I woke up in the main sitting room of Annesly Hall. It was dark and Eva wasn't there, a fact I was almost glad of. Not because I wanted her to leave, the way I usually did after fucking a woman, but because I didn't want her to leave. And that was – well, that was new and if I'm honest, a little scary. My sister's words came to mind as I lay there on the sofa, the ease with which she'd dismissed Tristan's feelings about his Spanish girl. It wasn't just Charlotte, either. It was me, too, secretly thinking my friend an idiot for 'allowing' his feelings to get the best of him.

And then the light came on and Eva was right there, looking irresistible in my shirt, and I knew, suddenly and profoundly, that the universe was in the process of teaching me a lesson. I couldn't even think about her, let alone look at her, without deep feelings of affection, of lust and yes, of possessiveness, coming over me.

"You're awake," she said, standing there all innocently like she hadn't just dismantled everything I thought I knew about myself. "Killian? Why do you have that look on your face?"

"I think you know why," I told her, pulling my clothes on and standing up.

I could have said more – I could have said a lot more – but I didn't. Instead I just held her as she put her arms around me and nestled her head into my chest. We stayed there, wrapped around each other for a little while, until my stomach rumbled loudly. "You hungry?" I asked. "I'm starving."

I couldn't help bending down to kiss the tip of her nose as she replied that, yes, she was hungry too.

In the kitchen there was a box of vegetables from the Smythson House garden that I'd had sent down to Woaden sitting on the counter. Eva went straight for it. "What are these?"

She was holding up a bag of bright pink bean pods. "Those are borlotti beans. Here," I pulled a stool up to the kitchen island and patted it. "Sit down, I'll show you how to shell them."

"Oh? Is that why I'm here? To be your kitchen wench?"

I grinned. "Yes, of course. I mean, that and the sex. Now get to work woman, this soup isn't going to make itself."

Eva wasn't the type of girl who got offended by that kind of thing – yet another reason on the ever-growing list of Reasons Why Eva James Was Wonderful In Every Way. I sat down beside her and took one of the bean pods out of the bag, cracking it open at one end with my fingers while she watched. "Just like this. Open it at one end and then run your finger down the inside like this – the beans just come out. I'll get you a bowl to put them in."

"Did you grow these?" she asked, cracking her first pod open and nudging the beans out one by one. "They look like they have freckles."

"Ha! They do, don't they? Just like you, but not as cute. And yes, I did grow them myself."

Eva shelled the beans while I prepared other ingredients. Well, while I tried to prepare the other ingredients. I couldn't stop looking at her as she concentrated on the beans, her dark curls brushing her shoulders every time she leaned forward to put them in the bowl. At one point I almost managed to lop off the tip of my own finger as I chopped carrots, so distracted by my American angel was I.

"Jesus," I sighed. "I can't get a damn thing done with you around, shelling beans like a goddess."

"Shelling beans like a goddess?" Eva smiled. "Geez, Killian, get a grip."

"I'm trying," I assured her, taking the bowl when she was done, emptying it into a big pot and handing her a saucepan. "Now, the mushrooms. These are dried shiitakes, they need to be soaked in warm water. Can you do that for me? Then we need to chop the cavolo nero."

"We need to chop the what?"

"Cavolo nero. It's Italian, it means 'black cabbage' but it's actually a kind of kale. I suppose with the borlotti beans this is turning out to be an Italian kind of supper, isn't it?"

"Oh my God," Eva laughed. "I love the way you nerd out about this stuff."

"Oh yeah?" I replied. "Well you'd be the first woman who wasn't bored to tears by it."

"Somehow I doubt that. But I'm not even kidding, I love that you know all this stuff. It's – it's kind of sexy."

We spent the next hour or so chopping and slicing in the kitchen, Eva bustling about adorably and peppering me with questions about everything. She was so happy. I was so happy. I felt so at ease with her, it was hardly possible to believe we'd only known each other for a few short weeks. It was so strange, almost a sensation of homecoming, as if I'd been waiting my entire life to spend the evening cooking supper with her. Of course I couldn't keep my hands off her, either, playfully smacking her ass or bending to kiss her warm, sweet neck at every opportunity.

When we finally sat down to eat, the conversation fell away for a little while as we filled ourselves up. When I ladled out a second helping for Eva she reached out and ran her hand over my forearm.

"This is nice, Killian."

"Well, it's all homegrown so, as I said –"

"No, I don't mean the soup. Although that is delicious. I just mean this. You. Being here with you. It's so weird, it feels like I've known you for so much longer than I actually have. Like we've been here cooking supper together for years. You know?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I do know. It feels the same for me."

She was looking at me across the table, still wearing nothing but my shirt. The top few buttons were missing, torn off in our earlier frenzy, and it was falling off her shoulder a little, exposing a tantalizing expanse of dark, lovely skin. My cock, already awake just due to being in Eva's presence, stirred. My thoughts must have been visible on my face because she asked me why I was looking at her like that.

"Because you look delicious," I replied. "Because all I want to do is come over there and kiss that little spot where your neck meets your shoulder."

Instead, Eva stood up and came to me, straddling me in my chair. Our eyes met and I leaned in, trailing kisses down her earlobe and over her neck and then sliding my hands up under her shirt.

"Fuuuck. You're not wearing panties. Eva, you're going to be the death of me, girl."

She smiled and rocked her hips forward until my eyes closed. That's where I needed her. Right there.

"You know," I commented, unbuttoning the few remaining buttons on the shirt, "I was going to make us dessert. Custard and apples. But now I think I'll just have you instead."

I stood up, lifting her with me, and set her on the edge of the table, pushing my tongue into her mouth as she reached for me.

"Wait," she whispered, when she sensed I wasn't joking. "Wait, Killian. Here? But there's –"

"Yes, here," I told her, sweeping the bowls and cutlery towards the other end of the table, barely even hearing it when a few things fell off and hit the floor. Eva started to giggle, and then she saw my face and just lay back, opening herself up, doing what she knew I wanted her to do. My cock twitched in my pants seeing her like that, laid out for me. She reached for me again, trying to pull me down on top of her. "No," I said. "Not yet. I told you I'm having dessert first."

I adjusted my cock, stiff and aching, in my pants and bent down over the table, running my hands over Eva's smooth legs, kissing her inner thigh slowly as she sighed and pushed her fingers into my hair. I kissed her other thigh, pressing my cheek against her pussy and she shifted her hips, trying to get me to kiss her where she really wanted it.

"Patience," I murmured, looking up at her. "I like to take my time with dessert, sweet girl."

"Killian," she whispered, her voice already tense with need. "Killian..."

I was determined not to rush this time. I loved her in that state, so desperate for me – I wanted to drag it out. And drag it out I did, kissing down her soft thighs and then back up again, feeling the way her body tightened up as I got closer to her clit and listening to her voice get increasingly high-pitched as I refused to go there. I'm not sure she realized it was at least as hard for me as it was for her. I could feel the heat radiating from her body, smell the musky sweetness of her arousal. My cock was so hard it was almost painful, screaming at me to stop messing around and fuck her, immediately. But I didn't. It was too addictive listening to those girlish little gasps of hers, reveling in the shudders as I slid my tongue between her lips, just over her opening, and then pushed it up, veering away from her clit at the last second.

"Killian!" she cried, propping herself up on her elbows and looking down at me. I looked back at her. Her lips were parted, she looked half drunk, no longer able to hide the effect I was having on her. "No," she pleaded. "Don't stop – I – please, please don't stop."

"You want me to keep going?" I asked innocently, chuckling as Eva squirmed underneath me.

"Yes, Killian. Please!"

I spread my hand out on her belly, holding her down against the table, and flicked my tongue very lightly over her clit, refusing to let her arch her body up off the table. Then I did it again, slower, slow enough to have her moaning and pulling my hair, and again and again until her breath was coming quick and shallow.

"Mmm, you like that?" I asked, pausing before she could get too close.

"Killian –"

"Just answer the question, Eva. Tell me if you like it. Do you like the feeling of my tongue on your little pussy, sweetheart?"

She couldn't respond. All she could do was sigh and helplessly try to push my head back down between her legs. When she realized that wasn't going to happen she managed to get a few words out. "Yes, Killian. Yes, yesss..."

When I lowered my head between her legs one more time I could actually see how wet she was, her lips were glistening with it. I needed to fuck her. I needed to feel her around me again, so badly. But she was right where I wanted her, teetering along an edge, begging me to push her over it. I ran my tongue over her clit again, not stopping this time. When her body started to tighten up I pushed two fingers into her wetness.

"Killian!"

Eva's voice was strangled, desperate, she was pushing her hips up against me, hard. I sucked her clit into my mouth and sped up, fluttering my tongue up and down and over her until she collapsed back onto the table, moaning my name as her sex began to spasm around my fingers. I didn't stop, not until she was limp and panting and oh-my-God-ing and my cock was straining against my pants.

"Eva," I whispered, pulling her up to me so I could kiss her.

She looked me in the eye and began undoing my pants, taking my rigid cock out and lightly running her fingertips down the length of it. "I know, Killian. I know what you need."

"If you keep doing that," I panted, swallowing hard against the urge to just let go, "I'm going to come all over your hand."

"Are you?" she teased, biting her lip and smiling at my reaction.

I kissed her again, opening her lips with mine and pushing my tongue between them. "I have to be inside you. Right now, baby."

I thought she was going to torment me, get some payback. Instead, she simply slid off the table and turned to face it, bending over and looking back at me over her shoulder.

"I want you, Killian. I want you to feel what you did to –"

Her words were cut off in her throat as I guided myself into her, completely unable to resist. "Oh, Eva," I breathed, running my hands down her back and grasping her hips, pulling her back to me. "Goddamnit you feel so good. You feel so good, baby."

She braced herself against the kitchen table, easing herself back onto me every time I thrust into her. And then there was nothing but her, giving me the one thing I needed, and her sweet, wet, warm pussy enveloping me, enticing the cum out of my balls with each little shiver, each little moan.

I made it to twenty-nine without ever feeling the inside of a woman without a layer of latex between us. I'd never slipped up, not once. It had been drilled into me by the age of fourteen or fifteen that having sex without a condom was just something I could never, never do. The risk wasn't worth it. And it made sense. It all made sense – before her. Usually, if I needed to feel skin, women were more than happy to blow me, and condoms didn't seem so bad. Not with Eva. There was something else going on with her. Some deep and primal part of me, a part that was not going to be denied, needed to come in her pussy. Needed to mark her, make her mine. I looked down at my cock, filling her up again and again, at the way her body took me.

"You're gonna make me come," I panted, feeling the release nearing. "Fuck, Eva. Oh, baby. Fuck."

"Killian, Killian..." Eva's voice was wavering. I dug my fingers into her hips and yanked her back against me, hard.

"You're not going to come again are you? Baby? Are you going to come again?"

"Yeahhh..." she whimpered, her voice suddenly high and thin.

That was it, the point of no return. I bent over her, pushing her down against the table, and fucked her hard. "Good. Good girl. Eva. Come, baby. I need you to...oh my God. Oh Eva, you're going to make me, ohhh –!"

I rammed myself into her, all the way, and let go, my eyes rolling back into my head as she shuddered underneath me, crying out my name as I spilled myself deep inside her.

It actually took me a few moments to realize just how hard I'd been digging my fingers into her flesh. When I let go there were marks on her skin.

"Shit," I babbled, rubbing the skin gently. "Shit, Eva. Did I hurt you? I didn't even realize –"

She looked back at me, apparently too exhausted to move yet. "You didn't hurt me. Well, maybe a little. But I don't care, Killian. I liked it. I like how hard you hold on."

One of the glasses that had hit the floor when I swept it off the table had shattered, and Eva was barefoot. "Wait," I told her when she moved to stand up. "Just wait, there's broken glass everywhere. Here, hold on to me."

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and I lifted her off the table, carrying her into the sitting room off the back of the kitchen, the one that looked out over the sea. "Just give me a sec, I'm just going to get a blanket."

"Killian?"

"Yes?"

"Hurry."

I wandered, naked, into one of the lower floor bedrooms and grabbed a couple of blankets, only half-aware of the fact that I was strutting like a goddamned rooster. When I got back, I sat down next to Eva and wrapped us both up. She was looking out the window, towards the sea.

"What's that?"

I followed her gaze, noting a small light bobbing up and down in the darkness. "A fishing boat, I expect. Everyone used to make their living fishing around here, but the industry is almost dead now, just a few stragglers holding on."

"Huh," she replied, cuddling up against me. "Sounds like home. Not fishing, but industry. My grandpa used to support a family of six on a factory wage but that life is gone now. My dad works his butt off but he makes less and less all the time. I think that's why they were so supportive of me coming to Rhenland – they know I'm going to have to make my own way in Oshwego if I want to make a life there, have a family."

I knew what Eva was talking about – and about the decline of the fishing industry in Woaden – because I'd read about it. Jason and my father were always e-mailing me newspaper articles and summaries of academic papers because it was important that I not come across as 'out of touch' with the people. But I'd never actually met someone whose life had been affected, not in person. It had always been an abstract.

"Is that what you want?" I asked her. "To move back to Oshwego and have a family?"

"Yes – what's wrong with that? It's not even worth it to go to college anymore, not without rich parents who can pay for it."

She sounded slightly defensive. "Nothing's wrong with it," I said. "I didn't mean any offense."

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I know you didn't. It's just, I don't know. I'm from a small town, you know? When you grow up somewhere like that all anyone wants to do is leave, to go to the big city and make it. A lot of my high school friends did leave and there's just this weird feeling that it's not good enough to stay, that you're letting yourself down somehow, not showing enough ambition."

"But you did leave! Look, you're here, aren't you? And you seem to be very serious about your career –more than most."

"I mean leave permanently. Move to Chicago or New York and get a prestigious job so your parents can brag to all their friends back home. And I am serious about my career, that's true. I'm just not – I'm not one of those people burning with ambition for more, more, more. I don't need to be rich. I don't need to live in New York. I just need enough to live modestly and have a life outside of work, too. And it's important to me that I stay near my parents – I'm their only child, I don't like to think of them being lonely as they get older."

"Well I don't think there's anything wrong about any of that, Eva. I think it's lovely. It's strange to say, maybe, given our differing backgrounds, but I actually completely agree with you. People are too career-focused these days. I know that's easy for me to say, because I'll never have to worry about money, it's more just a general observation of the culture. It doesn't seem to be making people happy, does it? The rat race?"

Eva looked up at me, as if checking to see if I was being serious. "Exactly. That's how I feel, too."

It's rare that I've ever felt as close to someone as I felt to Eva that weekend in Woaden. I'm sure the sex didn't hurt, but it was something else, too. That feeling of connection when you meet someone who's just completely on your wavelength, even if they're outwardly very different. But at the same time, listening to her talk about her life caused a surprisingly sharp pang of sadness. Because no matter how close we felt, we both knew that there was a ceiling, a point beyond which we couldn't go. I could never live in Oshwego, and she couldn't stay in the Capital, not for good. Or could she? I tried to shut down those thoughts, knowing they'd just lead to more torment. Eva seemed to sense my disquiet, though.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I sighed. "Well, not nothing. I'm just frustrated. Why couldn't we have both grown up in the same place? Why couldn't this have been different – not us, I mean, just the circumstances?"

I felt Eva stiffen slightly against me when I said that, and there was a pause before she replied. "I know." I waited for her to say something else but she didn't.

"Have you ever been out on a boat?" I asked, awkwardly changing the subject because I could feel the mood darkening and I've never been very good with that sort of thing. "Like that fishing boat, I mean?"

Eva shook her head. "No. I'd probably get seasick or fall overboard."

"We should go out on one! I mean, I'd have to arrange it, we can't just wander down to the docks for a tour like normal people, but I could do that if you wanted. I'd love to show you some of the seaside villages near here, there are some lovely little fish-markets and beaches in Woaden."

"Can you do that?" she asked. "I mean, can you just go to a market or for a walk on the beach?"

Damnit. She was right. But what the fuck, we were in Woaden, not the Capital. There weren't paparazzi lurking in every bush. Why couldn't I take a walk on the beach or buy some seafood at a market? "Well, I probably shouldn't, but why not? I mean, what's the big deal? My security detail knows how to be discreet, I can wear a hat or a fake nose or something, can't I? Fuck it. We're going to the beach tomorrow. What's the point in being a Prince if you can't just bulldoze over everyone every now and again, right?"

Eva laughed. "As long as you think it's OK. I don't want you to get in any trouble."

I kissed the top of her head. "Don't worry, sweet girl. I can handle a little trouble. Especially if it means getting to see the look in your eyes when you see the beach I have in mind."

We stayed on the sofa, chatting and snuggling, until she eventually fell asleep and I carried her into the bedroom and tucked her in. Then I did something I've rarely if ever done before and cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. Someone would have done it if I hadn't, probably a cleaner the next day, but for some reason I didn't want Eva to wake up the next morning and possibly see it still there. I didn't want to give her any more reasons than she already had to think of me as a spoiled prince. It was probably her talking about her parents and how hard they worked to support their little family that did it. It's not that I was lazy – I worked, often quite a lot. But all those other, non-work things that regular people have to do? Grocery shopping and paying bills and cleaning up their own messes? Those things I didn't do, and for the first time ever, it bothered me.

When all the glass shards were cleared away I had a quick shower and climbed into bed next to Eva. She was out cold, her breathing soft and even, her hair spread out over the pillow. I watched her for a little while, entranced, and eventually fell asleep with a smile on my face and the whole weekend with her ahead of me.