The Prince With No Heart (5 page)

Of course, there were other ways he needed pleasing - rather urgently, to be frank. He only hoped he’d have the strength to withdraw from her. The longing to spill within her was so immense, so instinctive that his ballocks were tied in knots.

He waited until her eyes opened dazedly. They were green, he noticed, like the Southern Sea sparkling in daylight. The fans of her lashes were a slightly darker red than her hair, the same red as the pretty triangle of curls his mouth had been buried in. A very gratified masculine growl rolled around his chest.

She tried to sit up, but he shook his head and smiled for her to stay as she was. Drawing his forearms from underneath her, he sat back on his heels. His hands did not falter on the front of his breeches, practiced fingers swiftly undoing the front ties. He shoved his braies down, pausing to let her gasp at the sight of his turgid prick. Probably she hadn’t seen one so large before. Augustin was gifted in that area. He shifted his upper body back over her on his arms. Despite the weightiness of his erection, its stiffness prevented it from hanging more than a finger’s distance from his belly.

He felt like its head was sniffing how good she smelled.

“Now,” he said, his voice gone dark with anticipation. “Shall we move on to the next course? I hope so. I think I actually might die if I don’t get my prick in your sweet pussy.”

“Oh!” she cried - and not the kind of
oh
he wanted. “Augustin, I’m sorry, but I mustn’t.”

“
Mustn’t?
”

“I’m sorry. I ... I promised my father I’d remain a maid until I marry.”

He probably shouldn’t have cursed the way he did in front of a girl this young, even less so if she was a virgin.

“I’d pull out before I spilled,” he said, struggling not to sound angry - or pleading, for that matter. Princes didn’t beg for pleasures. “I wouldn’t get you with child.”

Her hands were pressed to her kiss-bruised mouth, her cheeks stained bright rose. “I’m sorry. I cannot break my vow. I know I shouldn’t have let you please me. In my defense, you made me forget myself!”

Not enough
, he thought sourly. He was disconcerted - not only by her refusal but by how much it bothered him. Perhaps she hadn’t swooned because he didn’t please her as he did his usual partners. Perhaps, being a foreigner, she was more particular than they were. He did up his clothing, trying his best to pretend the throb of his “untiring” sword caused him no discomfort. His prick didn’t realize the dalliance was over. It still held out hope for reward. Augustin could have suggested she repay the favor he’d done for her, but Violet had stung his pride. She also wasn’t proposing the idea herself. Not that he couldn’t find other volunteers to suck him off. Scads of them, before he’d walked a mile.

To his irritation, he found he didn’t like that idea. Violet’s soft swollen mouth was the one he wanted. She was the wench who owed him.

The prince’s frown was as mighty as his arousal. He pushed to his feet stiffly.

“Do forgive me,” he said coolly. “We can only hope your future husband pleases you better than I have.”

If Violet hadn’t been so exhausted -
and pleasured
, her conscience reminded - she wouldn’t have slept a wink. Her bed certainly wasn’t the soft mattress she was used to. She did sleep, however, and soundly. Only when she woke in the loft the next morning did her worries press in on her.

The first sight that met her eyes was the fairy’s walnut, sitting pretty as you please on the blanket beside her head.

Violet knew she hadn’t removed the charm from its tied bundle. Her stomach clenched as the fairy’s instructions for how to use it rushed back to her. Given how angry Prince Augustin had been after she refused him, following those instructions seemed ill advised.

A single speck of fairy dust twinkled on the nut in the morning sun, as good as nagging her to keep her promise.

“Fine,” she said, flinging off the sleeping bench to wash up. She knew her fairy tales same as any girl. Obedience to those wiser than one’s self was always rewarded.

One of the stable boys must have brought her fresh water. Clean rags sat beside the basin, folded in a neat stack. With a quick glance around to ensure she could not be watched, Violet pulled off her enchanted rags and put the water to its much needed use.

The sponge bath would have been quicker if her arousal hadn’t woken along with her. Violet saw to it because Bojik’s curse left her little choice. If she didn’t work herself to a few releases, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate. She didn’t mean to think of the prince as she sought her temporary cure, but memories rose anyway. The image of his quick hands opening his clothing, of his thick red cock thrusting free, made her releases harder and more delicious than usual.

* * *

Prince Augustin hadn’t planned to spy on the beggar girl. Unable to sleep, he’d tossed and turned until daybreak. At cock’s crow, he realized his guest - however infuriating she might be - needed to be supplied with basic amenities.

It was hardly his job to supply them, nor was it appropriate for him to creep in while she was sleeping to set them out. Most certainly, he should not have performed the task without first seeing to his ferocious morning erection. He had, though, avoiding the breakfast maid and her tray with an adeptness that seemed sheer foolishness now.

On the other hand, how was he to know the beggar girl would have the body of a pocket goddess without her clothes?

Crouched behind a stack of bales, the prince struggled not to moan at the sight of her. Violet’s breasts were rounded and high - not large but fuller than he’d expected. Nipples the size of cherries pouted temptingly at their tips, begging to be sucked and pinched by a man like him. Her skin was velvet, pale as cream where it wasn’t flushed. It poured down her compact curves, swooped in at her little waist, then flared out for her hips and her tight bottom. Augustin had to swallow at the strength of her legs, which could have been designed for wrapping around a man. Though her hair was disheveled, her rich red braid hung thick as rope to her ankles.

Picturing that braid undone slammed his arousal higher with the force of a battering ram.

His cock stretched to such proportions he thought it might burst his skin. The head breached the gap of his underclothes, the blood that throbbed within it nudging it against his breeches. Though he longed to stroke it, he feared the noises he was bound to make would lead to discovery. That was a humiliation he could do without. He fisted his hands instead, nails pricking sharply into his palms.

When she began pleasuring herself, digging the dampened washcloth between her labia, the pain that stabbed through his erection was like nothing he’d known before.

She was quick about the business, as if this were a common task for her to perform. She braced one hand on the crate where the washbasin sat and shoved the other between her legs. Her little feet were firmly planted, the muscles in her curvy legs cording. She made a sound as she came, soft and guttural. Augustin’s cock found this so inspiring, a small spurt of sexual emissions hit the inside of his trousers. He gasped, but Violet didn’t hear.

She was too busy rubbing herself to release again.

Six times she did this, each orgasm appearing as necessary to her as the one before. The succeeding peaks seemed to grow more intense. For her final climax, she flung her head back and groaned, her beautiful body stiff, her upper teeth digging into her lower lip. When she dropped the rag she’d used to frig herself, her gorgeous berry stood out from her folds like the reddened tip of a small finger.

The prince was panting so violently he could only breathe through his mouth. Lust wracked his erection, its slit trickling steadily. Violet dampened the last clean cloth, cleansing the sheen of sweat from her succulent body. She grimaced as she stroked its roughness across her rose pink nipples.

Was it possible she wanted still more pleasure?

The chance that she might had the prince’s brain very close to exploding.

If she did want more, she was ignoring it. She wrapped herself in her rags again. The thought that she was clean beneath them tormented him. Perhaps he made a sound. She looked around the loft as if something had spooked her. Frowning, she grabbed an object he hadn’t noticed from the sleeping bench. Then she left him to his privacy.

He could scarcely wait for her to finish going down the ladder. As soon as she had, he drove his shaking right hand into his breeches, not bothering to untie them. Making sure the knob was in the open was good enough; he didn’t want to leave a worse wet spot. With a muffled grunt, he wrapped his left hand around the leather that cupped his balls. That done, he was ready to go. One upward stroke wrenched a gasp from him. Two told him he’d better fist himself faster. The skin of his shaft burned like it had been set afire, almost too thick to hold. Pressure gathered at the base of his spine, the trickle of precum oiling the work of his hand. Faster he pumped his cockstand, harder, until his hips jerked forward and the strongest orgasm of his life blasted free. The ejaculation wrung his balls dry, the strength of his pleasure unnervingly close to pain.

He was almost sated enough for his prick not to rise again. He assured himself it wasn’t due to the girl. He’d skipped his morning bed play, and then he’d had to crouch here watching her get off. Any man would have climaxed hard after that. As if to mock him, his knees wobbled when he pushed to his feet. A great deal of semen had spattered his hand and arm, starting to dry and get sticky.

He looked toward the bowl of water the beggar girl had used.

“No,” he said. “You are not going to wash yourself with the same cloth as a woman who turned you down.”

He did, though. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. For the rest of the day, he could smell both their scents mingled on his body.

* * *

The prince was
not
going to dwell on the beggar girl’s perverseness. He breakfasted with this mother’s guests - two of them anyway. The princesses of Llyr were dressed in the newest fashion. Their peach and daffodil velvet gowns fitted snugly to their waists, rather than cinching under their bosoms. Augustin didn’t pay much attention to women’s clothing unless he was removing it. Nonetheless, he thought they looked pretty and told them so.

Had she been at the table, his mother would have approved.

The elder sister lifted a spoonful of coddled egg. “Is the food not to your liking? You’ve barely consumed a bite.”

Tastes like sawdust
, he began to say, then realized this was the sort of thing lovesick knights nattered on about in stories - generally right before they wasted away.

“Delicious,” he said, shoving a bite in his mouth. “I was distracted by my beautiful company.”

“Thank goodness,” the younger sister said archly. “I appreciate a man with an appetite.”

Her tinkling laugh annoyed him, though it wouldn’t have normally. Of the two sisters, her body was the type he preferred, so round and healthy a man could happily bounce on it for hours.

“We’ve heard you’re a marvelous horseman,” the elder said, no lighter with her entendre than her sibling. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to take us.”

“We did don our riding costumes,” interjected the younger.

If those were riding costumes, Augustin was a cow. They’d split their seams at the first hint of a canter. He frowned at his fancy porcelain plate, noticing he was forgetting to eat again.

“Eugenie -” he began.

“
Emmanuelle
,” the younger said with a fetching pout. This wasn’t the first time she’d corrected him. “My sister is Eugenie.”

“Right. Princesses ...”

“Don’t refuse us!” the elder cried. “We simply must admire your famous form as you sit astride.”

Augustin threw in the towel ... or at least his napkin. “As you wish. We’ll see what mounts we can find for you.”

* * *

Augustin had intended to steer clear of the stables. As he’d feared, the staff had made Violet their new pet. It was she who led out the mares for the princesses. The hour was early and the beasts were fresh, not yet having been exercised. With Violet’s hand on their bridles, they walked into the yard as docile as lambs.

“Oh, how quaint,” said the sister he thought was Emmanuelle. “Madrigar provides occupation for the less fortunate.”

Violet stiffened but handed off the reins with a small curtsey. The younger sister accepted her mare silently. Violet looked a child beside her, too short and small to ever be called handsome. She stroked the mare’s mane in parting, then turned to him.

She didn’t speak, simply stared at him with her big green eyes. Her rags weren’t pulled as closely around her face as before. He saw she’d rubbed dirt onto her cheeks, though this couldn’t hide her beauty. His throat felt unusually tight. Why did this humble girl refuse him? Pet or not, she was a stranger. No one would have told her he had no heart ... unless she simply sensed the wrongness in him?

To hell with her
, he thought, lifting his chin proudly. “Bring Balthus,” he ordered.

She curtseyed more deeply to him than she had to Emmanuelle. After she left, Augustin waited, and waited, and finally hissed in a breath of outrage at the beast she led out.

Somehow, the beggar girl had found a donkey who resembled his prize warhorse. The creature had the same deep black coat, the same white sock on his right hind foot. The stable yard exploded with laughter as grooms and boys turned to see what was going on. To add to her offense, Violet had dressed the donkey in Balthus’s saddle. Hell, she’d braided a chain of daisies into the creature’s tail!

Choking noises came from the two princesses. If
they
were laughing, Augustin didn’t want to know.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “I told you to bring Balthus.”

“This
is
Balthus.”

Two stable boys fell over clutching their stomachs, they were laughing so hard. Augustin ground his teeth together, hating that his cheeks stung hot with embarrassment. “Bring me Balthus,” he repeated.