Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) (43 page)

“Our situation was never kind to him. From when he was old enough to speak it was made clear to him that I would rule here and he would not. Cassandra would be mine and not his, and he knew, damn him, damn
her
, he knew that I did not want her. I never wanted any of this.” His voice rises. “This is
insane,
all of it. Look around you. As you said, a noble goal. Not worth murdering millions, not worth another war. There has to be another way.”

“What happened to her?”

“She seduced Kristien and turned him against me. Whispered lies in his ear, told him I was weak and would lead the country to ruin. The worst part is, she was right. I knew the moment my father brought me down here and explained what all this was for that I would never be part of something like this. I will not murder the world to save it.”

“My prince,” I whisper, saying the words with real respect for the first time. “I’m so sorry.”

“She meant for him to usurp me. Their plan was to murder me and for Kristien to take my place. The people would never know. We were identical except for a small scar on his chin, from a riding accident when we were children. He hurt his head.

“She tried to convince him to kill me in my sleep. Instead he put on one of these suits and went on a rampage through the castle. I donned my father’s armor for the first time that day. My suit was more advanced. He was always stronger but I’m faster, and the suit gave me the edge I needed. I killed him. I ran a sword through my own brother’s heart.”

He lets go of my hand and sinks to his knees. “I never wanted any of this to happen. Don’t you understand? I don’t want anyone else to die. I don’t want anyone else to suffer. I wanted to take away all the pain and worry.”

“You did.” I kneel beside him and put my arms around him. “I believe you now. You did want to help, but you were wrong. You gave everyone in your land safety and security, but you took away the most beautiful parts of life. Freedom. Choice. Art. Music.
Risk
. It’s a very safe prison, but it’s a prison. You have to let them go.”

“How? How can I undo what generation after generation of my fathers and their fathers have done? You tell me to give them freedom, but how can I lay such a burden on them after they’ve lived their whole lives like this?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. I’m not a philosopher, Kristoff. I’m not even really a teacher. I didn’t finish my degree. They’ll hire anybody to teach English abroad.”

The prince rises to face me and rests his palm against my cheek.

“I don’t want to be the king of Tartarus anymore, Penny. You are a light shining into this hell. Do what you have already been doing. Show me the way.”

I sigh. “You can’t do this all at once. It’s going to take time. It’s going to be difficult. You have to change everything about this place. One day you or maybe your son or grandson is going to have to give up the power.”

“My line ends with me, unless you stay with me. I won’t have anyone else.”

“I don’t want that burden.”

“I don’t want mine. No one asked me to shoulder it. I’m giving you that choice, though. Stay with me until the end of the week, fly with me to America. If you leave me I will let you go. I fear I will die but I will let you go, and I will spend the rest of my life turning this land into a garden to await your return.”

“I… I might stay,” I admit. “I don’t know. I can’t think. I hate this place. I hate feeling the castle over my head, like it’s going to fall on us.”

“So do I. Come, I’ll take you back to your room.”

“I don’t want to stay there anymore,” I say as he pulls me to my feet. “I want to go with you.”

“You…do?”

“Don’t you want me to come?”

“Yes. In every sense of the word.”

Shocked, I flinch in his arms. He leans down and lightly sniffs my hair, and rests his hand on my shoulder. I slip my arms around him.

I don’t look at the torture chamber as I pass through it again.I look at him instead. He doesn’t lead me back to the hall. Instead we wind around another circular staircase around the inside of one of the towers to a private dining room, barely bigger than one you would find in any house.

“This is my solar,” he says, showing me.

There’s a desk in the corner strewn with papers…and an iPad, clashing weirdly with the medieval ambiance.

“I had the cooks prepare something for you,” he says as he pushes in my chair. “A surprise. Close your eyes.”

I eye him then squeeze my eyes tightly shut. When I open them, I find on the table in front of me…

A
cheeseburger
. A triple, no less, huge and steaming, the yellowy American cheese running molten over the edges of the patties. Kristoff has one, too. He prods it with his finger before he takes a knife and fork and cuts a sliver of it to eat, lifting it to his mouth with gentlemanly taste.

After chewing and swallowing he says, “I can see the appeal. Be careful, it’s hot.”

He barely finishes speaking before I scoop it up and take a big bite. My God, it’s
good
.

“You do not want ketchup? I am told a burger has ketchup.”

“Blrphermy,” I choke out, then swallow. “Blasphemy. On a burger this good? No way.”

“It pleases you?”

“Tremendously. Let me eat. I need to savor this.”

I eat slowly, closing my eyes half the time.

“So good,” I moan. “I could eat five of these. I want a milkshake.”

“I can get you four more if you would like.”

“I didn’t mean that…”

I trail off as one of the servants carries a milkshake in a tall glass on a silver tray. He sets it in front of me and I stare at it.

“Are you trying to make me fat?”

“Not yet. We’ll plump you up when you are carrying my child.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

He smiles as he watches me eat. The milkshake is so thick, too thick, really. I have to start off with a spoon. Not that I’m complaining.

I save the cherry for last, crushing it between my teeth.

“I think I could watch you eat all day.”

I dab at my lips with a napkin. “You seem to want to.”

I stifle a burp.

“What do you want to do with me now?”

“As long as I can remember, I have never slept in the presence of another person. Come with me.”

“It’s early yet.”

“I wish to talk more. Come.”

He rises and offers me his hand. Gingerly I take it and walk with him. We’re alone now, no servants, no guards. He walks me up another staircase. They never seem to run out.

The bedroom is as grand as the one where he’d been keeping me, and the bed just as large. Once inside he closes and bolts the door, and rests his hand on my back, guiding me to a huge, ornate sofa. I sit down at the far end, slipping my feet out of my clunky boots. I jerk my legs back and cover my toes with my skirt.

“In some ways I am as curious as the children were. I can’t imagine a life so different as yours, Penny. I’ve never been so free.”

“Were those your comic books up in the library?”

He looks at me and I swear, he’s blushing. He’s embarrassed.

“Not all. My grandfather started the collection and I set out to continue it. He was mad, as mad as my father, but there was a kindness in him, too. When he was older and stepped down from the throne in favor of my father, it changed him, as if some part of the madness left him to pass itself on.”

He notices my shoulders quivering.

“You’re shivering. Are you cold?”

“Yes. It gets chilly in here at night.”

Yawning, he rises and walks to the hearth, piles some split logs, and kneels to set the kindling ablaze. The flames from the straw and finely shaved wood lick up around the logs until they too catch, cracking and popping. They throw long shadows around the room.

When he sits down I scoot closer, my knees drawn to my chest, skirts hanging over my feet.

“You never had feelings for this other girl,” I ask.

“No, not for her.”

“Why?”

“She was very beautiful, but there is more to attraction than beauty. She did not rise into the role of princess, she wished to drag it down to herself. None of her predecessors demanded so many jewels and dresses as she did, and my father indulged her.”

“Liking fine things doesn’t make someone a bad person.”

“It doesn’t make them a good person, either. Sometimes, it can be too much. I look around at all this, and do you know what I think? I don’t own it, it owns me.”

“I’ve heard that before. Would you ever give it up?”

“I can’t let anyone else have it. The burden is mine to bear. I would lay it down for a time, though. When my father ruled, my mother and I would travel the land with my grandfather. It was called a royal progress. At the end of each year we would settle for a month or so in a cabin in the north, at the feet of the mountains. It was always late, and the garden outside made the whole house smell of herbs. My grandfather taught me to fish in those streams. Have you ever gone fishing?”

“Yes,” I sigh. “When I was young and my brother was three or four years old, my father took us to Canada, to a lodge in Quebec. It’s not there anymore now, they tore it all down. I caught a fish.”

“Oh?”

“A little perch or something. Nothing impressive.”

“All children are impressed by their first fish.”

“We put it back in the water. I guess it’s kind of cruel to put a hook through an animal’s mouth like that, but…” I shrug. “I loved that trip. I wanted to go again so badly but we never did. I loved that part about the missionary work, sleeping in tents, even the prepared meals. I like camping and the outdoors.”

I shift closer to him, and without a word he slips his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in, again sniffing at my hair. He breathes deep.

“You smell earthy,” he murmurs. “Like iron and tilled soil. A good smell.”

I snort. “Thanks, you really know how to flatter a girl.”

“I want you.”

As my hand slides down his stomach and comes to rest on his erection, I sigh. “I can tell.”

As I trace the length of him through his clothes with my finger, I feel him harden more and feel a tingle between my legs. He’s, ah, impressive.

“You’re not the first guy that wanted me.”

“Or the first that has had you.”

I tense. “Careful. Is that a problem? Where I come from it isn’t.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, it’s not exactly true. I was… We never… I mean, we fooled around, but that was it. I…” I shrug. “Okay, this is weird, but my mother told me, in detail, how she slept around before she married my dad and told me that tying herself down to one man was a mistake. She kept pushing me to, I don’t know, sow my wild oats or whatever. I don’t know if it was to defy her or just who I am, but I wanted it to be special. I was waiting for my wedding night. We did other stuff. Pretty much all the other stuff. Just not that.”

He runs his fingers through my hair. They graze my scalp and leave trails of lightning in their path.

“Do you wish to wait?”

“I don’t know.” I close my eyes. “Things are different. I have more perspective. I almost died. That choice was almost taken away from me. I want it to be mine again.”

“It is yours. I will never hurt you, Penny. I will never descend to the level of those
animals
.”

I snicker. “You owe me three chopped-off hands already.”

My stomach quivers and my chest flutters as he pulls me onto his lap. I shift and wriggle my butt, feeling his cock dig against me through his clothes, even my skirts. His hands glide reverently across my body over the fabric of my dress, one resting on my hip, the other on my ass.

He squeezes and I jerk and wriggle in his lap and tuck up against him. He smells good, too. Like leather and trees.

“I would never descend to the level of an
animal
who hurts women.”

“Stop it,” I whisper, digging my fingers into his chest. I pop one of the buttons on his shirt and slip my hand inside, feeling his warm skin. “Don’t talk like that. It scares me. I want the man who carried me to safety, not the man who tore apart the people who attacked me.”

“Why do you feel such concern for them?”

“They’re people, too,” I sigh. “I don’t know. I’m tired, don’t make me think about things like that. I don’t like thinking about you killing people. I want you to stop.”

“You are an angel. Only an angel sent from heaven could have such mercy. Or feel so wonderful.”

His finger traces along my shoulder, and his hand rests on the back of my neck.

He kisses me again.

He’s more gentle this time, at least at first. Then he kisses me harder and it’s like swallowing a drop of warm honey, the heat spreading through my body. He makes me want to forget it all.

He whispers in my ear. “Your prince commands you to remove your dress.”

He looks just a little shocked when I don’t argue. I twitch from the cold stone floor against my bare feet as I stand up and undo the laces at my sides. A tug and a wriggle and the dress pools at my feet, leaving me in nothing but these ridiculous bloomers.

He stands up, taking me by the waist, and shoves them down.

“You have freckles everywhere,” he whispers, tracing them to prove it, down the middle of my chest and stomach.

“Yeah. Grandma was Irish.”

“I thought American girls shave themselves,” he whispers in my ear, as his hand slips between my legs.

“N-n-not all,” I choke out, rising on my tiptoes as he traces a finger along my slit.

“I like it. Promise me you won’t shave.”

“Trust me, you don’t have to convince me.”

“It’s red,” he says.

“Yeah. Irish.”

He scoops me up in his arms and carries me, newlywed style, to the bed. The farther we move from the fire, the colder I get, until I’m shaking like a leaf as he lowers me to the bed. I sink into the featherbed and yank the thick blankets up to my chin.

He starts taking off his clothes, unbuttoning his shirt first. I tremble as I watch.

“I don’t know how far I want to go. You’ll stop if…”

“Yes,” he says. “In my country it is customary to sleep naked anyway. Move over.”

Still bunched up in the covers, I scoot back to give him room. He takes his shirt off first, and I gasp.