Stolen (Royally Hot 1)

For you, I’ll learn all about Hellebore. I’ll make it my mission to bring you one every day for the rest of your life.

She laughed. “I’ll show you.” Straying from the path, still with her arm in mine, she pulled me off the road. Her tiny body was half my size, yet I followed her with an ease I struggled to understand. “Here.” As she knelt into the wild grass and flowers at the edge of the road, her breasts pressed together in a tantalizing line of creamy cleavage. When she rose again, she held a single delicate, deep-purple flower between her fingers. “I like them because they’re a little shy.” She smiled, meeting my eyes. “They aren’t boastful like daisies or roses. They’re happy enough in the shade, out of view.”

She offered the flower and I took it between my thumb and forefinger, trying my hardest to be delicate with the stem, something that felt foreign. I tucked her ink-black hair behind her ear and nestled the flower there.

My mind was filled with visions of the raven strands, tangled in my fists as I set her on all fours, ravaging her until she was soaked and dripping. I shook my head, trying to quell the crazed lust.

“Tell me something else about you.” My voice was thick and tight as I did what I could to restrain the slew of filth and depravity I wanted to spew, to let her know the deviant thoughts she had seeded inside of my head.

Your throat will know the full length of my cock, how far down you’ll take me. Your ass will know it as well, along with the burn on my hand print, your pussy will drip with what I give it. You will take me everywhere, anywhere I choose, begging me for what you need…

She shook her head and looked down at the ground, cheeks flaring. “When I look at you, Bors, it’s hard for me to remember anything at all. Next to you, I don’t know…I feel silly. Even stupid, like my brain has long since failed and I’m left with an empty head and a simpleton’s tongue.”

“Not stupid. Never call yourself stupid. You hear me?” I gripped her chin, turning her head up to face me. “Never call yourself that again.”

Her lips fell open as she stared, then she nodded. “Okay.”

“I don’t ever want to hear that word from you. Now, tell me more.”

She did as she was told, and as we walked and talked, she asked me things as well.

To my surprise, I told her of my plans—of the livery stable, of my hopes to buy a bit of land. I held back from disclosing my plans for her. How everything had changed since I saw her that morning, how my life would now include her, and like a runaway carriage there was no way of stopping it.

“That sounds like a wonderful life,” she said.

“And you? What kind of wonderful life do you envision?”

The sun caught the otherworldly green of her eyes. “I have always thought I was destined to look after my family. Seems to be the role I was born to fill. I am lucky in many ways to have them. So many have no one.”

The resignation in her voice bit into me like angry fangs, but I didn’t want to press her to speak ill of her family. I wanted to make her do a lot of things, but betraying her kin wasn’t one of them.

“But if that wasn’t the role you had to fill, then what?” I ventured.

“A modest house full of laughter and warmth. Freshly baked bread,” she said, beaming. “A farmyard with a miniature donkey. No, two miniature donkeys, a boy and a girl, then baby miniature donkeys.” Her laughter floated with the breeze and set her deeper into my heart. “And goats for milking. A flock of bantam chickens like my own at home…” Her wistful look turned excited. “Oh! And a garden. With every kind of flower in the land.”

“And a man? A husband?”

She held her next breath, looking up at me. Pressing her hand to her collarbone, she said, “Oh yes, a husband. And children. If I could, in my dream I mean.”

My cock throbbed like an angry toothache as my pulse spun into a frenzy, sending flashes of red through my vision.

“How many children? In this dream of yours…” I asked, and watched her cheeks flush crimson at the thought. I found myself biting my lip as I watched her. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already thinking of putting a baby inside her belly; her hips made it hard to think about anything else.

“Lots and lots and lots,” she said. “As many as possible.”

Shit. She’s going to kill me before I even get her home.

Our chatter slowed as the now-derelict forge came into view, I looked down the road and my chest tightened, fists balling at my sides.