LukeThe look on Sophia’s face was priceless. She deserved more than an exclusive restaurant, but it was only my first full day with her. There was more to come, and I couldn’t wait to make some happy memories with her without my mother’s disapproving stare or the weight of Jaabir’s pressure on me.In the past, Father and Mother traveled all the time on vacations; one week wasn’t going to make the country crumble. That was what I had the council for.Our waitress poured two flutes of champagne and placed the glasses between Sophia and me. She walked away—as I’d already planned the menu—and I lifted my glass to the beautiful woman sitting across from me.“To forgiveness,” I said, clinking my glass with hers.“For what?” she asked.“You forgiving me,” I said.She shook her head. “We’ve both made mistakes. I say we toast to finding our way back to each other.”Sophia still surprised me in many ways.“To finding our way home,” I said. Sophia was my sun, stars, and moon. I would never be a
Luke“Honestly, it was terrible.”She flung her head back and laughed. “That’s what you get for allowing your Mother to set you up.”“First of all, there was no allowing,” I said. “Secondly, you’re mostly right. The conversation was awful. To be honest, I imagined you were sitting across from me the whole time.”She leaned back in her chair. “You did?”“Yes, it was the only way to keep me from falling asleep.”“Where else have you imagined me?” Sophia asked, crossing her arms. Her breasts lifted, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.I was grateful to get away from the conversation about me dating other women. While it seemed like a joke to Sophia, I wanted her to know that she was the only one I wanted to go on dates with.The waitress returned with our entrees, and Sophia’s question hung in the air between us.“In bed,” I said after the waitress was out of earshot.“What?” Sophia asked.“I’ve imagined waking up with you most every morning,” I said.She locked eyes with mine. “You go
SophiaLuke dug his face into the space between my breasts. I grabbed onto his hair and squeezed, holding him in place. His hands moved over my breasts. One of them unhooked my bra, and it dropped to the bed.Stumbling across the room with my dress at my waist, the sucking and tugging of his mouth and hands over my sensitive peaks made me instantly wet. My lower lips burned for Luke.After the amazing dinner we had, and Luke nailing every minute detail, he deserved everything that I was about to give him. I didn’t have the money or title to curate elaborate and lavish evenings, but I did have something he wanted. And I planned on giving it to him as much as he wanted tonight.As we moved to the bed, he undressed me, and I pulled his shirt out from his pants and dug my hands underneath to feel his smooth skin. The tuft of curly hair near his belly button showed me the way down to the important part of his body. The part that pressed into my leg, begging to be unleashed.When Luke final
SophiaI kissed him again, showing him just how much I wanted to screw him right then and there. He managed to get the condom on, and I lowered myself onto his hardness, allowing him to fill me to the brim.“Fuck,” I moaned as my body stretched to accommodate him.“Fuck is right,” Luke breathed.Without my heels and the threat of poking holes into my comforter, I drew my feet up and lifted myself enough to stroke the length of him. Up and down, my body moved over his cock.Luke’s arms went limp at his sides, and his head lolled back again.Smirking, I picked up my pace. I loved watching how much I pleased him. I never thought I would be with anyone like this, never mind someone as amazing as Luke. At that moment, I knew that I would never love anyone the way I loved Luke. He had opened a part of me that was locked away to the rest of the world.We matched mentally and physically. We fit each other like a lock and key.My legs ached, so I settled in, allowing him completely inside of m
LukeEven though I cherished every single second I spent with Sophia, those seconds were moving quicker than I wanted. All the money in the world couldn’t compete with the inevitability of time. With each passing minute, the hard conversation came closer to us, threatening to split us apart again.After hearing Sophia tell me that she loved me and being with her, behaving like a normal couple, I knew I couldn’t go back to Qatar without her. I would do anything to convince her that being together was the only choice for both of us to live a happy life.I regretted our month-long breakup but concluded that it was necessary for us to realize how much we needed each other.Sophia wasn’t who Mother imagined I would be with, but she was the only choice for me. While Jaabir would fight me more, he had an expiration date for being on the council. I had the rest of my life to deal with the fallout if I broke it off with Sophia for good.The warring thoughts flew to the front of my mind as I aw
Luke“They’re called swings,” she said. “Come on.”She flashed our tickets to the ride operator—we’d picked the unlimited ride voucher—and she sat down in one of the chairs, buckling herself in.I sat next to her, unsure of what the ride did. The swing sagged when I sat down, and I tested the chains by pulling on them. “Are you sure this is safe?”“As safe as we’re going to get,” she said.I frowned. I wanted Sophia safe forever, but I couldn’t allow her to think I was a coward. I sucked in a breath and buckled myself in, pulling the strap tight. Due to the long chain, I was able to move closer to her. Making sure she was securely fastened to the chair, I was able to release the breath lodged in my throat.The ride operator came around to each of us and visually checked that we were buckled in. I wished he would have tested to be doubly sure, but I wasn’t going to show my fears to anyone, especially Sophia.He started the ride, and we slowly rose into the air. I gripped the chains of
SophiaMy words echoed in my mind as Luke’s face fell. The lovely family across the way entranced me enough that I blurted my question out without thinking.Have you ever thought about starting a family?I might as well have asked him if he wanted to screw on this table and make a few babies that minute. What if he didn’t want to have children and I had backed him into a corner with that question? I didn’t even know if he wanted to be with me. Now, he probably thought I was forcing myself on him and demanding we have kids. I was still young, and nothing about our future was set in stone. I was such an idiot.“I just meant…” I trailed off, my mind scrambling to bring back the serene smile on his face instead of whatever he was thinking at that moment.He blinked and then his hand shot across the table and enveloped mine. “No, don’t take it back. I was a little surprised, is all.”“I didn’t want to imply that I—we—shit,” I said, shaking my head.He squeezed my hand. “Until you came into
SophiaShoving away all the “what ifs” for the remainder of our time at the amusement park, I fell even more in love with Luke. We played a ton of different games, ranging from group to individual ones. I kicked his ass on a lot of them, determined to flip the gender roles and earn him a big stuffed animal. Luke accepted my gifts like the gracious king he was, but I knew it bruised his ego a bit to have me win them for him.When it started to get dark and the lights on the rides burned into my retinas, Luke suggested we head back to my place.I agreed, even though I wished we could have stayed at the amusement park a little longer.Denying the inevitable could only last so long. I had to pull up my big girl pants and get the conversation over with. That would give Luke two days to figure out what he wanted.***“Are you all right?” Luke asked as we stood outside my apartment. He held two bags of takeout Chinese food that I barely remembered ordering. I was too in my head about what I
LukeWhen a knock sounded on my door a little while later, I glanced at the clock, and my jaw dropped. An hour had already flown by, and I’d checked off several items from my list.“Come in!” I called. Everyone knew that when the door to the study was closed, they were to knock and wait for my approval before entering. It was my sacred space in the palace, and it wasn’t a hard rule to follow. Though, I imagined bending the rules for our child—whenever we got around to having one—since Father had always done so for me.Sophia stood in the doorway for a moment before entering the room.“Hi,” I said to her. “What’s up?”“Do you have a minute?” she asked. Her hands clasped in front of her, as Mother’s normally were. The both of them were turning into clones of each other. I wondered if I should limit their time together or not. The thought made me smile. Neither of them would agree to that. They were two peas in a pod now.“For you? Always.” I stood up and stretched. For the last hour, I
LukeAs I perused the newspaper in front of me, Sophia and Mother discussed some upcoming banquet. Glancing over the top of the paper, I watched my wife of six months calmly eating her breakfast. Tilting my head to the side, I noticed something different about her. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. I wasn’t sure if it was her outfit; today she wore one of the more traditional outfits of our country. Over the last months, Mother had been an excellent tutor to Sophia, teaching her about our customs, traditions, and the language.Even though Sophia hated when we went full immersion with the language, she loved it at the same time. It worked her brain like her reporting career did. I still felt a little twinge of guilt now and then for taking her away from her passion, but she had a full schedule since we had returned from our honeymoon. We both liked to keep busy, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.It didn’t take long for Mother to get on board with the new way of life around the
SophiaHe drove a finger inside of me, and I bucked my hips up to meet him. Falling back against the fluffy pillows, we moved as one, intensifying the pleasure within me. Adding more fingers and that circling thumb, my eyes fluttered closed and moans escaped my lips. If this was what it was going to be like for the rest of my life, I looked forward to every moment spent in this bed with Luke.After the drama that we had to deal with in such a short amount of time, I never felt so relaxed in my life. That part of our struggle was over, and even though there would inevitably be issues with the kingdom and Luke’s reign, there would never be a problem that we couldn’t overcome, especially if we came together like this as much as possible.The idea that I might have missed out on this life with him made me hold him close to me. I sat up, deepening his reach inside of me, and I grabbed his hardness again, thrusting all of my love and appreciation into the movements.His chin lifted, and his
SophiaEvery single point where our bodies touched lit me up inside until searing heat scorched every fiber of my being. Touching Luke’s face, feeling the stubble of his chin under my fingertips, added licks of heat to burn through me. I fell into the pools of his eyes, my love for him wanting to burst out of me. My panties were soaked through as his hand moved up the side of my body. His fingers brushed over the side of my breast. After getting out of my dress last night, I changed into a ratty old T-shirt. The fabric was thin and worn, which didn’t offer any protection from his touches. Not that I wanted any.His fingers lightly touched my neck. He put some pressure on my jaw, and I moved my head to the side. I loved when Luke kissed the sensitive part of my neck. It was one of his favorite moves. At least, from what I could tell.His soft lips touched my skin. With each movement of my body, he left a wake of warm invisible kisses along the way. He trapped my earlobe between his lip
LukeJoining her, the two of us brushed our teeth together. It was nice to get the stale taste of food and champagne out of my mouth. I watched Sophia through the mirror as she watched me. Energy crackled between us, and I could have dragged her into the shower to expend that energy. Knowing we were to be joined by several servants as they brought breakfast in the room for us made me kill the urge. For now.Even though it was the simplest of acts, the idea that I would brush my teeth at least once a day with this woman filled me with the most joy I’d ever felt. I wondered if only the birth of our children would rival that feeling.I finished before her and held her against me while she finished. With a shimmy of her ass against my crotch, I glanced at her. She leaned back against me, lifting her perky breasts higher. Slowly guiding my hand along her middle, I caressed the outside of her breasts.That was when I heard the door open from the other room. My hand froze before I removed it
LukeI never wanted my wedding day to end. Even though it was an intimate affair with under a hundred guests, the party went much longer than most banquets that I’d attended. Sophia and I stumbled into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.Even though I celebrated, neither of us drank heavily. I supposed we were almost drunk from the music and dancing, so when we arrived in a quiet and sacred space, the both of us passed out from exhaustion.The one thing I remembered as my eyes closed was the way she looked slipping out of her wedding dress. God, I was a lucky-ass man.***When my eyes finally peeled open, Sophia was already up and facing me. She had a big smile on her face, and her left hand propped on the pillow between us. The sparkling engagement ring glittered in the morning light that streamed through the windows. The night before, I’d barely gotten out of my clothes, so there was no chance I had been able to reach the blackout curtains before falling onto the bed.“Good
SophiaGia smiled and reached up to grab my veil. She pulled it down over my face, and the world turned a hazy shade of white. All but two of the servants dispersed, and Gia walked into the room, closing the door behind her.“You ready to get married?” Matt asked me.“Yes,” I said, lifting my chin. For a moment, I felt like Gia. Since I was to take her place as queen one day, it seemed fitting.A swell of music filtered out from under the doorway and the doors opened. It was a good thing the veil covered the surprised expression on my face. We’d planned for the wedding to be small and intimate, but I didn’t know that there would be more than immediate family at the event. Gia had mentioned some close family and friends that she’d wanted there, and I brushed it off, thinking there would be one or two extra people.All in all, there were only about fifty people, but when their gazes turned toward me, there might as well have been two hundred people there.Matt gripped my hand harder. “J
SophiaSince Gia put together the wedding in such a short amount of time, there was nothing Luke or I could say when it came to the night before the wedding. She’d let go of most of her traditional views but chose to hold on to the one that didn’t allow us to sleep together that night.While I wanted to show Luke how appreciative I was about what he’d done for me, we respected her wishes.After a wonderful rehearsal dinner with the people we loved, I took Matt around the palace while Luke and Maddox went off together. Maddox had mentioned something about the bachelor party, and Gia’s face had paled to the color of the tablecloth. I knew Luke didn’t plan on going out to a strip club—I didn’t think they had those here—but he went off with Maddox anyway, probably to defeat his best friend’s urge to flirt.Matt eventually dropped me off in the same bedroom that I’d slept in when I first came to the palace. We said goodnight, and I thought I saw excitement flash in his eyes when he asked w
LukeThe council members shifted in their seats. I couldn’t be prouder of my mother for standing up for me. It was something I always wanted but never knew that I needed. I didn’t care that she commanded the meeting space where I was supposed to reign. We were a family, and treating the kingdom like that would be my legacy.“When Erol and I chose to adopt a son, it was not something we took lightly. We knew we would change a child’s life and possibly be able to choose the successor to the throne.” She looked over at me and smiled, the way she used to when I was a child. When things seemed much simpler. When had I lost touch with that?“We picked a boy that we felt, in our hearts, needed us as much as we needed him. You all worked with my husband and the previous king. You saw how big of a heart he had for this country. You trusted his choices. Why are you turning your backs on him now? He wanted Luke to become king in his stead. What would you say to him right now, face to face, if yo