30. Christian

I didn't remember fallingasleep, and I didn't think I moved the entire night. When I finally woke up the next morning, aching in all of the best ways, I was curled into a ball with my face buried in Kale's pillow. His side of the bed was cold and empty, but the house smelled like breakfast and coffee so I knew he couldn't be far. Stretching out, I kicked down the sheets and climbed out of bed. I grabbed a pair of clean underwear from my bag and hesitated, standing in front of the window and looking down at the street.

New York was so different from anywhere I'd been before. Kale was so different from anyone I'd ever known. Meeting him was like waking up from a dream so realistic, I never even realized I'd been sleeping. With my underwear in place around my waist, I let my hand trail down my crack, fingertips exploring the still tender pucker of my ass. We didn't fuck for long last night, but he fucked me with everything he had, and I was wearing the memories of that still.

I hoped it would carry me through…all the way back home.

Even though the Chance Islands sounded more like a foreign place to me than this house did, than this room, that man in the kitchen making me coffee and breakfast.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, I shuffled downstairs, finding Kale at the small breakfast table in the kitchen, a plate of steaming eggs in front of him and two mugs of coffee on either side. He had the newspaper spread out in front of him, his cell phone in hand, eyes darting back and forth between whatever he was reading in each place.

"Good morning," I mumbled, carefully arranging myself in the seat across from him.

He smiled, turning his phone face down and pushing the fuller mug of coffee toward me with one long finger.

"How did you sleep?" he asked.

"All night." I swallowed, knowing we only had one night left together. "Thank you for that."

Kale's mouth quirked up in the corner and he looked down at the newspaper. "I wasn't even trying."

"I believe you."

He straightened up, catching my stare. His eyes telegraphed an unexpected sense of urgency and he reached across the table until I slid my hand into his.

"The things I said last night…" he trailed off, brows knit together.

I braced myself for him to take them all back. To tell me they were just words said in a scene, in the heat of the moment. I'd been out of my mind with want by the time he got us both off, but I'd remember the words he said to me until my very last breath. I couldn't bear the thought of them not being real.

"Don't," I pleaded.

"I meant them," he said at the same time, letting go of my hand and leaning back. "I'm sorry."

"You meant them?"

"Of course I did." Kale's leg started to bounce nervously beneath the table. "I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean."

"Not even in the heat of the moment?"

"Especially not then."

I reached across the table for him, mimicking the move he'd done earlier to take my hand. With some reluctance, he slid his hand into mine and turned them over so mine was on top, his knuckles bearing our weight against the weathered wood.

"I thought you were going to take them back," I said.

"Never." His response came quickly, sounding like it had been torn out of his throat.

I believed him.

"Never," he repeated. "I meant it all, but…things between us present some difficulties and we've talked about it, but we've never really talked about it."

Another wave of nausea rolled over me, and the eggs between us might as well have been a plate of vomit for how appetizing they looked. With my free hand, I took a drink of the strong coffee, hoping it would settle my stomach. "Did you want to do that now?"

"I haven't known you for very long, Christian, but it feels very trivial to call you a boyfriend. I want to get that out of the way."

Kale's face was smooth with concentration, and I wondered if he'd been rehearsing this monologue over coffee while he waited for me to wake up. Something about that was endearing in a way I didn't have words for. That he cared enough to try and get it right, to make sure I understood the message he wanted me to hear.

"Okay," I said, waiting for the rest of it.

"But I want everything that comes with that word," he said softly.

"So do I."

"I don't know what that looks like for us…after you leave."

"I can stay," I offered.

He shook his head with a frown, leaning over the table and raising our joined hands. He dragged a kiss across the top of my knuckles before giving me a squeeze and untangling his fingers.

"I don't think long distance is going to work forever," I said to him, and he answered that with a nod.

"I don't think so either, but I'm trying to not think that far ahead."

"Do you think that I wouldn't come back to you?" I asked.

"I know you want to." He leaned back again in his seat, tapping a short article in the middle of the newspaper page he'd been reading when I came into the kitchen. "I don't know if you'll be allowed."

I yanked the newspaper to my side of the table, eyes scanning over the throwaway article about the political unrest in the Chance Islands with calls for Father to abdicate in favor of Phillip, who was widely considered to be younger and more in tune with the expectations of a twenty-first century monarchy. Nothing in the paper sounded new. If anything, it read like insider information.

The ports of the island were integral for shipping routes in the region and neighboring countries had been encroaching on the water for years. My father had always been more war-forward, for lack of a better term, about the whole thing. I'd listened to him and Phillip arguing for hours about how to handle the conflict without turning the people against the crown. The abdication piece felt extremely on point because, while there had always been rumblings about the antiquated way my father chose to rule, his actions over the past year or two had only accelerated the rumors. Unfortunately, I didn't think my brother would be a better choice as head of state, at least not for me.

"Phillip's first act as monarch would be to deport me from the country," I said with a weak laugh.

Kale raised a brow, head inclined toward his shoulder with a disbelieving look on his face. I sighed, reading the article a second time. My father had never given any indication he wanted to walk away from his position, but if he did, the implications would be much farther reaching than Kale even realized. Phillip couldn't stand Parrish's father. He'd always found father's council to be too old guard, too conservative in their ways of thinking. It wouldn't just change my life if Phillip ascended to the throne. Everything would be in a state of upheaval for God knew how long.

"But you're right," I agreed, folding the newspaper closed and throwing it over my shoulder. It fanned out and fluttered to the floor. "There will be things at home that need my attention."

"I can't survive on emails, Christian." Kale tapped his fingers against the back case of his phone and my entire chest constricted at the softness of his confession.

I'd been such a selfish prick the whole time since I met him, worried about what I needed and what I wanted, always taking whatever he'd given me. At no point had I really, truly stopped to think about the implications of what a long-distance relationship with me would be like. And that was assuming I managed to keep him a secret. If word of our relationship were to get out…I couldn't even fathom the changes that would bring to his life.

I wanted to tell Kale I would go home with some false sense of bravado, empowered by the support and strength of his love and tell my father I'd met someone I wanted to be with. I would demand a change to the way I'd been treated and the access I'd been allowed. But if the article in the paper was true, there were far more important things at home that needed to be handled before my unexpected love affair. Even if I wanted to walk away from the crown—and my life—respect for the institution and everything it represented had been ingrained in me for my whole life.

Being with Kale had given me a chance to be selfish, but I couldn't live my whole life like that. And more importantly, I didn't want to. I wanted to be better about taking the things he needed into consideration before acting, because that was part of having a boyfriend. Wasn't it?

"You deserve more than emails," I said. "But…"

He nodded, eyes darting over my shoulder to the discarded newspaper. "I know, Christian. And I understand."

"So, boyfriends who aren't boyfriends. More than emails, situation considered." I gave him a weak smile. "What else?"

Kale bit his lips together between his teeth, working his jaw back and forth like he was trying to saw through the skin I loved so much to kiss.

"I'm out of my depth," he admitted, taking a drink of his coffee and closing his eyes. I wondered if he was as sick to his stomach over the whole thing as I was. "But we can't play pretend forever."

"This isn't pretend," I croaked.

"That's not what I meant. We can't…" He finished off his drink and gestured into the nothingness around us. "We can't pretend the world isn't real anymore. It's not fair to either of us."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to say that you're as committed to me as I am to you," he said, and I shoved my chair back so hard it clattered onto the floor, covering the offending news article. I walked around the table and climbed onto his lap, straddling him and taking his face into my hands.

Kale's eyes searched my face, and I flexed my fingers into his cheekbones.

"I'm all in with you, Kale Sheffield," I said, slamming our mouths together before he could ask for something I couldn't give him.

Kale groaned into my mouth, lips parting to make room for my tongue. He wrapped his arms around me, fingers splayed out across my back as I kissed him harder, deeper. My cock got hard and his got hard, and then the kiss turned more frantic, and his hand was between our bodies, fishing both of our erections out of our pants. He broke the kiss long enough for me to spit into his palm and then I was back on him, exploring the backs of his teeth with my tongue while he curled his slick fist around us both.

I trembled as he stroked, gasping into his mouth until he worked a near simultaneous orgasm out of us both. I never stopped kissing him, never stopped using my mouth to make sure he knew how honest I'd been with my words to him. I didn't know what the future looked like for either of us, but I knew for certain we would be together in it. Somehow.

Finally, the speed and intensity of our kiss slowed, and he once again brought his hand up to my mouth. Pressing two of his fingers against my tongue, he slid them toward the back of my throat, leaving a trail of our mixed cum as he went. Then he added a third, depressing my tongue and stretching so far into my mouth, I had to fight off choking.

When I didn't sputter around his fingers, he rewarded me with a wicked smile, memories of the way he'd trained me to suck his cock flashing across the backs of my eyelids when I blinked slowly to settle into having his hand in my mouth.

"I still want to put my whole fist inside of you." He twirled his fingers, spreading them out against my tongue. I swirled my tongue around the digits, licking him clean of the sticky and salty cum.

Even after coming, my cock hadn't gone soft, something about his mouth against mine, now the taste of him in my mouth…it had me fired up and beyond control.

"There's the whole day left for us," I reminded him, the words garbled around his fingers.

Kale gave me a quick smile, pulling his hand out of my mouth. He traced my lips with his freshly cleaned fingers, then grabbed my face from the underside of my chin. He tilted my head back, and I stared down my nose at him while he shifted my head from side to side, inspecting me…regarding me.

"I'm going to save that for later." He said it with a sense of finality that brokered no argument. "For when we're on the other side of whatever's coming next."

His hand fell into his lap and I collapsed forward, resting my forehead against his shoulder. Kale's arms came around me again, and he kissed my ear with a heavy breath.

"Come on, princess." He patted the top of my ass with both of his hands, encouraging me to untangle myself and stand, which sounded like the last thing in the world I wanted to do. "It's time to get the day started."

When I huffed and nestled closer to him, Kale chuckled and grabbed my ass, standing and taking me with him. Heat flooded my cheeks and I buried my face into the crook of his neck as he carried me out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. He stopped with one foot raised onto the first riser, one hand on the banister.

"I'll kill his both if you make me try to carry you up these," he said.

I reluctantly unwound my legs from around his waist and slid to the floor. At this angle, I was taller than him by at least a handful of inches. I stared down at him, appreciating that he gave me the time to admire him fully before I took a backward step up the stairs. He matched me, step for step, until we were safe on the landing, then he picked me back up, slanted our mouths together and pressed my back against the wall.

Kale rutted into me, thrusting up with one hand gripped around the underside of my thigh, the other flat against the wall beside my head. He kissed me like it was the last time we were ever going to kiss, tearing himself away from my mouth to lick and suck his way down my chin and my jaw to my throat. He moved like a man possessed, and I threw my head back, closing my eyes and letting the intensity of him swallow us both.