Page 38 of Claim to Fame

Tessa’s eyes went wide. “About what?”

“About all of it. About her relationship, and her job, and—all of it.”

“Did she lie to you, or did she just not tell you?”

“Same thing.”

“Did you tell her everything? Did you tell her you like her?” When he didn’t answer, Tessa huffed out a half laugh. “Was that lying too?”

He deflated, the last of his bluster slipping from his shoulders. His daughter was right. He hadn’t told Hannah anything about himself, not really, so what right did he have to expect she should have told him about her life? To punish her for holding things back?

Tessa tapped the tower of cardboard containers as she stood, moving towards the door. “Don’t forget to put these in the refrigerator.”

Alone again, he turned his attention back to WannaFreakU and the other trolls filling the comment section with their abhorrent views on Hannah’s appearance. He wasn’t sure what to do about the visceral longing filling his chest when he thought about her or the way his pulse had hammered in his throat when she’d pressed her knee against his beneath the diner table that evening, but he knew how to tell a patriarchal jerk to shut the fuck up.

Dear Mr. WannaFreakU, he typed.

FromThe Lady’s Knightsby A K Wild, narrated by Slade Hardcastle

Sir Llewellyn watched from the edge of the forest outside the castle’s walls as the rider drew nearer, a billowing cloak thrown over their form and shielding them from his view. The figure rode astride the great horse, their face in shadow, and his heart sank. She had sent someone in her stead, no doubt to tell him his lady would never come to him again. She was a married woman now, after all, even if he knew it to be unconsummated, a marriage in name only. A marriage nonetheless. A prison in its own way.

Bile rose in his throat.

The horse slowed a few feet from him and the rider threw back their hood, Lady Windtorn’s long, raven-dark braid tumbling loose from the cloak. She smiled, the curve of her lips slicing through him sharper than any scythe or sword. He met her in two strides, lifting her from the horse and kissing her before her boot-laden feet ever touched the soft earth beneath them. He kissed to consume, to claim.

“I thought you would not come,” he confessed when they pulled apart, gasping for breath.

“I will always come,” she promised.

“Your husband may disagree,” he spat.

"My husband is not here.”

She caressed his cheek, the leather of her glove a cursed barrier between their skin he refused to tolerate. He tore the glove from her fingers, dropping it at their feet as he pressed her palm to his lips.

“I have made for us a refuge,” he said as he trailed his lips along her jaw. “Our own kingdom, where none shall find us.” He nipped at her ear with a wicked grin. “Save those you would like to join us, my lady.”

“A world within worlds,” she said, her limbs soft and pliant as he swept her into his arms, leading her and the horse deeper into the forest, towards the glowing torch light he’d left behind at the encampment.

“The one true world. Where your only duty is to yourself, to pleasure.”

“And to you.”

He shook his head. “Your pleasure is my own, my lady.” He set her on her feet at the edge of the circle of canvas tents, each one guarded by one of his men, their mail glinting in the firelight. “As it is theirs.”

Lady Windtorn scanned the circle of knights, men who had fought for her, loved her, who would gladly die for her, and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Sir Llewellyn bracketed an arm around her waist, pulling her snugly against his chest as she looked out at the men, at the world they’d built to give her respite from the weariness of her life. He ran his nose up the length of her neck and pressed a kiss behind her ear.

“Tell me, my lady, what is your pleasure?”

Chapter Ten

“I’m coming,” Hannah mumbled into her pillow as her hand blindly searched for the source of the incessant ringing. Finally locating her cell phone, she glanced at the screen to confirm it wasn’t yet another reporter hoping for a comment, and reluctantly answered. “Liv? Is everything alright?”

“Oh no, were you sleeping?” her friend asked over the sound of theSesame Streettheme song blaring in the background. “I’m sorry. My sense of time is all off. Sleep regression,” she said.

“It’s fine. What’s going on?” Hannah dragged herself to a seated position, though her eyes were still barely open. Somewhere in the distance Terrence McFancyCock crowed…again. She wondered if there was any place in town that sold ear plugs. Or a rooster murdering kit.

“Can’t I check in on my friend?”

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