Page 34

CHAPTER 33

DECK

FINDING THE RIGHT TREE IS IMPORTANT.

For a moment, neither of us said anything, and we both sat still, our backs to the palace, the warmth of the Murdan sun beating down on our skin. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, so much I needed to say. But I wasn’t sure she’d want to hear any of it. Still, I thought about my brother, about his confidence and security about the woman he loved. I had to try.

“I remember you, Eliza,” I began, turning to face the woman I loved. Her hair was pulled back into the tight ponytail she favored when she was working, and her dark expressive eyes caught mine.

She looked confused. “I mean… I would hope so. We came out here together. It’s only been a minute or two. Are you feeling okay?” She squinted at me, and I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not.

“I remember you from when we were kids.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes, that. I remember all of it. And I remember how I felt about you then,” I continued.

“Oh.” Lizzy dropped my gaze, her fingernails suddenly catching her attention.

“I remember that with you was the only place I felt like a regular kid, a guy with other things to think about besides all of this.” I waved my hand at the extensive grounds and the building behind me. “You were fun and brilliant and sweet,” I went on. “Man, I had the biggest crush on you.”

Lizzy looked up at me through her lashes. “Yeah?”

“Totally. That’s why I kissed you. Do you remember?”

She straightened. “A girl always remembers her first kiss, Declan.”

I grinned, I liked believing she’d replayed that moment over the years. It was pretty chaste, just a peck on the mouth really, barely a graze. But it had come from the heart of a nine-year-old kid who had no idea what he was doing. But who really, really liked the girl in front of him.

“It was right around here somewhere, wasn’t it?” I asked her, standing and striding toward the tree I thought was the one beneath which I’d given her that kiss.

She shook her head, sending her ponytail flying. “It wasn’t that one.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me to a different tree a few feet away. “It was here.”

Lizzy stopped and looked up at me then. We stood almost chest to chest, and I found that my breathing was coming quicker as my heart rate accelerated at the look in her eyes.

“This tree? You sure?”

“What did I just tell you? Girls don’t forget these things.” She stared up at me, a challenge in those dark irises.

I waited a beat, giving her a chance to change her mind, and then I answered the challenge. My lips met hers softly at first, testing, being certain this was what she’d meant. And then I gave her a real kiss, pulling her against me—hard—and tasting her tongue with my own. A soft moan escaped her, and the stiffness in my pants grew harder. I pressed it to her for the tiniest hint of relief, and it elicited another breathy sound.

“Nine-year-old me didn’t really know what he was doing,” I said, taking a break to regain my self-control.

Lizzy’s hands were grasping at the skin beneath my shirt, pulling me closer almost desperately. “I’m glad, or I would’ve been pregnant by eleven,” she breathed, fusing her mouth to mine once again.

Things escalated, and as I cupped her bottom and Lizzy lifted her leg to wrap around my hip, I remembered where we were. Who we were.

“Not here.” I pulled away, keeping her hand firmly in my own, as I tugged her toward the palace doors. We went back inside, and I ducked through the first doorway I recognized, into the guest suites I’d occupied last time I’d visited. I locked the door behind us, then spun Lizzy around, pinning her against the door.

“Lizzy, I don’t want to lose you.”

“This isn’t… We’re not…You’re…” she was gasping these words as I devoured the skin of her throat, my hands working up and down her torso and teasing her nipples. “I can’t talk while you do that,” she finally managed, pulling away.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked this question of her lips mostly, since I couldn’t drag my eyes away—they were so lush, swollen from our kisses.

“Not right now,” she said, her words sharp as she tugged me from the door to the long low couch in the center of the room, pulling her shirt off with the other hand. I pulled my own T-shirt over my head, falling to the couch on top of her and resuming my assault on her mouth.

She tasted like mango and salt and so much like home it almost cracked my heart in two.

There were things we needed to say, things that needed to be cleared up immediately. But Lizzy had worked her hand down the waistband of my shorts and was stroking my length with hard, firm pulls, and my mind was shorting out.

I gave up, or gave in, letting my body take over as my mind went on hiatus. Lizzy’s pants were off a moment later, and her panties followed shortly after. She’d already told me she was on the pill, and neither of us had found time for anyone else, I didn’t think. I pulled her onto my lap, my cock an eager third party jutting up between us.

The position put her breasts at eye-level, which was fucking perfect. I leaned in, taking the right nipple in my mouth, sucking hard, then releasing and moving to the other side. Lizzy responded by fisting my cock again. Relentlessly.

Then she raised herself up, positioning her entrance just at the throbbing head of my cock, and lowered herself in the most infuriatingly slow movement I’d ever been tortured with. It was awful. It was amazing. I never wanted it to end.

My hands found her hips and guided her into a rhythm as I leaned back into the cushions of the couch and watched her work above me. Her strong arms were braced on my shoulders, her head thrown back, and her breasts jutted out before her, bouncing with every thrust. I knew I’d be replaying this memory over and over in my more… private moments.

And the feeling… I was on the edge of exploding, but kept pulling myself back. I didn’t want it to end. Lizzy was too perfect and I feared maybe this was just some random act of kindness, maybe it would never happen again. Therefore, it needed to last as long as possible.

“Oh God,” Lizzy breathed over me, “Declan, I’m gonna…”

“Nope. Stop.” I lifted her off me and set her on her feet. Her knees buckled a little, but then she found her footing. And, evidently, her anger.

“What the fuck?”

“Not yet.”

“What? Declan, I was like a second away from?—”

“I know.” I stood and took her hand, pulling her to the bedroom. “I didn’t want you to go yet.”

“But… Declan,” she moaned.

“I’ll take care of you,” I assured her. “But just in case this never happens again, I want to make it last. It has to be really good.”

“It was really good,” she cried, flopping backward onto the bed, every muscle standing in beautiful relief along her toned limbs.

“It’ll be better,” I promised.

“Don’t make me kill you,” she whispered as I covered her body with mine, notching myself at her entrance again.

“I’ll just tease you the tiniest bit first,” I said, sliding in an inch or so and then halting, even though it nearly killed me to stop.

“Come on,” she groaned, trying to thrust upward.

“Patience.”

“I don’t have that,” she moaned, writhing beneath me, trying to get friction where she wanted it.

I slid in an inch farther.

“Oh god, you’re going to kill me.”

I had been thinking the exact same thing, but I didn’t accelerate my pace. Instead, I slid in inch by torturous inch, and Lizzy’s body clenched and shivered with each little bit I gave her, trying to pull me in, to get closer still.

Finally, I was fully seated, and I swear to god I thought I might actually cry, it felt so fucking good. Instead, I just let myself savor it for a long moment, holding myself still and savoring the way Lizzy’s body clutched and pulsed at my cock.

“If you don’t start moving, I swear to fucking-”

I covered Lizzy’s naughty mouth with my hand and began rocking in a slow, steady rhythm.

“Oh,” she said, finally sounding agreeable. I removed my hand, getting better purchase on the bed next to her head. I was at the very end of my control, but there was no way I was going to go first.

“Oh,” she agreed again as I rocked. “Oh, god, oh yeah, oh please…” I felt Lizzy’s orgasm at the same time her words became utter nonsense and her arms tightened around my shoulders like a set of steel bands. Shit, the woman was strong!

Her channel milked my cock as she came, and that threw me completely over the edge, a tingling starting low in my spine and rushing up my nervous system until stars were blasting behind my eyelids and I might have been speaking—or maybe screaming—in tongues. The sensations went on and on, skittering through my limbs, unfurling deep inside my abdomen, spiraling through my chest until I finally went limp, pushing my weight to one side of Lizzy.

It might have been a second or perhaps several hours later that I opened my eyes to look at her.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

“Right?”

“But Your Highness, we really do need to talk.”

That line right there unsexified the whole situation for me. “Yep. Okay.” I headed for the bathroom, cleaned up and got dressed. After Lizzy had done the same, she met me in the sitting room.

“I hate it when you call me Your Highness,” I told her.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s appropriate. You’re royalty. I’m your servant.”

“Ew, no. Not unless we’re just playing some kind of fun game.” I wiggled my eyebrows at her.

“Declan, what are we doing?” Lizzy looked upset suddenly, and my heart dropped. No, I didn’t want her upset.

“We’re… I don’t know. We’re being together?”

“That’s impossible, though,” she said. “You’re going to be king. You can’t be having a fling with a guard.” She shook her head, and her hands went to her ponytail, which she smoothed and refastened.

“What if I wasn’t king?”

“I’m not sure it matters,” she said. “What do you mean, though?”

I reminded her about Lambert, about his image problem, his PR needs.

“And you really think I can help?”

“I think we can do it together.”

“I don’t think a wombat and a calendar are the answer to this one,” she said.

“Wombats help everything,” I suggested. “But maybe you’re right. Something else then.”

In the next couple hours, Lizzy and I got to planning, interrupted once when Dad called to hear Lizzy’s input on Neel’s betrayal. We ordered dinner into the guest quarters, and spent the night there. Before we finally went to sleep, I texted my brother.

Declan: Lambie, we’ve got it all figured out. Operation PR begins tomorrow. Meet us on the front lawn tomorrow at ten. Bring Celeste.