“Because I thrived on control, and I can’t control myself around you.”
She wanted him to stop saying sweet things and fuck her. She wanted it hot and dirty, like it had been in the cabin. This had turned into something too vulnerable, and she felt like a raw wound.
“But you are gorgeous.” He brushed his finger over the scar on her side as he said it to emphasize the point. “Even more so with these marks of your courage. And I know you want me to be rough right now, but what you need is what I’m giving you.”
He pumped his hips slowly and kissed her. Stella met his rhythm, curling her legs around his waist. He groaned and buried his face in her neck, mumbling incomprehensible praise into her skin.
Teddy’s fingers were bruising on her hips. He was trying to hold out, as if he was certain there was more pleasure left for him to squeeze out of her, but Stella was exhausted, emotionally raw, and afraid that, if he kept looking at her that way, she would completely fall apart.
Even now, the bond tugged in her chest like a hook connected to his heart; like she would never get enough of this—whatever this was.
Just sex. Just comfort, a voice in her head said.
But she knew that was a lie. He wasn’t looking at her like this was just physical. What she felt deep in her chest was not just physical.
She pressed her heels against his lower back, holding him deeper inside of her, and he moaned and found his release with a few jerky movements of his hips.
He drew back, meeting her eyes. She found her confusion and muddy emotions reflected there. Mercifully, he said nothing. Instead, he flopped onto the bed beside her, allowing their breathing to settle.
Stella lay on her back, feeling wrung out and shaken, her whole body alive with pleasure.
They were quiet for a few long moments, listening to the storm raging outside and the creak of the branches around them.
“You know, I always thought you liked being heir. It seemed like it came so easily to you.”
He sighed. “Well, now you know it doesn’t.”
“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even really think of you as a person. More a sort of icon—a living ideal,” she said.
He scoffed. “I’m not really a person most of the time. I’m a title.”
She was quiet. “I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time about it. I never really thought about the way people talk to you. The wayItalked to you. Has anyone else asked you what you want?”
Teddy sighed and looked up at the ceiling. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, a percussive tap on the treehouse roof.
“I’m not sure I even know what I want. I only seem to know what I don’t want.”
Stella smiled, running her fingers through his hair.
He tilted his head so he could kiss her palm. “I don’t want to get up early. I don’t want to dress in fancy clothes. I don’t want to be proper and act like a figurehead instead of a person. My parents are performers, but I am not. I did not inherit their ease the way Jalen, Jules, and Alex did. Everyone else in my family is so at home in their roles and I am just eternally exhausted by mine. It’s like I’m another species shoved into the wrong family.”
“Alexandra doesn’t exactly blend,” Stella whispered.
Teddy laughed, the sound deep and rumbling and so rare that Stella couldn’t help but smile.
“She doesn’t,” he said. “But she is at ease in herself. It’s the rest of us who are wrong in her estimation and she who’s at home in her role.”
Stella grinned at that. Alexandra Savero had always been quite composed, wearing her leather armor instead of dresses, even as a little girl. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and wouldn’t let anyone, not even a king or queen, tell her what she ought to wear, say, or do.
“I always admired that.”
Teddy smiled softly. “As do I.”
Stella drew her fingers down his chest, tracing the ruts that defined the muscles of his abdomen. Goosebumps rose on his skin, but he didn’t stop her.
“What would you want? If you could have anything?” she asked.
“Some fucking peace and quiet. I want to lie in bed all day reading nonsense stories instead of history or battle tactics. I want to learn to swim without being afraid, for fuck’s sake. And the only crown I want to wear is the kind made of daisies like the ones you used to make me when we were young.”
