Chapter 11

Never in all his years of service had he ever disobeyed a single order given to him by his majesty, no matter how much he wanted to or how bizarre the king's logic was. His orders this time were simple and quite standard in the field of espionage; get as close as he needed to in order to keep things running smoothly, but not too close that he would get involved. He knew from the start was that it was intended that she would marry into the royal family one way or another. Yet here and now, he was the one bridal carrying her to bed.

He pulled back the covers and laid her down. She clung to him in a refusal to give up the warmth or intimacy they previously shared for cold and lonely sheets. The only thing that loosened her grip was the jolt she felt through her body when his hand grazed the inside of her thighs as he let her go. In revenge, she pushed his robe off his shoulders and let her nails gently dig into him. It was this playful back and forth that had destroyed the line between them as master and servant. Physical contact was fine without feelings but this was far from it.

He pulled her into a kiss with no tenderness or uncertainty as a first kiss would usually be. It was instead built of anticipation and longing. In the back of his mind echoed a small thought that he could love her if he wanted to, if he tried. Right now, he was only falling. She greedily accepted his kisses without any chastity. When her tongue brushed against his, she moaned his name for more. He took a gentle bite of her lip then broke the kiss. She stared at him in disappointment but with a look of predatory determination. Now that he had wound her up, she would not let him escape so easily.

He licked the taste of her from his lips as he moved onto the bed. He parted her legs and positioned himself between them but paused hesitantly. He was invigorated by the sight of her even as she was now. Her robe was a mess; it was barely covering her but that made it all the more alluring. The pleading look of desire on her face heavily appealed to his sadism. Her body blushed red but he knew not as red as it could be, not as red as he could make it. Still, he hesitated.

He said her name in a low voice as the back of his hand softly swept her thigh. He stopped when he touched her robe, just mere inches short. He tucked his thumb underneath and teasingly petted her. He tried to at least seem considerate but with the grin on his face, he was failing.

"Are you sure about this," he asked. He emphasized his words by faintly brushing his finger across her inner lips.

She couldn't feel her heart beat. She couldn't feel anything but his touch and the ache he inspired in her. She answered him by sitting up, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him, and pulling him down on top of her. She rolled her hips into his fingers as they rubbed up and down her slit. Her moans went to his lips as he covered hers with deep kisses.

He moved away only to shake his hair from his face and began again. The kiss went from her lips to her cheek, then along her jawline to the bundle of nerves just below her ear. He licked it and gave it a parting kiss before sitting up again. She whined and held him tight but lacked the strength to pull him back.

He put his other hand on the side of her neck gave a little squeeze. He kept his lips out of reach and teasingly licked hers as he watched her face. He was gently rubbing a finger around her clitoris and enjoying watching the torture.

The feeling was at first gentle and earned sweet moans. She was drunk on the cravings that spread throughout her body. She wanted more and rougher but there were no warning sign for what came next. A pang of fear cut through her arousal when his grip around her neck slowly tightened until she couldn't breathe. All the red lights were on and her senses, buzzed by pleasure, were now sharp in alarm. The scream that followed as she tossed and turned to get away wasn't in distress but from being overwhelmed.

His gentle touch turned merciless. He built her up to orgasm then stopped, causing her to let out a wail of despair. He loosened his grip around her neck and watched as she writhed, inhaling a fresh breath of air. He brought his fingers down to her entrance. Then the torture began again with a different method. He would slowly restrict her breathing once more while penetrating her with two fingers, starting off just as slowly as before.

She endured it as best she could; gritting her teeth, moaning, screaming his name, and pleading through sealed lips while gasping for air. He watched her with ravenous eyes and rewarded her only with kisses, licks of his tongue, and his soft laughter in her ear. Her nails raked across his back as she felt herself get close to orgasm a second time.

She arched her back and opened her mouth in a silent scream. He let her cum this time and moaned at feeling the rush of her juices on his hand. He moved his hands away and kissed her as she panted. She let out a small gasp at the feeling of emptiness and involuntarily squeezed with a shudder.

She lay back with her limbs spread out, her hands clenching the sheets but his skin under her fingernails. He put on a show as he let her rest. He brought his hand to his face and leaned in close. He lavishly licked it clean while watching her to make sure she was paying attention to how well he could wrap his tongue around his fingers.

She mimicked his actions. She grabbed his hand, brought it to her mouth and licked up and down the sides of his fingers, then suckled on the tips. A chill traveled down his spine and straight to his already erect cock. His surprise was followed by sheer glee. He impatiently tore off his own robe and threw it aside. He opened hers, wrapped his arms around her thighs and pulled her down the bed to him. He let her go and thoughtfully licked his lips as he brought himself to her entrance.

She didn't even finish mouthing the words 'fuck me' before he entered her. She sang just at that feeling alone, of him against her walls and she was his to do with as he pleased. Now it was his turn to moan at the sensations she brought him. He exhaled with his mouth ajar but didn't stop to relish it and began moving. She gripped the sheets tight with her hands balled into fists and rolled her hips against him. He sealed her lips in kisses in between their moans and sighs, drowning out the sounds of the storm outside.

Her feelings for him likewise weren't yet love but the words slipped out of her mouth. What she loved was the feeling of him inside her, of the head of his cock massaging her walls, of it pulling at the sensitive ring of nerves around her entrance, and of it hitting her pleasurable spots with each stroke as she drowned further in ecstasy. He didn't need to question if she liked it, he could feel it for himself. With each pulse, she tightened around him and he loved the inviting softness of her wet pussy just as much.

He alternated his pace to prolong her pleasure and keep himself from coming too soon. He first held her wrists pinned above her head with one hand and the other tightly grasping her inner thigh. He was enraptured at seeing her body writhe under his control, unable to escape as her breasts bounced in time to his thrusting.

When he felt merciful, he released her wrists and grabbed her legs. He wrapped his arms around them and held them closed as he sat up on his knees and fucked her. No matter how she tried to wriggle free, he refused to let go. He further taunted her by kissing and licking her calves and feet. Her body stiffened defensively, her walls tightening as an orgasm grew. He accepted the silent challenge. He dropped her legs, spread them wide and thrusted faster. Their climaxes fell into each other until the timing was lost on who came first or last.

She lay in a soft heap of contentment underneath him. He laid down next her and she snuggled up close to him, aglow in the aftermath. She kissed as much of him as he could reach as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled the covers up, not forgetting the cold.

She looked at him, watched him silently and wondered what new side of him she had unlocked. He lay back with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around her. He held her hands with their fingers interlaced, his lazily stroking hers. This casualness about him was completely new. Without his glasses or sharp glare, and his hair freely falling whichever way it liked, he looked far younger and much kinder. She was already smiling but seeing him in this new light made her smile widen. He felt her staring and turned to her with a raised brow.

"Excuse me but you seem to be staring, yet again," he said in jest but with his usual impassive tone. "Is there something I can help you with?"

She elbowed him in mock offense as he laughed.

"I thought you were going to tell me a bedtime story," she asked.

"Oh, that..." He laid his head back down on the pillow. "I suddenly don't remember."

"Ugh!" She elbowed him again and he squeezed her tight to restrain her arms, giving her a kiss on the shoulders. "I thought you were going to tell me about your mysterious past and junk!"

"And junk," he repeated with a sigh of disbelief.

"You know what I mean," she tried again while keeping her tone in check. "How did you become the royal butler? I didn't think that's a job you'd have to be ripped for."

"That's what I originally thought as well," he agreed. "But seeing as how you've met his majesty, it should be self-explanatory."

He stayed silent for a moment and listened to the rain outside. The thunderstorm had passed and the tail end of the rain clouds were over them now. He supposed that in an hour or two, it might be light enough to travel in.

"When I first met him," he began. "I had just taken a guard job at the embassy. He wasn't king then, just a prince visiting on business. I had seen him a few times before but had never spoken to him. I shielded him once during a hostile encounter with a woman and after that, he walked over to me and offered me a job as his valet."

"Hmph," she nodded with a shrug. "I thought it'd be more exciting. Why was the woman hostile? Don't tell me you punched her," she gasped.

"Of course not," he answered. "She was just a civilian and posed no real threat. I just restrained her until she could be handcuffed and taken away. I believe she was a former romantic companion of his majesty. My understanding is that their relationship did not end on the best of terms."

"Oh…" She smiled hard and held in a resigned laugh. It came as no surprise to learn that even back then, his majesty was helpless with women.

"Well I guess that was nice of him to offer you a job. So when you moved into the palace and you know, learned all the stuff that I'm learning, was it hard for you too?"

"Not at all," he answered thoughtlessly. "But you must remember, I had prior training for the job. Therefore I had a different set of problems to deal with. Six of them, in fact."

He went on to talk about the princes and their first impressions of each other. According to him, they all had their difficulties getting along at one point or another but at different lengths.

Prince Lambert was moody but generally well-behaved. He was a stickler for rules and as long as the established rules were followed, he was easy to handle.

Prince Chezem was the same then as he was now, quiet and studious. The most difficult thing about him would be getting him to join the others when he preferred to be by himself. Usually Alvah would pull him along, but he never did anything he didn't want to.

As for Prince Alvah, he was a handful all by himself. There was a limit to how long he could sit still and most of Ivan's daily exercise came from chasing him around the palace. Leaving him to run freely and unsupervised with the thought that he would simply tire himself out as most children do was a mistake he only made once and never again.

To her surprise, he cast Prince Nagit as being the most difficult to deal with.

"In his defense, he was only a toddler at the time," he explained. "I had no experience with young children and the rest of the princes were nearing their teenage years so they were easier to handle. I had never understood why parents compared their toddlers to tyrants until then."

"But Prince Nagit is so nice," she said in his defense. "I didn't think he'd be a bad child."

"Oh no, he wasn't bad at all. Just... he had a very long list of demands and I had very short patience. Much of his rearing was done by his mother, for which I am tremendously thankful. Of course he's grown up and matured, as all children do."

"So if Nagit was a toddler and Melchiorre's the oldest, he must've been..."

"Sixteen and insufferable," he answered her with a grimace of distaste. "He was a character even as a young man. He was used to getting his way before I arrived, so he had to challenge me on everything. If I said left, he would say right. If I said right, he would argue left. His majesty is very diplomatic and allows leniency."

"And you certainly don't," she mumbled.

"I am..." he began carefully, "of the mind that there's a clear line between children and adults. It exists for the safety of both parties. Children, even teenagers, are not adults for the reason that they cannot bear the weight of consequences the same as adults, whether they think they can or not."

"So you just didn't like that Prince Melchiorre argued back?"

"It was grating but not debilitating," he answered. "But when he insisted on challenging me as an adult, man to man, it only proved my point."

She stared at him with her mouth ajar, getting the feeling that whatever he was about to say would win sympathy for Prince Melchiorre.

"Oh no… What did you do," she asked.

"He wanted to prove himself against me in a physical confrontation. Instead, all he proved was that children do not have the experience to know what is and isn't safe for them."

She managed to get out a few words of disbelief in between her laughing. Apparently poor Prince Melchiorre had gotten himself and his pride thoroughly whooped.

"At least one good thing came of it," added Ivan. "After that display, the rest of the princes were noticeably easier to deal with."

"Yeah, I'd eat my vegetables too if I thought you'd beat me if I didn't!"

"That would only happen if you threw the first punch," he replied, only half-joking. "I had given him numerous warnings beforehand and he chose not to heed them."

"But a child can't choose what's best for them," she argued back with his own logic.

"And that's exactly what he learned," he answered without missing a beat.

"Did you just not get along with any of the princes?"

"Prince Jun and I got along fine almost immediately," he said. "He was shy and insecure when he first came to the palace. He sulked if he didn't get his way but he never caused any trouble."

"Okay, now I think you're just outright lying," she grinned. "First you say Prince Nagit was a demanding child and now you're saying Prince Jun was 'shy and insecure'? I know people change when they grow up but that right there just sounds like something you made up. And you probably gave poor Prince Melchiorre a near-death experience."

"It's not as if I broke anything," he objected. "I only used enough force to subdue him and held him until he gave in. Then in case the public embarrassment wasn't enough for him to understand, I explained to him what he did wrong. He hasn't repeated that mistake since."

She sighed and shook her head, "it's a good thing you weren't my nanny or else I might be dead."

"And just what were you like as a child?"

He pulled her closer to him and they lay side by side, chest to chest. He eyed her with a gentle gaze as he waited for what he knew would be a cheeky answer. She responded first with a kiss and draped her leg over his before answering his question.

"Well, depending on what time of day you ask my mom, I was either a sweet girl with an active imagination or a spoiled brat who was always doing something she told me not to do."

"They both sound true," he laughed. "I believe her."

She pouted and he feigned his apology with a series of kisses. When he was done, she rested her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat as he stroked her hair.

"When I was little, I used to dream about things like this. Castles and princes and royal dances and all that," she said.

"Did you?"

"Yeah... I would play games pretending that I was a princess in need of rescuing. A prince would show up and he'd say to me 'I've come for you, my princess'. Then he'd whisk me away to live happily ever after. Ugh, feel free to laugh at that," she said in embarrassment and turned her face away.

He lifted her face to his and gave her a somber kiss.

"I think that's a lovely dream."

"Maybe it was, but I don't think it's going to happen with any of these princes. Real life can't always be a fairy-tale."

"Perhaps so..."

He pushed her away as he rose from the bed and hid his forlorn expression. He told her he was going to check to see if their clothes were dry and would be right back. He retrieved his robe from the floor and went downstairs. As soon as he stepped over the threshold of the laundry room, he hung his head and raked his fingers through his hair as he thought about what he had done.

They had been simple orders. He had, literally, fucked up simple orders. The words 'don't get too close to her' replayed on a loop in his mind juxtaposed with the image of her lying beside him, underneath him, in his arms, and chest to chest as he looked in her eyes and felt far too close.

As he checked the clothes, it ran across his mind that he didn't have to tell his majesty. He didn't have to tell anyone. It could just be a secret. But he wasn't foolish enough to entertain the idea. It would come out one way or the other and he'd rather tell the truth on his feet then have it beaten out of him on his knees. He would come clean about his treason. And as for his growing feelings... They would pass. As long as he kept his distance, he was sure they would.