Chapter 2 – Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
Two Months Later
“How did you have this place and never use it?” Bellamy asks, her body elongated on a beach blanket like a cat, arms and legs stretched out, back slightly arched as she stretches out.
“Cursed,” is all I say because I’m too distracted by her gorgeous ass and supple tits in her red bikini to form a proper response.
Still, the answer is no less true. My family has been cursed for centuries.
Cursed practically since the inception of Messalina, back during the height of the Roman Empire.
A curse that stole my sisters and father.
A curse that took Nora, my first queen.
It wasn’t until Bellamy and I fell in love that everything changed.
Our love is what finally broke the curse. At least according to my brother, Rowan.
Before Bellamy entered our lives as my children’s nanny, we were destined for a life of heartbreak and loss. Though if you ask Bellamy, she’d say there was never a curse to begin with.
Regardless, she did more than save us. She brought me back to life. She made me believe in love when love was the last thing I ever imagined possible as both a man and a king. My father used to call it a weakness, a vulnerability to the throne.
I call it the missing piece that gives me the strength to lead, the heart to care, and the peace and happiness I never knew I didn’t have until she came along.
And now she’s pregnant with our twins.
“Well, it’s heaven,” she murmurs, her eyes closed, and a sweet, contented smile across her lips. “To have an island like this and not use it is a crime.”
“Plenty of people use it. It’s one of the largest tourist islands in the world. Just not for us. This honeymoon is the first time I’ve left mainland Messalina since Nora’s death.”
She frowns, her eyes slashing open only to squint against the blazing sun as she slides her sunglasses on top of her head. Her fingers glide along my chest, over the nearly healed scar Samil gave me, her smile twisting into a frown.
“It’s done,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says on a quiet breath, her eyes still on my scar.
Mine are on the thin white line along her neck, also from Samil’s blade.
I can only pray it is done. The thought of anyone coming after or hurting Bellamy ignites a fire within me that’s fueled by both fear and bloodthirst. That’s why I wanted Samil for myself.
It wasn’t only because he took down Nora’s helicopter.
It was because he went after Bellamy.
She and my children are my greatest weaknesses, and Samil knew it. He used that to his advantage. And I already know he’s not my only enemy out there. It’s why we’ve taken precautions. Bellamy as well as the children all wear tracking anklets in addition to Bellamy having tracking on her phone.
“Do you think we can come back sometime with the children?” she asks, her smile re-forming and dragging me away from my dark thoughts as she rolls onto her side and props her head up with her hand.
I reach out and stroke the small bump sitting just above the red line of her bottoms. I can’t feel them moving yet, but, oh, how I long for that. Just looking at how stunning my wife is pregnant makes my dick hard.
My babies. Inside my wife.
“With all five or just the three for now?”
“However you want it to be, Your Majesty.” She bats her eyelashes prettily at me.
“Are you baiting me?” I question, tossing words out to her that I know she immediately recognizes.
We didn’t have the best start. She pushed all my buttons, enjoying every second of how easy I was to rile up.
The first second I laid eyes on her, I knew I was in trouble.
I knew this sexy, beautiful, intelligent, witty, and kind woman would upend my life, and I wasn’t wrong.
“I might be.” She gives me a playful wink, only to shoot back from me when I reach out to haul her against me. “Uh-uh. If you want me, you have to catch me.” She laughs, jumping to her feet and running for the sea, already knowing I’ll chase.
How could I not want to catch that?
Bellamy skips over a few small, rolling waves as she splashes through the clear water. The high sun reflects off her creamy white skin, her dark hair flying every which way. I’d do anything to hear that laugh and see that smile every moment of every day for the rest of my life.
Anything for her to forget what happened with Samil.
She’s been having nightmares and trouble sleeping but brushes it off anytime I bring it up. She doesn’t want to talk about it, and I get that. Frankly, I don’t either, so seeing her happy and carefree is everything.
The waves gently lap at the shore as I come charging toward her, kicking sparkling pools of water high up into the air.
“Stop!” she shrieks, retreating farther, her hands outstretched toward me. “No! I thought the beast was gone.”
A wicked smile curls up the corners of my lips.
“Oh, baby, you should know by now that the beast is never gone.” The words are hardly past my lips when I make my move, faking left when I go right.
It throws her off, giving me an extra second’s advantage, and I catch her legs, scooping her into my chest bride style exactly the way I carried her over the threshold on our wedding night.
I bury my face in her neck and lick her, tasting salt and her sweet skin. “Do you yield?”
“You’ve literally swept me off my feet and you’re asking if I yield?” She rolls her eyes at me. “Of course the answer is no. You should know by now that’s not something I do.” She tosses my words back at me.
“Now you’ve done it.”
Without warning, I drop us both into the waves. She belts out a scream as the cool water rises to meet us, and we’re both soaked with only our heads and necks above the surface as I sit down on the sand beneath the waves.
“It’s cold!”
I chuckle. “Not that cold.”
“Oh yeah?” she challenges. “Are you telling me if I reached into your bathing suit, I wouldn’t find your balls the size of raisins?”
I choke out an incredulous laugh. “Raisins? My balls are never the size of raisins. Besides, the water is warmer in the summer. We just happen to have come here in the winter.”
“Remind me the next time I get married and go on a honeymoon to do it in a place where the water isn’t sixty degrees.”
I pinch her ass hard under the water until she squirms against me. “Next time?” One eyebrow curves up. “There will be no next time and there will never be another man. If it’s up to me, I’ll get you pregnant with my children every chance I get.”
In a flash, I lift us both out of the water and walk us back to the beach until I have her pinned beneath me on the blanket.
There are royal attendants lurking somewhere about, but mostly they give us privacy out here.
It’s an empty beach and it’s just us. And frankly, right now, I don’t give a fuck if they see. It’s my honeymoon.
The first one I’ve actually wanted to be on.
“Your threats don’t scare me,” she taunts, her blue eyes bright and clear as she stares up into mine. “I happen to love your children. Even the ones who biologically aren’t mine.”
My heart turns to a puddle at her feet. Never has a man been so in love with his wife as I am with mine.
“But you do realize,” she continues, “I have a lot of birthing years ahead of me, so at some point, I’ll have to take steps so we don’t end up with twenty kids.”
“Hmm. Let’s see how these two go and we’ll figure it out from there.” I have to remind myself sometimes how young she is. Barely twenty-two and now a queen to a man fifteen years her senior.
I lower my body, mindful of her belly when I press some of my weight onto her. Our noses brush and I kiss her lips. “You’re my queen. The mother to my children. The mother to all my children.” I pause, staring down into her stunning blue eyes. “The love of my life.”
I shift, my fingers grazing over the heart diamond sitting at the base of her neck as I start to remove her bikini top.
“Here?” she hisses, her head whipping around.
I grin against her lips as I move in for a kiss. “We have topless beaches in Messalina, sweetness.”
“I’m also American and we mostly do not.”
I laugh. “What does that have to do with anything? You are the queen of this country and therefore a Messalinian. Hate to break it to you, but you are no longer an American.”
“Tell that to my accent and the press.”
My brows furrow and my hands press into the blanket on either side of her head as I peer down at her. “What on earth are you speaking of?”
She rolls her eyes as if the answer is obvious. “You read the papers. I know you do.”
“You think I care what the press has to say? They will always have an opinion, and yes, you’re American by birth, and yes, you’re younger than I am.
But it’s their job to say bullshit simply to bring about drama otherwise they won’t sell papers, and no one will subscribe to their news.
When we return home, unfortunately, we’ll have to start making public appearances, both with the children and without.
Then, they’ll see everything I see and fall just as in love with you as I am. ”
She curls into me, her body small and warm and perfect. “They don’t even know about the twins yet, but once they learn, they’ll think that’s why you married me.”
I knew this was her concern and it’s not unfounded. She was pregnant when I proposed, though neither of us knew it at the time.
“Do you trust me?” I ask instead of addressing any of that because it’s futile. They will speculate that I married my nanny because I knocked her up. Only they couldn’t be more wrong. And frankly, I’m the king. I don’t have to care.
“Yes,” she says easily, and my heart pinches in my chest. Without her trust, I have nothing. Without her trust, this doesn’t work.
“Then you trust that as your king and husband, I will protect and love you. The media will talk because it’s interesting gossip. But once they see you as the queen, all that will change.”