can be that for you.”
His breaths are ragged, but he does not speak.
I glance at the screen again as a text notification pops up, catching me off guard.
“‘Why did you hang up on me?’” I read, but then realize I’ve read it aloud. And then I add, “Shit!”
He breathes in, and I can tell he’s about to speak, so I fast-forward to the next step to regain control of the seduction, even if it is a lie.
I let go of the lattice and slip my free hand under my skirt, closing out the text and returning to my lines.
“Highness.” I moan as I slip a finger beneath my thong, working myself until I’m wet. “Do you hear that?” I ask, plunging two fingers into my now slick heat. “That’s my pussy, so ready for you. Don’t you want a taste? Just a little lick?”
You need the money. Your brother’s life—the lives of his family—depend on it.
This silent reminder plays on a loop in my head as I try to lose myself in self-pleasure before I get swallowed by regret.
This is for your family.
I swirl a slippery finger around my clit and gasp, the phone clattering to the floor. “Don’t. You want. To make. Me. Come?” I ask between pants, the words all me now. I am lost in the moment just as if I were in the tiny bedroom of my old flat, taking myself to a place that is not here, in this church, but somewhere I am safe. Somewhere I am wanted rather than paid. “Is your hand on that cock, Highness? Is it daring you to bury yourself inside me? Because all you have to do is step into my side of the confessional and sheath yourself to the hilt.”
I try to bring myself to climax, but even I can’t forget entirely where I am or why I ended up here. So I embellish, crying out in feigned ecstasy.
“Oh... Your Highness. Oh God! Your Highness, I can’t—” I add a few more gasps before yelling, “Benedict!”
“Enough!” he growls, and I collapse onto my knees with a satisfied grin.
Yes. That was quite enough.
He waited until he thought I was done, which means he didn’t want me to stop. If that’s all that comes of tonight, I have succeeded in the first step for which I have been hired.
You must earn his trust and break him.
Because this is not just any client on the other side of the wall. He is a prince, second in line to the throne and brother of our future king. I’ve just attempted to get myself off in the presence of a man I’ve only ever seen on a television screen or staring at me from the pages of a newspaper.
I let down my guard for mere seconds and scramble for my phone on the floor, which is why I startle to see him standing in the opening of my booth.
“Forgive me, Father,” I say, straightening the skirt that barely covers what lies beneath. The air smells of sex, and the man looming before me stares with beautiful green eyes. “Did I make you sin?”
He grabs me by the wrist, and I paint on my most wicked grin.
“Come,” he says and pulls me from the booth.
I force a playful laugh. “But, Your Highness...I already have.”
Benedict
THE WOMAN FROM the confessional booth is sin in stilettos. Her angled bob accentuates her heart-shaped face, highlighting porcelain skin and perfect crimson-painted lips. While her mouth slants into a coy smile, eyes are said to be portals to the soul, and her violet-blue irises hint at secret pain.
“For the last time, who sent you?” I ask her gently, a wolf in lamb’s clothing. Because her unexpected performance has had the desired effect. My cock strains against the thick band of my boxer briefs, where I clamped it securely in place before pulling her out into the light. The air around us is perfumed by a salty, rich tang, a scent not unlike my own release, and yet beguilingly unique.
Is this what women smell like between their legs?
A muscle in my jaw twitches even as my nostrils involuntarily flare. My mouth waters.
“Sent me, Your Highness?” Her lilt reveals she is from Rosegate, the disputed territory on our northern border with Nightgardin.
Interesting.
Rosegate whores are notorious throughout Europe, hothouse flowers offered to elite clients for the price of what most people make in a year. And I can see the appeal. If I wasn’t planning on offering my inheritance to the church, I’d gladly use it to open this woman’s petals, to press my tongue to her bloom and drink in her dew.
“What makes you think someone sent me?”
I bunch my hands into fists, will my lust into an internal dungeon and padlock the door. My duty is to provide this woman respite from whatever spiritual matters weigh on her soul.
Nothing else.
“You passed by no less than four guard posts, then over acres upon acres of landscaped ground covered in Europe’s most state-of-the-art surveillance system. Yes, my child, someone indeed sent you to me.” But who would want to tempt me from the righteous path? Was it a trick of some discontented servant?
“Oh please.” She huffs a laugh but refuses to meet my gaze. “I’m no one’s child.”
She’s right, of course, even as she evades my question. Her ripe body is pure woman, but she is younger than my own twenty-seven years. If I were a betting man, I’d wager she was at most twenty, a young woman who should be busy studying at university, not here at the royal chapel, being paid to seduce an almost-priest.
“You have two choices.” I draw myself to my full six-foot-five-inch frame. “Either give up a name, or I’ll be forced to take you upstairs for questioning.” I don’t exactly know what that entails, but she can’t remain here in sight of Christ on the Cross. “Follow me.”
“Are we going to your bedchamber?” She skims her hands over her breasts, the tops spilling over her tight outfit, the skin soft and succulent as a peach.
“Not a chance.” I can’t question this woman anywhere near my bed.
That leaves one option.
I begin walking, my pace fast and unfaltering. I might not be heir, but I took my first steps in the throne room and arrogance is my default. I was raised to lead, to expect others to follow. After a moment, the sharp clicks of her heels behind me confirm my assumption that she is keeping up.
We enter my personal tower and I lead her up the spiral staircase. “Do we have far to go?” she asks after the second floor. “These boots aren’t made for walking.”
I’ll give her that, all right. They’re made to draw the eye to the lush curve of her shapely thighs.
“In here,” I say crisply as we stop in front of a carved oak door.
I open it, and the bright summer daylight shines dimly through the slitted windows, an architectural holdout from when medieval archers used these openings while stationed in the turret.
She scans the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and gasps. “I’ve never seen so many books in one place except at the royal library.”
I swallow a smile. My personal collection is rather extensive.”
Little does she know that hidden behind covers like A History of French Cathedral Gargoyles are entirely different reading materials: Story of O, The Joy of Sex, plus a stash of Greek and Egyptian erotic art. Studying sexual arts is something of a twisted hobby. While I may be inexperienced, I’m far from ignorant in the ways of giving and taking