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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Royal

Her question sits in the air between us.

She’s pressed to my back, those lush tits making my cock go hard, her scent all around me, her hand covering mine somehow not feeling wrong.

The sensation isn’t perfect.

The touch is dulled. The strings of the guitar as we played strange and unnatural.

But the song, sharing that with her…

It’s like none of that mattered.

Matters.

“Royal?” she murmurs.

Carefully, I set the guitar to the side. Then reach behind me and tug her around to my front. She gasps as our legs tangle, her feet ending up in my lap.

“Sorry, I?—”

The flames from the fireplace had gilded her skin, warmed her eyes, flushed her cheeks.

Or maybe that’s the fire burning between us.

I pick up one bare foot, start gently massaging the sole before lifting it to my mouth.

Her eyes flare with shock. “What are you?—?”

“You said to kiss you.”

Her mouth drops open and I want to grin at how scandalized she looks right now. But, more, I want to make her feel good, want to make up for being such an asshole earlier.

I drop a kiss to the top of her foot and begin rubbing the other one, knowing I find the right spot when her eyes darken, hips shifting slightly on the oversized white furry rug. She melts and I coax her back, pressing my lips to her foot, her bare ankle. Her fabric covered knee. The bare sliver of skin on her abdomen that’s exposed by her position.

“Even your belly button is cute,” I say softly, chuckling as she inhales sharply and inching the fabric of her shirt higher, exposing more and more of that silken skin.

“Royal,” she murmurs.

“More kissing?” I tease, following the pattern of freckles dotted along her stomach with my tongue.

“What are you doing?”

I still, lifting my head so I can meet her gaze, my fingers trailing over the skin I’ve bared, unable to not touch her. “Did you change your mind?”

“About what?” Her eyebrows are gathered into a tight frown, her eyes slightly glazed, as though she’s struggling to make sense of my question.

“About the kissing.”

Lips parting on a shuddering breath, she shakes her head. “I didn’t change my mind.”

“You want me to kiss you?”

A jerky nod.

I press my lips to her abdomen again. “Here?”

“No,” she whispers. “I mean, yes, but no. Not just there.”

I shift, dragging the material up, drawing it over her breasts, exposing her bra. And immediately, I want to forget about teasing, about making it up to her. I want to strip her naked, get my mouth on those tits, and fuck her hard and deep and fast.

“Lace?” I ask, holding tight to my control as I trace a finger along the scalloped edge of her bra.

“It’s pretty,” she murmurs, those tits bouncing because she’s breathing rapidly now. “I like pretty things.”

I grin at her. “Me too.”

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. I follow the curves along one breast and then the other.

“So,” I say, “about the kissing…”

“Y-yes?”

“Here?” I ask, dragging my finger in, circling one taut bud of her nipple.

“Yes,” she whispers. “And no.”

“I like this game.” I draw the shirt over her head, toss it to the side, then run my fingers along her throat.

“Here?”

A jerky nod, but I see the moment she fully commits to this. Her eyes heat, her lips part, and mischief creeps into her expression. “Yes. But also no.”

I stroke a finger along her jaw, lift my brows in question.

“Yes.” A beat. “No.”

Her ear.

She smiles now. Shakes her head.

Same for her cheeks. Her forehead. Her nose.

“Hmm,” I drawl. “Where am I forgetting?”

“Royal?”

“Yeah, Shortcake?”

But she doesn’t respond—at least not with words. Instead, she threads her fingers through the hairs on my nape and draws my head down.

Our lips meet and before I can take over, she parts my mouth with her lips, slips her tongue into my mouth and lays a kiss on me that’s so intense, I’m seeing stars. Maybe that’s because all the blood in my body is currently in my dick.

Maybe it’s because her kissing me brings me right back to that night.

Maybe it’s because her lips on mine and her body beneath me and her hands holding me close feel right.

Not dulled. Not off.

Just… right.

“There,” she says when we break apart, sucking in air. Her lips are swollen, her cheeks razor-burned, and her eyes are molten.

“Fucking beautiful,” I growl and stop fucking around.

There are more places I want to kiss her. More places I need to get my mouth on.

But right now, I need to taste her again.

She moans when I drop my lips to hers, our tongues tangling, her leg wrapping around my waist, lining up our pelvises. She grinds against me, and I curse softly, knowing that my control is already unraveling.

Slow and deliberate.

Bringing her to orgasm after orgasm.

She deserves that and so much more.

“Royal?” she gasps when we break apart for air again.

“Hmm?” I ask, kissing one side of her mouth and then the other, her jaw, her earlobe. Along the column of her throat. Between her breasts.

I reach beneath her and undo her bra, drawing the straps down her arms and then I’m momentarily frozen, completely fixated on those gorgeous breasts that are now bared to me.

“Kiss me there?” she asks, innocent and not.

Sexy as fuck.

Unraveling more of my control.

More blood arrowing for my cock, eroding the last of my restraint, and I don’t hesitate, don’t dream of denying her.

I nip at the underside of one lush globe, roll the sensitive tip of the other between my thumb and forefinger, reveling in her gasps, her moans, the way the pink flush from her cheeks spreads down along her throat, across her chest.

Then I suck one nipple deep as I palm her tit, massaging and rolling and loving the way she says my name, rocks her hips.

I switch to her other breast, giving it equal treatment—or maybe getting lost in touching her, kissing her, tasting her.

At least until her hand weaves into my hair again and she tugs.

I release her nipple with a soft pop . “Yes?” I rasp.

Her breathing is unsteady, her words hoarse from her cries. “Royal?”

I drag my tongue along the curve of her breast. “Yeah, Shortcake?”

“Kiss me somewhere else?”

Soft presses of my mouth along her ribcage. “Here?”

A tug of my hair. “Lower.”

Grinning, I nip at her skin, make my way down to her abdomen, to that adorable little belly button again. “Here?” I murmur against her skin.

“Uh—” She breaks off, hips bucking, head digging back into the rug. “Uh-uh.”

“Hmm,” I say, kissing my way over to her hip. “Where else could there possibly be to kiss you?”

She shivers as I trail my tongue in and down, not stopping until I reach the waistband of her pants.

“I got the feet, the ankles.” I dip my tongue beneath the material. “Your lips and throat and those gorgeous breasts of yours.”

Another shudder, her hips grinding against me. “Royal, please .”

I almost give in.

Almost .

Because I want her so fucking badly that my cock feels like it’s going to break in half.

But she likes this.

I see it in the heat in her eyes, the insistence in her words, the tight grip of her hand in my hair.

“Where else would you like my mouth, Shortcake?”

I expect her to continue to prevaricate, to tease and put off and hide behind the red cheeks and hint of shyness.

I expect to have to coax the words I want out of her, dragging them centimeter by centimeter.

Not that I’m complaining.

That’s half the fucking fun?—

Literally the fucking fun.

But I should have known better.

Jade is sweet and soft and beautiful, a gentle soul that is so easily trampled by the assholes in the world—and yes, I consider myself amongst that number.

She just doesn’t have it in her to be difficult.

Not like me.

Not like?—

Before the darkness sweeps over me, drags me out of this moment, she speaks again, her voice crystal clear and showing absolutely no hesitation.

“I want your mouth on my pussy, Royal,” she says.

I gape at her, vision hazy, cock growing even harder.

But she’s not done surprising the shit out of me.

Because then she says,

“And I want you to lick me until I come.”