Waking His Princess Read online

  But he shoves his fingers deeper into my pussy, stroking that spot relentlessly, moving perfectly in time with his tongue, lavishing attention on my back hole as I’m bent over a dirty crate, totally at his mercy.

  I gasp and moan, hand scrabbling at the wood beneath me, but I don’t move. I don’t want to move, I want to let him do this forever because it feels incredible. In moments I’m at the edge, moaning like crazy, and finally Declan fucks me deeper with his fingers, his tongue just barely pushing inside me, and I come instantly, moaning and whimpering into the crate, my entire body shuddering with pleasure.

  But he doesn’t stop. I think he will, but he’s only encouraged to fuck me deeper, lick me harder, until I come again, gasping and shuddering into the top of the crate, biting my lip so I don’t moan his name.

  Then, finally, he stops. He pulls his dripping fingers from my pussy, leans over me, kisses the back of my neck.

  “Stand up,” he whispers, and I do, my whole body trembling, my skirt falling back around my knees.

  He holds his sticky fingers up in front of us, and I open my mouth obediently, excited. I like tasting myself, and even more, I like watching the way his eyes light up when I do.

  But instead he puts his fingers into his own mouth, sucking and licking my juices off, even as his other hand is on my ass, squeezing as he spins me around to face him.

  With his thumbs, he wipes the tear stains from my cheek, then lets his hand wander down my body until it’s under my skirt, stroking my bare hip.

  “I still want you tonight,” he murmurs.

  I nod, breathless.

  “Aurora,” he says, his lips close to mine. “I’m going to make you come every single way I know how.”

  I swallow.

  “Listening to you moan my name is like a drug,” he goes on. “I’m an addict. I can’t get enough of it. I can’t get enough of you.”

  “I’ll be there,” I whisper.

  “Good,” he says, suddenly backing away from me, back toward the door.

  I pull my tights up, past the juices that have run down my inner thighs, hoping that I don’t look too disheveled. Declan reaches for the door, and suddenly I remember why I came and found him out here in the first place.

  “Wait!” I hiss.

  He turns, amused.

  “Last night I got caught sneaking in, and Grayson knows,” I say.

  I tell him about our whole conversation, and slowly, his face moves from amused to stony.

  “We have to be careful,” I say, then gesture at the inside of the gazebo. “More careful than this.”

  He walks back to me, bends down, kisses me tenderly.

  “Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it.”

  I melt below his lips, already turning to mush yet again.

  Then Declan is out the door, back into the cold gardens.

  I take one deep breath, then two.

  I can’t believe what I just did, I think.

  Then I leave behind him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Declan

  For the next three days, Aurora is all I think about. She’s all I look at, the only thing I listen for in a crowd. My mind is on her, constantly.

  I fucking wish I was on her constantly, too, but sometimes I’ve got to leave the bedroom in the west tower, as much as I don’t want to. After all, I’m here to help my best friend celebrate his infant son, so I do show up to most of those events.

  Even if I’m fucking his sister and I shouldn’t be.

  Even if Grayson can never know that I fall asleep dreaming of climbing those stairs, seeing Aurora for the first time that night.

  Naked, facing the window, a little shy.

  Naked, sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

  Naked, lying back, fingers already working her clit, like she was last night. She moaned when she saw me, her pussy glistening softly in the moonlight as she rubbed herself faster. I made her stop, of course.

  Had her lie back on the bed, her head over the edge, and swallow my cock again while I teased her. Then I fucked her with one finger up her ass and she came twice, both times so hard I thought she might break my dick.

  So yeah, I’m having a lot of trouble thinking of anything else. Tonight, I’ve got a surprise in my pocket for her, something I can’t wait to watch her use. Something that’ll make her squirm.

  Something that’ll make her come.

  It’s the final night of Stefan’s christening week, and it’s the final gala. This one is being thrown by Aurora, in name at least, so she’s been unavailable all day, attending to minor details and answering questions that the staff is asking her.

  Of course, she’s not making centerpieces or hanging decorations herself. But she’s nominally in charge, which means that there isn’t even a moment for me to pull her behind a curtain and crawl beneath her skirt, which is a shame.

  I suffer through another day of festivities, through yet another banquet dinner where some girl tries to hang onto my arm, then shove her tits in my face during dessert.

  Normally, I’d be all over it. I’d pull her into a coat closet and have her on her knees in no time, but when she flirts with me, I’m just repulsed.

  And I’m watching Aurora, at the head of the table, laughing and being the perfect, stately princess that she was born to be. Every time our eyes meet my cock twitches, and I have to add fractions together in my head until my erection goes away.

  There’s another ball, of course. A final one, held again in the ballroom of the palace, which I’ve become tediously familiar with over the last week. I grab a glass of champagne with Kieran and Beckett, and we stand not far from the dance floor, near the bar, and watch Aurora and Bianca as they talk near the front of the room.

  “You two heading back home tomorrow?” I ask.

  They’re not princes, just aristocracy — though they’re certainly wealthier than nearly any member of a royal family I’m aware of. Hell, the two of them might both me richer than me, and that’s saying a lot.

  “I think so,” Kieran says, and then looks over at his best friend. “Think you can bear to leave just yet?”

  Beckett’s blatantly staring at Bianca across the room. The two of them have been mooning over her all week, taking every spare second to spend with Aurora’s sweet, innocent cousin.

  I’m tempted to tell them it’ll never work. They want a girl they can share, and no self-respecting princess would be caught dead with two men at once.

  But then again, I thought no self-respecting princess would beg to swallow my cock like Aurora did last night, so what do I know?

  “If we left for Griskold together, we could split the cost of a private jet and save ourselves some money,” Beckett says.

  They both burst out laughing.

  “I could use the company,” Kieran says, his gaze still lingering on Aurora’s cousin.

  Just then, a trumpet blows. It’s muted, but still very very loud, and everyone in the ballroom comes to attention immediately as Aurora, Grayson, and Stefan and Ella walk to a very elaborately decorated dais, an ornate chandelier casting a million sparkling lights onto it.

  For just a moment, I let my eyes crawl over her. There’s no way her father or brother can tell what I’m doing from here, so I stare at every inch of her perfect, luscious body.

  Knowing it’s mine. Knowing I was there first.

  Knowing I’ll be seeing her again tonight, thinking of the things I’ll do to her.

  Aurora’s wearing a black silk dress, floor length, that swishes with her hips when she walks. Though it’s scooped low in the back, it’s got a high neck, and even the way it hugs her curves isn’t particularly scandalous.

  It’s a perfectly demure dress, by itself. But it’s the way that she looks in it that makes it look positively wicked. It’s the way she walks, the way her body underneath it moves, that makes me think filthy thoughts about making her come with my tongue in her pussy and a finger up her ass while s
he moans my name.

  Again.

  And I’m back to adding fractions, praying that no one in attendance at this ball thinks that good champagne and conversing with Kieran and Beckett is what’s giving me a hardon so intense it might tear my pants.

  On the dais, Aurora air-kisses Ella, then air-kisses Bianca, Grayson, her parents. Finally, she makes her way up to a podium, standing tall and confident, looking around the ballroom like she owns the place.

  Which, of course, she sort of does.

  Her cool confidence here, the way she looks so sure of herself, like she knows exactly what to do, only makes me think of her other places, places where I’m still teaching her everything I can. And the way she looks so in charge now only reminds me of Aurora, on her back in the moonlight, sucking on one finger while she rubs her pussy and I tell her not to come, my eyes feasting on her beautiful body.

  “On behalf of the Naraltan royal family, I’d like to thank everyone for coming tonight,” she begins, her voice flowing over the crowd. “We’re so glad that you could all gather to help us celebrate the christening of my nephew, and I know that your continued presence in his life will be a blessing...”

  Aurora goes on, reading from the script that she wrote herself. It’s all very proper, very princess-like, but there’s also something about it that makes me possessive. Jealous.

  All these people are watching her and they don’t know she’s mine. They don’t know that after dark, I’m the one she comes to see. I’m the one she thinks about when she’s alone, the one who makes her eyes darken with lust, the one who makes her breathless with need.

  The one she wraps her arms around in the dark.

  I’m the one she fell asleep next to last night, her head burrowed against my shoulder. I’m the one who wrapped his arms around her and whispered that he never wanted to leave.

  Aurora’s mine. I’m hers.

  No one here knows that, and I hate it.

  “...And of course, Prince Stefan himself,” Aurora says, gesturing toward Ella, holding the baby.

  He’s asleep, but Ella makes him wave a little at the crowd.

  From above, there’s suddenly a loud creak, the sound of metal on metal, and everyone looks around, then shrugs.

  It’s an old palace — four hundred something years, so things make noise. It doesn’t seem like anything’s happened.

  “So please, enjoy the remainder of your stay with us, and once again, thank you all so much—”

  Up above Aurora, there’s a flash of light. A sparkle.

  The chandelier falls, silent and weighted, its crystal glimmering as it hurtles toward Aurora, still unsuspecting even as the assembled crowd gasps, then screams.

  “No!” I shout, but I’m rooted to the spot, unable to do anything in that split second but watch it fall, ice in my veins.

  At the last moment, Aurora jerks backward and then the chandelier falls with an excruciating crunch, tiny shards of glass and crystal flying twenty feet outward.

  One hits me in the face, but I don’t even notice. I’m already sprinting, running toward the dais, leaping up the stairs, heart in my throat.

  “Aurora!” I shout, shoving aside onlookers, my eyesight blurring. “Aurora!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Aurora

  “Oh!” I yelp as someone grabs my arm and yanks me backward. I trip over my own feet and land hard on my butt, one ankle folding underneath me.

  With shattering crash, a chandelier falls exactly where I was standing. Shards fly everywhere, and I close my eyes, turning my head away. There’s a vise-like hand still on my arm, holding me so tight I think my shoulder might dislocate.

  “Are you okay?” someone shouts as I look around.

  People are on the ground, bowled over in their chairs, the crowd backing away. Someone is screaming, a high-pitched, wailing sob.

  She’s hurt, I think, trying to wrench my arm free. Someone’s hurt, we should go help her, she might have been crushed—

  “Aurora!” a voice behind me shouts, and I swivel my head.

  It’s Grayson, his face completely terrified, hunched over me. When I look at him the hand on my arm relaxes, and some of the tension goes out of his face.

  “Are you all right?” he shouts over the hubbub of other people screaming, wailing, shouting.

  I flex my fingers and toes, slowly straightening my leg. My ankle’s a little sore where it folded underneath me, but overall, I’m right as rain.

  “I’m fine!” I shout.

  Grayson pulls me up. I’m still in shock, wobbly on my feet, especially in my heels. I grab a chair for balance, staring at the wreckage of the beautiful old chandelier.

  What happened?

  “Aurora!” another voice shouts. “AURORA!”

  It’s Declan, and he’s hurtling up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He shoves past people, leaps over the wreckage of the chandelier, and before I know it he’s crushing me in his safe warm arms.

  “Jesus,” he says, breathless. “Oh my god, Aurora, I thought you were— I mean it just—”

  He squeezes me tighter, his voice giving out. Even though my whole family is standing right here, I wrap my arms around him as well, leaning my head against his chest.

  I don’t care. I don’t care what they think, what they’re going to say later, what they’re going to try and do to us. Right now, it only matters that I’m okay and safe, and I’m in Declan’s arms.

  “I’m okay,” I whisper. “It’s fine. Grayson grabbed me.”

  “Thank you,” Declan says, his voice rough.

  Grayson just clears his throat.

  “Of course,” he says, his voice also foggy. “She’s my sister.”

  Declan squeezes me one more time, then releases me, his eyes shining with something deep and true. I nearly say something, even in front of my brother. I nearly kiss him, beg him to hold me, tell him how close it was and how glad I am that he’s here, right now.

  Just tell Grayson, I think.

  Tell him what?

  That you’ve been having sex with his best friend every night, that you let him take your virginity, but that you’re not even sure if you’re in a relationship?

  Well, that’s a stupid question. One look into Declan’s eyes right now and it’s answered.

  I swallow hard, swept away in the cacophony of the moment.

  “Grayson,” I begin. “I have to—”

  “Sweetheart, oh my God,” my mother says loudly, suddenly yanking me to one side, enfolding me in a massive hug. “Grayson, honey, thank God you were standing there to pull her out of the way, there wasn’t even a noise just nothing and then the next second whoosh...”

  She ends that sentence with a loud, hiccupping sob, then keeps talking, squeezing me tightly to her. Her necklace is digging into my chest, the smell of hairspray in my nose, but I can’t blame her. If I had a kid I’d probably be freaking out, too.

  A moment later, my dad is there. Ella’s standing nearby, bouncing Stefan, who’s screaming at the top of his lungs. People are standing, walking across the broken crystal, patting each other down. Making sure no one is hurt.

  I glance over my shoulder at Declan, standing at the periphery. There’s something unreadable in his eyes, something I don’t know how to translate as he stands back, giving my family space.

  I want to run over, grab his hand, drag him in, just tell everyone now while they can’t be angry, but something stops me and I don’t.

  “It’s the curse,” my mom is saying, tears running down her cheeks. “You’re nearly twenty, and that horrible witch said that you’d be dead by then—”

  “Malvina’s a lunatic, not a witch,” my dad says, one hand on my mom’s back. “Besides, remember how we went to that healer in the village in the mountains, and she said that she’d fixed it?”

  “She said Aurora would still get hurt,” my mom says, her eyes refilling with tears.

  “Mom, I’m fine,” I say, though I know it’s useless.


  “Malvina’s got as much power as a fart in a hurricane,” my father tells her, quietly.

  Grayson and I both startle, then exchange glances.

  Dad just said ‘fart in a hurricane’?

  Grayson bites the inside of his lip, trying not to laugh, and I have to look away from him before I do.

  “I know,” my mom mutters.

  “Let’s all go to the family sitting room and take a few minutes to calm down,” my dad says, guiding me and my mom toward the dais steps.

  I turn, my nerves still shaken and shot, obeying my dad, shoes crunching across the shattered crystal. I can’t help but notice that Declan is gone, not that I blame him.

  That night, I’ve got no intention of going to the bedroom in the west tower. I had a close call on my life today, and what I need to do is spend time with my family, then get a good night’s rest afterward.

  It doesn’t matter that I need Declan right now more than ever. It doesn’t matter that I’ve got an insatiable urge for him, that no matter how much he gives me I need more.

  It doesn’t matter that what I really want right now is to have my hair pulled, to be pushed down onto the bed, face down. I want him to shove my knees apart and growl something absolutely filthy in my ear, and I want him to fuck me hard and deep until I forget this ever happened.

  And of course, even if I go tonight, I’m sure Declan won’t. That was a close call earlier, so he’s probably being cautious right now. There’s heightened security around the palace, so it would be dumb and risky for him to come here.

  Plus, I need sleep. Plus, I shouldn’t go; plus, I should take it easy.

  But none of my reasons are good enough. None of them can overcome the desperate ache inside me, the insatiable need to see him now, the fact that I won’t feel whole or safe until he’s inside me.

  And so, just past midnight, I find myself climbing the tower stairs again, hoping against hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Two