“To watch you. To talk. I don’t know. I saw you going down the path, and I followed you. It was instinct.”
“It was curiosity because you still don’t trust me.” Nor should he, so I don’t blame him for that. My voice holds no bite to it. I don’t even know why I brought it up.
“I told you last night that I do.”
“Yes, but we both know that was a lie.”
He sighs and crouches between my spread legs so that he can see his fingers pumping in and out of me better. My pussyisn’t just open or exposed, it’s in his fucking face right there in daylight.
“Rowan, stop.” I try to push his hand away, but he catches my wrist and pins it to my side.
“Don’t push me away. Not again. Do you know how beautiful you are?”
The reverence in his voice catches me off guard. “No,” I reply honestly and without much thought. It’s not that I’m being self-deprecating or don’t think that my face is pretty enough. It’s just something that I never thought about for myself. One has to have a beautiful soul to be beautiful on the outside, and that’s not something I have. I’ve killed people who may or may not have deserved to die the way I was told they did. I’ll have to pay for that at some point, but I’m not beautiful.
My scars are my scars, but I know there’s nothing beautiful about them either.
“It bothers me how beautiful I think you are. How I can’t stop thinking about you. How you’ve become all I see when I close my eyes. I don’t like it, Marcella. I don’t like it at all.”
“It’s just my face?—”
“No. It’s more than that. It’s more than your face or your body. I don’t get it. I feel as though I know you, and yet I don’t.”
I huff out an annoyed breath. Right. It’s sex. “That’s another reason why this has to stop. This is the last time.”
Rowan chuckles mirthlessly, but his fingers haven’t stopped, and his other hand releases my wrist and glides to my breasts, where he cups and squeezes them.
“I think we both know that’s not how this is gonna go. Maybe we fuck each other till we get it out of our systems. Maybe that’s all this is. Just fucking. But I don’t wanna stop. Not yet. Not until I have to. I care about the other stuff, yet it doesn’t seem to be a deterrent.”
"What other stuff?" I ask softly, wondering where his thoughts are. His face is chaotic and hard to read.
“I don’t know, Marcella. I’m going crazy with you. I want you to the point of madness. Not just your body. Your mind too. But you hold it all back, and you’re right, I don’t trust you. I know what’s written in a background report. I know what it says about your family, about your qualifications, but I don’t know anything aboutyou. You don’t talk about yourself. You don’t talk about your past, which we both know is extensive. You don’t tell me anything.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh, the sound harsh and sardonic, even as his fingers have me breathless. “You want to know about me? You actually care?”
He glares up at me from between my legs. “Yes, mia stella, I actually care. In case you haven’t realized it yet, I’m starting to care far more than I should.”
That trips me up, and my eyes close and my hands cover my face. Because I want what he’s saying to be true. It hits me like a sledgehammer, or a cane to the back as it is for me, but it’s there. I want what he’s saying to be real.
“I can’t talk to you about this while you’re doing that.”
Surprisingly, he stops, his fingers pulling out of me, though he doesn’t move his position or his hand from my chest, even if it’s now just resting flat against me.
“Go ahead,” he prompts.
“Rowan, I’m not somebody you want to get involved with. I don’t know if this is just sex to you, if you’re trying to fuck a servant and get that little piece of slumming-it fun out of your system, but I’m not the girl to do this with.”
“Why not?” he asks softly.
My lips form a straight line. I’m already revealing too much, and it’s likely because he’s crawling into places he shouldn’t be going, and I’m not talking about the fact that he’s inches from my pussy in broad daylight. He’s been crawling there for months. Even in his absence, in the months where I didn’t see him, didn’t speak to him, I still thought of him.
It was impossible not to. I knew I would, especially once the plan began and they brought me to the palace to work.
I’m a servant, and he’s a prince. Cinderella to Prince Charming. Only there’s no glass slipper or happily ever after for us. We’re what happens when midnight never ends. There is no us in the light of day, out in the open for all to see.
The reality is, he’ll outgrow me soon enough.
He’s Prince Rowan after all.