“What about me?” he says into the hollow of my neck, pressing sucking kisses there that stoke at the embers left in the wake of my orgasm.
“You need attending to as well,” I whisper, inching my hand a bit closer.
He chuckles. “Trust me, mi’ lady. After that performance, I may embarrass myself with how quickly I’m ready to blow.”
I keep moving nearer, and when he doesn’t stop me, I wrap my hand around him like before, earning a most erotic groan from deep in his chest. He adds teeth to his gentle suckling over my collarbone and I inhale sharply.
“Good or bad?” he mumbles.
“Good,” I manage as I squeeze a bit harder while I stroke him.
His lips don’t stay there long, though, and now it’s his turn to babble nonsense while I lavish him with attention. I feel like the sexiest woman alive as he purrs my name and whispers encouragement and praise. I understand now, the pleasure he takes from making me orgasm with his mouth. I feel powerful just from knowing how much he’s enjoying this.
As he predicted, it doesn’t take long before his body tenses and he throws his head back, letting out one longfuuuuuckas his white, hot, sticky release spills on my hand, his chest, my stomach, and?—
My rational brain finally clicks back in control, and my heart races. Bile rises in the back of my throat, and I leap from the bed. Warm, sticky fluid clings to my skin, and I can’t think straight as I scramble for something, anything to cover myself with, realizing in a full panic that half my clothes are still in the library. His release oozes down my stomach, the slimy trail going cold in the drafty room. The fire that raged in my body is doused by memories like icy water, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
My head swivels, eyes darting side to side, purposely avoiding the naked man in the bed as I search for escape. There’s a door in the corner that I really hope is a bathroom.
Prince Friedrich calls my name, but it hardly even registers as I make a dash for it. I slam the door shut behind me with more force than necessary. Snatching the hand towel from the hook by the sink, I turn the water on as hot as it will go.
The knock at the door is soft, but it still makes me jump.
“Aurelia.” Prince Friedrich’s voice sounds strained on the other side. “Please don’t shut me out. Tell me what happened.”
The tenderness and concern in his tone is almost enough to break me, but I focus on scrubbing thesticky semen on my hands and belly, fighting the urge to vomit. Or cry. Actually, it’s too late for the crying part as hot tears start streaming down my face, totally beyond my control.
“It’s nothing, I’m fine.” I know the trembling in my voice gives me away. My skin is turning red under the coarse cloth.
“You’re clearly not fine, Aurelia,” he says uncertainly. He hasn’t even tried the handle on the door. It’s locked, but still, not even a jiggle.
“Please, Your Highness. Can you just get my clothes for me, please?”
His sad sigh on the other side of the door only makes the tears fall harder. I hear him shuffle away.
What is wrong with me?One minute I’m feeling better than I’ve ever felt in my entire flipping life, and the next I’m a total freaking basket case.
That nagging from the past in the back of my mind claws forward. I know those claws. They like to make themselves known every so often, less and less as the years pass, but sometimes I feel a little scrape, easy enough to ignore.
The last time I felt them this intensely—my second year at university—Margaret had to shoo away my date and slept with me on the bathroom floor of our adjoining suite because my legs forgot how to work. There’s no one here to rescue me now. Margaret doesn’t even know about me and the prince; heck, no one does except his two closest friends. I’m in the middle of nowhere with no way home except to gowith him.What have I gotten myself into? Stupid! Stupid little girl.
My whole body is shaking, from fear or grief or adrenaline, I don’t know. I’m clean from any trace of fluid on me, but I still can’t shake the full-on panic coursing through my veins. I miss the pure bliss from just minutes ago, but can’t seem to bring it back.
I turn to the standup shower in the corner. Perhaps scalding my skin off will cleanse my mind, too. I’m about to step into the steaming spray when another tentative knock sounds at the door.
“I’ll leave your clothes right outside the door, okay?” Prince Friedrich says, so soft I can barely hear him over the splash of the shower and the patter of rain still beating outside. “I’ll be in the library when you’re ready. If you’re ready,” he adds.
Just say thank you. Is that so hard?Apparently so, because I say nothing and wait until I hear the door to the main room close before finally getting in. As the water beats down, I lose any hope of it washing away the memories of the last time a man ejaculated on me. I’m eighteen again, right back in that hallway at my childhood church, the too-bright fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, old carpet scratching under my shoes. I can smell the cheap cologne Jaston seemed to bathe in, hear his hissed words in my ear as he caged me in. My limbs are frozen, my lungs seized tight, throat dry, and voice forgotten.
