Page 45 of This Is Not True Love’s Kiss

“I knew it.” Barty reached out to open the door.

“How could you have known that?” Tal asked, opening his door.

Golden light from the chandelier hanging in the foyer spilled out over the front steps, bathing Aoife in its warmth. Under the light, I could catch the shimmer of her skin, the same shimmer all the Fair Folk had, but I’d rarely been close enough to Aoife to see it, the way her russet skin glittered.

“Because I notice things, okay?” Barty continued while Aoife and I stared at each other.

“Yeah right.” Tal snorted. “You didn’t even notice when I started posing differently.”

“When did you start posing different?” Barty asked.

“Exactly!”

“And they think we’re bad,” Aoife said, breaking me from the spell I was under.

I cleared my throat and removed my hands from her waist, roping an arm around her back and leading her into the castle.

“Thank you Barty and Tal.”

The doors slammed behind us, the voices of the arguing gargoyles fading in the background.

“I can make it to my room from here.” Aoife walked forward, then ran right into Sir Arthur.

“Your Majesty.” Sir Arthur’s arms came around Aoife, and she giggled.

“Wow you’re sturdy.”

“King Lor, I think something is wrong with the queen.”

I waved a hand. “No, no, she’s fine. Just a little incapacitated.”

Sir Arthur gasped. “Has she been cursed again? Where is the scoundrel who did this? I will avenge her!”

I walked forward and gently pried Aoife from his arms. “No curse. Everything is okay, Sir Arthur. I’ve got this under control.”

The suit of armor paused, his helmet swiveling in my direction. The gap where his eyes should be was nothing but darkness. “Why aren’t you two arguing? Unless you’re both imposters.”

I did not have time for this. I was tired and had touched Aoife more in the last ten minutes than I had in the last two years. It was doing something to my body, my brain, that I didn’t like, not when that would only complicate things further between Aoife and me.

The floor began rising beneath us, like a pedestal lifting us up and away from Sir Arthur. The knight arched his head but didn’t make any move as we lifted away from him.

“Wheeee,” Aoife said as I clasped tight to her arm. The last thing I needed was for her to fall.

I looked up as we approached the ceiling, bracing myself right as it cracked and we shot through it and up into a carpeted hallway, one I didn’t recognize.

Aoife pointed. “Oh look. My room.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. For two years I hadn’t known where Aoife’s room was. She’d never spent a single night in the room I’d had redecorated for her, and she’d refused to tell me where she was sleeping, only that it was in the castle as I’d requested.

She walked down the hallway and toward the single wooden door that looked worn and splintered in places. The walls were bare, just plain white stone with no decorations like most of the castle. Where were we?

She fished a key out of her pocket, attempting to shove it into the lock and missing each and every time. “Oh no, the lock keeps moving,” she said, and I couldn’t help the smile that came to my face.

“Here.” I walked up behind her and gently took the key from her hand. “Let me.” I unlocked the door and it swung open to reveal what looked like a small, narrow closet with a bed pallet and just enough room to crawl in and sit there. Random objects were strewn on either side of the pallet, shirts, shoes, vases.

We must’ve been in the wrong place, but Aoife just hunched over and dropped onto the palette, peeling her tunic off, revealing her back with its soft folds and her dark waves hanging down it. She shimmied out of her trousers, her legs so long and rounded. She was a tall woman, not quite as tall as me. Her body was thick and strong and my cock twitched as I stared at her, her round ass cheeks peeking out from the undergarments she wore, dimpled and making me imagine just what it would be like to have her bent over in front of me.

I wheeled around in the doorway while she still knelt on her pallet. “Aoife,” I said. “Where are we?”