Page 56 of Regal Queen

"You could've told me the minute you got off the phone with her."

"Again, as I've told you, my silence was part of our agreement."

"I know," I grumbled, already done with this conversation. We'd had it one too many times and I just needed to accept the fact that Rose had left me willingly.

"Look." Luca turned his phone off and slipped it in his inner jacket, giving me his full attention. "You clearly love this woman."

I shoot him a glare but he only smirked. "I know a man in love when I see it, and a King would never give a fuck about a woman unless he loved her."

Sighing, I slumped into the sofa chair, rubbing my hand over my face. I couldn’t hide it anymore, and I found that I didn’t want to. "I don't know what the hell to do about it."

He watched me silently, waiting for me to say more but when I didn't, he leaned forward, pressing his hands into his thighs. "I'm shit at giving advice, but I'll tell you the one thing that I learned from Penny."

"What's that," I groused, not wanting to hear about him and Penny.

"Women like Rose, with an incredible inner strength and independence, they have the need to feel in control as much as we do. That's one reason why we fight so much with them."

“You fight with Penny?"

He laughed. "You have no idea how much shit she's broken. We fight all the time."

"And yet, you two seem close."

"Exactly, but that only happened when I learned to let go of the need to control her."

“Yeah, that's not happening." I grunted. "As soon as I find her again, I'm putting a leash and collar around her neck and never letting her go."

"Then you'll never get what you want." His phone pinged and he leaned back, pulling it out and swiped the screen.

"I'll have exactly what I want, which is her."

"No." He shook his head, still staring at his phone. "That's not what you want."

"Alright Obi-Wan Kenobi, what is it that I really want?"

He looked up at me. "You want her willingness."

I didn't answer him, his response washing over me.

"A firecracker like Rose, a woman who’s willing to walk away from the security blanket that we can offer her…she needs to realize, on her own terms, that she wants to be with you. Admit it, Bourbon, there would be nothing that would make your dick so hard as to see her walk through that door willingly and to fall to her knees, naked and bare before you, begging you to take her.” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what you really want. Not some fucked up version of her where you have to keep that creature tied up to make her stay.”

I frowned. “Don't be crass."

He smirked. "Doesn't make what I say any less true."

Then his attention was back on his phone and I didn’t continue the line of conversation because the bastard was right.

The thought of not having to chase her down, of her on her hands and knees, tits swinging as she crawled to me, god, that made my dick hard.

I wanted that. Badly.

My phone rang, and I jumped to my feet, grabbing it from the couch.

It was an unknown number.

It could be any number of people, including that prick Dimitri, who hadn't been on the ship, along with the ozone, though we had confiscated a large arms deal shipment from him.

Which Luca promptly took from me, as payment for using his men, the fucker.

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