10. Christian

They didn't even giveme time to change.

As soon as I stepped foot outside The Plaza, Niko's hand was around my arm and he ushered me directly into the back seat of a waiting limousine. He apparently took the spare hours he'd given me with Kale as an opportunity to get my bags together and update my itinerary. Or that might have been Phillip's doing. I wasn't certain and I didn't see the point in asking.

The drive to the airport was longer than it needed to be because New York had never met a toll bridge or a traffic jam it didn't like, but the crawling miles and the stark silence gave me the chance to close my eyes and daydream about the night Kale and I had spent together. Every shift of my weight against the smooth leather seat sent the most thrilling ache through my body, and even for as spent as my cock was, it still found the energy and the blood to sit heavy and plump against my thigh.

I pushed the button beside the wet bar to unroll the privacy partition between the back seat and the front. Niko's shoulders straightened at the noise, but he didn't turn around.

"Niko, how much trouble would you say I'm in this time?" I asked.

He sighed heavily. "I hope it was worth it."

"It was."

He nodded, and I rolled the partition back up between us.

The night with Kale had been more than worth it, but I knew Niko didn't want the details. He'd been sent to do one thing Kale had managed to do without even trying. Make me listen. Do as I'm told. Bring me to heel. If you had told me yesterday morning that my night would have ended on another man's lap with his handprints speckled across my backside, I would have laughed you out of the country. There were a thousand ways I knew of to be sexually adventurous, and until last night, taking instructions from a man I barely knew—because apparently being told what to do in the right tone of voice made my cock hard enough to cut steel—wasn't one of them.

And yet.

Pulling myself out of bed had been an absolute nightmare, but I knew if Kale woke up, it would have only been worse. He'd taken Niko's arrival and the discovery of my rank better than expected. If anything, the reveal had made him rougher with me, more dominant. He'd taken me back onto his lap after Niko left, put my cock into his fist, and brought me so close to the edge I thought we'd teleported to the top of the Empire State Building. Everything was cold and hot and sensitive and numb, and by the time he let me come, I was very near tears. If he'd denied me after that, I would have seriously debated abdicating, but he called me princess again and it sounded like heaven on his tongue.

"You're being foolish," I warned myself as the limo pulled to a stop alongside the curb at the private terminal at whatever airport they'd decided to rush me out of.

There was no good to come from letting myself think about Kale Sheffield for even a second longer than I already had. For one, I didn't think about the men I had sex with. That wasn't the goal of any coupling I'd ever stepped into, and it surely hadn't been the goal with Kale. I'd needed someone to hide me long enough to lose Niko and his team, which Kale had helped me with. The kiss…the rest of it…that hadn't been part of the plan. And two, I didn't think my father would ever let me come back to America after my most recent escape act, so there was no point in fantasizing about a man there was really no chance of having a repeat with. Besides, when I thought about Kale and what it was like to kiss him, to have him inside of me, something tightened behind my sternum that made it hard to breathe. I fancied breathing, and if the only way to keep on with that was to stop thinking about Kale, then I'd have to stop.

Eventually.

Somehow.

"The plane is waiting, Sir," Niko said as he pulled open the back door of the limo. I stepped directly onto the tarmac and checked my pockets. I'd never owned a cell phone, but I did still have my passport, so that felt like a win. If I'd been in extremely serious trouble, Niko would have snatched it from me before he'd tossed me in the back of the car.

"I'm sure it's being paid to wait," I assured him. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."

I yanked the loose bowtie from around my neck and shoved it into my pocket. My empty pocket. Because my royal order was not there where I'd left it.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned.

It was in my pocket until Kale shoved it in my mouth to shut me up while my naked ass was in the air.

"It's not all that bad," Niko said softly beside me, not realizing that my very small oversight might in fact make it that bad. "You'll make it out alive."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," I muttered, letting my hand fall. He didn't need to know the cause of my frustration or my concern. If I told him, I could probably get him to hold the flight, go back into the city, track down Kale, get the order, and circle all the way back to the airport, but…I didn't think the delay would do me any favors either. I'd just have to get a new one. It wasn't like my father didn't have a whole stack of them in a closet somewhere. It was the optics of the whole thing, that was all.

"Are you tagging along?" I asked when I was halfway up the stairs and he was still on the asphalt.

Niko shook his head. "Phillip doesn't think you stand a chance of sneaking off at thirty thousand feet."

"I thought he brought you on special for me." I crossed my arms in front of my chest and pretended to pout. It was a move I'd have done without thinking two days prior, but somehow it felt far too fake to hold up. I dropped my arms, shoving my hands into my pockets and leaning against the handrail of the stairs.

"I work at the pleasure of the crown, Your Royal Highness." Niko tilted his chin toward his chest, a bow. "Have a safe trip home."

"Right."

I finished climbing the stairs, fighting back the very ridiculous and childish feeling of having my toys taken away from me. Not that Niko was a toy, but his comment was a cold reminder that nothing in my life was ever truly mine. The things I had were because my father or my older brother decided they were for me. And maybe that was another slice of the appeal around Kale. He was foreign and he was so far out of their grasp that he was the first thing that felt truly to be my own. It was better to leave him behind, I thought, collapsing down into an overstuffed cream leather seat. Because as long as he was in America, in my memories, they couldn't have him.

They couldn't take him.

I scowled through the pre-flight checks, waiting until we were at cruising altitude to pick up the inflight phone and call Parrish.

"Good God," he groaned upon answering. "What do you want?"

"Did I wake you?"

"From a nap." He yawned. "What time is it there?"

"It wasn't even seven when we went wheels up." I thumped my head against the back of the seat and made a clapping motion with my free hand until the attendant slid a flute of champagne between my waiting fingers. "So if I'm still in American airspace, it's before seven."

"I thought you weren't due home for another four days."

"I got in a bit of trouble," I admitted.

The champagne was sweet and cold, but it did nothing to dull the ache in the back of my head or the one between my legs.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"I was very bored at the ballet," I started to explain, even as Parrish cut me off with a laugh. His amusement at the situation softened my displeasure enough for me to smile at his reaction.

"And then what?" he prompted.

"I bribed a bathroom attendant to let me out through the utility hallways. I met a man and kissed him on the sidewalk, then followed him to a sex club, and after that a hotel."

"Must have been a terribly boring ballet," Parrish muttered.

"I'm not sure which of my offenses Phillip found most egregious, but as soon as I left the hotel, I was in the back of a car on the way to the airport."

"And now you're on your way home, four days ahead of schedule."

"As it goes," I confirmed, clearing my throat. "I need you to do me a favor, though."

"Of course you do."

"I just need a phone."

"You're on one," he said.

"Yes, unfortunately I cannot take this one in my pocket back home with me. It kind of has to stay with the plane."

"Is your father still on the no cell phone thing with you?" Parrish asked.

"Even if he wasn't, he would be by the time I got home."

The "cell phone thing" had been a point of contention for years. But much like I didn't have keys or a job or live in a property that wasn't owned by my family, a cell phone was also on the no-fly list…so to speak. I knew it was because my father couldn't even begin to fathom the mischief I would get myself into if I had direct access to the world, but what he didn't know was I already did.

Emailing and using encrypted text apps on my computer were not my preferred methods of communication, but they were the ways I most often had to manage. Parrish had been used to it for years, which I was thankful for. And even though I very much viewed my home life as a prison, I knew I was privileged beyond measure. There was no door that wasn't open to me, even if it wasn't mine. I simply had to show up somewhere and people would be falling over themselves to attend me.

Maybe another reason Kale was so appealing because, even though he had been very big on the tending part of the night, I never once got the impression any of it came from a place of obligation. Kale was with me because he wanted to be, of that I was sure.

"Why a phone?" Parrish asked. "Someone you need to call?"

I didn't even have Kale's phone number, and I didn't know what I would say to him if I found it. But I wanted the phone just in case. I wasn't used to justifying myself to people, least of all Parrish, but I was too tired to snap at him over the comment.

"I think I may have some time to serve," I told him. "I'm just trying to get my affairs in order."

"Tell me about the sex club," he said, ignoring my request for a phone completely.

I toed off my shoes and stretched out my legs, taking another sip of the champagne. I knew the bottle had been meant for my brother, so I took a larger swallow, a smile creeping across my mouth as I drank down the contents of the flute and raised the glass for a refill.

"What do you want to know?"

"What did you do there?" he asked.

"Had a drink and left."

"That feels bland, even for you."

I thought about Kale's friends and found myself wondering what kind of story he would spin about our night together once they both pinned him down to ask their twenty questions. Neither of them had been overtly overbearing, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. And neither would Kale.

"It was too public," I said. "We went to a hotel and?—"

Parrish cut me off again, "What hotel?"

"The Plaza."

"Suite?" he asked.

I sighed. "Yes."

"Go on."

"Do you think I'm out here fucking men who can't afford me, you asshole?" I chuckled, shaking my head at the insinuation.

"Tell me about the hotel."

"It's gaudy," I said. "White marble and gold everywhere, like what they imagine a European palace would look like."

It was probably true that Phillip's apartments may have resembled the interior design choices at the hotel, but my own quarters couldn't have been further away from that aesthetic. I'd always favored bright colors and modern lines, much to the dismay of quite literally everyone around me.

"I meant what you did at the hotel," he corrected.

I dragged my tongue up and down the inside of my cheek, some of my flesh still tender and swollen for how voraciously Kale had kissed me the night before. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel his hands on me, heavy and strong against my bare ass, the insides of my thighs, the insides of me.

Letting out a trembling breath, I tried to clear my head, but found no reprieve. Even though I could never escape reliving the best few hours of my life, I didn't want to share them with anyone else. I'd tell Parrish anything and everything about anyone else, but not this. Not about Kale. Even though Parrish wasn't part of the family or anything like that, I didn't want to share Kale with him. I needed Kale and the things we'd done together to be just for me

"Nothing worth mentioning," I lied. "Ask me something else."