Chapter 17 #2
“You’re the only woman who’s ever had me bare like this,” he says against my ear, his voice rough. “No one else. I’ve never wanted to …” He pulls back and thrusts in again. “Until you.”
The words sink into my bones because that means something. Louis has never trusted or wanted anyone enough, until me. I’m not just another woman to him. I’m not a conquest or a distraction or a way to pass the time before he marries his princess.
I’m the one he chose to give himself to.
“Louis, I—” My words come out broken, and our movements transform into something more.
I’m so madly, stupidly, completely in love with this man.
“I know,” he says, like I spoke the words out loud. “Me too.”
He finds a rhythm that’s slow and deep. Every time our ends meet, it sends sparks through my entire body.
“You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, Addy.”
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him closer, wanting more of him, needing all of him. He groans and picks up the pace, his hips bucking harder.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You feel incredible. So tight. So perfect.”
I can’t respond because I’m lost in sensation.
Every nerve ending is alive. Every inch of my skin is hypersensitive where it touches him.
I’ve never experienced something so consuming or this overwhelming with another person.
Right now, he’s everywhere. In my chest, my throat, my heart, behind my eyes.
He’s filling spaces that I didn’t know were empty until him.
He shifts his angle and hits a spot that makes my back arch off the mattress. My mouth falls open as he drives into me, pushing me closer with every thrust.
“That’s it,” he mutters. “Let go for me.”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a moan. “Yes, yes.”
His hand slides between us and finds my clit, rubbing in tight circles while he fucks me.
“Keep going.” My voice is wrecked, my muscles tensing.
He watches my face, memorizing every reaction. He changes his rhythm based on what makes me gasp or whimper. At any moment, I’m going to lose myself. My thighs shake around his hips, and he knows exactly what I need. But Louis is in control of me right now.
“You want to come for me?” He slows his pace on my clit. “You’re so damn close. You’re squeezing my cock so tight.”
The pressure is suspended low in my belly, and with every teasing stroke, every tiny circle of his thumb, I’m climbing toward something that feels bigger than anything I’ve ever known.
I’m suspended in time, waiting with bated breath to release what he’s worked up in me so quickly.
“Louis, I need to co—” I groan, and he clamps his hand over my mouth, laughing low against my ear.
“Shh. Don’t want the whole palace to know I’m fucking your brains out. Be patient.”
“Please …” I whimper against his palm and rock my hips, nearly begging for the relief he refuses to give me.
This makes him crack. His pace becomes intentional.
“Yes,” I say. “More. More.”
He works my clit in rhythm with his thrusts until I’m shaking beneath him.
Louis leans down, his lips brushing my ear. His voice drops, rough, as words spill from his mouth, beautiful and melodic. “Tu es à moi, ma reine.”
I feel the words in my chest and between my legs. The sound of his native tongue sounds like a confession.
“I failed French.” I gasp. “Tell me.”
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes dark and intense, never breaking his rhythm. “You’re mine”—he thrusts deep, and I whimper—“my queen.”
My queen. Not a princess. Not a duchess. Not one of the two hundred women at a ball fighting for his attention.
His queen.
The words make me shatter. As if he snapped his fingers, the orgasm crashes through me, taking me completely under.
I’m nearly gasping for air, like I’m drowning.
It starts at my core and radiates outward in waves, rolling through me until I’m shaking and crying out his name.
My vision blurs, and I clench around him, pulsing.
He fucks me through it, drawing out my orgasm until I’m useless. When the last aftershock fades, I open my eyes and admire him.
He’s beautiful. His muscles are straining, and sweat beads at his temples.
He grabs my ass, creating even more friction. “Sexy as hell.”
The crown prince of Montclaire is unraveling before me, and I want to remember every second of it.
His rhythm grows erratic and desperate, and I realize I’ve never seen him lose total control.
He’s always so careful, so measured, so aware of how he presents himself to the world.
But right now, with me, he’s in his rawest form.
Louis starts to pull out, and I lock my ankles behind his back.
His body goes rigid. “Addison—”
“Don’t.” I dig my heels into his ass, staring at him. “I want all of you.”
“If I—” He shakes his head. “I could give you a baby.” Louis is trembling, suspended right on the edge. “Do you want me to put a baby in you?”
The possessiveness in his voice makes me clench around him.
I cup his face in my hands and force him to look at me. His eyes are wild with need, but underneath, I see fear. Because he truly wants this, me, a future together.
“Yes.”
He groans and buries himself to the hilt. I feel him pulse inside me, hot and wet, filling me. He moans my name and kisses my throat as his body surrenders. I hold him through it, my arms wrapped around him, my fingers digging into his back. Every drop of him spills into me.
“You’re mine, Addison,” he confirms, kissing me again. “I hope you know that.”
“I do,” I whisper, and I’ve never felt more claimed in my life. More his.
His breath grows ragged against my neck, and I don’t want him to move. I want to stay like this forever, connected, full of him, with the evidence of what we did warm inside me.
The thought should scare me. It doesn’t. When I close my eyes, I smile and imagine an entire lifetime together with him. It comes in flashes, and it’s a beautiful fucking sight to see.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
And I didn’t realize tears were dripping from my eyes.
“Yeah, a little overwhelmed,” I whisper. “With happiness.”
“I’ve waited my whole life for that,” he says, kissing the streaks away. “Regrets?”
“Hell no,” I say, knowing that we can never walk away from one another. Not when sex feels like that. “I feel like our souls are intertwined now or something.”
He chuckles, still holding himself above me while he’s buried deep inside me. “Yeah, I felt that too. Maybe we broke a true love’s kiss curse or something. I’m sure some old witches cast one on me when I was an infant.”
“You could barely hold back a smile with your ridiculousness,” I say, stealing a kiss, studying his long eyelashes up close. “Thank you for the fairy-tale humor though. It makes me laugh.”
A cute little smirk plays on his lips. “That’s the only reason why I do it.”
Eventually, we break apart and clean up.
Louis crawls back into bed with me and pulls me into his arms. I rest my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat slow down.
His warm breath brushes against my shoulder as he tries to take in every little detail of this moment.
He smells like sweat and sex and fresh soap.
I squeeze my thighs together and change positions so I can better see him. “Earlier, you said you’d never …”
“I hadn’t,” he finally says. “I’d never been with someone I could imagine forever with. It was important to protect the crown …” His words drift off, and he lifts his head to look at me.
I steal a kiss as he moves a lock of hair from my face. I can see the walls he’s torn down for me. Right now, we’re both experiencing that terrifying, exhilarating free fall of giving yourself to someone completely.
“You’re it for me, Addison. I’ve never wanted anything more. The night we first spoke, my soul found what it had been missing.”
I’ve had men tell me they loved me before. I’ve had proposals, promises, and pretty words designed to get me into bed or down an aisle. None of them ever made me feel like this. Louis and I recognized each other before we even knew what we were looking for.
“I felt that too,” I tell him, and my voice cracks. “I don’t know what’s going to happen or how we’re going to make this work.”
He kisses me, and when we break apart, I taste salt. I’m not sure if it’s from him or me.
Earlier this year, I was in New York, bored with my life, making resolutions about going with the flow. Now I’m in bed with a prince who just told me I was his queen. Life is weird, but oh-so beautiful.
“Do you think we’ll be able to be together?” I ask.
“Without a single fucking doubt,” he says, running his fingers through my hair. “Maybe it’s because I’m the crown prince or spoiled—call it whatever you want—but I always get my way, Addison.”
“Are you sure?” I meet his eyes.
“Positive. Otherwise, I’ll burn the world down. My parents know there is a part of me that takes too many risks. That part of me scares them. I will use it if I have to. In the end, it’s us, together,” he says matter-of-factly, and there’s no arrogance in it. It’s certainty and faith.
A soft smile touches my lips, and I want to believe him.
I want to believe that love is enough to overcome centuries of tradition, royal obligation, and a council of old men who think they get to decide who he spends his life with.
My heart tells me that we’re different, special, and wanting each other this badly means something.
Against all logic, against everything I know about how the world works, I choose to believe that this man will find a way to keep me.
An hour later, we wake up, realizing we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Immediately, we start kissing again.
Neither of us is able to get enough of this.
When he’s hard, I climb on top of him, taking every thick inch inside me.
This time, it’s more intense. I ride him with my hands on his chest, watching his face, watching how he watches me.
The friction of him gripping my hips and me rocking against him is too much.
I come again, and he follows soon after, spilling into me without hesitation.
I topple onto him, and he holds me in his arms.
My mouth is close to his ear as I try to find air.
“Stay with me tonight,” I whisper, not wanting this to end.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving, Addy.” He holds me against him. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Whatever happens next, whatever impossible obstacles we have to face, I know one thing for certain: I’m his, and he’s mine.
I won’t give him up without a fight.