“At 7:30 in the morning?” The only reason I was up at 6:30 is because I couldn’t sleep. I’d been lying awake in my bed, thinking of Marcus and all the shitty things I’ve said to him, since 4:00.
He swipes at the tablet again, then narrows his eyes as he reads what’s on the screen. “It says here that this is a kingdom-wide security briefing. Obviously, there would be no classified content in the schedule management system, but the only briefings you were required to attend before were the briefings for Sainthall and Sainthall Palace.”
So Marcus was overwhelmed and sleep-deprived, and had no one to take the edge off at night with a quick fuck, even if it wasn’t with a girlfriend or wife.
The security briefing is where my line of unending meetings began, and for the week leading up to the ceremony naming me crown price, it is sheer scheduling madness.
I have back-to-back meetings and briefings all morning. After three days, I successfully booked myself an hour alone to work out in the palace gym in the afternoon. The only problem is that it means the final meeting of the day gets pushed past dinner.
And nothing ever runs on schedule.
Meetings go over the scheduled time, and over, and over, and by the time I’m done for the day, the only thing I have energy for is going back to my rooms and collapsing into bed. Alone. To sleep.
On the fifth day, I miss Jessica so much that I go to her rooms instead of mine. I’m tired of seeing her only in my daydreams or at mealtimes, and then only when I’m not being spoon-fed classified information from the revolving door of agents and cabinet members. When I arrive, she’s reading curled up on the window seat, a book open in her lap, and when I see her, I’m nearly pulled apart by envy and lust. The envy quickly dies away in a burst of empathy. Phillip doesn’t brief me on her daily schedule, but if mine is any indication, she’s busy all day, too.
When the door opens, she looks up and smiles at me, her radiant expression filled with love and adoration.
Fuck me if anything in the world means more to me than Jessica.
She stands up and tosses the book onto her seat, rushing across the room to get to me and flinging herself into my arms.
“I thought you’d never come,” she says into my ear, then takes my earlobe between her teeth and bites down just enough.
My cock is instantly hard, pressing up against the fabric of my pants, and I set her feet on the floor so she can steady herself while I kiss her deeply, then softly, then passionately enough to make up for the last five days away from one another.
When I break the kiss, she gasps for breath, her eyes glittering in the low light of her rooms. “There’s more where that came from,” she says with a wicked grin and takes hold of my hand, guiding me behind her as she makes her way to the bedroom.
I haven’t told her this, but the bedroom in the queen’s rooms is the largest in the palace. The first King of Saintland, King Harold, loved his wife, Queen Sarah, so much that he designed her rooms to be the most opulent in the entire palace.
Someday, I’ll let Jessica in on this piece of history. For now, she has enough on her plate without worrying about one day becoming queen.
Jessica strips off her shirt in front of the bed, leaving her bra and panties on, and I let my eyes linger on the lush lines of her curves. My cock throbs painfully against my zipper.
Goddamn it, she is perfection in human form.
I have to have her.
She reaches out a hand and beckons me toward her by crooking one finger seductively, then falls onto her back on the bed.
Jessica stretches out, her head on the plush pillow, her body exposed to me, and her thighs parted, inviting me to strip off the remaining fabric separating her from me.
It takes seconds to get undressed down to my boxers, and only another second to climb up next to her on the bed, lean down close to her, start kissing her collarbone, and then for one second—one second only—to clear my mind. I rest my head down on the pillow beside her, breathing in her skin, feeling her warm body next to me, so whole, so alive, under my touch…
And I fall asleep.
Chapter 31
Jessica