Harbor (On the Wind #3)

14. Tybalt

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TYBALT

I was hard pressed to get out of bed after breakfast.

No, we hadn’t eaten in bed, but after we’d wrapped ourselves in dressing gowns and had our fill, I took Orestes back to my four-poster and crawled into his lap. Fisting my cock, I rode him until my legs gave out. My body was spent, my muscles worn, and his enormous hands were there to grip my hips when my strength failed, to pull me down on his cock until I came. Holding myself very still, I could feel the pulse of him in my ass, or maybe that was just my heartbeat.

Oh, I enjoyed the overlarge bird worshipper.

Gasping for air, I had no choice but to slump forward and rest my head against his broad chest. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed, a strange tingle working up the back of my nape.

I had to get up. It was past time to start the day. Not that I had anything of particular importance to do.

It was just, well, I couldn’t?—

I couldn’t hide away from the world forever, tempting as it was. Perhaps I could’ve tried if I weren’t alone. To spend the day in such enjoyable company would’ve required me to ask , though.

I’d have had to ask Orestes to stay with me, talk with me, hold me longer. That was unacceptable. Impossible.

Pathetic.

Setting my features neutrally, I braced a hand on his shoulder and lifted my head. “Thank you.”

Orestes arched a brow. Sweat shone on his forehead, but there wasn’t a single wrinkle and his golden-brown eyes twinkled. “For what?”

A moment too long, I held his gaze. My mouth was suddenly dry, my tongue sour. “I—well, that , obviously. You are—” I pushed up on my knees, my breath catching when he slipped out of me. The sticky, bruised feeling between my cheeks made me want to crawl under the covers and stretch out.

No. Actually, I wanted to flee.

“You are enjoyable,” I said, waving a hand at all that dismissible, damnably dense muscle. “So thank you.”

On my own two feet, I took a second to assure myself I wouldn’t stumble before I turned to call for a servant.

There was something ever so delicious about the way my thighs ached when I walked.

A moment after I rang the bell, the young woman reappeared. She diverted her gaze in the face of all my nakedness. “Your HighnesS?”

“I’d like a bath prepared.”

“Of course.” She bobbed a curtsey and disappeared as quickly as she’d come. There was no reason that I couldn’t follow her and wait for the warm water and perfumes in private, but I lingered there in the doorway, trapped between escape and—and what if this was the only time?

“You may return,” I blurted out, ducking my chin and turning half back toward Orestes, though I only had the strength to meet his eye for a second. “If you’d like. Or not, if you wouldn’t.”

I bit my tongue hard, pinching both sides between my molars. I was a blundering fool, certain to ruin everything.

No feelings, he’d said.

It wasn’t a hard request, so why was I questioning my every word and move now, as if I might give myself away? It was impossible for anything so ridiculous to have developed in my heart. After one night together? No, I was no swooning maiden.

I simply didn’t want to be misunderstood, and—and I did want to see him again. Not for feelings, obviously. To fuck again. That was all.

“But I would like it if you did,” I said, tipping my chin up and putting my father’s inflection into my voice. “I like the way you fee?—”

No feelings .

“Fuck. I like the way you fuck.”

I shook myself, nodded resolutely, and turned heel before he could say a word. A bath—hiding in silence and steam—that would fix everything.

It didn’t.

Bathing didn’t fix a single thing, but I felt a little more myself afterward. I wasn’t turning soft and pathetic so much as Orestes’s strangeness was disorienting.

But it was worth a little disorientation to have him in my bed, so I’d simply have to adjust to his frankness for the sake of his pretty cock.

I was decided, and perhaps looking forward to riding it again, when I returned to the royal wing that afternoon.

After my bath, I hadn’t known what to do with myself. My father clearly did not require me at his side in court, and I was afraid to return to my room in case Orestes lingered.

Or in case he was gone.

But after half an hour of idly wandering through library shelves and wondering if I could lose myself in them, curiosity got the better of me. Hope trailed its footsteps.

I would just pop back to my room and see if he was around. Maybe I’d search him out. Surely my father wasn’t suddenly intent on monopolizing the Nemedan’s time after so long ignoring him.

There, outside my rooms, a lady in an amethyst gown stalked the corridors, wringing her hands. When I got closer, her head popped up and I saw that she was Lady Penelope.

My—well, my future stepmother, though she appeared no older than me. She’d frozen in the middle of the corridor, her gown taking up the vast majority of the space. It would’ve been rude to step around her, but the idea of speaking to her, even for a minute, made my stomach curdle.

“My prince,” she said, lowering her head. I’d thought she was dropping into a curtsey, but she went all the way to her knees, her skirts bunching up, enormous and fluffy around her.

Clearly, she wasn’t a lady meant to touch the floor, and I stood there, dumbfounded. “Lady Penelope, may I, um, is there something I can do for you?”

I heard her swallow hard, watched her delicate shoulders stiffen and rise. “I wished to speak with you. To apologize?—”

Apologize for what? Nothing good.

Lady Penelope was coming dangerously close to speaking earnestly with me, about things we in Urial did not acknowledge. I grimaced and edged away as heat flooded my face.

“There’s no need?—”

She raised her shining eyes to mine. “The king... Our arrangement... It took you by surprise, did it not?”

I stared at her, my eyelids fluttering, my mouth slack. Sure, I hadn’t expected my father to cast me aside. In fact, it was only a year ago that he might’ve set Lady Penelope in front of me as a potential wife, rather than taken her for himself. But how did I admit how little love there was between my father and me?

It wasn’t like I’d wanted it that way. I loved my father—what child could do anything but love the parent they had? And surely my father wouldn’t have been so disappointed if he hadn’t had love and hope for me as well.

As I stood there gaping, she pushed on. “I’m so sorry. The last thing—the very last thing—I wanted to do was drive a wedge between you and your father.”

I couldn’t help but scoff at that, and the sound shook me from my panic. “I assure you, Madam, I am quite capable of offending my father without you expending a bit of effort. Please”—I stepper closer and took her arm to pull her to her feet—“just... don’t do that.”

She blinked up at me with round, wide eyes, glistening with unshed tears and something worse—pity.

It made my skin crawl.

“Don’t apologize,” I said, “and certainly don’t prostrate yourself before me. It’s—It’s entirely unnecessary, I assure you.” Awkwardly, I patted her hand on my forearm.

She stared up at me, this time her mouth soft, her pink lips barely parted. Any anger I had, for her at least, blew away in an instant. I was, after all, a useless heir, a miserable rake, and the very worst son a king could hope for. How could I blame her for all my own failings?

“I wish nothing but a long and happy life for you and my father.” Gods, all the cleaning up I’d done in the bath, and the sour taste still returned to my tongue at those words. “No reason to concern yourself with me.”

I squeezed her hand and let her go. When I stepped back, her lip trembled. “And we may be friends?”

“Of course!” I forced a grin. “I would like nothing better. Friends.”

My cheeks ached.

I’d been a fool. A bath, a room full of steam, solved nothing. What I needed was fresh, cold air in my lungs. The outdoors.

Yes, I’d go for a ride. Escape that instant. Get away from the castle for the afternoon.

That would put me to rights, and maybe everyone else would calm down in the meantime.