Page 134 of Tall, Royal and Grumpy

Dude it everything okay?

Mariyah

You haven’t messaged for two days.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

KAI

After smashing Meg’s phone, we ended up staying for dinner with Trevor’s parents, which Zain’s wife and children joined us for too. So, by the time Esmeralda and I walked through her bedroom door it had just gone eleven and the entire palace was in bed or getting ready for bed.

She came back out from the walk-in wardrobe, having hung her coat up and abandoned her heels, but I was still standing exactly where she’d left me. By the velvet chaise that I had draped my coat across, staring at nothing in particular until she sauntered over.

She was giving me that look. The one she’d been giving me since we left Beau Fletcher’s house. Like she was summoning her telekinesis powers to read my mind, but she couldn’t figure out what she was seeing, and she didn’t like that.

The thing was, I couldn’t tell what I was feeling myself. Only that the closer she came, the harder the beckoning behind my ribcage became.

She rose on her toes, snaking her arms around my neck, and I sagged against her small, soft body, encircling her around the waist. She kissed me, tugging my lips between hers at a sweet, leisurely pace. With a groan, I sought out her tongue, but she forced me to keep to her slower rhythm.

She still tasted like clementines and cream. It reminded me of how she sat in Trevor’s parents’ living room after dinner, peeling the orange fruits with Zain’s daughter tucked right up against her while Zain’s son sat on her lap. The little girl had been mesmerised by her. So had the boy as he demanded to be fed his share of broken segments covered in squirted cream. Esmeralda had played on the girl’s princess obsession and made both children giggle endlessly, and I…

My gut had felt like a ball of dough being pulled and stretched. Even though it had left me wheezing, it had felt so right too as I’d pictured Esmeralda with our children.

Now the thought was buzzing round and round in my head again in a new form.

I want to put a baby inside her. I want to put a baby inside her. I want to put a baby inside her.

But it strummed at strings that were making me feel angrier, needier. Agitated. Driving me to grapple at Esmeralda, filling one hand with her pert arse and holding her flush against me.

“Kai,” she panted, taking her lips away. An animalistic sound vibrated in my throat as I chased after her, but she lifted her chin and my lips landed against the underside of her jaw. One whiff of her sweet, peony scent, and I was burying my face into her neck like a starved brute. She sucked in a breath, quivering on her legs as she fought her instinctive impulse to squirm.

“Kai,” she whispered against my cheek. “What’s wrong?” Her question might not have cut through the fog playing games with my mind had it not been for the waver in her voice.

I lifted my mouth to her hair but failed to loosen my grip on her. “I don’t know, I just…I don’t know.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but I couldn’t give her anything more. My emotions were birds freed from a cage, flying all over the place at once. I could just about hold onto a few of them.

I was happy that this nightmare had been dealt with. Relieved that I’d faced Meg and won. I was in awe of how powerful and fierce Esmeralda had been by my side, in my defence.

But I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate.

It wasn’t technically over yet. Not until after the trial within a few weeks, even though it was just a legal formality. Meg would be charged. But I was still uneasy. And irritated.

I’d lost nearly three days with Esmeralda because of this mess. I didn’t blame her one bit, but fuck, it made me so angry thinking about all the memories I could have made with her. Now it was hitting me repeatedly like a sledgehammer that she was leaving the day after tomorrow and I wasn’t ready.

I hadn’t even managed to take her on our first date yet. That was somewhat ironic though. Because in truth, I was ready to get down on one knee and ask this beautiful woman to stay with me and let me love her for the rest of our lives. To make me her husband and let me give her a family.

That was why my agitation and irritation were so heightened. I knew she was endgame for me, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to prove I could be endgame for her. What if she went back to Jahandar and realised she wasn’t really in love with a needy, jealous recluse of a prince like me?

The anxiety was unforgiving. It made my teeth ache, my hands twitch, my temple throb, and my heart sweat with how fast it was racing. Was this what withdrawal felt like?

“Kai.” A gentle brush of her fingers across the back of my neck and I was falling out of my head and right back into her arms.

She squeezed her palm around my nape, and I don’t know what it was about the touch, but the words came surging out of my mouth as a croak. “I love you.”

Her mouth didn’t move, but her eyes smiled so tenderly. “I love you too. So much.” She pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “Let’s go shower.”

I found it oddly therapeutic watching Esmeralda through the bathroom sink mirror wipe her make-up off with soaked cotton pads before splashing her face with water. By the time she turned to me with fresh, glowing skin, a beautiful, natural pinkness in her cheeks, my twitchy symptoms had faded into a relative easiness.

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