“Riley?”

I frowned, glancing around the garden. I knew my friend had come out this way, and I needed her, since we had to get back to Callie’s room and finish helping her with the final dress fitting.

But, I couldn’t find Riley. Riley, who’d thankfully taken any suspicion my friends might have had about my own odd behavior away, because she’d been acting like a hurricane since she’d shown up.

I grumbled as I stepped down the path of King Milton’s gorgeous rose gardens. I was getting pretty close to the end of them and still no sign of her. Up ahead, there was a little archway in the hedges that led to a field — for the day, it’d been used as extra parking for the limos and sports cars of the royal elite who were attending the wedding.

“Riley, where the fuck are you?”

I muttered again as I stomped down the path and barged through the archway.

“Oh!”

I gasped, half jumping back as I almost walked right into the very girl I was looking for. Except, Riley wasn’t alone. Standing close to her — very close, I noted — was a gorgeous, stern looking man with dark hair and blue eyes.

A man I actually knew, by way of Xavier.

Riley’s face was bright freaking red. Actually, a lot of her was red and blushing, from her cheeks down to her chest.

“Uh, Lola,” she stumbled over her words. “This is King Sven, of Northlund.”

I kept my eyes locked on my friend, a grin starting to creep over my face. Holy shit, I knew that look on her face. I knew it because I’d just had it all over my face the last few days. But especially, that first time when Xavier and I kissed in the doorway to my room.

That was that look. It was a look that said “I just kissed someone I shouldn’t have but damn am I glad I did.” Oh, me and that look were on familiar terms at that point.

I eyed her another second before I dragged my gaze over to the King.

“Of course, Your Highness.” I smiled my most princess-y smile, curtseying as well.

Riley rolled her eyes at me.

“Your Highness,” King Sven growled. We’d met before, though I hadn’t seen him at the manor in a while.

“We were just talking about his car,” Riley said quickly. Very quickly.

“Oh yeah?” I turned my head and glanced past her to the beautiful vintage looking Rolls Royce behind them. But my eyes suddenly darted from the gorgeous chrome and old detailing to the side door, where someone had scratched a very large, very comical dick into the paint.

I snorted, a hand flying to my mouth.

“Vandals,” King Sven growled. “You never can be too careful.”

He and Riley glanced at each other, her face flushing redder, and his tensing even more. And very quickly, I definitely wanted to know the details of what I’d apparently almost just walked in on.

* * *

“Yeah, uhh, so what was that?”

“Nothing,” Riley blurted from behind me.

I rolled my eyes, whirling on my heel and catching her mid-step as we headed down the garden path back to Callie’s quarters.

“I call bullshit.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, giving my friend a stern look.

“You can call it whatever you like,” Riley muttered. “C’mon, let’s go. We’re late.”

“And just what were you just doing back there with King Sven?” I grinned at her.

“Nothing!” she snapped again, clearly on edge about something. “I was doing nothing with Sven, okay? I came out here for a drink, and he just happened to be out here too.”

“Was that you that did that to his car?”

“No,” she blurted quickly. Too quickly. My eyes went wide, and my jaw dropped.

“Are you serious? Riley, you scratched a dick into his car?”

“Oh shut up.”

I shook my head, actually genuinely concerned now instead of just trying to tease her. Riley had been on this weird tear ever since she’d arrived that morning. I mean she was always kind of a hurricane, but there was definitely something up with her that she’d decided not to share — something that was pretty out of character for her.

“Dude what is with you today?”

“Nothing, okay?”

“C’mon, Riley, you’ve been…”

“I’ve been what?”

“Kind of out of control today.”

She glared at me. “You’re supposed to be on my team, you know.”

I grinned. The joke in our little friend group was always that Faith and Callie were the goody-two-shoes, and Riley and I were the troublemakers. Team troublemaker.

“I’m fine, okay?”

“No, you’re off the rails today.” I dropped my eyes to her dress, where I knew she had a little flask of whiskey tucked away that she’d been sipping at all day.

“You’ve been drinking since you got here, and you’ve been this ball of like, chaos. What’s going on?”

“Nothing!”

“Do not say nothing. We’ve been friends for way too long.”

Riley sighed, putting her hands on my shoulders as she looked me in the eye. “Lola, I love you, and you know I love you. But drop it, okay? It’s Callie’s day. Let’s just concentrate on her today.”

“Ugh, tell me about it.” I wrinkled my nose. “You think she’s going to go through with this whole arranged marriage shit?”

“Callie? Have you met Callie?” She sighed, shaking her head. “Of course she is.”

“It’s so shitty.”

“Yeah.” Riley sighed. She hiked her bridesmaids dress up and pulled the little flask from her garter belt. “Drink?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

Riley grinned mischievously, wagging her brows at me. “Ahh, right, right. We wouldn’t want Daddy catching you with booze on your breath, now would we?”

I felt my whole face blush and tingle as I glared at her.

It wasn’t the first time my friends — Riley in particular — had used that name for Xavier. I mean, he was my guardian, he was older — the name made sense, sort of. But before was different. When she’d teased me with that name for him before, I’d just blushed and shrugged it off.

Now, with what we’d done? With having just lost my virginity to him, and with both of us using that “daddy” word the way we had? Well, let’s just say that her using that name now hit me a whole different way.

“Knock it off,” I muttered.

“I’m just giving you a hard time.” She grinned. “Sure you don’t want a sip?”

I shook my head again, as tempted as I was. “Later, maybe.”

“You know where to find me.”

“C’mon.” I hooked my arm into hers, determined to brush the heat away. “Don’t go thinking your evasive moves have thrown me off that very tempting trail that leads to you and King Sven canoodling out in the gardens just now.”

* * *

I could barely concentrate on helping Callie with everything. Because all I could think of was one thing: I’d just lost my virginity the night before to the most incredible man I knew.

And I just wanted more of him. Always, constantly. Hell, I’d been wet and tingly the entire time I was with my friends, only partially adding to the conversations with half of my head still firmly in fantasy land. Until finally, when Callie had to go meet up with the seamstress for the finishing touches on her dress, I slunk away.

…To find Xavier, of course.

My whole body tingled with this raw energy as I prowled the hallways, heading down towards the main ballroom where I knew some of the official pre-wedding festivities were going on. I loved the power he exuded, and the spark he’d lit inside of me. I loved what he did to me, and how he wasn’t just some new guy, but that he’d been such a force in my life even long before we’d crashed together.

Xavier Danes knew me better than anyone, and now, he knew all of me.

I blushed, thinking again of the night before and all the ways he’d taken me, and made me scream for more. I loved the rough and yet tender way he held me, and the filthy, sexy things he whispered in my ear that had me melting for him.

And I loved being bad for him.

A thought crossed my mind, and I paused, grinning to myself as the heat flushed through me. I glanced around the empty hallway, my pulse racing as I slipped my hands under my bridesmaid dress, hooked my fingers into my panties, and quickly yanked them off. My whole face burned hot with the idea of someone waltzing around the corner at the worst possible time, but thankfully, no one did. I balled my panties up into a fist as I quickly bolted down the hallway towards the ballroom.

* * *

“I need to talk to you.”

Xavier turned from a few stuffy-looking older types he’d been talking to, and his eyes blazed as he realized it was me tugging on his sleeve.

“Excuse me.” He smiled benignly at the elderly men he’d been chatting with and turned, taking my elbow and moving me towards the edge of the room.

“There are eyes everywhere, Lola,” he whispered lowly, his eyes saying and doing all the things we both knew he couldn’t say and do in public right then.

“So we should go somewhere they aren’t.”

He arched a brow, a hungry smile crossing his lips.

“And what do you need to talk to me about?”

I pulled close to him, and without him realizing it, I slipped my balled up panties into his jacket pocket as my lips brushed his ear.

“How badly I want more of your cum in me.”

Xavier growled, his jaw tensing and his hands tightening on me, making me gasp.

“Fuck, Lola…” he groaned, a warning edge in his voice.

I smiled sweetly at him as I leaned in again. “Oh, and there was something else I wanted to talk to you about, Daddy.”

The rumbling growl caught in his throat.

“Check your pocket.”

Xavier’s eyes burned into mine, that raw power behind them burning hotly as he reached into his jacket pocket. He froze, his eyes glancing down as he half pulled them out. I took his other hand, and before he could even say anything at all, I pulled it up under my dress, pulling his big hand up to my bare, wet pussy.

“I forgot my panties,” I whispered heatedly into his ear as I felt his whole body clench tight.

“Come with me, now,” he hissed.