I practically ran into the hall.
“Your Highness, please remember, princesses don’t run!” Elin called after me.
I ignored her. The ideas rushed in so fast I couldn’t keep up. Some were more devious than others, but at least one had to work. It had to.
Parliamentary elections were coming up in the fall, and I was still riding high from the goodwill tour. If I could get the public to back a repeal—
I slammed into a brick wall.
“Whoa. Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Rhys’s amused voice cut through the chatter in my brain as he gripped my arms and steadied me.
I smiled, my heart skipping at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”
We didn’t have a meetup scheduled, but schedules were overrated, anyway.
“Thought I’d explore. See if anything interesting is happening, or if any princesses need protecting.” His mouth formed a small, teasing grin.
“Hmm.” I adopted a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know about protecting, but I can think of a few things that might interest you.”
There was no one else in the hall, even so, we kept our voices low. Intimate.
Heat turned Rhys’s eyes into molten silver. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like a tour of the throne room.” I slowly walked backward until I reached the door leading into the ceremonial space, and we cast a quick look around before slipping inside.
I’d planned to brainstorm ways I could get the public to support a repeal, but that could wait. I hadn’t seen Rhys all day.
“So, this is a throne room.” Rhys looked around the lavish space. With its massive crystal chandeliers, thick crimson carpet and wall coverings, and gold trim, it was the most over-the-top room in the palace, but we only used it for the occasional knighting ceremony or official function. No one came in here unless they had to. “Looks exactly the way I pictured a throne room would look.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t studied every inch of every room in the palace already.”
Rhys gave me a slow smile, and my stomach flipped. “You think you know me so well.”
“I do.”
“Hmm.” He walked closer to me until we were mere inches apart. “Then do you know what I’m going to do right now?”
I held my breath. “What?”
He leaned down and whispered, “I’m going to sit you on that nice little throne over there and eat your pretty cunt out until you beg me to stop.”
I gasped out a laugh as he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder with the ease of someone picking up a rag doll. “You can’t! No one sits on the throne except the monarch.”
Rhys set me down on the gold and velvet chair.
“It’s going to be yours one day. Might as well get used to it,” he said. “How does it feel?”
“I…” I looked around. The room seemed different from this vantage point. Bigger, more intimidating. “Strange. And scary. But…not as scary as I thought.”
In my mind, the throne was so large I’d never grow into it, but now that I was actually sitting in it? It seemed manageable.
“Because you’re ready for it.” Rhys said it like it wasn’t even a question. “You’re a fucking queen, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Including yourself.”
My mouth tipped up while my heart melted into a puddle. “If you ever give up on the bodyguard gig, you could make a killing as a motivational speaker.”
He chuckled. “Not motivation, just the truth. The throne suits you. Now…” He knelt before me and spread my thighs. “How can I serve you, Your Highness?”
Heat consumed my body as he pulled my underwear down.
“Rhys,” I hissed, my pulse racing with a mix of lust and anxiety. “Someone will catch us.”
The odds were slim, but they weren’t zero.
His wolfish smile caused my toes to curl. “Then we better make it worth it. Hmm, princess?”
I didn’t get a chance to respond before he draped my legs over his shoulders, dipped his head between my thighs, and all my protests crumbled into ash.
Rhys devoured me with the hunger of a man lost in the desert, sucking on my clit and thrusting his tongue inside me until my vision went hazy. I writhed and whimpered, sliding halfway off the throne until my legs on his shoulders and his crushing grip on my hips were the only things keeping me from collapsing.
Too much. Not enough. Everywhere. More.
I couldn’t think straight.
My moans echoed in the room, bouncing off the tapestries and portraits of previous kings and queens, all of whom glared at me disapprovingly while my bodyguard tongue fucked me into oblivion on the throne.
He sucked hard on my clit, and I yelped at the overload of sensation. I tried to pull away, but Rhys’s hands clamped around my thighs like iron bands, forcing me to hold still until my body convulsed and came apart.
Before I could gather myself back together, he was up and inside me, his big body shielding me from sight should anyone walk in and his cock driving into me forcefully enough to send the chair inching back with each thrust.
So wrong. This was so wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to care as Rhys grabbed my ankles and placed my legs on his shoulders again, bending me nearly in half.
“Now this is how a queen should be treated,” he said, his eyes dark and ravenous as they dropped from my face to where his cock pumped in and out of me. “Don’t you agree?”
“Mmph ungh.” I moaned something unintelligible, unable to speak. To think.
I was pure sensation, fire inside and out, and the last coherent thought I had before another volcano erupted and melted me into nothing was, sometimes, it’s good to be queen.
33
Rhys
Our tryst in the throne room was the last bit of alone time Bridget and I had before her brother and future sister-in-law arrived, and she got swept up in a flurry of pre-wedding obligations. I thought normal weddings were tedious, but royal weddings were off the charts.
On the bright side, it meant Bridget didn’t have time to see Steffan, either. The fucker was back in town, and the thought of seeing them on another date made my blood burn.
I’ve gone off the rails. Hell, I’d gone off the entire fucking track. I’d never so much as gone on a third date with a woman in the past. None had interested me enough. And now I was thinking of killing over one.
Bridget had my head well and truly fucked.
“Get it together,” I muttered, slamming a jar of tomato sauce on the counter. “It’s one day.”
Except it wasn’t only one day because eventually, she would have to marry someone noble. Someone blue-blooded. Someone not me.
Fury and pain rippled through me, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand before I spiraled too far down that path. It wouldn’t end well for me or anything in the kitchen.
I’d just turned on the stove when someone knocked on the door. Bridget was at some pre-wedding night thing with the rest of the bridesmaids, so it couldn’t be her. Who else would visit at this time of night?
I turned the stove off again and checked the security camera.
You gotta be shitting me.
I exited the kitchen, crossed the living room, and opened the front door. “What the hell are you doing here?”