Strike at Midnight(75)

I ground my hips against him and crashed my mouth back down on his, the lack of material between our nether regions almost sending me over the edge. Everything about him felt good, and I was more than happy to see this through to show him exactly what kind of “lady” I was.

“Rella,” he said, gently urging me away from him. He was breathless and he blinked hard before looking me in the eye. “We have to stop.”

“No,” I said, moving back to kiss him as my lips tingled with need.

“Please,” he said, urging me back once more. He lifted me as if I were as light as a feather from his lap and set me down on my feet. He stood up with me and looked down at me with regret. “Rella,” he whispered, and then he curled his hand around my neck and gave me a long, lingering kiss.

I was losing control. Shit. I was losing control, and tears of emotion welled in my eyes. Why had he stopped? Why couldn’t he just take this for what it was?

“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his forehead onto mine. “But I want us to wait for our wedding night before doing anything like this.”

Wait. What?

“What?” I asked, pulling back from him as if someone had just chucked a bucket of cold water over me. “What?”

He leaned in to kiss me again but I stopped him.

“What the hell do you mean?” I snapped. “Wedding night?”

“Well,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “This wasn’t how I had intended to propose. But…”

“But nothing,” I practically screeched. “You don’t want to marry me. You don’t.”

“Of course I do,” he said with a big grin on his face. “I’ve wanted you to be my wife from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, taking a large step back when he went to give me another kiss. “You can’t marry me.”

“Why not? Do you not want to?”

No. No, I don’t. I don’t want to marry you. Why wasn’t I saying those words? Why weren’t they coming out of my mouth? I had done this to show him exactly who I was. That I wasn’t the innocent woman who he thought lay beyond my hard facade. He needed to understand…

“When you kissed me,” he continued, “I thought that was what you wanted too. Before that, I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe I would be lucky enough for you to consider me as a husband, but after that interlude…” His face reddened as he tried to find the right words. “I thought you felt the same way?”

“I do,” I said, and I could have slapped myself in the mouth. “I mean, I don’t. I don’t know…” I took another step back from him as my breathing became more rapid. “Women like me do things like that. We screw around, we don’t get married. We certainly don’t marry princes.”

“Are you saying that you only wanted to have relations with me?” he asked with a frown on his face.

“It’s called sex,” I snapped. “Can you not say it? Screwing? Fucking? Doing—”

“Stop,” he said as he took a step closer to me. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.”

“What? What am I trying to do?” I asked, my chest heaving up and down as the pressure came down upon me.

“You’re trying to make me see you in the same light as you see yourself. As if you’re not worthy of love or happiness. But I won’t.”

Oh, he is good.

“I’m sorry,” I said more quietly as I lowered my head from his gaze. It was becoming too much. Too fast. Too hard to say no to. “But I am not marriage material.”

“I think you are,” he said, urging my chin up to look at him again, “and I think you would make the most perfect of princesses.”

The feel of his thumb rubbing against my skin was enchanting enough to hold me in place for a moment. But then my past came flashing back to me with a vengeance and I pulled myself away once more.

“I am a dirty, nasty whore who is a tumor to everyone who crosses her path,” I whispered as I echoed the words I had heard so often in my youth. “I will not infect you with my lies and my deceit.” A tear fell from my cheek as the past hurts rose to take over any rationality I had left. “I am broken.”

And with that, I fled.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Billy can't Run, Billy can't Hide





It had been two days since the ball. And two days since I had not only fled the gardens but the castle too.

Melody had brought the rest of my gowns back with her the next morning after getting my message that I had left early. She had said nothing when she found me with a tear-stained face upon her return, but she had nudged me aside and held me while I cried out all I could.

She knew most of what my stepmother had subjected me to when I was younger, and she knew that I had attacked a man and left him for dead when I fled my home. She knew how broken I was inside, and had lectured me often about how I needed to let love in to heal.

She had also told me that morning after the ball that the prince had looked stricken when she had told him I’d left. But she had also asked him to give me some space while I got my head together. I was grateful for it, yet the coward in me wished that she had just told him to stay away for good. But that was my job. It had to come from me if he wanted to face me again.