Chapter 19
Nineteen
CAMILLO
I was going to murder my brother, and poor Beatriz would have to accept her place in line for the crown. He’d gone to lengths to piss me off before, but this? I had no strength to shower myself. I was still recovering and covered in post-fever sweat, and my arms had no strength.
I had just enough energy to wash my face, comb my hair, then empty my bag before I heard the sounds of the doors opening. But if he was going to love me, he would have to see the reality of me. This would not be the last time I fell ill.
Pushing through the bathroom door, I made my way toward the lounge, and it was in the corridor that I saw him. I was expecting Carlo and half his entourage, but instead, my gaze landed on Aleric.
He really was still in makeup, and he was wearing the suit from the last scene I’d seen him shooting. His shoes made a soft clicking noise on the floor as he rushed toward me, and his knees hit the floor right before his hands pushed into my hair.
And then we were kissing.
He groaned into it softly, his entire body rolling me backward so hard I had to scramble for the brake. He skidded forward on his knees, but that didn’t break his concentration. “Aleric,” I murmured against his lips. “Aleric. My darling.”
He shivered as he pulled back and cupped my face, looking right into my eyes. God, he’d been afraid. “I’m sorry. I’m—it…” He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry I called him. I needed to know for myself that you were okay.”
“I’m okay.” Pressing my hands over his, I stroked a touch over his knuckles and watched as, inch by inch, his tension began to leave him. “I’m okay. But get up off your knees. That can’t possibly be comfortable.”
He laughed, that soft little giggle I was growing addicted to, and braced himself on my thighs as he pushed to his feet. There was something so profound about the way he wasn’t shy about any of my body. How there was no hesitation ever when it came to touching me anywhere.
The ways he made me feel safe were innumerable and precious.
“What’s that look?” he asked.
I reached for his hand and kissed his palm. “Just happy you’re here. My brother didn’t try and come in with you, did he?”
“I told him you and I were going to be very loud. He went a little green at that.”
I burst into a hard laugh and rolled my eyes as I turned off the brake and led Aleric through the rooms. I could feel a rise in tension as we moved into the sitting room, and when I looked behind me, he’d stopped in the doorway.
“It’s huge.”
I bit my lip. “It is part of the palace. I didn’t design it.”
He glanced at the wall of portraits that I would have loved to remove. “Yeah. I can see that.”
My ears heated. “I know it’s a lot.”
“No. No.” His feet shuffled along the threadbare rug as he came toward me. “It’s just kind of a reminder of where I am…because of who you are.”
“Please don’t,” I begged. I couldn’t hear that. Not from him.
“It’s not going to scare me off,” he said when he’d reached my side. “But when it’s the two of us, it’s easy to forget.”
“So let’s do that now. Please. I’m so tired, and I just…I need you.” I had never said that to anyone. Not my brother, not my parents, not my friends. And the look on Aleric’s face reminded me why it was only him. His eyes softened, and he reached out, cupping my jaw.
“Lead the way. I really need a shower to get all this fucking makeup off, and I seem to recall you needing one too.”
I fought off a slightly hysterical giggle because was I really going to do this with him? Was I going to get totally naked and show off exactly what I looked like? He’d seen me—but not all of me. He didn’t know entirely the way my middle sagged, and he hadn’t seen the scars from pressure-sore surgeries. He hadn’t seen the lumps on my back from where the doctors had tried to fix me, and rarely did he get a glimpse of my legs—calves swollen into my ankles, all the way down to my toes.
“Hey,” Aleric said, staring. “If you don’t want?—”
“I want. It’s just…maybe not as pretty as you might imagine.”
“I haven’t imagined anything.” His thumb stroked over my skin before he pulled away. “But I can’t see myself not liking all of you.”
“It’s not sexy.”
Aleric rolled his eyes. “My sleep farts aren’t sexy, but they don’t change the way you feel about me, do they?”
I slapped a hand over my mouth to hold in a laugh. I hadn’t been expecting that. I thought he would get poetic about all bodies being sexy in their own way.
“And neither is the hair on my butthole that I refuse to wax.”
My cheeks ached. “I rather like that.”
His ears tinged pink. “I have ugly toes. My little ones have no toenail. And I have scars on my butt cheeks because I had body acne so bad as a teenager that the studio forced me to get laser treatments.”
“The studio was worried about your ass?”
“They had a countdown to my eighteenth birthday in hopes they could get me to do a few nude scenes when I came of age.”
Once again, I wanted to hurt someone for him. But I understood what he was doing. We were all both perfection and flaws. That was being human.
Turning, I rolled ahead of him, through my bedroom without stopping, and into the bathroom. It was the one place that had been fully modernized for me. The tub had a swinging door that I could roll into, and the shower had a bench that curved from the wall to the center so I could enjoy the rain showerhead.
All the shelves had been lowered, and so had the sinks.
Aleric was right behind me and took it all in.
“I’m pretty sure this is bigger than my apartment.”
I wanted to argue, but I didn’t think he was wrong. “Well, it’s all yours to use, though you might have to get on your knees to wash your hands without straining your back.”
He gave me a look. “Just where you like me, right?”
My chest felt hot. “We’ll play with that later when I’m not ill.”
Instead of looking uncomfortable, he just smiled, then turned to the shower and stared at the wall of buttons. “I’m not going to pretend like I know how to work this. You can get it started, and if you’re very nice to me, I’ll wash your hair.”
Biting my lip, I thought of all the ways we could make use of this space when I was better. I wanted to give him some sultry line, make him weak in the knees, but all I really wanted were his warm hands on me and a night of comfort.
“Get undressed,” I told him. I rolled to the shower door and reached in, setting the temperature a few degrees lower than I normally liked. I had a harder time feeling temperature than most people, but I didn’t want to scald him. It might not send him running, but the point was not to hurt him.
When the water began to pour down, I turned and saw him stark naked. My mouth went a little dry, and I cleared my throat. “ Ah .”
“Bad?”
“Is that a joke?”
He ducked his head as he shrugged. “I guess I know I’m pretty. That’s why people wouldn’t leave me alone when I was younger, and I don’t think it was reverse ugly duckling or anything.”
I rolled closer. “You are beautiful.”
He glanced away. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t, but I guess I’m glad I am now.”
“Why?”
“Because I doubt the prince of Caverna would have looked twice at me if I wasn’t.”
Shit. He meant that.
Rolling closer, I snagged his hand and tugged him to his knees. His fat, heavy cock hung limp between his legs, and I fought the urge to touch it. But I knew he didn’t want that kind of attention. I understood what he was craving: he wanted to be loved for him. Not what he did, not what he was to everyone else.
Just him.
Hooking his chin with a knuckle, I forced his gaze up. “I don’t give a shit about pretty people. I never have. Yes, you are beautiful. That’s not in question, but it wouldn’t have lasted if I wasn’t wildly attracted to here.” I pressed a finger to his temple. “And here.” Then one to his heart. “I would have looked twice because you were smoking where you weren’t meant to.” He scoffed and rolled his eyes, making me grin. “And I would have looked twice again when you showed me exactly the kind of man you are.”
“What kind of man am I?”
“The one that made me fall for him in spite of all the reasons I had not to.”
His eyes closed, then he leaned in and took the kiss we were both desperately wanting. Curling my fingers in his hair, I held him fast until I needed to breathe, and when I pulled back, exhaustion hit me like a freight train.
“I need to be in bed soon. Get comfortable under the water, and I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Can I help?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It takes me a minute, but I’ve got my routine down, and I prefer to shower without my catheter.”
He glanced down at my crotch, then nodded, kissed me once more, then left me to my duties.
It took me longer than usual. I couldn’t feel the pain where it was actually hurting, but my nerves were fired up, and as I took out the cath, I felt a familiar nausea hitting me. It took me a minute to breathe through it, but soon enough, I was naked and ready.
I let him hold the shower door as I shifted onto the bench, and then I slid to the center, where he was waiting for me, shampoo in hand. Neither one of us said a word. He asked with soft gestures and accepted my easy nods.
He scrubbed my scalp and then the rest of my body, washing away the scent of sickness and hospital. I stared down as he was careful with my cock and balls, his hand moving over my stomach where I couldn’t feel it at all, then up near my ribs, where the sensation threatened to overwhelm me.
“Camillo?”
“Mm.” I had my eyes closed now, basking in the way he was petting up and down the top of my spine.
“I don’t mean to alarm you, but you’re hard.”
I glanced down and saw my cock half-stiff. “It won’t last. It never does. I’ve tried drugs and everything, but?—”
“No, I—I wasn’t asking for me,” he said softly. He shuffled closer and laid his temple on my shoulder. “That’s…not something I prefer. Being a bottom.”
It didn’t take me long to realize why. “I understand.”
He shrugged. “I’ve worked on it in therapy a lot, and I’ve tried toys, but my therapist says that might be something I have to accept as part of who I am now. And I am sorry. I know there are ways you could top, and…and if you want to try someday, maybe?—”
“Aleric.”
He went instantly quiet.
“I like you as you are. I like what we’ve done so far. It’s felt…” I shuddered. “There are no words. You can ask me for whatever you want, and I’ll give it. And you can tell me what you will never want, and it won’t be on the table. Not ever.”
He swallowed so heavily I could hear it catch in his throat. “Can we talk about that later?”
“Yes.” Turning to face him, I took his chin again and kissed him. “Let’s rinse off. I don’t want to fall asleep here.”
He grinned and stole a last kiss before using the wand to rinse off all of our bubbles. When it was done, he didn’t ask to help me dry off, but he watched as I used the towel until I could comfortably sit in my chair. He didn’t hover when I put my next catheter in, but I knew he could see, and for the first time ever, I didn’t mind.
I didn’t feel strange.
He felt like he’d been part of my life this entire time.
And God help me, I wanted to keep that.
It was half an hour before we were actually in bed. I ordered a tray of dinner when Aleric confessed he hadn’t eaten, and he was enthralled by the fact that I could call the kitchen and have almost anything sent up.
He was an easy, sensible man though, so he went with a turkey sandwich and some fruit. I suspected that had something to do with his diet, but I didn’t bother calling him out on it. I just got comfortable while he arranged the tray, then stole a few pieces of fruit while he polished off his plate.
“So. This is your everyday routine, or…?”
I laughed. “No, my darling. It’s not. I cook and clean a little…”
“And do your dishes,” he said.
“Not a single soiled fork to be found,” I answered with a sniff.
He burst into giggles as he fell back against me, nestling close. “And you lay here and watch TV?”
“I read, mostly. I wasn’t allowed a lot of TV growing up. News outlets were always very critical about my family, and my parents and nannies didn’t want us traumatized.” My fingers drifted to his hair as he rested his cheek against the top of my shoulder. It was still wet from the shower and slick now that he’d washed all the product out of it.
“I kind of love that.”
I glanced down at him with a frown. “That the media was shitty about us?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes, then nudged up against my hand like a cat. I resumed stroking my nails over his scalp. “That you didn’t, you know, grow up with me or whatever.”
Ah . “Everyone’s teen crush?”
Aleric shuddered. “Don’t say it like that. It sounds weird.”
I laughed and held him a little tighter. “You weren’t my teenage crush. Don’t worry. And you wouldn’t have been even if I had known who you were.”
“Uh. Ouch?”
Burying my nose against his temple, I grinned. “I’m sorry, my darling. You just weren’t my type back then.”
“Who was? God, don’t tell me you were a boy band kind of?—”
“No,” I said in a rush. My chest heated, and Aleric pulled away from me, staring.
“There’s a story there.”
Pressing my hand over my face, I took a deep breath. “Do you…Christ, do you remember Phantom Harmony?”
He blinked, then burst into laughter. “Oh my God. They had a couple of really popular singles, right? Something about…knights and princes? They were really popular with like eight-year-olds, weren’t they?”
I blushed harder. “Mm. I wasn’t a fan, obviously. I liked classic music.”
“Like Mozart?”
“Like Ozzy,” I murmured.
His face lit up. “Oh, I like you so fucking much.”
I felt warm all over. “Anyway, my parents didn’t care—or they didn’t know. Maybe both. I think they asked one of their assistants what all the kids were into, and whoever it was had teenagers obsessed with the boy band craze. So my thirteenth birthday, the few friends I actually did have—and a bunch of kids from my school who took a day off from bullying me—showed up to see Phantom Harmony play.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” I breathed out. “I was humiliated. My parents didn’t notice. They didn’t actually come to my party.”
“Wait…really?” Aleric sat up a little further and leaned on his elbow, staring at me. “They didn’t even make an appearance?”
“We did a family dinner a few nights before. That’s how it always was,” I told him, waving off his surprise. “I think my mom forgot what day my birthday was actually on.”
“That’s bullshit. She pushed you out of her body.”
“I was surgically removed,” I told him with a tiny smirk. “She was on a lot of drugs. But it’s fine.”
“It’s bullshit,” Aleric said again. “You deserve to be remembered by your own parents.”
“Not when they’re the rulers of a whole country.”
He looked at me sideways. “Is that what you really think?”
I took a beat, then seized him and pulled him against me, enjoying the feeling of his heavy laugh against my chest. “No. It’s not what I think, but it is what it is. And back to your original question, my teen crush was?—”
“Ozzy.” He grinned up at me, propping his chin on my chest. “I liked him too. I don’t want to say daddy issues because that’s kind of gross, but…maybe parental authority issues? When you’re massively let down by the people who are supposed to take care of you.”
I had Cillian, but I knew what he meant. I think he’d suffered it a bit worse than me, but it was nice to have someone get it. “It doesn’t matter. I like you now.”
“Yeah?” His ears pinked.
Urging him up, I pulled him in for a long, slow kiss. “I will show you how much just as soon as I can.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said. There was no resentment in his tone for what I couldn’t do right there. His words were full of truth and contentment. And that was the moment I knew I was falling in love with him.
God help me.
God help us both.