Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) (45 page)

“Does my princess need to rest?” he murmurs, stroking sweat-heavy locks of hair from my eyes.

I grin. “No. Your princess needs another hard fucking, my prince.”

I
f you told
me that one day I would be here, I
never
would have believed you. I’m sitting at a table in the great hall. Kristoff’s chair is only slightly bigger than mine, and I sit at his right hand, in a place of authority. It makes me nervous. My new dress fits better and leaves my arms bare, so it’s cooler during the heat of the day when sunlight pours through the enormous windows until the stones under my feet bake.

The really weird part is that this
my
meeting. Mostly.

“Your grace, this is most sudden…”

Kristoff silences the speaker with a look. A tall, graying man, he’s been introduced to me as the minister of education. I’ve already given them all a list of my ideas, though now that I’m pressed to actually present them to people who might be able to make the changes I’m pushing for, I feel stupid for getting myself into this.

I didn’t even finish my degree and they’re asking me how to reform their education system. The prince doesn’t say a word unless he detects a hint of disrespect from a member of his cabinet; then he silences them with a sharp word and turns to me.

Though it is not easy, I do my best not to slump my shoulders and whisper my ideas. I keep my chin up and sit straight, hands folded on my lap, and lay out my plans, such as they are. It’s all basic stuff, but from the looks on the faces of the men and women sitting around me, you’d think I was suggesting they start speaking Greek and have the teachers wear boxer shorts on their heads.

My starting suggestion is making all that day-care stuff
voluntary
, and though it sparks a huge argument that only ends when the prince roars
enough
and commands them to carry out my orders, I make the whole clinic-care-for-sick-kids optional, too. Kids with the sniffles can stay home with their mom now. Before I can say anything about it, Kristoff cuts off a question by decreeing—he can do that, he decrees things—that mothers or fathers who take a day from work to care for their children will be given full compensation.

Most of what I ask for is simple—art supplies, music, more computers.

“If you stay,” Kristoff tells me quietly, “I will place the education minister under your direct authority. The schools will be yours to operate.”

I shake a little when he tells me that. “I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility. You need experts…”

“Then find them and bring them here. I do not ask you to teach the classes, I ask you to set a direction. Leadership is not about doing, it is about finding those who can do and guiding them to your desired results.”

I swallow, hard. I’ve seen what power can do to a person, more intimately than I ever thought possible. It scares me.

So, I tell him.

“I don’t know if I can handle that kind of authority. I don’t know if I want it.”

“That is why you should have it,” he says, giving me a curt nod of respect.

The meeting drags on through the day. Some of the things I want to do will take time and require massive changes. No more assigning people jobs, they can choose. They’ll still take the tests but the results will inform, not command. Art teachers will be hired from abroad and until they arrive the kids will have freeform art and playtime, even the older ones. I like the apprenticeship idea so we’ll keep that.

The sun is low by the time we finish. Kristoff dismisses them all and sags back in his seat once we’re alone in the hall. He runs his fingers through his hair.

I reach over and tug on one of the heavy black locks.

He takes my wrist delicately in his hand.

“You understand that when we are married—”

“If. If we are married.”

“When we are in public we will have to comport ourselves a certain way. We cannot act like smitten children in front of government ministers and foreign dignitaries.”

“What happens if I do?”

“I’ll have to punish you,” he says, running the back of his hand up my arm.

Instead of a pang of fear I feel a little quiver of excitement and grin at him.

“You will learn. They will harry you the way they have harried me. Come.”

He stands and offers me his hand. The prince walks me along the parapet. That’s what it’s called, a parapet. Balconies are for scrubs. This is a castle. This side faces the west, and the setting sun dipping below the mountains. It looks like something out of a cheesy Hammer horror movie; Christopher Lee should come shambling out of the dark as Frankenstein’s vampire mummy or something.

I can’t help but stare. The colors are gorgeous. It’s the end of our first day. It’s Monday, and Thursday afternoon we leave for New York. I have to decide.

This morning Kristoff gave me leave, as he puts it, to call home if I want, and to talk to my parents. I haven’t yet. Instead, before the meeting, I called for a car to take me down to the hospital and sat with Melissa until eleven o’clock.

She was happier and in higher spirits. Her parents weren’t there, but they’re staying at the hotel for foreign dignitaries at the foot of the mountain. I felt an urge to point out to Kristoff how hypocritical it is to keep this nice artsy hotel for foreigners in this drab, dreary place.

“Tomorrow I am giving you a gift,” he says, resting his hands on my hips as he stands behind me.

“What is it?”

He touches his lips to my head. “I cannot spoil the surprise. Come, we must rise early. There is much to do.”

Dinner comes to us in the room he calls his solar, and then it’s time for bed.

For some reason, I feel more nervous stripping down tonight than I did last night, before we had sex. I’m not sure what he expects now. I believe him about it being customary to sleep naked. As he paces around the room bare-assed and lights a big fire in the hearth, I feel more at ease. Shivering against the nighttime chill, I throw myself into the bed and bundle up in blankets and furs until he joins me.

Sleeping on a big featherbed naturally dumps us on top of each other. I relax as I get used to lying with him. I’ve slept with a man before, my fiancé. I don’t mean in the biblical sense, I mean actually slept in the same bed. This is different. Kristoff lights a lamp next to the bed and reads a book propped on his chest.

“Can you read my tongue?”

“Sort of. Street signs, things like that.”

After a while, despite the softness of his skin against mine as I lie curled up against his side, I almost forget that I’m unclothed as he gives me a reading lesson. It seems to amuse him when I struggle over a difficult word. It takes what seems like all night to read one page, and by then I’m yawning and dozing off, my head pillowed on his chest.

When I wake up the next morning from a dreamless sleep, I’m lying on my side, his arms around me, his face buried in my hair.

He’s hard when he wakes up. I can tell when his breathing changes and his hands go from gently resting to caressing, one dipping down under me, between my legs. I hold the other hand as he strokes my pussy, my arousal clashing with the lazy relaxation I feel. Like a cat sunning myself on a windowsill, I don’t want to move. The warmth and softness of the bed and his breath on my neck are too much.

When I feel ready I pull my legs up and bend my knees, and he pulls me down just enough and enters me slowly, his hands shaking as my body envelops his cock. I tense under his hands and rub my cheek against his palm.

We fuck like this for what feels like hours, slowly, not changing positions, using the motion of the bed and the slow movement of each other’s hips to ride to a slow but profound pleasure that leaves me throbbing all over, a dull, pleasurable ache rippling through my body.

No words are exchanged. I tug on his hands and start to roll on my stomach. He follows and pushes me over the rest of the way, lying on top of me with his legs splayed, and picks up the pace until he grunts and buries himself deep in hard, uncontrolled thrusts as my gentle climax pulses my body, pleasure surging through me at last as I quiver under him.

When he rolls on his back I flop, still sleepy, on his chest and lie there, rubbing his stomach with my hand, feeling the tight muscles of his belly with my fingernails.

I yawn and curl up in the layers and layers of blankets and furs while he showers. Finally I get sick of waiting, pad barefoot over to the bathroom, open the shower door, and step inside with him. It’s even bigger than the one in my old room, and I’m immediately doused in scalding hot water. I yelp and cling to him, as if he can make the heat go away.

He spins me around and douses my head with shampoo. I pinch my eyes shut and make soft, pleased little sounds as he kneads my scalp with his rough fingers and runs my hair between them, squeezing out the soap. He washes my back too, and I do the same. There’s a bamboo bench; he sits down and I wash his hair, my breasts resting on his head as I scrape his scalp with my nails. I scrub his back and shoulders, lift the water wand off the wall, and rinse him down.

I like the way his wet skin feels against mine. I like how big his shoulders are, how the muscles feel under my hands. I like the way he sits up straighter when I lean over him, push my boobs into the back of his head, and run my hands down his chest.

After we dry each other off with big fluffy towels, he helps me dress, gently and carefully lacing up the sides of my dress. I didn’t pick the one I will wear today, he did; it seems simpler and less ornate than the ones I’ve been wearing, more traditional with big poofy sleeves, heavy skirts, and a high collar. The blouse I wear is creamy white and the skirts and bodice of the dress a hunter green that he says brings out my eyes.

Once I’m dressed, I help him. I tug his trousers up and give his cock a little squeeze before I button them up. He forgoes the black jacket he always wears for a creamy shirt, halfway unbuttoned. God, he’s gorgeous. He looks absolutely magnificent, almost mouthwatering. The only attention he gives his hair is to run his fingers through it, and it’s all it needs. I could do that all day.

I stop myself, lest we end up playing with each other’s hair all afternoon.

I start to put mine up, and he stops me, gingerly grasping my wrists. “Leave it down.”

I brush it out and let it hang loose. It starts to curl as it dries, as it does.

My present has not yet been revealed to me, and I don’t dare ask, even as he lifts me into the car for a ride down the mountainside.

When I see what he’s arranged for me, I gasp.

Color
. The city is a riot of color, color everywhere. There are people on the streets, and not a shade of gray in sight. The car stops abruptly and we step out. As soon as I hit the warm air I’m assaulted by a cascade of flowery fragrances so intense I let out a little chirping sneeze and have to wipe my nose with the prince’s handkerchief.

Wooden arbors stand over the streets, adorned with flowers. Children run up and down roads. I didn’t even know this many people lived here. I can hear music in the distance; it sounds almost like polka but not quite.

“What is this?”

“A festival. I declared this week a holiday.”

“For what?”

“For you, to honor you and the light that you bring to this place.”

He offers me his hand, and we walk together.

There is still a nervous edge in the presence of the prince.

“This is beautiful,” I tell him, “but I want more. These children you’ve taken away from their families…”

“Come,” he says.

We walk through town, the prince and his lady. The looks they give me make me feel self-conscious, and I can’t stop blushing.

“Do you remember that first morning? When we talked about Hades and Persephone?”

“Yes.”

It feels like a million years ago. Like last year.

“You never finished the story.”

“That’s how it ends,” I shrug. “It’s a folktale to explain the seasons.”

“It’s more than that. Persephone changed her husband. She brought some of her mother’s light and life to his court. Such was her beauty that Sisyphus was relieved of eternally rolling the great boulder up the hill, and the thirst of Tantalus was slaked. Not every hour was bitter, and not every day was cruel.”

We walk to an open square, all decorated for the festival. There are a bunch of people sitting in chairs, all couples, many holding hands. They look sullen and sad, and many very scared, unable to bring themselves to even pretend to be happy for their terrifying leader’s benefit.

“When my father showed me what lies under our mountain he told me, ‘If you dance with the devil, the devil doesn’t change. The devil changes you.’”

I frown.

“You have changed me, though. Look.”

Vans. Big vans…like school busses. They roll into the square and stop, and I swear the entire world goes dead silent, like everything has frozen, as quiet as the grave. The air is no longer so warm, the sun no longer so strong. It’s like an invisible shadow has fallen over the world.

The doors open and nothing happens. Then the first child, a little girl, steps out. Haltingly, slowly, more join her, then more, forming a crowd around the vehicles. One of the seated couples…no, a pair of the seated
parents
, finally jump to their feet and run over, scooping their daughter up in their arms.

Then the dam bursts and they run together. Laughing, crying, embracing and spinning in place.

I have to cover my mouth. Hot tears burn on my cheeks.

“You…”

“I can’t undo everything I’ve done, but there are ways I can start. You were right. I wanted to free my people and I put them in chains instead. I was trying to make a heaven and instead I made a hell.”

I can’t talk, my throat is too dry. I want to tell him something but I don’t know what.

“This will continue whether you stay or go,” he says. “I will make this right. I cannot die a man you would hate. I only beg you to stay, so that I can become a man you could love. They need this.
I
need it. I don’t want to be Hades anymore. Lead me into the light, Penny. Please.”

“I don’t know yet,” I choke out. “I’m sorry but I don’t know. I need to go home. I need to see it again before I decide.”