Page 43 of Striking
Exploding like a kaleidoscope of colorful fireworks against a dark night’s sky.
His hand slips away from my throat and cups my breast, palming it as blood rushes to my head. Teasing my hypersensitive nipple. Fucking me over and over until I’m nearly sobbing against him.
Rhys thrusts into me over and over, and I swear to God, it’s like a never-ending orgasm. Every inch of my skin is alive. Hypersensitive and white hot. One orgasm rolls into two, and I lose all sense of time.
Until nothing exists but us.
Rhys nearly loses himself above me. Every carved muscle straining against his beautifully inked skin with each snap of his powerful hips. He looks like a god. Not a god. He looks like a king. One I fear I’ll follow to my destruction, but what a beautiful death it will be.
He fucks me over and over... Until my voice is weak and my body is limp in his arms.
Until this man is the only thing tethering me to this world.
Until a raw, guttural sound rips from his chest as his lips devour mine.
Until he crashes into me one last time and roars, my name a promise falling from his lips.
RHYS
Bellamy stands in front of me, looking like every wet dream I’ve ever had. A silk robe tied at her waist that I desperately wish I could untie, and her damp hair falling around her shoulders. Her face is free of makeup, and her skin still holds that beautiful freshly fucked glow. The one I’m going to make my personal mission in life to see on her every day.
Just knowing she’s here, that she’ll be here when I get home makes the day more bearable.
Her teeth run over her pouty bottom lip as she adjusts my tie, then flattens her palms against the front of my suit. “I’m sorry I can’t be with you today.”
This woman...I press a kiss to the top of her head and wrap her in my arms, wishing she could be next to me too. “Don’t be. Knowing you’re here is enough.” I raise her knuckles and kiss her rings, then spin the slim gold band sandwiched between the platinum engagement ring and the eternity band. “Have I told you this was my mother’s wedding ring?”
“No,” she answers softly, her eyes holding mine steady.
Grounding me on this day where the eyes of the world will be watching.
“For centuries, the future queen’s wedding band has been made from gold that’s stored in the vault. There’s a limited amount left, and once it’s gone, it will never be replaced. This was the ring made for my mother. I think you would have liked her.” I know she would have loved Bellamy. I think she would have been enamored by the way she looks at the world. Her strength. Her heart.
She lifts her chin and smiles a heartbreaking smile. “I’m sure I would have.”
There’s a knock on the door, and I drop Bellamy’s hand. “Duty calls.”
“I’ll be here when you get back.”
One day, she’ll understand what having her here has done for me this week.
One day, I’ll pay back the favor.
Tradition calls for the sons and grandsons of the monarch to walk behind the coffin of the king as it’s pulled from Rosenhall Palace to St. Benedict’s Abbey in a glass-enclosed carriage. Atticus, Father, and even the king himself did this for my mother’s funeral, but my father insisted Lennon wasn’t allowed. He’s always been a miserable bastard. One I couldn’t manage while my mother was alive. That was her job. The day after her funeral, it became mine. Turns out, I’m not as diplomatic as she was.
I’ve done my best to shelter Lennon the way my mother asked of me. I’ve put her first whenever I could. And today, sheand her husband walk side by side with Atticus and me. My father has already been driven to the abbey to greet the foreign dignitaries as they arrive. I didn’t want to give him any chance to upset Lennon or give her husband any more of a chance to kill him. Father doesn’t know when to shut up, and Maddox has a short fuse.
The palace advisors pushed back, but they’re going to have to get used to things being done differently at some point. It might as well start now. The coronation may still be months away, but I am king, and I have no intention of biding by the archaic rules set in place a century ago.
From the moment my grandfather took his last breath until the moment I do the same, that weight is mine alone to bear. So we walk in line. Atticus, Maddox, Lennon, and me with a row of my cousins behind us, and my nephew back at Lilihill, while we lay the longest reigning monarch the modern world has ever known to rest.
People have flocked to line the frigid, snow-covered streets, just for the opportunity to pay their respects to their king. A man who ruled with pride and love for all his people equally. A freezing gust of wind whips in, stealing the breath from my lungs, and I meet the eyes of a man easily as old, if not older, than Grandfather. He holds a black corduroy hat over his heart and bows his head in deference, and I hope I can inspire this kind of respect from my country during my reign.
My mother and grandfather taught me well, and I’m more than aware of what these people see right now. I helped orchestrate it.
A family united.
A new king.
