Page 20

ALISTAIR

Elinor’s silk skirt whispers along the stone as I show her the way through the winding servants’ passageway to my rooms. The sound is a pleasant scrape at the edges of my senses.

Her clean light floral scent teases my nose.

Her hand, cold in mine. I make a mental note to get her a nice shawl. Stone castles are perpetually chilly.

We arrive at a landing too small for the both of us. There’s a catch at foot-level. I trip it with my boot’s toe and the narrow door opens silently into my bedchamber.

Elinor’s eyes go wide.

There can be no doubt in her mind why I brought her here.

I cannot wait one more day to be with her.

Part of me is frantic at the thought of losing her.

I can’t fathom how it could possibly happen.

We’re to be married tomorrow. No one will care if we anticipate our wedding vows by a day—and I am not a patient man.

“This chamber is fit for a king,” she says, awed.

“It should be. I will become one any day now.”

She turns to me with a mix of outrage and laughter dancing in her eyes. “You’re awful.”

“My father has been dying for nearly a year now. For all I know he’ll last another five years. He is an incredibly stubborn man.”

“You aren’t close with him.” She says this as a statement, not a question.

Elinor’s hips sway as she explores my bedroom, taking in the enormous four-poster with its heavy brocade curtain and piles of soft pillows.

I imagine her hair fanned out across those pillows as she screams my name, her tits bouncing with each forceful thrust…

“No,” I belatedly remember to answer. “Not at all.”

“That’s sad. I was very close with both of my parents. I can’t imagine anything else.”

The pitying look she gives me strikes a wound buried deep inside me.

In this singular sense, she was more fortunate than I.

My mother died before I got to know her.

My father was too busy ruling and, frankly, rutting his way through the female population.

I was his heir, not his son. An extension of himself and his pompous self-regard, raised by governesses and tutors.

I won’t raise my children that way.

With Elinor, I could be a real father. A doting husband. Present. Caring. I may not have had any examples of the kind of man I wish to be, but if Killian can overcome his traumatic past for the woman he loves, then there’s hope for me, too.

“That, my darling, is why I need you.” I move to where she’s standing near my elaborately carved and gilded desk.

It’s frightfully overdone. I never questioned the absurdity of such luxury being bestowed upon a piece of wood that serves the simple purpose of providing a flat surface upon which to write. Until now.

Yet she is the greatest luxury of all. After everything she’s been through, to keep her heart as sweet and kind as she is?

The way she holds onto hope and optimism that life can and will be better is a treasure worth more than all the gilded desks in the world.

She deserves every bit of opulence I can bestow upon her.

Which, as king, will be significant. Even as prince, I know it’s more than she would ever ask for.

Maybe that’s why I fell so hard and so fast for this woman. She has never asked anything from me. My relationships with women have always been transactional.

Elinor is different. She wouldn’t want me less if I weren’t the prince. If anything, she’d desire me more without the title. She proved that the night of the ball.

I kiss her shoulder. She melts against me, soft and warm in my arms. I splay my hand over her stomach and imagine it swelling with my child. My cock twitches, fighting against its fabric prison.

“We are going to have the most wonderful family,” I murmur into her hair.

She covers my hand with hers and inches higher.

I stroke the underside of her breast with my thumb.

Teasing. She needs a lot of foreplay, and I am content to ride the sharp edge of desire for as long as necessary to make her wild for me.

I want her desperate enough to overcome her fear of sex, and we do not have a full night together until after the wedding.

I want her to feel comfortable going into this marriage.

I don’t know when her needs became my highest priority, but they are. Her happiness is all that matters.

She can’t sleep here tonight without the servants talking.

I trail kisses down her neck, tasting her soft skin. Her pulse ticks beneath my lips, quickening under my touch.

“Alex,” she whispers. My secret name. Just for her. Alex can be the part of me that’s too bruised and vulnerable to show the world. That part of me is only safe in Elinor’s gentle hands.

“Elsie.”

Her breathy giggle is followed by tipping her face to mine. I savor our kiss. And the next. She turns within the circle of my arms, my hand sliding around her waist to her back. I climb the lattice of her gown’s laces and rest my palm high on her back. She sighs and kisses me deeply.

The mood shifts. I tug the bow resting prettily at the swell of her ass. Ribbons unfurl. She hesitates for the briefest moment before pushing her sleeves down and stepping out of her clothes, leaving the silk puddled on the floor.

Only then do I bring my hand to her breast. Two layers stand between me and her bare skin. Her silk corset and a fine linen chemise. I fold the cup down and poke her nipple out. I repeat the action on the opposite side.

Then I take a step back to admire my handiwork. A watercolor blush rises to her cheeks. Her teeth capture her lower lip. My cock kicks at the sight.

“Take down your hair.”

Her flush deepens into a rosy hue. It spreads down her chest and over the tops of her tits. I trace it with my fingertip. She reaches up with both hands to pluck pins from her hair, dropping them onto the gleaming surface of my ridiculous desk. Plink. Plink.

I want to wrap her up in silk and jewels every day, just so I can unwrap her in the evening like my own personal gift.

“Aren’t you going to reciprocate?”

I quirk one eyebrow.

“Shirt.” Elinor pinches the fabric and plucks it. “Off.”

I have to shed my jacket and waistcoat first. Good riddance.

With the fire blazing, my room is warmer than the rest of the castle.

Between the heat of her gaze and too much clothing, I’m sweltering.

I hardly noticed until she ordered me to get naked.

Now there are flames racing over my skin. I can’t get them off fast enough.

The boots go, too. Thump. Thump . I’m heedless of where they land. All that matters is the gleam in Elinor’s eyes as she watches the growing expanse of skin. My cock thickens almost painfully in response.

“We need to relocate.” I scoop her into my arms and carry her to the bed, landing with her draped across my lap and her arms around my neck.

Better. This way, her tits are inches below my chin, her mouth at kissing level, and her ass nestled on my thighs.

“Untie the ribbons on your petticoat. Take everything off but your corset.”

Her eyes flare wide, but she nods. Strands of hair like living fire glide over her slim shoulders in soft, loving caresses.

Her fingers work the lacings at her waist. I watch while kissing her shoulder. Her rosy nipples tent the sheer fabric of her shift. I can’t resist bending down to suck one into my mouth.

Elinor’s hands still. I have one arm curled around her back, holding her in my lap. I drop it lower and finish the job. She shifts to push the petticoats and underthings down her legs, until her body is covered in nothing but a gauzy scrim and the corset that nips in her narrow waist.

I drag her back onto my lap, hating the flicker of resistance I find there.

“Touch me.” I’ll beg if I have to.

“Alex.” She toys with my hair. “I want to make you happy.”

“Then put your hands on me.”

She slides between my legs and unfastens my trousers, freeing my cock with a jaunty spring. A hiss forces its way past my teeth when she takes me in her soft, small hand. Gingerly, she strokes it.

“Harder.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” I curl my hand over hers to demonstrate. Her blue eyes flare wide. Whatever Tremaine did to her, he taught her nothing. I wish I could bring him back from the dead and kill him all over again. Viciously, this time. Painfully.

Instead, his corpse is sitting in the stomachs of the moat monsters.

This train of thought is the only thing holding me back from coming all over Elinor’s sweet little hand.

She bends forward. A low groan tears out of me when she bends forward and takes me into her mouth. No hesitation. Her eagerness to please is different from the way the servants bow and scrape obsequiously. There is no love from them. Only duty.

But it’s love I see shining in Elinor’s eyes. A willingness to overcome her fears to please me. I don’t know precisely why things were different during the ball. I do know that the same hesitancy was there at the end. I know the basic outline of how Tremaine treated her, and that he is the cause.

It’s not enough that he’s dead. I have to cure her of this affliction.

Though it physically pains me, I ease her off my cock.

“Was I doing it wrong?” she asks breathlessly with her brows knitted in confusion.

“I want to show you that I can please you. I already know you please me.” I take her face between my palms so she can’t look away. “I think you need more convincing.”

She tries. I hold her gaze to mine. Conflict burns there.

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to enjoy doing this.”

“Because of what your stepfather did to you.”

Her cheeks glide against my palms. I thread my fingers through her hair, gently drawing her up as I bend forward to capture her lips.

“Use me.”

“What?” she gasps.

I release her and flop back onto the bed. “I said, use my body however you want to.”

Her snort of amusement is accompanied by a slight dip in the bed as she climbs onto it.

“You mean you want me to experiment.”

“Yes.” I roll onto my side, head propped on one hand.

She’s arranged herself on her knees. I could suck her tits again from this angle.

I trail one finger between them longingly.

But this is for her, not me. “To my mind, the worst thing he stole from you was the freedom to explore on your own terms. I’m giving you permission right now.

We won’t do anything you don’t want to, and everything you want to do, I’ll say yes to. ”

Excitement shines in her eyes.

“All right, Alex. I accept.”