9. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Fortunately, my patience was not easy to wear thin.
Unless you were my father. For some reason, Papa could cut through my sturdy bark of tolerance faster than those chainsaws my little brother’s boyfriend so loved to tinker on.
Ten days had passed since the pumpkin patch talk with Rani.
We’d spent lots of time together since that day, as Alva was usually abed all morning and exhausted in the afternoons.
Her planning had been invaluable, and I had told her so the evening before opening day at dinner.
“Please, don’t thank me. I’ve done nothing but cry, vomit, and watch Pride & Prejudice on a steady loop for two weeks,” Alva replied as she sipped some tea and nibbled on toast with pineapple spread late in the afternoon. “Which then made me cry even more.”
I chuckled softly. “Those emotional journeys are hard on all of us, not just Mr. Darcy.”
“The early animosity that gives way to a quiet, deep, and genuine love for Elizabeth just does me in every time,” she confessed with a dreamy sigh.
“I think I can relate well to Mr. Darcy,” I whispered into my teacup. Emotional journeys were hard. “But Miss Austen’s masterpiece aside, you’ve done an incredible job of organizing things for the family. If you keep this up, we may hire you full time.”
She smiled at me with that glow that only a woman carrying a baby could share. “I may be busy next fall.”
“Are you sure then?” She nodded, soft blonde hair gliding over a slim shoulder.
“I’ve taken the home test. Dr. Pannett has also verified with a urine test. I’m so glad we have a physician on staff here. I’d hate to have to go to his office and be gawked at and start rumors. We are not saying a word about this to anyone outside of our immediate families.”
She gave me a very stern look.
“My lips are sealed.”
“Thank you. It’s just that we lost one baby early, so we’re keeping this under wraps until the second trimester. Dr. Pannett has suggested that I rest more to reduce stress, so are you okay with working with Rani? I know you and he seem to be rather chilly at times.”
True. We had been. Since the talk, he’d been genial enough, pleasantly polite yet keeping an arm’s distance from me at the various functions and trips we were making.
Now we’d be based in the capital for the foreseeable future, which was easier on everyone but not as much fun.
I enjoyed being with the good people of our nation, rubbing elbows and forking sheep dung.
“We had a misunderstanding several years ago that left him and me at odds, but I think we’re working through it.”
I badly wanted to talk to her about our status, but Rani would birth a bovine if he found out I told Alva about our past relationship. I didn’t dare speak of a future one, for I had no clue if there would even be one.
“Good. He’s an excellent assistant. If you wish to thank anyone for the festival planning, it should be him.
He’s carried the load for himself and me since we’ve been here.
” She reached for her fourth slice of toast. “I don’t know what it is about pineapple, but I can’t seem to get enough of it into me. ”
“You eat as much toast and jam as you wish. You are eating for two.” She beamed at me over the top of her teacup.
After we had a nice, long visit in her suite, I left her to take a nap before dinner.
I’d not seen Rani all day, a fact which left me feeling rather glum.
I’d gotten used to him being nearby the past few weeks.
After a nice meal with the family—nice meaning no fights with Papa—I bid everyone a warm goodnight around nine and made my way to my rooms to soak in a tub and read for a bit.
Papa missed dinner because he was too busy writing his speech for a summit in Sweden next week—though he had a speechwriter or two, he insisted on adding his own personal flair—to bother sniping at me for the little tidbit of news that came in from the western province, where I’d spent the day riding about a rutted field in an old tractor with a farmer as old as the dirt we were plowing up for a fall planting of garlic cloves for next summer.
After four hours inside a tractor with minimal suspension and a seat with no padding, my arse was tender.
I may have joked about having a tender tushy and who would kiss my cheek to make it better.
The press had laughed. Vetra had given me that look that screamed the bishop would not find me or my cheek funny.
But so far so good. Maybe I’d get lucky.
What a dud I’d become in just under half a year.
I’d cut myself off from my rowdy friends for the most part.
They texted and called, begging me to come meet them in this spot or that spot.
Fast women, easy men, wine, music, rich excesses that made me feel good in the moment, but lacking come morning.
Ugh. I was getting old. Soon I’d be like Frode and his wife, tucked into their small manse in the hills, content making gingerbread cookies or watching reruns of ER or Grey’s Anatomy.
As I sank down into my tub of pretty purple bubbles, the imagery of being curled on the sofa with Rani as snow piled up outside our little cottage felt rather nice.
Warm. Home. Perhaps there was something to be said about being a homebody after all.
Cookies and kisses. Yes, that would be loverly, to quote Eliza Doolittle.
Once my bath water was cold, I snuggled into bed, happy for the roaring fire in the hearth, for it was cold and damp in this old stone fortress.
Rain had blown in over the capital during the dinner hour.
The floors and walls here were not exactly energy efficient.
Nor were the mullioned windows but replacing them was forbidden as the castle was a national treasure bestowed upon Dragon’s Perch by the government to protect the keep for future generations.
Which was all well and good but by damn the place was drafty!
A soft knock on my door pulled me from my book, an easy feat as it was dry to the extreme, but I did know a great deal about pumpkins now.
Setting the agricultural tome aside, I slid out of bed, pulled on a robe, and opened the door, expecting to see Frode wishing to talk football or horses or Formula One.
It was not Frode. It was Rani in casual clothes, his expression indecipherable. He had a tray of what I assumed were cookies under a silver-lidded dish, tea, and paracetamol tablets like before.
“Good evening,” I said as a rush of pleasure coursed through me.
“Good evening,” he replied softly. “I saw on Instagram how your day went.”
“Ah, yes, it was quite the excursion. But my backside isn’t sore at all,” I said as I leaned a shoulder to the door.
“It will be,” he said as he gave me a shove back into my room, entering after me and kicking the door closed.
I felt lightheaded. “I’m sorry. What?”
He placed the tray on my desk, his eyes black with…was that passion? Oh hell. My cock fattened up quickly as he turned to look at me. Oh yes, that was lust making his eyes glow like polished ebony. “Clothes off, Your Highness.”
The man had grown quite bossy since we’d last been together. I liked it. A lot.
“While I do love how this is amazingly similar to an erotic dream I had just last night, I have to ask once more…what?”
After giving me a look that should have incinerated my nightclothes from my body, he lifted the lid on the sterling silver dish. On the deep base dish where my favorite little butter cookies should have been was a box of condoms beside a tube of lube. My mouth fell open.
“I’ve thought about things,” he said while working to remove his lightweight sweater vest. A sweater vest on any other man would have drawn my scorn, but Rani wearing a dark blue cashmere Prada sweater vest made my dick incredibly happy.
Once his head was free, his curls tumbled playfully about.
My fingers itched to get a hold of them.
His haircut was shorter when we’d been together, and for many years after.
Perhaps he felt it was more professional, but those ringlets were the perfect frame for his beautiful face.
“I’d like to see if we’re still sexually compatible.
Then, if that pans out, we could take things slowly to judge if you’re being honest about—”
“Yes.” I tore off my robe and flung it across the room.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes to anything that brings you back into my arms,” I blurted out while trying to untie the string of my pajama bottoms. All I did was knot the fucking thing, which made me very mad.
I heard his soft laughter, so I glanced up from the chastity PJ bottoms to my…
Rani. To my Rani. His kissable lips were tipped up at the corners.
Closing the distance between us, he gently swatted my hands away.
“Seriously, what would you royals do without your staff?” The backs of his fingers skimmed my lower abs as he reached into my bottoms to pick at the tight knot. My balls nearly emptied at just that slight tickle of a touch. He smelled divine.
“We’d be lost,” I replied earnestly. His gaze flicked up from my problem to my face.
The tiny smile slipped away. “I’ve been lost. For years.
Acting out to show the world what a bad boy I am when all I needed to do was be the man my little brother already was.
I lost you due to my need to prove something without taking a real stand.
I hurt you, and I am so very sorry. If I could do things over, I would never leave. ”
“To quote C.S. Lewis, you can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
” He gave the string a sharp tug. My bottom slithered down my thighs to puddle around my ankles.
My cock stood proud and stiff. “Perhaps we can change the ending for us, but it’s going to take time, Harold.
I know you like to dive into things headfirst, but trust broken is like an old man’s bone.
It takes gentle care and time to heal. Can you give me that? Gentleness and time?”
“God yes.” My heart was thundering in my chest as he unbuttoned my pajama top with excruciating slowness.
“Then we just have to see if the heat we always had in bed still lingers or if your pumpkin-headed behavior doused the flames.”
His sight tangled with mine. I could see a thousand things in those chestnut pools. Passion, yes, but there was some other small thing there that didn’t quite fit. He dropped his eyes, severing eye contact.
“Rani, what are you doing?” I asked, which was probably the stupidest question ever posed by a human being.
“I’m going to suck your cock,” he replied, his tone rough but flat. It was then that I sensed something was off. “That is what you want, right? To rekindle because I was the best you ever had?”
“Yes. No, I mean…” There I stood with my pajamas around my ankles with the most stunning man in the world licking his lips in preparation to suck my brain out through my cock, and two voices began to chatter inside my head.
What the hell are you doing? The man is about to put your dick in his mouth! Stop waffling and feed him your cock!
No, there’s something not right yet. Ask him if he would like to talk.
Talk?! Forget talking. Stuff your penis into his mouth right now. Talk later. Or better yet, don’t talk at all.
If you wish to reconnect on a level deeper than just sex, then you should speak to him if this isn’t feeling right. It’s the mature thing to do.
“Harold, are you stroking out on me?”
“No, I just…” I knelt down to cradle his face in my hands.
“Hand to God, I was listening to an angel and a devil on either shoulder.” He blinked, surprised.
“I do want this. I want you so badly it makes me ache inside, but I don’t want just sex.
” He sat back on his heels, eyes curious, regarding me as one would a tiger one would stumble upon in the jungle.
Wary but intrigued. “I’d like to date you.
Properly. In the wide open. No hiding or sneaking around.
A proper courtship. Oh God, now I’ve tumbled into the Bridgerton world! ”
“You want to court me. Am I hearing this correctly?”
“Yes.” I nodded sharply, thumbs caressing his cheeks. “I want to take you to the festival on my arm as my official date.”
“That would be…” His long lashes fluttered and opened to capture my gaze. “That would be lovely. Yes, lovely. Would you kiss me now?”
“Yes, Lord, yes, I would love to kiss you now.”
And so I did, with infinite tenderness. He leaned into the touch of lips, eagerly running his tongue along the seam of my mouth after a moment of hesitation.
I met his hunger with my own, sliding into his mouth to taste and tease until we were rolling around on the floor like two weasels in a wool sock.
“Holy hell, that was amazing,” I panted when we broke apart to breathe. He had me pinned to the floor, his tiny rump resting on my stiff and still wantonly bare cock. “I’ve never kissed a man who made me feel the things that I do when I kiss you.”
His cheeks were flushed, his eyes black with passion, his lips puffy from kissing. I could only lie there and admire the beauty of the man. And praise all the saints that he was here with me this night.
“I brought treats,” he said, his voice a smoky, throaty thing that made my balls draw up. “Tea and condoms. Does courting involve fucking?” He rocked back and forth on my dick. My brain short-circuited. “Or are we to remain virtuous until the wedding night?”
“Sorry, I lost all ability to think when you moved…yes, just like that. Damn.” I slid my hands to his hips to still his gyrations before I came all over myself like a green boy. “Whatever you wish, Rani. We move at your speed, at your direction.”
He tapped his chin and looked down at me. “Get on the bed. Arse in the air.”
I couldn’t get off the floor and onto the mattress fast enough.