Page 51 of Coronation (Royally Forbidden #1)

Thirty-Two

Zelda

I ’d known it was coming.

Try as I might to deny it, this has been building for weeks, the undercurrent of desire changing the flow of every moment we’ve had together.

Whether we were fighting it, or ignoring it, or allowing ourselves to get swept away, just for a moment, this was always coming; it was just a question of when.

Every time he touched me tonight, or leaned in to speak quietly in my ear, or looked at me, I knew.

By the time we leave the gallery, I can barely breathe. Ben keeps me close, sweeping us both past the storm of reporters and into the waiting car, a tension in his body that seems to be carrying into my own.

The driver has only just closed the door behind us, the darkened window showered by the flashes of dozens of cameras, and their muffled voices are still audible through the thick glass. Ben doesn’t seem to give a damn.

He turns in his seat, his hungry features only half visible in the darkened space as he wraps his hand around the back of my neck, dragging my lips to meet his with such urgency it steals the air from my lungs.

I respond instantly, my hands flying to his shoulders as my cry of surprise is muffled by our kiss. Any reservations I had, any reasons I had for keeping him at arm’s length, and any pretense that we could ever be anything less than this … they’re gone.

The console between our seats is in the way, though, and Ben groans his approval as I push him back, swinging a leg over his lap just like I did earlier. We dive for each other, making out frantically as I grind myself down on the stiff bulge that’s straining against Ben’s trousers.

It’s only been a few seconds. The car hasn’t even pulled away from the curb yet, and we can still hear the voice of reporters and photographers beyond the tinted window. Insulated in the dark back seat, though, I’m already aching for him.

Ben’s hands find my ass, digging into the flesh without apology, and I’m so, so wet.

I hadn’t wanted to think about this, went out of my way to avoid reliving moments like this one, and now I don’t know how I ever could again.

No one but the man between my thighs has ever set me on fire just by touching me or made me feel more wanted.

Just the feeling of his hardness pressing insistently against my soaked sex through several layers of material is enough to strip away the spiraling cloud of worries that seems to follow me everywhere I go.

It’s so easy to let it all go with him.

“I’ve missed you so goddamn much, darling,” Ben hisses, claiming my lips in another feverish kiss. His hand shoves beneath the bunched-up hem of my dress to find my ass, gripping each cheek roughly to guide the pace of my shameless grinding .

I hear myself moan as, beneath us, the car turns slowly into late-night Wyngate traffic.

The palace is at least thirty minutes away. We have time.

“Ben,” I whimper as the back seat fills with the sound of our panting, “I missed you too, oh my god ?—”

The admission seems to do something to him.

Ben’s hands tighten on my ass as he groans, leaning forward to claim my lips in another frantic kiss.

My pussy is throbbing and slick with arousal, and I feel my inner walls contracting, aching to be filled in a way that only this man ever has.

I want to feel my body stretching to fit his, and the impossible pleasure that comes from him fucking me.

Without warning, his hand comes down hard on my ass, spanking me through my panties. I cry out at the sharp jolt of pain, and my back arches, wordlessly begging for more. Ben doesn’t hesitate to oblige, bringing his palm down four more times, as I cry out with each.

Through our clothes, I feel his cock twitch. “I can’t fucking control myself with you,” he grunts. “Everything I give you, you like, isn’t that right? If I wonder whether I’m pushing it, you come back asking for more.”

He’s right. “Wouldn’t you like to know what else you can do to me?” I ask, my voice a breathless invitation that makes Ben’s jaw tighten as he drags me closer for another searing, open-mouthed kiss.

I’ll take that as a yes.

My teeth graze his bottom lip, and the groan that rumbles in his chest is probably the last straw for my panties.

I’m soaked, and every little movement over the hard ridge of Ben’s cock only makes the situation more dire.

Waiting until we’re back at the palace isn’t an option, but as I reach between us to free him, fully intending on riding him here and now, Ben stops me.

“We’re not doing this until you’re sure about me,” he pants, and though his face is mostly shrouded in shadow, I can see how deathly serious it is.

I swallow, struggling to understand what he means with my mind still clouded with lust. “What-what do you mean?”

Ben winces, lifting his hands to frame my face, staring into my eyes through the semi-darkness.

“Never in my life have I hated myself more than I did after we met in the maze. You deserve so much better, darling.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts as his thumb traces the line of my cheekbone.

“I won’t have you feeling any sort of shame at my hand.

Never again. Until you’re sure, I don’t deserve to take any pleasure from your body. ”

He’s telling me that he doesn’t want to have sex until I totally believe this is more to him than just that.

This is about more than just fucking me.

Never have any words been more healing and more painful, and I feel simultaneously torn apart and put back together as we look at each other, still intertwined

God, he really means it.

He really wants this— me .

He really wants me, and what’s more, I believe him.

For weeks, Benedict Ashwell has dedicated himself to piecing together all my fragmented worries and fears, healing them in the same quiet, pragmatic way he does all things.

Over and over again, he’s pushed himself beyond where he’s comfortable, sharing pieces of himself that I don’t think have ever seen the light of day, because he knew that was what I needed to feel safe with him again, and it worked.

It worked so well that I fell in love with him, too.

My fears of him being a bad father to the secret inside me are gone, replaced somewhere along the way by my fear of losing him. I don’t want to lose him.

Ben brushes a few fallen strands from my face, and I suck in an unsteady breath, rocked by the tenderness of the gesture. “If I could go back, I would do it all differently,” he murmurs, leaning forward to press his lips to my cheek, my jaw, my neck.

He’s still hard, his cock pressed right against the soaked strip of fabric between my thighs, and the sway of our bodies as the car turns makes me gasp at the friction against my swollen clit.

Every noise sounds loud in the stillness of the back seat as Ben presses a hand between us, pausing as his fingers brush the waistband of my panties. “May I?”

I agree before he’s finished the question, so hopelessly rocked by the power of my realization that getting closer to him is more need than want. “Yes.” My voice breaks. “Please.”

So, he does.

I fall forward into him, my hands tangling in his hair, and our foreheads pressed together as he finds his way beneath the lacy material. We both hiss when he drags two fingers through my slit, from my clit to my entrance and back again, circling the little nub so gently it makes me pant.

“I would have woken you up.”

As absorbed in this moment as I am, it takes me a second to realize he’s talking about the morning he left Fernmoor House. My throat grows tight as he continues, still rubbing my clit.

“I would have touched you, just as I am now”—his fingers move lower, slipping inside my drenched channel and curving to brush a spot that tears a broken cry from my lips—“and told you that you are the most beautiful, soft, good thing I’ve ever known.”

Tears are streaming down both sides of my face now as I rock into his touch, my chest heaving as he fucks me with his fingers, not hard or fast, but careful and exacting.

We’ve only just begun, and my thighs are beginning to shake, tension winding tighter with every touch.

“Ben,” I whimper, my hands tightening in his hair, dizzy with the force of what is happening.

His thumb finds my clit.

I cry out.

“I would have made you come, nice and hard, and then I would have held you against me as I told you I had to go. I would have asked for your number, because I’m told that is what normal people do.

” My answer to that is half-laugh, half-moan, as his ministrations between my legs begin to pick up speed, perhaps sensing I’m close.

“And with any luck, you’d have given it to me. ”

“I would have,” I promise. “Fuck, Ben, oh my god .” The measured, exacting pace he’s set is impossible to resist. My body is an instrument, and he is playing it like he’s been practicing for years.

How does he always know what I need?

Ben’s voice is impossibly rough when he continues. “Then that night, I would have called and asked you to dinner. I would have found someplace quiet and private, someplace I could think, because you have a way of robbing me of that ability, darling, and I need all the help I can get.”

His free hand snakes around to my chest, dragging down the top of my dress so he can take my breast in his hand, teasing my oversensitive tip just enough, but not too much.

The added sensations are all it takes, and I come with a sob, shaking and grinding into Ben’s touch.

He doesn’t cease the pace he’s set, fingering me and circling my clit as my orgasm wracks my body, giving me all the pleasure he possibly can.

When it’s all over, he pulls his hand from my panties and holds me close, lips brushing my temple.

“I would have saved both of us a lot of pain, but in the end, we would have ended up exactly here. You still would have come to that garden party, and I still wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from looking at you. ”

“It sounds like you’re talking about fate,” I muse softly as I snuggle into his chest, warm and spent.

Drawing a hand up and down my spine, Ben hums. “Not fate, no. Merely a very bitter, lonely man, who stumbled into the path of the best thing that’s ever happened to him and was never going to let her go.”

I stare at his chest rising and falling beneath my hand, emotion clogging my throat. Before I can even think of speaking, however, the car has slowed to a stop.

Ben kisses my temple one more time, releasing me so he can fix the top of my dress, tugging it up over my breasts as the sound of voices comes from outside the car.

Reluctantly, I lift my head from his shoulder, just in time for the car door to open, and for both of us to look around at a footman.

The man’s expression changes from mortified to professional in the blink of an eye, quickly averting his gaze and clearing his throat.

“I’m terribly sorry, Your Highness. Would you like me to?—”

“No. No,” Ben assures him brusquely, offering me an amused smile as he helps me to my feet and we both climb awkwardly out of the car.

Taking my hand, he begins to lead me into the palace but pauses when he sees I’m not following.

My gaze has caught on something in the distance, and the sight of it alone makes my heart lift.

We might not be able to turn back time, but I can think of at least one moment we can try again.