“Oh, Riley, you’re back.” She sighed, her back to me and her bare, unblemished shoulders slumping. She was dressed in white, a vision in snowy gauze and lace that left her shoulders bare and made my cock throb for her.

White, pristine, pure. The very picture of innocence.

…Not for long.

She sighed again, looking down at her phone as she started to turn.

“Hey, did you find that—”

She gasped, her whole face going white as her dress for a second as her eyes slid around to find me standing in the doorway to her chambers. The color quickly flushed into her cheeks, and her big blue eyes went wide as her jaw dropped in shock.

She knew who I was.

Most people knew who I was. It was hard to not know the six-foot-five king with the broad shoulders and the muscles to manage it, especially one with tattoos and scars, like me. See, I might have been lord of a realm, but I was the king who’d dragged himself through the mud and fire and rain to get to where he was. No bloodline had “given” my crown to me. I’d earned it through blood and sweat.

“You— Your Highness,” she whispered quickly, standing hastily and smoothing her dress down. She looked like she didn’t know what to do with her hands as she looked up at my huge frame towering over her. Fuck, it took everything I had not to wrap her up in my arms right there.

“Princess,” I growled, pushing the door closed behind me, my eyes locked on the beauty standing before me. We’d met once, at a ball for her eighteenth birthday in Arbor. I remembered holding her hand, and leaning down to kiss it — my lips lingering, wanting to taste so much more of her skin than just the back of her hand. I’d wanted to run my tongue over every inch of her. I’d wanted to tear her way from that stuffy dance celebrating her birthday, pull her into bed, and show her how a man could make a woman out of her.

Somehow, I’d restrained myself then. I would not be repeating that mistake.

I remembered the way she’d blushed, how her eyes had latched onto me back then, like they were now on her wedding day.

Oh, she remembered me. I could see the pulse in her neck, and the way her cheeks flushed and her fingers knit together. I growled lowly, seeing the way her nipples hardened under the sheer white gauze of her dress. My thick cock throbbed at the proximity of her, like just being in the same room with her drove the animal inside of me wild with lust.

“What—” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, her eyes blinking quickly. “Your Highness, what are you doing here?”

“You.”

“You can’t, I mean, you—” she stammered, swallowing thickly and biting on her lip as her eyes locked with mine.

Slowly, I moved towards her, loving the way her breath caught. I smiled wolfishly, my hungry eyes drinking her.

“I can do as I please, Princess.” I purred. “I’m a king.”

She swallowed again, her lip still caught between her teeth.

“So is my fiancé,” she whispered.

I grinned. “Are we the same though?”

She gasped quietly.

“You shouldn’t be—”

“Oh but I am here, Princess,” I growled. “And you know why I’m here.”

Callie whimpered quietly, her cheeks flushing even pinker, her eyes going a little wider, and those nipples hardening like little pebbles under her dress.

“You can’t see the bride before the wedding,” she whispered.

‘It’s not my wedding.”

“No, it’s mine.”

“Only if you go through with it,” I hissed.

“Who says I’m not going to go—”

“Me,” I growled, stepping right into her. Callie went red, trembling as the gasp tumbled from her lips.

“Your Highness!” she squeaked, pretty blue eyes wide as saucers. “I—”

She whimpered as my hands slid around her waist, closing around her back and pulling her right into me. I groaned, leaning down, and loving the way her breath caught as I let my lips stop just shy of brushing hers.

“I’m counting to three, Princess,” I said quietly, my pulse roaring, my skin on fire, and every thick inch of my big cock throbbing against the front of my tux.

“And on three, I’m taking what’s mine.”

Callie moaned quietly.

“If you don’t want that, tell me to go,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “But do it before three, because after that, I’m not stopping.” I groaned as my hands tightened on her sweet little body, feeling her pulse throb through her skin even through the dress.

“I’ll never stop when it comes to you.”

Callie’s eyes were wide as they locked with mine.

“One,” I growled.

“Your Highness!”

“Two.”

She whimpered, her eyes locked on mine, Fuck, I could see the fire roaring in those big baby blues. I could see the way her skin tingled with need, the way her body so subtly arched into me, like it was defying everything she was telling it not to do.

As I said, I’d held back before.

…That wasn’t going to happen again.

“Three.”

My arms tightened, I pulled her against me, and my lips crushed to hers.

…And the whole world tipped on its axis.