Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
AURELIA
Friedrich and I have been subsisting on stolen moments and a constant text thread for the last couple of weeks. I know he’s busy with dating and all that hullaballoo, plus a trip to Germany for the king, but I’m starting to feel the strain of not seeing him and not feeling his hands on me.
I’m taking out my frustrations, mental and sexual, on several balls of dough meant for loaves of bread for the women’s shelter that Aunt Sarah supports. Margaret keeps a safe distance, eyeing the object of my ire with mild concern from across her kitchen island.
“Are you really sure you’re okay, love?” she asks as I give the dough a particularly hard swing at the counter.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” Dropping the thoroughly beaten dough balls into bowls, I cover them with a thin cloth and set them aside to rise. I wipe the sheen of sweat from my brow with my shoulder, my hands still covered in flour and dough.
“Cause you just manhandled that dough like it took your baby sister’s lunch money.”
I do a bad job of suppressing a snort, half laughter, half derision. My friend gives me the searching side-eye that she knows always breaks me.
“Fine,” I huff. “Friedrich and I haven’t, you know, had a lot of time lately. I just…”
“Aww! You miss him,” Margaret coos.
“I don’t miss him, I just—”
My phone pings, cutting me off, and I jump to pick it up, but Margaret snatches it away. She wags a finger at me.
“Uh-uh, Germy Gertie. Go wash your hands first.”
“Read it then.”
Margaret opens my phone and grins as she goes through my texts.
“Out loud, Margaret,” I grumble.
“Oh, right. It’s just, he’s so damn sweet.” Margaret swoons and then reads, “‘Miss Aurelia.’ It’s so cute he calls you Miss.”
I shoot her a look, and she waves me off and continues. “‘I’d like to invite you to the palace this Sunday afternoon for my mother’s birthday luncheon.’ Family dinner? Oh my god.”
“Oh my god,” I agree, a little in shock. “What do I say?”
“Yes, of course!”
“I don’t know, Margaret.” I bite the corner of my lip and scrub my hands even harder. “We’re just a casual thing, and lunch with the parents is definitely not casual.”
“He says there will be family and a few close friends there. Perhaps he’s including you in that group of close friends.”
“I mean, maybe…”
“Aurelia, you have to go. The prince has invited you to a meal in celebration of his mother, whom he adores, with the people most important to him, which means he considers you among the most important people in his life.”
I groan, my mind racing in several different directions. “That’s just it, though. How can I be an important person in his life and a casual acquaintance who he does casual sexual things with?”
“Maybe because he sees you as an actual friend.” Margaret fixes me with a hard stare. “Besides, I’m sure you won’t be the only non-family member there.”
“Yes, but he’s not sleeping with Miles.”
“He’s not sleeping with you either.”
I groan and dry my hands before taking the phone from her to read the text myself.
My whole heart is screaming for me to say yes.
To meet his mother and father, to sit at a table and talk to his siblings, to do whatever it takes to get a little time with him, more than the occasional orgasm and run we’ve been relegated to over the last week.
But my brain is trying to be the sensible organ and keeps screaming that this is too much, too far, too intimate.
Are we both letting things get too close?
Too familiar? Too couple-y? Oh my god, are we a couple?
Another text comes through, and my irrational heart wins out, swayed by my traitorous vagina.
Fritz:
And perhaps we could go back to RC for a bit afterwards
Oh, how can I turn down a royal summons?
Haha! It’s not a summons. Just an invitation to lunch with my family
Yeah. The ROYAL family
Ok smartass! In all seriousness though. My family is dying to meet you and Trixie says she’ll just come drag you out anyway. And trust me you don’t want that. She doesn’t give you time to change or anything
Speaking from personal experience?
She once dragged me to the club in a pair of track pants and a paint splattered vest
Haha! Fine you convinced me
Great! I’ll send a car for you at 11:30 on Sunday
I put my phone back down on the counter, and I’m sure I have the most ridiculous grin on my face by the look Margaret is giving me.
“Yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “This is totally casual.”
I guess Walter is my designated chauffeur whenever Friedrich sends someone for me.
I greet him by name as he holds the door open for me outside my dormitory on Sunday.
I used to get so nervous going to meet the prince, but these days the butterflies in my stomach are anticipation rather than anxiety.
Okay, maybe a little anxiety today since I’ll be meeting the whole family, but at least I’ll have Miles and Beatrix there to help me navigate.
I’m a bit surprised as security waves the car through without any kind of search or questioning this time. I guess I’m a trusted guest now, which is crazy after only a couple of months. Do any of the women in this princess game get waved through without a security pat-down?
Friedrich is waiting for me at the same side entrance I used for the cocktail party. He’s at the car the moment it pulls to a stop, but I’m getting better at remembering to let someone else open the door for me, and he doesn’t have to rush.
He’s wearing the most ridiculously adorable boyish grin. Even through our winter gloves, my nerves spark at my hand in his as he helps me from the car and pulls me into his arms. It’s just a hug, but the rush of emotions I feel in his embrace speaks of something more than simple, casual affection.
His fingers clench against my back, and I melt into him, the alluring smell of his woodsy cologne sending signals all over my body.
We’ve done things much more intimate than hug, so why does this feel so good?
I guess he thinks so, too, because there’s something hard pressing against my thigh that’s definitely not his belt buckle.
He lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a hum and a growl as he slides his hand up my back and threads his fingers in the hair at the top of my neck.
With the slightest tug, he has my face tilted to his.
He studies my lips, his tongue slipping out to wet his own, and I see the moment his control snaps.
We’re like starving people, trying to devour each other as quickly and thoroughly as possible. It’s not sweet or chaste or tender. Just pure screaming lust. I can’t even be worried about my lipstick because all I want—all I need—is more. More, more, more!
“Aurelia,” he rasps as he pulls away a fraction of an inch, our breath still mingling in a swirl of steam in the cold air.
I’m clutching the lapels of his wool coat like I’m clinging to a lifeboat in a storm of hormones and desire. “We should probably stop before we get too carried away.” But my hands don’t leave his chest, and we’re still firmly attached at the hip, where the hardness I felt is begging for attention.
I grind my pelvis against his erection, garnering the exact response I hoped for. His fingers dig into my shoulders as he pushes me away to arm’s length.
“Watch it, minx,” he growls. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
I look at him from under my eyelashes, pasting a perfectly innocent expression on my face. “I always finish,” I whisper.
He throws his head back in a laugh that never ceases to make my heart light before pulling me back against him and placing a quick kiss on my lips.
“Later, princess,” he promises, then clears his throat and straightens up. I snicker as I take in the berry-colored smears around his mouth and in his mustache.
“Shit.” He tries to wipe it away, but the lipstick is stubborn.
“Here, let me.” I lick my thumb and reach to smudge it away.
“Ew,” he laughs as he bats my hand away like he hasn’t had his mouth on certain parts of me before.
“It’s nanny spit,” I chuckle too. “It works on everything,” I say as I attack him again with my wetted thumb.
We giggle like children, and he tries to rub off the bits that have smudged around my lips, too. When we’re both satisfied that we don’t look like complete slobs, I use my phone camera to reapply the lipstick Margaret had picked out.
“Ready?” Friedrich asks, holding a hand out for me.
I take a deep cleansing breath. “As I’ll ever be, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, Aurelia, you’ll be fine. They’re way easier to please than those vipers at the ball.”
After helping me out of my winter outerwear and passing everything off to a waiting footman, he leads me along a hallway.
Doors leading to various sitting areas, offices, and parlors line the walls.
We cross the main entrance hall, where the ballroom and formal dining room branch off, and down a hall I’ve never been through, traversing areas of the palace previously unknown to me.
Carved wooden doors are propped open at the end of the corridor, and laughter and chatter flows out of the room.
I try to take in as much of the informal dining room, what my grandmother would have called a breakfast room, as we stand just over the threshold.
One wall is only windows, letting in the muted winter light and looking out over the snow-dusted grounds.
Buffet tables sit on the other three walls, one with silver domed serving platters, another holding many small cups and saucers and all the trimmings for tea or coffee, but no sign of either, and the last holding a three-tiered ice blue frosted cake decorated with real multicolored pansies.
The table in the middle is set for sixteen, but the only occupied seat is to the left of the head, where the Queen Mother sits in conversation with the former Prime Minister, Marvin Fraust.