long wand, and hold it in my hand. It’s decently weighted, and just looking at it is already making me wet.
“Take off your shirt and panties,” he demands.
I shiver, biting into my lip to cut the tension. “Sit and watch.” I prop the phone up against the bedside lamp and remove my clothes, then set them at the foot of the bed.
A deep groan echoes through the phone, and I lie back, holding the wand in my hand and touching my breasts.
“Fuck, mia stella, you are exquisite. Turn it on.”
A thrill runs through me. I want to do this for me, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do it for him too. I want him to watch me. I want him panting and begging and touching himself because he’s so turned on and wild with the thought of me that he has no choice.
It’s why I peek over at him on the screen, and he doesn’t disappoint.
Jaw locked tight. Blue eyes nearly black and afire with uncontained lust.
I lick my lips and continue to touch myself while looking at him. I can’t pull myself away. His intensity holds me captive. I’m a slave to him, but this time a willing one.
“Turn it on.”
I gulp as a bubble of nerves hits me.
He must read it because he says, “Don’t worry. You’ll like it. Go on the lightest setting to start. I’ve got you.”
My eyes close. It’s what he said to me the night he took my virginity. He had me then, and he has me now. I trust him with this, and so I turn on the vibrator. It makes a buzzing sound and pulses against my hand.
“Yeah. That’s it. Start touching yourself with it.”
“Where?” I ask softly.
He growls. “Fuck, I love that you just asked me. Run it over those sweet tits for me. I want to see how hard we can get your nipples. How good it feels when they’re stimulated just right.”
It tickles at first touch but immediately turns pleasurable. The vibrations hum along my skin, making my breasts feel fuller and heavier. My nipples get impossibly hard, and the moment I touch the vibrator to them, a moan hits the air.
“Does that feel good?”
I nod, my eyes closing and my back arching. “So good. Oh god. How does it feel this good? It’s not even on my pussy yet.”
“Christ, you’re making me sweat.”
I glance at the screen. “Are you jerking off?”
He nods. “Starting to.”
“Can I see it?”
“Shit, sweetheart, you’re going to make me come way too fast if you keep asking for things like that. Drag the wand to your pussy and show me, and I’ll show you just how fucking hot you’re making me.”
I pick up the phone with my other hand and trail the wand as I run it down my center to my pussy.
The moment the head of the wand hits my clit, I cry out and grind into it.
It’s intense, but god, it’s so good. Sweat breaks out on my forehead as heat consumes me.
Unabashedly, I plant my feet into the bed and spread my knees, needing more contact, more vibration.
“Oh fuck!” he bellows.
Rowan is standing completely naked, with one hand on his lower abdomen and his other moving on his cock. It’s insanely hot. Not something I never expected would be, but holy shit, it has me pressing the wand in deeper.
“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Funny, that’s exactly what I was just thinking.
I bring the wand lower and press it against my opening, getting it wet before I roll it back up to my clit. I run it in circles, pressing it in deeper. My thighs tremble, and I set the phone back against the lamp so I can play with my tits.
“Talk to me,” he commands. “Tell me every thought you’re having.”
“I’m picturing your face between my thighs,” I admit. “Your fingers inside of me. Your tongue on my clit, the way the vibrator is.”
He grunts. “You have no idea how much I love eating your cunt. The way you taste and smell is too perfect for words.”
His hand is moving on his cock, jerking it forward and back, rubbing his thumb along his head that’s red and glistening with precum.
I lick my lips. “I want to taste you too. I haven’t done that before.” I blink at him. “Would you teach me?”
“Would I teach you how to suck me off?”
I bite my lip and nod.
He chuckles mirthlessly. “Sweetheart, I’d fucking love to teach you how to suck me. I bet you’d be amazing at it all on your own.”
His cheeks are flushed, and the motion of his hand is driving me higher. I pull on my nipple and run the wand up and down my pussy, going from my opening to my clit and back.
“I want to be inside of you so badly. It’s all I can think about. The way you feel on that first thrust. The way your cunt grips my cock. The sounds you make. How beautiful you are when I’m as deep as I can go.”
“Rowan. Oh god!” My toes curl and my spine arches as pleasure pulses through me.
“Shit, Marcella, what are you doing to me? I’m going to come,” he rasps. “I can’t hold off.”
“I’m going to come too.”
His groan prickles the hairs on my skin. “Come with me, mia stella. My beautiful goddess. My siren. Come with me. God, I wish I were inside of you. I wish I could fill you up and after fuck all my cum back into you over and over—”
“Oh fuck!” I cry only to muffle my face with my pillow. My orgasm sweeps over as my thighs clamp around the wand and I fuck it, rolling my hips and grinding into it. My pussy is leaking. I can feel it everywhere, including down into my ass. It’s wave after wave of unbridled pleasure.
The moment my clit becomes too sensitive, my legs fall heavy against the blanket, and I pull the wand away, shutting it off and panting beneath the pillow.
“You still with me?”
A giggle bursts from my lungs, and I pull the pillow away. My phone is face down on the bedside table, having tipped over, and I pick it up and bring it up to my face. “No. I don’t think I am. I’m somewhere else entirely.”
“Me too. Damn.” He gives me that soft, dopey smile that never fails to make my heart pitter-patter. “I wish I could hold you and kiss you. Sleep beside you.”
I shake my head. “Not happening again.”
He rolls his eyes. “Uh-huh. You haven’t asked where I am or what I’m doing.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“You’re not the least bit curious?”
I smirk. “Curious would mean I’ve been thinking about you, which I haven’t.”
“Liar.” He sighs. “I wish you would tell me.”
“Tell you what, Your Highness?”
I can tell he’s running his finger over the screen by the way he’s looking at me. “All your secrets. All the things you don’t want me to know.”
I stiffen as a gnawing chill sweeps through me. I tuck myself under my blanket, covering my body from his view. “What makes you think I have secrets?”
“Just a hunch.”
“I probably should tell you. Then you’d finally listen and stay away from me.”
He frowns, and I wish I hadn’t said that.
His hand is moving, but now all I see is him from the chest up.
Ferocious sorrow has me rolling to my side and tucking in on myself at the truth of my words.
All this is so fleeting. This joy. This excitement.
This…feeling. The one that resonates in every fiber of my being when I look at him.
When I think about him. When my careless mind gets swept away and imagines my life as something other than what it actually is.
I clear all of that away. Antonia always told me emotions are useless and make us act hastily and carelessly. She’s not wrong. Everything I’m doing with him is utterly reckless. My midnight prince.
“Are you drawing me again?”
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever drawn.”
“Rowan…”
“Mia stella, you can tell me. I swear you can. I’m safe for you. I’ll never hurt you. Not ever.”
“Rowan!” I gasp and cover my face with my hand. “Please.”
“I care about you. I haven’t been shy about letting you know that.”
“But why? Why do you care about me? You’ve known me for like three weeks. This has to be about the sex.”
“Look at me, Marcella.”
His voice is commanding, and I obey, needing to hear him, to see him.
“The sex with you is incredible. Best of my life. But it’s because it’s you that it’s that good.
We could have something. I know it’s new.
I’m not a fool. But I also know if we gave it the chance, it would grow into something real.
Something incredible. I’ve never felt this kind of spark with anyone before. There’s a reason for that.”
I feel it too. I know it’s there. “We can’t be together. This won’t turn into a relationship or anything real.”
“There are only two reasons to put that sort of limit on us. One, you’re hiding something from me that you believe would change the way I feel about you. Two, you’re scared for whatever reason that I’ll hurt you. Which is it?”
I can’t answer him, but I don’t have to. He knows it’s the first.
“I’d take care of you. I’d protect you. I’d keep you safe. But at some point, you have to trust me in order for that to happen. Think about it, okay?”
He disconnects the call, leaving me reeling. I want to believe him. But I don’t see how any of that will be possible. Once he learns the truth, he’ll hate me.