Samil teased and taunted and threatened me about her. I reacted and, in doing so, set off a chain reaction. This afternoon after he left, he texted me a slew of pictures of her. Candid shots. Ones she didn’t realize he was taking. He invaded her privacy to let me know how close he got to her. How easy it was for him to do so.
I fucked with his pride and beat up his massive ego. He’s wanted something he could punish me with for years, and now he thinks he’s found it. Her. He wants her. I know he does. She’s beautiful. She’s mine and he thinks I owe him one after taking Nora from him.
So what did I do with those pictures? I should have deleted them. Instead, I stared at them, one by one, for the better part of an hour. A fucking hour of me not being able to pull myself away from her smiling and playing with my children and kissing their hair like they’re as precious to her as they are to me.
I’ve never felt this before and it’s more than I can begin to process even now. It’s warm and hot and beautiful and terrifying. Like blood pouring from an open wound, only that open wound might in fact be my heart.
Zayer ends up falling asleep on me, his warm body tucked against my chest. I shift him in my arms, ready to pick him up and carry him to his room, but Bellamy beats me to it. She leans over me, her eyes on mine, though I can’t help but steal a peek at her cleavage as her blouse dips down before my face. Her bra is white lace, and though it’s dark in here, I can just barely make out more of her creamy flesh beneath it.
She has the most fan-fucking-tastic tits I’ve ever seen, and this is barely more than a glimpse of them.This is what happens when you go way too long without sex.Welcome to being a king. All sacrifice and little pleasure.
Heat floods me everywhere, sending sparks of electricity racing across my skin. I reach out and touch her, moving some of her silky hair behind her shoulder and lingering there.
What the hell am I doing?
Immediately, I withdraw my hand and tilt my head as if I were asking a question with my touch.
“I’ll take him up,” she explains, forcing my gaze back to hers. “You stay and finish watching with the girls.”
Get your head out of the gutter and back on your kingdom and family.
I nod and swallow the lump in my throat when she lifts my son out of my arms and carries him away from me.
Zayer wasn’t planned. We had our heir, and we had our spare back-to-back, and then a couple of years later Nora got me drunk and seduced me. She must have known she was ovulating. I didn’t mind. It had been a while.
I never cheated on my wife. I respected her too much for that, even though that’s what was expected of me as a king in an arranged marriage. Still, I didn’t seek her out often for sex either.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t craving it, because I was. It was just that Nora liked it a certain way and only that way. She wanted love and intimacy and I had neither to offer her and felt guilty trying to contrive it. I cared about her, and the thought of hurting her physically or emotionally kept me away. We didn’t have sex more than a few times a year. She never wanted it rough. She never wanted to play. The darkness of my mind needed an outlet, and she wasn’t it.
I still haven’t found it.
All these years later, and the dormant beast within me is raging at the sight of the nanny. At her hands on my tie or her skirted ass in the air or her fucking tits in my face. I have to get control before she grows into something else in my mind and I lose track of myself in thoughts of her.
The movie ends and Althea and I bring the girls upstairs. They haven’t stopped prattling on about the movie, doing miserable impersonations of a Scottish accent and quoting favorite lines and scenes from the film. They haven’t been this happy in far too long. That’s my fault, and I know it.
“Next Friday, I want to make cupcakes and watch the secondShrekmovie Bellamy mentioned,” Phaedra announces through a long-winded yawn.
“We’ll see, darling,” I tell her, and she gives me the look that indicates that’s an unacceptable answer. She doesn’t push it, though, as I help her pick out pajamas. My perfect princess who has to have everything her way makes me wait outside while she goes to the bathroom and brushes her teeth. She does let me braid her hair, which I consider a triumph since I’m far from good at it even with all the practice I’ve had.
Althea is with Sabrina, and I walk across the large room and tuck my tiny princess into her bed. She’s going to be the one who challenges me most, I already know. Her uncontainable spirit will drive me mad when she’s a teenager and be the thing I love most about her when she’s twenty-five and still rolling all over everyone.
I kiss my girls good night just as Bellamy races in to do the same before they fall asleep. The door shuts behind us, and Althea excuses herself, leaving me alone in the hall with Bellamy.
“That was fun,” Bellamy says with a dreamy sort of smile.
“The children seemed to enjoy it.”
She tilts her head. “But not you?”
“I did too.”
“Maybe you were too focused on other things instead of the movie,” she counters, and I don’t know if she’s calling me out on watching her the entire time or if she caught me staring at her tits or if she’s simply musing her inner thoughts aloud.
“Perhaps,” is my only reply as I gaze at her. Her long hair is swept up into a bun now exposing the length of her neck, and her white blouse and black skirt are something that’s almost become a uniform on her. I should go. I shouldn’t be standing out here with her. But I’m having an impossible time making my legs work.
“Sunday I’m going to see my father,” she informs me, snapping me away from her body and back up to her face.
“What? How come?”
