Royal Mistake: The Complete Series Read online

  And she responds. The hand on my shoulder slides down to my back, pulling me closer. Her mouth opens beneath mine, her tongue slipping out to meet my lips. And I take full advantage, sucking it into my mouth, sliding my own tongue across hers. A moan hums in her throat.

  I respond with a growl and yank her hard against my body. If this continues to be what it means for us to be friends, I think I can endure it.

  In truth, though, I don’t know what I’m going to do. There’s no fixing this, no solving this dilemma through sheer force of will. If there is truly no way for Victoria to bear me a child, then she can’t be the queen Montovia needs.

  But right now, I can’t seem to give a damn.

  Right now, she’s in my arms. Kissing me. Pulling me closer. Dragging me further under her spell. My body burns with a deep, primal need for her—something that goes beyond the purely physical and goes to the very core of my being.

  The logical part of my mind tells me I should let her go. That I should take her advice and find a woman who can give me an heir, a woman who’s noble and wise and prepared to be queen. I’m not Leopold. I don’t make rash, illogical decisions. I don’t put my country at risk or shirk my duties to indulge in my own desires.

  Or maybe I do. Maybe I was always supposed to.

  Fuck my duties. Fuck my responsibilities. Fuck the chains of obligation that almost dragged me off the side of the palace roof. Fuck everything else in this damned world. I want Victoria. Need her with every fiber of my being. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I refuse to continue fighting it.

  I twist her and drag her onto my lap, helping her straddle me without breaking our kiss. My hands move down to her ass, pulling her hips against mine. I lift partially off the seat, grinding against her and letting her feel how much I desire her.

  Right now, I don’t care about an heir. I don’t care about the future. I just care about this moment—about joining with her the way we were meant to be joined.

  She’s wearing a skirt, thank God. I don’t have the patience for anything else. I drag the garment up her thighs, pulling it away from her skin. My hands slip beneath the fabric and find the sweet, soft curves of her ass, and I squeeze her until she moans again against my mouth.

  Fortunately, she seems just as eager as I am. Her hands grapple with my belt, and as she undoes it I slip my fingers beneath the lace of her underwear.

  When my belt is undone, her hands move to my zipper. I lift my hips again, helping her move my pants down just enough to free my aching cock. I almost lose control when her fingers slide down the hard length of it.

  But as much as I’d love for her to wrap her hand around me and bring me to completion, I’d much rather be inside of her when I come. Be as close to her as I can be.

  I grab the crotch of her underwear and pull it aside, letting my fingers slide against the wetness between her legs as I remove that final fabric barrier between us. She grips my cock and guides me into place, and I shift my hips and thrust them forward, driving into her in one motion.

  For a moment, neither of us moves. We’re no longer kissing, but our faces are still so close that I can feel her ragged breaths against my lips as she adjusts to having me inside of her.

  My breath is ragged, too. Every nerve in my body is on fire. Every muscle tense with restraint. Part of me wants to grab her and fuck her senseless, but the other part of me just wants to sit here for a moment and revel in the ecstasy of simply being inside of her, of feeling her all around me.

  I let my hands slide up her body, finally coming to rest on either of her cheeks.

  “Is a friend allowed to love you?” I ask, my voice raw.

  Her lips fall open, but no sound comes out. After a moment, she nods.

  “Thank God,” I croak.

  She shifts then, sliding forward in my lap and sending an exquisite jolt of pleasure through me. Her lips find mine, and then all of my control is lost.

  My hands drop to her hips, gripping her as I thrust up into her, meeting the rhythm of her movements. Both of her hands are on my shoulders, and her nails press into my skin through the fabric of my shirt as she rides me.

  I’m never letting you go, I think as my tongue tangles with hers. Never. I don’t care what duty tells me. I don’t care if you can’t have children. You’re mine. And you will always be mine.

  A friend wouldn’t say such things. But no matter what lies Victoria wants to tell herself, she and I can never be friends. There might have been a chance of it once, long ago, but not now. We’ve experienced too much of each other. Shared bits of our souls that we can’t take back. Shared pleasure that we can’t easily forget.

  There’s no other pleasure like this—of that I am certain. I’d sell my soul to the devil before I walked away from it.

  Maybe you’ve already sold your soul, the responsible part of my mind whispers.

  If I have, then it’s too late for me now. If I am to be damned because I’ve chosen Victoria, then I am prepared to accept my fate.

  My entire body is tight. My skin burning. My entire being focused on one thing and one thing only. I increase the rhythm of my hips, driving into her faster. Deeper. The gasps and little cries that escape from her lips are the sweetest things I’ve ever heard.

  Her hands move from my shoulders to the top of the padded bench on either side of my head, and I hear the leather creak beneath the tight grip of her fingers. I groan as I feel her body start to contract around me.

  My hands slide from her hips to her ass, clutching her with a force that makes her moan again. We’re getting loud—I only hope the poor conductor doesn’t hear and think something is wrong again.

  Right now, though, my focus is on one thing and one thing only—bringing us both over the edge. I can feel the pressure building, swelling in my cock, and from the erratic movement of her hips, I think she must be getting close as well. But this position doesn’t allow me to move nearly as fast or as deep as I’d like.

  “Hold on,” I growl to her, tightening my grip on her.

  I mean to twist and push her down on the bench, but instead we somehow end up on the floor with her on her back and me on top of her. Oh well—I don’t have the will or the patience to stop now.

  I hook an arm beneath either of her legs and push her knees up toward her body, sliding into her as deep as I can go. We both groan as one, and I quickly resume the rhythm we had before.

  Victoria is almost there. Her cries have turned into little hiccups of sound, and her body starts to tense. Her eyelids flutter.

  “Look at me.” My voice is hoarse.

  Her eyes snap open, and the moment our gazes meet, she reaches her peak. She cries out and grips my back, but her eyes never leave mine, even as she writhes beneath me.

  I don’t try to drag out my own release. I pump into her once, twice, three more times before my own climax hits, and I hold myself deep inside as I fill her.

  Fill her as much as you like, comes the tiny voice at the back of my mind. Nothing will ever come of it.

  I push that voice aside and lean down, capturing her lips with mine. She’s already starting to go limp beneath me, but her arms slide around my neck, holding my face to hers.

  Slowly, I lower myself next to her, still keeping as close to her as humanly possible. My heart is pounding against my ribs, and I can feel an echoing pulse in my cock. I might be spent, but my body is still throbbing for her.

  After a moment, as we start to catch our breaths, we cover ourselves up again. She pushes her skirt down over her thighs, and I zip my pants back up. But we remain on the floor of the compartment, curled up together against the rough carpet.

  “There’s a bed through that door over there,” I murmur. “Though I’m not sure it’s big enough for two people. And I’m not sure I want to move.”

  “Me either,” she whispers back.

  There’s so much I want to say to her now. I want to assure her once again that my feelings for her haven’t changed, that even though I don’t know ho
w we’ll deal with the fact that she can’t have children, I’m still not willing to let go of this.

  Instead, I say, “You, Victoria, are a very good friend.”

  She lets out a little laugh. “So are you.”

  We don’t say anything to each other after that. Little by little, I can feel myself drifting off, succumbing to exhaustion and to the rhythmic motion of the train. Victoria relaxes in my arms.

  I’m not aware of the moment I fall asleep. But I must sleep, because everything seems to slip away into darkness.

  The next thing I’m aware of is a soft brush of lips against my temple. A whispered word that I can’t quite hear in my state of half-sleep.

  It takes me a moment to remember where I am. Why I’m here. And then it all comes rushing back—I’m on a train. With Victoria.

  Except Victoria is no longer in my arms, I realize with a start.

  My eyes snap open. I jerk into an upright position, looking around.

  I’m alone in the compartment. Where is Victoria?

  Quickly, I scramble to my feet. She must be in the washroom, I tell myself as I run my hands across my clothes, trying to smooth out any wrinkles. Don’t panic. You’re on a train—it’s not as if she could have gone very far.

  But then my eyes move to the window, and I realize with a sickening jolt that we aren’t moving. We’re stopped at a station—Salzburg, by the look of it.

  She’s run. Again.

  As that thought sinks in, I feel the train purr to life again beneath me. Oh, God—we’re about to leave the station.

  I don’t stop to think. I dash out of the compartment and down the train corridor toward the door. It’s already closed, but I grab at the handle. It doesn’t budge.

  “Stop the train!” I shout, though I’m not sure who can hear me in this car. “By royal command, stop this bloody train!”

  No one answers. But that’s when I see a red handle marked Emergency Override next to the door. I grab it and give it a hard yank.

  I’m able to get the door open, but the train has already started to move. The platform is passing by, and we’re gaining speed quickly.

  My only choice is to jump.

  It’s stupid. It’s reckless. But I’ll be damned if I let Victoria run away from me again. Not when she can’t give me a real reason why we can’t be together.

  Once again, I don’t let myself think. In another five seconds we’ll be going too fast for me to safely make the leap. I brace myself and jump.

  Victoria

  My head almost bumps the mirror over the sink in the bathroom. The wheels on the train are screeching as it comes to a lurching halt—only a few seconds after we’d started to move again.

  The chill running up my spine makes no real sense—it isn’t as though I should know that this has anything to do with Andrew. And yet, I somehow do.

  I rush out of the bathroom and into the dining car. The glut of people are no longer seated—they are all fighting for a space at the window on one side of the train, trying to see some commotion going on outside.

  And then I see the sidelong glances the passengers are giving each other. Hear the whispers.

  “Prince Andrew jumped.”

  “I knew it! He really was trying to kill himself in that airplane.”

  “The pressure is too much.”

  “He’s not fit to be a king.”

  I don’t even allow myself to think or wonder why Andrew might have jumped from a moving train.

  This is my fault. I never should have slept with him again. I shouldn’t have given him any sort of hope at all that we could be more than friends. Part of me hoped he understood that what happened in that private compartment was some sort of farewell sex or something. That it didn’t have to mean anything. That he could go back to his real life now.

  And instead—he jumped?

  Maybe he didn’t want to go back to his normal life. Maybe the two of us being together again hurt him in some way I can’t imagine. I know he’s been dealing with a lot. The whole pageant thing hasn’t helped at all. And he hasn’t been quite right since the plane went down.

  And then it hits me. Maybe he wasn’t right before the plane went down.

  Maybe I don’t know Andrew at all. Maybe he’s more depressed than I realized. Maybe he really has been holding on by a thread all this time and I just didn’t see it.

  I weave my way through the crowd to get to an exit—the train had only barely begun to leave, but only the last few cars are even near the platform.

  Another crowd has formed outside, though it’s smaller than the group still fighting to see through the windows on the train.

  I stand at the edge of the platform, watching the group crowded around Andrew.

  And something is wrong. People are trying to help him, I think—my German isn’t very good, but what I can make out sounds like offers of assistance.

  But Andrew is thrashing against them—waving his arms wildly, saying something in German I can’t understand. But then he yells—in English—and it’s clear what’s going on.

  “Get away from me! I need to find her!”

  My heart twists with guilt. What he’s saying can only mean one thing—he’s trying to find me. He thought I left him.

  So he jumped?

  I walk over to him, edging my way past a couple of men who are trying to hold Andrew back—I’m not sure what they’re saying to him, but whatever it is sounds almost threatening.

  “Andrew.” I try to keep my voice even. “Andrew, what are you doing?”

  His shoulders drop and he freezes—everything seems to freeze for a moment—and he slowly turns.

  His mouth falls open when our eyes meet.

  I look at each of the men surrounding Andrew, nodding with gratitude to each of them.

  They finally begin to leave, a couple of them patting Andrew on the shoulder as they do.

  And he stands there, his jaw almost on the platform as he stares at me.

  I let out another long breath. “What are you doing?” I repeat my question.

  He shakes his head ever so slowly, as though he thinks he’s imagining me.

  I walk over to him after the last man has left and take his elbow, leading him into the train station.

  I ignore the stares as we walk through the crowded area and out to the street.

  We cross the street and weave through the people on the sidewalk until the crowds thin out a little. I see a cafe across the next street.

  I finally turn to Andrew. “Do you have any money?”

  His eyebrows draw together with confusion. “Money?”

  “Yes, Andrew, money. I had to leave my bag back there on the train to come after you. The bag that had my wallet. And my money.” I close my eyes for a moment before looking back over to him. “Not to mention my passport and identification.”

  “I…” He shakes his head and looks behind him in the direction of the train station. “We’ll have it replaced. When we get back to Montovia—”

  I sigh. “I’ve already told you. I’m not going back to Montovia, Andrew. But you didn’t answer my question. Do you have any money?”

  He frowns, nodding. “I have my wallet.” He pats at his back pocket before he turns his gaze back to mine. His eyes widen as he pats his other pockets. “I…I had a wallet. It must have fallen out—”

  “During our romp through the private compartment? It figures.” I frown, not sure if I’m more disappointed that I’ve lost my identification or that I won’t be able to get a much-needed coffee.

  I spot an empty bench a short distance from the cafe. I motion for him to follow me to it.

  Andrew follows close behind, sitting down next to me.

  I turn to him. “Phone?”

  “I beg your pardon?” His forehead crinkles.

  “Do you have it? Your phone?”

  He blinks at me a few times before he shakes his head. “I left it with the driver. I…I didn’t think I was going to be staying on the train.”
His eyes close. “I have no idea what’s happening to me.” He runs a hand through his hair before opening his eyes and turning to me. “It isn’t like me to leave my phone. Or to lose my wallet.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “What about jumping from a moving train?”

  His eyes are wild, and there’s something choked about his voice. “I…I thought you had gone. You…you kissed me on the temple. You said something to me before you disappeared—”

  “I said I needed to use the bathroom. If I had known it was going to make you jump off a train, I probably could have held it till we reached Prague.”

  He shakes his head before dropping it into his hands. “You must think me a fool.”

  “I don’t think you’re a fool, Andrew.” I reach over and touch his shoulder. “I think you probably need someone to talk to. I think…I think I’m concerned about how you’re dealing with—”

  “If you think I jumped from the train for any reason other than to find you, you’re mistaken.” He lifts his head just enough to meet my gaze. “I was only trying to find you.”

  “I get that. I suppose I haven’t been the best at facing our issues. But I didn’t run away this time. I only went to use the restroom, I swear.” I blow out another long breath. “But I am concerned about how you’re choosing to deal with things.” I lower my voice, though there’s no one around listening. “The thing on the tower is very concerning. And when you add that with what happened today and what happened when the plane went down—”

  He sits upright, regaining his regal posture. “I assure you, Victoria, there was nothing untoward about our flight from Los Angeles. I had no intentions of doing anything that day other than taking you back to Montovia.”

  My brow furrows. “Did you have intentions on another day?”

  He closes his eyes and shakes his head, though it doesn’t look like it’s a denial. It looks a lot more like he’s trying to convince himself that he hasn’t been thinking about ending it all than he is trying to convince me.

  “Okay.” I’m not about to argue with him about his suicidal ideations on the streets of Salzburg.

  After we sit in silence for another moment, I ask about the other pressing matter. “Is there a consulate in Salzburg?”