Page 21 of Coronation (Royally Forbidden #1)
Eleven
Benedict
A quiet knock on the door of my study has me looking up, drawing my attention from the tedious task before me, a stack of orders I’ve spent the better part of two hours reviewing and signing.
My heart lifts as Zelda slips into the room, her hair arranged in the sort of knot she always seems to wear for meetings of her charity boards, a gentle smile playing on her lips at the sight of me. A set of rings glitters on her left hand.
“Husband,” she greets me, her gaze warm and playful as she closes the door behind herself.
I set down my pen. “Wife. To what do I owe the pleasure, so early in the day?”
Typically, we go off and spend our morning and early afternoons on our respective duties, before reconvening later in the day for our shared ones.
Not that I’d ever complain about a break in the routine.
Especially if her presence means an excuse to step away from the monotonous task put before me .
Zelda draws forward, her footsteps muffled on the thick, dark red rug which covers much of the floor in my study.
The moment she’s near my chair, I reach for her, pulling her down into my lap. She comes easily, twining her arms around my neck, and accepts a kiss with a happy sigh.
“Out with it,” I tease as I pull back to look at her. “Do you think I don’t know when you want something from me?”
Zelda rolls her eyes, a warm flush lifting on her cheeks. “I can’t just come see you? Purely for the joy of your company?”
If she were anyone else in the world, I would say no.
This woman is my wife, though, and not in the cold, political way I once believed inevitable for myself.
God, no. She is my best friend, the most important person in my life, and there isn’t a sliver of doubt in my mind that I fill that same role for her.
Fighting a laugh, I kiss her cheek. “You do that. Quite often. That isn’t why you’re here now, though.”
With a reluctant sigh, Zelda’s teeth find her bottom lip, and there’s a hint of worry in her gaze as she finally admits what brought her here.
“I’m ovulating.” Positioned as we are, there’s no way she misses the effect those two little words have on me.
Even so, she continues in a rush, eyes wide.
“I know we said we’d wait a little bit, and that’s still totally fine!
I just…” Her words fall away with a nervous little laugh, and she searches my expression.
My hold on her hip tightens. “But you don’t want to wait?”
The briefest pause, then Zelda shakes her head. She still looks apprehensive, but there’s no need for it. Damn me, I’ve never been able to deny this woman anything, and I don’t want to. Certainly not now, when she’s come to me with hope and worry in her eyes, asking me to give her a baby.
“We haven’t been married for long.” She hurries to assure me, “I don’t want you to feel pressured, or like this is some kind of deal breaker for me. If you want to wait, we’ll wait. ”
I love her.
I love her so much.
Leaning in close, I skim my lips over the shell of her ear, and my cock leaps at the sharp intake of air which comes from my stunning, young wife.
“If you want an answer, all you need to do is ask, darling.” Zelda trembles, her breathing uneven, and I would bet my entire fortune that if I were to press my hand between her legs right now, she would be soaking wet.
“Ben,” she whispers brokenly, as, unable to resist, I ease her creamy thighs apart to test the theory. I find her just as I expected: soaked.
Having this woman in my lap, squirming, horny, and eager, is quite possibly the biggest turn-on I’ve ever known. “Ask,” I tell her again as I begin to circle her clit through the damp material of her panties.
Zelda rocks into my touch, her breathing growing uneven under my ministrations. “Will you get me pregnant?”
Fuck, I’ve never been this hard. Excitement is coming to life beneath my skin as my fingers move faster, circling that tight little bud. “You want me to fuck you raw, wife? You want me to fill you up?”
Through her panties, I feel her cunt growing wetter as her arms tighten around me, her head bobbing up and down. “Yes!”
Gritting my teeth, I give her clit a sharp pinch, making her squeal in surprise. “Sit on the edge of my desk and spread your legs.”
Zelda is almost shaking as she hastens to do what I say, wriggling out of her satin panties and hopping up onto my fine wood desk, her bottom inches from the paperwork I spent the better part of the morning on.
I couldn’t give less of a damn. Especially when those legs part, showing me the pink, glistening cunt I’m about to fuck my cum into.
“Are you sure?” I ask roughly as I lower my zipper, reaching into my briefs to fist the base of my shaft. Already, my tip is slick with precum, evidence of how deeply this is affecting me. She has no way of knowing how long I’ve wanted this, or how much it means to me that she wants it, too.
My wife’s hands find my face, guiding my lips to meet hers in a kiss full of unspoken meaning. “Yes,” she breathes as we break apart, reaching between us to take my cock in hand, guiding me forward. “Please, Ben.”
She doesn’t need to ask again. I press forward, filling her, and my eyes squeeze shut, pleasure coursing up my spine as I attempt to get my raging lust under control.
When I open them again, however, I’m not in the same place.
Zelda is not perched on the desk in my study with her legs spread wide, my ring glinting on her finger as she begs me to get her pregnant.
She isn’t my wife.
It felt… It felt real . I stare at the ceiling, struggling to orient myself in reality as the dream fades, becoming less substantial the longer I’m awake.
Zelda’s warm body is draped over mine, her face nestled in the crook of my neck, with one hand resting on my bare chest, directly over my heart. We’re both naked.
There’s a noise, and with my mind still caught between sleeping and waking, it takes me a moment to recognize it as my phone vibrating on the wood table beside the bed.
I squeeze my eyes shut, gathering Zelda closer and willing the wretched thing to stop. It’s early, judging by the blueish light coming in through the lace curtains, and as the vibrating noise finally stops, I know I’ll be back to sleep in seconds.
Or I would if it didn’t start up again almost instantly.
My eyes snap open, irritation bleeding into my exhaustion as Zelda sighs, her thigh inching further up mine.
There is, quite literally, nothing on the planet that interests me even a fraction as much as staying naked in bed with her.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem likely that the person calling will quit if I don’t answer it this time.
There’s also the strong likelihood that, when they’re unable to get ahold of me, someone will be dispatched to ensure I’m still breathing.
That possibility has me gritting my teeth as I carefully shift to the side, easing Zelda back onto the mattress.
She lets out a sleepy moan, a line appearing between her eyebrows, which relaxes in the seconds I lay there, staring at her.
Even now, after I’ve spent two straight days in her presence, I still can’t quite believe that anyone as beautiful as Zelda Flowers exists.
Last night may have been the best of my life.
This woman is everything I never knew to want, and even if I did, I would never have imagined I’d be so lucky as to find her. It’s been so easy to get swept up in this, to lose myself in the dream that is Zelda Flowers, that I haven’t thought about what waits for us beyond this tiny window of time.
I do now, though.
As the phone stops vibrating, then starts up again seconds later, I tear my eyes from Zelda’s sleeping face.
A deep, hollow ache has appeared in the center of my chest. It expands as I get to my feet and cross to where the device is resting, and stare down at the name on the caller ID: Nelson Harrold: Private Secretary.
For a moment, I imagine walking to the open window and throwing the wretched thing out. It would be gratifying, watching it smash into a thousand pieces on the ground below. Or it would be if the destructive act would make any difference at all. It won’t, though.
I don’t look at Zelda as I pick up the phone and slip from the room, walking to the end of the hall before finally accepting the call.
“What?” I snarl, not troubling myself with civility.
“I apologize for the interruption, sir,” Harrold tells me calmly.
The man was hired simply because I found him the least obnoxious of all the candidates presented to me.
Unfortunately for both of us, I still can’t stand him, and my distaste for the sound of his voice has deepened with each unpleasant announcement he’s brought to my attention over my tenure as king.
Something tells me that this particular call might be enough to bring the miserable fuck over the line of wholly intolerable.
“You’re needed back in Wyngate as soon as possible. A highly unpleasant scandal has broken in the press regarding the prime minister, and he has scheduled a press conference for noon. It’s expected he will resign.”
The brand-new ache in my chest throbs as I swallow, the harsh reality of my situation with Zelda setting in as it never has before. I didn’t think about it, didn’t want to think about it, not when I like her so damned much.
The brutal, ugly truth is that for such a rich man, I have absolutely nothing to offer her.
A sitting monarch must gain approval from Parliament to marry a foreigner, and Parliament would never give their permission for me to take an American actress, sixteen years my junior, as queen.
Then there’s her job to consider, which is surely preferable to the suffocating existence I lead.
This isn’t simply a matter of incompatible lifestyles or the difference in our ages, not even my miserable fucking personality is the issue here. It’s The Crown. Just as it always has been. Just as it always will be.