Infamous Desire (4 page)

My heart aches for his beauty, for the love between us and the turmoil around us.

He turns to me.

“You’ve been quiet lately.”

“No, I haven’t.” I try to laugh it off.

“Yes, you have. I notice these things about you, even if you think I haven’t. What did my father say to you?”

Oh scoot.

Alex adopts a scolding tone. “Oh come on, Liz. We’re supposed to share these things.”

Reluctantly, I tell him.

He sighs when I’ve finished.

“I’ve never wanted to hurt you,” he says, “and so I never really told you about my life.”

You mean there’s something in what your father and Claire says?

My heart clenches. I’m so afraid of hearing something I can’t bear to hear. I’m in an extremely fragile state these past few days.

I brace myself.

“Tatiana and I were informally betrothed since we were twelve.”

He puts his hand on my back and firmly shepherds me away from the frogman and into the light falling across the mouth of the cave.

“When I was twelve, I didn’t know much about betrothals and stuff, so I thought it was some sort of game. Tatiana used to stay in the palace for months during the school holidays. My father used to call her his ‘ward’. Very antiquated, I know.” He rolls his eyes.

I wait, my fists bunching behind me so that he cannot see how agitated I am.

“When we both sixteen, she seduced me.”

The word ‘seduce’ is like a splinter of pain in my chest. OK, I know Alex was far from a virgin when he first met me. I’d be a fool if I thought he didn’t have a past. But it still is a very hard thing to hear.

I was right.

I’m not emotionally prepared to be a high profile girlfriend of an international (former) playboy.

“We both dated for about two years till I was eighteen and I went off to college. I met other people and she probably did too. Nothing was really serious for me.” He turns to regard me out of his serious blue-green eyes. “Until now.”

My nerves are on tenterhooks.

I whisper, “Your father said you’ve loved a lot of women, and they never lasted.”

He barks a short laugh.

“I’ve had sex with a lot of women. It’s the truth. But love … ” He shakes his head. “When we are young, what do we know?”

We are still young now, I think. But I keep silent.

He lifts my chin up to face him. “Don’t think too much about what other people say, Liz. Our love is between us – you and me. It’s not dictated by my father, my mother or the public. Or even by Tatiana.”

There’s heat gathering behind my eyes. Tears that are threatening to form and spill to the front of my orbs.

Alex leans over and kisses my lips. I mold myself into that kiss, wanting so much to believe that we have a future and that not everything is what other people make it out to be. His lips are purposeful and commanding and nuanced, and I let the world melt away as I fall into that kiss.

His mouth opens and his tongue flickers out insistently. I let my lips part as well, and soon our tongues merge.

We kiss and kiss, parting only momentarily for air. His kisses grow more urgent, and his hands snake down my back to cup my buttocks. I’m wearing jeans and a sweater under my coat. Is it me, or has the temperature risen in here?

Oh Alex, Alex. Please don’t hurt me. I’ve given you my body, my soul, my all.

Please …

His lips trail from my mouth to my neck, and he begins to kiss me wetly upon my throat. I tip my head back and let him savor the contours of my throat and the sweet spot where my clavicles meet. He tugs at my open coat, pulling my shoulders and arms out of its sleeves. Then he yanks at my T-shirt. I let him roll it off my torso and my head. I’m not wearing anything underneath and my breasts spring free in the hazy morning light.

I wonder if anyone can see us here at the cave mouth. From where we are, the view opens to a glorious valley between glacier-streaked peaks. Down, down below, an icy river washes through a bed of grass – lush and verdant. No one seems to be in sight, but then, you never know.

But I need him as desperately as he needs me. I need affirmation – the surety of physical love to assuage my wounded psyche.

We shuck off the rest of our clothes in record time, tossing them across the cave floor. My bare feet tread carefully upon the hard cave floor, littered with rocks and pebbles.

His pupils are dilated with desire as he leads me to the stone table. It is a large piece of basalt, relatively flat upon its surface … and smooth. A shiver courses through me as I envision ancient man using it for sacrificial purposes. Indeed, I’m certain someone has lived in this cave. Perhaps whole families, or why else would the frogman be there?

“You OK, baby?” His voice is hoarse.

“Yes.”

“I want to take you … from behind.”

The thought of it excites me. He wants me. Not Tatiana, not Amber and the rest. My libido has scoured away my troubles – at least momentarily. The stone table is raised about two feet from the craggy cave floor. He helps me climb onto it, and I position myself on my hands and knees. My buttocks are sticking into the air and my feet protrude outward from the surface.

“Open your legs, baby,” he says.

I broaden the base formed by my two knees so that he can enter the triangle between my calves. I picture him gazing at what he can see of my pussy between my legs – my private little cave mouth glistening with wet darkness. I am creaming at the thought of him scrutinizing me in detail. I am overflowing with the mental vision and texture of his cock – which I’m sure is extremely erect – impaling me roughly.

Ohhhhhh.

I steal a look behind. He is naked and as beautiful as a mountain god – one of those ancient ones who roam the hills and forests and comingle with dryads and wood nymphs. His cock is lovely and plump, and it already posits at my orifice, waiting to enter.

He enters before I can ready myself for it. He enters with a cry and a thrust. The sudden expansion of my walls sends a shuddery signal through my bones, and I clench my jaw as I hiss. I feel his hands on my hips, steadying me for what would be one of his rougher encounters.

He begins to move in and out of me, ensuring that my vaginal walls are rubbed with maximal friction. The streams of pleasure begin to swarm like electric currents all over my groin. As he thrusts and withdraws, thrusts and withdraws, his fingers creep to my front to finger my pussy. I moan in exquisite agony as his fingertips stroke my clit and the furrows beside it.

His penis is the instrument of my libidinous torture as he pumps and pumps into me. Sweat beads upon my brow despite the chilliness of our environment. He rocks his hips against mine to ensure an oscillatory output in addition to his back-forth pistoning ones. My G-spot is pummeled and bored against and stroked and teased to merciless ecstasy. And all this while his fingers are pinching my clit and squeezing it, so that I’m sobbing and moaning and throwing back my head like the wanton slut they say I am.

“Oh baby,” he groans, accelerating his rhythm.

I rock my hips back to meet his. After a few fumbled attempts, I manage to meet him head on each time he lunges forward. We are in beautiful concert, the two of us. His cock pierces and subdues me, renders my knees into chafed pads as I scrape them against the stone table in vigor. But I am oblivious to the discomfort. My clit and G-spot are of greater sensory concern.

I am climbing something, just as I have climbed and conquered the mountain. It builds and builds, this magical upscaling of all my senses. The rock wall of the cave is in front of me – bare – but I imagine ancient etchings of early man and woman coupling upon bearskin rugs. There might have even been a campfire in here. This stone table might have been an altar for virgins to be taken upon by ancient priests before being thrown to the gods.

These thoughts, although partially morbid, present a salacious picture to my already fevered mind. As his finger presses down forcefully on the tender nub of my clit, I let myself go. My brain flies to that haven of white light and red sound and blue sky, and the world outside flattens and compresses and whirls like all the colors of the earth and water have blended into one.

The waves of pleasure are so intense that they flood my belly and spine and pelvis and chest and everything else beyond and between. I can feel my muscle fibers quivering everywhere. I am wobbling on all fours, and I can hardly feel my kneecaps and palms as they perch – precariously – on the granite.

I must have cried out like those ancient virgins have cried out before me – an ululating wail into the roof of the cave which reverberates and bounces against the three walls. The tendrils of pleasure continue to worm their way into every crevice and fold, and I continue to shudder and shudder until I’m sure I would have shuddered off the stone table had not Alex held my waist.

As I regain fuller application of my senses, I feel Alex’s sperm gush into me. Its warmth and wetness spreads throughout my pussy, jettisoning into my cervix and the secret curvatures of my womb. Not for the first time, I wonder what it would be like to have Alex’s baby.

Oh, the scandal!

None of the royals will ever live it down!

As we both come down to earth and stone and fatigued and very sore muscles, we pause for a moment in our positions. We catch our collective breaths and Alex helps me off the table.

“You OK?” he says.

I rub my sore kneecaps. “Yes.”

“Sorry.” He’s grinning, which means he’s not sorry at all.

“I’ll get you for that later.”

Our spirits seem to have recovered since morning, and we put on our clothes again and slowly make the trek to another summit.

It is right after one dinner with Alex that Jasper summons me to an antechamber. Alex is chatting to the palace chefs regarding the type of menu his father requires when he comes home – probably a long time from now as the King still requires intensive monitoring.

Jasper appears quite secretive, which is unusual for him.

“What’s the matter?” I ask. It’s nice to be ‘wanted’ for once by Jasper, who usually thinks I’m slightly above kitchen sink scum when it comes to bestowing attention.

He hands me a note. Frowning, I open it.

It says:

‘PLEASE MEET ME TOMORROW AT 2.30 PM. A CAR WILL BE WAITING AT THE PALACE EAST WING ENTRANCE. WE HAVE MUCH TO TALK ABOUT. DO NOT LET ALEX KNOW YOU ARE MEETING ME.

TATIANA.’

Jasper eyes me knowingly. For the first time, he almost smiles.

“I do suggest you go, Ms. Turner,” he says in that dulcet tone of his. “You might find it quite interesting.”

I tell Alex I’m going out shopping, which isn’t a big deal because I have been making it a daily routine to go shopping – Moldavian-style, of course. Alex has to go to work anyway. I was surprised to find that princes actually do work.

“I’m on the board of directors for several companies,” Alex explains, “and yes, I do have to work. As does my mother. It isn’t just lip service.”

I’m sure his job is more glamorous than a hotel maid’s.

Anyhow, my nerves are jangling as I make my way down to the East Wing entrance at 2.30 p.m. sharp. I’m dressed in one of my non-Moldavian dresses, with a Moldavian jacket slung around my shoulders. Nothing like mixing modern styles from different ethnicities. I’m sure that Tatiana will not be choosing a public place for our tete-a-tete.

Then again, I can’t be sure.

After all, what do I know about her? I have never even spoken to the woman in my entire life. Everything I know about her has been painted for me in a portrait larger than life. Tatiana has been in turns glamorized, lionized, put on a pedestal and made to look like yesterday’s news – all in one sitting. How much of it is true?

A sleek magenta Rolls Royce with darkened windows is waiting for me at the entrance, as promised. So she is punctual. A good thing.

I get into the backseat.

Butterflies invade every part of my anatomy.

Lady Tatiana Natasha Guernberg is seated there, and she gives me an encouraging smile. OK, Fallacy One disposed of. She doesn’t have fangs and two horns sticking out of her head. Her hair is as red and vivid as I remember it, and it is augmented by carefully constructed curls that must have taken hours of perming in a salon not unlike the one I went to.

Her clothes are in the color of what designers consider ‘nude’. (You see? I’m getting really good at fashion.) The bodice of her dress is embellished with a pearl and mother-of-pearl motif. I’m willing to bet those are real too.

“How are you today?” she asks.

“Good.”

I’m extremely conscious of how ordinary I look compared to her. She possesses an old world beauty that harkens back to glamorous movie stars from the last century – like Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly. If there’s anyone who resembles a real life princess, even though she isn’t technically one, it’s Tatiana. Her lips are painted scarlet and she doesn’t have a hair or thread out of place.

Up close, her skin is flawless. She’s breathtaking in every way.

My guts shrivel.

How can I possibly compete with this?

But you have, a joyous inner voice sings. You have and you’ve won.

This isn’t a game, I tell myself sternly. Where matters of the heart are concerned, it is never a game.

But I can’t help feeling elated. I mean – I’m nothing special. Just look at me. All I can manage to be is to look fairly attractive in designer clothes. To think that Alex prefers me (momentarily) over this exquisitely beautiful goddess is nothing short of a marvel in itself. And Alex clearly desires me. I can feel it in the cock pressing against my thigh every morning at dawn when we both wake up together.

“Drive on, Manfred,” Tatiana instructs the chauffeur. “And put up the glass, please.”

The Rolls Royce revs off smoothly. A glass window slides into place between the front seats and the back, effectively soundproofing us from the driver.

I grip both my fists. My fingernails have been nicely manicured and done up in mauve. Tatiana’s fingernails are as scarlet as her lips.