“Alright, so what are you going to do?” Sire gets serious. “Are you really in love with Alena?”
“Yeah, I’ve been falling in love with her from afar and?—”
“What do you mean you’vebeenfalling in love with her?”
“I mean, it didn’t happen overnight. Growing up, she was just Nash’s pretty daughter. But then, I was eighteen, she was fifteen, and I saw her on Folly Beach with her friends, and she’d matured. She was fucking beautiful, and broke my heart in a sweet way and?—”
“Wait,” Sire hedges, “you two didn’t?—”
“No! It was just teenage stuff. Like, me protecting her from afar. I never broke the rules. Never talked to her. She never knew who I was, while I knew damn well I wasn’t supposed to want her, so I tried with other women for years until…”
“Until? Oh fuck, is there a secret baby or?—”
“No! I’ve never even kissed her. Though I fucking wanted to years ago, when I knew I was so fucked and in love.”
“Is this the secret baby part?”
Now, he’s just busting my balls, so I give him the silent treatment until he chuckles. “Kidding. Keep going.”
So I confess, “Until three years ago, on Folly Beach, I watched Alena swim into a wicked riptide to save a little boy from drowning. She also could’ve drowned, but didn’t care. It was badass and super sweet. I was about to jump in to help her, but she swam down shore, and carried him out, and I just stood there in the sand, in awe, falling so fucking in love, wishing I could’ve talked to her then.”
I keep spilling my soul. “And for two days now, I’ve finally been able to do it, and my chest fucking hurts, my dick gets hard,and I have to ball up my fists to keep from pulling her into a kiss. She’s smart and funny, and so damn hot. I want to throw her on a bed, and fuck her for hours, then hold her, laugh with her, until I fuck her some more. Twenty-four seven. Send snacks.”
“Oh, shit,” Sire mutters. “Yep, that’s falling in love. You got it bad.”
“Real bad, and I don’t want a cure. I wanther.”
I bang my head on the window, not caring that my lights are on, and Alena can probably see me. That’s how fucking hopeless I feel.
“Then do it.” Sire shocks me, preaching, “Love her.”
“As of today? Done.”
“No, I meanloveher. Woo her and shit. Make Alena fall in love with you too. Hold her, laugh with her, show her all those fucking skills Delphine taught you, and Alena won’t ever want to leave your bed.”
I wince, unsure if Alena will ever let me love her, or how that part of my past will be okay with her. How I’m Delphine’s second king. How she trained me years before I realized I had it bad for Alena.
“If Alena ever finds out about Delphine”—my stomach twists, answering Sire—“it’ll be another reason she’ll hate me.”
“No one will hate you.” Sire’s always kind to me. With others? Off with your head. “You don’t love Delphine. She’s Grant’s wife. She loves him. He’s her king, and she chose you to be her second king. Yeah, y’all are close, but not like that. It’s not romantic. It’s…different.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to explaindifferentto Alena?” I argue with my windows. “She doesn’t know about us, the kings and queens, even though she’s one of us. She’s our princess because she’s Nash’s daughter, but he’ll never let her be initiated as a queen. She’ll never love her first king andchoose her second king, so she’ll never know how it feels. And you know how it is: you have tofeelour bond to believe in it. Otherwise, we sound like sex fiends.”
Sire chuckles. “Should I be flattered or insulted?”
“I’ve seen you breed women and men at the club. All are very flattered to be fucked by you.”
I mean the Atlanta sex club where Sire and I go. We don’t usually get our kinks on at our mom’s club.
And the fact that our mom owns a Charleston sex club is another issue. Actually, we use the profits from her club to fund our missions to rescue trafficking survivors, so it’s an altruistic issue.
Still, we’re kings with kinks Alena will never understand.
“I’ve seen you online, LuvPounder,” Sire goads. “Many are flattered by you too. What do you have? Like a million OnlyFans?”
And Sire knows where my kink resides.
Or at least, how I’ve survived this long without Alena.
