31. Kale

The restof the day and night passed in a blur of sweat and tears and bruised skin. Before either of us knew it, the sun was up and Christian buried his face into my armpit, legs tangled through mine. I stroked my fingertips down the curve of his spine to the swell of his battered ass and back up again.

"Princess." I kissed the top of his head. "Let's get you in the shower."

"No." He shook his head, sucking in a long inhale, nose still buried in my pit. His cock surged in response, jutting hard and wet against the outside of my thigh.

I'd lost myself in him, lost all sense of time and propriety, and it was only the annoying alarm on my phone that broke through the haze to let me know our time had run out.

"I promised you'd go home," I said softly.

"I knew I heard that asshole's voice." Christian rolled onto his back, our legs still half twined together. "I can't believe he came all the way here to bring me home."

"The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can see each other again."

I told him that, hoping it wasn't a lie. I didn't know anything about his life back home besides the little he'd said, but I'd watched the news my entire life. I'd seen more than one royal walk away from their duties in the name of love or boredom. I knew anything was possible, but the one thing I didn't know was the cost.

"I don't want to shower," he grumbled, fully twisting his legs away from mine and sitting up in bed. His hair was a disaster, mussed and matted from all the tugging on it I'd been doing no doubt.

"You smell like sex."

"Good." Christian bent his legs at the knee and dropped his forehead on top of them. "I want them to know."

I scooted toward him, kissing the visible knobs at the top of his spine until some of the tension leaked away and his arms fell down toward the sheets.

"This is hard for me too," I said, watching as he flung his legs out of bed and onto the floor. Another pause with his bent back and defeated shoulders. "This isn't what I want."

He muttered something under his breath that I didn't hear, and I didn't ask him to clarify because I wasn't convinced the message had been meant for me in the first place. Christian finally stood, staring out the window and giving me his back. His thighs and ass were speckled with purple and red bruises from my hand and from a belt, and I knew there was a mark the shape of my mouth on the inside of his thigh where I'd sucked a bruise there that I hoped would outlast the rest.

"Why don't you go make some coffee," I suggested, crawling out of bed and steering him toward the doorway. "I'll get you packed up."

He drew his teeth between his lips and nodded, shuffling out of the bedroom…still naked. Gathering Christian's belongings from my bathroom and bedroom proved to be a herculean task, one I was glad I'd taken on for myself instead of delegating to him. I took my time carefully folding his shirts and his pants, tracing my fingers over the starched cuffs and collars as I went. He didn't have a lot with him, but with every garment I picked up, my room smelled more like him.

After I made sure I'd collected all of his toiletries from the bathroom and tucked the monogrammed leather case into his bag, I zipped it closed and set it in the hallway. I'd left an outfit out for him, a pair of jeans and a black button up shirt that I'd yet to see him in and no underwear. I wanted the denim to rub against the marks I'd made for him the whole flight home. If I couldn't touch him, it was the best I could do. Swallowing back something that tasted like regret, I dressed in a pair of gray jeans and a black v-neck shirt and headed downstairs to join him in the kitchen.

The coffee was brewed and poured, two mugs sitting on my small breakfast table with the newspaper in front of my usual seat and Christian there in front of the chair on his knees. When I entered the room, even though his back was to me, he sighed out a long breath, chin dipping toward his chest.

"What are you doing down there, princess?" I smoothed a hand through his hair, coming around his kneeling form to sit in my seat. He shuffled closer to me and rested his cheek against my thigh. I knew better than to ask him to join me at the table, so I passed his coffee down to him.

"I like it here," he answered.

I didn't know if he was talking about New York or at my feet. I didn't think it really mattered.

"I like you here too." I took a drink of my coffee, knowing at that point, we were on borrowed time.

We finished our coffee in silence then, with a defeated sigh and without prompting, Christian climbed to his feet and shuffled back to the bedroom. He returned five minutes later in the outfit I'd laid out for him, his hair still pulled every which way. He hadn't even bothered to brush it.

"I stole your cologne," he said.

I arched a brow. "The whole bottle?"

"Yes."

"Alright."

"And your deodorant," he said, folding his arms over his chest.

"Alright." I stood up and opened my arms to him. "Did you take my soap and shampoo too?"

He walked right into my embrace and melted against my chest.

"I left you mine."

Something in the middle of my chest twisted in an unforgiving way and I wrapped my arms around him just as someone knocked softly at my front door.

"I didn't think you'd called a cab already." Christian sounded betrayed, his grip on me tightening.

I'd seen Christian a lot of ways, but never like this. In these moments, he was more a scared little boy than the brave, yet spoiled man I'd fallen in love with. He moved timidly, like he'd broken a neighbor's window and was about to have all of his allowance taken away. Though, I didn't imagine Christian had spent a lot of time playing catch with his parents as a child.

"I didn't."

"Is it my brother?" he asked, lips pressed against my chest.

"It's probably Niko," I said.

"Lesser of two evils, then."

Christian stepped back and reached for his bag, and it was reflex that had me smacking his hand away. He worked his jaw side to side, looking up at me with guarded eyes.

"I don't want you to go like this," I said, smoothing my hand down the buttons on his shirt.

"Then I have to stay forever, Kale."

"This little interlude isn't forever. This is a break and then we need to figure it out for the real world. We agreed, didn't we?"

"It's going to be hard," he whispered.

I hooked my finger over the top button of his shirt and pulled him toward me. He came without protest, and there was another knock at the door, which we both ignored.

"You can do hard things," I assured him. "You're going to sit on your ass for the whole flight home, putting your weight on all those bruises I left you. That's not going to be easy."

Christian's cheeks pinked, but his mouth twisted into a tight frown. "Don't send me away with a fresh hard-on that you can't help me with."

"I'll help you with it when you're home. Once you're back in your room and alone, call me and I'll talk you through it."

The knot in my chest twisted tighter, and I tried to swallow past it, even though I felt like choking. Everything in my body was screaming at me to send Niko away, to keep Christian here for me forever, but my brain knew better. Keeping Christian here would only hold off the inevitable for another day at best. He had his life and his responsibilities that he needed to take care of before either of us could figure out what a future would look like for us. Of course we'd talked about wanting to be together; we'd agreed that was the end goal. The undecided factor of the whole equation was the how, with neither of us sure of how we'd get there, only trusting in the end that we would. Christian trusted me in the role of a dominant—his dominant—and he was holding me to my word that we would figure out a way through. The only thing left was for me to have as much trust in myself so I could prove him right.

Christian rubbed his nose with the knuckle of his pointer finger, blinking quickly and turning away from me. He grabbed his suitcase and dragged it toward the front door. I understood how hard it was for him to walk away, because letting him go was just as hard for me, but if he for a second thought he was going to go without giving me a proper goodbye, he had another thing coming entirely.

"Christian." My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. "Stop."

He was three feet from the door, and he came to a stop, his back to me. I closed the space between us, reaching out with tentative fingers and curling them around his hip. A shiver tore through him, and he shook his head.

"Please don't make me go," he whispered, the plea sounding watery with unshed tears.

"I don't want to be an escape, princess."

He turned, our toes so close together he stumbled as he spun. Of course, I was there to catch and steady him, a fact which seemed to send him right over the edge. Tears leaked from both corners of his eyes, and I saw a flash of that petulant and troublemaking man I'd met on the street outside the ballet what felt like so many weeks before.

"If you make me go, I won't come back," he lied.

"Don't say that."

His lower lip quivered, and I gently wiped tears from his cheeks. His eyes scanned my face, even though I didn't know what he was searching for. I imagined he wanted to see me being as affected by his pending departure as he was, but what he couldn't see was how it took every ounce of willpower I'd ever possessed to stop myself from reaching around him, opening the door, and telling Niko to kick rocks and not come back.

"What if they won't let me come back?" he asked next, cheek hollowing as he chewed it.

Another knock at the door, this one more insistent.

"Then I'll come get you."

"Why then and not now?" he asked. "Why do I have to even go if you'll just chase me in the end?"

"Christian, we talked about this." I took his cheeks into my hands, and his entire expression faltered and fell apart. He tried to shake his head no, but I held him still so I could keep looking at him, even if this was far from the last impression I wanted to have of him.

"You're going to go face your responsibilities like a man," I said. No, I demanded. He worked his jaw, swallowing back a small sliver of his frustration. "Because that's what we agreed. It's what I told you to do, right?"

"Yes," he whispered.

I gripped his face tighter and he screwed his eyes shut.

"Yes, Mr. Sheffield," he corrected, and then it was my turn to fight back the wave of a thousand kinds of emotions I had no capacity to process in that moment.

"I love you," I promised, giving his face a shake until he opened his eyes and looked at me. "I love you, and you are mine."

"Your what?" The corner of his mouth twitched, even though he was still crying.

"My good boy." I kissed the tip of his nose. "My princess."

He tried to smile through the tears, lifting onto his toes and slanting our mouths together. The kiss wasn't long and it wasn't deep. It was his tear-slicked lips against mine, and he tasted of sleep and coffee, and before I could ask for more, he tore himself away.

Another knock at the door, and Niko's voice calling out his name.

"Hold on! You insufferable fucking hired man!" Christian shouted over his shoulder.

The change in tone was enough to break the smallest amount of tension in the moment, and when he turned back to me, he had half a smile on his face. I leaned in and kissed him again, as soft and chaste as he'd done for me. I didn't want it to feel like a goodbye kiss for either of us because that's not what it was meant to be. This break wasn't anything more than a layover.

"I love you more than I thought I could ever love another person." I sniffed, moisture welling up in my eyes as I wiped the never-ending tracks of tears away from Christian's face.

I slid my arm around him and walked us backward until the doorknob was in my hand.

"And I know that this hurts, princess."

"Don't you fucking dare," he warned, a fresh batch of tears falling down his cheeks.

I managed enough of a grip on the knob that the door opened, and even though I registered Niko's frame on the porch, I didn't give him so much as a second glance. I kept my eyes focused on Christian, giving him the same thing I demanded in return.

"Keep your eyes on me," I rasped, walking him back until his heels hit the threshold of the door.

He shook his head, and Niko took his suitcase.

"Kale," he whimpered.

Another step and he was out of my house, on the stoop with Niko right behind him.

"Christian." I gave him a weak smile, lips stretched into a tight line. "Eyes on me."

He gave me a jerky nod, then took a step down the stairs backward, with his gorgeous and trusting stare still locked on me. I shifted my weight, leaning onto the door to hold me up, and then he and Niko were through the front garden and at the gate on the sidewalk. There was a black town car idling against the curb, and Niko left him there to stow his suitcase in the trunk. It wasn't enough time—it wouldn't ever be enough time.

I wanted to hold him again, kiss him again, because I didn't know how long it would be until I got to do either of those things again, but if Christian were back in my arms, I wasn't sure I had the strength to let him go again. And for as much as we both wanted him to stay, leaving was what he needed. He had the opportunity to assert control of his life for what might be the very first time, and that would only make the power exchange between us even sweeter in the end.

Niko dragged Christian across the sidewalk, a hand on his head to lower him down and tuck him into the back seat of the car. Christian tucked his feet inside and blinked, doing his best to offer me some bravery in his expression.

I wondered if I was that transparent, if my struggles to remain strong were as evident on my face as his were.

"I've got him from here," Niko assured me, closing the door to the town car, stealing the image of Christian from my vision.

The comment sounded so idiotic, I couldn't even stop the flash of a smile that I felt building around my mouth.

"No, you don't," I said to Niko, even as I stared through the pitch black tint of the back window, knowing Christian was still following orders, keeping his eyes on me. "But he has himself now, and that's enough until I can have him again."