Dirty Crown: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Royal Romance (with BONUS book - Rebel Rockstar!) (13 page)

At first, I run my fingers up and down his shaft, experimenting a little to see what he likes, and then just as I settle into a pattern that seems to suit him perfectly, I change things up a bit by running kisses all over his length too. Just as it seems that he can’t take it anymore, I wrap my lips around him.

“Oh fuck,” he cries.

“This is… it’s too much… it feels…”

He’s losing it, which is exactly what I need, so I slide him in to the back of my throat. He fills my mouth up in a way that excites me, almost as much as it does him. He grunts and groans, a sound that gets increasingly louder as I flick my tongue all over him.

“Stop,” he eventually cries out, pulling back from me.

“I’m too close, I… I need you.”

I certainly don’t need telling twice, so I allow him to pull me onto his lap, where he teases my entrance for a few moments. I grow hotter by the second, digging my nails deeply into his shoulder, until it feels like I’ll die if I don’t have him right away.

“No teasing,” I beg.

“I need you, I need you now.”

With that, he thrusts hard into me, causing me to squeal in surprise. Each time he slides in and out of me, I shiver with desire, as I find myself being brought to the brink of desire over and over again.

The hot pool of bliss starts off small in the pit of my stomach, but it’s soon racing all over my body, sending pulsating waves of pleasure crashing over me, consuming me entirely.

“Oh my God,” I hear myself cry in the heat of the moment.

“Edward, I love you.”

As we both lie there, panting breathlessly, the panic slowly creeps through my body. I said it, the words I promised myself that I wouldn’t say aloud.

But then he turns to kiss me, in a more tender and loving way. He holds my face in his hands, and he looks at me with sheer awe.

“You know I love you too, right?” Now that he’s saying it aloud, it feels obvious to me, so I nod, agreeing with him.

“And we will somehow find a way to make this work.”

“Okay,” I whisper, allowing myself one glorious moment to believe that he’s right, and that this time things will be different.

“Now let’s go back to my room, where we are nearer to Lily in case she needs us.”

As we walk back this time, I am on cloud nine. I cannot believe that I’ve gone from never thinking that I would see Edward again, to spending the night with him and actually making plans for the future in only a few short weeks. It’s insane.

Of course, I know that we are going to face many obstacles in the future, and I know that things aren’t going to be easy for us because all of the problems that we had before are still there, but I feel like the fact that we are both older and wiser will help us. I’m sure that this time nothing will be able to tear us apart…

I
t takes
me a lot longer than Faith to fall asleep because I just can’t stop looking at her.

She really is the most gorgeous woman that I’ve ever seen, inside and out, and I cannot believe that she’s here with me again. I never want to let her out of my sight again. I never ever want to lose her, no matter what her reasons.

But I must drift off eventually, because I am woken up very early the next morning with a hammering sound against my door. One that drags me from an amazing dream, where my future is exactly as I want it to be…

“What the hell?” I mutter sleepily, trying to stand up before Faith is woken too, but the knocking is much too loud for her to sleep through it.

“What’s going on?” She asks me with fear in her eyes, and I wish that I could do anything to dispel that from her.

I hate seeing any kind of pain in her face, and knowing that I’ve played a part of it makes me feel sick.

“I don’t know,” I admit, throwing my clothes on as quickly as possible. “I’ll find out.”

I swing the door open carefully, peeping around carefully to see who is there and I find myself faced with Marcus so I step into the hallway trying to get this done quietly as possible.

I really don’t want to wake Lily up if possible. She isn’t too far from this room, and if things get any crazier, she’ll be disturbed.

“Marcus,” I hiss, confusion plastered across my expression.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s your mother,” he tells me, looking in a very obvious panicked state.

“She’s home, she somehow found out that you brought Faith and that child here so she flew back right away. She’s…” he glances around, looking terrified.

“She’s really mad.”

“Oh God,” I groan loudly.

“How did she find out?”

“I’m not sure, but you know what she’s like. She knows everything.”

Someone must have told her. Someone on the staff I imagine. I cannot blame anyone for that, they do need to protect themselves, but I’m annoyed all the same. Couldn’t they have just given us a little more time?

“She’s waiting for you and Faith now. She wants to speak to you both.”

“Okay,” I nod carefully while my brain tries to think of a way to get out of this, but of course there’s nothing.

There’s no escape now. She’s here, she’s waiting for us, so we might as well get this over with.

“We will be in soon, can you get someone to keep an eye on Lily?”

“Of course,” he looks physically relieved that I’m not causing a fuss, which gives me some idea of how wound up mum is.

This isn’t going to be fun…

I slink back inside, my entire body language shrunken in on myself. I promised Faith that mum wouldn’t be here, that was one of the main reasons that she agreed to come, and now I am going to have to tell her that I was wrong.

She might think that I lied to her, that I tricked her and she’ll hate me forever.

“I’m really sorry,” I start, watching her throw her head into her hands.

“Please don’t be mad at me, I really didn’t know this was going to happen…”

“What is it?” She asks, in a warning tone.

“Mum is here,” her face falls and I panic for a second that she might burst into tears.

“And she wants to speak to us.”

“God damn it!” She exclaims, jumping upright.

“Okay, well let’s just get this over with.” She holds my hands and stares into my eyes for just a moment.

“If we’re really going to be together, then we’re going to have to fight off all of the opposition. So why not start now? We need to make people see that we are right for one another, and you mum is the first person that needs to understand that much.”

I grin at her, feeling a sense of relief. At least she isn’t furious at me, and she still wants to be with me. I have to be grateful for that much.

“Okay,” I tell her.

“Let’s do this, let’s stick together.”

We walk hand in hand through the hallways, and I try to take stock of this moment – the last second of calm before the storm. I just know that as soon as we face my mum, all hell will break loose and everything will change. I just need to commit this all to memory before it does…

I guess we will have to go through all of this and hope that we can weather it, and come out of it stronger on the other side. I’m confident that we can, but there’s still an element of fear there all the same.

We find my mum sitting at the head of one of our massive dining tables, staring at us both with a face like thunder. My heart kicks up a notch and terror starts to flood through my entire body. I start to feel cold and more than a little sick.

This is bad, this is really, really bad.

“Take her away,” mum announces waving her hand dismissively.

Two of her bodyguards come up from behind us, and tug Faith away from me, pulling at her until she’s released from my hands.

“What the hell…?” She screams loudly as they roughly pull her from the room.

I try to chase after her but they are much too quick for me. This was preconceived, and I’m more pissed off than ever before.

“What are you doing?” I yell at mum, tugging at my hair in a panic.

Whatever I was expecting to walk into, this wasn’t it.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Faith Harper has manipulated you for far too long. I have put her in a holding cell until I work out what I intend to do with her.”

“What are you on about? Manipulating me? Are you crazy?” I sound hysterical now, and I don’t even care.

“You can’t put her in a holding cell, she has a daughter. Her child is here…”

“Yes,
she
does have a child. You don’t. That child is not yours, Faith is lying to you because she wants money.”

Mum sounds so sure, it’s as if she’s completely convinced herself that she’s right about this. I don’t know how she can be so sure without even doing any research.

“Have you even seen Lily?” I yell.

“She has so much of me in her, there is no way you can deny that she’s mine! You’re acting crazy mum.” I shake my head angrily.

“I’m going to get her out. We’re leaving right now.”

“If you go down there, you will be thrown into a cell too,” mum warns with a nastiness in her tone, one that shows me just how serious she is about this.

How the hell can she actually be threatening her own son in such a way? It’s absolute madness!

“Then who will look after the child?”

That stops me in my tracks. I want to help Faith and Lily, and I won’t be able to do either if I’m locked up. I find myself in a very strange dilemma, and I have no idea which way to turn. It seems like I can no longer trust anyone in this whole damn palace, which makes this even worse for me.

What the hell do I do?

I suppose that Faith would tell me to stay free to protect our daughter. I guess that’s what I’ll have to do…

“You can’t just do as you please!” I snap angrily.

“You can’t just treat people like this.”

“Don’t you forget your place,” she shakes her head at me.

“You do not want to lose everything over this girl…”

“I don’t care about all of that!” I explode.

“I just want my freedom.”

“You cannot have your freedom, you know that.” I open and close my mouth a few times, trying desperately to find the right words, but she stands up indicating that the conversation is over.

Then she lands the final shot.

“You should get ready anyway. You have a visitor coming this afternoon.”

“Visitor?” I call out after her, but it’s too late, she’s already gone…

* * *

I
don’t know
how much I can trust Marcus anymore, but he’s still the closest thing that I have to a friend in this whole damn palace, so I send him down to the holding cells to check that Faith is okay and to tell her that I’ll take good care of Lily.

She needs to know so at least she can relax a little bit down there. Of course, she’s going to be freaked out, but I know for a fact that she’ll be more worried about Lily than herself. I hope she understands that I’m going to fix this too. I don’t know how yet, but I will for sure.

Then I spend the day with my daughter.

We hang out and we have fun, but it isn’t the same as before. Not only am I much more tense and stressed, but Lily keeps on asking where her mum is, and I don’t know what to tell her. I say that she’s gone out for the day to do something for her job and that she will be back soon, but I’m not sure how much I’m being believed.

I can already tell that she’s very perceptive, and that scares me, but I can’t tell her the full truth because I know it’ll freak her out.

I eventually get confirmation from Marcus that Faith is okay and that she knows that I’m looking after Lily, but I still have an unsettled feeling washing over me. Something is really, wrong here, and I’m not sure how I’m going to fix it. I know that I have to, I’m just not convinced that it’s even within my power to do so.

Eventually, Lily tires of running around like a lunatic and she asks if she can go and play in her room for a while with the toys she saw the night before, I take her there for some quiet play, which gives me a much needed moment of silence for some contemplation.

“Will you be okay for a moment?” I ask her.

“I just need to go and get a drink and get some bits done.”

“I’m fine,” she gives me a little smile that melts my heart.

“I’ll see you in a bit.”

I take a deep breath, knowing that a moment by myself is exactly what I need, but as I stumble into the kitchen, I see an overly familiar face – one that I really didn’t ever want to see again – smiling at me smugly.

“Hello again, Edward.”

“Kristine,” I reply in a monotone voice.

“What are you doing here?” This must have been who mum was talking about when she mentioned my visitor.

Ugh, how can she still be pushing this when she knows how dead against it I am? What’s the point? It’s
never
going to happen.

“What do you mean silly?” She giggles, trying to flirt in the sweetest way possible – a façade I didn’t immediately see through the first night that we met.

“I’m here for the engagement announcement. We will have to do a photo shoot and a press conference – you can’t exactly do all of that without me now, can you?”

“We are not engaged,” I tell her coldly.

“You must know my opinion about this by now, I think I’ve made me feeling pretty obvious.”

“Oh is this because of that silly business at the party?” She laughs, waving her hand dismissively over her shoulder.

“Have you not forgotten about that yet?”

“I doubt that poor boy has – the one whose life you tried to ruin over something ridiculous.”

I spot a flash of anger in her eyes, but she manages to keep it all inside. For now.

“But no, it isn’t just because of that. It’s also because you aren’t the girl that I want to marry. I have someone that I’m in love with.”

I know that it’s risky to tell her as much because it gives her something to use against me, but I really don’t care. I just want her out of my life forever.

“Oh God,
love
,” she sneers.

“Don’t you get it? People like me and you don’t get to be in love. We have duty and that overshadows everything.”

Her face hardens, which makes me feel oddly anxious.

“Your mum wants us to get married, as do my parents. That’s it – we don’t get a say or a choice. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”

For a second I feel an affinity with her, it’s as if we actually have something in common, something to bond over, but then she opens her mouth and speaks again, completely ruining it.

“Oh yeah… of course… you were getting hitched to, and abandoned by, a commoner. That’s how you managed to miss ‘the rules’.”

Yep, it’s official.

She’s a total bitch.

I turn on my heels and walk away from her, not wanting to even be in the same room as her anymore.

“Just go home Kristine,” I finish.

“There’s nothing for you here.”