For the next three days, Aurora is all I think about. She’s all I look at, the only thing I listen for in a crowd. My mind is on her, constantly.

I fucking wish I was on her constantly, too, but sometimes I’ve got to leave the bedroom in the west tower, as much as I don’t want to. After all, I’m here to help my best friend celebrate his infant son, so I do show up to most of those events.

Even if I’m fucking his sister and I shouldn’t be.

Even if Grayson can never know that I fall asleep dreaming of climbing those stairs, seeing Aurora for the first time that night.

Naked, facing the window, a little shy.

Naked, sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

Naked, lying back, fingers already working her clit, like she was last night. She moaned when she saw me, her pussy glistening softly in the moonlight as she rubbed herself faster. I made her stop, of course.

Had her lie back on the bed, her head over the edge, and swallow my cock again while I teased her. Then I fucked her with one finger up her ass and she came twice, both times so hard I thought she might break my dick.

So yeah, I’m having a lot of trouble thinking of anything else. Tonight, I’ve got a surprise in my pocket for her, something I can’t wait to watch her use. Something that’ll make her squirm.

Something that’ll make her come.

It’s the final night of Stefan’s christening week, and it’s the final gala. This one is being thrown by Aurora, in name at least, so she’s been unavailable all day, attending to minor details and answering questions that the staff is asking her.

Of course, she’s not making centerpieces or hanging decorations herself. But she’s nominally in charge, which means that there isn’t even a moment for me to pull her behind a curtain and crawl beneath her skirt, which is a shame.

I suffer through another day of festivities, through yet another banquet dinner where some girl tries to hang onto my arm, then shove her tits in my face during dessert.

Normally, I’d be all over it. I’d pull her into a coat closet and have her on her knees in no time, but when she flirts with me, I’m just repulsed.

And I’m watching Aurora, at the head of the table, laughing and being the perfect, stately princess that she was born to be. Every time our eyes meet my cock twitches, and I have to add fractions together in my head until my erection goes away.

There’s another ball, of course. A final one, held again in the ballroom of the palace, which I’ve become tediously familiar with over the last week. I grab a glass of champagne with Kieran and Beckett, and we stand not far from the dance floor, near the bar, and watch Aurora and Bianca as they talk near the front of the room.

“You two heading back home tomorrow?” I ask.

They’re not princes, just aristocracy — though they’re certainly wealthier than nearly any member of a royal family I’m aware of. Hell, the two of them might both me richer than me, and that’s saying a lot.

“I think so,” Kieran says, and then looks over at his best friend. “Think you can bear to leave just yet?”

Beckett’s blatantly staring at Bianca across the room. The two of them have been mooning over her all week, taking every spare second to spend with Aurora’s sweet, innocent cousin.

I’m tempted to tell them it’ll never work. They want a girl they can share, and no self-respecting princess would be caught dead with two men at once.

But then again, I thought no self-respecting princess would beg to swallow my cock like Aurora did last night, so what do I know?

“If we left for Griskold together, we could split the cost of a private jet and save ourselves some money,” Beckett says.

They both burst out laughing.

“I could use the company,” Kieran says, his gaze still lingering on Aurora’s cousin.

Just then, a trumpet blows. It’s muted, but still very very loud, and everyone in the ballroom comes to attention immediately as Aurora, Grayson, and Stefan and Ella walk to a very elaborately decorated dais, an ornate chandelier casting a million sparkling lights onto it.

For just a moment, I let my eyes crawl over her. There’s no way her father or brother can tell what I’m doing from here, so I stare at every inch of her perfect, luscious body.

Knowing it’s mine. Knowing I was there first.

Knowing I’ll be seeing her again tonight, thinking of the things I’ll do to her.

Aurora’s wearing a black silk dress, floor length, that swishes with her hips when she walks. Though it’s scooped low in the back, it’s got a high neck, and even the way it hugs her curves isn’t particularly scandalous.

It’s a perfectly demure dress, by itself. But it’s the way that she looks in it that makes it look positively wicked. It’s the way she walks, the way her body underneath it moves, that makes me think filthy thoughts about making her come with my tongue in her pussy and a finger up her ass while she moans my name.

Again.

And I’m back to adding fractions, praying that no one in attendance at this ball thinks that good champagne and conversing with Kieran and Beckett is what’s giving me a hardon so intense it might tear my pants.

On the dais, Aurora air-kisses Ella, then air-kisses Bianca, Grayson, her parents. Finally, she makes her way up to a podium, standing tall and confident, looking around the ballroom like she owns the place.

Which, of course, she sort of does.

Her cool confidence here, the way she looks so sure of herself, like she knows exactly what to do, only makes me think of her other places, places where I’m still teaching her everything I can. And the way she looks so in charge now only reminds me of Aurora, on her back in the moonlight, sucking on one finger while she rubs her pussy and I tell her not to come, my eyes feasting on her beautiful body.

“On behalf of the Naraltan royal family, I’d like to thank everyone for coming tonight,” she begins, her voice flowing over the crowd. “We’re so glad that you could all gather to help us celebrate the christening of my nephew, and I know that your continued presence in his life will be a blessing...”

Aurora goes on, reading from the script that she wrote herself. It’s all very proper, very princess-like, but there’s also something about it that makes me possessive. Jealous.

All these people are watching her and they don’t know she’s mine. They don’t know that after dark, I’m the one she comes to see. I’m the one she thinks about when she’s alone, the one who makes her eyes darken with lust, the one who makes her breathless with need.

The one she wraps her arms around in the dark.

I’m the one she fell asleep next to last night, her head burrowed against my shoulder. I’m the one who wrapped his arms around her and whispered that he never wanted to leave.

Aurora’s mine. I’m hers.

No one here knows that, and I hate it.

“...And of course, Prince Stefan himself,” Aurora says, gesturing toward Ella, holding the baby.

He’s asleep, but Ella makes him wave a little at the crowd.

From above, there’s suddenly a loud creak, the sound of metal on metal, and everyone looks around, then shrugs.

It’s an old palace — four hundred something years, so things make noise. It doesn’t seem like anything’s happened.

“So please, enjoy the remainder of your stay with us, and once again, thank you all so much—”

Up above Aurora, there’s a flash of light. A sparkle.

The chandelier falls, silent and weighted, its crystal glimmering as it hurtles toward Aurora, still unsuspecting even as the assembled crowd gasps, then screams.

“No!” I shout, but I’m rooted to the spot, unable to do anything in that split second but watch it fall, ice in my veins.

At the last moment, Aurora jerks backward and then the chandelier falls with an excruciating crunch, tiny shards of glass and crystal flying twenty feet outward.

One hits me in the face, but I don’t even notice. I’m already sprinting, running toward the dais, leaping up the stairs, heart in my throat.

“Aurora!” I shout, shoving aside onlookers, my eyesight blurring. “Aurora!”