ROYAL ROCK(27)

“Your foreign temptress,” I said. “You’re corrupting the king.”

She giggled as I came at her. She splashed and swam away. I chased her but let her stay just ahead of me.

Finally, I grabbed her ankle and pulled her back. I took her hips and pulled her ass and back against me. She struggled, but I held us both up above water, kicking my feet.

“Let me go,” she said, laughing.

“I don’t think so. You’re mine now. You’ve tempted me long enough.”

“I don’t think I’m anyone’s,” she said, and then she tried dropping underwater.

She went straight down, but in the process her bikini top caught on the front of my swimsuit, yanking them both off. I dove underwater and managed to grab my trunks and her top before she even realized it was off.

She surfaced a few feet away, and a second later she figured it out.

“Trip!” she said.

I held her top up, grinning. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

She instantly covered her perfect breasts with her arms. I couldn’t get a good look, since the water was covering them, but I could tell she was gorgeous. I was hard as hell, my heart hammering.

“Trip, give it to me.”

“Come and get it,” I said, swimming away.

“Not funny. Come on, Trip!”

I laughed as she started swimming toward me, covering herself with one hand.

Just as she neared me, a motion toward the door pulled my attention away. Al was standing in the doorway, frowning down at me. “Your Highness,” he called.

Bryce caught up with me and snatched her top from my hand.

“Asshole,” she mumbled as she turned away and got it back on.

“Your Highness, they need you back in the situation room. General Dune is calling.”

I sighed. “Fun’s over, I guess,” I said to Bryce.

“Who was having fun?”

“You were. We both know it.”

“I was too busy having my top stolen to have fun.”

“Pretend you didn’t like it all you want, but we both know where this was going.” I swam over to her, close behind her. “You want me to fuck you rough up against the edge of the pool. You want me to fuck that wet pussy until you can’t stand it anymore.”

“No,” she whispered, but I knew she meant yes.

I swam away, pulling my trunks back on. Al had already left, so I got out and toweled myself off.

“Stay as long as you want,” I said to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good luck being the king,” she answered.

I laughed. “I don’t need luck for that. I just need to be myself.”

I waved and then headed out, back toward my apartment.

That girl could drive me crazy so easily. I could barely control myself around her, even in these difficult and complicated times. There was just simply something alluring and intense about Bryce.

The girl was a distraction, but the best fucking kind of distraction.





15





BRYCE





The next morning, I couldn’t believe I had sent the king a nude selfie.

Well, it wasn’t completely nude. I had a shirt and panties on, actually, so it wasn’t really nude at all. Still, it was a sext for sure, and there was no other way to read that message.

I didn’t know what I had been thinking. I guess I had wanted to rile him up, but I’d also wanted him to know that I was sorry. It had felt right at the time, and I didn’t regret it, but it was outside my character.

I was a good girl. I didn’t do things like flirt with kings in swimming pools. Except now apparently I was that kind of person.

And I still was worried about his whole dictatorship thing. I didn’t know how I felt about flirting with a man who was possibly telling people to commit war crimes. Trip was a good person, but he was right: War was more complicated than I realized, and that meant maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought he was.

I had two dueling sides in my mind. On the one hand, I wanted Trip the man. I wanted him to kiss me again, to let me get inside his defenses, to find out what made him do the things he did. But on the other, I was afraid of Trip the king. I was afraid of the person I would become if I got involved in his world, and I was afraid of the person the crown made him.

He had so much power. He ruled over an entire country. You didn’t get much more powerful than that. And they always said that absolute power corrupted absolutely.

Trip didn’t seem corrupt. Trip seemed like a cocky asshole, but he wasn’t corrupt.

Or maybe I didn’t know him.

I sighed, lounging on the couch. I was waiting for my dad to come get me so we could go for a walk, and my mind was moving a mile a minute.

After ten minutes of agonized waiting, he finally knocked. I got up and answered. Dad smiled at me. “Ready?”