Forbidden Desire (Maid for the Billionaire Prince) (3 page)

“Is Jasper your first name?” I say.

“It’s my surname. My first name is Conrad. I prefer to be called Jasper, however.”

“OK, Jasper.”

He turns to me, and his expression is rather lofty, as though he considers me far beneath his station.

“And what do you do back home, Ms. Elizabeth Turner?”

“Liz will be fine. I go to college.”

“Indeed. What courses are you taking?”

“Psychology.”

Jasper does not seem impressed. “How did you meet Prince Alexander?”

I really don’t want to go into that, but I’m too polite to say “None of your business” to Jasper. And I’m not really sure, where royals are concerned, if romances and flings are supposed to be the business of people like him.

I’m still not fully certain where I stand where Alex is concerned. Am I considered a girlfriend? We’ve traveled together and made love plenty of times, but he has never asked me officially to be his girlfriend. Or maybe I’ve been so out of touch with the romantic world that the times where people ‘officially’ declare themselves boyfriend and girlfriend are over.

And we have never said we loved each other. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to declare these things either.

I say to Jasper, “We met in Chicago.”

“Exactly where? It is my business to know, Ms. Turner, lest the press finds out. There’s nothing worse for the palace than not being equipped with enough information to do damage control.”

I’m in a conundrum. So much of what happened between me and Alex should remain secret. Especially our first encounter in the men’s restroom of the hotel I work in.

“I moonlight as a maid,” I say reluctantly.

Then – for Alex’s sake – in bits and pieces, I tell Jasper about how we met. He wants to know details. I hold back as much as I can. When I finish, Jasper seems none too pleased.

“A maid,” he says, as if it’s a dirty word. “You’re a hotel maid.”

“Correction, I’m a college student moonlighting as a maid to pay my fees. It’s no different from waiting tables at McDonald’s.” Why am I being defensive anyway? There’s nothing wrong in being a maid. Absolutely nothing wrong at all.

“Where you come from, Ms. Turner, perhaps there is no difference. But where the tabloids are concerned, Alexander and his family will not live this down if your relationship were to, let’s just say,
progress
to another level.”

My heart is beating fast. “What are you saying?”

Jasper removes his sunglasses. He has cold blue and very brittle eyes, as icy as a glacier.

“I’m saying, Ms. Turner, that it will be best for Prince Alexander and the Vassar family that you simply take the next flight home to Chicago and forget any of this ever happened.”

*

No.

I won’t do it.

No one has a right to tell me and Alex what we can or cannot do.

I’m now beginning to experience a little of what Alex is going through. Everything is couched in officious language – “good for the family”, “the people expect you to”. I’m starting to understand the seeds of rebellion within Alex and why he’s so determined to go against his father’s wishes in choosing him a bride.

I spend the rest of the ride not speaking to Jasper. I’m right. He’s an arrogant, pompous prick.

The royal palace is situated on the top of a hill. As the car winds up the slopes, I take in the breathtaking view of sea and valley. The cityscape of Moldovia is a stunning, shimmering fairyland of spires and roofs – each a different dazzling color in the morning sun. The climate is winningly Mediterranean – dry and balmy in the summer with a kiss of cool air from the sea.

As we approach the main gates, I can see – from a distance – the tourist buses and the colorful shirts of people gathering to snap digital photos of the guards.

Oh God. I wonder for the umpteenth time, how does Alex stand it?

We don’t make for the main gates. The chauffeur takes a detour up a narrower road, which in turn is barricaded by a guard house and rails. The liveried stone-faced guards nod at the Jasper as we go past the check point. I suppose this is a private entrance used by the people who actually live in the palace.

We draw up to the main palace, which comprises of four majestic wings. I am aware that I am not approaching it from the front. The grounds are impeccably kept in the style of Versailles, with well-trimmed hedges and shrubbery in all colors and formations. Fountains decked with statues of nymphs tinkle as centerpieces in the midst of plazas.

I can take forever to explore this place if it weren’t so forbidding.

At the east doors, a butler is waiting for us. I step out of the car, aware that I’m wearing a halter top and dirty jeans, and I smell like something the horses from the sentry posts dragged in. The chauffeur hands the butler my backpack, and he takes it with the distaste of someone forced to shovel horse manure. I think I’m going to like the people here.

“If you would please follow me, Ms. Turner,” the butler says with a clipped French accent, “I will show you to your room.”

Oh? I suppose it would be too much to hope to be able to sleep in the same room as Alex. I also suppose Jasper has called in to brief the butler all about Prince Alex’s white trash American girlfriend whom they are hoping he’d dump before the day is up.

The East Wing of the palace is resplendent with luxurious gilded furniture which must date back to the Renaissance and pieces of art which would have probably fetched a princely sum at Sotheby’s. A grand staircase sweeps upstairs, and it is on these richly carpeted steps that I tread with trepidation.

The butler shows me to my guest room at the end of a passageway. A large canopied bed occupies one wall, decorated with fluffy white pillows and a red and gold bedspread that must have taken a year to embroider, so fine is the threading on its ornate design. My feet sink into the plush cream carpet. Two long double windows peer into the gardens.

I’m used to cleaning rooms like these, not inhabiting them.

“I have taken the liberty to draw you a bath, Ms. Turner,” the butler says pointedly.

He leaves, closing the door behind him.

All the strength drains from my legs and I find myself having to sit down upon the bed. I’m an unwelcome and unwanted guest by seemingly everyone in this palace.

How am I going to deal with this?

4

I soak myself for a long, long time in the bath the butler has drawn for me. As much as he appears to dislike me, he seems to have done a good job. Rose petals float in the scented water, which has the gravity of soothing bath salts. If the idea is to make me leave as quickly as possible, he’s sure doing piss poor work out of it.

I’m actually jetlagged, and I must have drifted off in the warm bath, dreaming of gilded carriages which turn back into pumpkins. I am awoken by strong hands upon my arms and the sight of a beautiful naked man stepping into the water.

“Alex!” I cry. And then, “Oh oh oh, look at my pruny fingers!”

Indeed, the pulps of my fingers have been soaked to a wrinkly mess and the bathwater is now at room temperature. How long have I been here?

Alex’s eyes are bloodshot and strained, but he still manages a heavenly smile.

“God, I could sleep for a decade,” he says. He arranges his limbs alongside mine and sinks into the water.

“I’ll run you a hot one,” I offer, reaching for the golden taps.

“Don’t bother. I won’t be long anyway.”

“I’ll bathe you.”

He laughs. “Now that is a proposition too tempting to refuse.”

He tips his head back as I start to soap him. The soaps the palace provides are shaped in seashells – each one a varied and delicate carving. They are almost too pretty to use, though not as pretty as the man I’m using them on.

I begin with Alex’s neck. Then I slide down the graceful lines of his throat to his sternum and collarbones, leaving a trail of frothy bubbles in my wake. I rub my slippery palms against his chest – his smooth, bulging pectorals, so silken to touch. My fingers and thumbs form pincers to tease his nipples, which soon swell into erection.

“Hey, you’re supposed to let me relax, not get me aroused,” he says playfully.

I tweak his nipples.

“Ow!” He laughs and bats my hands off.

“What happened?”

The mood grows more somber. He sighs.

“My father’s stabilized . . . for now. But he’s still far from being out of the woods.”

“And your mother? Is she all right?”

“Barely. She blames me for my father’s condition, as I predicted.” He shakes his head. “Everyone blames me.”

“Oh Alex.” A pang fleets through my chest. But we’d both suspected as much, so it isn’t anything new. “What do they want you to do?”

“I don’t know. They’re tiptoeing around my father now, trying not to create a scene or upset him too much in any way. His heart is very fragile. He’s just come out of a three-hour open bypass.”

“God, that sounds awful.”

“I haven’t told them much about you but I’ll bet that weasel, Jasper, would brief them soon enough.”

“Who is Jasper exactly?”

“My father’s most trusted aide. He’s got some fancy title . . . royal chamberlain or something, but really, he’s just a personal assistant.”

“I didn’t know kings had personal assistants.”

“My father is the CEO of the Moldovian state and he runs it like a company. It has served the principality well for over forty years and turned us into one of the richest countries in the world in GDP per capita.”

I’ll bet Nuernberg is run as a pretty tight ship as well.

To lighten the mood, I run my soapy hands down his abs – his marvelously sculpted abs, all eight sections of them. They are rock hard, thanks to the hours of gym time he has put in. Alex smiles at me and grabs my hands.

“You’re going to turn me on.”

“I thought you’d be too worried about your father to be turned on.”

“I’m worried all right, but I’m still a regular guy.”

“I’m just going to bathe you as I promised, nothing more.”

“Make sure you keep your word,” he says, still smiling.

I can tell there’s a lot going on behind his weary and black ringed eyes, but I sense he also needs comfort. So I massage his abdomen in circular motions – clockwise, and then counterclockwise. And all this while he sinks deeper and deeper into the water so that its surface is up to his neck. His eyes close. The bathroom air is redolent with the scent of roses.

I can’t help reaching for this cock.

It’s soft, but as I caress it, life begins to stir within its shaft. Alex’s eyes are still closed and he seems to have drowsed off. But there’s an apparent disconnect between his consciousness and his penis, because his shaft becomes semi-hard under my ministrations, and then harder . . . and harder. It rises in the water like a lever, and I grip it. It feels deliciously full.

My own loins stir, and a sliver of deep desire courses through me. My vaginal passage, despite being doused in bathwater, feels hollow and wanting.

A tug and a couple more strokes, and his cock is now at full mast. Its head is just below the surface of the water – a fraction too deep for me to suck.

I have a better idea.

Taking care not to disturb him (well, not too much anyway), I raise my hips. Rivers of water snake down my thighs and splash back into the bathtub. I lower my hips again onto his erect cock. His thick, warm flesh slides into my sex inch by glorious inch, sending off wild tendrils of pleasure throughout my groin. His girth crowds my passage, pushing my walls apart.

Ohhhhh
.

This is where he’s meant to be. I can envision being joined like this to him forever.

I lower myself onto him as far as he can go – his head at the hungry mouth of my cervix. Even then, there’s a spare good inch of him outside. He’s still unresponsive – neck up, that is. His head lolls back against the porcelain and his lips are slightly ajar in the semblance of deep slumber. He could always fall asleep at the wink of an eyelash – an ability I have always envied. Back in our little hut in the Sumatran island of Indonesia, I would still be awake, listening to the cicadas and the night birds, and he would be fast asleep – his breathing slow and measured in the darkness.

I stay on top of him for a long, long while, luxuriating in the silky feel of him. He grows harder inside me, if possible.

I begin to move slowly – up and down movements along the length of his cock. The friction of my flesh against his is delicious. Curls of exquisite erotic sensation blossom in my core and dissipate everywhere else. A particularly thrilling spume zaps right up my spine, causing my throat to gasp.

Alex shifts and turns his head restlessly.

Uh oh. I halt my rocking immediately and wait for him to settle again.
Don’t wake the tired darling.
After a while, he sighs and lays his handsome head down.

It feels too good not to continue, and so I start up my surreptitious rocking again. Up, down. I wriggle my hips so that they rotate upon his spear. My movements cause the surface of the water to splosh a little over the edge.