Page 44
Story: Princes of Legacy
Usually her belly.
The loft has a strange smell. Old, like dust. There’s also an edge to it, metal and the tang of salt. Rust and paper. We’ve been here a week and no one is more surprised than me to find I miss home. Part of that is the professionally contained bedroom I can lock myself into, not to mention the impeccable medical facility built into the palace, but maybe what people say about the Princes is right. Perhaps we really are spoiled.
I missmysilk pillows.
As I’m dumping my bag and emptying my pockets, I watch her carefully. She goes to the fridge, swinging the door open to stare at the contents for a long moment. Verity does this new thing where she’ll pick at her lips when a craving hits her. She does it now, bottom lip pinched gently between forefinger and thumb as she gazes at the selection. I’ve had it stocked with vegetables, fruits, and easy proteins since our second day here.
Her chest swells and shrinks with a long sigh.
She opens the freezer.
My mouth twitches as I watch her work through the mental steps of what it is she wants. Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun, the back of her neck flushed. She’s been hot all day. She’s not hungry. We ate at the gym just two hours ago, with seventeen DKS members, twelve cutsluts, her mother, and Remington Maddox.
I kick off my shoes. “Ice cream.”
Without even meeting my gaze, her eyes pop wide, a delicate, longing ‘ooh’ floating off her lips. “Mint chocolate chip,” she moans. And then, with a pout, she lets the freezer door swing shut.
No, I don’t stock the freezer with ice cream.
“There’s yogurt,” I offer.
She cuts me a horrified look. “It’s not the same.”
“I’ll get some tomorrow,” I promise, unbuttoning my shirt.
She shrugs like she doesn’t care, watching as I collapse on the couch. A jaw-cracking yawn takes me, and I know there are things I need to do—brush my teeth, check the baby’s heartbeat, get her a pint of mint chocolate chip—but I can’t bring myself to do anything other than reach for my hair tie, letting my hair loose as my eyes flutter closed.
I hear more than see her shuffling around the room, the sounds growing closer.
The instant the weight of her presses into the couch against my hip, I reach for her, splaying my hand across her stomach. I don’t feel him moving. He must be resting. Maybe he had a long day, too.
“Can I ask you something?” The sound of her voice, small and confusingly fragile, is the only thing that could make my eyes flutter open. Her tired eyes stare back, fingers fidgeting with the hairband around her wrist. It’s only now that I realize she’s taken her hair down too, the red locks cascading over her shoulders.
My thumb sweeps soothingly against her belly. “Of course.”
She glances down, catching the motion of my hand, and stills it by placing her own hand on top. “Remember back when you were… making deposits?”
Something in me stirs at the quick flick of her eyes to mine. The timidness. The blush rising to her cheeks.
God, I want to feel her beneath me.
Haltingly, I answer, “Yeah.”
“Why did you…” A crevice appears between her eyebrows as she works through the stilted nature of her words. “Why did you always make me look at you?”
I blink, fighting the urge to pull my hand away. Instead, I squirm, clearing my throat. “I don’t know.”
She finally meets my gaze, leveling me with an unimpressed stare. “Yes, you do.”
With a resigned sigh, I think back to those long weeks. Most of the time, filling those syringes meant sitting in a dark room, desperate to get it over with—tocome—out of nothing but obligation and a fear of failure. There was no passion in it, only desperation and persistence. I’d think of her, of course. Sometimes, I’d have Pace pull me up a clip of her and Wicker. More often than not, I’d put myself in his place, imagining I was the one emptying my balls into her with the same untethered grunts.
But mostly, it was just a battle with my body, fighting to stay hard.
“Because if my seed took hold,” I begin, struggling to put something so absurd into words, “I wanted to know it was done with…moreof me than just a lousy nut into a specimen cup.”
Okay, it definitely sounds stupider when I say it aloud.
Looking up, I catch her watching me back, her head cocked curiously. “Why?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182