“Rhys,” I call out as I feel the root of him against my clit and the length of him against my g-spot, over and over and I don’t know how much more I can take. I dig my nails into his back. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he pants as he fucks me harder. “I’d gladly die here, inside your wet cunt, if I could.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I chant as he drives into me harder and harder, my legs shaking around him with every thrust. “I-I need—”
“I know what you need,” he bites out roughly. “Because I need you too.”
“Yes, yes, need you so much,” I barely get it out while I hold tight to him and press my lips all over his face before my climax flashes through me and I come, clenching around his cock.
“Yes, fuck yes,” he groans as his thrusts become choppy. “I’ll never get enough of the way your tight cunt milks my cock… yes, just like that… fuck.”
And then he plunges deeper than ever before, one more time, and he jerks inside me, filling me with his cum.
Rhys holds me tight in his arms as his breath saws in and out of his lungs like he’s reluctant to let me go. I don’t want him to leave either but I’m going to have to get used to this life if I want to be with him. He’sright, there’s more at stake than just me and my tender feelings.
“I believe you said something about a plane to catch…”
Rhys huffs out a laugh and then presses a hard kiss to my lips. When he pulls back, he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and says, “You’re a menace.”
“Me?” I gasp. “I was innocently sleeping when you happened along. I think you’re the menace.”
“Aye,” he chuckles. “I am and if it gets you in my bed and my cock inside you on a regular basis for the rest of my life, I’ll gladly commit the crimes.”
“Rhys—” I whisper.
“I love you, hen,” he says as he climbs out of bed and pulls the covers back over me. I laze on my back and watch his beautiful form as he begins to search for his clothes.
“I love you too.”
At my words, he looks up at me with a soft, sweet look on his face, then shakes his head and chucks his clothes back to the floor. “Fuck, this is a lost cause now. I’m going to have to find something else,” he says, as he marches off to the dressing room.
I, on the other hand, snuggle back into the pillows, the warmth from the blankets and the morning orgasm loosening my bones, and I drift off to sleep.
When I wake up, he’s gone.
• ••
When I finally drag myself from bed, I shower and throw on some loungewear with plans to putter around the library with my cat. I’ve found no one spends any time in that amazing room and because of that, no one will look for me there. It’s a great place to hide.
I know that I can’t hide the entire time Rhys is gone, but I can take a day to shore up my courage before facing the house full of mercenaries without him. Tomorrow, I go to Saint Gertrude’s Animal Rescue at the sea. I already know it’s going to break my heart to see all of the cats and dogs with no homes and no one to love them.
I know exactly what that feels like. I have no home, no family, or I didn’t until now. For better or worse, Rhys is my family. He is my home.
I pick up the stick with the feathers and bells on the end and dangle it for Leo. I laugh as he jumps at it and stalks the cat toy. I made the right choice for how to spend my day. I feel lighter in my chest already.
“What do you think about a friend, Leo?”
“Merow,” he chirps as he swats at the toy.
This room of old books and trinkets, with my kitty, in this cold castle on the cliff—it’s not my home, but it could be, if I let it.
Chapter 10
Dogs and Cats and Royal Duties, Oh My!
Today is going to be a great day.
I know that I’ve lived my life quietly, and mildly, but it’s time to claim my destiny and my heritage. I wasn’t born to be a quiet woman, I was meant to live a different life, one born to a princess of her home nation. Destiny—and some of Rhys’s own machinations—has led me to be a queen.