Spare Me

Epilogue

T hree Years Later

The black Range Rover glided to a stop in front of the turreted facade of Balmoral, the royal family’s summer home in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Maddy stepped out of the back seat, not waiting for Graham to open the door for her, and inhaled the fresh August air, redolent of pine, petrichor, and freshly cut grass. A broad smile spread across her face. In the three years since she and Alex had given up the farce that their relationship was only a fling, Balmoral had become one of her favorite places. She felt like she really got to know her in-laws as people there. Although they clearly adored her and made valiant efforts at normalcy in London, it was only at Balmoral where she saw the king in his cargo shorts with Birkenstock sandals and tall white socks. Only there where she occasionally saw the queen in leggings and a sweatshirt. And it was at Balmoral where she really saw Alex at his most comfortable. They were cocooned in the rural Scottish countryside, the locals mostly left them alone, and unless something utterly unprecedented was happening, the press couldn’t be bothered to travel that far into the wilds of Scotland. The two weeks they spent there with Alex’s family each summer had quickly become the happiest, most relaxed weeks of her year every year.

“Miss Maddy,” Graham’s voice broke into her reverie. “Alex said you all would have drinks and dinner here and then stay with Ben and Miss Hannah and the children at Craigowen, so I’ll just drive your luggage there and have it taken to your suite.”

“That sounds perfect. Thank you so much, Graham. And thanks for picking me up. I know it’s a long drive to Edinburgh.”

“Not at all, Miss Maddy. We’re just thrilled to have you back.”

She smiled warmly at him, delighted to see their British driver. Although Alex had tried valiantly to entice him to join them in America, Graham had politely declined, stating that his mother needed him in the UK. He worked primarily for Hannah and Ben now, but was always on call for Alex and Maddy when they were in the UK several times a year. “It’s good to be back.”

Just then an odd mechanical sound greeted their ears. Maddy’s brow furrowed as she struggled to identify the noise. “Graham,” she began, “what’s…” But their driver was already getting back into the Range Rover. She could have sworn she heard laughter coming from the open window as he headed toward the cottage on the grounds of Balmoral where they stayed with Ben and Hannah and their family when they came to Scotland. It almost seemed like he was driving faster than normal, as if to avoid her question… but that had to be her imagination.

Returning her attention to the vehicle on the horizon, she was certain she had to be having a jet lag-induced hallucination. It couldn’t be… But it was. As the absurd wheeled conveyance drew nearer, Maddy realized that it was a vintage dark-green motor bike with an attached sidecar. Alex was driving with Bertie riding in the sidecar, both of them wearing matching dark green helmets.

“Darling!” Alex cried, pulling the helmet off and throwing his leg over the side of the bike to stride in her direction. Maddy was overwhelmed by seemingly discordant reactions: amusement, horror, and, inexplicably, lust. There was something about the way Alex took off the helmet and strode toward her that did things to her. It had to be the jet lag. And the two weeks of being apart. There was no way that death trap could be sexy. Definitely not.

Rational thought ceased as Alex drew her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. He’d had to come to the UK early to attend a board meeting for Eric’s Royal Council on Reparations. When he’d moved to America mostly full-time three years earlier, he’d handed day-to-day mitigation of the toxic Caucasity in the room to Hannah, who was more than capable of deploying a stern look and a carefully chosen phrase to make sure everyone stayed focused and respectful as Eric and his small team led them steadfastly into the future. But Alex still came for significant board meetings, and this one was the most important. After several years of hard work, the meeting the previous week had been an opportunity for recipients of reparations to share the impacts that the financial support had made in their lives and for their analysts to share initial data regarding the success of their program.

Alex slipped his tongue into Maddy’s mouth, his delectable groan vibrating against her sternum where their chests were pressed together. She sighed into him. Two weeks was really too long. They’d figured out a pretty good cadence for their trans-Atlantic relationship. They went to the UK together three or four times a year: Christmas, the king’s ceremonial birthday in late spring, Balmoral in August, and sometimes for a quick trip during the fall if they could get away. Then Alex would come for the odd long weekend or week where necessary to support the family and show up for the patronages he’d remained involved with after he’d moved. It was, for the most part, a dream arrangement: they still saw Alex’s family regularly, Alex still got to be involved with the family firm, and Maddy had limited press exposure and only on her terms. They’d established mutually agreed-upon boundaries with the media whereby they provided at least one opportunity to be seen and photographed during each visit home, and then the Royal Rota more or less left them alone the rest of the time, unless there was another family outing that generated press coverage.

The arrangement had, at first, been a challenging compromise for her. Worthwhile to get to be with Alex, for sure. But hard to willingly submit herself to that level of attention. But she’d soon found that it wasn’t so bad. When they were in Washington, even though they still attracted the occasional stare from a passing tourist or drew glances when they took their seats at a restaurant, they weren’t nearly as prominent as they were in London. They were constantly surrounded by the American political elite. And the denizens of DC took pride in being outwardly entirely disinterested in the prominent citizens in their midst.

A short yip reminded them that they weren’t alone, and Maddy turned to greet Bertie who, she realized, was strapped securely into his sidecar by what appeared to be a custom five-point harness. As she greeted him, freeing him from the absurd doggy helmet, and unclasping the harness, she looked over her shoulder at Alex. “What the hell is this?”

Bertie leapt into her arms, licking her face jubilantly, his entire back half waving back and forth as if he had more than a stub of a tail to wag.

“Yes,” she said in the voice that she knew sounded ridiculous, but that somehow always emerged from her mouth when she was talking to the dog. “Your daddy is so silly. What was he thinking? Huh? What did he think he was doing buying a motorcycle and letting you ride in it?”

Alex joined her on the grass next to the driveway. “It’s only for use on the property, it’s from the fifties, so it barely breaks fifty miles per hour, and it’s just so fun!” He had a boyish grin on his face that caused Maddy’s heart to overflow. In the years that they’d been together, Alex had honed his public work, assisting not only with his family’s patronages, but also taking seats on a number of boards in DC to advocate for historical preservation and build more ties between the UK and the US. Maddy had watched him work up to doing more and more public work, saw the way it got easier for him and exhausted him less. But it was still hard work for him, being perceived by hundreds of people at a time, having assumptions made about him based on who his family was. And seeing him so light and free at Balmoral made her heart melt.

She gave him a begrudging smile as Bertie flopped over in the bowl of her crossed legs, presenting his belly for scritches. “Okay,” she said with a fond smile and a sigh, “just be careful. You’re carrying my two favorite creatures in that thing.”

He leaned over to kiss the side of her head as he put an arm around her and looked lovingly down at the bundle of fur and energy in her lap. “Yes, dear.”

Alex gazed across the dining room table at Maddy, her head thrown back in laughter at something Hannah had said. The two had become thick as thieves, despite the ocean between them most of the year, with weekly FaceTime dates and seemingly endless voice memos flying back and forth across the Atlantic. The low light from the sconces along the wall and the taper candles dotted down the long tartan-covered table brought out the auburn highlights in her dark hair and made the diamonds in the ring on her left hand sparkle. He allowed his mind to wander, remembering the day the previous autumn when he’d finally decided the moment was right to ask her the question he’d wanted to ask her since about two weeks after they’d met. He’d taken her on their favorite walk at Windsor, retracing the steps they’d taken the day he’d first kissed her there. At the overlook where Bertie had almost garroted them, he’d gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry him using a ring that had once belonged to his great-grandmother.

Waiting so long had been an excruciating test of his patience. He’d been positive that Maddy was the one for so long. So sure, in fact, that the day they’d first gone to Arlington together to visit Evan’s grave, Alex had asked permission from her late husband’s… spirit? Ghost? Alex wasn’t sure what to call talking to a headstone. But he’d made his intentions clear on his first visit to the States and, given that the lawn hadn’t opened up beneath him and lightning hadn’t struck him down, he liked to think that Evan approved. But Alex had also known that, despite his total confidence in their relationship, Maddy needed more time. She’d come around to a relationship, had allowed herself to experience love, but he wasn’t prepared to ask her to marry him until she was ready. Alex had watched her blossom through her graduate program and supported her toward a path to a future that was fully of her own design. And he wanted to be sure that his presence in her life didn’t impede her dreams. That their relationship and eventual marriage didn’t supersede the goals she’d finally been able to craft for he rself.

When he looked at her now, leaning to her other side to listen to something their two-year-old niece Eliza was telling her, he was filled with pride. She’d graduated a year earlier with her master’s degree. Alex had been careful not to push too hard, but after months of periodic late-night conversations where he encouraged her to dream about what was really important to her, about the types of change she wanted to be able to make in the world, she’d realized that there was important work to be done closer to home. Which is how she’d found herself working for the Department of Defense supporting Gold Star families whose service members had been killed in action. It had also led her to use the money she’d inherited upon Evan’s death to start the Evan Grogan Memorial Fund to provide extra support to families with particular need.

She caught his eye from across the table and winked at him saucily. He was incredibly glad for the tartan napkin in his lap, which hid the rapidly growing erection from his family. Ben was still telling him something funny that their five-month-old daughter Erin had done, and his mother was sitting on her other side making googly eyes at his father, who sat across from her next to Hannah. It had been more than two weeks since he and Maddy had been alone together. There hadn’t been any time between her arrival and dinner. He couldn’t wait to get her back to Craigowen.

An hour and a half later, Maddy found herself being enthusiastically hoisted onto the granite countertop in Craigowen’s kitchen. The king had gotten carried away wanting to talk more about one of the patronages Alex was still involved with, and while Ben and Hannah had managed to leave as soon as dinner was over with the excuse of having to get the girls to bed by a reasonable hour, Maddy and Alex had been stuck in horny jail, Alex smiling and nodding at what his father was saying, while Maddy tried to hold up her end of the conversation with Queen Sarah and surreptitiously looking at her watch. When a genuine yawn—she was exhausted after a busy week at work and the trans-Atlantic red-eye flight—overtook her, the king and queen had finally released them and Alex and Maddy had made a beeline to the “cottage” on the estate where they stayed with Ben and Hannah and their girls when they visited Balmoral.

Calling Craigmore a “cottage” was about as accurate as calling Alex’s—now their—place in London an “apartment,” but Maddy supposed, it was petite compared to the Victorian palace where the king and queen stayed. As comfortable as staying in the palace was, they enjoyed getting a little space, not having to worry about Bertie chewing quite as many valuable objects, and knowing they wouldn’t bother Alex’s parents. Maddy refused to let Alex drive her on the motorbike after dark, so they made the ten-minute walk quickly, mostly in silence, Bertie hurrying along in front of them on his leash.

When they finally arrived at the cottage, Alex shoved open the door to the kitchen with more force than was really necessary, and practically threw Maddy atop the countertop, quickly invading the space between her legs and gripping her ass firmly in his hands. Not that Maddy was complaining. After so long apart, feeling the already prominent bulge in his pants as he pressed firmly against her center made her almost feral with need. She cradled the back of his head, anchoring his mouth to hers as they devoured each other, making up for lost time.

Alex’s hand snaked beneath the cotton sweater she’d worn on the plane, gliding up her ribcage to cup her breasts through her bra. “Alex,” she groaned into his mouth, their connection never breaking. Her hips were writhing against him, desperately, naturally seeking pressure, friction, more.

They were racing towards third base when she heard a loud, pointed throat clearing over the sounds of their heavy breathing.

“Could you two get a room?” Ben drawled sardonically, bringing them slamming back to the present.

Alex pulled back, resting his forehead against Maddy’s, both of them catching their breath.

When Maddy finally managed to force herself to turn around, Ben was standing next to the refrigerator, rifling through the open freezer with a baby bottle in one hand. As he pulled out a small plastic baggy of frozen milk, he turned to give them a wicked glance. “I know it’s been two weeks, but really, man. There are children here!”

“And unless Hannah’s on the fast track to sainthood, I also know how they got here!” Alex retorted good-naturedly, while sliding Maddy off the counter, twining their hands together, and making a hasty exit from the kitchen towards their wing of the seven-bedroom house.

“Night, Ben!” Maddy called over her shoulder as Alex practically dragged her to their room.

They got a late start the next day. Between the reunion lovemaking and the jet lag, which led to more, middle-of-the-night lovemaking, very little actually sleeping had occurred until the wee hours of the morning. When Maddy finally woke up, Alex was propped up against the ornately carved wooden headboard looking at something on his iPad.

“Good morning,” she said, stretching and rolling over to face him.

“Well, good morning to you, sleepyhead,” he said, his smile warming his slate-gray eyes .

“What time is it?”

“Almost eleven.”

“Wow.” She ran a hand blearily over her face. “That’s like teenager-level sleeping in.”

“You need the rest. You’ve been working so hard.” Alex looked down at her fondly, smoothing her sleep-tousled hair.

“I mean, a lot of last night did not involve much sleeping, Your Royal Highness,” she said, smirking at him.

“Hey, the best cure for jet lag is a solid orgasm. That’s what I always say,” he held his hands up in innocent protest. “I’m just doing my job as a public servant.”

Maddy laughed and pulled him down to her. “Public service, my ass,” she said between slow, sensual kisses.

When they finally came up for air again, Maddy levered herself up, slipping from beneath the sheets and fumbling around with her feet for the slippers she needed to counteract the Scottish chill, even in the summer. “So what are we doing today?” she asked, cinching her bathrobe around her waist.

“Well, my dad is dead set on teaching Eliza to ride a pony…” Alex began.

“Eliza’s two !” Maddy shrieked. “Two-year-olds don’t ride horses!”

“Mads, I know that. And you know that. But try telling that to His Majesty King Alfred.”

“Oh god,” she said, rolling her eyes and going to the armoire where one of the staff had unpacked her suitcase before she’d even arrived the day before. “I’m not sure I can watch that.”

“Me neither. That’s why I asked them to put together a picnic lunch for us. I thought we’d go down by the river,” Alex replied, watching her slip into a pair of leggings and a lightweight oversized sweater.

“Sounds lovely,” she said .

An hour later, they were stretched out on a tartan blanket along the banks of the River Dee. The kitchen staff at the main castle had packed an over-the-top picnic—cold salmon from the night before, a loaf of crusty bread, fresh sheep’s cheese made on the estate, the crunchiest, sweetest grapes that Maddy had ever had, a packet of shortbread, and a delightfully refreshing bottle of dry Riesling.

“Ahh, this is the life,” Maddy said, looking up through the leaves to the cerulean Scottish sky. “It’s so beautiful.”

“It is,” Alex’s voice was close to her ear and she flushed, realizing that he hadn’t been looking at the sky.

He drew her towards him and kissed her, his lips and tongue cool from the chilled wine. As he invaded her mouth she moaned involuntarily, her libido springing to life as if they hadn’t been making up for lost time for half the night. She ran her hands down his back stopping to knead the firm globes of his ass appreciatively. The groan that rumbled in his chest, coupled with the bulge that was increasingly noticeable beneath his joggers left her breathless. She kept wondering if sex with Alex would ever get old, but in more than three years it hadn’t. He was seemingly insatiable with apparently unlimited sexual creativity, and between that and their periodic brief separations when Alex went to the UK or Maddy traveled for work, she was constantly hot for him. Before meeting Alex she’d certainly enjoyed sex, but it was never something she craved when she wasn’t getting it. With Alex it seemed like one of them was constantly having an orgasm, recovering from an orgasm, or plotting out the next way one of them was going to have one.

And so, even though the old Maddy would have been absolutely horrified, the new Maddy—Maddy 2.0—barely batted an eye when Alex’s hand slid between their bodies, massaging her firmly through her leggings. “Oh god,” she panted.

“Yes?” Alex said, taking a break to look down at her with a wicked glint in his eye.

She scrunched her face at his absurd joke, but was almost immediately distracted as he started to gently work at the high waistband of her pants. “Can we?” he asked, his eyes dark with desire.

“Here?” she panted, lifting her head slightly to look around.

“Ben and Eliza are with my parents and Bertie at the castle, Hannah and the baby are napping at Craigmore, and if anyone else is out here, they’re going to be smacked with such a big trespassing lawsuit that it won’t even matter.”

Allowing herself to think for only a second more, Maddy nodded quickly, reaching up to kiss and lick her way down Alex’s neck as he disentangled her legs from the stretchy material. The fresh air against her center was a new sensation and slightly unsettling, but after a brief adjustment, Maddy was reveling in the slight summer breeze against her overheated core. Moments later, Alex’s warm breath provided a delicious contrast as he angled her hips up to meet his mouth, his tongue reaching out to outline the shape of her sex. “Alex,” she gasped, trying to keep her voice down.

He looked up at her, an eyebrow cocked in consternation. “If that’s all you’ve got, I’m clearly out of practice.” Giving her a playful nip on the inside of her thigh, he said, “The deer don’t care what we’re doing as long as it doesn’t involve a shotgun and there’s nothing else for miles. Let me hear you, Mads.” This time when his thumbs coaxed her open and his tongue skated around her opening, she let herself moan in pleasure. And when his lips briefly sealed around her clit she was practically keening with need. “That’s more like it,” Alex growled, slipping two fingers inside her, urging her towards her release.

“Fuck,” she hissed, as he pushed her closer and closer to the edge. “Fuck, so good ” was practically becoming a mantra as she moved nearer to climax. Withdrawing his mouth slightly, Alex let go of her hip to smack her sex firmly, never slowing the pace of his fingers surging in and out of her. Returning his lips to suck at her most sensitive spot, she finally felt herself go flying over the cliff, stars bursting in front of her eyes.

She returned to awareness to find Alex sucking his fingers clean, looking down at her with a self-satisfied grin on his face. “Okay, so they might have heard that back at the castle…” he said sardonically. She felt her cheeks heat. “Just kidding,” he said, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers and kissing her lightly. She laughed and then abruptly launched herself at him, pushing him down onto his back and gripping him through the soft fabric of his joggers.

“Madeleine Cartwright, what are you doing?” Alex cried, his voice shot through with mock outrage.

She reached for his waistband and rolled her eyes before turning her attention southward with only a sarcastic “Oh, spare me.”