Royal Ruin Page 3
He kissed my neck, teasing the sensitive skin there with his tongue, his teeth.
Without warning, the arm around my waist tightened, and suddenly Kit was lifting me up, tossing me further onto the desk so that my back was flat against it. I looked up to meet Kit’s gaze as he put his hands on my thighs and pounded into me, deep, athletic strokes. He hooked my knee over his arm, deepening his angle.
Oh, God, yes. So much yes to this.
His eyes burned with a new wildness—a determined abandon. Our bodies slapped together with every stroke, a sound that was so rude and so dirty I couldn’t help but be turned on by it.
I felt exposed. Defiled.
And I fucking loved it.
He splayed his hand across my belly, and I reached down to wrap my fingers around his wrist. I wanted to memorize this moment. Every sensation, every movement, every look. Sex had never been like this for me—it’d never been so passionate or so raw or so wrong—and somehow I doubted it would ever be like this again.
Our eyes met. Something passed between us then. Something heavy. Hot. I didn’t understand what it was, but I felt it. I felt it everywhere, and I never wanted it to end.
* * *
Kit
With shaking hands I pulled her to me, pulled her to her feet and spun her around so her back was to my front. I bent her over my desk. I slipped a leg between hers, urging them apart. I slid my dick between her ass cheeks, guiding it down into her slit, moving back to front, front to back. She whimpered. Reaching down, I found her pussy with my fingers. I held her open as I guided myself inside her.
“Kit,” she was saying. “That feels so good.”
I held her by the hips so I could control the tempo. This angle made her cunt tighten around me in the sweetest way. I ran my hands up her back, my thumbs moving up the furrow of her spine. Her skin was smooth, soft. I curled my fingers around the nape of her neck and held her there, thrusting hard and deep, the sensation so fucking delicious that I knew I couldn’t hold back much longer.
I bucked my hips, slamming into her one last time. She gasped; I grunted.
“Emily,” I pleaded, and then I came.
The orgasm knocked the wind out of me, pounding through every limb, every vein, leaving me obliterated. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from shouting.
My body kept throbbing, I kept coming. I’d never—not once—been so torn apart by an orgasm. Spurts of hot cum filled the condom as I struggled to catch my breath.
There was no going back now. I was besotted with this girl. I wanted more than just this. I wanted to take her to dinner tonight and wake up with her tomorrow.
Yes, the cards were stacked against us. My uncle would disapprove, and if the department found out, I’d be terminated, no questions asked.
But the desire to give it a try burned brightly inside me anyway. Emily was too smart, too special, too fucking sexy to let her slip through my fingers. She was a risk worth taking.
I pulled out of her. Gently I spun her around to face me. I brushed her hair out of her eyes. When her sated gaze caught on my face, she smiled.
I felt that smile like a bullet to the chest. In that moment, I would’ve given up anything to have her. My future. My family. My position. My desire for her was making me reckless, but I didn’t care. I wanted her. More than I’d ever wanted anything. I was wild with want. Overwhelmed by it.
“This is going to sound crazy,” I began. “But I like you, Em. Quite a lot. I’d—”
We both started at the sound of a ringing mobile. The ring tone—it was Bon Jovi.
Emily blinked, the happy haze in her eyes disappearing. Her smile faded.
A sense of foreboding came over me.
“That’s me,” she said.
I slid a hand down her side. “Don’t answer it.”
* * *
Emily
It was Luke calling.
I knew it because a while back, he’d set his ringtone to “Livin’ on a Prayer”—the first song we ever danced to at a party my freshman year.
My heart clenched as I was ripped out of the present. The call I’d been waiting on for days had finally come.
Luke was calling me.
I’d been so impatient to make things right with him, and now I finally had my chance.
I looked at Kit. A part of me wanted to ignore the call and stay right here in his arms. He’d definitely come through on his promise to make me feel better. He was hot. Kind. Bossy in the best way.
But he wasn’t Luke. He wasn’t my first love. My only love.
Kit’s eyes flashed with hurt when I sat up, covering my boobs with my arm. I hated to disappoint him. I hated to disappoint Luke more, though, and that’s exactly what I’d be doing if I stayed here with Kit.
It wasn’t like Kit and I had any real shot at a future together anyway. Who were we kidding? He was my TA; our program director had warned us relationships with our teachers were not allowed. And I was still clearly hung up on my ex. A match made in heaven we were not, despite the awesomeness of the past twenty minutes.
“Sorry,” I said. I slipped off the desk, grabbing my sweater and jeans as I went. “I have to get that.”
* * *
Kit
“Luke,” Emily was saying into her phone. “Oh my God, Luke, I’m so glad you called. I was worried you’d never want to talk to me again.”
For several heartbeats I just stood there in front of the desk, trying to make sense of the emptiness that suddenly gripped me. A minute ago, Emily was all mine. Her cunt, her cries, her thoughts—she’d willingly given them to me, and in return I’d given her everything I had.
A minute ago, it had been my name on her lips.
But now she was saying another man’s name. She was running off to answer another man’s call, chatting him up as she stood with her back to me.
I looked down at my cock, still sheathed in the condom. Hurt curled around my heart. Hurt, and self loathing. How fucking stupid could I be? How could I not have seen that Emily wasn’t over her ex? She’d talked about him all semester. As much as I wanted her to forget him, I understood how that might not be possible at the moment. Not when the wounds were still so fresh.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the window. Emily stood just off to the side, poking her arms into her sweater as she murmured into her phone.
She was so bloody gorgeous. The sound of her voice, thick with emotion as she carefully picked through her thoughts with that dickless boyfriend of hers, cleaved my heart in two.
He didn’t deserve her.
I was not a violent man. But if this Luke character had shown up to deliver his apology in person rather than over the phone, I would’ve tackled the fucker on the spot.
I put my hands on the desk and leaned into them. I couldn’t breathe. Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“Hey, Kit...”
I glanced back over my shoulder. She was looking at me, phone in her hand now, her hair limned in the light from the window. Her eyes were watery again. Exhausted.
I swallowed. “You need to go?” I meant it as a question. But it came out as a statement instead.
An admission of defeat.
Emily nodded, crossing her arms. “Listen…I really enjoyed everything that just happened. A lot. As you could probably tell.”
She waited for me to respond, but my tongue felt weighed down in my mouth. The silence between us was so loud I thought my eardrums might burst.
“You’ve been wonderful,” she continued. “You’re kind and so, so considerate. And good God are you hot.” Her compliments only made the hurt inside me burn, the edges of my heart curling in like paper that had caught fire. “But Luke wants to work things out, and I think I want that, too. I didn’t think—I didn’t want to believe I was still in love with him. But I am. Kit, I’m really sorry.”
I could tell by the way her face scrunched up with pain that she meant it. She was sorry.
And I was fucking dying.
I let it go to voicemail. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk at the moment, least of all with my pain-in-the-arse younger brother. I’d ring him later, when the girl I was besotted with wasn’t running out on me to be with her ex.
“I understand,” I said, even though I didn’t.
I didn’t understand how Emily could walk away from what we’d just done. Or how I could feel so crushed after a single encounter with a girl who was the complete opposite of everything I was supposed to want.
Then again, I’d wanted her for months now. Being with her for an afternoon, only to have her slip through my fingers like this, hurt like hell.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I feel terrible—”
“Don’t. Please—don’t, Emily.”
Emily frowned. She tucked her hair, loose now, behind her ear.
“All right,” she said after a beat. “I guess I’ll see you in class next week.”
And then she grabbed her bag and left, closing the door carefully behind her.
My hands curled into fists. What was happening to me? I still couldn’t breathe. I felt out of control, my body ringing with the aftershocks of my orgasm.
I turned back to the desk. Rob was calling me again.
Jesus Christ.
Spearing a hand through my hair, I answered it.
“What, Rob, what?” I spat, wedging the mobile between my ear and shoulder so I could clean myself up.
“We need to talk about Mum and Dad.” His voice wobbled. I went still. “Kit, there’s been an accident.”
Part Two
Ten Years Later—February
London, England
Chapter Four
Emily
Our chauffeured Jaguar slipped through the gate onto a gravel drive. Heart in my throat, I watched as the hulking mass of Buckingham Palace came into view. It was lit up like a glimmering beacon against the grey winter twilight that blanketed the city. Chandeliers twinkled from windows. Floodlights illuminated the columns and arches of the imposing façade.
“Holy. Shit.” Aly, my assistant and all around right hand woman, gave me a sharp nudge. “This is actually happening. Em, we’re interviewing with the royal family!”
If our chauffeur was put off by Aly’s very American enthusiasm, he made no sign of it. He just kept on driving, slowing as we approached what appeared to be the palace’s back entrance.
I managed a smile, even as the ever-present black mass of anxiety in my chest seemed to grow. Seeing Buckingham Palace up close was very cool, don’t get me wrong. But it was also a reminder that Aly and I had come to the end of the road. This would be the last interview we ever took for EP Designs, the interior design firm I’d started a decade ago in my parents’ basement.
We had no choice. Even if we landed this project, the firm I’d poured my heart and soul into was going under. I’d maxed out our last remaining credit card to buy our plane tickets for this trip. We had nothing left.
“Hard to believe we were just in Atlanta last night, isn’t it?” I said, ducking my head to get a better look out the window. “I feel like we landed on a different planet. I wish we’d landed on a different planet. Maybe then…” I swallowed and shook my head.
Aly turned to look at me. She slid her hand across the leather seat and squeezed mine. “It’s going to be okay, Em. We’ll figure something out. We always do, right?”
I nodded at the palace. “You think rounding up some princes and marrying them is a viable plan?”
The driver’s eyebrow quivered in the rearview mirror.
“It could work,” Aly said, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her lips. “Although didn’t you say you’d rather burn in hell while tongue kissing Gene Simmons for all of eternity than get married again? Your words, not mine.”
“I did say that, yes.” Having gone through a horribly messy divorce over the past year, I could say with certainty that being married once was more than enough for me. “Welp. There goes that idea.”
The driver’s eyebrow was now doing a full on jig. I bit back a grin. I loved the Brits and their sense of propriety.
I was going to miss this place. I’d have lived here full time if I could. Aly and I had been splitting our time between Atlanta and London for a few years now, thanks to some incredible projects we’d been hired to work on in the UK. I was a huge history buff, and I’d always had pipe dreams of renovating and designing historic properties. But I never would have guessed I’d eventually be hired to work on a handful of real-life English castles and manor houses. Or that my work on those properties would go on to be published in Architectural Digest and Elle Décor.
It sucked to think I’d never do work like that again. Even if I was hired by another design firm, I don’t think I had it in me to take on such ambitious projects anymore.
“Something will come up,” Aly said. “Just think happy thoughts in the meantime. Timothy Bardy thoughts. Although not the Timothy Bardy in that weird tundra movie you like. He was way too scruffy in that one.”
My smile deepened at the mention of my favorite broody British actor. “If only he’d buy a castle already so we could design it.”
I wasn’t afraid to admit that was my dream job. It was a running joke between Aly and I, the two of us taking bets on when Tim would call EP Designs to set up a meeting.
I’d had a lot of dreams once. Until, of course, my ex stole them. That bastard had stolen pretty much everything from me over the course of our divorce. My trust. My pride.
Now he was taking my business, too.
The car pulled to a stop underneath a stone portico. The royal family’s crest was carved into the archway above the entrance. My pulse skipped a beat.
I’d been stunned when we’d received the invitation from the palace a few months ago. Back when EP Designs wasn’t going bankrupt, I’d sent The Prince’s Foundation an annual donation. I loved the work the foundation did, especially their initiatives to help young entrepreneurs start up their own businesses.
I guessed those donations had caught the foundation’s attention. The young royals were remaking an old manor house they’d inherited into a school for the arts. Students would attend for free, no matter their background. The foundation wanted to interview us as potential candidates to design the school’s interiors. Staying true to their progressive beliefs, the royals were looking for “up-and-coming designers” with “fresh perspectives”, and apparently EP Designs fit the bill.
For anyone else, it was a dream opportunity. But for Aly and I, it was a last ditch effort to give something back to the community before I put my business to bed for good. I liked the idea of going out on a high note.
We were led to a spare but tastefully decorated room to wait our turn. Traffic hadn’t been nearly as bad as we’d anticipated, and we were a solid hour early for our appointment. So it was a surprise when a woman in a pencil skirt and blazer appeared at the door and asked for us.
“Are you ladies with EP Designs?” she said, glancing up from her leather-bound notepad.
I stood, smoothing my dress over my thighs. “Yes, we are. I’m sorry we’re so early.”
The woman smiled. “We’ve actually had a last minute cancellation. The firm with the four P.M. slot couldn’t make it. If you’re ready, Her Royal Highness will see you now.”
I glanced at Aly. She gave me a little shrug. Might as well.
It was a short walk to Princess Jane’s office. Ever since Prince Edward and his wife, Princess Caroline, had passed ten years ago, their four children had been at the helm of the foundation. Aly and I had been notified a few days earlier that Jane would be conducting our interview.
The woman motioned to an open door. “Here you are. Good luck.”
Princess Jane rose when we entered the office. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled. My stomach dropped. I knew those eyes. That
startling, almost surreal shade of blue.
They were Kit’s eyes.
I’d blocked out the memory of that afternoon in his office ten years ago. It was too painful too revisit. Too embarrassing. Not only had Luke and I agreed that night that we were too in love to ever break up—which meant I’d technically cheated on him with Kit. But I’d also walked out on Kit the same day his parents had died.
I hadn’t known it then, but that was the last time I’d see him. Outside the pages of a magazine or newspaper, anyway. The semester had ended two weeks later. He’d been either too distraught or too busy with the funeral arrangements—probably both—to come back to class.
I felt for him and his younger siblings. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to lose your parents so suddenly. And at such a young age, too.
But one good thing came of it. Kit was officially going to be the next King of England. Recently, the Queen had named Kit her heir over the dowdy Prince Carlton. Across the world, people had gone wild. Kit’s parents had been hugely popular, and they’d passed on that fame to their orphaned children—Kit in particular.
“Your Highness,” I said, taking Jane’s outstretched hand. Behind me, the door closed.
She smiled. “Please, call me Jane. We are so glad you could make it. Your firm comes highly recommended.”
“Thank you,” I said. Compliments like that used to send me soaring. Now, they left me with a hollow feeling in my chest and a thickness in my throat. It didn’t matter how good we were at our job. And we were good. We were going under. Nothing short of a miracle would change that. “It’s an honor just to be considered.”
After introducing herself to Aly, Jane sat, and so did we. She opened a folder on her desk and flipped through several pages. “I’ve got your portfolio here. Very impressive. Castles are your passion, I take it?”
“My passion is renovating historic properties, so castles fit the bill, yes. But so does the manor you want to use for the school. We have a lot of experience working on projects just like yours.”