Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ROYCE
The drive takes thirty minutes, though it feels longer. Kenneth's hand rests on my thigh, a grounding presence that keeps me from overthinking. We don't talk, but the silence is comfortable, full of anticipation rather than anxiety.
When we reach my building, he parks, and we take the elevator up to my floor. The moment we're inside my apartment, door locked behind us, Kenneth pulls me close.
"I missed you," he murmurs against my hair. "This past week, trying to stay busy, trying not to think about how much I wanted to see you, to touch you."
"I missed you too." I tilt my head back to look at him. "I hated the distance. The uncertainty."
"No more of that. From now on, we communicate. We talk about the hard stuff. We don't let things fester."
"Agreed." I walk him through the house, our fingers locked together.
My back hits the bedroom door when I spin to face him, and I reach behind me to turn the handle, pushing it open.
"Now it’s time to stop talking about communication and actually communicate in other ways?"
He laughs, the sound low and warm. "Your Majesty, are you trying to seduce me?"
“Always. I can never get enough.”
He captures my mouth in a kiss that's been building all night, all week, since the moment we last touched. It's hungry and desperate and perfect, and I give back just as much passion.
We stumble into the bedroom, shedding his clothes as we go. His jacket, his shirt, and pants all drop away with ease. By the time we reach the bed, he’s down to his underwear, while I’m still fully dressed.
The sight of him makes my breath catch. He’s so fucking hot.
"You're staring," he says, his tone just as appreciative as he looks me over.
"Can you blame me?" I push him down onto the bed. "You show up to my gala looking like sin, dance with me in front of everyone, promise me honesty and partnership, and expect me not to stare?"
"When you put it that way…" He grins, then tempts me down for another kiss. "Stare all you want, Your Majesty. I'm all yours."
"Mine," I agree, the possessiveness in my voice surprising even me. "All mine, Little Menace."
"All yours," he confirms.
I straighten, then spin to give him my side. “Help me with the zipper.”
There’s zero hesitation from him. Cool fingers press against me as he slides the closure down. As the dress loosens, I let my shoulders drop.
Shimmery cream fabric slides down my body, pooling at my feet. With my eyes still on Kenny, I spot the second he sees what I’m wearing.
The lace panties are the same color as my dress. With how see through the fabric is, I know my little menace sees exactly how much I want him.
“Your Majesty,” he breathes, hands reaching out to touch.
He pauses before he makes contact. His gaze moves to mind.
“Touch me, Kenny baby. Show me how badly you want me.”
I've been kissed plenty of times. Before Kenneth, during Kenneth, and in the abstract future that doesn't feel all that real just yet.
But none of those kisses have ever felt like this—like he's trying to apologize and stake a claim and prove himself all at once.
I open for him immediately, tasting the expensive champagne from the gala on his tongue, and pull him closer.
He tastes like apology. Like I'm sorry. Like I missed you. Like don't let me go.
He slows his kisses, letting me have control, and something inside me unfurls at the surrender. This is what I need from him—this. This complete and utter willingness to let me take what I want.
I work my way across his chest, kissing every inch of him, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breathing beneath me. His hands come up to my waist, gripping me over the fabric of my lacy panties, and I allow it.
For now, I allow his touch because I need it as much as I need air.
"Royce." His voice is strained. "Don't make me beg."
"That's exactly what I'm going to make you do." I run my fingers down my body, holding his gaze as I rub my palm over my erection. "Eventually. But first, you're going to tell me what you want. Everything you want. No holding back."
Kenneth runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I recognize from a thousand moments before this one—frustration, hunger, desire barely contained.
"I want you," he says roughly. "I want you in those panties for approximately thirty more seconds, and then I want you out of them.
I want you on the bed on top of me. I want to taste every inch of your skin.
I want to hear you say my name when you come.
I want to be inside you. I want—" He stops himself, clearly trying to rein it in.
"Don't stop," I command. Normally I’m not one for switching, but the passion behind his plea has me interested.
"I want to make you feel so good you forget why we even fought," he continues, his voice rough and desperate now.
"I want to mark you up so that when you go out tomorrow, you remember that you're mine.
I want you to be so sated you can barely walk.
I want… God, Royce, I want you to want me as much as I want you. "
My breath catches in my throat. I pull him close, kissing him hard. This is what I needed to hear. This admission. This need that matches my own.
"I do," I say against his mouth. "I do want you like that. I want you so much it terrifies me."
He makes a sound, a blend of a groan and a growl, and tugs me on top of him.
I help my little menace work his underwear free. Once he’s completely bare beneath me, his body relaxes into the soft mattress of my bed. His cock is still very, very hard, a strong juxtaposition to the rest of him.
Shifting my hips forward, I allow him to feel just how hard he makes me. I let the fabric barely containing me stretch ever further with the move as I reach for the bottle of lube in my nightstand drawer.
“Your Majesty! Please don’t tease me. I won’t last.”
"Isn't that exactly what I should do?" I lean down, bracing myself on my hands over his chest, and kiss him slowly.
It's a leisurely thing, exploratory, my tongue tracing the seam of his lips before he opens for me.
I can feel the tension coiling through his body, the way his fingers dig slightly into my hips.
"You've been avoiding me. Making me miss you.
Making me doubt—" The thought cuts off as I feel him try to move beneath me, try to adjust his position. "Stay still."
He forces himself to comply, jaw tight with the effort of restraint.
I kiss my way down his body, taking my time—the line of his jaw, his neck, the hollow at the base of his throat where his pulse races. He tastes like salt and expensive cologne and Kenneth. I spend time on his chest, using my teeth gently on his nipples, and his breathing becomes ragged.
"Please," he says, and the word is almost a prayer. "Royce, please."
"Please what?" I ask, moving lower, my lips trailing down the center of his abdomen. I can feel his muscles tensing beneath me.
"Please stop torturing me. Please let me have you."
I pull back enough to look at him, and the expression on his face—complete desperation, raw need—sends another surge of heat through me. My body is already primed, already desperate, and I haven't even gotten him inside me yet.
I reach between his legs and wrap my hand around his cock, stroking slowly. Kenneth's hips jerk upward involuntarily, seeking more friction, and I tighten my grip in warning.
"I said stay still," I remind him.
"You're going to kill me," he says, his voice hoarse. But he does stay still, lying back against the pillows with his hands fisted on either side of him. The effort it takes him not to move is evident in every line of his body, and God, it's hot.
I lower my mouth to him, taking him in slowly.
The weight of him on my tongue, the salt-musk taste of him, the way his breathing stutters when I do it—it all feeds the hunger building in me.
I work him with my mouth and my hand, finding a rhythm that makes his legs tense and his hips strain upward against the restraint of my free hand on his abdomen.
"I'm going to come if you keep doing that," he says urgently after only a few minutes. The fact that he's already this close makes something dark and satisfied purr inside me.
“Well we can’t have that. I want you to come inside of me.”
“You want… oh, fuck. You want to feel me come inside of you? Like bare?”
“That’s exactly it.” I line myself up over his body, flicking the cap to the lube open and spreading a generous amount over my hole and his length. There will definitely be a burn to this since I’m too fucking impatient to wait. Good thing I like a little pain with my pleasure every now and then.
"Oh God," Kenneth says, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks. "Royce, you feel so—"
"Hush," I say, and continue lowering myself until he's fully inside me. For a moment, we just stay like that, completely still, completely connected. I can feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath my palms on his chest, matching the frantic rhythm of my own.
"Move," I demand, and Kenneth obeys.
He thrusts up into me, and the angle is perfect, hitting that spot inside me that makes colors explode behind my eyes. I meet him stroke for stroke, riding him with intensity, demanding more and more. The building pleasure is almost overwhelming.
It's been too many days since we’ve been together. Too many days of a cold bed and colder silence, and now I have him exactly where I want him—underneath me, inside me, completely at my mercy.
"Harder," I demand, and he complies, his thrusts becoming more forceful. The sound of skin on skin, my own gasping breaths, Kenneth's rough groans all combine into a symphony of need and want.
"That's it," I say, breathless. "That's what I want. That's what I needed."
"I missed you," Kenneth says between thrusts, and the vulnerability in his voice nearly undoes me. "I missed you so much.”
The pleasure is overwhelming, coiling tighter and tighter in my core. I'm close, so close, and I can feel Kenneth is too. His movements are becoming less controlled, more desperate.
"Look at me," I command, and he does. His dark eyes meet mine, and there's such raw emotion there: love and regret and fierce possession all at once. "Tell me you're mine."
"I'm yours," he says immediately. "God, Royce, I'm completely yours. You own me. You've always owned me."
That's what pushes me over the edge. The complete surrender of it, the admission, the way he says it like it's the most obvious truth in the world. My orgasm hits like a tidal wave, pleasure radiating out from my center in waves. I clench around him, and his name falls from my lips over and over.
"That's it," he says, his voice strained. "That's right. Come for me. God, yes. You’re fucking perfect.”
He follows me over, his hips jerking upward as he spills inside me, groaning my name. For a long moment, neither of us moves, just breathing heavily in the darkness of the bedroom.
Slowly, carefully, I collapse onto his chest, and Kenny’s arms come around me immediately, holding me close. His heartbeat gradually slows beneath my ear, and I let myself just exist in this moment.
Sated.
Exhausted.
And completely enveloped by him.
It’s Kenny who breaks the silence first. “I can't stand being away from you. These past three days have been miserable."
"Good," I say, and he makes a small sound of amusement beneath me.
"You're terrible.”
"You love it."
"I love you," he corrects softly, and my breath catches. We haven't said it yet. Not out loud. We've danced around it, implied it, shown it through actions, but never just said it like this.
I lean down and kiss him slowly, pouring everything I can't quite articulate into the movement of my mouth against his. When I pull back, I can see the question in his eyes—waiting for me to say it back.
“I’m well on my way to loving you too,” I say quietly.
Kenneth grins, and there's such relief in it that it makes my heart ache. "How long until you’re all the way there? Anything I can do to tip the scales in my favor?”
"I don’t know. Give it more time. I can’t see this going any other way but all the way to forever.
” I roll off him and reach for the bedside lamp, turning it on low so the room is bathed in a soft glow.
When I turn back, Kenneth is watching me with an expression that makes me want to crawl right back into his arms.
“I like the sound of that,” he says. He reaches out and pulls me against his side, and I nestle into him, my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest.
“The sound of what?”
“Of forever with you.”
Later that night we lie tangled together in my bed, the city lights casting shadows across our skin. Kenneth's head is on my chest, his breathing deep and even, and I run my fingers through his hair absently.
"You awake?" I ask quietly.
"Mmm." He nuzzles closer. "Barely."
"Thank you. For coming tonight. For saying those things on the dance floor. For being here."
"Always." He presses a kiss to my chest, right over my heart. "No more secrets, remember? That means you get all of me, and I get all of you."
"All of me," I echo. "Even the complicated parts."
"Especially the complicated parts." He tilts his head to look at me, his eyes serious despite the lazy satisfaction in his expression. "Those are the parts that make you who you are, Royce. I wouldn't want you without them."
My chest feels too tight again, but in the best possible way. "I don't know how we got here.”
“Fate. Timing. The universe finally cutting us both a break. Take your pick.” He settles back against my chest. "Now let me sleep. You wore me out, Your Majesty."
I smile, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "Sleep, Little Menace. I'll be here when you wake up."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
He's asleep within minutes, his body relaxed and trusting against mine. I lie there, listening to him breathe, feeling the steady beat of his heart, and let myself feel the full weight of what we just committed to.
No more secrets. No more distance. Just us, choosing each other, complications and all.
It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. It's everything I could ask for in a partner.
And for the first time in a very long time, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, this is going to work.
Kenneth Meyer may not be who I thought he was when we first reunited, but I can’t complain about it. He’s better than I could have ever imagined.