Prince Leo picks up a finger sandwich. His back is perfectly rigid, and he looks at it like it’s suspicious, some sort of strange, exotic food.

Then he takes a single, dainty, careful bite. It looks completely ridiculous, because he’s huge and the sandwich is so tiny, but it’s oddly sweet.

I know he’s only here, trying to be polite and civilized, because of me, and because we’ve got two lunch attendants right now, watching us.

“These are very good,” he growls.

“I’ll give your compliments to the chef,” I say.

When I told my parents that I needed to spend more time with Prince Leo, this wasn’t exactly what I meant, being watched by the staff while we eat finger sandwiches. But it’s better than nothing, and no matter what my body is telling me right now, we need to have conversations once in a while.

Though admittedly, just staring at his hands and knowing what they can do has me wet.

And I can’t stop fantasizing about him pushing me down on this table. Commanding me to bend over for him, his thick monstrous cock nudging against my slick, wet opening.

I want him to distraction, and I’ve never wanted anyone before.

“This game preserve is quite nice,” he says, conversationally. “What sort of game do you hunt here?”

“Oh, I don’t hunt,” I say, laughing a little. “In fact, hardly anyone does any more. There are some deer and maybe a flock of pheasants, but it’s been a long time since anyone actually shot one.”

He lifts one eyebrow, leaning forward slightly.

“Why?” he asks.

I shrug.

“It seems a little uncivilized,” I say. “Unsporting, maybe? To keep nearly-tame animals on your land and then shoot them for fun.”

“I see,” he says.

“Does Szegravia still have the game preserve?” I ask.

“It’s also in disuse,” he says. “Though we’ve not kept up the paths or the buildings like you have. I’m afraid it’s gone back to nature, nothing but wilderness. Every few years we have to hack it back before it overruns the castle.”

I frown slightly, looking down at the table, then turn my head to the waiter, standing attentively at the end of the table.

“I think we’re ready for dessert now, please,” I say.

He nods professionally, then walks away. We’re in a building that was once a greenhouse, used to grow flowers and vegetables, though now it’s simply a pleasant place to spend an afternoon.

“I’d rather have you for dessert, Princess,” Leo growls once the man is gone.

I blush bright red. Even though I knew what would happen, and even though all day he’s been whispering filthy things to me whenever we’re out of the attendants’ earshot, I can’t help but have this reaction.

“You’re meant to be proving yourself to me as a royal gentleman,” I murmur.

He smiles, and it’s almost feral.

“I’ve been the perfect gentleman where it counts,” he says, a half-smile creeping over his face. “Princess, all day I’ve been behaving myself impeccably, if I may say so.”

I look down at the table. It’s true. When Prince Leo wants to be, he’s literally everything I could wish for in a prince: handsome, charming, perfectly mannered. He even threw his jacket over a mud puddle that was in my path this morning.

But I’ve still got this lingering, nagging sense of doubt. Leo in person is so different from the Leo of rumor and conjecture that I’ve heard about, again and again.

There’s no possible way he could be the monster he’s alleged to be, right? He’s a little uncouth, not a killer.

I play with a fork on the table, rotating it between my fingers hesitantly. I know that I just need to ask, but I don’t know how to form the words.

“You’re still afraid of me,” he says simply, and I look up at him, into his scarred face, his deep, beautiful eyes.

“No,” I say, and I’m not lying. “I was. I’m not now, but…”

I take a deep breath.

“I’ve heard things and I need to know the truth,” I tell him.

We’re both silent for a moment, and the servant standing at the end of the table shifts uncomfortably. I dismiss him with a nod of my head, and he disappears through a door into the kitchen.

Leo leans back in his chair, his rigid posture and manners shifting, the perfect courtly prince disappearing and something real taking his place.

“The truth is that Nadia’s death was my fault,” he says quietly.

I can’t breathe, like a giant fist is closed around my lungs.

“Even though she was two years older than me, I was always the instigator,” he goes on. “Nadia was quiet, well-behaved, always had her nose in a book, but I was a wild little hellion.”

He taps the tongs on the fork on the table.

“We were inseparable anyway, and we’d taken to exploring the castle when no one was watching us — and since I was ten and she was twelve, she was judged capable of keeping me out of trouble. And instead, one afternoon, I talked her into exploring the ruined tower.”

He pauses briefly, staring at the fork.

“We weren’t supposed to be there. It was structurally unsound from a fire a hundred years before, but I talked her into it. And when she walked to look at the view from the edge, it crumbled underneath her.”

His eyes are bright at the memory, and a pang stabs through my heart. He’s never looked more human.

“And I caught her,” he says quietly. “But I couldn’t hold on, and I had to watch as she fell to her death.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, knowing that it’s not enough.

“I got the scar then, too,” he says. “I didn’t realize until hours later that I’d nearly lost my eye to an old nail sticking out of a wall where I threw myself down.”

He shifts again in his seat, puts the fork down, and looks me square in the eye.

“My parents told the press that I hadn’t been there, that Nadia had been on her own, because they didn’t want it to look suspicious. But of course someone had seen the two of us together, and it eventually got out that I was there, and it only looked more suspicious, like at ten years old I’d killed my own sister so I could inherit the kingdom.”

He shrugs lightly.

“They were too deep in their grief to care much about public relations, and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out, so the rumor mill got to run full force with no one to stop it,” he finishes.

I know the rest, of course.

“I didn’t believe it,” I say, swallowing hard. “But I didn’t not believe it.”

Leo smiles and stands, then comes around the table and pulls me to my feet.

“Do you believe me now?” he asks.

A shiver slides down my spine.

“I do,” I whisper.

“Good,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t stand it if you thought I was a monster.”

The intimacy of this moment combined with his sheer proximity is making heat wind through my body yet again, finally unfettered by the thought that Leo might be dangerous.

The attendant comes back and sets tray of dainty desserts on the table, and I clear my throat.

“After luncheon, I think Prince Leo and I would prefer to take a stroll through the preserve alone,” I tell the attendant.

He frowns.

“Princess, your father did say—“

“Prince Leo and I have some very important matters to discuss,” I say firmly. “My father will understand.”

He nods.

Prince Leo’s eyes sparkle dangerously.

* * *

A few minutes later, we’re walking away from the greenhouse and along a path into the well-kept woods of the game preserve. It’s a vast expanse of land behind the castle, up in the hills where it’s impossible to farm anything anyway.

We make small talk at first, my stomach in knots. I’ve thrown caution to the wind, because even though I still don’t know whether the rumors about the prince are true, and I still think he might be the sort of wild, feral, untamed beast that everyone thinks he is, I’m here alone with him.

The moment we’re out of sight of the greenhouse, he grabs me in his arms and lifts me. I yelp, but the noise is swallowed by the trees and the ground, so I wrap my arms around his neck and hold my breath.

“You afraid of something, Princess?” he asks, his voice a low growl.

I swallow.

Yes, I think. I’m a little afraid of you and a lot afraid of what I’ll do when you’re around.

“No,” I squeak.

He puts me down on a fallen tree so I’m straddling it in my short sundress, and he towers over me. Out of habit, I try to pull my dress down, but Leo just laughs and pushes my hands away.

“That’s not what you’re here for,” he says, kissing me hard. “You didn’t send your men away so you could stay modest, did you, Princess?”

I can’t even answer because his mouth is on mine again, practically crushing me, the force of his desire almost overwhelming. His tongue invades my mouth without permission, plundering me and exploring every part.

It’s aggressive. It’s dominating. I like it, and I like having him inside me.

And I want more.

Leo is pushing me backward, my arms holding me up against the fallen tree, and his mouth leaves mine and moves lower. Down my neck, past my collarbone.

Roughly he shoves the neckline of my dress down and I gasp, my bra suddenly exposed, but Leo just chuckles and pushes that down, too, his lips finding the puckered pink of one nipple.

He bites it gingerly, and I gasp, the sensation zipping through my body like I’ve been electrocuted. I can’t believe how good this feels, and his other hand comes up, shoves my bra away, and pinches the other nipple at the same time.

“Leo,” I whisper.

He bites a little harder, and my toes curl.

Then he reaches down and under my skirt, his rough hand moving up my thigh, his fingers sliding underneath my panties.

“You’re soaking goddamn wet, Princess,” he says, his voice low and rough. “Is that for me?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

His fingers slide across my lips, slippery with my juices.

“Is this because I said I was going to tongue-fuck you while you moaned?” he asks. “Or is this because you’ve been staring at my thick royal cock all day?”

I clear my throat, breathing hard.

“The first one?”

He just chuckles and takes my hand, guiding it to the impossibly big, hard rod in his pants. I gasp.

“That’s a pity,” he says. “Because they’re both good reasons for your panties to be soaked straight through.”

He grabs my panties in one hand and yanks, tearing them off and tossing them to the forest floor before I can even speak. Then Prince Leo kisses me even harder, pushing me backward until I’m lying on the fallen tree, legs around him as he presses his rock-hard need against me.

His lips travel down again, past my neck, my breasts, my belly, and then he’s shoving my dress over my hips, his hands tight on my thighs.

Something runs the length of my lips, something deft and flexible.

It has to be his tongue.

He does it again, teasing me, only this time he pushes his tongue between them and laps at my entrance, coming so close to entering me but he doesn’t. Instead he flattens it and slides it to my clit, where he licks me in slow, deft circles.

My toes curl, and I gasp. Holy fuck this feels good, and even if I can’t believe I’m letting him do this right here, right now, I couldn’t stop for the world.

It’s total, pure ecstasy, and I reach both my hands over my head and grab onto a branch stump behind myself as he licks at me, his tongue gliding over my most intimate places while I gasp and squirm, his strong hands holding my thighs open wide.

We’re right out, in the open, where anyone could come along and see. And yet I’m completely powerless to stop, totally under his control in his moment, my body writhing like a river of fire is flowing through me.

Leo’s tongue is fast and merciless, and I’ve never had anyone do this to me before. In no time at all, I’m teetering on the brink of orgasm, moments away from falling over that sweet edge and coming hard, but then his tongue slows.

I hold my breath, but he doesn’t start again, just draws slow circles around my clit until the sensation fades and I’m not at that dangerous edge any more.

Then he starts again, pushing me right up to the edge, and backing off.

He’s teasing me. No, worse: he’s torturing me, making sure I know he has the power to make me come whenever he wants, but he’s not giving me the satisfaction. I feel like sparks in a windstorm, hot and swirling, my body a rush of confusion and pleasure and pure, desperate want.

The next time he does it, I’m so close that I think I might come anyway, just from the sheer force of my desire. I stay at the brink even after his tongue leaves me, this time sliding down, between my lips as I whimper desperately, my whole body trembling.

Then, at last, he slides his tongue inside me and curls it hard against my sensitive front wall, and I explode. My back arches and my toes curl as pleasure arcs through me like lightning, fast and hard, but it keeps moving and going long past the point where I’ve been struck.

The sensation sizzles through my veins over and over again, until at last my legs are shaking, my breath coming in quick gasps, and I’m almost delirious.

Leo moves his face away from me, kissing and biting my inner thigh, then my belly, then my lips as I’m still laid back on the fallen tree. I kiss back like a drowning woman, even though he tastes like me, because I don’t care.

After a long time I sit up, dazed, Leo’s lips still on mine. From pure instinct I try to slide my hand down his body, because I want him, want to see his thick, monstrous cock and make him feel as good as he’s made me, but he catches my wrist.

Then he moves his face away from mine and grins, just as I hear footsteps on dry leaves coming through the forest.

“Not now, Princess,” he murmurs.

Frantically, I pull up the top of my dress and pull down the bottom, sitting upright on the fallen tree as Leo sits next to me, just as casual as can be.

I can only pray that we’re hiding my torn panties from whoever’s on the path, and hold my breath. Leo takes one of my hands in his own, like he’s a dutiful, polite suitor, not the beast who just ate me out right here in the woods.

An older man comes into view. I think I recognize him from the stables — he isn’t someone I see every day, but he’s familiar.

He nods at us. We nod at him, and he continues his walk.

Then Leo pulls me up and leads me back to the greenhouse where we had lunch. Despite everything, I’m disappointed — I want to feel what it’s like when he comes so hard he can’t control himself, when he writhes and jerks with pleasure.

But I understand that now’s not the time.