Forbidden Desire (Maid for the Billionaire Prince) (4 page)

Ooops.

Alex stirs again and murmurs something under his breath. I lean my head over to kiss him on the lips. My hardened nipples prod his chest.

I resume my pumping, taking care not to disturb the water level too much. My body aches for more vigor, and so I involuntarily increase my rhythm. I want him so much. It’s been days since we last had intercourse – days we had to spend traveling by jeep out of the Sumatran rainforest and to the tiny airport that would connect us to Jakarta for the first flight out of Indonesia.

I manage to establish a firm vertical trajectory that causes his penis head to strike my G-spot repeatedly and satisfyingly. Well . . . much,
much
more than a mere ‘satisfying’ rating because the pressure starts to build again. I find myself moaning as the spools of pleasure begin to unravel within my nerve bundles.

I accelerate my pumping, letting his cock rub into my G-spot even more fiercely.

This time, he wakes up.

“Mmmmm,” he says, slowly opening his eyes.

He’s startled when he sees me impaled on top of him.

“Hey.” He grins. His breathing immediately grows more ragged. “Whatever happened to letting me sleep?”

“I couldn’t resist.”

My voice is strangled because I’m very close to coming.

He grasps my waist with his hands to urge me on further. I bounce upon his hips, alternating my vertical plane with back-forth rocking and oscillatory maneuvers. His cock rubs and rubs against my walls so that I’m a squirming, quivering mess of helplessness when the pleasure overtakes me.

I throw back my head and let out a harsh cry as starbursts explode in my brain. I arch my back, and I can feel him steadying my hips as I come and come and trash my body and come again and utter unintelligible noises and splash the water all around us so that it slops onto the tiles.

He allows himself to come after my orgasm has subsided, and I can feel the trickle of his warm sperm – wetness against wetness – in the already flooded tunnel of my pussy.

Ohhh, but he feels
soooooo
good.

“Oh God,” he whispers, “you are so beautiful, Liz, so beautiful. Thank you, I needed that so much.”

I slump against him, my cheek to his wet neck. He smells of soap and water and freshness. His hands slide down my back and his lips nuzzle my wet hair.

“Now let’s really fall asleep before I get tempted to fuck you again,” he says.

I laugh throatily. With Alex by my side, I feel like I can face anything.

A good thing too, because with the events that happen after this blissful morning, I’m going to need all the strength I can get.

5

We are sleeping entwined with each other in my canopied bed, completely naked, when a sharp rap comes on my door. The rapping goes on insistently until I transcend my tranquil state of semi-slumber into being wide and fully awake.

For a moment, I can’t recall where I am. Then the door opens.

I scream, realizing that I’m naked.

Alex sits up and pulls the covers over both our bodies.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demands as Jasper pokes his head in.

“Ah, there you are, your highness. I’ve been searching everywhere for you.” Jasper’s tone is smooth, dulcet, and totally unapologetic. “Your mother, the Queen, has returned from the hospital and requested your presence for dinner. The
two
of you,” he adds significantly.

Dinner? With the Queen? What time is it?

With a start, I notice that the sky outside has darkened considerably.

Oh my God, I’m going to have dinner with the Queen, and I have nothing to wear. I have nothing to say to her. I’m totally unprepared!

“We’ll be down in an hour, Jasper,” Alex says.

“Thirty minutes is preferable, your highness.” Jasper vanishes. The door shuts with a snap.

Prick.

“Shit,” Alex says, getting up.

“What do I do?” I say, panicking.

He sizes me up and down. “We get you something to wear.”

*

Getting me something to wear within a half hour is goddamned difficult because most of my clothes are completely unsuitable for meeting royalty – that is, proper royalty with all its pomp and splendor, not the beach hut affairs I’m more used to with Alex. I have only one gown – the one that Alex gave me – which is presentable, but I’d left it back home in my sublet apartment in Chicago.

“Don’t worry,” Alex says, “I’ll get you my sister’s clothes.”

“Is your mother really particular about dressing up?”

He hesitates, not wanting to scare me. “A little. But it’s not as if you have to wear a ball gown or anything. This is a private family dinner.”

“What do you wear during your private family dinners?” My heart sinks. Alex’s family is anything but normal.

“Something a little more formal than jeans and a T-shirt, but not to the extent of a dinner jacket.”

That’s helpful.

“What do the women wear?”

He’s getting into his jeans and T-shirt. “Um . . . I’ll have to ask Hannah.”

“Who’s Hannah?”

“My mother’s PA. But she doesn’t live here and we don’t have much time. Tell you what? Follow me and we’ll raid my sister’s closet.”

Dressing hurriedly in a clean halter top and shorts, I pad after Alex. He leads me down a maze of richly decorated corridors with more antiques and bric-bracs than I have ever seen in my entire life. We head out of the East Wing and into another adjacent wing where the royals live.

We arrive at a pair of closed double oak doors. Without knocking, Alex pushes them open.

“Would she mind?” I say worriedly.

“What she won’t know won’t kill her. This is my younger sister Marie’s room, and she’s got more clothes than a Chinese departmental store.”

Marie is the sister who is in Yale. Somehow, I don’t think the analogy is apt. Marie Vassar’s clothes are more likely to be haute couture from the best French designers money can buy. Even her room is humungous, consisting of a living room with tasteful ornate furniture and an open door leading to a bedroom. I catch a glimpse of the canopied bed with gold tassels within.

“Wait till you see her closet,” Alex says, striding into the bedroom and flinging open a door that leads to a huge walk-in closet. “And don’t worry. She was here this morning but she had to take a flight back to America for her exams. So she won’t be walking in on us anytime soon.”

That’s right. She has exams. As do I, if I hadn’t run out on college to be with Alex.

I walk into the walk-in closet . . . and stop.

I’m speechless. Rows and rows of cedar wood closets line the walls. Alex opens one, and everything is color coordinated inside – yellows next to oranges. Marie has dozens and dozens of dresses, gowns, suits, everything . . . and those are in that one closet alone!

“It gets better.” He grins as he opens the closet beside it. The reds jump out in stark contrast. “She follows the rainbow spectrum and everything in between. My sister is a hoarder of the worst kind.”

I whirl around, unable to take it all in. How many pieces of clothes are in here? Hundreds? Thousands? How can one woman have so many clothes?

Alex presses a button, and a motorized sound is emitted. The closets in front slide left and the one beside it takes its place. Everything else seems to rotate like a conveyer belt of closets, revealing the ones which were previously behind. I see shoes, hatboxes, winter coats and furs, stacks and stacks of other boxes which may or may not contain lingerie and belts.

I’m still too dazzled to say anything.

He takes pity on me.

“OK, if you can’t choose and seeing as we are in a rush, I’ll choose one for you.”

He picks out an outfit from the yellow rack and hands it to me. My hands are trembling slightly as I take it. The material is cotton of the softest handspun variety.

He says, “This looks like something she would wear for dinner. I’ll let you dress. I’ll be back soon, I just have to throw on something more decent.”

I find my tongue. “Are you going to leave me alone here?”

The prospect frightens me. Somehow, I feel like a thief in someone else’s room. What if Jasper finds me here? Or the Queen? Would they call palace security?

“My room is just down the corner,” Alex assures me. “I’ll back in a jiffy.”

He throws me a kiss and rushes off.

I get it. We are on a deadline here.

I dress hurriedly. It’s a long-sleeved yellow dress with a boat-shaped neckline. Its variegated hem – of intertwining leaves and flowers – falls modestly to my knees, and there’s a little embellished yellow flower on one side of it, just below the neckline.

Alex has forgotten to select matching shoes for me, and so I reach for a yellow pair of pumps.

Everything surprisingly fits me to a tee. I’m fully aware I’m wearing a princess’s clothes. I pick up an enameled brush with the portrait of a beautiful woman’s face on its back, and comb my hair in the standing mirror at one corner. I have no makeup on, but I see a tube of lipstick on the vanity table and I quickly apply it.

Great. Not only am I wearing Alex’s sister’s clothes, but I’m borrowing her brush and makeup as well. If she ever does find out, some seriously royal shit is going to hit the fan.

Alex comes in again. His long unruly hair is tidied up somewhat, and he has put on a white dinner jacket over a clean shirt.

So much for not requiring dinner jackets.

“Come on,” he says, “I’m starving.”

I’m too frazzled to be hungry.

We rush down another grand staircase, passing oil portraits of somber people wearing tiaras, crowns and state sashes. I reckon these are Alex’s ancestors. We breeze into a dining room where two people are already seated – one at the head of the table and the other by her side.

My stomach contracts.

What do I say to a Queen? Do I curtsey? Alex has not prepared me at all for protocol. My only brush with royalty (aside from Alex, of course, and Alex is so normal and down-to-earth that I find it hard to think of him as royalty) was with Alex’s father, the King, and I was too busy serving canapés to all the guests to remember any protocol aside from being required to blend skillfully into the wallpaper.

Alex senses my discomfiture.

“Relax,” he says in a low voice, “just a handshake would do.”

But I’m a commoner, I want to say.

I find myself being shepherded to the table. My eyes are riveted upon the extremely beautiful dark-haired woman at the head of the table. I can totally see Alex’s features on her. She’s clad in a lilac woolen jacket and matching skirt, and her round buttons are gold.

She does not get up as we approach.

“Mother,” says Alex, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Good of you to join us, Alexander,” she clips in an American accent. I remember that Alex’s mother is an American heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the world.

“Well, we were suffering from jetlag. And this is Elizabeth, my girlfriend.”

OK.

Now my knees are wobbling like Jell-O. Did he just introduce me as his girlfriend? Talk about opening a can of worms.

The Queen’s sharp blue eyes are not amused. Nevertheless, she holds out a be-ringed hand. Sapphires and diamonds flash on her fingers.

“G-good evening, your Majesty,” I splutter, taking her outstretched hand.

She appraises me without a smile. “So you are the girl who has taken Alexander away from us for a whole month.”

Bad, bad start. She’s already predisposed to hate me.

“She didn’t take me away, Mother. Quite the opposite. I persuaded her to come with me when she didn’t want to.”

“It will be quite the story, I imagine.” She waves at the table. “Please, don’t stand on my accord.”

“No kiss for your little sister whom you haven’t seen in over a year?” pipes up a voice.

I’m so bowled over by the beauteous austerity of the Queen that I’ve almost forgotten her companion.

“Of course, little sister.” Alex leans down to kiss the cheek of a slender, willowy brunette who also looks remarkably like him. I take it that she is his youngest sister, Claire – the one in a Swiss finishing school.

Claire regards me coolly out of her vivid blue eyes. I try to keep the tremor from crippling my gait as I take the seat on the other side of the table next to Alex. Such a long table for just four people, and we are all crowded at one end.

“Claire, this is Liz. Liz, my sister Claire.”

Claire says, “So you are Alex’s girlfriend. This is the first time he has told us about you.” She has a distinctively French accent, although her English is impeccable.

I don’t know what to say, so Alex answers for me, “Yes, she is.”

Four waiters come in to serve four identical bowls of steaming soup in front of us. My place setting is made of Chantilly lace, and the cutlery is gleaming silver, polished to perfection. I can see my face reflected on the spoon.