Erik
Being inside of her was the best kind of homecoming and my almost immediate climax caught me by surprise, leaving Casey no time to reach her own. I felt like a real shit, lying there in the darkness, my body pinning her in place. My head was buried in the soft curve of her neck, and I gently pressed a kiss against the pulse beating there, letting her heartbeat penetrate my body, somehow bringing life to it again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “That was really inconsiderate.”
“It’s okay.” She stroked my hair. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I relaxed into her as she gently pushed me over and rolled on top of me.
“Well, now that you got that out of your system, you planning on returning the favor?”
I gazed up at her lazily, that sexy smile I loved playing on her lips. “You’re not too tired?”
“All I am right now is unsatisfied—are you going to leave me this way?”
“Hell no.” I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her face down roughly, though I kept my kisses tender.
“Are you okay?” she whispered against my lips. “You seem awfully agitated and it’s not like you.”
“It’s been a rough week,” I said softly.
“Well, you’re home now, and this is going to be the best weekend of our lives.”
I touched her cheek, guilt gnawing at my gut. “I can’t wait.”
“Would you rather not do this?” she asked. “We can go to sleep if you don’t want to.”
“No, I do. I really, really do.” I reached up to put my hand over the tiny swell of her stomach. “He’s growing.”
“She is. I’m almost through the first trimester.”
“Your stomach has barely changed though.”
“It’s coming. I think I’m going to pop, so to speak, any day now. So we need to hurry up and get married before the dress doesn’t fit.”
“You’re going to be the most beautiful bride in the world, whether you pop or not.” I was already getting hard again, just thinking about her starting to show her pregnancy and my child growing inside her.
Something I wouldn’t be with her to enjoy.
“I guess you do want to go again,” she murmured as my erection poked at her opening.
“Always with you.” I slid into her for the second time tonight and she clamped around me, as sweet and tight as ever. I thrust up, watching her full, round breasts bounce with each stroke. I worried about hurting her, but she wouldn’t let me hold back, squeezing and milking my cock in a pulsating rhythm that had us both gasping for air. I ground my hips against her, and she put her soft, warm hands on my chest for balance.
I flipped us over because I needed to be on top, in control. I ran my mouth across the curve of her shoulder and nipped at the skin. It was a primitive, baser instinct, but I suddenly felt a deep need to mark her, to make sure the whole fucking world knew she was mine. I didn’t know when I would touch her again, but tonight, right now, she was mine, and I would make sure she never forgot what that felt like.
I sucked on the delicate skin of her throat until she squirmed beneath me.
“Erik, what are you doing?”
I didn’t answer and didn’t let up, my teeth scraping along her skin, moving to another spot and starting again. Her fingernails dug into the flesh of my back as her hips rose to meet mine, her protests dying in her throat as I shifted the angle of my cock and hit the spot that always took her where she needed to go.
“Oh god, Erik!” She convulsed around me, her body coming up off the bed as she came, wave after wave rushing through both of us. My own release was shorter this time, though no less explosive, and I pulled her as close as I could, lips still sucking on her throat.
“I’m going to kill you,” she muttered, laughing in the darkness. “Why on earth would you give me a hickey two days before our wedding?”
“Think of it as a second wedding ring.”
“Asshole.” She dug her fingers into my hair. “Hey. Prince Caveman. Kiss me.”
That I could do. So I did, over and over, until she finally gave in to exhaustion and drifted back to sleep.
I was up and out of the house a few hours later, though I sat and watched her sleep for a long time before I finally left. I knew what I had to do, and while I would do anything to keep her and the baby safe, it wasn’t going to be easy. I’d begun formulating a plan, and coming home to Las Vegas had been part of it. I almost wished I hadn’t, but not seeing her again hadn’t been an option. I’d needed her, and according to my father she needed me too. Breaking things off would keep her safe, but the plan was complicated and had multiple levels, which was another reason why I’d come home. The problem was that Casey would never agree so I was going to have to do the hard part by not giving her a choice. Last night had been a selfish mistake, but I’d been helpless to stop myself. Not seeing her again, touching her one more time, would have been a fate worse than death.
As Sandor and I drove to the Charleston, the place where I was supposed to marry the most beautiful woman in the world in a little over twenty-four hours, I tried to focus on what I had to do, not what I wanted to do. Not what I should have been doing tomorrow. Not the woman who would undoubtedly be furious with me.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Sandor asked as we pulled up to the private back entrance.
“I’m not sure of any goddamn thing right now,” I retorted, getting out of the car and walking inside.
We got on the elevator, and I steeled myself for what was to come. No one would be happy, but what I’d seen and learned the last few days made me positive I was doing the right thing. Not for me, but for Casey and our baby. There was one piece of the puzzle that had to fall into place first, though, and my gut told me it wasn’t going to be pretty.
We went to the door of Nick’s suite and knocked. He opened it almost instantly with a subdued greeting and handshake. “Hey.” He met my eyes warily. He wasn’t stupid. He knew something serious was going on if I’d called to meet with him like this.
“There better be a good reason I hauled my ass out of bed this early,” Nick said, motioning to a coffee urn. “Help yourself.”
Sandor and I both got coffee and then sat across from him.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Nick said, assessing me carefully.
I looked at the man I was about to entrust my world to and wondered for the millionth time if I was making a mistake. Nick was Casey’s oldest friend and confidante, his family as rich and powerful as mine, though in a totally different way. Their mob affiliations were kept under wraps, but they were there, and I trusted that would help keep Casey and our child alive. The Kingsleys were close to Casey’s parents as well as my own, and my father assured me they were trustworthy, so here I was.
“Anwar is about to be crowned,” I said quietly. “There’s a rebellion trying to stop him, but they don’t think they can. Not yet. My uncle had a small team in place, quietly working in the background, trying to gather intelligence about what Anwar was up to. Anwar must have found him out, which was why he had him and the others killed.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Nick muttered. “He killed his own father and brothers? That guy is batshit crazy.”
“And he has me—and Casey simply by her proximity to me—in his sights. We, what’s left of the royal bloodline, will never be safe with him in power. Even though it would take a literal act of Congress, so to speak, for me to ascend the throne, I’m his biggest threat. Intelligence coming from our allies in the eastern European countries is alarming.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“I can’t marry her,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady even though my heart was out of control. “No one can ever know that the child she carries is mine. He will kill her while she’s pregnant to keep any heir of mine from being born. If she makes it through the pregnancy, he’ll stop at nothing to kill my child. I need you to marry Casey and claim my child as your own.”
“Are you shitting me right now?” Nick looked as shell-shocked as I felt.
“Not even a little.” I spelled out my conversation with Anwar as well as some of the details of the revolution brewing. “Until either Sandor, Daniil, or I can get a unanimous vote from Parliament that would allow one of us to challenge Anwar’s place on the throne, we have to go underground. He won’t rest until the bloodline is dead, and I can’t just let him destroy the country I know and love.”
Nick got up and started to pace. He was angry, but I sensed it wasn’t at me since this wasn’t my fault and he was astute enough to know that.
“She’s never going to go for it,” he said finally. “She’ll want to stand by your side and fight.”
“I know. Which is why I’m leaving before the wedding. She can’t know about the plan until I’m gone.”
“Jesus, Erik, do you know what that’s going to do to her?” Nick faced me in frustration.
“Is the alternative better?” I asked. “Do you want her dead?”
“Of course not!” Anger exploded out of him and he pounded the side of his fist into the wall. “Dammit, Erik, how could you let this happen?”
“I would do anything to change this course of events. Believe me, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. You think I want to leave my woman—my son?”
“It’s a girl,” Nick responded absently.
I snorted. “Not hardly. There hasn’t been a firstborn daughter in our family in a thousand years. I just haven’t had the heart to tell her that.”
He sighed. “What makes you think she’ll marry me even if you do leave?”
“Because you’ll make her. You’ll remind her that the only real way to keep the baby safe is to make the entire world believe it’s yours. Once she allows herself to mull it over, she’ll do anything to protect the baby. I know her. She won’t be happy, but she’ll do it.”
“You realize I just asked your sister out on a date, right?”
I groaned. “Shit. Well, you didn’t know about the baby then, and now you have to do the right thing.”
“Won’t your sister know that we’re full of shit?”
“Probably, but the less anyone knows, the safer it is for them. I realize what an enormous task I’m laying on you, but I don’t know where else to turn. My family has the utmost respect for yours and this was actually my father’s idea. He’s the only other person that knows what’s going on. You and Casey are close, you have a sexual history, so it’s a plausible scenario that you got her pregnant before I came along, and you’re truly the only person I believe can keep her safe. My goal is to overthrow Anwar, but I don’t have a plan or a timeline yet, so all I can do is ask you to do me this honor.”
We stared at each other for what felt like a long time. Finally, very slowly, Nick held out his hand. I shook it, and our hands remained linked for a bit longer than normal.
“I’ll do anything to keep her safe,” he said quietly. “But you better get your shit together and come back for her.”
“You have my word.”