After wanting her so much, for so long, the feeling of her tight, slick and hot around me made me lose my mind for a bit. But in the soothing calm of the shower, I ask her what I should’ve asked her about before—birth control. It’s my job to keep her safe in every way, and I feel like a tool for being so reckless.

Ellie tells me she’s been on the pill for years. Girl issues, she says with unusual shyness.

And I’m glad for it—I like feeling her bare, nothing between us, flesh to flesh.

But if there was a baby, I would take care of her, give her whatever she needed, be all she needs.

There are abilities I’m skilled at—familiar with—fighting and fucking, battles and weapons, sensing danger, and knowing how to keep those in my care safe from harm.

But love . . . I’m ignorant of it. The word has never passed my lips, and the feeling is as alien to me as the sentiment.

What I do know, what I’m sure of, is that I would die for Ellie. Kill for her, live for her. The vow echoes through me with every beat of my heart. She is the most important person in my life. She has been from the beginning, and she always will be. There will never be another.

I don’t know if I’ll be any fucking good at love. I’m not quite sure how it’s done. But, for her, I’ll learn.

And I’ll do my damnedest to get it right.

We lie on our sides, resting but not spent, stroking each other, looking and smiling at one another. I used to think the phrase “gazing into each other’s eyes” was stupid. Fake. I mean, really, what man does shit like that?

Now, apparently . . . I fucking do.

And it’s not dumb or artificial at all. Because Ellie is mesmerizing. Her face is an ever-changing landscape of expressions—each one cuter, sexier, more enchanting than the last. Her lips have a thousand different smiles and her eyes sparkle and swirl with infinite shades of blue.

If I manage to die gazing at Ellie Hammond’s face, I’ll go out a happy man.

“When did you know? The very first time?” she asks.

I play with a strand of her hair, brushing its softness against my fingertip, thinking way back.

“It was at the museum, I think. When you flirted with me . . . and I thought, if this girl were a bit older, I’d be all over her.”

Her eyebrows reach for the sky. “That long? I never knew.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I thought if I pushed it away, ignored it for long enough, it’d go away.” I kiss her nose and whisper like a conspirator. “It didn’t.”

“Did you know that I liked you?”

I chuckle. “Aye. Your poker face is . . . well, you don’t have one.”

Ellie sticks out her tongue—that cute fucking tongue that’s teased me for years. I chase after her mouth and I suck on her tongue when I catch her, kiss her. Then, laughing, I say, “I figured it was just a crush. A girlish fancy that would fade when you grew up.”

Ellie leans over me and pecks my nose, whispering in the same secret tone, “It didn’t.”

“No.” I run my hand through the damp strands of her hair. Relieved—relieved and . . . wonderfully content.

“So what happens now?” she asks.

I open my mouth to answer, but there’s a knock at the door.

“Ellie? It’s me—are you up?”

It’s Olivia. The doorknob jiggles and thank fuck it’s locked, or this would’ve been an eye-opening visit for the Duchess. I tilt my head towards the toilet and Ellie nods.

A minute later, I hear their conversation through the door.

“Is everything okay?” Ellie asks.

“Yeah, I just . . . wanted to see you. I had a bad dream. Nicholas is still sleeping; I didn’t want to wake him—I had to make sure you’re okay.”

I hear Ellie move out into the hall, probably to embrace her sister. “I’m okay, Livvy. I’m so, so sorry. I won’t scare you like that again, I swear.”

“I love you, Ellie.”

“I love you too.”

Then her tone turns teasing. “And I love both of you . . . even if you turn out to be little Ernie and an Omen demon baby.”

Together, the sisters laugh.

When I hear Ellie close her bedroom door, I step back into the room.

“Coast is clear.” She grins, turning the lock.

I fall onto the bed, moving to the center, pushing a hand through my hair and watching her walk towards me.

“I have to tell Prince Nicholas,” I say on an exhale.

Ellie slips her robe off and joins me on the bed.

Pouting.

“You don’t want me to tell him?” I ask her.

She crawls over to me, her lovely arse in the air. “No, I understand the situation.”

The thing is, I don’t think she does. She doesn’t realize the complications—or the changes that will have to be made.

But I’m at peace with it—I’ll do what has to be done, as long as I get to keep her.

Ellie trails feather-light kisses along my ribs. “Maybe you could wait on thinking about Nicholas . . . until your semen isn’t still trickling out of my body?”

I choke out a laugh. “Fuck . . . the things that come out of your mouth.”

She smiles slyly and kisses lower—down my abdomen, around my navel—and lower still.

“At this moment, I want you to focus more on the things going in my mouth.”

And my breath whistles out of me.

“Oh yeah?” I ask, sliding my hand into her hair, gripping a bit, just tight enough for her to feel it.

“Yeah.” Ellie licks her lips. “Big, hard things.”

I scrape my teeth on my lower lip, the way I want to scratch them across her soft, pale breast—the way I will, very soon.

“That so?”

She nods. And then my girl grins—cheekily.

“Do you ever think about this?” she asks. “Me doing this to you?”

My lips drag up into the smile I know she loves. “It’s my very favorite thing to think on.”

I grasp my stiffening flesh and trace her lips with the head of my cock. “This, love? Is this what you want?”

And she fucking moans. I feel it against me. “Yeah, I want that, so much.” She keeps her eyes on mine, slipping her little tongue out—licking, just the tip. I stroke my cock back and forth against her tongue, grazing it with every pass, wet and warm.

It feels incredible and looks fantastic.

Then fantastic gets even better.

Ellie opens that pink, pouty mouth—but holds back. She lines us up and waits . . . waits for me to lead. And I’m all about indulging her. So I push the wide crown past the ring of her lips and thrust up into the wet sucking heat of her mouth.

And her eyes roll closed, like it’s the most blissful thing she’s ever tasted.

Christ, she’s trying to kill me.

When the tip of my cock nudges the narrow back of her throat, I stop. And Ellie eagerly takes over. Wrapping her hand around the thick shaft, working her mouth up and down, taking as much of my length into the heaven of her mouth as she can.

It’s wet and sloppy and beautiful.

She worships my cock. Devours it. Hums around it, kisses and adores it with every suck and slide of her perfect lips.

Ellie licks my cock like a lollipop and palms my balls like they’re her new favorite toy. My heart races and my breath pounds.

“Ellie . . .” I warn, because I feel the tightening, the liquid heat racing and ready to surge. “Ellie . . .”

She moves faster, pumps harder, sucks tighter, wringing the pleasure from me. My hips circle and lift, pushing up into her mouth as she moans around me. And I’m utterly wrecked.

“. . . fuck . . . fuck . . .”

With a broken groan I come in her mouth, down her throat, pumping again and again. It feels like I’m flying and sounds like I’m dying.

When it’s over, after the haze of pleasure clears from my vision, I grab my beautiful girl and hoist her up my body. With one thought in my mind—the same thought, coincidentally, that I also had that day, long ago, in the museum: I like to give as good as I get.

Sunlight peeks over the horizon, cutting a golden swath across the floor, creeping until it finds Ellie’s face. With my chest pressed to her back, I lean up, over her, watching her eyes scrunch, her nose wrinkle, as she awakens slowly, blinking at the brightening sky streaming through. Then my face is buried against her hair and the soft crook of her neck. She smells like sex and sweat and me. Ellie rolls over, pushing me on my back, blocking the window with her tempting little body and raining kisses down on my cheeks, my eyelids—eager and soft.