Royally Mine: 22 All-New Bad Boy Romance Novellas Read online

  The bit of flesh he caressed grew hot with longing, and when he moved his hand, she ground her hips against him to feel that longing continue. Her nerves tingled madly as he drove into her. He went rougher now, harder and deeper, but she liked it. They were making rhythms together, as naturally as if they’d been doing it their entire lives.

  She pulled him into her, marveling at how the hard muscles in his buttocks bunched beneath her palms. He was striving to make her feel good. She loved his kindness and his strong, arching body…

  A climax arrived as she considered the power of his possession. All the pleasure he’d stirred up with his thrusting caresses exploded in a squeezing release. She clung to him, feeling herself transported to some other place. If this was what the sisters had termed “debauchery,” all her fear and anxiety had been for naught. Her body squeezed and wavered with bliss until the release had run its course.

  Then Gideon groaned, and she looked to him warily, but his stiffening and shuddering turned out to be his own paroxysm of pleasure. She could tell it by the contented noises that escaped his gritted teeth, and the broad smile he gave before he collapsed beside her.

  That smile sustained her as they lay together, saying nothing for a while. She was still naked—as was he—but she didn’t feel embarrassed. She felt close to him, and at peace.

  “That was lovely,” she said. “A lovely consummation. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He panted, a little out of breath. “I tried very hard to make it lovely.”

  She knew he had tried, which made her adore him. “It’s a shame we can only do it once.”

  He hauled himself up on one elbow. “What do you mean?”

  “Our marriage is consummated now. It was so delightful.” She spread her hands on a wistful note. “But now it’s done.”

  He chuckled. “You’re an innocent little goose, by God. Our marriage is consummated, yes, and we’ll need to deliver the sheets downstairs presently.” He showed the faint smear of blood on the bedding, the evidence of their joining. “But we’re free to couple as many times as we like for the rest of our married days.”

  “You mean we can repeat what we just did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Over and over?”

  He drew her against his body, pressing a kiss to her lips. “If you like, we can do it again in a few minutes. Only please, by your courtesy, give me a moment to recover my stamina. Bedding a virgin is a tremendous undertaking.”

  “You did very well,” she assured him. “You’re certain to plant plenty of babies in my stomach with such stamina. Though, hopefully, you won’t plant too many at the same time.”

  He chuckled again. “We’ll have a talk about that in the morning, for I fear you need more clarity in these matters.” He gave her a deep, forceful kiss that made the spot between her thighs start tingling with renewed vigor. “But that’s just as well. I’m more than happy to teach you everything I know.”

  Chapter Five

  Gideon awakened in late morning, yawned and stretched, and rolled against the drowsy princess sprawled to his left. For a moment, he was surprised to find her there, because he generally woke up alone.

  Not anymore. His wife had curled beside him after their last energetic coupling near dawn, and still remained, a sleepy bundle in his bed.

  Three days ago, it had seemed an impossibility to be a husband, to be married, even though, as the oldest child of the Hastings royal family, he had little choice in his life’s direction. He’d been primed for a politically expedient marriage since birth, which was probably why he’d always been so disinterested in a family life.

  But now his wife had a name, and a face. She had hair that looked even blacker and silkier in the day’s light. She had long, delicate lashes that twitched in her sleep, and lips that turned up slightly, even in repose. He knew now that when she opened her eyes, they would be deep black with dark green flecks, recalling earth and nature. His Carlisle princess, living a life so far away all this time, until he met her and married her in the space of three days.

  Somehow, it wasn’t the disaster he’d expected.

  “Sir?” she murmured, coming awake in a flutter of lashes. “Have the servants come?”

  “No, sweet. They won’t appear until we summon them, this morning of all mornings. Although I imagine quite a few people are lurking outside, waiting for us to emerge.”

  “Must we rise so early?”

  “It’s not early.” He laughed, tucking her close to him. “And no, we don’t have to get up yet.” He loved her sultry laziness, probably because it brought to mind the way they’d spent the hours meant for sleep. He’d taught her quite a bit last night, with many carnal adventures still to come.

  Her fingers trailed over his chest, tracing the ridges of his muscles. “How strange,” she said, peeking up at him, “to wake with a man in my bed.”

  “Not strange, when it’s your husband.” He put on a stern face. “Though mind me, I’ll be the only man in your bed, ever.”

  “And I the only woman in yours.”

  She said it blissfully, ignorant of the fact that few men honored their marriage vows. He hadn’t planned to be part of that honorable group. Once he’d gotten his wife settled, he’d imagined he would take up again with his various mistresses, politely keeping them from her notice. She’d be busy with balls and parties, after all, and taking care of the children. They would both have their own lives.

  But maybe it wouldn’t turn out like that.

  “How are you feeling today?” he asked.

  “I feel relieved.”

  He raised a brow. “Relieved?”

  “Yes, that you aren’t an insensitive monster, more concerned with asserting your dominance than accepting me into your life.”

  “Like your father?”

  Her gaze flickered. “Yes. I’m glad you aren’t like my father. My mother wouldn’t have wanted that sort of life for me.”

  Gideon noticed her eyes fill a little, though she didn’t cry. He embraced her, stroking her hair back, untangling her sleep-tousled locks. After a while, she sat up against the pillows and looked about the room, then up at the coronet that crested the bed. “His Royal Highness Prince Gideon Augustus Wickham of Hastings,” she read. “An excellent moniker for a future king.”

  “And you’re the future queen now. Officially.” He winked at her. “After four ‘consummations,’ no one can dispute it. Later today, you’ll get your crown.”

  “A real crown?” she asked. “Will it be heavy?”

  “Not too heavy.” He kissed her forehead, lingering gently over the task. “God willing, you’ll be strong enough to bear the burden.”

  She turned her face up to his, offering a deeper kiss, which he boldly accepted. By the time they parted, he was ready to bed her again, but she was too tender after all their lovemaking, so he settled for a languid exploration of her body that left them in a tangle of limbs.

  “I always imagined I’d get a wife I hated,” he said, nipping at her earlobe. “Someone to make me miserable after all my crimes.”

  She sat up a little straighter. “What crimes?”

  “Petty crimes only, I promise. Just know that you’re better than I deserve.” He couldn’t tell her what a rakehell he’d been, or that she’d somehow reformed him in the space of half a week. But he could let a little of that gratitude and wonder show in his smile.

  “I want you to be happy,” he said. “In Hastings, in this marriage, in everything, I want you to…” I want you to always be as open and trusting as you are being with me now. It was marvelous, the way she looked at him. He never wanted that to end.

  “What will make you happy?” he demanded, to cover his cascade of feelings. “What do you wish for, that I can give you?”

  “A kind husband?”

  “You already have that, and quite a bit more.” He slid his hard cock against her front, so she erupted in laughter. “I mean specific things. Do you want a softer bed? A
firmer one? A rainbow of gowns with matching shoes and gloves? Plum pudding for dinner every night?”

  “What a generous prince you are,” she teased.

  “I’ll give you anything.” And that was when he realized he adored her beyond all prospects, because he spoke without flirtation or irony. He meant what he said.

  She seemed to recognize this, because she answered without a lover’s posturing. “I’d like a garden,” she said. “My own garden to tend, where I can plant flowers and fruits.”

  “You can certainly have that. There’s plenty of room.”

  “I’d like light in all the rooms of our home,” she continued. “It was so dark in the convent. By the time the children come…” She blushed. He had explained all that last night, sometime between their third and fourth coupling. “By the time the children come, I want the nursery to be the brightest room of all.”

  “Perhaps it can look out on your garden.” He was rewarded with a blinding smile. “What else?” he asked.

  “Might I have a horse?” She clasped her hands together, growing excited. “Any color will do. Will you teach me how to ride?”

  “Of course I’ll teach you, for it’s high time. How is it that you don’t know how to ride?”

  “In my youth I had a fear of horses,” she admitted. “I didn’t trust them, but perhaps now…” Ah, that brazen look from beneath her lashes. “Perhaps now I can be braver, with you to help me.”

  He swallowed and regarded the bewitching woman in his bed. He knew that, when it was time for them to rise and make themselves presentable, she’d put on a fancy gown and have her maid braid her hair into a staunch ebony crown of reserve. She’d look every inch the cool and stately princess, but he’d remember her like this, a delightful flirt, afraid of many things, but not of him.

  “Horses aren’t so bad when you get used to them,” he said. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know. What else?”

  She closed her eyes and snuggled closer to him, burying her head against the curve of his shoulder. “There’s one more thing, but it might be too much.”

  “Ask me.” He waited, hoping it wasn’t too much.

  “I know it’s customary for husbands and wives to sleep apart, and I know there’s a lovely suite you’ve outfitted just for me, but I was wondering if, at least in the beginning, as I get used to the palace and being married to you—”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But I haven’t asked anything.”

  He laced his fingers through hers. “Do you mean to ask if you can sleep in here with me? If we can slumber in each other’s arms every night?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. That’s what I was going to ask, but if it will infringe too much upon your privacy…”

  “It won’t. It will please me greatly.” He tipped her chin up to give her a deep, approving kiss. “Do you know what else would please me greatly? If you’d stop calling me ‘Your Highness.’ How can we put an end to this habit? A sound spanking whenever you forget?” He punctuated the suggestion with a few playful smacks to her bottom.

  “No, please.” She squirmed, but she laughed too, a beautiful, sultry sound. A trusting sound. “I’ll try to remember. This is all just…so new…Gideon.”

  Her gaze sobered, traveling over his face and stopping at his lips. Yes, this closeness was new to both of them, but it seemed that everything would be fine.

  “What do you want?” she asked, touching his cheek. “I’m not the only one in this budding marriage.”

  “I want so many things,” he replied, flashing a grin. “A great deal of them right here in this bed.”

  “It’s good, then, that I’ll be staying here every night.”

  God, how he wanted her, but tonight would be soon enough. In the meantime, he’d content himself with her laugh and her smile, and the grandeur of a coronation. Just as he thought it, he heard faint throat-clearing from the direction of the dressing room.

  “Bertram,” he said with a sigh, “it’s the morning after my wedding.”

  “Just so, Your Highness. But time slips on and…well…” The unflappable servant actually sounded embarrassed.

  “I believe the princess and I require a few more hours of sleep,” he said, to tease the man.

  “Your Highness, the coronation!”

  “The coronation,” Gideon whispered to Cassandra, making her giggle. “Shall we rise and get you your crown?”

  “Yes, as long as you’ll be beside me,” she answered, squeezing his hand.

  Three days wasn’t enough time to know a person intimately. Perhaps it wasn’t enough time to truly fall in love, but it was enough time to know if that person could be trusted with a new, improved version of yourself.

  Three days, thought Gideon, was enough time for a dark-eyed princess to awaken a rakehell’s heart.

  ~The End~

  A Final Note

  I hope you enjoyed this fantasy tale about Gideon and Cassandra’s wedding in the Kingdom of Hastings. I have two other novellas set in the same world, telling the story of Gideon’s great-great-grandmother Queen Violetta and her consort, the stern and forbidding Duke of Thornton. Those novellas, Royal Discipline and The Royal Wedding Night, have quite a bit more discipline, training, and spanking than A Rakehell’s Heart, but they have equally happy endings. Even better, The Royal Wedding Night is permanently free at many outlets. I hope you’ll check them out!

  And for kinky historical romance set in the real Regency and Victorian eras, be sure to read my four-book Properly Spanked series, as well as my standalone, Disciplining the Duchess.

  About Annabel Joseph

  Annabel Joseph is a multi-published BDSM romance author. She writes mainly contemporary romance, although she has been known to dabble in the medieval and Regency eras. She is known for writing emotionally intense BDSM storylines, and strives to create characters that seem real—even flawed—so readers are better able to relate to them. Annabel also writes non-BDSM romance under the pen name Molly Joseph.

  You can follow Annabel on Twitter or Facebook, or sign up to receive her newsletters at www.annabeljoseph.com.

  A Princess for Cale by Susan Stoker

  Chapter One

  “Oh my God, Shay, look at this one!” Katelin exclaimed, and turned her phone toward her best friend. They were sitting at their favorite place to relax and unwind at the end of a long workweek. They’d made it a tradition to go to The Bar and hang out every Saturday night.

  They’d found it by accident one night and had decided to give it a try. They wouldn’t have stayed, but sitting in the corner of the small, hole-in-the-wall neighborhood bar had been Cale and Cain Alexander. The men they’d had crushes on forever.

  Not just any men, but twins—and real-life princes.

  They weren’t there every week, but they were there enough for Shayla and Katelin to make it a point to go every Saturday, just in case. They never approached them, there were enough beautiful, skinny, fashionable women who threw themselves at the two gorgeous royals as it was. They just liked to look, and drool, from afar.

  “The photographer caught Cale coming out of the gym. He even looks good all sweaty,” Katelin told her friend.

  “Yeah, he’s hot, but you can totally have him. Look at this picture of Cain. The man is downright lethal in a suit and tie,” Shayla said, turning her own phone so Katelin could see the picture she’d found on the Internet.

  The two friends smiled at each other and then bent back to their phones. This was what they did most evenings…try to find new pictures of their crushes…the men neither felt they’d ever have a shot in hell at.

  A couple of hours later, Katelin linked arms with Shayla and smiled at her as they walked down the dark, mostly deserted street toward their apartment. They’d lived together their entire adult lives, ever since moving out of the last foster home they’d shared at age eighteen. Life hadn’t been easy for them, but they’d always had each other to lean on. It was enough.

  “Tell me aga
in why we keep going out every week?” Katelin asked.

  “Because if we didn’t, we’d sit in our crappy apartment and never have a chance to meet guys.”

  “It’s been ten years and the only guys I’ve met have been assholes,” Katelin said dryly. “I think it’s time to give it up. We aren’t going to find our Prince Charmings at an establishment called ‘The Bar’.”

  Shayla sighed huge, then shrugged. “Maybe we should just become lesbians.”

  Katelin giggled. “Uh…I don’t think you simply decide that.”

  “Yeah, I know. But we get along so well.”

  “And we don’t like each other like that.”

  “Fine. Be like that,” Shayla grouched.

  “Maybe we’re not trying hard enough,” Katelin mused. “I mean, don’t we need to actually talk to men to find love?”

  “Maybe,” Shayla agreed, reluctantly.

  “Although they say that love finds you when you least expect it,” Katelin said.

  “I want to know who ‘they’ are and beat the shit out of them. Seriously. I think people only say that when they have no prospects and are as hard up as we are.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  “Hey, ladies. Lookin’ for a good time?”

  Katelin turned at the same time Shayla did and saw four men coming up behind them quickly. Their neighborhood wasn’t exactly dangerous, but it was dark outside and they were two women walking alone. Their apartment building was another half mile or so down the road, so they couldn’t make a run for it…especially not in the heels they were wearing.

  “We shoulda called that taxi,” Shayla murmured.

  “No shit,” Katelin replied. Then louder, she said, “Just on our way home, guys. Thanks.”

  “I think you need an escort. It’s not safe to walk alone at night,” the largest of the guys drawled. “Right guys?”

  “Right.”