Masked Prince (Fated Royals 2)

Oh lord. I couldn’t take this anymore. I just couldn’t.

Dizzy with desire, I reached up and pulled his face to mine, kissing him first.

I felt him pull back, ever so slightly, as if in surprise…but then he took over, driving me up against the side of the milking shed with a thump, and ravaging my mouth. With one hand he held my face, and with the other he began to explore my body. I inhaled hard against his cheek, realizing I had hardly breathed since he leaned into me. He tasted so good, and he smelled musky and sexy and delicious.

He was a powerful, aggressive kisser and it took my breath away. He kissed me with all he had. Before long, his hand was sliding down between my legs. He cupped me there, like my body was his and his alone.

With the heel of his hand, he ground against my most sensitive area, and I felt myself being swept away with the need to let him do whatever he desired—I wanted to feel everything.

But I withdrew with a gasp, planting my hand on his chest to push him back. To create distance where I wanted none.

“You should know,” I said, with my chest heaving, “I’m…. I’ve never…” Now it was my turn to search his face for something like shock or horror.

I saw no such thing. Instead, I found nothing but respect and more adoration. His eyebrows lifted and he smiled “You’re a virgin?”

I swallowed hard and nodded. My eyes were open so wide that they actually stung. “Yes,” I gasped.

Instantly, he changed from an animal going after his prey to a perfect gentleman. The bulge in his pants pressed against my thigh, an alluring, rock-hard mass, but he gave no signal of how turned on he was—which was surely just as turned on as I was.

He ran his hand down his dark stubble, and then slid his palm through his thick hair. “We better get back to work.”

Gripping his forearm, I looked up at him. “I want you so much. You have no idea.”

He looked me up and down, with this greedy sparkle in his eye, as if to say, I most definitely do have an idea.

Once again he pushed me up against the barn wall, this time firmer and more slowly. “We’re going to fucking take it slow, Iris. We will get there. But not until I say so.”

He had a simmering, powerful fury, that made me so, so wet. As long as he wasn’t pushing me away, I could be as patient as he needed me to be. I would follow his lead without question. The idea of allowing myself to be controlled by him was powerful, and somehow it felt like I was able to control myself because of it.

I looked up at him and nodded. “I understand.”

He took my face in his hand once more, as if to kiss me. But this time he didn’t. Instead, he pressed his forehead to mine, gripped my cheek in his hand, looked me in the eye and said, “You are fucking perfect.”

As that day went on, he was as gentlemanly as ever. I still heard his words in my ears, the way he’d growled out my name, and it drove me wild with anticipation for what might be in store for me in the future.

The future. Those words felt strange in my head. I don’t think until then I’d really ever thought beyond the next harvest, or the next calving season. And I did want a future with him, so very much.

So I wracked my brain for a way to introduce him to my father, to present him as a genuine suitor, without revealing that I’d spent the last handful of days all by myself with him. I could hear the words already. You shameless little slut. And Randal would’ve been banned from the farm for good.

It didn’t feel right asking Randal to pretend not to know me in order to placate my father, either, but I didn’t see any other way. Though I hadn’t known Randal long, it seemed unlikely to me that he’d be a willing or happy liar. He was kind and genuine but he also put me in my place when he thought I was out of line.

Not in a cruel or overbearing manner, more as if he wanted the best for me and would not let anyone get in the way of that, including me.

Maybe he could tell almost the whole truth, that he’d been sent by the master of coin to do some maintenance on the barns, but just leave out the last few days…nothing but a sin of omission. And all, I hoped, for the very best cause.

I was just about to propose the plan when hoofbeats rumbled fast and hard up the road. My heart dropped. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I’d seen old maps that identified the road that ran alongside our farm as The King’s Road, but these days it was little more than a track through the woodland, with thick roots ready to trip a horse and deep mud to halt the progress of a cart. We were far from the beaten path and there would be no good reason for a group of horses to be thundering our way. Unless maybe, finally, the crown had decided to take the farm back.