Her Secret Prince (12 page)

Amber tea rocked
in
the teacups as Dee navigated the stairs. It had been half an hour since Jed had retreated and all she’d done was sit in front of the fire, fighting sleep as she waited for him to come back down, despite knowing he wasn’t going to. Finally finding sense, she’d decided to take him a goodnight cup of tea—as an excuse for checking up, because he really didn’t seem okay—and then she’d go to bed.

“I’m coming in,” she called softly, cresting the top step to the loft. “I’ve made tea.”

Jed was standing by the window, hands braced on the heavy wooden frame. There was no light, only the gloom of winter twilight coming through the glass, casting his figure into a striking silhouette. The magnificent shape of him straightened and turned towards her.

“Come look at the view,” he said.

Carefully,
she crossed to stand beside him, pausing to place the cups on the nightstand. Dusk smothered the garden, grey giving way to black, creeping into the trees behind their lodging. With rain still falling, the sight inspired stories of ghouls and forest beasts, red eyes and distant howling. As she looked, Jed stepped back.

She thought he’d retreated to the bed. Then the skin at her nape prickled
and she realized he’d moved close behind her. Very, very close. She held her breath, unmoving, as his body slowly molded against hers. His feet straddled her slippers, trapping her stance. His thighs pressed into the backs of her legs, imprints of hard muscle. His chest was flush against her back, and some very hard inches lay against her spine.

“Hello there,” she said, as breezily as she could
with arousal taking her body prisoner. Shackled by it, she didn’t turn.

His mouth found her ear. Her insides curled, delighted at the warmth of his breath. “Hi,” he murmured.

Oh, God. She needed floral and lace, stat.

He made a deep humming sound as his hands settled on her shoulders. The power of his touch melted through her and she held still, struggling to remember Alexia’s words, why this
was a bad idea, and recalled nothing but the way his hand had pressed between her thighs in her apartment, a grip loaded with power and promise.

Surrender circled her, desperate to make her yield. His hands moved down her sides, forming cracks in her resistance. She had seconds at most.

“What had you forgotten?” His words rumbled in the silence.

She exhaled shakily. “What?”

“Before we left
your apartment. You said you’d forgotten something.”

Dee’s eyes closed as Jed’s hands spread down her hips to bunch the hem of her dress in his fists. “Just my self-control.”

His mouth was at her neck as he asked, “Did you find it?”

Apparently not.

He bit down gently, incensing her desire. Dee spun and found his mouth waiting. Hot and fast, he kissed her, hands moving to her butt and gripping
hard. Need rippled across her skin, burning to touch his bare body, and as if reading her mind, Jed drew back to shuck his jacket and strip his shirt from his back. Then he closed in, propelling her until she sat on the wide window frame.

“Jed,” she said, gasping as he yanked the dress over her head. Not wasting a moment. His hands were on her breasts, thumbs swiping over the fabric of her bra,
over her nipples, until they budded with a sharp tug and a moan escaped her.

“What do you like?” Her bra fell away as he kissed her again. “Tell me.”

As far as she knew, “Anything.”

“At all?”

And he dropped to his knees, shoulders pushing apart her thighs.

“That’ll work,” she answered, more breath than voice as he peeled off her tights. Then he wound an arm beneath her leg to grasp her hip
firmly and set the other hand to her core. Jed, this gorgeous man, was finally touching her. That alone was enough to rush her towards bliss. When his lips found the soft, tender skin of her inner thigh, she whimpered, and when his thumb nudged beneath her underwear to stroke her slick heat, she cried out. Pleasure struck as he pushed inside, a spear of white light that blinded her. She felt his
shoulders rise up even as his fingers pierced deeper, knotting tension as they went, bonding her to heat and pleasure. As if she’d ever want to escape it. Her back arched, pushing a breast directly into his impatient mouth. Her next breath shuddered as he sucked hard.

“No.” She was slipping too near the edge. “Closer.”

He withdrew, dragging off her underwear as he went. For several seconds he
was gone, rustling by the nightstand, and then she could make out his naked body before her, his face, the clutch of his gaze. Heaven help her, he was all she’d ever wanted. Heat built in Dee so rapidly that she foiled his next move out of sheer instinct.

He lifted her, intending her for the bed, and she hooked her legs around his waist, lined up the blunt tip of his erection, and slid down over
him.

With a startled groan, Jed froze.

“Come on,” she murmured, and using the windowsill for purchase, rolled her hips, drawing him deeper. That got him. His grip shifted, one hand fastening on the flesh of her waist, the other on the window frame above her. Then he started to move. Slow thrusts that pushed high inside her, filling her, sure and slick and sweet. His lips found hers as the rhythm
increased, a languorous, open-mouthed kiss that consumed her as fully as his sex.

It didn’t take long. Not nearly long enough.

Pressure clutched her core, gathering heat and pleasure, gathering so greedily that she couldn’t hold it all in, not with the pace urging her to let go. “No,” she gasped, as her climax broke like lightning around her.

A sigh, a kiss, and Jed had her on the bed, on her
back, and drove in hard. “Dee,” he said, a single syllable that had her blood surging and pleasure mounting in her once more. Like it wasn’t this act he wanted, but her, just her, and no man, no matter how aroused or affectionate had made her feel so precious. Her heart swelled and her ribs seemed to part, drawing him in to a place no man had ever ventured before.

Jed kissed her neck, teeth scraping
skin, and then he staggered her with another orgasm, deeper, longer, more luscious than the first. He pinned her with a final thrust and she curled around him with a cry, body and heart.

It was only once she collapsed that emotion charged in, puncturing her right through, because this feeling of being desired should have been all she knew of sex, of making love, all she knew of men. Instead,
she’d spent years with fleeting bed partners, searching for a connection like her first love, desperate to convince herself that she’d found another, as pure and magical, each and every time.

Pressing her face into his neck, broken, she whispered, “You were supposed to be my first.”

*

Dee let him
hold her. She let him stroke her hair
and kiss her lips. All the while, dread gripped her at a second icy realization, so obvious now without sex hazing her mind. With an ease she didn’t feel, she slid out from under him and pulled on her dress.

“Dee.” Her name travelled sadly from the sheets.

“Mm?”

“I heard you. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”

Her heart tore. “Oh look, the tea’s gone cold,” she said, alarm scarcely contained. “I’ll
make more.”

The stairs disappeared beneath her as she fled. By the time she’d reached the kitchen, distress had struck in full force. Tears pushed out, streaking down her face, and she covered her mouth with a palm to muffle a sob. She’d moved too fast. So weak, so
stupid.
Jed wasn’t some guy she hoped would be the miraculous answer to her soul’s call. Jed
was
the answer. He’d always been the
answer. No one ever had a chance of replacing him.

And she’d rushed in like a fool. She’d told herself to wait, known that her usual haste wouldn’t mean lasting satisfaction. She tried to calm her breathing as she moved to the stove, but had no longer than that to pull herself together—even as she lifted the kettle to fill it, footsteps carried from the stairs. Swiftly, she darted up into the
laundry and held her breath.

“Dee.” Jed’s voice growled through the kitchen a moment later. She scrubbed her face, staying silent. “Dee,” he said again, voice coming from the base of the tiny flight of stairs. “I saw you go up there.”

Oh. She slunk down, keeping her eyes on his feet. They were bare below the worn hems of his jeans.

“You’re crying.” He sounded dismayed as he stepped back to
let her out. “Is it—I should have been your first?”

Dee shook her head, running a hand beneath her eyes again.

“Then what’s upset you?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that.”

Sniffling, she made herself meet his concerned stare. “I just ruined my chances of being with you and that makes me want to cry and never stop because I hate how I always wreck these things, and I can’t believe I’ve done it
with you.”

“Hey.” He stood close, confused. He took the kettle from her hand and ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. She turned her face away. His hand dropped. “How could what just happened possibly ruin anything?”

“It was too soon. It’s like some default setting I can’t rewrite, I always end up falling head over heels and not being caught at the end of it because no one ever realizes
that I
want
to be caught. Moving fast means getting dropped fast, but I keep doing it.” Another tear ran hot down to her chin and she choked on a sob. “I keep doing it.”

He frowned. “Why does moving fast mean getting dropped?”

“You think I only want a fling.”

“No.”

She sniffled again. He was just saying that. “What
do
you think, then?”

He shifted closer, voice lowering. “I think you’re comfortable
with who you are. You know what you want, and so you take it. But you’re not fickle. You don’t get bored. Moving fast doesn’t mean moving on fast, and if there have been men who think that, you’ve been with the wrong kind of men.”

Dee stared at him. Her inhale was shaky.

“I mean it,” he said, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear. His fingers grazed down her neck, falling over her
breast and stopping with a pistol grip on her waist. His eyes were steady, serious. “I know you. What just happened—I know what it meant to you.”

She swallowed. “Then you know I want to be with you forever.”

Shock struck the warmth from his gaze.

“See?” Her chin buckled under the threat of tears. “You don’t know.”

“I—hang on, Christ,” he said, and startled her by laughing. “You expect me to
take
forever
in my stride?”

She lowered her face. Lowered her voice. “I’m pushing, aren’t I?”

Her skin tingled as his grip tightened. “There’s some unspoken social understanding that makes most people wait before mentioning forever. But you wouldn’t be you if you felt something and didn’t shout it out.”

Uncertainty clogged her throat. She waited.

Jed pressed his forehead against hers. “I want
to be with you, Dee. I can’t say forever, because I’ve never thought that far, but I want you for every minute of the future I’ve actually considered.”

“Stop pretending.”

“I’m not pretending.” He tilted his head, holding her gaze. “Stop trying not to believe me.”

Hope clambered up her ribs, but she threw it off and crossed her arms. “How are you imagining us working out? I’ve lived in two places
my entire life and both are in the same state, same country. I don’t move around. I don’t
want
to move around. I like having a home. You won’t stay with me. You always move. It’s what you do.”

She watched his features fall and knew she’d struck an old wound. “I’ll stay,” he said quietly, but his forehead withdrew from hers.

“I don’t want to move to Melbourne.”

“I’ll stay,” he repeated. “With
you.”

“How can I believe that?”

He looked down, the line of his mouth serious. When he met her eyes again, he said, “Because I’ve never had a home anywhere. The closest I’ve ever felt to contentment is being with you. Wherever you live is where I’ll be at home. And that’s where I’ll stay.”

Disbelief caught in the lungs. For several seconds, she stared at him. Then excitement rushed through
her, too much, too quickly, so it erupted in a sudden squealed,
“What?”

He grinned.

“Jed, you’re serious!”

“I’ll move to LA when we’re done here. We’ll make it work.”

She laughed, overjoyed, and said, “I can’t believe in this movie moment you look like heaven and my face is all puffy from crying.”

“No, it’s not,” he reassured her.

She raised a disbelieving brow.

“You haven’t slept in twenty-four
hours.” He smiled. “It was already puffy.”

“Oh, a comedian.” She turned to the fridge, not letting go of his hand. “What are your thoughts on champagne and pastries in front of the fire? And by
champagne and pastries
, I mainly mean sex, and by
what are your thoughts,
I mean that’s what we’ll be doing.”

Jed paused. “I think I’m okay with that.”

‡