“Fee, Fee,” he chanted. “I can’t…” The final whimper was followed by the tight clasp of his body and the cry of his release. Neither one of us was touching his cock, and the realization that he’d been turned on enough to come hands-free brought me to my knees. I collapsed onto his back with one final thrust deep inside him. My release shot off with rapid pulses from my cock and tingles up and down my groin. I sunk my teeth into his shoulder as I gasped through the orgasm, and when I was done, we both lay in a sweaty heap, sucking in breaths like we’d just finished a sprint.
After I pulled out to dispose of the condom, Lio rolled over and quirked his lip up.
“Go again?”
I burst out laughing as I stumbled to the bathroom on noodle legs.
“You’re a king, not a superhero,” I called over my shoulder.
When I crawled back onto the bed with a warm wet washcloth to clean him up, Lio grinned at me.
“What if I feel like a superhero?”
“Smug bastard,” I murmured before tossing the cloth away and snuggling against him. “You may feel like a superhero, but I feel like I’m about three months out of shape. I’m going to have to go back to bottoming if fucking you leaves me this winded.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Why haven’t you been exercising since you got home?”
I shrugged. “Feeling too sorry for myself, I guess. I’ve been hiding away in my glass workshop.”
His hand stopped carding through my hair before he shifted so he could look me in the face. The concern he had for me was apparent, and it made me feel warm inside.
“I’m sorry, Felix,” he said sincerely. “I should have come out sooner.”
My jaw dropped. “No you shouldn’t have. You did things exactly the way you needed to do them. I should have gotten off my ass sooner. Stop blaming yourself! I’m the one who insisted we not talk to each other, so it was my own damned fault.”
Lio sighed. “Well, it’s done. We’ll go home and start exercising together. How does that sound? I’ll have to find us some horses to ride or something since that seems to be what you’re used to.”
I pictured the Lipizzaner Stallions marching daintily in the forecourt of the royal palace while Lio looked excitedly at me. The laugh bubbled out before I could stop it.
“Jogging in a park is just fine, babe.”
Lio’s face darkened. “Well, you know you’ll have royal guards, right? I mean, I wish I could say you didn’t have to but…”
My stomach flipped a little with nerves. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. The treadmill it is, then. That… that’s going to take some getting used to.”
We lay quietly after that, just touching each other softly and exchanging kisses here and there. After a while, I realized Lio had fallen asleep. I finally realized the low-level intermittent buzzing I was hearing was the silent ringer of his phone.
I slipped out of his arms to retrieve it from the other room where it lay abandoned in his trouser pocket. Twenty-three missed calls. No doubt his office’s public relations people were working overtime to deal with the media fallout from the interview.
I wandered back into the bedroom and set his phone on the table next to the side of the bed he was using. Lio’s face looked so relaxed in sleep, I didn’t dare wake him. Instead, I slid between the covers and nudged him onto his side so I could spoon him.
As I curled my body around his, my entire soul seemed to let out a sigh of relief. Lio Grimaldi was in my bed. My Lio was safe in my arms in tiny Hobie, Texas, and for at least the next couple of days, we could hide out from prying eyes and relax.
But of course that’s not what happened, because fate was an asshole like that.
And so was my mother.
Chapter 43
Lio
During a huge Wilde family dinner that night and the bonfire that followed, I was treated to a healthy number of adorable Felix stories as I got to know many of his cousins. The beer consumption matched my Texas-sized expectations, and only two of Felix’s cousins kept offering me something prissy instead. I guessed they assumed someone from Monte Carlo couldn’t stomach something as plebeian as a simple beer.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cosmopolitan?” Hallie asked while batting her eyelashes. “I hear they’re all the rage in Monte Carlo.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “So is drag racing, but he doesn’t do that either.”
I smirked at him, and he rolled his eyes a second time. “Let me guess,” he said. “You do, in fact, drive a race car.”
“No, baby, but the royal family never misses a final in our local Grand Prix,” I added. “You’ll have to learn the difference between Formula One and drag racing though. One is what we do in Monaco, the other is for street thugs.”