His Royal Secret (18 page)

So Ben arrived at Clarence House at that hour exactly and went through the usual steps, trying hard not to meet the butler’s eyes. For his part, Glover guided Ben to the door of the private suite with his usual demeanor, i.e., as stone-faced as Mount Rushmore.

However, for the first time, James wasn’t waiting at the door for him. Ben stepped inside the private suite to find himself alone.

“James?” he called, not raising his voice too loudly. “Are you home yet?” Maybe Glover had let him in to wait because James’s car had been delayed. Or had he flown this time? Ben had no idea how best to return from Cardiff.

Happy and Glo came running from the back, eager to greet him; for some unfathomable reason, they prized his attention. The patter of their paws made Ben smile, and he ducked down to pet their furry heads. As he did so, though, he realized he heard running water coming from the direction of James’s master suite.

“James?” Ben called more loudly now. God forbid he should startle James into hitting a panic button that would send His Majesty’s Secret Service crashing through the windows with Uzis blazing. “James, it’s me.”

“Ben?” James’s voice from the bathroom was soft enough to be nearly drowned out by the shower. “Come on in.”

Frowning, he walked into the marble-tiled bath, a ridiculously large space that Ben inwardly both mocked and envied. One chamber held toiletries of all kinds, another connected to the main closet, another hid the other royal throne, and still another housed a sumptuous claw-foot tub. But James’s voice came from the shower, a sort of interim space between tub and toiletries. The large glass stall, as big as a parking space, had fogged from the steam, so much so that Ben could only make out the vaguest shape of James’s naked body.

“This makes a nice surprise,” Ben said, already turned on, as he began kicking off his shoes.

“Get in here and make it nicer.” Yet James’s invitation sounded—stilted, almost forced.

Ben stripped down, neatly folding his clothes and setting them on a teak bench nearby. When he pulled open the glass door, he saw James standing with his face to the wall; he’d braced his hands far apart on the tile, as though he were too weary to stand. “Hey.” Ben came closer, ignoring the spray of warm water against his body to slide one hand around James’s waist. “Are you all right?”

James shook his head. His slicked-back hair looked darker when wet. “No, I don’t think I am.”

“What’s wrong?” Was he sick, perhaps? Ben had read something in those royal family records about James having a medical exemption from military service. At the time he’d assumed it was a convenient dodge. But then James had mentioned it himself, early on in their relationship. What if the situation were more serious?

But James said, “It’s Indigo.”

Every other time Ben had heard Princess Amelia called that name before, he’d found it absurd—a juvenile affectation. This time, however, he almost didn’t notice it. Indigo had become her name in his mind just as much as it was in James’s. “Did something happen?”

“No. Not exactly. I mean, it ought to have been a good thing, but”—James breathed out in frustration—“I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to make sense.”

Ben put his hands on James’s shoulders. The tenseness in his muscles made them feel almost like rock beneath his palms. He began kneading the knots, hard enough to make a difference but not hard enough to hurt.

Warner had always said he was good at this.

“Mmmm.” The steam cloaked them, blurring the scene. Ben could make out no details farther away than his hands on James’s skin. James was so pale, with constellations of freckles dusting his shoulders and cheekbones; although Ben was fair too, his hands looked tan against the expanse of James’s back. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for touching you.” Ben was giving James permission to forget about whatever Indigo’s troubles were and start thinking about exactly what they could do to each other in bed.

But James said, “Not for the massage, though it’s lovely. Just for—for not pressing me about Indigo. Letting me talk or not talk.”

“You said her secrets weren’t yours to tell.” Ben had been content with that answer. His journalistic curiosity had been kept in check . . . mostly. But after what he’d seen in the records, he understood more deeply than before what privacy must mean to James. Perhaps it was the only luxury the Prince Regent was denied.

Slowly James said, “I trust you.”

Ben’s hands stilled, but only for a moment. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, James. It’s all right.”

“I do want to tell you,” James said softly. “I think—I think the correct term for her problem would be an ‘anxiety disorder.’ Possibly also agoraphobia, but I’m not qualified to say. She behaves so strangely at public events because she’s on the verge of a panic attack the whole time. The press judges her cruelly, never knowing how brave she’s being. When she makes a misstep, though, the cruelest judge is Indigo herself. She hates herself for it. Sometimes she—Ben, she hurts herself. Cuts herself. Indigo’s never attempted suicide, but I live in fear of her accidentally going too far.”

Ben swore under his breath, the word almost lost under the sound of the shower’s spray. “Has she seen a therapist?”

“My grandparents won’t hear of it. Terrified of family secrets getting out. Right now, while I’m regent, the queen wouldn’t have the last word, but Indigo’s always resisted. She can’t believe a therapist would keep her secrets. Today we learned she’d been posting things online in some forum for people who cut themselves. That’s as much as she’s ever done to help herself—and I had to tell her to stop. It wasn’t safe, because of the press.” James stopped himself. “I didn’t mean you.”

“I know that.” Ben had never been much of a tabloid reader, but he’d begun paying more attention now that he was sleeping with someone regularly pictured on their covers. Their rabidity startled him, as did the depths to which they would stoop. Business reporting never turned so ugly. If Ben had ever tried some of those stunts on his corporate subjects, he would have been sued or even prosecuted. But James, head of state, had to take it. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair to her or to you.”

“No. It’s not.”

Yet merely speaking those words seemed to release James from the worst of the heaviness dragging him down. He leaned back against Ben, reached up to take Ben’s hands.

“You comfort me,” James said.

James did not comfort Ben. As far as Ben was concerned, he needed no comforting; he handled his issues on his own. Always had, always would. But even as he mentally recoiled from the idea of relying on James, he realized he didn’t mind James relying on him.

They were friends. He could be supportive of a friend.

Ben slipped his hands free to trace his way down James’s chest. He kissed the nape of James’s neck and murmured, “I can comfort you in other ways too, you know.”

“Yes.” James reached up to caress the side of Ben’s face behind him. “I know.”

Now Ben’s fingers slipped through the damp curls of pubic hair to grasp James’s cock. Although he was completely soft for that first instant, Ben felt James began to harden even before he started working him. James breathed out sharply, almost like a man in pain—but it was just that last moment of letting go.

As James began to rock into Ben’s grip, Ben leaned forward, pressing his own erection against James’s ass. God, James had an amazing ass: firm and rounded, almost indecent even in the suits he always wore, and irresistible now that he was bare and wet. The first moment of temptation to fuck James right there in the shower was quickly set aside; water was the worst lube imaginable, nor did he intend to stop long enough to retrieve condoms. Instead Ben cushioned the length of his cock in the cleft, sliding up and down between each firm cheek. It felt just as good as being inside James, and within moments he had begun to groan.

James continued to thrust, the two of them in perfect synch, sinuously tilting their hips to make sure they remained locked together. Every movement sent another wave of arousal and pleasure through Ben; each time made James get a little harder. The hot water rushed along Ben’s back, trickled between their bodies. Steam enveloped them so thickly that nothing else in the world seemed to exist.

“Yes,” James whispered, and then, more loudly, “Oh, God, Ben—now, right now—”

Ben tightened his fist and pumped along with their thrusts as he kissed James roughly on the neck, letting his teeth scrape the skin. With one helpless cry, James came, spurting thickly through Ben’s fingers.

Immediately Ben pushed forward to press James’s body against the tile wall. James didn’t resist; instead he tilted his ass to make sure Ben would still get to enjoy the friction and heat. Something about the way James did it—so instinctively, so pliantly—brought Ben even closer to the edge.

Dizzy and exhilarated, Ben gripped James’s hips in his hands and kept going. He could look down to watch the head of his cock sliding between the cheeks of James’s ass, and it seemed to him he’d never seen anything more erotic. His breaths came faster as he sped up, went harder . . .

Usually Ben came quickly. This time the wave took its time, building within him, bringing him past the point of inevitability, and yet allowing him several seconds of delicious anticipation before the full rush of orgasm. As it swept through him, cock to gut to heart to skull, he heard himself crying out. The sound echoed against the tiles even as the sensation seemed to echo through his body, making him shudder.

When he was himself again, he pulled James into an embrace. James turned so that they were finally face-to-face, and—for the first time that evening—they kissed.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” James murmured against Ben’s throat. “I needed that.”

“My pleasure. Literally.” Ben laughed at his own joke, and James joined in.

And yet deep inside, Ben felt unsettled, without knowing precisely why.

The rest of the evening passed like many of their nights together: a fine dinner of coq au vin in James’s kitchen while Happy and Glo snuffled around their feet, a game of chess that James won with a move Ben was ashamed to have missed, and another lovemaking session in the broad royal bed. They chitchatted about nothing in particular, since James seemed to have vented his feelings about Indigo’s mental health, at least for the moment.

But after they’d had sex for the second time, Ben rose and went for the folded clothing that waited for him on the teak bench, calling behind him, “The Tube shuts down around midnight, you know.”

“I heard about that,” James said, as though it were some obscure historical factoid. “You’re sure it wouldn’t be better to stay?”

“If I’m getting up to run with Roberto in the morning, I’m a whole lot better off heading out to meet him from my place.” Ben shrugged on his sweater as he walked back into the bedroom. “And it’s going to be early enough that my sneaking out would be just as dodgy then as it is now.”

“As long as you’re careful.” James burrowed back down into his pillows and coverlet, drowsy and content. “I’m glad you could come tonight.”

“Me too,” Ben said, meaning it.

Yet earlier that day, when Roberto had asked Ben to join him for a run, Ben had turned him down. He’d be texting the guy from the train to let him know the plans had changed. Early-morning runs weren’t Ben’s idea of a good time, but he knew he couldn’t spend the night at the palace. Staying would extend something that didn’t need to last any longer than it already had.

It was one thing to comfort someone. Another to let that person rely on him. James deserved honesty from Ben, and that meant making sure neither of them forgot the boundaries they’d set.

Though of course James was the only one in danger of forgetting.

•   •   •

The next few days seemed, to Ben, like a long, winding path of dominos collapsing. For no reason he could name, that night with James seemed to have been the first domino to fall.

He had dutifully texted Roberto, woken before dawn, and headed out for the run. But no sooner had they begun than rain began to pour down, drenching them both. The cold and damp were too much even for Roberto, a dedicated runner, which meant there was nothing to do but go home and wring water from his socks.

Ben was able to make some headway on the book over the weekend, but his productivity in the office the following week sank almost to zero. Fiona sent back his recent story on the potential market for electric cars, saying it was still “theoretical.” He thought that was more or less summed up in the word
potential
, but she was the boss. His other story ideas were shot down one by one, which left him stuck interrogating whatever press releases Global received.

“Another merger,” he muttered, clicking on each as they appeared on his screen. “A revolutionary new product that’s anything but revolutionary. Oh, look. Tungsten mines. Thrilling.”

“C’mon, man.” Roberto said it with a smile, but the strain of listening to the bitching of the guy in the next cube had clearly begun to wear on him. “This is the name of the game, and we all know it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Roberto’s grin turned genuine, as well it should, considering that he had a scoop on some new breakthrough in encryption technology. “Hey, we all have a source come through once in a while.”

“I could use one today.” Ben leaned back in his office chair and resumed clicking on press releases. Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

His hand went still with the cursor poised beside the subject heading BIG PHARMA BRIBERY SCANDAL IN CHINA.

This looked like a valid story, but that wasn’t why it froze Ben. It was the memory of learning about international bribery from one of the masters.

“Not every culture sees bribes the way they do in Germany, or the United States.” Warner had said this as they lay together in the bed of his hotel suite.
Ben had nodded, eager to come across as someone mature and worldly enough to understand such things.
“In the Far East, bribes are merely the unspoken cost of doing business. Like . . . tipping in a restaurant.”