Part 7

An Unusual Relationship

I lose myself in her. It takes restraint to stop when all I want is to watch her fall over the edge again, knowing she’s safe in my arms. Clara needs a break. Her body might be responsive, but she’s never been with a man like me. I can tell by how her teeth sink into her lower lip with every thrust, how her eyes roll back with every touch—she didn’t know it could feel this good. I aim to show her exactly how much she’s been missing, but there’s no need to rush. My self-control slips as she rolls out of bed and stretches against the wall like she’s just finished a rigorous work-out session. But she arches her back a bit too much, putting her perfect, round ass on display. I want her again—the desire tears through me and escapes with a growl. She’s turning me into a goddamn cave man and when I spot the slight grin flash across her face, I realize she’s enjoying it.

I consider lunging for her and dragging her back between the sheets.

“I’m going to take a shower if you care to join me,” she says, her eyes sliding to the undershirt.

It’s a nice tactic, but I’m well-versed in strategic maneuvers. Still… “Tempting, but I’m going to order room service. Any requests?”

“I’m not picky.” She pauses and I wonder what’s going on in that sexy brain of hers. “Actually, get some champagne.”

“Your wish is my command.” Jumping up, I mean to head toward the phone, but her eyes linger on me. No doubt she appreciates that I don’t bother with pants. But I’m nothing compared to her even if her gaze continues to follow me as I cross the room.

Not that I mind the admiration. I just want to return it. She doesn’t look like a woman, she looks like a goddess with her glowing skin and soft hair cascading over her shoulders. The makeup she’d so carefully applied is smudged, but somehow even sexier. She looks well-fucked and I like it. If only every afternoon could be spent seeing to her sinful body, life might be worth living. As it is, our time is limited. I intend to make the most of it. Holding out a hand, she takes it with some apprehension as though she knows that seconds ago I’d almost carried her back to bed. But all I want is to kiss her—to feel her against me—if only to remind me that she’s here and for now, she’s mine. My lips meet hers and somehow it’s easier to ignore the primal urge to take her again. It doesn’t make sense. My cock isn’t usually so well-behaved. Instead, the taste of her kiss sends my heart racing. It seems my body is getting confused, so I pull back and avoid looking at her, instead I smack her bare ass.

It’s all about perspective. We have an arrangement. “What would you say if I suggested you only wore that around me?”

“I’m not wearing anything.” She sounds almost grateful for the redirection, and I catch myself wondering if she feels it, too.

So much for perspective.

I slip into the role I’m used to playing. Smirking, I charm her by being exactly what we need me to be.

The playboy prince.

The bad boy.

What they say I am. What I’ll never escape.

“Exactly,” I say. Not that I would mind if she was nude all the time. I’d really rather prefer it.

“You’re a bit of a fiend, aren’t you?” She laughs and now my cock takes notice.

“I’ll show you just how much,” I reach for her. If she runs, it will give us space. If we wind up in bed, I’ll fuck her until I’m numb to whatever this is. It’s a win-win.

She sidesteps me and backs toward the loo. “You promised me food and champagne.”

It’s the right move to put space between us, but the less enjoyable route. Clara is smart. She’s not taking me for a ride. Well, not like other women I’ve known. She doesn’t want to play mind games or try to make me fall in love. She’s here for the sex. It’s refreshing.

At least, it should be.

“Food and champagne.” I focus on the task at hand, but I can’t help but drink her in one last time. “But then I’m going to have my way with you.”

“Promise?” The question is hopeful, small, uncertain. I want to give her my answer now. No talk necessary.

“I promise that you’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon screaming my name.” I tell her what she wants to hear.

A momentary haze seems to descend over her and she trips over her own feet. I catch her and now she’s back in my arms, exactly where I want her. “You’re testing my resolve, poppet.”

She stares up at me, blinking rapidly, as if she’s processing this. Or trying too, at least. It only makes her more beguiling. Staring into her wide, gray eyes, I’m temporarily lost, drifting at sea. I force myself to take a beat.

“Standing there, biting your lip, with your hair down. I give you ten seconds to get out of here or I’m taking you back to bed.”

Her squeal tests my resolve, and when the bathroom door shuts behind her, I consider following her. I would take off my shirt and lift her against tiled wall, make love to her under the water, and screw these feelings out of my system. If she let me after she saw the truth—saw what I really am—what I hide beneath my clothes and beneath my skin. I let the wrong woman see once—a proud, angry, fearless woman and when her eyes filled with pity, I became her nightmare.

Clara would pity me, too. It’s her nature.

“Order some goddamn food already,” I say under my breath as I hear the water turn on in the bathroom.

The least I can do is feed her. But the moment I look at the menu, I realize I know very little about Clara Bishop. What if she doesn’t eat gluten or has a food allergy? It would be my luck to kill a beautiful woman with a peanut. I could go in to the bathroom and ask, but I don’t trust myself to see her naked and wet. A man only has so much restraint.

I settle my dilemma by ordering everything and a good bottle of Champagne. They assure me it will be there swiftly. No one in the kitchen knows who is in this room, but they know what room is calling. Unfortunately, impending room service demands shorts.

As it turns out, waiting is boring and made harder by knowing Clara is near. I’ve not had enough time with my new toy yet. I want to play with her, discover every little sound she makes, and how far I can push her.

She’d fought me earlier and it had only turned me on. I tell myself I would have stopped. I was raised a gentleman, but I can’t ignore how her protest made my cock ache to fill her. It’s fucking sick. I know it. She deserves better. A nice barrister or doctor who’s in touch with his feminine side and never thinks about silencing her with his body. I’m building her ideal man, turning it into some perverse psychological torture, when the food arrives.

The staffer is older and only barely betrays that he recognizes me as he wheels the cart inside. He’s probably attended to rock stars and diplomats and god knows who else, but being the prince of England carries a caché in London that can’t be matched.

“Sir?” he asks as though he’s talking to any guest, and I motion for him to leave it by the chair. Peeling a few bills from my wallet, I tip him for his discretion. It’s the strict standards that sets the Westminster Royal apart.

I resume my musings on how much better Clara will be when she moves on, deciding that she might be better served as a career woman.

Clara appears in the hotel robe, which is a bit of a disappointment. Although if she’d come without it, she might not get fed. She’s even more beautiful with her hair piled on top of her head. She looks at ease—comfortable

“Did you order everything on the menu?” she asks, taking in the array of dishes that take up both the top of the cart and the shelf underneath it.

“Personally, I worked up an appetite,” I shrug as if this is a normal amount of food, “but if you need to work on your own, I still want to screw you against that window.”

She holds up a hand in protest. “Stop. I’m famished but maybe after?”

That can be arranged. I like taking care of her in every way that I can. “You continue to surprise me, Clara Bishop. One minute you’re running away from me and the next—”

“You have my panties off in a lift?” she interrupts. “Be honest, this isn’t the first time a girl has dropped her knickers for you.”

“Well, no.” I can’t lie. “But you hardly dropped them. That reminds me that I need to buy you another pair.”

She pretends to not care, but her eyes hood slightly. She enjoyed having them ripped off. I’ll buy her another pair just so I can see that reaction again. I stashed the ruined pair in my suit jacket. It may be a tawdry souvenir, but I’ll know where to find them. Then again I might prefer that she leave that sweet cunt bare. She seems to guess what I’m thinking and heads toward the room service cart with renewed purpose. Her eyebrows shoot up when she lifts the lid on the first dish and discovers hamburgers.

“I hope it’s okay.” I can’t help but join her, suddenly hungry myself. But rather than reaching for the food, my hands find her hips. There’s only one thing here that can satisfy me. “You aren’t a vegan or something? I haven’t mortally offended you?”

I’m about to tell her there’s a salad here somewhere. Chicken. Caviar, I think. Clara twists in my arms before I can.

“It’s fine,” she reassures me. “I love meat.”

My cock responds to her Freudian slip with petulance. Apparently, Clara is determined to turn me into a sex fiend at every turn.

“Tell me more,” I tease.

“After we eat.” She pulls away, and I let her go. Clara grabs a plate without bothering to check the other offerings. “I had no idea the royal family ate things like hamburgers.”

“Oh yes, usually it’s only crown roast and leg of lamb and mint jelly.” It’s meant as a joke, but it comes out bitter. There are some subjects that I can’t take lightly, even if I’d like to. “Actually, my family dinners are terrible. Stiff. Too many courses. Too many forks. Someone’s always picking a fight, usually me. Maybe that’s why I skip so many of them.”

Clara swallows hard, studying me for a moment. Her hands frozen mid-air. Then she shakes it off. “I can relate to that.”

“Ah yes. Your parents are web entrepreneurs,” I say. “Lots of dinners alone?”

Her eyebrow arches into a question mark. “Checking up on me?”

“I was interested, and if I have to spend my whole life in the public eye, I might as well enjoy the perks of my position.” I take a seat next to her, wondering how she’ll take this. Surely, she can’t have expected me not to look her up. How did she think I’d found her? She hadn’t left a glass slipper.

“Translation: it’s okay for you to spy on me.”

I laugh off the accusation not wanting her to know she’s right. “It was not nearly so clandestine. You probably learned more about me on the internet than I did from MI5 files.”

“I have an MI5 file?”

“Not really. Hence why I didn’t learn much. I wanted to know how the pretty American girl wound up at a boring British graduation party.”

“I’m not American. Not really.”

“That did catch my attention.” I take a bite and consider what that means. It feels important somehow, but I’m more interested in why she made that choice. “You chose British citizenship. You could have chosen dual citizenship. Why?”

There’s a momentary pause where she weighs what to tell me. Her answer is simple, but loaded. “There’s nothing for me in America.”

“That sounds like a story.” I want to hear it. I want to know how Clara Bishop wound up at Oxford and then at that club and in my life.

“How about you?” she asks like she doesn’t already know everything about me. That’s the joy of having your life documented by every media outlet in the world—not a lot goes unreported.

“I’m an open book. You only have to go as far as the nearest tabloid to learn everything you need to know about me.”

Her head tilts before she shakes it and returns to her meal. “I doubt that. Tabloids seem to think rumors are facts, after all.”

“Yes, they do.” I’m not hungry anymore. Abandoning my plate, I stand and move toward the window. She has questions, which isn’t unreasonable given our unusual relationship. “What do you want to know, Clara?”

“What will you tell me?”

I smile flatly and turn to watch the London Eye spin outside the window. I know the right answer. Instead, I answer honestly. “Nothing. I’ll tell you nothing you want to know. I’ll crack a joke or distract you with a kiss.”

Clara falls silent and I almost look to see if she’s checking the exit. It would be the smart move—and the one I don’t want her to make. How is a woman supposed to react when you tell her that you’ll lie to her? A smart one might run, and Clara is smart. I’ve seen her marks from Oxford. But she’s something else, too. Something hard to place.

“You’ll like me better if you believe the tabloid headlines,” I add when she doesn’t speak.

“Even the one that claimed you had an orgy at Brimstone last month?” she asks, breaking the tension.

“Wouldn’t you rather believe that one was true?” I smile. “It promises inhuman stamina.”

She smirks as though this fact has been established. “I will admit I don’t like the idea of you screwing a whole room full of women.”

There’s confidence in the confession, and I realize what that hard to place characteristic is: she’s brave.

“Ahhh. The jealous type?”

“How would you feel if I screwed a room full of men?” She calls my bluff.

That image pops into my head and I react, my fist hitting the window frame and surprising both of us. “Touché, poppet. But I should warn you I’m not good at sharing.”

“No doubt that comes from never having to share much as a child.”

“More than I would have liked.” I don’t want the distance between us anymore. I need her to see me—to understand me. “While I’m fucking you, no one else will. Do you understand?”

She stares up at me for a second before calmly placing her dish on the table and standing to meet my eyes. “Is that an order?”

“You didn’t seem to mind my orders earlier.” Maybe she needs a reminder. My hand pushes between the folds of her robe to the taut plane of her stomach. “You liked being told what to do.”

“In bed,” she says, moving away from me. “I don’t like being ordered around.”

“I wouldn’t dream of ordering you around outside the bedroom, Clara.” What would be the point? Our relationship can’t go further than that. But what she did in any bedroom did concern me.“But asking you not to sleep with other men seems to be on point, no?”

“Am I allowed to sleep with other women?” She says flatly.

“No, but that’s an interesting idea.” Not that I could find another woman that could match her.

“Okay, down boy. I’m just trying to prove that you’re being irrational.”

“It’s not irrational,” I say. My hand lashes out and yanks open her robe. It’s time for show and tell. “I have many things I plan to do to this body. I want to take my time with it. I need to, so I’m not interested in playing games. If you want to be with me, I expect loyalty.”

This time she doesn’t try to back away. There’s no protest when I step closer and slip a hand between her legs. My fingers stroke along the bare flesh until she’s whimpering.

“I have no issue with exclusivity, but you don’t do relationships,” she says in a strained voice.

“I don’t court. I’m not looking for romance or marriage. I want to fuck you, Clara. I want to make you come, and I want your perfect cunt to be mine exclusively.” Her eyes shudder for a moment when my thumb finds her clit. Then they reopen, blazing with determination, and I feel her hand on my cock.

“This is mine then,” she says.

I bite back a smile, even as I thrust it into her warm, soft palm. “It’s all yours, Clara.”

I kiss her to end the argument, because I don’t want her to think about this. I’m offering her so little. She’ll see that eventually. I’ll let her go back to her life then, but for now—for however long we had—I’ll make her mine. My fingers slip inside her and work until her breath comes fast and heavy, her forehead pressing to my shoulder, and as she unravels me, I almost convince myself this can be enough.