32

KENNEDY

I missed him.

Thayer had been avoiding me for three days. I thought I deserved that. God, I loved this man, but because of his poor choice, I was punishing him, when in the end, I was suffering.

This guy had been working hard since he was young, doing his duties to his people while I was acting like a complete bitch. Yeah, he made mistakes. People made mistakes, so did I. I wasn’t perfect. So why not be civil and treat him with the respect that he deserved.

I’d also come to realize that I could do my job everywhere in the world. I’d be a chance—an opportunity most people wouldn’t get to— to help people, and I was taking it for granted. My service may not be direct to my people, but knowing that I could help the less fortunate, would be a fulfillment.

When Princess Carlott asked me if I could join her in visiting the feeding program for less fortunate kids in the rural area, without a second thought, I agreed right away.

Now, I was thinking if I should tell Thayer or not. When I thought of borrowing books from his study, I didn’t think he would be there. Yet, I was beyond relieved that he talked to me again.

Now he was here in bed with me. We didn’t do anything other than having conversations, but I was aware of his presence. And then he laid his head on my back. The delicious pressure he gave on my lower spine was hard to ignore.

It felt like it had been a long time since I’d been longing for the subtle warmth of his touch on my skin. How was I supposed to not react to this? I couldn’t remember I’d been affected quite this way before. Never. Never with another man.

I love him. Yet, it didn’t scare me. Not anymore.

When I thought the reason I agreed to marry him was that I wanted to help him with his birthright. I was wrong. It was more than that—I wanted to make him happy, even if it made me selfless. What was only frightening once he knew.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” He pulled me out of my deep thoughts.

“What?” I turned my head to look at him.

He barely touched his finger on my chin. I felt the desire jolting my skin. “Penny for the thoughts.” He tried to hide his smile.

“I wanna go with your sister to a feeding program. That’s if you let me.”

He raised his head, finally came to face to face with me. “On one condition.”

“Why do I feel like I’m not gonna like it?” I squinted my eyes at him.

“It’s not difficult.”

A smile edges onto my lips. “Fine. What is it?”

“We should end ignoring each other. Stop pushing me away. I promise I won’t force you to do anything you don’t like.”

I remembered that scene again. It hurt a lot knowing he’d been sleeping with women while I was just in another room. “Sure.”

“What is it that’s bothering you so much, Kennedy? I won’t keep any secrets from you unless I thought it would be best for you not to know about it.”

“It’s nothing.” I looked down at the pages, but it looked like words just magically turned to Mandarin.

“Please?” He held my arm. “I wanna know.”

It was the most difficult to ignore when he looked at me with pleading eyes. I sighed, closed the book, and I turned my body so that we were facing each other. I looked at his face, the most handsome man I’d ever met.

“How many?”

His brow arched. “How many?”

“How many times? How many are they?”

He looked confused. His brows knitted. “What exactly are you asking me about?”

“You had a threesome in your room. Do you usually practice that? How often?”

A slow smile built on his lips, and I wanted to smack it off. He knew I was jealous, even if I wasn’t the type. He then burst out laughing. His rich voice echoed in the entire room.

“What’s so funny?”

He was still laughing. Crinkles formed at the corner of his eyes. “Jesus Christ!”

“Fine. I’ll have a threesome too. I might as well enjoy it.”

His laugh died. His smile was gone, replaced with a murderous glare at me. “The fuck you will.”

“Wow! Freaking misogyny you are.”

“That’s not true. In fact, I support women’s rights.” That was true. That was why women in this country loved him. “Admit that you’re jealous.”

Of course, I was, but I was not going to admit it to him to inflate his already huge ego. “Why would I be jealous? You like fucking woman, go ahead. But you won’t dare touch me or sleep with me until you stop gallivanting.”

I expected him to be pissed at me with my use of words, but he was grinning back at me. “You’re the only woman I want to fuck, like to fuck, and plan on fucking.”

“That’s not what I witnessed days ago.”

“Just admit it, darling, so that we can put an end to this discussion. I’d nothing to loving doing than pull you into my arms right now and feel your body against mine.”

“Go to hell.” I laid back on my stomach and opened the pages I left.

“It fucking hurts, isn’t it? That’s what I felt every day when you kept pushing me away. It hurts like my chest is always burning. My heart is always bleeding, and to add to that, the constant twists of guilt in my stomach.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t even know that he felt that way. “Well, if that makes you feel better, I hated doing that to you, but you did something unforgivable.”

He placed his hand on my wrist. “Then allow me to make it up to you until I’m forgiven. I don’t give a fuck how long it would take. As long as you give me another chance. Please, Kennedy?”

I felt the sincerity in his touch, in his words. “You’re the most infuriating and relentless man I’ve ever met, Prince Thayer.”

“And the most handsome prince on earth.” He held my arm as he moved closer to me.

Sighing, I rolled into his strong arms, my head on his shoulder as he wrapped me with a satisfying embrace.

Finally, I’d be able to shut my eyes close and never thought of losing him again. I felt his body again, smelled his masculine scents, the strong muscles of his thighs against mine, and heard the beating of his heart.

We stayed like that for a while, in each other’s embrace, enjoying the peaceful silence and feeling of satisfaction.

“Damn, I missed this. I missed you so fucking much I lost my shit all the time.”

I kept silent. I loved to hear the grumbling of his words in his chest.

“Don’t do that again.” He pressed his lips to my head. “I don’t wanna go to work. I just wanna stay like this forever. This is the most comfortable position I have had in a while. Do you know the feeling of sleeping in a comfortable bed, yet something’s missing? You kept turning. You couldn’t fall to sleep.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

“Of course, you don’t. Every time I came to check on you, you slept soundly in this fucking bed. I wanted to burn this down.”

He tightened his arms around and sighed shakily and slowly. “Forgive me, Kennedy. I have no intention of hurting you. I swear. I just wanted to prove to myself that you still have feelings for me, that if you see me with another woman, you’d be pissed off. I swear to you, and my cock won’t ever get hard again if I slept with another woman since I met you.”

I pressed my lips together to hide the grin, but my lips still quivered. Deep down, I was jumping with joy. As soon as I let go of my sigh, I said, “How’s it working out for you?”

“I know you’re still mad because you saw me with those women, and you thought I had threesomes. It may sound appealing, but one woman is enough. Do you believe me, darling?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

I pushed my ass in his groin, grinding slowly, teasing his cock. A long groan rumbled in his chest. “To feel is to believe, don’t you agree?” In truth, I wanted to touch it, grip it, pump it until it hardened, and his pre-cum would leak from its shaft.

He let go a shuddering breath, his nose dove into my hair. “You keep doing that, I’m gonna come in my pants.”

I kept on torturing even if I felt him bulging out, pressed against my ass, our skin burning.

“God, keep doing that.” He was enjoying it, and I was getting wet. His voice rasped, shaking. “Can I touch you? Please, let me touch you.”

“I think you’ve proven yourself that you were telling the truth.” I stopped.

“Fuck. That’s what is it all about?”