“The hair stylists will arrive at your house at four,” Ursula tells me. “Makeup is coming at five. His Majesty’s car will pick you up at half past six, and you should reach the ball by seven.”

Unless we take the scenic route again. And if His Majesty is in that car, I’ll probably spend the last ten minutes redoing my hair and makeup.

But I don’t say so aloud, and if Ursula notices my amusement, she doesn’t comment on it. Instead she surveys the table in front of me, as if making certain every fork and knife is in the proper place, though we aren’t really here to eat. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Only the interviewer—and His Majesty,” I tell her.

With Liz in tow, I arrived at the palace a half hour ago. Immediately we were escorted to this parlor, an extravagantly baroque chamber that overlooks the gardens, and served a light brunch. Shortly afterward, Andrew Bush arrived—almost as early as we were. But after Ursula informed us that Maximilian wouldn’t be here until the scheduled time for our interview, Bush took the opportunity to ask Liz to accompany him on a walk through the palace’s gallery.

And no doubt conduct an impromptu interview with Liz, as well, but my little sister is fairly savvy in these situations.

The door at the opposite end of the parlor opens. My heart leaps as Maximilian strides through, his expression austere, his big body imposing. The same King Maximilian that I’m so familiar with from years of watching and waiting.

Geoffrey trots alongside him. He flashes a helpless look toward my assistant just before Maximilian barks out her name. “Ursula!”

Immediately she snaps to attention, then glances at me hesitantly before answering him. “Yes…?”

“Solve a mystery for me,” he demands.

She takes a huge gulp of air and squares her shoulders determinedly. “I will try, Your Majesty.”

“How many years have you been friends with Geoffrey?”

“Four years.”

“And have you ever seen him eat?”

Ursula blinks. Then blinks again, a puzzled frown creasing her brow as her gaze settles on the young man. “I…don’t think so, Your Majesty.”

“I knew it.” With humor softening his eyes, Maximilian stops by my chair and stoops, softly kissing my mouth before adding, “Anyone that efficient has to be a robot.”

Behind him, Geoffrey frowns at Ursula, his expression affronted. “But I do eat!”

Maximilian pulls out the chair next to mine, snags a plate of berries from the table in front of me, and holds it out to his beleaguered assistant.

“Prove it,” he commands.

Oh no. Lurching forward, I snag the plate back from him. “Not this one.”

Three pairs of eyes turn toward me—Maximilian with a bemused expression, and Ursula and Geoffrey staring at me in shock and horror.

Probably because I just stole something out of the king’s hand. Smoothly I sit again and explain, “Forgive me for countermanding His Majesty’s direct order, but my sister was here with me earlier and…I licked the berries.”

Maximilian arches a brow. “You licked them?”

“I did,” I say as matter-of-factly as I can, as if licking berries in a royal palace is an utterly reasonable thing to do. “Because my sister’s an unrepentant berry thief, and licking them stops her from taking what’s mine. But I’m certain Geoffrey wouldn’t want to eat something that has already encountered my tongue.”

“I wouldn’t,” he agrees hastily—then pauses and looks uncertain. Probably wondering if whether he should have claimed to enjoy his future queen’s germs.

“I think we’ve established that Geoffrey doesn’t eat anything at all. I, on the other hand…” Almost lazily, Maximilian sits back in his chair and regards me with a heavy-lidded gaze. “I also like to claim what’s mine by licking it.”

My body instantly catches fire as memories assail me, and I recall how thoroughly he claimed what was his—at the botanical garden, during the trip home, and several other car rides since.

With a smile tilting his lips, Maximilian doesn’t look away from me, but his next words are directed at Ursula and Geoffrey. “Andrew Bush seems to be missing.”

“He certainly is, Your Majesty,” Geoffrey replies as he and my assistant head for the door. “We will go and find him immediately.”

“Not too immediately,” Maximilian warns them and a shiver of anticipation races over my skin. “Five minutes.”

The moment the door closes, he captures my lips in a deep, blistering kiss. After rendering me breathless, he eases back, lingering over my mouth with gentle kisses before finally pulling away.

With a sigh, I let him go. “Only five minutes?”

A satisfied smile curves his mouth. “For now.”

“For now?”

“I asked Ursula to clear your schedule today. You don’t need to be anywhere until you have to get ready for the ball tonight. Geoffrey cleared mine as well.” A slow fire builds behind his gaze. “And there are over a hundred beds in this palace. But we’ll only need the bed in my chambers.”

Understanding and desire twist inside me, forming a heavy liquid ache. “As soon as the interview is over?”

“Yes.” His voice is low and gruff, his eyes hot with need. “Then as soon as I can get you in my bed, your cunt wet and your legs spread.”

“It’s wet now,” I tell him wickedly. “Absolutely drenched.”

A groan rips from his chest and he lurches up out of his chair again, claiming my mouth in another hot kiss. This time he doesn’t linger, but rips away and drops back into his seat, staring at me with a scorching promise in his gaze.

With a saucy little grin, I reach for one of the cherries on my plate. “You’ve met with this interviewer before?”

His answer is a slow nod. His dark eyes follow the cherry as I bring it to my mouth.

“Hmm.” Breaking the cherry’s skin with my teeth, I use the juice to paint a red stain on my lips. “And how did you answer the questions regarding our romantic history?”

“He didn’t ask.”

“He will now,” I point out, and pop the rest of the cherry into my mouth.

His gaze lifts from my cherry-stained lips. “We haven’t mentioned the betrothal before. Should we?”

I shake my head, trying to ignore the deep pang that strikes my heart. “We’re trying to persuade the world that this was a love match. An extended betrothal doesn’t fit that narrative. No one will believe we had no contact for twelve years, then instantly fell in love.”

He scowls. “Why?”

I shrug, because every answer hurts too much to say aloud.

“What narrative fits, then? What do people typically do? Do we make up a history of secret rendezvous?” His jaw tightens as if the very thought irritates him. “Dinner dates? Did we swipe right, and the rest is fate?”

“That’s far too complicated. We’ll stay as close to the truth as possible. Then there’s less chance of being caught in a lie.”

He gives a sharp nod, as if that’s a more satisfying solution. “All right. The truth. Mostly.”

Yes, mostly. Except for the part where he’s pretending to love me.

My throat tightens. Watching me, he seems to sense the change in my emotions. His eyes narrow, and he slowly rises from his chair. Intending to kiss me again.

I’d rather have the pleasure than the pain. I lift my mouth to meet his, and he slowly kisses my upper lip, then my lower lip, then licks away the cherry stain.

Through the blissful haze, I’m aware of the parlor door opening, of Liz’s and Ursula’s voices—and the abrupt silence, as if they suddenly realized what Maximilian and I were doing. But he doesn’t quickly draw away. Instead his dark gaze holds mine for an endless time.

When he finally retreats, it’s with another kiss and a gruff, “An hour from now, I’ll have your cherry juice all over my cock,” spoken quietly against my ear.

I’m so dizzy with anticipation and need that I barely notice when Liz and our assistants leave again, and Andrew Bush takes his seat. With wire-rim glasses, a wiry build swimming in an oversized suit over a collared sport shirt, he resembles every mild-mannered journalist I’ve ever seen in movies or television. But after reading some of his work, I suspect that ‘mild-mannered’ fits him as well as a donkey’s boot. His observations are sharp, but often infused with warmth and humanity. As if he’s truly looking for stories to tell, not just lining up jugulars to cut. Of course, that doesn’t mean his articles haven’t sliced some of his subjects’ throats open.

I pour the coffee as he begins by offering his congratulations on our engagement. Setting the cup in front of him, I sit back in my chair and say, “I see that you’re married as well.” I gesture to the gold band on his finger. “Do you have any advice to offer a pair of newlyweds?”

“Where do you want me to start?” He laughs, but his gaze turns serious a moment later. “Be true to yourself and recognize your needs—then make certain to communicate those needs.”

Perhaps easier said than done. “Does communicating come easily to someone like you—a man who writes for a living?”

“I wish. Whenever my husband and I get into an argument, I can’t say a damn thing right. Then I’ll write him a ten-page email and finally manage to explain myself.” Abruptly he grins. “And Liz warned me that you always do your homework, and that you’ll end up interviewing me instead of the other way around.”

I smile innocently and sip my coffee. “What would you like to ask?”

“We’ll start with a simple one. Where did you two meet?”

“The first time? When we were burying my father.”

He grimaces. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t a romantic meeting, then.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I say softly, and stay as near to the truth as I can. “We didn’t meet again until fairly recently.”

“And you must have both played your renewed acquaintance close to your vests.” To Maximilian, he says, “You didn’t mention her at all during our recent series of interviews.”

“You didn’t ask,” Maximilian replies dryly.

“But if you only recently met Victoria again, this relationship must have also developed recently—and quickly.”

“You might say instantly.” His dark gaze warms as he looks to me. “I saw her standing in front of her house. Thirty minutes later I knew that I’d never want anyone else.”

“That quickly?” Andrew’s brows rise.

Maximilian nods. “I know it sounds unbelievable. But it’s true.”

Mostly true. And all pretend. My throat aching, I don’t let myself imagine that it could be anything else.

“So what was different about her?”

“Different from the first time I met her?” Maximilian frowns. “She was ten years older. And wasn’t crying.”

Andrew shakes his head. “I meant— As the king of Kapria, you must have encountered many beautiful and accomplished women. Yet you’ve never been attached to any of them. Not publicly, at least.”

“Not privately, either.”

“So why was your reaction to Victoria so different?”

Because he was betrothed to me. Because he’d made a promise and he kept it. But he can’t respond with that truth, or anything close to it. And I don’t know what to make of what he does respond with.

“It was different because there was a reaction.” He frowns at the interviewer. “Before meeting Victoria again, I was only a king. My only thoughts were of Kapria. When I met women, I didn’t see them as potential lovers. I only saw what needed to be done to help my people.”

The ache in my chest expands. I could have helped him. All those years, I wanted to help him. And I did what I could, though I would have loved to work beside him to do more.

But he was blind to that, too.

“So it sounds like the real change was your success with the Vic-10, and negotiating the trade agreement. It allowed you to broaden your focus.”

Maximilian nods. “And the burden of healing the damage from my father’s reign was a lighter one, so I could imagine taking on other responsibilities. A queen, heirs. So when it was time to take a wife, I could look at women differently. But I didn’t need to look past Victoria. She is more perfect for me than any other woman I could possibly imagine.”

Because I worked so hard to be perfect for the role I saw myself in. But it is nothing like the role that Maximilian imagines me filling.

My heart feels sick and heavy in my chest, my throat raw when Andrew seems finally satisfied with that answer and turns to me again.

“So it’s been a whirlwind for you, too?”

“No.” It’s a thick, quiet rasp, overfilled with emotion. And true. “I fell in love with His Majesty when I was sixteen years old—on the day of his coronation, when he stood and delivered that speech. That angry, wonderful, inspiring speech.”

“I’ve seen it,” Andrew says quietly.

Of course he has. He probably watched it in preparation for this assignment. But that’s not how I saw it. Not as homework or research, but one of the most pivotal moments of my life.

“I watched it with my father. He hated having to flee Kapria when Leopold took the throne, and he always dreamed of going home—but to me, after hearing him speak of the kingdom for sixteen years, Kapria didn’t even seem like a real place. More like a fairytale land ruled by a villainous king. So when we watched the coronation and the speech, I thought I would witness the rise of a spoiled brat prince who would only bring more pain to my father’s heart.” Tears blur my eyes and ache in my throat. “But Maximilian gave my father hope, instead. And watching all that fury, listening to him promise that he wouldn’t rest until he’d secured a new future for the kingdom, I was so inspired…and determined to do the same.”

This time Andrew doesn’t respond. And I’m aware of Maximilian’s utter silence, and the burning weight of his gaze upon me, but I don’t look.

After a moment, I continue, “When I’m interviewed, people almost always ask whether I resent my father for giving so much to the Kaprian king, and barely leaving his family anything. But we Dietrichs are very good at giving everything away. I gave all that I am to Kapria and her king that day, too—and I didn’t hold much back. Certainly not my heart.”

Andrew fiddles with his papers, seems at a loss for words—but when finally he speaks, I can hear the thickening of his voice, as if affected by strong emotion. “And when you met him again? Did he live up to your father’s hopes…and your own?”

I laugh at the absurdity of the question. “Have you seen what he has done for Kapria? He has far surpassed our hopes.”

He glances at Maximilian, but I don’t have the courage to do the same. “So have you been pining for him these twelve years?”

There’s a lighter, teasing note in his voice, but I feel the seriousness of the question behind it all the same. “Of course not,” I tell him, attempting the same light note. “He didn’t inspire me to sit at home, waiting for him to come and sweep me into his arms. I got to work serving Kapria, instead.”

“By all accounts, you’ve served the kingdom well.” He smiles—then abruptly sits back, eyes flying wide.

Maximilian’s suddenly in front of me, his eyes like burning coals amid the stark, granite beauty of his face. Then the world shifts and tilts as he hauls me out of the chair, sweeping me up to cradle my body against his chest.

Without a word to the interviewer, he strides for the door. Off balance despite the firm support of his arms, I can only witness in amazement as we abandon a stunned Andrew—then pass a surprised Geoffrey and Ursula. Whatever they see in Maximilian’s expression sends them back a step, and instead of falling in behind us, they simply watch Maximilian continue carrying me down the corridor.

Suddenly I know where we are going. And the hot anticipation of finally being in his bed still smolders within me, but there’s more, molten anger that roils just beneath my heart—and the pain that chokes my throat with a jagged lump of suppressed emotion.

Maximilian pushes through the doors to his private quarters. But instead of carrying me through to a bedchamber, suddenly he sets me down and crowds me back against a wall. His face is a pale mask of tension as he looms over me, bending his head—but not to kiss me. His eyes are a blazing fire as his gaze searches mine.

Hoarsely he asks, “Is it true? What you told him. Is it true?”

The painful lump in my throat grows. “What part?”

Still rigid with tension, he doesn’t look away from my face, giving me nowhere to hide. “The part where you loved me since you were sixteen.”

“Yes,” I whisper—then the relief and joy that sweeps over his expression is like a pin piercing the balloon of all the painful emotions that have been swelling inside me these past few weeks. For the past twelve years. But instead of popping open in an explosion of anger, it leaks out in sudden, uncontrollable tears. “Even though I was nothing to you.”

He freezes at the sight of my tears, voice filled with alarm. “Victoria?”

“All this time.” My breath is suddenly hitching, and I fight against the sobs that struggle to burst free. “I was nothing to you. And I’m not a sixteen year old girl anymore. You were the world to me—but even after we were betrothed, I didn’t expect to be your sun and your moon. Yet I should have been something! But in twelve years, you barely gave me a passing thought.” And as the enormity of that truth crashes into me, the first sob rips from my throat. “And what kind of marriage will this be, when I’ve been nothing to you for so long? How many years until I’m nothing again? After I’ve popped out an heir and a spare?”

Face white, he shakes his head. “You aren’t nothing to me, Victoria. You never were. You’re everything.”

“Am I?” I lift my gaze to his, not even trying to wipe away the tears sliding down my cheeks. “In those twelve years, how many times did you think of me? How many times did you wonder what I was doing, what I was thinking? Because it’s obvious you never bothered to find out.”

“I was supposed to be told—”

“No, Maximilian,” I say softly. The enormous pain in my chest still grows, but a calm has suddenly joined it, soothing my shuddering breaths. As if I’d needed that eruption before I could move on. “You are a king. You set the tone and the direction of everything in your domain. So you told them one time to keep tabs on me. But after that? Years passed. And they weren’t interested in knowing what I was doing because you never showed any interest. But if you’d asked about me even once a year, then they’d have paid closer attention.”

His eyes close as if in pain. Because he knows that’s true. And his voice is raw as he says, “I did think of you, Victoria. And when I heard nothing from Jeannette, I assumed you were doing all the carefree things that young women in your position do. I was happy for you.”

“Happy for me…because you thought I was a socialite?” I stare at him in disbelief. “I’ve never wanted that kind of life.”

“I just didn’t want you burdened with a queen’s responsibilities when you were so young. Because I knew how heavy they were.” He meets my gaze again. “But you shouldered those burdens anyway, serving Kapria all this time.”

“That wasn’t a burden to me.” Renewed tears burn in my throat. “Why did you never ask me what I wanted?”

A bleak expression passes over his face. “I thought I was doing what was best.”

“And you decided what was best without consulting me?” A painful laugh hitches my chest. “Of course you did. You’re a king. You can make decisions for everyone without asking what they want. But even my father asked me before agreeing to our betrothal. He made sure it was my decision. He didn’t just give me to you. He asked me if it was what I wanted. And it was.” A sobbing breath shudders free. “Marrying you was everything I could possibly want.”

“Was?” He’s utterly still. “But it isn’t now?”

“I don’t know if it is anymore,” I whisper brokenly.

A rough denial seems ripped from him and he pushes closer, catching my face in his big hands, his eyes tortured. “But you love me.”

“I do.” So much that it keeps breaking my heart open. “But that’s not all that a marriage is. And I have spent twelve years imagining what being your queen would be like. I’ve worked so hard, so I could step into that role.”

“I know how much you have done,” he says gruffly. “I know that about you now.”

“But the role I pictured for myself, and the role you have planned for me—they couldn’t be any more different!” For a moment I can’t continue, the pain closing my throat again. “I thought a queen would be a partner to help you share your burdens. But you see a wife as yet another responsibility, a new burden to bear now that Kapria is not so heavy on your shoulders. You aren’t looking for a partner. You’re looking for a bedmate and a breeder. And although I want to be with you, to have children with you…in a marriage, I want to be more than that.”

“Then you’ll be more than that. You are more than that,” he adds fiercely. “And whatever you want your role as queen to be, that is what it will be.”

“Truly?” I want to hope but I don’t know if I can. “Because you seem to hate the thought of burdening me with anything. Why would I believe you would share them, and decide what’s best for me again?”

“Because if means you will be my queen, I will do anything. Anything,” he vows through clenched teeth.

“For Kapria?” Of course he would.

“For me.” A rough laugh breaks from him. “I want you for me, Victoria. But if I have to, I’ll share you with my kingdom. Even if I resent every single goddamn second that Kapria takes you away from me.”

“You resent what?” I shake my head, trying to understand. “What are you saying?”

“That you were right,” he says softly now, brushing the tears from my cheeks with a sweep of his thumbs. “All these years that we were betrothed, I only thought of you as the woman who would give me my heirs. Because I was only thinking of you in the way a king thinks of his future queen. And that’s all I was: a king. I wanted to be everything my father wasn’t. He only thought of himself, and so I only let myself think of Kapria, of my duties and obligations. I was never selfish. I never looked at anything as mine. Until you. And suddenly I was more than a king. I was a man who wanted Victoria Dietrich more than I’ve wanted anything.”

I stare at him through a sheen of tears, too overwhelmed by the emotions clogging my throat to speak.

Tenderly he lifts my left hand to his mouth, brushes his lips over the glittering diamond. “Do I want to keep you in my bed and pregnant? I’d love to. But only if I’m in that bed, too. I’d lock you away in a tower, but only if I was there with you. But since I have to be king, too…I’ll share everything I am with you, just so that I can keep you beside me as much as I can.” His voice hoarsens again, his gaze burning into mine. “So will you marry this selfish man and be the kind of queen you’ve always wanted to be?”

My tears spill over again. “I will.”

“Wise choice,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Because if you’d said no, I’d have locked us together in a tower, anyway.”

A laugh rolls through me, and I feel his smile against my own before he claims my lips. His tongue coaxes them apart with a possessive lick even as he sweeps me up into his arms again. Lost in his kiss and the blissful happiness racing through me, I don’t see any of the rooms that we pass through. I don’t feel anything but Maximilian until he eases me down onto a blue silk bedspread. Stepping back, he abruptly yanks my skirt down the length of my legs, letting it drop the floor.

“Next time, I’ll do this part right,” he says gruffly, grips the hem of my shirt and tugs it up over my head. “I’ll slowly peel your clothes off”—my bra is next, the fastenings disregarded and the whole thing dragged over my head in a tangle of lace and elastic—“and kiss every single inch of skin”—he hooks his fingers beneath the waistband of my panties and pulls them down—“and lick until you know it’s all mine.”

Completely bare, with my hair tangled around my head after being rolled this way and that when he stripped me naked, I lie on the bed with my knees bent, my thighs pressed shyly together, and a blush heating my face. I desperately resist the urge to cover my breasts with my hands when he simply stands there with my panties dangling from his fingers, staring at me.

His voice is thick with arousal as he says, “I’ve never seen all of you before.”

Because we’ve always been in semi-public places before. Cars, conference rooms, gardens. My blush deepens. “You’ve seen the parts that count.”

“All of it counts.” Stark hunger lines his face as his visual journey reaches the shadowed triangle between my thighs. He steps forward but I quickly scramble onto my knees, bracing my hand against his chest and bringing him to a halt.

“Not so fast, Your Majesty,” I tell him, flicking open a button at his throat. “It’s my turn.”

Unlike him, I intend to take my time, savoring every hardened muscle and stretch of skin that I reveal. Slowly my fingers slide down to the second button.

Before I can unfasten it, they all suddenly all go flying when Maximilian tears his shirt open. He tosses it aside, then the vicious rip of his zipper joins the clatter of falling buttons.

“‘Your Majesty’ again?” His voice is low and silky, a tone that I’ve never heard from him before but sends delicious prickles of awareness racing across my skin. As if there’s a dangerous predator standing in front of me…but I want to be eaten.

And he was right about all of it counting. Because I’m seen parts of him during those long scenic drives. I’ve run my hands down the torso packed with muscle. I’ve licked the corrugated ridges of his abdomen. And I’ve seen his cock, stroked the thick curving length and sipped pearly beads of cum from the broad crown.

But completely naked, he’s something else altogether. A temple of sculpted strength and power, with thighs like stone pillars and shoulders broad enough to support the sky.

My gaze settles on the colossal rise of his cock. Desire pools between my legs, and I’m pierced by a deep, empty ache as I imagine taking that massive length inside me. But first, I need to lick and claim. Moistening my lips, I reach for him.

Maximilian snags my wrists. My gaze flies up to meet his and encounter that dangerously predatory, heavy-lidded stare. “Taking your turn again?”

“Yes,” I reply breathlessly. Trying to.

“And a king might let you have one.” Hauling me forward by my wrists, he wraps his other arm around my waist. “But wanting you has turned me into a selfish bastard.”

I gasp as I’m shoved backward—not hard, but with enough force to make me lose my balance. My shoulders hit the mattress, and in the next second I’m pinned to the bed with Maximilian above me. His left hand clamps my wrists together again and pushes them up and over my head. He kneels between my thighs, forcing them wide apart, and leans over with his big body braced above mine. His immense cock juts out between us, angling downward as if burdened by its own weight, the broad tip almost touching my lower belly.

For a long moment, his eyes simply devour the sight of me splayed helplessly beneath him. With my arms locked over my head, I can’t look down at myself but I know what he must see, because every inch of my skin is alight, every sensation pitched at an acute intensity. My face is flushed, my lips parted and swollen. My every breath heaves an ocean of air through my chest, my full breasts swaying to the stormy rhythm, my nipples standing taut and proud.

A groan rumbles from his chest as his gaze settles between my legs. Exposed by the wide spread of my thighs, my most intimate flesh is completely revealed to him.

“Look at you, so wet and ready beneath me. And all fucking mine,” he says, all the silk gone from his voice, replaced by gravel, and I shudder as his big hand possessively cups my pussy. His roughened fingers begin stroking through the drenched folds. “I’m going to make this sweet little cunt as hot and slick as it needs to be in order to take every inch of my cock. Because you’re so fucking tight,” he grits out and two of his long fingers push deep.

I cry out, my back arching as the hollow, empty ache inside me narrows into a sharp twinge of pain. My inner muscles clench hard, as if resisting the intrusion, then his thumb begins rubbing over my clit and the pain slides away into another ache, one that’s deep and full and delicious.

“Just like that, Victoria. Christ, you’re so damn beautiful.” Regret and arousal roughen the words, but the kiss that follows is a gentle caress against my lips. “And I hate hurting you. But just this one time.”

“I know.” I pant my reply, still adjusting to the thrill of having part of him inside me, then catch my breath when his fingers begin slowly thrusting.

His gaze locked on my face, he studies my reaction. “Tell me when it starts feeling good.”

“It’s not bad,” I gasp. I don’t know what it is yet. It hurts and it doesn’t, feels pleasurable and it doesn’t.

“Not bad isn’t the same as good.” His thumb rolls over my clit, and his eyes narrow with satisfaction when I suck in a shuddering breath, seeking that same touch with a rock of my hips. “And good is only barely there. I want your pussy begging for it. I want you coming so hard that you’ll be soft and slippery enough to take my cock without me hurting you again. Maybe you’ll have to come a few times.”

That hurt is only a dull memory now, and the tension inside me keeps shifting and changing with every thrust of his hand and circle of his thumb. He appears to be in more pain than I am. I can see the strain that holding back has put on him, stark need carving sharp lines into his angular features.

All to make certain I enjoy this. On a ragged little laugh, I say, “Tell me again how selfish you are?”

A soft growl rumbles from him. “You want me to start with the way I’ve got you laid out with your pussy open for the taking, and my hand pinning you down? All so I can fuck you good and hard. But this first time for us, I ought to be soft and slow and laying you on rose petals.”

I shake my head, whimpering in frustration as he withdraws his fingers and begins gliding them through my folds again. Teasing. “Deciding what’s best for me again? Because I don’t want petals.”

“And that’s what I’m telling you. This isn’t about what you want.” His voice is harsh as his fingers dip inside me again. “I want to feel your pussy stretch around me as you take me in. I want you wet enough that it’ll be the hottest fucking slide that I can imagine. Maybe it won’t be an easy slide, with you so goddamn tight. But that’s all right. I’ll just fight my way in with you squirming beneath me like you are now.”

Squirming because it’s all changed. Because his voice is filling me up even deeper than his fingers are, and I can imagine all of it. “It feels good now,” I pant. “It’s feeling so good.”

“You think I can’t hear that is? And feel it? You were wet before but now you’re soaked.” Another rough groan escapes him as he strokes through my drenched heat, and I can hear it, too, even over the pounding of my heart. “That’s so I can get in you balls-deep and know those sweet juices are slicking up every inch of my cock. Though maybe I’ll have to get you on your hands and knees before I can get that deep.”

Oh god. I bite my lip against a scream of frustration when he abandons my clit to tease his fingers through my swollen folds, gliding over all that wetness. Desperate for more, to touch myself if I have to, I try to tug my arms out of his grip, but the hand pinning my wrists only tightens.

“I pictured you on your knees so many times, Victoria. Ever since that photo of you in that ski suit. All I could think of is getting you bare and fucking into you from behind. Sometimes with you pushing back at me with your greedy cunt trying to take as much of my cock as it can, sometimes with me holding you still so I can ride you so fucking hard.”

“So hard,” I echo on desperate little sob, writhing against his teasing fingers.

“Your pussy wants to be filled up now, doesn’t it?”

“Please.”

I cry out when his fingers push into me, each slow thrust gently caressing my sensitive inner walls, but it’s the new, firmer stroke over my clit that begins shoving me toward the brink. Back bowing up off the bed, I struggle for breath, for sense, but only find his voice urging me on.

“Christ, look at you. You’ll be under me just like this, Victoria, except it’ll be my cock pumping so deep into you and making you come. Fuck, and your pussy’s just getting tighter, pulling me in.” His mouth hovers over mine, as if ready to capture the ecstasy that’s threatening to erupt on my every gasping moan. “I bet your pussy will suck up all my cum, too. Because when I get into you, Victoria, there’s nothing that’ll get me out before I’m done. I’ll fill you with so much cum that I’ll be overflowing your cunt when I’m—”

He breaks off when my inner muscles clench hard, then groans like a tortured man. “This is what I wanted.”

For me to come. And the orgasm tears through me like an avalanche, starting with my pussy clamping down on his fingers, then ecstasy breaking free in a tumbling rush, picking up speed and sensation as it roars past every quaking muscle, the devastation barely contained within my skin. I’m crushed beneath it, then abruptly flung out across a precipice.

His kiss catches me on the way down, gentler than I expect, because I can still feel the taut restraint holding his aroused body in check. But he doesn’t move to fill me up with his cock, though he has to be in agony and my body is more than ready for him now.

Instead he lifts his head and looks down at me, his eyes still burning and his voice like gravel. As he speaks, his wet fingers glide upward and over my belly, my stomach muscles quivering in their wake, then trace a slow circle around my navel. “When you imagined your role as queen, did you want children right away or want to wait? Your preference will also become mine.”

Taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question, a moment passes before I realize the full import of what he just offered. He’s consulting me, and letting me choose the kind of queen I will be…?

Just as he promised.

My heart nearly bursts with love for him, followed by a surge of heat as I realize why he’s asking. Boldly I tell him, “I want you to fill me up with cum, Your Majesty.”

“I will,” he says gruffly, but doesn’t. Instead he finally releases my hands to cup my jaw and tenderly stroke his thumb across my lips. “I will never let you go, Victoria. And if you ever run away, there’s nowhere in the world that I won’t follow.”

A wistful little smile curves my mouth. Because that’s lovely, but… “In twelve years, you never even went twenty miles to Gentian.”

Regret shadows his eyes. “And you deserved better. But that was then. And now I travel twice that distance just to be alone with you for forty minutes.”

Wonder fills me. “Is that why you went to Vespa with me?”

“It wasn’t for the chicken dinner. What did you think was my reason for going?”

So that we could pretend to be a loving couple. But I don’t want to think about that part of our engagement now.

“No.” His eyes darken dangerously, and suddenly my arms are pinned again. Maximilian looms over me, his jaw clenched. “There it is again. You’re running away.”

I’m not even moving. “What?”

“Fuck.” Frustration boils off him—but agony lurks in his gaze and desolation edges the steel of his voice. “I know you’ve been hurting. I thought it must have been this thing about whether you’ll just be a breeder or a queen, and not being sure about marrying me. But we resolved that. So I didn’t think I’d see this look on your face again. So what is it? Tell me what’s making you so unhappy, and I’ll fix it.”

My heart aching, I turn my head to escape that desperate, searching gaze. I’m almost ashamed by the answer he’s seeking. For so long, the only thing I wanted was to marry Maximilian. And now I’ve been given everything I wanted, but I’m still unhappy and hurting.

Either I’m the world’s most ungrateful bitch…or I didn’t know what I really wanted. Because I told myself that I didn’t expect Maximilian to love me, but it still ripped me apart when it was only pretend. So I do want his love.

But I can’t ask for that. He would try to give me anything I wished for, but love can’t be granted with a wish. And he hasn’t had time to fall in love with me.

Yet.

That realization slips through me like a healing balm. He hasn’t had time to fall in love…yet. But we have mutual respect and admiration. Shared obligations and duties and interests. Explosive sexual attraction.

So I just need to do what I have always done: work toward a goal, and wait for him. But this time the goal won’t be marrying him or becoming a queen. Instead I want to win his heart. Maybe it’ll take months, or even years. But his love would be worth the wait.

As long as it’s not fake. Because when it is, it tears me apart.

“There is one thing you can do,” I finally tell him, my voice thick. “Don’t pretend to love me anymore.”

Despite my calm resolution and my certainty that I’ll eventually gain his love, it’s still difficult to meet his gaze—fearing he’ll see the pain inside of me and know how vulnerable not having his heart makes me.

But instead of pity, I only see a dark frown laced with confusion, as if he didn’t understand what I said.

“You don’t want me to pretend anymore?” Now disbelief joins the puzzlement.

Probably because I was the one who suggested that tactic in the first place. Throat aching, I nod. “I know we agreed to, for Kapria’s sake. But when we’re in public, you should only be as you really are. We are friends enough by now, I think, that no one could see the difference between fake love and real companionship.”

His eyes narrow. His big body bends closer to mine, and he grips his thick cock at the base. Drawing back, he angles his shaft and drags the broad crown the length of my slit, parting my swollen pussy lips and gliding his cockhead up and down my acutely sensitized flesh.

Over the sound of my needy moan, he asks silkily, “We are friends?”

“With benefits!” I gasp, shuddering with pleasure and need before adding breathlessly, “Which will make it even harder for anyone watching us to tell the difference. But we will know. And it won’t…” I trail off on a ragged breath, closing my eyes before forcing out the rest in a strained whisper. “It won’t hurt anymore.”

Instantly he stops the teasing caress of his cock. “Victoria.”

My name is a quiet demand to meet his gaze. No puzzlement or disbelief clouds his expression now, his dark eyes clear and direct.

“I have never pretended to love you. In public and private, everything I’ve said and done with you was because I truly felt it. Everything I said in that interview was true, too. I saw you at your house and by the time we arrived at the palace, I knew.”

The painful ache within me softens, my love for him drawing out all the poison that had been seeping into my soul ever since we’d agreed to pretend for the cameras.

“You don’t have to pretend now, either,” I tell him gently, though I understand why he did. He doesn’t want to see me hurt and wants to find a way to fix it. “It’s sweet and generous, but unnecessary.”

As if taken aback, he stares down at me for a long second. “You don’t believe that I love you?”

“It’s too fast to believe. You didn’t even know me.”

He scowls, his expression darkening. “And you fell in love during a speech. Yet you don’t say that was too fast. Neither did Andrew Bush.”

“Because twelve years have passed, which proves that it is steady and true. But in that same time, millions of other teenage girls fell in love and out again. If not for the betrothal, without the hope that kept my love alive, I might have moved on, too.” Though I’m not certain I could have ever completely moved on; he would have always owned a part of my heart. “And you must know that what I feel now isn’t the same as I did then. The more I learned of you, the more my love has changed and grown. That girl’s love is a mere spark compared to what I feel now.”

“What I know is that I’m not a teenage girl. And what I feel is a hell of a lot more than a spark.” He snarls the word and that dangerous light enters his gaze again. “I’ll prove it to you, then. Even if it takes me twelve fucking years to do it.”

He surges forward, plunging the full length of his cock into me—then holds himself deep, so incredibly deep, our bodies locked together and utterly still. My mind reeling with shock and pleasure, I’m arched in a tight bow beneath him, my pussy desperately clenching around that thick shaft as I struggle to adjust to his massive size. There’s no pain, only unyielding pressure as my interior walls are stretched to the limit and scorched by the heat of his erection.

Above me, Maximilian’s powerful body is like a sculpture, his every muscle a stone carved in sharp relief. His dark eyes are glazed over and unseeing, as if the same shock and pleasure that paralyzed me still holds him in its luscious grip.

Then a shudder wracks his body. The echo of that quake inside me sends a spasm of greedy lust through my inner muscles. A choked cry fills my throat as my pussy clutches his cock even tighter, and Maximilian groans, a deep and tortured sound that rumbles from his chest.

The glassy sheen in his eyes begins to clear and he looks down at me, his voice a thick rasp. “I knew that being inside you would feel amazing. But I didn’t know that you’d feel this fucking amazing. Better than anything I imagined.”

A tremulous laugh ripples through me. “I think it’s you who feels amazing inside me.”

His gaze sharpens into a determined gleam. “Or it’s because I love you.”

The words steal my breath, then his body steals every response as he moves, drawing back and leaving an empty burning ache before driving into me again. Another cry escapes me, then his mouth finds mine in a hot, open kiss. I don’t know when he let go of my wrists but I can’t stop touching him, clutching at his shoulders, spearing my fingers into his short hair. His big hand grips my ass and he angles my hips upward, and the next stroke is even deeper when he fucks back into me—then again, and again, setting a hard rhythm that sends me spiraling toward mindless ecstasy, my entire world narrowing to Maximilian and the feel of his thick cock pumping relentlessly into the slick, tightening grip of my pussy.

Then he slows…and slows. I frantically urge him faster again, but he lifts his head and, with one strong hand gripping my hip and preventing me from rocking up against him, begins to stroke the full length of his cock into me, each thrust an excruciatingly endless glide from base of his shaft to the bulging crown.

It’s exquisite torture for me—and for him. Tension shakes through his entire body, tendons straining. Sweat beads over his skin and runs in rivulets down ridges of muscle.

“Look at me, Victoria.” His eyes are burning coals, his voice resonating from the depths of his broad chest, as if there was a hollow space beneath his heart that housed both agony and hope. “Can’t you see that I love you?”

Sheer joy and wonder overfill my heart, clogging my throat. Because there’s no pretense here. His emotions lay exposed, as naked as our bodies. And I know what’s blazing out at me.

I see that he’s in love with me.

On a muffled sob, I reach for him. His kiss is a revelation now, full of all the love that I couldn’t sense before. I don’t know how or why he fell so quickly, but it’s everything I ever wanted—and better than I dreamed.

His mouth devours mine as he begins thrusting faster into me, my body and heart caught in a maelstrom of exultation and pleasure. And when I began to come, I don’t know if the ecstasy that crashes through my body really is so much deeper and sharper than before—or if my heart is so much bigger now that my entire being feels every sensation so much more intensely.

Or maybe I come harder simply because he loves me.

Crying out his name, I cling to my king as my paroxysms of pleasure squeeze the thick shaft inside me—and hold him closer as he hunches over with another tortured groan, pounding deeper, his strokes suddenly erratic. His mouth is open and hot against mine, his chest a bellows dragging in ragged heaving breaths. Strong fingers digging into my soft thigh, he shoves my knee higher, opening my legs wider and grinding against the sopping wetness of my pussy until he’s in me so deep that there can’t be any more of my cunt to claim.

Abruptly he throws back his head, jaw clenched, and seems locked in an epic struggle against his own body, his torso utterly rigid and unmoving, his knees planted against the mattress and the flex of his thighs and buttocks continuing to pump his cock in and out of my heated depths. Then a violent quake hits him and inside me his cock feels bigger now, hotter, and with a groan of defeat he goes utterly still. His mouth captures mine as he comes, thrusting shallowly as his shaft pulses against my inner walls.

With a laughing groan, he buries his face against my neck. “Your pussy’s too amazing, especially when you come. I couldn’t hold out.”

I laugh, sliding my hands over his sweat-slicked shoulders. “Next time.”

“Which will be very soon.” Maximilian punctuates that promise with a rock of his hips that leaves me gasping with sweet pleasure. Then he lifts his head and tenderly kisses my mouth. “If your pussy is up to it.”

“Maybe a warm bath first,” I say softly. “And I love you.”

“So you believe I’m not pretending?” His voice is gruff.

I cup his face in my hands. “I believe it.”

“Good.” This time his kiss and swift and hard. “But I’ll still keep fucking your doubts away.”

I laugh, delighted by the idea. “You can fuck them away whenever you like, Your Majesty. But before you do…” My hand slips between us to curl around his cock, still erect and glistening with our cum. “…can I finally have my turn, or are you still feeling selfish? Because I want to stake a claim with my tongue.”

And this time, the king wasn’t feeling selfish at all.