Chandelier (Tarnished Crowns Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “I compromise your safety.”

  “So we keep it to ourselves.”

  He looks away. “Maybe I don’t want to hear the speculation of you dating other men or see them trying to get to you.” When he looks back at me, his eyes flicker.

  “What about Isaac? How well do you know him, Ben?”

  “Better than you think.”

  I shouldn’t feel the way I am. I should be walking out of that room and into the arms of someone who understands my position, of the family I’m born into, of the faint line I walk. Someone who will make me a wife where I can continue to be a chandelier, have children, support my charities, be a figurehead. I shouldn’t be standing here, looking into the eyes of a man who I know has the power to kill me, and I shouldn’t be feeling the place between my legs get wet and hot at what I think he’s saying.

  He’s a player, Blair, and not just with women.

  I haven’t just stepped into a tangled web, I’ve become one of the threads, equally bound and equally binding.

  “You and Isaac?”

  “No… yes, shit. This is fucking complicated.” He pushes his hand through his hair. “Blair…”

  I put my hands on his face, making him look at me. “Have you slept with him?”

  My heart is aching, pounding. I feel sick and jealous and needy all at the same time.

  “Yes.”

  “When.”

  “After you thought my sister was someone else.”

  Too many colours hit my brain, too many images. I need his words. “Did he fuck you or did you fuck him?”

  He looks at me, a damaged, scared boy.

  “Or was it both?”

  Something crackles. My ears pound with the blood that’s racing through my veins.

  “Do you want details, Blair?” Ben’s voice is low; he stands up straighter, his hands taking my wrists and gripping them. “Do you want to know how I fucked his mouth and talked about how tight your pussy was while I did it? Shall I tell you what he said about you while he was fucking my ass? Do you want to hear every little detail? Because he did about you.”

  I’m now pressed against the door, Ben’s big body closing me in. Between my thighs is sticky with lust and my nipples have hardened. There are no guidelines here as to what to do. The only person who could give me advice would be Micky and I already know what he’d say.

  Take that walk on the wild side and you’ll never come back.

  I think I took that walk weeks ago when a man I didn’t really know watched another man fuck me and I didn’t tell him to go.

  I never closed that door.

  He’s just told me he’s fucked the man I kissed and I should feel betrayed and upset and hurt; instead, I’m imagining the three of us together and wondering how it would feel.

  It’s me who takes hold of the back of Ben’s neck and I pull myself up to press my lips to his. The kiss is a reunion, because it’s been too long and I’m too needy. There’s no sense behind this, no agenda, no wisdom. Just need and desire and lust.

  Maybe love.

  He kisses me back and it’s furious and fast. I cup his cock and find it hard, pulling at the zipper of his trousers while he pushes up the skirt of my dress.

  I’m going to be late for the reception and I’m going to go in there smelling of sex.

  His fingers find my wet cunt and I hear him groan about my lack of underwear as he roughly pushes two fingers into me, pumping.

  I shift a leg around his waist and he boosts me up, removing his hand.

  “I have to always keep you safe. I can’t promise you anything else than to keep you safe.” His words are soft as he lines his cock up to my entrance and pushes in, his head tipping back as I clamp my pussy around him.

  “Why do you have to keep me safe?”

  He pauses, deep inside me. “Because I fucking fell in love with you when I found you in my maze and I never fell out of it.”

  I know I’m crying. I know there are tears running out of my eyes as I come, his cock driving into me almost violently because this is how we are. Pleasure with a bite of pain.

  I’m telling him I love him when he comes inside me, my nails digging into any skin I can find, my legs twisted around his waist. I don’t know what anyone passing thinks of the noise coming from the room, but I’m beyond caring.

  We kiss as he pulls out of me and I’m thankful for the long skirt.

  “Did you mean what you said?” He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and drops to his knees, cleaning up between my legs. “That you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Can you take me at my word?”

  I have to keep you safe.

  “Yes.”

  Reality starts to grip me. “I need to go back to my room. And we’re late already.”

  Ben nods. “They’ll wait for you. They always do.”

  Eyes land on me when I finally enter the reception room, carrying a glass of champagne and looking more put together than I feel. The pieces that Ben has shattered me into have been stuck together with nearly three decades of training and the quiet touch Ben held my arm with, or touched my back with, while I patched up my make-up and cleaned myself up, so I didn’t look like I’d just been fucked hard against the back of the door.

  William Goldsmith is the first over, giving me a smile that makes Ben tense besides me.

  “You look stunning.” He leans in to kiss my cheek.

  I smile politely and don’t return the gesture, clutching my glass. I’m still wet between my legs from my arousal and Ben’s semen and the secret of it is making me burn.

  “Thank you. It’s nice to get dressed up sometimes. How are the talks going?”

  He nods, looking relaxed. “Very well. Your brother is doing a job the king will be proud of. May I get you another drink?”

  I hate the fact he’s mentioned my father. “I’m good with this at the moment, but thank you.”

  He nods, touches my arm and lets it linger there for a little too long.

  Other guests come over as I circulate through the room, asking after my father, complimenting Lennox, throwing other pieces of inane conversation around. I do my job, Ben never too far away and a second pair of eyes. Watching us both.

  Isaac keeps his distance. I see him talking to Lennox, smiling and laughing, looking relaxed. Then his eyes will focus back on me, not diverting when I catch him. Or he looks at Ben.

  At the meal, I’m seated between Ben and Goldsmith, clearly my brother’s planning. I don’t blame Lennox. My heart softens when I think of what he’s trying to do, because it’s what he believes is for the best of everyone. His dream.

  And we’re all just the other pieces on the board.

  “What are you planning to do tomorrow?” Goldsmith asks. “Will you listen to the speeches or are you spending the day shopping?”

  My wrath grows a little. I won’t deny that I like shopping but to assume - I breathe. Count. He’s ignorant, not harmful.

  Ben touches my thigh under the table and I still myself. This isn’t the beginning and end of my world. I have to manage Goldsmith, nothing more.

  “I’m hoping to listen to the speeches.”

  He nods, smiles. “I suppose you learned a lot from your father and your brother.”

  “And my mother.”

  He stills. “Of course. I hear Maigread is key to your father’s success.”

  My spine is rigid. A warm hand touches my back, digs its fingers into the flesh.

  “My mother is key to a lot of things. She and my father work as a team.” Then it hit me. A bus crashes into my chest. My father’s illness. My mother’s resilience. The show always goes on but I don’t know how I will not fall apart when he loses his final battle.

  I feel my eyes start to fill and I look at Ben because I need protecting at this point. My father is dying and I don’t know how to solve this.

  “You mother is highly thought of. Do you want children…”

  His words dim as reality sh
ines a spotlight on what’s going to happen.

  “Blair, do you…”

  The look I give Goldsmith is probably enough to kill most men.

  “When I find the right man, I’ll consider a family.” My words are almost curt. The waiting staff clear the table. One more course and I can move.

  “Of course.” Goldsmith beams. “I’ve always thought I’d be a family man…”

  I let him prattle on, nodding and smiling, aware of Ben’s hand somewhere on me, discreet as always. It isn’t asking, it’s telling me that I’m okay; that he’s here. My trampoline for me to bounce back from.

  Dessert arrives, then coffee and petit fours. I nibble enough to stop the speculation that I’m dieting, managing to switch plates with Ben while Isaac’s eyes latch onto us from across the room.

  We’re all sitting around a large banqueting table, oblong and metres in length. It’s reminiscent of previous monarchs and my father should be here to head it up, not my brother.

  I look at Lennox and catch his eye. He doesn’t apply his mask for me. His eyes lower and he drops his chin and I know he’s feeling the same.

  Ben doesn’t move when I leave my seat, walking around the table to my brother. Lennox stands, moves away, innately understanding why I’m here.

  “Dad.”

  He nods. “I know.”

  “You need to say something about Dad. Everyone here knows he’s sick, Len. Acknowledge it.”

  He nods, acquiesces.

  I don’t go back to my seat. I stand at the back of the room, watching the people mingle and speak, discussing treaty and procedure, making connections, making us grow. We never get it right because each of us is only human, the sum of all our parts, and each part is flawed.

  I see my brother, charming and affable, making someone laugh and someone else smile; the shaking of hands.

  I sip my rum and cola. Watching.

  Ben joins me, saying nothing, holding a beer. We lean back against the wall, waiting.

  Pigeons watching, perching. Waiting. Or Eagles, maybe.

  It depends how high we soar.

  Lennox stands, taps his glass with a fork and the room comes to a halt, needing to listen.

  “All of you know my father has been tired. There has been speculation that he’s ill, and this isn’t just speculation. It’s true.”

  I don’t choke or show anything but the emotion they would expect as Lennox speaks and eyes flit my way. I am serene, as if I control this charade, this pretence that I feel only what is becoming.

  “My father can’t be here today. He has stage four cancer of the liver and needs to spend his time in the place that he loves with the people he loves the most, so he has passed it to Blair and I to disseminate his views, feelings and vision.”

  “My father loves his country and his people. He also loves our history. A history that entwines Scotland with England. We are strongest when we are together…”

  Ben puts his hand around my waist, the darkness shielding up from everything but Isaac’s eyes that I am fixed on from the other side of the room.

  He isn’t listening to a word of Lennox’s rhetoric. He’s watching us, as if we’re the only three people in the room.

  “We should go.” My words to Ben are low and quiet. The focus is on Lennox as he delivers a eulogy to my father before he’s dead and I’m not sure I can listen any longer.

  “We should.” He takes my hand and we slip away, through the silent hallways and corridors of the hotel, through the ghost town of rooms to the floor where my empty suite sits.

  “I’m sorry about your dad.” Ben’s words are choked.

  I don’t look at him.

  “We don’t know how long.”

  “Then take the time you have. I didn’t get that with my mother and I wish I had.”

  I hear the pain in his voice.

  “I hate that you didn’t have her. At least I’ve had mine this long.”

  “It was because England didn’t want immigrants.”

  My hands touch him as we walk down the anonymous corridor, feeling his heat and his pain. He doesn’t respond and I remember when we were younger, how my father had used to come out to see the gardens and Ben’s dad, talking with them about hydrangeas and honeysuckle and how the lawns were taking.

  It was affirmation.

  All of it gave a purpose.

  Just like now. Ben’s purpose is to keep me safe and whatever demons lurk; he will do that.

  I feel safe. I need to feel safe.

  My door is secured. I need my key card to enter and although I’m pretty sure Ben has one made up, he waits for me to do it.

  We enter the rooms in silence, the blinds open to expose a view of the city at night. There are no stars. The planets don’t shine through the neon shimmers the city provides, but it’s equally beautiful.

  I head to the window and look out, seeing the life carrying on around us, because it will always be this way. No matter what decisions are made in parliament or court, life will carry on. Whatever happens tonight won’t stop the world from turning.

  Arms hold me round my waist; a chin rests in the recess between my shoulder and neck. I smell man; Ben.

  There are no words.

  I can hold my breath and wish for another day, but we’re here and now and I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to enjoy what little we have.

  I push back, feel his hands, need to feel. We’ve made it to the safety of a place away from prying ears and eyes, but the devil’s still here, promising things that cannot be but we’ll still take them anyway.

  There’s a gentleness I’ve not felt from him. Ben’s touch is smooth, soft, as it glides across my body. It’s nothing like we had before. The rush and pace isn’t there, the force of everything and the pressure non-existent.

  We have all the time.

  All what is given.

  His hands caress skin that was undiscovered, his lips sucking on my neck as I watch the neon lights glimmer and shine like false diamonds. But they give hope.

  “You need to forget.”

  Ben’s words are manna to my ears and I turn away from the window towards him.

  “I know. But I can’t carry on escaping. You’ll tell me tomorrow that this can’t be anything more than us in a room.”

  “Does that matter now?”

  “It’ll make tomorrow harder but I don’t want you to stop.”

  So he doesn’t. He kisses from my mouth to my neck, his big hands stripping me of my dress, leaving me bare for him. Nothing is rushed; Ben takes his time covering every centimetre of my skin with his mouth, guiding me to the bed and laying me on my back.

  He straddles me, still clothed, and continues his exploration of my body. Every time before desire has rushed us, taken away the time as we sought to devour each other and then again.

  This time it’s different. His tongue teases my nipples, his hands caressing my breasts. I thread my fingers through his hair and guide the pressure, watching him look up at me. He leaves a trail of kisses across my stomach to between my legs and starts to lick, tiny flickers of his tongue making me moan and spread my legs wider for him.

  I pull at his shirt, his jacket already discarded, urge him to strip. I want faster, harder, because I’m not sure I can cope with the tenderness he’s showing, but he ignores me.

  “Isaac wants to watch.” He looks up at me, his eyes showing me more than desire. “He asked. The final answer isn’t mine to give. Is it?”

  I sit up, take back some control and start to undo the buttons of his shirt. He helps, working around my fingers that are trembling with more than lust. “Yes. It hurts you can share me.”

  “It shouldn’t. I wouldn’t with anyone else. I trust him, Blair.” Ben sends a message on his phone.

  His chest is hard and firm, his skin scarred in places. War wounds. I trace the laddered rivers of skin, touching them gently until he catches my hand and places it over his cock which is hard and erect.

  “The fi
rst time you touched me here I thought I’d gone to heaven. I didn’t understand why a girl as beautiful as you wanted to do anything with me. The first time I made you come I knew that if I never touched anyone else it wouldn’t matter.” He pinches my nipples, lingering with his fingers. “Every first you give me takes more of me away.”

  I undo his trousers, freeing his cock, feeling the silken skin of it in my hand. Pre-cum glistens at the tip and I want to put him in my mouth. I bend down but he stops me.

  “After. There’s only one place I want to be.” He tips up my chin and kisses me, his hand cupping my sex, thumb brushing my clit.

  I lie back, spread my legs, opening myself up to him, using my hips to urge him on. I’m needy and wanting, desperate for a release and to feel him inside.

  He lines himself up, then pushes into me, stilling once he’s fully sheathed inside. I hear myself whimper and clutch at his arms, wrapping my legs over his.

  There’s a click and footsteps, but Ben doesn’t pause. Maybe he doesn’t hear. I turn my head to the open bedroom door as I whisper Ben’s name, feeling myself tighten around his cock. Isaac stands in the doorway, his collar button undone, his tie in one hand. He looks at me, my eyes and then down my body, over my breasts and at Ben watching him fuck me.

  Ben looks up, driving in harder, making my tits bounce. I’m torn between watching Ben and watching Isaac, who’s undone his fly and is stroking his cock, coming closer to us.

  “Is he going to make you come, Blair?” Isaac’s voice is quiet and low.

  “Yes.” I grip Ben’s shoulders. I’m being watched as Ben fucks me and it’s making me wetter, my nipples harder. I want Isaac to touch me or touch Ben.

  Ben changes the angle, lifting up on his knees, bending my legs so I’m opened wider, giving Isaac a view of his cock pumping in and out of my pussy. He looks up at Isaac and smiles, a broad, arrogant grin.

  Isaac’s hand touches my arm, my hand on Ben’s forearms. Then he bends down and kisses Ben, their mouths meeting in a fleeting kiss before breaking apart and Isaac’s eyes returning to my cunt and Ben’s cock.