Chapter 178

I stood, trying not to let anyone see how much my knees were shaking. “I’m coming,” I told the man. “Is my bodyguard allowed to come with me?”

He nodded. “Your significant other, Charles Rafe, has also been approved to join you.”

Charles nodded, and he, David, Theo, and I all made our way to the door. When we reached it, the man shook his head. “Just the one bodyguard. Should you need to go in separate directions, the palace will provide additional security.”

Charles gave David a serious look. “You protect my mother. Understood?”

David nodded. “Like she was my own mother,” he agreed.

Charles turned away from David and nodded to the man waiting. “Let’s get this over with.”

Our escorted trip to the palace seemed to draw on forever, and yet somehow, when we arrived, we’d gotten there way too soon for my taste. The whole way, all I could imagine was being imprisoned, or worse, tortured, beaten, and forced to recant my story to ruin my credibility and my career on public television.

I kept one hand on Charles’ hand, holding on as if he was some sort of life raft and I were adrift in the middle of the sea. The same mousey little man led us through the palace proper.

I didn’t realize that the Alpha King’s living quarters were in a building not too far behind the office building where I worked. Clearly, the Alpha Kings liked to be close to their government. It’s just too bad that our current one hadn’t been better at engaging with it.

Through quiet hallways that boasted marble floors and soaring windows but no actual people, our footsteps echoed. Until we finally reached a door that the mousey man opened.

“Miss Laurentia, you and Master Rafe will wait here. Your bodyguard must come with me. We need to register his weapon and him as security within the palace. Once we’ve completed that process, we’ll return him to you.”

“What room is this?” Charles demanded.

The man did a quick little squirm. “It’s simply a waiting room, Sir,” he answered. “As soon as the king is ready to see you, we’ll return to this room and bring you before him.”

“I don’t even get to change into something more appropriate?” I asked since he’d rushed me out the door.

The man shook his head. “This isn’t a formal meeting. What you’re wearing is acceptable.”

I looked down at the dress I had thrown on that morning. I liked this one because it was comfortable and functional, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of thing one imagined meeting the king in. Whatever. I was just going to get thrown in jail and have unspeakable things done to me anyway. Who cared how nice I looked for the man who was going to do that?

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Theo reassured me.

And with that, he and the mousey man disappeared, the door shutting behind them with the same feeling a prison door might conjure.

“Now what?” I asked Charles.

I glanced around the interior of the room. It certainly wasn’t an uncomfortable space. This waiting room was the size of a small living room. It had a television, a couch, a table with three chairs around it, and a coffee table where one could put laptops or other things as they waited.

Charles took me in his arms, the expression on his face tense. “We’re going to make the most of this time,” he said with absolute conviction.

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“When that man showed up, I realized how much time we had wasted this morning sitting around the house in our misery. What if he had taken you, and I never got to see you again? That could still happen. And I refuse to let you go before you know how much you mean to me. Words can’t show you.”

He let his hands wander across my body, but rather than the heat of lust, they were gentle and slightly sad caresses. “If things should go wrong, and this is our last time together, then I intend to spend it together.”

“Oh.”

“I want all of my memories of you to be full of the heat and smell of you. I want your scent to be a part of me,” he said. “And wherever you go and whatever happens to you, I want my scent to go with you, as well.”

I gave myself over and let him express his feelings through touch. There’s passionate lovemaking, and then there’s lovemaking with passion. This was the second.

Charles lifted me up and sat me on the edge of the table, pulling my skirt up so that he could get beneath it. Yet if someone walked in, it would just be a quick flip of the material to cover our deeds.

He worked between my legs with his fingers while his lips worked against mine. I could taste the fear and sadness that he was trying so hard to hold back from his actions. He might be able to wear a poker face, but he couldn’t hide that from me.

I took his advice and used our proximity to soak myself in his vetiver scent. I hadn’t taken time recently to appreciate this connection between the two of us: how much that smell comforted me, how much a part of me it was, how at home I felt when immersed in it, and how much I needed him.

From the deep breaths that he was taking and the way his tongue lapped at mine, I knew he was doing the same. He was using this moment to soak in my scent, the calm and relaxation that he drew from it. That made me wonder. If I had a scent that was more appropriate to an alpha’s wife, would people have taken me more seriously?

I shook that thought away. The problem wasn’t my scent and being taken seriously. In fact, maybe it was the opposite. I was being taken far too seriously. After all, that’s how I’d landed here.

But I had made people pay attention with my actions, not simply by some olfactory pecking order. Maybe that’s how werewolfkind could remember me, with honor not only as the woman who helped solve problems but also as a werewolf with an inferior scent who made her life matter.

When I reached my climax, I bit down on Charles’ shoulder, not wanting to make any noise. Who knew who was walking past in the hall outside?

But it seemed like he wasn’t done. Rather than finishing with me, he dropped my skirt and took me off the table, leaving that mess behind.

This time, he drew me over to the sofa and sat down, pulling me onto his lap. I straddled him, and rather than going straight inside me to finish himself there, he simply pushed my hips so that I rocked, sliding back and forth along the length of his cock.

He groaned and shut his eyes, burying his face in my shoulder and inhaling deeply. I continued to move in slow, torturous slides, letting him absorb every motion and scent and moment that he could out of this.

I knew Charles was playing our encounter out, wanting to draw out the moment. And he was perfectly capable of cumming in just a few short strokes once aroused. But he let this go on for so long that I started to wonder whether or not we were running the risk of having someone return before he got his satisfaction.

Finally, with a shudder, he gave in, pausing my hips and using his hand to place his tip at my entrance. Then he rammed himself inside as if impaling me. I gasped and clung to his shoulders, not realizing how close to another orgasm I had been.

Charles gripped and pulled at my shoulders, locking his hips to mine and grinding in desperation as the anticipated wave of orgasm grew closer and closer.

With a groan, his buttocks tightened, and his penis pulsed, each spasm releasing his essence. With another groan, he quickly shoved my hips off-center, releasing his cock from inside me and letting the last few ejaculations fall to the cushion of the sofa. He quickly moved me off his lap and sat me on the cushion.

“Give it a minute there,” he said. “No need to rush back into your panties and soil them before going to see the king. We clearly don’t have any place to clean up in here.” He used one of the pillows to dry himself and then threw it on the floor.

He gave me a wicked grin. “A little parting gift for the Alpha King,” he said, a vindictive edge to his voice. “I don’t know what he has in store for you, but this is my own little way of letting him know how much he disgusts me.”