Chapter 5 #2
“Is this what you want?” His voice is a soft rasp. “I just bathed you last night. Made you clean. And now you want to be dirty again?”
I’m too overcome to do more than whimper. My breasts are heaving.
He’s stroking himself faster now, tipping back his head, caught in his own passion. “Leah,” he breathes, and comes. The blast of seed spills from the head of his cock over my lush breasts, frosting my skin with silver.
He leans down, swipes his finger across my coated breasts, and feeds his cum to me. I round my lips and suck hard, pulling on his digit. His gaze goes black.
“Principessa mia.” He breathes the words like they’re a prayer, and bends over to open a drawer, pulling out two black, silk lengths of fabric. He gives me a look that should strike fear right into my heart. But it doesn’t.
“Now,” he says. “We do what I want.”
I hold my breath as he takes my ankles and ties them apart. Then he settles between my bound legs, and licks me until I beg him to stop.
Leah
The sheets rustle as I wake up, melting from the dark back into consciousness. My fingers slip along the crisp linen, seeking the warmth I’m starting to get used to finding—
Nothing. My hand closes on empty space and I sit up, my curls tumbling away from my face.
Royal’s gone, and my heart squeezes hot and tight in my chest. Light is sliding through the room, gray and overcast. I guess the storm is still haunting us, keeping me here.
The clock on the bedside table has its hour hand pointed to two, and I squeak. Two in the afternoon? I haven’t slept this late in years.
I need to get up.
The carpet is plush against my feet as I get out of bed, and for a moment I want to leave the blankets rumpled in memorial to an epic night and early morning, but I can’t.
I smooth the duvet, and straighten the pillows.
It seems like a crime to leave things a mess when this bedroom is more beautiful than anything I’ve seen on HGTV or pinned on my Pinterest board.
Warmth radiates up from the floor, caressing my skin, and I’m very aware that I’m not wearing anything. Me, naked, my curves bare in this beautiful, minimalist shrine to masculinity. Anyone could walk in right now. I sneak across the room, feeling like an intruder in this place, Royal’s home.
I squint at the closet doors, wondering if there’s something behind them that would work for me.
Even a shirt of Royal’s would fall down past my thighs.
That would be okay to tide me over. It’s going to be awkward to figure out what to wear home.
Um, Royal, can you buy me some clothes so I can ride the bus?
Talk about a walk of shame.
I wrap my hands around the dark onyx door handles, and pull them open.
Lights flare to life in front of me. What I thought was a simple closet is nearly fifteen feet deep and ten across. That’s not even the real surprise.
My lips part in shock, and my breath falters to a stop in my throat. This closet doesn’t hold a single shred of men’s clothing.
Racks line one side, with dresses hung carefully on white velvet hangers. Gentle pink tulle, cream silks, gem-stone velvets, all organized neatly in length and a rainbow of colors. I step in and lift one hand, fingers shaking as I carefully flip a tag that’s pinned to a spaghetti strap.
Oscar De La Renta, it reads, and I drop it like it’s hot. I reach for the next dress, and can’t contain my gasp. Dolce & Gabbana. I flick through labels. The Row, Valentino, Zimmerman—
The blood is rushing to my head as I turn. The opposite wall is lined with neat shelves, rows of softly folded sweaters in what has to be cashmere in glowing colors, waiting to be slipped on and worn.
Whose closet is this? The picture of the beautiful woman with Royal flashes through my head. Is this her stuff?
The closet door swings shut behind me with a whisper. I whirl, and freeze. Hanging on the back of the door is a huge white monstrosity of tulle and satin. A wedding dress.
What the fuck?
I’m going to vomit all over the plush carpeting. Royal has a fiancée, and she has the nicest closet I’ve ever seen. Tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of never worn clothing, complete with tags.
Hang on. Take a breath. There’s a lot of wonderful things Royal has said to me.
There’s a lot he’s not telling you, too.
I’ve got to get out of here.
I need something to wear. In a daze, I hold a shirt up to my bare chest. It’s my size. Plus sized. Not made to fit a tall, thin Italian Barbie, but a short, curvy girl like me.
My mouth is full of ash. Royal’s girlfriend… fiancée… is my size. Guess he has a type.
I reach for a drawer and pull it open, hoping to find something normal, like Target underwear, and instead there’s a pile of frothy lace, and what I swear is a tag reading Agent Provocateur. Once again, in my size.
My heart-rate is through the ceiling. All those things he said, all the nice things he made me feel… Lies.
Rifling through drawers, I find a bra and underwear that looks normal-ish and not worth a few hundred dollars, and quickly pull on a plain sweater, and jeans.
The denim is soft against my fingers, the cut flaring on my curves.
When I turn, I catch sight of myself in a floor-length mirror edged with frosting-pink metal flowers blooming along the gilt frame.
Everything fits perfectly. It only twists the knife in further.
This isn’t a fairytale. Royal isn’t a handsome prince. Even if he did single-handedly double the amount of orgasms I’ve had in my lifetime—all in one night.
I reach for a pair of winter boots, black leather and exactly my size, and keep them in my hand as I sneak out of the closet and cozy up to the bedroom door.
It’s cracked open, and when I peek outside, there’s no one there.
Relief floods me. Getting out of here is the right thing to do.
There’s a reason Royal wasn’t with me when I woke up.
This was a one-night stand, and it’s time for it to end.
I pad down the hall in socked feet, keeping on the thick carpet so the flooring doesn’t creak. I need to get to the kitchen, get my coat. Call a ride—if I can find a charger for my phone. Maybe Royal will be out, and I can do my walk of shame without an audience.
We had a magical night, and now it’s over. What did I expect? I never had any luck with men, especially not on Valentine’s Day.
I’m halfway down the stairs, clutching my boobs so they don’t bounce in this new bra, when I hear low, murmuring voices floating toward me. I hold my breath and creep down the final steps.
A door to my left is pushed open a few inches, and I press myself into the wall, watching the two people inside a bookshelf-lined study.
Royal. And another guy who looks a lot like him. One of the many cousins.
I should keep to the plan and continue sneaking out, but a glimpse of Royal’s beautiful face in profile roots my feet to the rug.
Royal. His face embodies the word, regal and perfect. Just the sight of him makes heat roll through me as I remember all the things he’s done to me. All the things he’s made me feel. Oh god, I feel like I’m going to throw up again.
“Spit it out, Enzo,” Royal commands, and I jump.
The man who must be Enzo stops fiddling with a marble paperweight and puts it back on the desk.
“I know what you’re planning,” Enzo says. “La Famiglia requires you to be married to inherit the throne. Is it really going to be her?”
Those words fall to the floor like billiard balls, heavy and hard, and they stop my heart right in its tracks. A cold flush, descending from my head on down my body, has me nearly shivering. I grit my teeth to keep them from clacking.
So it’s true. The small part of me that was hoping he was only storing the wedding dress in his bedroom for a friend, dies. He really does have a fiancée.
Royal sighs, and turns away from Enzo, staring into a crackling fireplace.
“There is no one else,” he says. “I can have nobody else.” He leans on the mantel. There sits another collection of photos in intricate, polished silver frames. His gaze lingers on one in particular, and my heart stutters its way through a series of painful beats.
Of course. The beautiful woman in the photo. Who else would belong at Royal’s side?
A sour taste blooms on my tongue. I’m an idiot. A plaything. Something to keep him occupied while he brooded over his impending marriage to Sophia Loren.
And the way he said it. I can have nobody else. He doesn’t want anyone but her.
Time for me to go. I tiptoe down the hall to find the kitchen, and the side room with my coat. Forget charging my phone and calling a ride. I’ve got to get out of here before Royal finds me.
I push my feet into the boots and open the door. The wind lashes me across the face, tugging at my curls and promising a frosty walk. Maybe I can get to a bus stop before I freeze to death. But nothing will warm the frozen place inside of me, the iced-over blood sluggish in my veins.
Tears bite at my lashes, welling up in my eyes. The snow crackles under my feet, the top layer frosty-frozen, and the underneath powdery and slippery.
The driveway hasn’t been plowed since the snowfall, but I shove my hands in my pockets. I’ll make it out of here on my own two feet, with the battered and tattered threads of my pride wrapped around me like a cape. I’m not his plaything. And he can’t toy with me, not anymore.
I stride forward and, not twenty feet out, my foot hits something under the snow.
I go down flailing, face-planting in the cold fluff.
Snow stings my eyes, and frosts my hair.
I lie there for a moment, wishing I was anywhere else.
Nobody in the history of the world has ever been as pathetic as I am.
“Principessa?” That smoothed over, melted-chocolate voice finds me, and before I can roll on my side to give him a wavering middle-finger, Royal’s arms are around me.