Aurora’s right. There was no reason for me to come, and I probably shouldn’t have. But the thought of playing a dumb video game, or watching TV, or playing tennis with some foreign minister while she’s here?

Sounds terrible. I’d much rather watch the way she bends over as she gets out of the limousine, her demure skirt perfectly outlining her perfect ass for a few seconds before she disappears.

“Just fucking behave,” Grayson growls, still seated next to me. He’s unbuckling Stefan, and I give him a hand since it turns out that baby car seats practically require nautical knot training to figure out. Ella’s in a separate car, with some friends of hers who are here for the christening, getting twenty minutes of respite from Stefan.

There are photo ops. I just stand there, in some of the photos and not in others, and I behave.

We walk the kid around the church, which is beautifully decorated, if a bit baroque, ornate, and gold for my own personal tastes. We sit through a long prayer given by the priest, who then blesses Stefan with a smidge of holy water.

Stefan mostly sleeps.

After all that is over, the priest wants to give the dignitaries — that’s us — a tour of the church and grounds. I stick close behind Aurora and ignore Grayson’s glares, even if I can’t keep my eyes off her ass.

At last, nearly done, we’re in a tiny chapel off to one side. There’s a winding spiral staircase in one corner, a little rickety, and it looks like it goes up to the beautifully painted vaulted ceiling.

“Are people allowed up there?” Aurora asks, pointing.

The priest nods, slightly.

“It’s very old, but it can hold a few people at once. It also has an amazing view of the hand-painted Griglioni paintings of the Ascension, in which he uses the spring as an inspiring metaphor for the new life which we find in...”

I’m not listening, but neither is Aurora. She’s got one hand on the bannister, looking up at the catwalk, her foot already on the bottom step.

“That doesn’t look stable,” Grayson calls out.

“It’s fine,” she says.

In his arms, Stefan whimpers, his tiny face beginning to crumple. Grayson jiggles him immediately, comforting him, but his face keeps getting redder and redder.

I don’t think it’s working.

“Shh, it’s fine, you’re fine,” Grayson murmurs to his kid, not paying attention to me anymore.

“He might be hungry,” Ella offers, sounding a little tired. “Is there anywhere private we can go feed him?”

Aurora’s already on her way up the spiral stairs. They creak slightly under her weight, but she doesn’t notice.

The priest leads Grayson and Ella out, the three of them totally forgetting about me and Aurora.

Alone together.

I grin and follow her. Moments later I’m behind her on the stairs, watching the hypnotic sway of her ass as she ascends.

I think about grabbing it as she bends over the railing, full and firm in my hands. The way I’d slide my hands up her skirt, yank her panties off, her knuckles white on the bannister.

I wouldn’t even fuck her, not at first. I’d keep my promise that I could make her come and make that first orgasm all about her, standing there, mostly-clothed while I teased her clit until she whimpered, her legs shaking, barely able to hold up her own weight.

Right here. In church. It’s just a building, I don’t particularly care who it’s here for.

“You’re particularly interested in the Ascension?” Aurora asks, her red hair cascading over her shoulder as she turns her head and looks down at me.

Fuck, I’m hard already. Even though I jerked off in my shower this morning, trying to prevent precisely this, my dick could cut glass already and I’ve just been staring at her ass.

All right, and imagining the things I’d do to that ass.

“Sure,” I say, as we both come out of the stairway and onto the catwalk.

It shudders slightly under our weight, but it’s already held for hundreds of years, and apparently it’s going to be good for another afternoon.

“I kind of just wanted to get away,” she admits, turning to the railing, grasping it with both hands.

We’re up near the ceiling now, only a couple of feet from the apparently-amazing paintings that the priest was telling us about. I’m sure they’re good, but I’m no connoisseur, and they just... look like paintings.

“From your brother?”

“From Grayson, from all the press, from everyone watching me constantly,” she says, turning her head to look at me again.

She leans slightly, and even under her below-knee skirt and long-sleeved blouse, I can see the outlines of her stunning curves. I can practically feel her under my hands, imagine the way she’d flush pink when I make her come for the first time.

“There are plenty of eyes on you,” I say, looking at her myself. I’m not making a secret of the fact that I’m just staring at her.

But up here, where there’s no one else around? Aurora is staring right back. She’s bolder when her big brother isn’t breathing down her neck, when her parents aren’t watching her like a hawk.

“I’m sure they’re all thinking about what I said yesterday,” she murmurs, not breaking eye contact.

“I’d bet most people have already forgotten,” I tell her, moving a step closer.

Now I’m towering over her, and even though we’re in full view of the entire church, we’re tucked up in this corner where it feels like no one can see us. And sure enough, of the few people scattered below, no one is looking up here.

“I haven’t, though,” I say.

Aurora blushes, but she doesn’t break eye contact.

“And my offer is still on the table, Princess,” I murmur.

I can’t help myself. I reach out, trace my thumb along her jaw, from her ear to her chin, then run it along the outline of her lips, stopping right in the center.

“You know I can’t,” she whispers.

I step closer. Now my face is right above hers, only inches away. The heat between us is palpable, and even if an entire pack of hungry wolves showed up and tried to drag me away, I don’t think I could tear myself from Aurora right now.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” I whisper. “Only one of those matters to me, Princess.”

“I shouldn’t,” she whispers.

I just grin at her, and she looks down, her eyelashes fluttering just as little.

“Some things are expected of me,” she goes on, her voice quiet. “I’m supposed to be pure when I get married, I’m not supposed to bring embarrassment on the kingdom, and getting caught in a scandal with my brother’s notorious friend would definitely do that.”

“None of those things are what matters to me,” I murmur. “I don’t give a single flying fuck about anyone else, Princess. But if you say that you don’t want to, and not that you can’t, I’m gone in a second.”

She says nothing, just looks up at me, and I lean in.

“We don’t even have to fuck, Princess,” I whisper. “As much as I’d like to hear you moan while my cock fills you up—”

She gasps, softly.

“—I know about a hundred ways I can make you come without ever technically deflowering you.”

Aurora is bright, bright pink. I think she’s holding her breath. Slowly, I take my thumb from her mouth.

“Now,” I growl. “Tell me you don’t want me to.”