17. Noah
NOAH
“WHAT ARE YOU smiling so big about?” Violet called out after me as I rushed by her later that day, eager to get upstairs by five forty-five on the dot. I hadn’t even noticed she’d been standing there, so lost was I in my own thoughts, and I definitely hadn’t realized I’d been smiling.
I schooled my face and glanced at her over my shoulder, slowing my steps only slightly. “Nothing.”
“I saw you smiling earlier today too when you dropped off the king’s dry cleaning. Not exactly a fun task.”
“I didn’t realize I was,” I said, mentally kicking myself, but how could I help it? Nicholas had been on my mind all day. I’d been counting the minutes until I got to see him again and reliving every interaction we’d ever had…especially this morning. And last night.
“Maybe I’m just glad I haven’t given Mrs. Stuart a reason to throw a loaf of bread at me,” I said, winking at Violet.
That made her chuckle, and she shook her head as she continued on toward the kitchen. “There’s still time,” she said over her shoulder.
I waited until she turned the corner to check my watch. Five forty. I was still on time.
This time as I started up the back stairs, I managed to keep the huge smile off my face, even though my insides were vibrating with anticipation. After last night I thought for sure it was over, and I’d wake up this morning with a position somewhere else in the palace.
Even as I readied everything for him this morning, I’d fully expected to be dismissed, if only because it would be too intimate, too hard, to be in such close confines and not act on what was happening between us.
I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around it. The ice-cold man I’d met was nothing like the real Nicholas. And when he’d told me I was the only one he wanted to talk to, to be with…
How could I resist that? I didn’t want to. Even if it meant living in a fairy tale a little bit longer.
I was almost to the top of the stairs when someone grabbed my arm suddenly and yanked me into—the wall?
No, there was some sort of opening, and I was being pulled into the dark, up against a body, and then a door quietly clicked shut behind me.
“What the—” My words cut off as a dim light turned on and Nicholas’s sly grin came into view.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said, as I struggled to pick my jaw up off the floor.
Surely I was imagining this, still lost in my thoughts as I headed up to his room, because there was no way Nicholas was here, in some secret room off the servant’s stairs that I’d never noticed.
“You…you can’t be downstairs,” I said.
“I’m the king. I can be anywhere I like.”
I glanced at the door and then back at him. “Is this some secret passage only kings know about?”
“Well, Gabriel and I made it our mission to find all the hidden corners of this place when we were kids.”
“This is making more sense now. Getting into mischief even then.” I ran a finger down over the blue suit I’d pulled out for him a few hours earlier, and he put his hand over mine, holding it against his chest. I could feel his pulse, faster than usual and probably matching mine.
The fact that he’d done this, snuck down here because he couldn’t wait to see me, had me not wanting to waste another second.
I launched myself forward, stealing his lips in a kiss I’d been aching for all day. If he was surprised, it only lasted a heartbeat, and then he was kissing me back, responding with an urgency that shot sparks through my whole body.
I had no idea what this room had been used for in the past, but it was small, barely enough room to stumble a couple of steps back into the wall—only it was His Majesty that I had pushed up against it, and he didn’t seem to mind at all.
I caged him in, pressing my body up against his, feeling his dick harden against my thigh.
“You taste like tea and honey,” I whispered against his mouth, that delicious mouth that I couldn’t stop myself from tasting again. I knew his schedule, knew he’d just come from a meeting over tea that one of the housemaids had brought up an hour ago.
I licked inside his mouth, and we devoured each other like it’d been days and not hours since we’d last seen each other. The fact he’d come to find me when I’d only been minutes from entering his chambers was a true testament to the fact that he wanted this, wanted me, just as much as I wanted him.
It was a fact I was still trying to wrap my mind around, one I knew not to linger on, because if I thought too hard about who it was I was pressed up against in this room, I would bolt like all the times before.
I smoothed my hands down the lapels of his suit to the buttons and flicked them open, wanting to get closer. Then I shoved the material aside and slid my hands around his waist to his ass. His low groan made my cock throb as he arched into me, and I rocked up against him, wanting the friction.
“Noah…” he said on a ragged breath as he tore his mouth free. I could still smell his cologne from earlier that morning as I kissed and sucked my way along his warm skin. “Yes. God, yes. Keep going.”
I nuzzled my nose in under his ear. “Wouldn’t you rather go to your chambers?”
Nicholas reached for my hips and pulled my body to his, rubbing his stiff cock against mine. “I don’t want to go anywhere that requires letting you go.”
I flicked his lobe with my tongue and brought a hand between us, flattened my palm over his erection, and rubbed up and down.
“Fuck,” he muttered, grinding into my palm.
“You like that?” I whispered by his ear.
“So damn much. Undo them.”
My heart thundered at the order. There was something so sexy about making such a regal man come undone. Nicholas was forgetting all proper etiquette and throwing caution to the wind.
He turned his head on the wall and locked eyes with me. “I want to feel your hands on me.”
I leaned forward and nipped at his lower lip as I reached for the button of his pants. It popped free, and Nicholas sucked in a breath as I drew the zipper down.
He was anticipating every move I made. How I’d kiss him next. Touch him. His heart thundered with it, and when I finally slipped my hand inside his briefs, he cursed.
The sound flipped some kind of switch for both of us. I captured his mouth in a fervent kiss, one that heated me from the inside out, as I wrapped my fingers around his rigid length and squeezed.
I couldn’t get enough of him. The taste of him made my cock strain against the tight confines of my tailored pants. His thick length was hot and velvety in my hand as I began to stroke him.
Nicholas had one hand on my ass and moved the other to the back of my neck to hold me to him, gripping the back of my hair as he angled his head to get a deeper slide into my mouth.
Jesus. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so ravenous for another. But the more he kissed me, the more I wanted. I felt greedy as hell. I was seconds away from spinning him around and pulling his pants completely free.
But I wasn’t sure how much time we had, wasn’t sure how secure this room was. Hell, I didn’t even know what this room was. So the least I could do for us was give him some sense of privacy and keep him behind me as I grazed my thumb over the head of his cock.
“Ah, fuck, Noah.”
“Use my hand,” I whispered. “Fuck my fist, Your Majesty.”
“Is that an order?” Nicholas’s chest heaved against me, his eyes dark and dilated as he stared into mine, and I knew it wouldn’t take him long.
“Yes. I want to watch you come.”
He growled and gripped my hip and lapel, thrusting forward and shoving his sticky cock through my fist. I braced a hand on the wall and, as he started to drive forward, shoved my tongue between his lips and captured every sound that escaped him.
It was one of the most intimate and erotic moments of my life. It was also completely forbidden on every level, which made everything even more intense.
We both knew we were stealing this moment, that we were tempting fate by being together like this. One wrong look, one wrong word, and his engagement to the Prince of Solterra would end—not to mention that I would be out of a job.
But no matter how hard we’d tried to walk away, we always seemed to find ourselves back in each other’s arms.
“Noah, I’m—”
“I know. I want you to.” He licked his lower lip, and I kissed up his jaw and told him, “It would be my pleasure. Sir. ”
“Fuck.”
Nicholas’s hands tightened on me and his hips punched forward, thrusting his cock into my fist. I pumped him until he was in a frenzied state, bucking his hips against me, and then he arched forward from the wall and bit into the shoulder of my livery jacket, his tall body tense as cum shot into my hand and he began to shake, the wave of ecstasy sweeping him up and then under in one giant wave.
My jacket muffled his groan as the warmth of his arousal coated my hand. It was even hotter than in my fantasies, because no matter how wild my imagination, I never would’ve pictured Nicholas stealing me into a forgotten room downstairs and coming all over my palm.
It was the sexiest moment of my life.
I slowed my strokes and Nicholas lifted his head to kiss me, a slow, languid melding of the mouths that was both a thank you and a promise for another time.
My cock jerked with interest, even though we were already risking getting caught if we stayed here any longer. But I wasn’t going to be the one to walk away, not this time.
“Incredible,” he murmured against my lips.
“Yes,” I said. “You are.”
He pulled back to look at me, and God, he was even more gorgeous with his lips swollen and eyes dazed. How the hell would he be able to walk out of here without anyone noticing?
How would I? Surely I looked just as wrecked, and his cum still dripped from my hand.
Nicholas glanced down between us and tucked his cock back into his pants. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and reached for my hand.
“Wait, no—” I started when I realized what he was doing, but he apparently moved faster than my lust-addled brain, and wrapped the jacket around my hand to wipe it off. “Just how do you plan to explain cum on your jacket, sir?” I teased.
“The king doesn’t have to explain anything.”
“So there are perks to being the man on top.”
“Maybe you can tell me the first time we spend the night together.”
It took half a second for his words to penetrate my brain, but once they did…holy shit.
He chuckled softly at the look on my face before leaning in for another kiss. Then he folded his soiled jacket and hung it over his arm. “I have to go, but I’d like to continue this conversation later…in my chambers.”
I would’ve agreed to anything then. “I’d like that…Nicholas.”
He stroked my cheek, giving me one last look, and then he flicked off the light. Seconds later, a door opened, and he was gone.