Page 53 of Royally Bad

“So some girls get a choice about being trapped?” she asked bitterly.

My eyebrows lowered as much as my voice did. “Let it go.”

“How? I don’t want to be here!”

“But you do want to be alive!” I snapped back. A frailty cracked my words; I recovered, hoping she hadn’t noticed. I was just ... so damn tired. Tired of fighting, tired of having to prove I didn’t want her to end up as a cold corpse. “The guy who attacked you knows we know about it. That makes him more deadly than ever.”

Pushing up, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. I was spoiling for an argument, but Sammy was done. Nothing came out of her but gentle breaths that stirred the loose hairs that fell over her chin.

With the horses grazing behind her, she could have been a watercolor painting. No matter how fiercely she resisted me ... or how she called me out on what I was doing wrong ...

I couldn’t stop wanting her.

“Your turn.” I nodded at Rosel. “Where did you learn to ride?”

She followed my eyes. “When I was little, my dad used to take me riding. I loved it so much. My best memories are back then ... with him.” Sammy was far away in the past. I felt awful pulling her back to the present.

“How did he die?”

Her eyes flew wide. “What?”

Gently, I said, “You asked me to go watch your mother because you couldn’t, and that meant no one else could, either. You talk about your father the way people talk about those they’ve lost. It was just a hunch.”

I saw the moment when she debated not telling me anything. Then it passed, her voice steady when she began again. “I’m not entirely sure how he died. They never found his body.” I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping—she saw. “That came out kind of cryptic, sorry. His car was found at the bottom of the Newport Bay. The police decided he must have drowned—suicide, they called it.” Sammy shook her head, not softening her anger. “He wouldn’t have. I know it. They did their investigation, then they told my mother and me it had to be suicide, body or not. Lots of corpses go missing in the ocean, they said.”

Sammy was knotting up in front of my eyes; the last thing I wanted to do was push her on what was obviously a sensitive issue. I struggled to change the subject. “Where did he take you horseback riding?”

Shaking herself, she looked up at me. “White Rose Farms.”

I did a double take. “You’re kidding. I went there as a kid, too.” Looking at the black stallion—Knight—I said, “It’s just funny to think we might have seen each other years ago and not even realized it.”

“I think I’d remember you.” She chuckled. “Unless you were different as a kid.”

“Weren’t we all?”

“I was pretty much the same.”

My eyebrows went up higher. “You must have been a handful, sugar.”

That got her smiling, the shroud of sadness lifting into the sky. Sammy stuck her foot out, letting it rub almost accidentally on my thigh.

I squinted at her, trailing my fingers to her ankle and digging in. “Guess you really are a local.”

“Did youstilldoubt that?”

Leaning forward, I brushed my lips on hers. When I pulled back, her eyes were shut, her face expectant for more. Whispering against her mouth, I said, “You still don’t kiss like a local.”

Sighing gently, she put her hands on the back of my head. “You’re right. I kiss better.”

And she did. She really fucking did.

With a wicked smile, I leaned on her until she buckled onto the grass. My knees straddled her, a hand creeping under her spine to encourage her to arch against me. Skating down her torso, I let the smooth cloth of her shirt caress my face.

Grass tickled my elbows as I settled between her thighs. In a great show of patience, I unbuttoned the black pants she had on. Looking up, I could see the high-speed curve of her hips as they led to her navel, the mounds of her breasts where they rose and fell.

Violently, I ripped the trousers down her legs; they caught on her flats, then they took the shoes with them. In front of me was my prize, the perfect triangle of her pussy hidden behind a pair of blue panties.

Kissing her hip, I said, “I’ve been wanting to eat your pussy since I first saw you naked. You smell so fuckinggood,Sammy. Did you ever think you’d get eaten out by actual royalty?”

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