Chapter 8
Scared
Two weeks later…
Icouldn’t tell you what it was that scared me.
It wasn’t one specific thing or another, but a culmination of things.
I swear, I can feel someone watching me at all times, even while I sleep, which seems ridiculous.
But if I had a nickel for every time someone has tried to kill me, I’d only have two nickels but it’s still weird that it’s happened twice.
I’m jumping at shadows and hearing whispers where there aren’t any, and to make it all the worse, the coronation is closing in on me.
I have dresses and orders and oh my God, I’m going to have to have sex in front of a room full of people.
I want to throw up just thinking about it.
Then there’s a secret part of me that thrills at the thought of what happened in the office.
There were people in the room, but somehow Rhys still made what should have been awkward, all about me… and I liked it.
But then notes started appearing…
I thought the first was crazy. An anonymous fan in a crowd handed me a bouquet, which is far from unusual.
Normally, I would accept a few as I moved down the line and then when it became too cumbersome to carry, I would pass the bundle off to a royal aide.
There was something about this particular bundle, as I worked my way down the line, that called to me to look at it.
And when I did, I was shocked. Written in neat scrawl, it just said:
Get out while you can.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rhys had said. “We get threats all the time, it’s best not to look at them, but to let the royal aides report anything off putting to Leo as the head of your security.”
“But don’t you think we should take this seriously?”
“We take everything seriously,” he said making me feel like nothing was serious at all. “This is just part of royal life.”
Sure, sure, only my royal life is going to be shorter than I’d hoped because someone keeps trying to fucking kill me.
· · ·
The next note is in the pocket of a coat I haven’t yet worn.
I dressed from a selection hung on the valet rack for me to go out into the community ahead of Rhys’s coronation.
Maeve has been amazing about seeing to my fashion and comfort whenever I’m away from home.
At home, I choose to hide out in the coziest loungewear I have, as if it can calm my mind.
So imagine my surprise when I pulled on a coat on my way out the door to another pre-coronation engagement that when I slipped my hands into my pockets to keep them warm on the way to the car, I felt the crisp edges of folded paper.
At that moment, my heart sinks because I know that this was not a secret love note.
Rhys wouldn’t be so careless with something so private, something that could be picked up by anyone and sold to the highest bidder.
For all his faults, he’s pretty good about protecting my privacy when away from public duty.
Leo holds the door open for me and I nod my thanks to him with a wooden smile on my face. I know it’s fake, he knows it’s fake, but neither of us is willing to break the silence until we’re safely in the car.
The driver holds the door open for me until he’s replaced in his position by Leo, their movements like a synchronized dance as they come together to provide protection and coverage for me.
I slide onto the seat and buckle my seat belt as he closes the door behind me.
Leo opens the front passenger door and climbs in, securing his door.
He turns around to look at me. “Everything all right, ma’am?”
“Of course,” I answer. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“No reason, I suppose,” he says before turning to the driver for the day and we begin to pull through the drive.
I carefully slide my hand into my pocket so as not to be noticed and pull out the folded piece of paper. As soon as I open it, I wish that I hadn’t. It makes my stomach turn and bile crawl up the back of my throat.
You think that you’re safe but you’re not.
The small slip of paper crumples in my hand.
I want to throw it away, throw it out the window, something, anything, but part of me rejects that idea.
Acting in haste isn’t my best move right now.
I could show it to Leo, but he reports to Rhys, not me.
I’m just a piece on the board that Rhys rules and he has already made it clear that I’m not going anywhere.
I could show it to Rhys. He would be furious for sure, with me and whoever sent them.
But what can he do other than more security?
I love down time with comfy clothes, books, and my kitty, Leo, but on my terms. Being locked down against my will is not something that I’m a fan of or ever see myself growing attached to.
I’ll have to hold on to it and figure out what to do with it later.
It’s the best that I can manage in the moment. For now, I’ll have to make my brittle smile seem more real because for however long I’m alive, this is my job and I’ll do it the best that I can.
· · ·
“Hey you,” Rhys says as he finally climbs into bed. It’s late.
When my protection detail dropped me off this afternoon, I washed my face, brushed out my hair, and put on a pair of sweats.
Sure, they’re expensive from some luxury athleisure brand that all the upper crust rave about, but right now I’d kill to have my college sweatshirt and knock off leggings from the rainforest app.
I knew Rhys was working late, he has been since we got back, and I’m fine with it.
I need to be able to be on my own in this new life.
In fact, I like the quiet alone time, it lets me reflect and process all that’s happened.
I’m not sure there will ever be enough time in the rest of my lifetime to reflect on and make peace with all that I’ve learned and experienced in the last couple of months.
That’s not even unpacking the fact that my parents’ plane crash wasn’t an accident and they weren’t archeologists.
“Hi,” I whisper.
Rhys rolls me over and presses his lips to mine and then his mouth is gone as he whisks my sweatshirt over my head and cool air hits my heated skin.
He curls over me, covering me with his naked body and I cradle his hips between my thighs. His hard length presses against me.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he whispers in my ear. His voice is husky and deep and sends a shiver down my spine.
“It’s okay.”
“I missed you,” he says before pressing his lips to the side of my neck on that spot below my ear that makes me a little starry eyed. “Did you miss me?” He sinks his teeth into the side of my neck, just enough to make me arch against him and for my breath catch in my throat.
He leans back, sliding my tank top over my head and leaving me bare to him. He kisses his way down my chest before pulling my nipple into his mouth while he plumps its twin, his thumb teasing at that nipple. It’s too much stimulation all at once and my core clenches.
“Mhmm,” he purrs as he licks around my nipple. “If I touched you now, would you be wet for me, hen?”
“Yes,” I pant as he pulls the peak deep into his mouth and sucks at it hard again.
“I wonder if you could come just like this,” he says, and I don’t wonder at all because I will if he keeps going and I’m not even sure that I’m fully awake yet.
I was mostly asleep when he found me, not that it was much of a hunt, but I’m in our bed where I’m supposed to be.
He’s the one who wasn’t. “I bet you will. I bet if I peeled down these pants and slid my fingers through your cunt, you’d be sopping wet for me, wouldn’t you? ”
“Yes,”
“I’d love to watch you come like this, but I find that I hate the idea of your delicious pussy empty and squeezing around nothing when she could happily come on my fingers or my tongue or my cock.
” He bites the tip of my nipple, sinking in with his teeth.
There’s an edge to the way that Rhys makes love to me tonight and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a great thing.
“Rhys,” I plead. For what, I don’t know. I only know that I need him to stop the ache that he’s built inside of me.
He grabs the waste of my pajama pants and yanks them down my legs, tossing them aside like they’ve offended him.
Before I have a chance to settle back in place, he thrusts two fingers inside me, stretching me.
It’s too much. I’m too full. But he was right, I’m soaking wet for him as he pumps into me, striking the spot inside me that only he knows.
I grip his forearms, to hold on, to slow him down, I don’t know, because I’m hurtling toward a climax and it’s going to be huge. It doesn’t wash over me but detonates through me and I cry out his name.
“Rhys.”
“That’s it, hen,” he says as he slips his fingers from me. He smacks my hip and says, “On your knees.”
My whole body shakes with aftershocks as I roll over and I see him lick his fingers clean of my cum like that cat that got their cream.
“Up, up,” he orders softly as he taps my hips and I rise up on my knees with my weight on my hands and forearms.
Rhys nudges my thighs wider before he wraps his hands around the bottom of my cheeks and uses his thumbs to spread me open for him before he spears me with his tongue.
I have to grip the bedding in my hands and bury my face in the soft cotton to keep from crying out as he devours me.
Just when I think I can’t take any more, Rhys covers my back with his body and drives deep inside me, pulling a gasp from when I feel just how deep he is.
Rhys has been gentler with me since our wedding. This is not that as he plants a fist in the bed and wraps his free hand around the base of my throat, owning me, as he guides me up onto my knees, holding me suspended as he plunges into me.
“Do you feel me, hen?” he asks, his voice rumbling against the shell of my ear. His scruff bristles against my cheek as he pulls my earlobe into his mouth and bites down. “Do you?”
“Y-yes,” I reply as he thrusts become a staccato response.
“Feel me filling you,” he says as he moves again. “Feel me deep inside your tight cunt.”
“Yes,” I gasp as he holds me captive, open to him and whatever he wants to do to me, whatever he wants me to feel.
He slowly glides his palm downward, from my throat to my chest to between my breasts.
Down, down, down my belly and over my mound to between my thighs where he’s entering me over and over and pressing in on my clit.
My head falls back to his chest. I’m his doll to play with, none of my movements are my own.
Rhys controls me completely at this moment.
“Feel where we come together,” he growls as he moves faster and faster inside me. His fingers at my clit circle over and over, driving me closer to the edge. “It’s just you and me.”
“Yes, yes,” I cry out as I grab onto his wrists.
He holds me, one arm banding across my body and the other at my pussy, trying to keep me upright while my orgasm crashes over me.
“Just you and me,” he repeats as he drives up into me over and over.
He fucks me through my climax as he guides me back down to my belly, my hips still in the air with my knees beneath me.
He covers me with his body again, drawing my hands into each of his, intertwining our fingers and holding me tightly while he ruins me. “Always.”
“Always.” I cry out as he drives into me, rocking the bed against the wall.
His hands tighten around mine with the admission that was involuntarily ripped from me. Somehow, I’ve become part of an us, a one, a unit. A couple.
Once upon a time, it was just me and now that there’s an us, I know I will feel him inside of me, not just my pussy, but my heart and my soul, for the rest of my days.
He drives harder and faster, striking that place inside me that sends me over the edge. I clench around him and he groans out, “Fuck, I love the way you grip my cock and come all over it. Feel it.”
I have no reply because I can’t. I just hold on as all of my senses short circuit, and everything whites out for a second. Rhys’s movements turn jerky until he plants himself deep inside me and groans as he comes.
He holds me tight in the protective circle of his arms, his softening cock still inside me, and for a moment, I forget how truly terrifying our life together is.
Or maybe, how terrifying my entire life has actually been, though without my knowledge.
But now it all comes rushing back in like a rubber band that’s been stretched too far and all it can do is snap back with a jolting crack.
He rolls us to our sides so we can settle in more comfortably. He pulls away from and out of me for a second to grab the covers and pull them over us as he settles back in behind me, tangling his legs with mine and holding me tight.
“It’ll all be okay,” he says as my brain flits to threats and attempted murders and dangerous political alliances.
“Yeah,” I reply as he relaxes and begins to drift off.
But it’s a lie. I’m feeling anything but okay.
In fact, I’m fairly fucking scared.