Breathe Me: Smith and Belle (Royals Saga Book 11) Read online

  Smith

  My wine cellar now sported a line of police tape, a half finished floor, and no hope of being finished by the end of the month. I’d sent Belle up for a nap hours ago in what was likely a futile attempt to keep her from getting upset. She’d handled the sight of a pile of remains found in her new home remarkably well. I wasn’t sure that would hold with time.

  “Mr. Price,” Detective Longborn, a stump of a man with a handlebar mustache better suited to a different century, ambled toward me, scratching his head. “Someone will be by tomorrow to collect the bones. I’m sorry we can’t get anyone out here sooner.”

  “I don’t think they’ll mind waiting a little longer,” I said dryly.

  “Looks to have been there for some time. These things happen with these old estates,” he said thoughtfully. “Although there are stories about Thornham Park…”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted him to finish that sentence.

  “Stories?”

  “Superstitious nonsense they whisper about in the village. Ghosts and tragic stories,” he said.

  “Is that all?” I said, relieved. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Not the ones that came with haunted houses, anyway. Real ghosts only exist in our memories as punishment for those we’ve wronged. I had those ghosts once, and Belle’s love had driven them away. I wasn’t scared of this house or its past after surviving that. “If there’s anything we can do to speed up the investigation. My wife is due this week, and we’re already cutting things close with our crews.”

  “Oh, I imagine there’s nothing to it. We’ll send them over to the London lab and I’ll be in touch. Hopefully, you won’t dig up any more secrets.” Longborn winked at me, and I forced a grim smile.

  I had plenty of secrets of mine I’d rather stay buried. I couldn’t help wondering if someday, decades from now, maybe centuries, some poor bastard would dig mine up.

  I waved the detectives off from the front entrance, glad to see them climbing back into their cars. It had been a long time since I’d been under the scrutiny of the authorities. It wasn’t as if I was now. In fact, they’d hardly seemed phased by the discovery. I guess you get used to disturbing finds when you live somewhere with this much past.

  Benjamin waited until they pulled away to deliver more bad news. “We won’t be able to get back down there for a month. That crew has a new job next week and I can’t pull them.”

  “What can we do?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering if my headache was from all the racket constantly buzzing in the background or my general stress level. It wasn’t that we needed the wine cellar. I wished now we hadn't even bothered to start construction on it. It had all been a pipe dream of mine to have the entire house finished before the baby made her debut. The closer we got the more anxious I felt about the situation. Maybe Belle was right and we should just stay in London rather than a half-gutted house.

  I snapped my fingers. “What about this weekend?”

  “We could try,” Benjamin said thoughtfully, “but it would probably be an around the clock job, and I’m not certain the Mrs. will appreciate having us around all hours.”

  “You have a point. That’s why we’re going back to London,” I decided, knowing I didn’t need to run it by Belle. She would be thrilled, the fucking wine cellar would get done, the bones would be removed, and life might finally stand a chance of being normal for a minute or two. “I’ll be reachable if there’s any more problems.”

  “As long as we don’t find a whole graveyard down there, I think I can handle it,” Benjamin reassured me as I began texting the change of plans to anyone else it affected. “The men are getting ready to pack up for the night. I’ll let them know we’re going to be working overtime.”

  He said the last word with a pointed significance that didn’t escape my notice. “Tell them that they’ll be well-compensated if they get it done.”

  I’d known bribery would come into play sooner or later. I hadn’t expected it to involve a body count.

  Once the last of the crew cleared out, I locked the doors and headed into the kitchen. It was nearly complete, save for finishing touches. We’d removed the old marred cabinetry and put in sleek, polished cabinets, an oversized farmhouse sink, and a large island with a butcher block counter. Someday, there would be a small breakfast table in the corner where we could sit with coffee, watching our little girl eat her breakfast. Someday, life would be about simple joys. Someday would come. I just had to get through now.

  There wasn’t much in the fridge, given that no one had been cooking, but I managed to scrounge up some fruit and cheese as well as a bit of prosciutto that Belle had been craving lately. Piling them into my arms, I ascended the stairs to the first floor. Peeking my head into our darkened bedroom, I was greeted by a sleepy smile.

  Belle lay curled on her side, a blanket half wrapped around her legs. “Did they solve the case?”

  “I think it’s likely going to prove to be a cold case,” I said, striding over as she reached to turn on a lamp on the nightstand.

  She pushed up in bed, crossing her legs under her and pulled the blanket up to her neck, shivering. “I guess a house this old has history.”

  “I wish the history wasn’t in our wine cellar,” I grumbled, opening the package of cheese for her. “We can pop into the village for a bite. I’m sure the pub’s open.”

  “This is fine,” she said, picking a grape from its stem. “I’m not that hungry.”

  “You’re not that hungry?” I repeated, sure I’d heard her wrong.

  She threw a grape at me, and it bounced off my nose. “You make me sound like a pig.”

  “No!” I jumped in, afraid this would spiral into a hormone-drenched misunderstanding. “You just had a swim earlier, and we never got dinner.”

  “I guess…” Her blue eyes darted to me before returning to study the meager spread I’d scrounged together. “It just spooked me and then with everything else, I’m too anxious to be hungry.”

  “Well, the spoils of our archeological digs will be removed tomorrow,” I informed her, “and the wine cellar is getting done on time.”

  “What? How? It was already behind and now they have to wait for someone to come and take away bones.” She shivered again and I realized it—and the blanket—had nothing to do with her being cold. She was genuinely frightened.

  I moved closer to her, and she relaxed some. “They’re going to work over the weekend to catch up on the wine cellar, and we’re going to London until it’s finished. The whole thing. I’m not coming back here until every last hammer has been removed from this bloody place.”

  She dropped the blanket, a wide smile carving across her lips. We’d made it all of it two nights in Sussex before going back to London for at least a week—if not more—and she couldn’t be more pleased. “Really? I need to call Edward and Clara and—”

  “Done,” I stopped her. “I texted them as soon as I made the arrangements with Benjamin. I need to meet with some business associates anyway.”

  “Business associates?” She cocked an eyebrow. “What about friends?”

  “I don’t have friends,” I said brusquely.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I have your friends who happen to usually need me to do something for them.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “That makes us business associates.”

  “What about Georgia?” she pressed.

  “Don’t let Georgia catch you calling her a friend,” I advised. In truth, Georgia Kincaid was more than a friend to me, but not in the typical way. The bond we shared was more like those between a brother and sister. We’d both grown up under the thumb of a sinister sociopath, so like most families, our bond hinged largely on shared traumatic experiences.

  “Are you going to talk to Alexander?” she asked quietly.

  We’d been tiptoeing around the topic for weeks. Although we had seen our inner circle a number of times since we bought Thornham, things had shifted between all of us. Alexander, a man I b
utted heads with as much as I’d grown to respect him, had become increasingly insular after his wife had nearly died in a thwarted kidnapping. I couldn’t blame him for being protective of her, but I hadn’t been ready to swear fealty to him either. I had my own wife and child to worry about now. I knew he understood that, but it left our ends at odds with one another.

  “Maybe I should invite Nora,” Belle said, chewing another grape. “Get a chance to know her a little better.”

  “Who?” I asked, still half caught in my own thoughts.

  “Nora. The last girl we interviewed,” she said, screwing up her face. “I know you didn’t forget her. She’s gorgeous.”

  I tilted my head, sorting through my memories of today. There were a lot of them. “The last one? She seemed nice. I don’t remember her being particularly pretty. What was her name again?”

  I didn’t remember. I wasn’t just saying that to appease my very pregnant wife.

  “No-ra,” Belle said with a roll of her eyes that made me think about spanking her attitude right out of her. “And don’t tell me you didn’t think she was hot.”

  “I can’t say I remember that.” I shrugged. “But you liked her?”

  She crossed her arms like I’d somehow offended her. “Yeah, I did—and you are seriously telling me that you didn’t have the slightest attraction to her?”

  “I don’t think I’m the one attracted to her, beautiful.” I said with a smirk. “Now I wish I remembered her better, because you’re giving me all sorts of ideas about you and her.”

  “Oh, you’d like that, huh?” She stuck a tongue out at me. “Predictable.”

  “In my defense, I’m not the one who thinks she’s hot.”

  “You’re just trying to make me feel better,” she said, showcasing the stubborn streak that first caught me in Belle’s snares. “Because I’m fat and pregnant and she’s hot and perfect and—”

  “You are perfect,” I cut her off, feeling the intense wave of anger I’d always felt when someone criticized my perfect wife—even when she was the one doing the damage.

  “Please! Most days I wear leggings as pants,” she said as though this had some meaningful contribution to reality. “I can’t even see my toes anymore and sometimes when I laugh…”

  “Perfect,” I repeated, “and don’t you dare say something negative about my wife.”

  “Or what?” she challenged me, her eyes lighting with a knowing gleam.

  “Or this,” I said, pulling her towards me and spinning her around so my mouth hung next to the curve of her chin. “I don’t want to hear another negative word out of your mouth. You’ve never been more beautiful.”

  My hands pulled apart the sash of her silk nightgown, and it fell open, revealing the swell of her belly.

  “I don’t want to look at it,” she mumbled, trying to pull the sash out of my hands so she could re-tie it.

  “I do,” I said, pulling her hands away and transferring them behind her back. I used the sash of her gown to tie her wrists together, taking my time even as her head lolled back onto my chest. She stared at me, her blue eyes a volatile cocktail of anticipation and mischief. She was pushing my buttons on purpose. I’d been more gentle than normal, owing to her condition. Belle, on the other hand, seemed intent on seeing how patient I could be. I would show her that I was in control. “You will not cover yourself or try to shy away from me. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Do. You. Understand?” I said, cupping her swollen breast in the hollow of my palm. My fingertips found the flesh of her nipple, and I readied to squeeze, already enjoying the way she squirmed.

  Still she didn’t answer, and I saw the corner of her lips twitch upward slightly before being tamed back to neutral. She was still trying to bait me.

  It was still working.

  I pinched her nipple gently, and her jaw dropped open, her face falling into a deeply relaxed, expressionless void. Her mouth formed a silent reply.

  “I couldn’t hear,” I say, pinching harder.

  There was a hiss from her sharp intake of breath.

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured more loudly, half moan and half taunt.

  Her words turned me on like a switch. I kissed along the curve of her chin, my hands caressing her breasts and belly, occasionally drifting toward her pussy, or as close as I could in this position, just so I could enjoy her pathetic attempts to move where she wanted me. She might have been baiting me, but now she was the one in my snare and I would decide when she came.

  But this was far from being enough to release her to that welcoming dark space, she could find only at my hands—and we both knew it. I had no interest in endangering my wife while she was pregnant. No matter what she thought about the matter. Her tied hands searched the wool of my trousers until she found the bulge of my dick.

  “What are you looking for, beautiful?” I teased, shifting just enough so that she could brush the rock-hard crest of my cock with her fingertips better.

  “Someone needs to take charge apparently,” she whined. “I suppose I have to do it.”

  I laughed, moving out of her reach. I had no intention of letting her have her way. She wanted an orgasm. I wanted to prove a point. Not that I wouldn’t see to her needs.

  “Come with me,” I demanded, slipping the sash from her wrists to free them and then guiding her toward the foot of the bed.

  I left her there and went to retrieve a black blindfold from the nightstand, then returned to where she stood. As I tied the silky fabric around her eyes, her hands began to reach for my dick again.

  “Not yet,” I admonished, moving my hips away from hers until her hands grasped at air. “I love your body. Now more than ever. Don’t ever forget again.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said demurely.

  “That’s better,” I said, guiding her until her knees bumped gently against the edge of the bed. “Now, if you don’t want to look at your perfect fucking body, I won’t make you. But I want to look.”

  I circled around to the side of the bed, dropping my trousers quietly as I went and climbed in, sitting up against the headboard. “I want you to crawl to me, beautiful.”

  Her face beneath the blindfold morphed into a pout, but she put one knee on the end of the bed, then the other, her legs forming a triangle that pointed toward everything sacred to me: her perfect pussy and our perfect child.

  She moved up the bed slowly, her long limbs languid and sure despite the changes she complained about. She sensed my legs were together, so she straddled them as she ascended, and when her hips reached mine, she practically purred with pleasure.

  “You took your pants off,” she said.

  “I’ve missed fucking you. It’s been a whole day,” I replied, watching with a grin she couldn’t see, as she rubbed her seam along my dick, bringing it to full, painful attention. “You’re so gorgeous.”

  I reached forward and grabbed her hips, pulling them forward so my thumb could tease her clit while I worshipped her belly, planting the kind of kisses I hoped the baby wouldn’t remember.

  I would never have guessed how fucking turned on her pregnancy could make me. Something about the thought of her carrying my child made everything about her more intoxicating. It was the ultimate possession of her. I was rooted inside her at all times—always with her. That she only asked for more? It was almost too much.

  But I would never say no. I hoped to die one day with my dick buried inside her, so that I never lived one second of not having her.

  I slid my torso down from the headboard, easing her pussy over my groin until my shaft was coated with her arousal. “That’s it, beautiful.”

  She whimpered as she lowered onto me, trembling as she took me inch by inch until her pussy had engulfed me entirely.

  “Fuck, you’re tight.” I groaned, as I felt her clamping around my shaft, savoring the look of abandon that came over her. I moved my hips up and down slowly, watching the rise and fall of her belly, and enjoying the feel of her
greedy cunt.

  “I needed this,” she moaned, beginning to match her timing with mine, lengthening my strokes until I could feel her clit slamming into the base of my dick, sending shudders rolling through her body.

  “I love the way you look on my dick, beautiful.”

  “Harder, please,” she said breathlessly, more a request than a demand. She knew better than to think she was on top for long.

  “As you wish, beautiful.”

  I thrust into her as fast as I could, and each time she gasped until the moans became desperate grunts more than anything resembling words, as though the next syllable was unable to start because the last one hadn’t ended. She settled into one long, endless plea. “Fuck me. Fuck me, sir!”

  Still, I found myself distracted by her belly, worried that I would hurt her by being any rougher. I could care less about my orgasm as long as Belle came.

  Her body went rigid, her fingers curling into fists against my chest. “Ohhhh—”

  “That’s it, beautiful,” I said. “Let go.”

  Belle’s blank expression turned to abandon, her whole body spasming against me as she rode out her climax, her fingers splaying wide to claw for better purchase as she shattered. Despite my determination not to care about my own pleasure, I couldn’t help myself. The sight of my perfect, pregnant wife orgasming on my cock pushed me over the edge.

  After, I laid her gently on the bed, the wispy strands of hair behind her ears damp with sweat, as I removed the blindfold.

  “That was...” she began, but never finished.

  I helped her into the bathroom, even offered to help her clean up—but no matter how difficult her belly might have made it, she wouldn’t hear of it, excusing herself to the toilet. She emerged a minute later looking ravishing—and thoroughly ravished.

  “Proud of yourself?” she teased, looking at my crooked smirk.

  “A bit.”

  We returned to the bed, Belle seeming twice as tired as before but half as stressed.

  I laid awake long after she’d fallen asleep, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. It was an old habit, but it always calmed me. Tonight, though, my nerves remained frayed. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that pile of bones, the skull sitting on top. I wondered if they’d slept in this house, too. I wondered if someone guarded them then. Soon, I’d find myself pacing between my sleeping wife and my sleeping daughter, watching the miracle of their breathing. I hated closing my eyes, letting her slip from my sight for even a moment felt like a betrayal of the promise I’d made myself that she’d always be safe with me. How much harder was that promise going to be to keep with sleepless nights ahead of us? Slipping from the bed, I carried the remains of our evening meal to the kitchen. Then I double checked all the locks and the security cameras. All was as it should be. Everything was in its place. Everything but the bones of strangers lying in wait in my cellar.