Page 80 of The Prince and His Stolen Groom
“You left me,” she began, voice trembling, eyes wet, “all alone on ourvacation.”
Cereal scrambled to his feet. “Honey, I didn’t mean to—”
A light flush touched her cheeks and tears dotted her sooty eyelashes, somehow making her blue eyes look wider and brighter. “Is your work more important than me?”
“Darling, no, never!” the mage wrapped her in his arms, stroking her back and hair soothingly. “I’m so sorry, dearest. I should never have left you alone. But the wedding … well …”
Franny gasped. “You were trying to ruin it, weren’t you?” she asked, plunking her hands on her pink-clad hips. “So you could—”
“No, Franny, don’t!” I shouted, creating an X with my arms to signal:stop fucking talking!
“—disrupt the Kingdom Defense Spell and allow evil to freely enter our lands again!”
Cereal briefly pulled away from his wife. “The what?”
I put my head in my hands and groaned, “Franny, he didn’t know about the spell.”
“A defense spell, you say.”
When I looked up again, the mage was rubbing his beard in a classical evil-thought gesture, eyes gleaming with the possibilities.
His diabolical plotting was interrupted when his wife burst into noisy tears. “Five seconds! You can’t even go five seconds without thinking about work! You care more about your work than you do me!”
“Oh, no, honey, no, I don’t.” He fumbled over his words and pulled her back into a tighter hug. Glowering over his shoulder, he mouthed ‘move it.’
Brendon and I quickly vacated the bed. His hand slipped into mine, clutching it like he didn’t want to risk me somehow slipping away.
Cereal settled on the bed, cradling his wife in his lap, and cooed soothing words at her.
“You p-p-promised,” she kept saying.
“I know, I know, I made a mistake.”
Brendon, Franny, and I silently backed away from the room, closing the door to give them some privacy.
Downstairs we found the imp rubbing his head and sulking in one corner. A flash of light drew my attention outside, where Kit chased around a much-diminished shadow figure with a torch, cackling like a wild thing.
“Kit, stop tormenting the evil minion and come inside,” I called.
Kit paused and turned to me with a furrowed brow. “But Rick—” She blinked and exclaimed, “Oh! Rick! You’re alright!”
“Your boss is currently comforting his wife,” I told the shadow. “I think you’re off the clock.”
The minion disappeared in a blink. I don’t know if it actually left, or if it just blended with the other shadows around it. Either way it was gone, and that meant Kit could stop chasing it and join us.
“Got a few scratches on you,” she noted as she entered the tower.
“I’ll bandage him up,” Brendon assured her, leading me into the bathroom. “If the mage and his wife come down, don’t let them leave.”
Kit saluted him and closed the door, which was really all anyone needed to do, then sat on the couch with Franny.
Brendon closed the door to the bathroom, leaving us alone in the small space. His eyes roamed over me. At first, I thought he was cataloging my potential wounds, but he spent the longest time looking at my face.
Gods, if he kept looking at me like that—
We moved at the same time. He cupped my face, probably afraid to put his hands anywhere else, and I clutched the front of his shirt as our lips met in a fierce clash. He slowed down, treating me delicately, like he was afraid too much pressure would break me.
Since he didn’t look wounded, I had no such worries. I explored his mouth with lips and tongue while my hands roamed under his shirt to feel his tense muscles and soft, warm skin. The pain from my own wounds faded to background noise compared to the strain of my erection against my too-tight pants.
