I’m not much into sports, but watching my boyfriends ride around in sexy outfits on the backs of beautiful horses is a real treat, particularly because Charlie seems to be enjoying himself, brown eyes shining as he watches the match.
The two teams are fairly evenly matched, with both experienced and inexperienced players (Zayd is a cutie, but he’s kind of useless, as is the security guard that got wrangled into the mix), and the score is close. I could tell that even without Alex explaining it to me.
No, it’s all there in the set of her son’s shoulders, the frown on his face, and the way his eyes lock on Tristan’s from across the field.
There might be other people out here, but they’re having a very personal and private sparring match so far as I can tell.
Tristan smirks, and the expression infuriates the prince even further, causing him to get sloppy and desperate with his moves—just like he warned Creed about during their sword fighting match. When his team loses, and he hops off his horse in a rage, I scramble to my feet.
“Be right back,” I tell Charlie and Alex, running down the steps and out from underneath the covered awning toward the barn. When Windsor York loses, he gets mad. And today, he is pissed.
I manage to get in the building using a side door, just seconds before the prince does.
Windsor storms into the barn, sweaty and furious, flicking his polo stick to the side. Dressed in those tight pants and boots, the hat, and the black jacket, he's a fucking vision. He really does look like a prince right now; it'd be impossible to think of him as anything else.
He's panting hard and shaking. His gloved hands curl into fists as he looks down at me.
“What an insufferable brat your friend is,” he says, struggling to control himself. He hates to lose. Hates it. And he just lost on his home turf to Tristan Vanderbilt of all people. “Maybe it was a mistake on my part to bring him back to Burberry?”
“Is that what you really think?” I ask as Windsor moves up to stand in front of me, and I step back, putting my body against the outside of one of the horse stalls. The soft sound of hooves and whickering filters through to me.
“I think …” Windsor starts, reaching down to unbutton his jacket, carefully undoing each gold button with perfect precision. “He's important to you, and I just want to give you what you want. There is that.” His jacket comes undone, revealing the sweat-soaked white polo shirt underneath. Wind tosses his jacket aside onto the hay-covered dirt floor.
“You're working yourself too hard,” I tell him, because I've been thinking that for a long time. Windsor York is always one step ahead, and fighting like hell to keep things that way. He needs a break. Even I know that. “You don't have to be everywhere all the time.”
“Yes, I do,” he says, and then he tosses his black helmet aside, letting it bounce across the stable floor. “I won't let some spoiled American brats beat me.”
My lips purse, but I can feel this thread of tension in Windsor that's snapped. Here's the bully of bullies I was so worried about before. I always figured if he came unleashed, he could do real damage. Of course, he's been doing damage all along behind the scenes, but … he seems pretty pissed at Tristan right now.
I move away from the post and walk in a half-circle around him, the short lace dress I donned for the event whispering against my thighs. A breeze whistles down the corridor, and I reach up to keep the straw hat on my head from blowing off.
“Windsor,” I start, but he's already yanking his polo shirt aside and turning to face me, shirtless and sweaty and beautiful. He watches me with those gorgeous hazel eyes of his, a veritable mosaic of gray, green, gold, and brown flecks. It pairs perfectly with his red hair and the high, sharp lines of his cheekbones. “What are you doing?”
“I don't know,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them back up. “When it comes to you, Marnye Elizabeth Reed, I haven't the slightest idea. I thought you'd be a fast burn, fun way to pass the time …” He steps forward, that daffodil and leather polish smell of his tickling my nostrils. It's mixed with that fresh sweat scent that brings to mind all sorts of naughty things we could be doing in the dark. “Instead, you've become a slow burn obsession.”
“An obsession, huh?” I whisper, finding it very hard to breathe in the dusky warmth of the barn. Windsor steps up close to me and uses one of his gloves to push the hair off of my forehead. “Are you sure it isn't just because you don't want to lose?” I look up into his face, searching for the truth there. Windsor's a mix of emotions right now, the anger still riding high in his face.
“At first, I think you're right,” he says, his English accent softening a bit at the edges. “You're bloody right. I didn't want to lose, not to the other boys, and not to the Infinity Club bastards. But … it's not like that anymore.”
“Why not?” I'm studying him at the same time as he's studying me, drawing his fingers down the side of my face.
“I've applied to Bornstead, you know. I'm as hopeless as the rest of those arseholes.” Windsor reaches up and pulls the hat from my head, tossing it aside. “My mother wants me to go to school in England, but I've never been interested.”
“Bornstead, huh?” I ask, feeling this happy flush shoot through me. “What will you study there?”
Windsor's mouth twists into a smile.
“Do you want to kiss me right now, Marnye Reed?” he asks, completely side-stepping the question. “Because I'm dying to kiss you.” Windsor steps forward and curves his fingers gently against the back of my neck, breathing lightly against my lips before he finally closes the distance and kisses me properly.
His kiss is just as possessive as Zack’s, but in a completely different way. Zack kisses like an alpha in need of a mate, while Wind … he kisses like a royal giving a decree. He commands me with his mouth, tasting me and offering up an exquisite burn of pleasure that has me gasping and backing away.
A gloved hand curls around my wrist, and he yanks me against his bare and sweaty chest, the hardness beneath his riding pants pressing into my stomach. The way he looks down at me, I can see it. He doesn’t believe he can lose, not in this. His feelings for me might be genuine, but I don’t like the cocky attitude.
“You better wipe that smirk off your face,” I tell him, but his smile simply stretches into a carnal grin. I’d say it were feral if it weren’t so polished, but there is that edge there, reminding me that no matter how good he’s been to me, no matter how loyal a friend, he’s dangerous as hell, too.
“Make me.” Windsor backs me up toward the open door of a stall and pushes me in, sending me to my ass in a pile of warm, dry hay. He kneels down between my legs as my heart thunders a mile a minute, my pulse heating my blood and sending it to all the places my body wishes he would touch. “Make me, Marnye Reed. Tame the bad boy. That’s what you like, isn’t it? The chase, the challenge.”
“It’s not like that,” I tell him, but maybe he’s right. Maybe I do have a thing for the broken ones? I like to fix things, make them right again, study the world and learn how it works. What makes this any different?
“Sure it isn’t,” Windsor says, putting his palms on my legs and making me flush. He takes hold of my knees and carefully spreads my legs, maintaining eye contact with me all the while. “I hate your friend, but I like you too much to care.” He smooths his hands up the insides of my legs and makes me moan, the whinny of a horse two stalls down the only sound besides our labored breathing.
Windsor leans down and presses a kiss to the inside of my knee, working his way up toward my panties until I’m panting and shaking, desperate for him to touch something besides just my leg. He reaches down with two fingers and pulls a condom from his boot.
His boot.
He was keeping one in his fucking boot.
“You’re a monster,” I whisper, but I mean that in the most affectionate way possible as he finally leans down and nips at my panties, getting my clit just enough that my hips buck up involuntarily.
“Maybe, but I’m your monster. You should see what I’ve got planned for that bitch Ileana Taittinger. When we get back to school, I’ll hand you her head on a plate as a Christmas gift.” Windsor sits up and opens his fly with deft movements of his gloved fingers, keeping eye contact with me all the way. He frees his shaft, and my breathing picks up an even quicker pace.
But I can’t look away from him to see it. I’ll have to look later.
The condom is on in seconds, and then Wind is climbing over me, still looking down into my eyes. He pushes my panties aside, positions himself at my opening, and drives into me with a deep, hard thrust. I see stars, and tears form at the edges of my eyes as he groans, some of that perfect princely polish falling away in desperate male sounds of pleasure.
“Oh, fuck,” he groans, putting his face against my neck for just a moment to breathe, and then he looks back down at me with those hazel eyes, the gold bits seeming to shine even brighter than usual. I can feel him inside of me, taking up every spare bit of space. Windsor takes my hand in one of his gloved ones and puts it between us, encouraging me to pleasure myself with my fingers. “Oh yes, Marnye,” he murmurs, “so worth the wait.”
The prince fucks me into the pile of hay with deep, quick movements, his hips pushing against mine as one of his gloved hands closes over my breast and he bites the nipple through the lace. I’m lost to him, completely and utterly destroyed.
It’s quick and messy, our frantic coupling in the barn, but Wind is right: so worth the wait. My orgasm is like a ripple on a pond, starting small in my core and then taking over my body in waves until it’s a tsunami that destroys me from the inside out. Wind comes hard with a final thrust, so deep that I can feel him touch me in a place that feels both strange and good at the same time.
My hands cling to his sweaty, bare back as he shudders and then finally goes still, bracing himself above me with his elbows. Another horse whinnies nearby.