Page 32 of Off-Limits To The Crown Prince

What he wouldn’t give to forget being a prince, forget the consequences, take for himself and be damned. But that would make him like his father, and he was not that man.

‘I didn’t come prepared for this.’

‘You wouldn’t make a very good boy scout, then, would you?’

He chuckled, even though the ache in his groin intensified as she voiced her need to give him pleasure as well. Too often people had been prepared to take from him. Someone considering his true desires seemed like hedonism at its finest.

‘It’s something I’ve never considered. Being Prince of Lasserno, others tend to prepare for me.’

The corners of her plush, kiss-reddened lips curled into a wicked smile. She leaned forward, her voice a whisper in his ear. ‘Luckily I have a few ideas for how I can help,Your Highness.’

A quake ran through him at the sound of his title spoken with her low, intent voice. It was almost a taunt but he didn’t care. She pulled back, and with trembling fingers Hannah worked at his belt buckle, the closure on his trousers, the zip. Then her cool hand reached into his underwear and took him out. He stifled a groan. Almost lost control in that moment, unable to tear his gaze away as she tightened her grip and worked him the way he’d shown her the night before. Damn, if they weren’t going to make a mess here and right now, but he didn’t care. Gone mad with a feverish desire that nothing bar her would satisfy. Then Hannah moved from his lap, dropped to her knees on the floor before him. Loosened the relentless grip and stroking which had him close to the edge and almost tumbling over.

‘I don’t really know what I’m doing—you’ll have to guide me.’

Alessio frowned, not sure what she was talking about until she dropped her head, and the warmth of her breath caressed a sliver of flesh at his stomach. He jerked in her hand as the knowledge of what she was about to do coursed through him like an electric current.

‘Devour me like you’ve never been hungrier in your life,’ he groaned.

She looked up at him, eyes that intense rockpool green, dark and still. With depths he could never fathom. A wicked smile played at the corners of her perfect mouth. ‘Just remember, I’m not going to stop.’

She took him into the heat of her mouth. His brain blanked with white noise roaring in his ears. Hannah was tentative till he moaned, and her efforts became intense. Determined. His hand tangled into her hair, guiding her, but there was no need. She followed his instructions to a perfection belying her inexperience. He was close, so close, feeling the tingling at the base of his spine, the heaviness, the tightening in his groin. He held on but the vision of her worshipping him like this, because that was how it seemed, drove him to the edge of control. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Of that, he had no doubt. And her words,‘I’m not going to stop...’ran on repeat. Like an endless loop in his head, winding him tighter and higher.

‘Hannah... I’m going to... Hannah...’

He tugged at her hair in warning, but she didn’t let up on the relentless rhythm. For once in his life he allowed the scorching fire of his orgasm tear through his body with no thought or care for the consequences.

Letting the burn set him free.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALESSIOSATBEHINDhis desk, trying and failing to make sense of some financial reports. The numbers on the page swirled and blurred into one another. Yesterday had been an exercise in hedonism. Something he’d never indulged in. He and Hannah in his city office. Cancelling his appointments. Spending the afternoon in bed, repaying her a thousand-fold, making her scream. That filled his thoughts. Not these dry figures and graphs about tourism which should be holding his interest.

Yet he couldn’t see what he and Hannah were doing as a mistake. Not now. It might be a glorious folly, like the pavilion on the palace grounds. Built to a love that was all an illusion. But they had set an end: the date Hannah left Lasserno. Then he could choose his princess, establish his throne. Renew the glory of his country.

Still, what had once driven him now held no excitement. He rubbed his hands over his face. Took another long draught of his coffee. Today it was as if his bones were made of lead. Strange that around Hannah he seemed...lighter. More energised, invigorated, as if plugged straight into a power source. Not bowed by this weight, as if the expectations of the world sat on his shoulders.

He checked the time, then his diary. More meetings. Soon Stefano would walk in and they’d go. Instead of preparing, all he could think about was another evening in bed with Hannah. Driving away his worries for Lasserno in the warmth of her body. The way her hands stroked tenderly over his skin. A shred of softness at the end of a hard day...

‘Sir, His Highness is busy... Sir! You can’t go—’

‘My abdication does not mean this has ceased to be my palace. I go where I choose. I choose to see my son.’

Alessio’s blood froze, then his repressed rage heated it till it was near boiling. That voice sent a jagged spear through the heart of him. His father. Since his abdication he’d barely been near the palace, holed up in his personal villa on the outskirts of the capital, where few people paid any attention to his exploits and greater excesses. The double doors of his office were flung open and the former Prince himself strode in as if he still owned the room. To some people in this country he still did, but that was a problem for another day. Stefano followed, fists clenched.

‘I’m sorry—’

Alessio held up his hand. If he’d not been able to curb his father, then his best friend had no chance. ‘It’s okay. I’m sure he’ll leave soon.’

The man in question looked around the room as Stefano backed out and closed the doors behind him. The corner of his father’s top lip curled in a sneer. ‘I don’t favour what you’ve done with the place.’

‘I don’t care. Your taste isn’t mine.’ Inanything. He’d happily rid the space of the more garish furniture and installed less frivolous antique pieces, more solid and befitting the future ruler of Lasserno.

Alessio gritted his teeth so hard he could almost taste blood. This was the man who’d left his wife and Lasserno’s beloved Princess to die alone. The man who’d plundered the crown jewels as he’d seen fit, as if it wasn’t bad enough in days long past that the royal family had lost the coronation ring present in so many portraits here, never to be recovered. A reminder to Alessio of responsibility and all he was tasked to protect.

‘All your talk of austerity and yet you decide to redecorate. I wonder, is this what hypocrisy looks like?’

‘This furniture was already in the palace. None of it’s new. At least I didn’t raid the crown jewels, thecountry’streasures, to fund my lifestyle or provide baubles to sycophants.’

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