Masked Prince (Fated Royals 2)

She furrowed her brow at me when I handed it over.

“I meant for you to bring two.”

“Tough,” I said, and pulled up a milking stool. The thing was fucking tiny, but I made it work.

“We’ll share then,” she said, yanking the waxed cord off the seal with her teeth and popping open the cork.

She was a contrast in every way. Such delicate beauty, matched equally by her unabashed strength, had my cock seeping and my heart nearly ramrodding out of my chest.

She took a sip first, and then handed the bottle to me. Our fingers brushed against each other on the cool glass bottle. As I drank, I thought that this might be the closest I’d ever get to kissing her, to tasting her. But looking at her there, sun-kissed and stunning beyond words, I knew I could never go back to just watching her. I loved her and I had to make her mine. I fucking had to.

We passed the bottle back and forth until it was almost gone. One last sip in the bottom. She offered it to me, but I raised my hands.

“Ladies always finish first.”

She eyed me over the bottle, blushing. I wasn’t completely sure she understood the innuendo in my words, but I believe she felt the truth in them.

Fuck yes. That blush. I wanted to see that blush all the goddamned time.

She wiped the cider from her lips, using her sleeve. Same as she had that day with the apple at the harvest festival. I didn’t know how such a simple goddamned thing could make me so weak. But there it was.

“I’ll get you squared away inside,” I said. “But first, I’ve got a question for you.”

Yet again, she gave me that wide-eyed, innocent look. Christ almighty, I wanted to devour her whole fucking body right fucking now.

“Yes?” She said, pressing her hands into her lap, tracing the edge of her milking apron over the curve of her thigh.

Patience, you asshole. She would be mine. I knew she would. But anticipation is half the fun.

“What time do the cows need to be milked in the morning?”

Chapter 4

Iris

I was dimly aware that it was just a dream, but the fear was very real. The man loomed over me, taller than real life, and as the light moved I saw his face.

“Father, what are you…?” My heart began to race as he shook his head, his expression dark.

“You’ve disappointed me. You’ve neglected your duties.”

“Father, I’m—”

There was something in his hand. A manacle. He was going to tie me up and leave me, leave me to rot. Someone else lingered in the background, just beyond my reach, and every time I tried to catch proper sight of him my father moved into the way.

“No, please,” I begged. “Let me go. Please. I’ll work harder.”

As he stepped towards me, I felt the panic rise in my throat, and thrashed against my bedding, kicking it away, a chill in the air making me shiver as I awoke in a cold sweat.

A pit-pit-patter of drizzle against my window helped to ground me, though my pulse still thundered. Laying in bed, my thoughts went straight to Randal, calming my nerves and replacing them with…something else.

My stomach hadn’t stopped fluttering since he left the barn yesterday. While he certainly was scarred, and his huge presence was a bit overwhelming at first, all of that just faded away behind what I knew he was at heart: a kind, warm, hard-working man.

It meant the world to me that he had spent so much time helping me. Nobody had looked after me like that since my mother’s death in childbirth, and the subsequent deterioration of my father’s health. It made me feel like the most special girl in the world; at once it reminded me of my mother’s love—and my father’s in those happier times—and helped me come to terms with what had happened since.

And to think, he was coming back. This morning!

I listened for any noises from my father moving about the cottage, but heard none. Relieved, I gave myself a few more minutes of daydreaming of Randal, as I snuggled deeper into my bed and listened to the rain. But try as I might to think only of him, other thoughts crept in. Like water leaking into a rickety dinghy.

The night before, after Randal left, had been horrible. My father came home, drunk as a rabid skunk and twice as mean. I’d known it as soon as I saw him, walking up the road to our cottage—there was even something about the way he walked that told me from a long way away that I was in for a difficult night.

He had a kind of hair-trigger rage these days, that made me tremble in spite of myself. It made me remember so many horrible things that he’d screamed at me, so many nights spent crying myself to sleep.