She’s drawing away and it’s making me sick. Being a royal isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Even as a second son, there have been expectations on what kind of person I should be, what kind of achievements I should attain. I compensated for my inability to read with being good at physical things, but there would be times when Stephen would carelessly hand me something—like a treaty or a contract—and I’d feel like a worthless piece of shit because I couldn’t read it. Pen’s the only one in this world who makes me feel like a whole man, and broke-ass country or no broke-ass country, I’m not giving her up.

I gently tug on her chin until her eyes meet mine. “Pen, I told them no.”

Her jaw drops slightly. “But what about Matlavia?”

“There has to be another solution. Stephen and I had been discussing processing of the raw lithium here and serving as an exporter of both raw and finished materials. If we do that, we can overcome the deficit.”

A speck of hope appears in her eyes. “But that would take time, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. It was a three-year plan,” I admit and then wish I had lied when the small light dies out. “It’s not impossible,” I tell her.

She tugs her chin out of my hand. “Marry Callista. Matlavia is bigger than the two of us. The sooner both of us come to terms with that, the better.”

I stare at Pen in shock. What the fuck? Is she telling me we’re over? No fucking way. She starts to rise, but I catch her hand and pull her down onto the sofa again. “I’m going to figure something out. Give me time.” I press her back against the cushion. “Give me time,” I repeat and flip the skirt of her maid’s uniform up. “Give me time,” I say as I wrench aside her blue silk panties, the ones I gave her for her birthday that have my initials on them.

“I’m going to brand you here.” I squeeze her ass. “Because you belong to me. You have always belonged to me and you will always belong to me, and no debt, no woman, no man is going to keep us apart.” Dammit, I’m not going to let her give up on us.

“Thom, I don’t think—“

“That’s right. Don’t think. Feel.” I plunge two fingers into her silken depth.

“Thom!” She throws her head back.

I wrench open the button placket of the uniform to expose her matching silk bra. Her underwear cost more than three uniforms put together, but it’s still not as soft or beautiful as the bare skin that lies beneath the fabric. I keep fucking her with one hand while tearing away her shirt with the other until there’s nothing keeping her tits from my mouth.

I bend over and take one of those pointed, needy tips into my mouth, sucking deep and hard until my cheeks hollow out. She digs her fingers into my hair and holds me against her chest. I laugh harshly.

“You think you can keep these from me? You think you won’t die if I’m not sucking your tits? You think you can survive without my dick inside you?”

My cock is straining against my zip and I’m dying to release it and plunge myself into her wet, hot sex, but I just barely resist. This isn’t about getting my own release—this is about giving her so much pleasure she’ll never be able to walk away from me, from us.

I continue my finger fucking, feeling her walls clutch at me as she moans. “This is mine, Pen.”

It’s been mine since she first gave herself to me when she was sixteen and I was seventeen.

“Say it,” I demand. “Say that you’re mine.”

Her eyes glitter with unshed tears and hot lust. Anguish wars with desperation. She wants to resist me because she thinks this is the end, but we will never end. Stephen running away, Callista measuring the throne, the empty treasury chests—none of that is going to keep us apart.

My words won’t convince her, but maybe my actions can. Her cream coats my fingers. I’m aching for a taste but not until she comes at least once, not until she acknowledges our everlasting bond.

I latch onto her nipple again and take deep draws. She squirms on my hand and starts pulsing inside and I know she’s about to come hard. I let go of her nipple with a wet pop and slide down between her thighs until my face is right at her crotch and I lick and suck her clit into my mouth. She arches as she comes, squeezing my fingers deep inside her cunt. She screams my name, and in a distant corner of my mind I’m grateful for thickness of the palace walls and that I’d already locked the double doors.

My mouth is still pressed against her as I look up her body into her dazed, beautiful eyes. “See how good we are together?” I murmur against her swollen clit, kissing it softly. “No way will I let you—or anyone else—come between us.”

I then proceed to lick, kiss and drive her to a second and then third screaming orgasm until she falls asleep, trembling in my arms. I tighten my hold on her and bury my face in her hair, reluctant to let her go. I’ll have to leave her soon, I’m already late for another meeting with the King’s Council, but just for a moment I want to pretend that all is right in my world and the woman I love is with me, forever.