Complete Me (Royals Saga Book 7) Read online

  She’d never expected to find true love. Not after her first serious relationship had ended in betrayal. Maybe that was how she had found him: by not looking. However Smith Price had come into her life, she had no plans to give him up. They had been through a lot together. More than most couples faced in a lifetime. Some of it she had been able to put behind her. Other things she would carry with her always. Her solace was that he would be there to help her carry the burden. He nuzzled against her, his whiskers tickling her skin, and she giggled.

  “You smell like me,” she informed him.

  “That is my favorite cologne, beautiful.” He licked his lips to drive the point home. “Priceless.”

  “I think it’s full of Price actually. Namely my price.” She pointed down.

  “Rather mine, I think,” he corrected. Slanting his head, he kissed her deeply. His lips tasted of the heady mix of arousal and climax he’d drawn from her body. When she was younger, she would never have allowed a man to kiss her after that. But somehow Smith made the forbidden erotic. It was why she could never say no to him.

  Still, if she wanted to get any work done, she’d have to start by cutting him off. Wriggling off his lap, she darted out of his reach and collected her trousers. Smith shook his head with disapproval.

  “I think I have some mints in the drawer,” she told him, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek and wrinkling her nose.

  “I like smelling like you,” he reminded her. “I’ll enjoy it all day and it will give me all sorts of ideas on what I should do to you tonight.”

  “Don't you have a meeting? Your clients might take offense.” Part of her thrilled at the idea of marking her husband with her scent, but the other part didn't relish the idea of him running around London smelling like sex.

  “You're no fun, beautiful. Are they in here?”

  She glanced over to see him pulling open the left drawer.

  “No, not there,” she said in a hurry, but it was too late. He was already rifling through it. Then he stopped, his hand on something and his expression unreadable before he pulled a thin compact out of the drawer.

  “What's this?” he asked quietly.

  He already knew the answer. It was written in disapproval across his handsome face. Belle tried to think of an explanation that would appease him. She could lie and pretend that she had no idea that they were in there, but he wasn't a stupid man. Plus, she'd tried to stop him from looking. She could say they were old, but it didn't matter. Her silence had already spoken volumes.

  Smith collapsed into the desk chair, his shoulders drooping under the weight of disappointment. She'd never seen him like this. It was a quiet anger that rolled off of him. Usually he let his feelings be known in a much more vocal manner. The silence between them grew deafening until she couldn't stop herself from filling it.

  “I don't know why,” she blurted out in answer to a question he hadn’t asked.

  “So they are birth control pills,” he clarified, as he tossed them onto the desktop. “All these months, I thought that you or that I ...”

  Smith trailed away. He had never seemed terribly disappointed when her period arrived each month. After their miscarriage the previous winter, they'd halfheartedly agreed to let nature take its course, but when Belle's doctor had offered her the prescription during her follow-up exam, she'd taken it and filled it.

  “If you didn't want to have a baby, you could've told me.” Accusation sliced through his words. Apparently, she’d been terribly wrong about his desires. How could she have misread him?

  “I d-d-do want to have a baby,” she stammered. Didn’t she? She hadn’t been prepared to have this conversation, but now she knew she’d been avoiding the subject entirely.

  “It sure as hell doesn't seem like it.” He stood and strode across the room, grabbing his jacket from the hook and tugging it on.

  When he reached for his coat, she couldn't stop herself. “I didn't think you wanted to have a baby. I thought you were just trying to make me feel better.”

  He drew it on before turning to face her slowly. “Birds of a feather, remember? I want to have everything with you, Belle. I thought that was a desire that we shared. Maybe I was wrong.”

  Then he was gone.

  3

  The study was quiet. He hadn't bothered to turn on any lights. Since he'd given up drinking, he didn't need to see to pour a glass. Instead, all he had to do was find a chair. Smith had driven around for a few hours trying to clear his head. When he got home, he half-expected to find her there, but the house was empty. It felt a lot like a metaphor for his life right now. How could she have lied to him for so long? He knew it was more complicated than that, but that was the crux of the issue for him.

  When Belle had told him she was unexpectedly pregnant, something he'd never predicted happened. He fell in love with the future, and that destiny had been taken from him only hours later. At the time, he chalked it up to tragedy. There'd been plenty of reason to wait then and plenty of drama to distract him. Once things had calmed down and the two had begun to enjoy their honeymoon together, the tantalizing prospect of that future reappeared. The last few months had been spent in bed, chasing it. Or so he had thought.

  He'd seen how happy she was when she told him she was pregnant. There had been apprehension, of course. Since it hadn't been planned, she'd had no idea how he would react, but he'd wanted that baby from that moment. It had been real to both of them, and as each month passed and her period came, life felt a little bleaker. It was a combination of factors, really. He'd wondered if something was wrong with him. That was rational. Somewhere deeper inside him, though, in an ugly place that he tried to ignore, he questioned if he was being punished for his past mistakes. He hated himself every time he couldn't give Belle a child, convinced it was his sins that kept him from completing their family.

  Now, he'd discovered it had all been a charade. He was angry with her even though he didn't want to be. In truth, they really hadn't discussed having a child, and he'd made certain assumptions. Logic told him that this was about a lot more than not being ready or miscommunication, still, he couldn't quite see pass the betrayal. He'd been trying to give her the world, and she was rejecting his offer.

  “Don't be an arse, Price,” he commanded himself. His wife was a much more complicated woman than he was giving her credit for, and she had to have her reasons. But knowing that did nothing to dissipate the sting of it.

  The door to the office cracked open, and a slant of light fell across the floor. Belle tiptoed into the room as if she was afraid of him. He didn't really know what to say to her, so he waited. She cleared her throat, and then she took the package of pills out of her purse and tossed them in the rubbish bin.

  “I'm not going to take these,” she told him.

  Smith let his head fall backward in frustration. Somehow he'd managed to guilt her into doing something she didn't want to do. “Take them, don't take them. It's up to you.”

  “It's up to us,” she said softly. “All those things I told you earlier were true, but there's something I left out.” She nearly tripped over her own feet trying to take a chair. His hand reached up and flipped on the lamp so that she could see better. That's when he realized she was shaking. She looked delicate cast in the shadows with her pale hair framing her lovely face. His wife had a petite body that drove him crazy. Most of the time she wore heels with black dresses and scarlet lipstick, but right now, she was still in her low-cut sweater and trousers. Her eyes were rimmed red as though she'd been crying.

  Smith knew she was strong, but he also knew she could be fragile. As she sat across from him looking small and scared, he felt his anger begin to soften.

  “The truth is,” she continued in a low voice, “I'm the one who lost the baby. It's my fault.”

  “It's no one's fault,” he cut in.

  She shook her head adamantly. “It was my body. I'm the one that's broken.”

  “We saw the doctor,” he reminded her tryin
g to sound gentle. Instantly, her confession had erased all the rage he'd felt. Now, all he could do was comfort her. How his beautiful, brilliant wife could blame herself for something so far out of her control, he didn't understand, but he wouldn't allow her to do so.

  “And we didn't get any answers,” she said.

  Smith thought about rattling off the statistics the doctor had shared with them. One in four pregnancies ended in a miscarriage they were told, but that didn't seem to be the salve she needed. Her wounds ran deeper than he realized. The only things that could heal her were patience and love. Getting up, he went to her and dropped to his knees beside her. Looking into her eyes, he decided not to offer cursory rationalizations. Not when he had also been victim to his own paranoia. Hadn't he been the one to believe for months that they'd been unable to get pregnant because of his past indiscretions? Was that any more ridiculous than Belle's fear that her body didn't work? No. The problem had been that they had not been on the same page. He took her hands. “Beautiful, there are a million reasons that we might have lost that baby.”

  “I don't know if I can go through that again,” she whispered. “It still hurts. How can it hurt to miss someone I never got to know?”

  “It hurts me, too,” he admitted to her.

  “What if it happens again?” she asked.

  “Then, it will hurt more,” he answered, “but if we don't try, then we'll never know. And if we don't try, we'll miss out on the possibility. Even though it hurts now, I fell in love with the idea of our child, and I got to have that if only for a few hours. I wouldn't change any of it. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I want to share everything with you.”

  They stared into each other's eyes for a long while. When Belle finally opened her mouth to speak, the trembling was gone. Instead her voice was clear and certain. “I want to have your baby.”

  Perhaps she didn’t mean immediately, but he wasn’t going to wait. He stood and reached for her. Their eyes remained locked together as she got to her feet. Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her to the bedroom. This afternoon had been the time for foreplay. Tonight was about connection. When he placed her on the ground, she loosened his tie and tossed it to the ground. There would be no need for that—all they needed was one another. Flesh and bone, body and soul. She fumbled with his buttons and he cupped her face in his hands. He needed to touch her. That wasn’t anything new, but the physical urge to feel her skin consumed him. Even the innocent gesture sent a concentrated blast of blood to his dick. It hardened painfully as if it, too, felt the overwhelming compulsion to mate. Belle finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off, then she found his cock with her hand.

  “No need to rush, beautiful,” he murmured.

  “I need you inside me,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever needed anything so badly.”

  He could take his time and still meet her needs, he decided. Moving quickly, he stripped her clothes as she unbuckled his trousers. Within moments they were bared to each other. No matter how many times he saw her body, he would never get enough. The idea that it might change in the coming months—that it might swell and and bloom with life—overtook him. Before she could respond, he’d hitched her around his waist and plunged inside her. He didn’t care about allowing her time to adjust to his girth. He didn’t worry about being rough. Smith knew that the only thing that mattered to either of them was completing one another. Belle cried out as she sank completely onto him. She rocked against him, and he guided her open further. She whimpered as her clit found the friction she sought. He felt it against his skin, proof that she was just as aroused by forging into the unknown as he was.

  “Fill me,” she pleaded with him.

  Oh God, he wanted nothing more. Since the moment he’d seen her, he had known he would never be satisfied until she was dripping with him every waking moment. It was an impossible feat, but he was up to the challenge. Now that impulse was even more undeniable. He carried her to the wall, using it to brace her body as he thrust. His hips pistoned in deep strokes that bumped against her cervix. Belle began to gasp as her muscles clamped around his shaft.

  “Harder!”

  “Everything for you,” he grunted as a sweat broke across his forehead. Somehow this gorgeous creature had chosen him. She had allowed his body to claim hers, and he would never stop giving her everything she deserved. He ground violently against her until her cries rent the air and her pussy milked jet after jet of his seed. Belle collapsed against him, sagging like a limp doll, and he caught her. She clung to him as he took her to the bed, but when he laid her down, she whimpered.

  “More,” she begged.

  Smith stroked his hand down his slick cock, pumping it vigorously as he lowered his body onto hers. Her thighs opened in welcome and he slid inside her in a swift motion that stole her breath. Bracing his palms on the bed, so he wouldn’t crush her under his weight, he called to her in a soft voice, “Open your eyes, beautiful.”

  Belle’s lashes fluttered as she struggled to obey his command. She peered up at him through hooded eyelids and murmured dreamily, “Yes, Sir.”

  “Not tonight,” he told her, even though he felt a pang in his balls at her words. She was giving everything to him—her trust, her submission, even her future. His mouth found hers and they kissed languidly, gasping and panting as their bodies moved in a slow, primal rhythm. He lifted his head to marvel at the unbroken circle of their love. “Do you feel that? I’m inside you—giving you life.”

  She surged around him and he filled her, completing the circle once more.

  4

  Snow had arrived unseasonably early in London. The delicate flakes grew larger as I watched out the window of my private office. It was yet another reminder that the holidays were only a few weeks away. So was the memo reminding me that we were set to leave for the family home in Balmoral in a little less than a fortnight. And then there was the miniature Christmas tree that a staff member, in their infinite wisdom, had decorated and placed in the corner. The addition would delight Elizabeth when she came to visit Daddy. But no matter what changed, the room still felt like my father’s office. In due time, I’d replace the heavy, velvet drapery and send the ostentatious furniture to storage. It was merely a matter of priority. Removing the remnants of my father was less important after we’d been forced to move into Buckingham only a few weeks after the coronation. It didn’t feel like home. Perhaps, the holidays would finally change that.

  There was a knock on the door and a stammering, young woman peeked in. I rarely noticed the girls on my staff, my eyes completely stuck on my own wife, but I couldn’t help but note that the poor thing was practically the shade of a telephone box. That meant that Brexton had arrived for our meeting.

  “Show him in.” I saved her the humiliation of having to speak.

  She nodded and backed up against the door. Her eyes trailed after my old friend as he entered. I’d seen this reaction to him before, even Clara hadn’t been immune to his looks the first time they had met. I couldn’t be sure if it was the strict, but confident posture he’d developed in the service or the wicked glint of trouble that was omnipresent in his eyes. He was dressed down for the day in jeans and an untucked t-shirt. Judging from the way her eyes lingered it didn’t matter if he was wearing this or his uniform as she was preoccupied with undressing him with her eyes.

  “Thank you,” I called to her as he settled into the chair across from my desk. It took her far too long to realize she’d been dismissed. Curtsying, she quickly shut the door in embarrassment.

  “Some things never change,” I muttered.

  Brexton shrugged as though he had no clue what I was talking about. “Things do change. We used to be out there on the prowl together. Now you don’t need a wingman.”

  “Thank god for that,” I said in flat voice. “You were a terrible wingman.”

  “I resent that. We always went home with a girl,” he said.

  “You always went home
with a girl—usually the one I was eying.”

  He ran a hand over his closely cropped hair that he still wore in military fashion. “Good thing I was deployed when you met Clara.”

  I shot him a warning look. Ribbing was one thing. Bringing my wife into it was another.

  “What couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” he asked, shifting topics before he got into trouble.

  “I want you to look into the matter of my father’s other son.”

  “Why?” he asked. It was clear he already knew about the discovery, given how nonplussed he was by my announcement.

  “Because it’s your job.”

  He blinked. Brexton Miles had known me far too long to be impressed by my title or authority. Most of the time I appreciated this fact, but today I was immune to the effects of sentimentality. That didn’t mean that my good-natured friend and former comrade would simply bow to my will.

  Brex relaxed in his seat. Out of uniform he looked like he spent his days in the gym lifting weights, and, no doubt to his tight, black t-shirt, his nights guarding access to night clubs. However, I knew that he’d achieved his formidable physique by carefully adhering to the fitness regime of the Royal Air Force. “Going to boss me around, Poor Boy? I thought we had an understanding.”

  Despite myself I grinned at the reference to our days on the war front. Brex had treated me no differently then, save to mock my lineage with his tongue-in-cheek nickname. We’d agreed that for him to work on private security team now that our relationship shouldn’t change.

  “I am your king,” I reminded him.

  “Bullshit,” he called, crossing his arms. “You wanted someone who wouldn’t pander to you, remember?”

  “I remember,” I said in a measured tone. That particular detail had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I couldn’t recall what I had been thinking.

  “It was always going to be easier said than done,” Brex pointed out. “But that doesn’t mean that you are off the hook.”