When I gave her the ring, I shouldn’t have said the wedding would be at the end of next month. I should have only given Victoria a week.

If it had been a week, then we’d have been married for three days already. I would have already spent three days in her arms, without a single event or obligation coming between us.

When she claimed her calendar wasn’t clear until next October, she hadn’t been completely joking. Add in my schedule, and I’ve barely had a moment alone with her—and those only in the car as we travel to and from events. Each night she returns home, and I return to the palace, because every move we make is captured by the fucking paparazzi, and Karl still hasn’t discovered the leak. And although I’m desperate to have her in my arms, to have her writhing under me while I pump my cock deep inside her, I don’t want to risk her being shamed by some bullshit tabloid for staying the night in my bed before we’re married.

There’d be no shame in it. And it would be no one’s goddamn business. But I don’t want her hurt again. I just want to hold her close and protect her. Every day, however, Victoria seems to move farther away from me—emotionally, physically.

Except for when I’m kissing her. Then she melts against me. Until I stop. And then she runs away as quickly as possible.

Just like she did about ten minutes ago. We’re attending yet another reception, this one at the botanical gardens to commemorate… Shit, I don’t know what this event is for. This is one of Victoria’s functions. I invited myself along because the gardens are in the village of Vesca, which is a forty-minute journey from the palace.

Forty minutes alone with Victoria on the way here was longer than we’ve ever had, and she came against my hand for the first time. I licked her pussy juices from my fingers for the first time. I’ll have another forty minutes on the way back, and the only reason she’ll still be a virgin at the end is because I promised her a bed.

But what I crave more than anything else is another forty minutes of her softening against me, instead of stiffening and rushing away. As if she’s trying to escape me.

I always know where she is, though. This time she went out into the gardens.

Slowly I make my way through the crowded reception hall and follow her. Outside, the night is clear and cool. Lush floral scents fill the air. Karl’s waiting for me at the head of a garden path.

“How far?”

“Three hundred feet, cross over the bridge, then turn left at the hedgerow. Josef’s watching her. He’ll point the rest of the way.”

Because her security team follows her everywhere she goes. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

Karl nods. “We’ll clear that section.”

Good. I didn’t expect to have an opportunity to be alone with her here, but I’ll take it.

I find Josef, who directs me to a stone folly situated atop a grassy knoll. The structure resembles an ancient Greek temple, and an ache fills my heart when I spot Victoria standing against one of the columns, her arms wrapped around her waist, her shoulders slumped.

She always looks small. But right now she looks fragile.

Her shoulders straighten when the scrape of my shoe over a loose stone warns her of my approach—then her posture stiffens when she turns her head and sees me.

A blade slips through my chest, but I shunt aside the agony of her reaction. I strip off my tuxedo jacket to place around her bare shoulders. She looks stunning in her strapless gown, but I’d rather see her warm.

She murmurs a thank you, then tilts her head back. “Did you come out to look at the stars, too?”

“No. I came to kiss my beautiful fiancée.”

I expect her to melt into my arms. Instead she closes her eyes, pain tightening her delicate features.

“Please don’t pretend to love me when we’re alone,” she says in a raw whisper. “I can’t stand it.”

The blade slashes my heart again. Becoming my queen places an enormous burden on her. Am I adding more with my physical demands—and by needing her so damn much? Stiffly I ask, “Are your new duties too much of a burden? Or are you having difficulty pretending to care for me?”

A pained laugh escapes her. “I am not pretending.”

That knocks the breath from my lungs. What does she mean by that? Does she love me?

I want that, I’m stunned to realize. I want her love more than anything in the entire fucking world.

“Except that’s a lie,” she suddenly confesses on a sigh, opening her eyes to stare blankly up at the sky. “I am acting. By pretending it doesn’t hurt so much.”

“What hurts you?” Instantly protective, I catch her hand and pull her closer. “I’ll make it stop.”

Another laugh escapes her, but this one is lighter, her voice slightly warmer—but also thick and full. “There is nothing Your Majesty can do to make it stop. Everything you are, everything you do…you are everything a woman could dream of. And more. You’re such a good man.”

Am I? I catch her chin and tip her face toward mine—and see what her voice told me that I’d find. “That’s why your eyes have filled with tears? Because I’m a good man? Tell me what hurt you.”

She doesn’t, but tucks her head against my chest and remains quiet. The spike that seems lodged in my throat prevents me from asking more. So I wrap her slight form up in my arms and hold her against me.

Minutes pass in silence. Then she stirs within my arms and asks, “Jeannette said that your mother will be attending the wedding.”

“Yes,” I say gruffly. And it will be the first time I see her in almost twenty-five years.

“Is she being invited because you want her here? Or is it just for show?”

“I don’t do anything for show. Why?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t know what your relationship with her is like. The only thing I’ve ever heard about it is from the tabloids. And they all claim that you’ll never forgive her for abandoning you when you were seven years old.”

“She didn’t abandon me. She ran away from my father.” Who belittled her and gaslighted her and flaunted his mistresses in front of her—and in front of me.

“And left you behind with him.”

“No. That is the part they all get wrong,” I tell her softly. “She stayed as long as she could. She stayed for me. Because she couldn’t take me with her. My father would have never let me go. So she was trapped here. Until I was old enough to understand what she was doing, and told her to go.”

“You told her to leave?” Her eyebrows drawn together in a frown, she looks up at me. “Then why haven’t you spoken with her since?”

“We’ve spoken. She just hasn’t visited Kapria. Too many traumatic memories remain here for her. Even for the wedding, I’m making arrangements for her and her family to stay in St. Moritz, because she’ll come to the chapel for the ceremony, but she won’t come to the palace.”

“Oh.” Suddenly she’s searching my face, her sapphire gaze filled with concern. “And are memories of your father…are they traumatic for you, too?” she asks hesitantly.

I press a kiss to her forehead, smoothing away the worry lines there. “Not like they are for her. He pretended to be a decent man when they met. So she trusted and loved him and he betrayed her. With me, he never pretended to be anything but what he was. His abuse just taught me to hate him and everything he stood for—and inspired me to be everything he is not.”

“So that’s why you aren’t a narrow-minded, cruel, selfish son of a tyrant? Instead you’re just a little uptight.”

“You think I’m uptight?” Maybe when I’m around others. But I barely have any self-control around Victoria.

“I said a little uptight,” she teases softly. “What about ‘rigid’? Do you like that better?”

“I’d say that ‘rigid’ describes me all the time.” When she giggles, I cup her face in my hands. “And I came out here for a purpose.”

Arousal flushes her cheeks. “What purpose?”

“I told you my purpose. But you thought I was pretending.”

And I could never fake this. Not the hardness of my cock, not my desperate need to taste her, not the pleasure of every single kiss. I want to shout in triumph when her mouth softens beneath mine.

Whatever’s hurting her, whatever’s pushing her away from me…it all seems to vanish when I touch her, incinerated by the heat we generate.

I have no intention of letting it cool this time.

I kiss her, loving the sweetness of her mouth, loving the eagerness in her response. My tongue fucks past her lips until she’s clinging to me, her arms looped around my neck, her hands fisted in my hair. But her mouth isn’t all I want to taste.

Pressing her back against the column, I sink to my knees. She doesn’t let me go, fingers in my hair following me down. Her kiss-swollen lips are softly parted, her gaze unfocused and slightly confused as she looks down at me.

Then her breath catches, her eyes sharpen, and uncertainty shakes through her voice. “Here…?”

“Here,” I confirm on a growl. “You think that little bit of honey I got off my fingers was enough? I want your pussy dripping for me. Then I want to lick it all up.”

Need darkens her eyes, even as her gaze sweeps the empty gardens around us. “There might be photographers.”

Leaning forward, I find the slit in her long skirt and begin trailing my hands up the sleek lengths of her thighs. “Karl’s keeping them out.”

Those legs start to tremble. “And if they have a telephoto lens?”

“Then they’ll be jealous as fuck when they realize I’m eating out this perfect little cunt. But they won’t see a damn thing, except my head under your skirt.” And they’ll never know how fucking good she smells with her panties already soaked. Or how incredible she tastes, or know the sounds she’ll make when I suck on her clit. But if she’s having doubts, I won’t do any of that. “Unless you want to wait.”

“No.” It’s an immediate denial, and the naked hunger in her eyes is joined by a darker, deeper emotion. “I’ve waited long enough.”

I have, too. So long that every cell in my body is starving for a taste. Her fingers tighten in my hair and her body quivers when I drag her panties down to her knees. The tuxedo jacket draped over her shoulders conceals just about everything that my kneeling body doesn’t.

And everything that’s revealed before me as I push her skirt higher… She’s a goddess. A living, breathing goddess with the most exquisite cunt, and I’m a mere king humbly worshipping at her feet. Her plump labia already glisten with her juices, and her pink clit’s swollen with arousal.

She whimpers softly in anticipation as I lean in. I want to tease. To take my time. To kiss those silky inner thighs and work my way up.

But then she pants breathlessly, “Please, Maximilian. Now.”

Begging me. Though I’m the one on my knees. But there’s nothing on earth I can deny her.

I go straight for those glistening pussy lips, that pouty little clit. Her flavor floods my tongue on the first lick and I groan, undone by her sweetness. She cries out and her body sags against the column, the new angle of her hips denying me another taste. My touch made impatient by hunger, I hoist her left thigh over my shoulder, opening her up and spreading her wide. With my hands gripping her ass to help hold her upright, I dive in again, my tongue thrusting into the well of her cunt before returning to her clit.

Her soft moans change to frantic little gasps, and her hips thrash against the firm hold of my hands. But there’s no holding back when her body begins trembling. The pounding of my heart thunders through my head. I’m so worked up by the slick heaven of her cunt and by the juices running down my chin that my balls draw up tight and full. Molten drops of cum leak from my cockhead, my shaft milked by the agonizing need to shove past the tight entrance that I’ve only breached with my tongue. But there’s no time to unzip, to fist my dick and stroke to completion. Even as she stiffens, then cries out my name with her back arching, what feels like a kingdom’s worth of cum erupts from my cock. With a ragged groan, I ride out the orgasm and push her to another, my face buried between her thighs, her clit pulsing against my tongue.

When her body sags again, this time I carefully ease her down to the ground until she’s kneeling in front of me, her skirt torn and her hair disheveled. Her lipstick is a smear across her mouth.

Utterly beautiful. In a gruff voice I tell her, “I ruined your hair.”

“Fuck my hair,” she replies tartly, then drags me in for an openmouthed kiss.

A kiss that I never want to end. Because she’s soft now, with no stiffness in her posture and no pain lurking in her eyes. Every time she withdraws from me, it’s after we stop touching. But soon—so goddamn soon—I’ll have her in my bed. I’ll touch her so deep and so thoroughly, she’ll never be able to stop feeling me with her, inside her. And she won’t run away again.

Until then, I’ll continue touching her as often as I can, continue breaking down the wall she keeps putting between us. And tonight I’ll eventually have to let her go.

Not yet, though. I sweep her up into my arms and begin carrying her along the garden path, heading for the car. I’ve got at least forty more minutes before we’ll take her home for the night. Forty more minutes to have her all to myself.

Longer, if we take the scenic route.