The Princess and the Prospect Read online

  I got out of the truck making sure to take my bag with me and once I was on the covered front stoop Joker backed his truck up and drove away. He didn’t’ even stay to see me safely inside or show me around. It wasn’t like I could help the panic attack I’d had. Once I made my way inside I realized I was already standing in the living room area and there was an open floor plan that led to the kitchen as well. He had furniture, sparse though it may have been. There was a brown leather couch and reclining chair along with a smaller loveseat. The kitchen had a little dining area built in where a table and four chairs sat. They were all also a deep cherry wood brown, as if the house was afraid of color. I nearly stumbled on the large suitcases by the door. They were mine, and I wondered briefly when they had been deposited there. It also made me curious as to whether I would have a room here or if I was meant to sleep on the couch or something.

  It would suck to have to live out of suitcases until after the baby was born, but I figured I could manage. As I moved to the only hallway off of the left side of the living room I saw there was a full bath with sink, toilet, and shower/tub combo at the end of the hallway. Off to the right was a door that led to a bedroom that was pretty no-frills. It had a utilitarian full size bed, a small chair, one bed-side table, and a six drawer dresser that stood nearly waist high for me. In other words, like the house, it was on the smaller side.

  Looking left the door was open there too. I walked into what must have been the master bedroom. A king size bed, which had been made up nicely, multiple dressers, and a television on top of the one facing the bed took up most of the space. There were three doors on the wall facing back toward where the bathroom would be if I were still out in the hall. On the far left was a closet that was mostly empty with the exception of two boxes on a high shelf. On the right was a similar walk-in closet which was full of all of Joker’s things. I backed out quickly as soon as I realized that.

  The middle door led to a gorgeous bathroom with a garden tub separate shower and toilet area and then his and hers sinks. There were mirrors up behind both the sinks and then all along the wall behind the tub. I stared at myself in those mirrors for a few minutes seeing a girl who looked far too tired and far too fun down to just be 17-years-old. I didn’t want to acknowledge my lack of sleep or care for myself over the past two days. If I did, I’d have to face the fact that I was already a crappy mother.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I moved to the kitchen to see if he had anything I could grab quickly, but there was nothing. He had a box of Captain Crunch cereal in a cabinet, some condiments and beer in the fridge and not much else beyond water straight from the tap. I found the glasses and grabbed some water to take with me to the smaller bedroom. There I sat gingerly on the bed and sipped my water as I took in the room. There was enough space here for a crib and maybe a small changing table if I organized things carefully. The chair would probably be a good choice for sitting in while nursing the baby.

  It took me a minute to realize that by the time the baby was out of me and the six weeks post-partum checkup was done I would probably have to move into a place of my own. That meant I needed to find a job as soon as possible so I could save up some money in advance.

  Once I was finished with my water I stood and put down my canvas satchel I’d brought in from Joker’s truck, thankful it had still been there after I’d left it in his truck the other night. I moved to the living room and worked hard to drag each of the heavy suitcases back to the bedroom where I could go through them and see what all had been packed up for me. My mother had told me not to worry that she would see to it, and make sure my things got settled in that way I could be stress free after the wedding. Little did she know… There was no such thing as stress free in my life anymore.

  My stomach growled again warning me that I needed to eat very soon or I would start feeling sick again. I’d had enough of morning sickness that lasted throughout the day before. I didn’t want to start having that again. Remembering that there wasn’t any food in the house though, I just grabbed another glass of water and made an internal to-do list. I needed to be able to go grocery shopping at some point. I assumed I’d have to break down and call my sister in the morning to ask her to take me since I didn’t have a lot of money. I couldn’t afford to waste any of it on taxi fare.

  I got up and closed the door to the bedroom noting that there wasn’t a lock on the door, much to my dismay. Then I laid down on the too-soft bed and cried until sleep finally claimed my weary body.

  I turned the corner, laughing with abandon as I tried to use the doorjamb to slow my progress before I slipped and fell. It gave him just enough time to spring at me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up off of my feet with my back to his front. Giggles spilled out of my mouth as the happiness I felt in the moment filled me to bursting and it was the only way to not just burst apart and float away with the clouds.

  “I got you,” he whispered into my ear, breathing heavily as he did. His warm breath on my skin sent a shiver of anticipation through my body. Never had my body experienced need in this way before. Every piece of me being felt electrified as his lips found the shell of my ear and nibbled there.

  “What do you plan to do with me now?” My voice was raw and breathy all at the same time, sounding completely foreign to me, but apparently he liked it.

  He growled low in his throat as if my question tortured him. Then he answered and everything in my lower region pulled taut in response. “Oh, I think you know,” he answered before tossing me on his bed. I bounced, forcing more laughter from me before he pounced and proceeded to attack my body with gentle nibbles from his teeth. When he managed to snag one of my nipples through the thin material of the tank top I wor,e he bit down a little harder causing me to squirm and moan out in response.

  “That’s it, beautiful, so responsive for me all the time.”

  “Evan,” I cried out his name when he treated my other nipple to the same attention. “Please,” I begged.

  “Please, what Lise?” I jerked back from him at the name he used. Even though it was all he ever called me, besides beautiful, it always felt wrong to hear it. He should be calling me Anna by now. Especially since we had moved on to being intimate with one another. Evan worked to get the tank top up and off my body, which thankfully concealed my reaction. Then he bit, sucked, and licked down my torso before relieving me of the pastel floral skirt and ivory, silk panties I had worn that day.

  “Love that you always look so put together with that librarian vibe and then you come apart so hot under my hands, my tongue, my cock,” he told me as he continued to worship every part of me. Down one leg and up the other after a playful kiss was placed on each of my toes, then when he came back to the apex of my thighs he dipped his head in and swiped his tongue up my seam.

  “Oh, God, Evan!” I cried out feeling the warmth and the slick wetness that was left behind each time he dipped his tongue into my most sensitive parts. I reached out and took hold of the longer strands of hair on the top of his head and guided him where I needed him most. I felt, more than heard, the chuckle he let out as a result. He always thought it was funny when his innocent little Lise tried to take charge.

  He reached up and grabbed hold of my hands, bringing them firmly down to my sides as he held onto them to ensure I wouldn’t try to take over again. “We have all night, Lise,” he told me before slowly licking me from back to front again. We didn’t have all night. I had to get home at some point in case anyone decided to be a good parent and check that I was actually where I was supposed to be. I wasn’t sure how many more nights the rolled up pillows and blankets would fool my parents. Besides, we were running a huge risk being here together at the clubhouse. I supposed I was the one really running the risk since Evan was still unaware how dangerous us being together actually was.

  The guilt I felt about having still not told him the truth nearly pulled me from the erotic pleasure I was receiving. Nearly, but nothing could com
pete with Evan and his magic tongue. Well, nothing beyond that moment when he moved up my body and sank himself deep inside of me.

  “Couldn’t wait, beautiful. You’ve been driving me mad all day in that little skirt of yours. I needed…” he hesitated as he thrust into me again, and then pulled out at a leisurely pace, taking his time to savor the feel of my slick folds wrapped around him. Now that he was no longer holding my hands down I moved them to run my nails gently up and down his back. It gave him pause, as it always did. He enjoyed the dual sensation of being sunk deep inside me as I brought gooseflesh to his skin with each stroke back and forth of my nails. When I was ready for him to really fuck me I simply increased the pressure of my nails in his back and it was like pushing a button that unleashed his passionate fury on me.

  His pace picked up, our sweat-slickened skin slapping together, grunts and moans, mixing to become the music of our love making.

  “You have to do better,” a strange voice called out. I glanced around, but there was no one here beyond Evan and myself. He seemed oblivious to the voice I had just heard.

  “I realize that,” Evan told me as he thrust harder into me.

  “What?” I asked as the room around us began to fade into a foggy gray nothing.

  “Why weren’t you here with her?” I glanced around again trying to find the disembodied voice in the ever thickening fog.

  “She didn’t want me,” Evan told me – no he told the voice – as his green eyes drifted further from me, the heat of his body no longer warming my own. The cold, reality that came crashing in mad me very aware my dream was at an end.

  Being jostled from sleep by strange voices when I didn’t recognize my surroundings was disconcerting at best. Still, I managed to keep calm enough to not move or give away the fact that I was now awake. The room would have been dark, extremely dark, making me think I’d been asleep a good while. The problem with my theory being that there was light shining in from near the doorway. As I glanced around the opposite side of the room from the door – the way I had been facing while asleep – I noticed the sparse furnishings and the past two days came screaming back to me in a clarity that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “You have some explaining to do,” a familiar feminine voice whisper-hissed. Only the hissing part was too loud to contain the whisper she was trying for. “Why is my sister in there? And why do you have no food in this house? You realize she’s growing a baby – your baby – don’t you?” What in the world was Ever doing here? I assumed she was angrily speaking to Joker at that point since there was no way the baby I carried belonged to anyone else.

  “I forgot I’d need to get food in here. I’ve had a lot going on too, you know? And I didn’t chose the room for her. I guess she did.”

  “So you just happened to toss her bags in here and you didn’t think she’d take that hint?” Ever asked him. I felt my face flush knowing he hadn’t done that. I had.

  “The bags were out by the door last time I was here,” he admitted.

  Ever gasped. “Those were heavy, extremely so. She shouldn’t have been moving them! Where were you when she did that?”

  “The clubhouse,” he answered her, the attitude evident in his voice as he did so. “I just dropped her off to give her space to settle in earlier.”

  “You dropped her off? Like you didn’t even come inside to make sure she was okay being here, show her around, or make sure she had everything she needed before you left?”

  “It’s a small house. Besides, she had a goddamn panic attack on the way here and called this place a prison before she basically begged me not to rape her and give her diseases. I didn’t think it was wise to stick around out here alone with her under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, my poor baby,” Ever sighed. “We all thought she’d be okay. That this is what she’d want.” I heard a smack. “Then you had to go and be a complete asshole to her. No wonder she had a panic attack. New husband is a jerk, new house out in the middle of nowhere, no food, baby on the way, and you behaving the way you did at your wedding and afterward. Jesus. I can’t allow this to keep happening to her. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “I fucking get it!” He roared the words at my sister. “I’m fucking up. I know this, but I don’t know how to fix what’s already been done.”

  “You don’t get it because it’s not about you. It’s about that girl in there who had her entire life shifted completely off its axis.”

  I heard his frustrated huff before he answered her. “And I didn’t?”

  “Do you still live in your own house? Drive your own bike? Truck? Have your own money? You hold the same job, right? You have your club to go to when you need to blow off some steam, hang with people who like you, yeah? My sister has none of those securities you have. She has nothing that is the same in her life right now. She’s in a new house, not attending school, has no job, and nothing to call her own except her clothing and journals. That’s it. Her friends all thought she was weird for getting married and dropping out so they aren’t even talking to her right now.”

  There was a moment when everything got quiet and then Ever spoke again. “Most importantly though… Are you growing a baby in your belly that is fucking with your body from the inside out? She is and she’s doing it all while not even having anything in her life that she’s comfortable with right now. So cry me a river when you tell me shit is changed for you too, but I don’t see how it’s come close to what my sister is facing right now. Maybe think about that the next time you get the desire to act like an asshole.”

  It was quiet again for a moment before I heard my sister’s voice again. This time it came from a little further away. “I’ll come get her and her things in the morning. She can stay with Deck and me.”

  “What? No! Why would you suggest that?”

  “Because you’re both obviously miserable. Besides, I know what you did last night and when she finds out – if she doesn’t already know – she won’t stay with you anyway.”

  “She doesn’t know and it would only hurt her at this point. I know I fucked up. I fucked up the whole goddamn day because I was lost in my own anger. I really liked her before. Hell, I was falling in love with her,” he admitted to my sister something he’d never bothered admitting to me. “I was devastated when I thought all of it was a lie. I get it now. That doesn’t change how I let my anger fuel me and my decisions though. That’s my regret to live with.”

  “The problem is that you might have regrets for your behavior, but my sister now has to live with those memories.”

  “Come on, please, let’s go in the other room before we wake her. She needs her sleep.”

  “Fine. I’m still coming back in the morning and if she wants to leave, I’m taking her.”

  “I won’t hold her hostage. No matter how she felt when she saw the place, my house won’t be a prison for her.” That was the last I heard as my door was shut and they continued to move away from it.

  Chapter 7

  The chair in my living room had never felt uncomfortable before. Sitting in it so long while waiting for Anna to surface from the bedroom was beginning to make me rethink my original opinion of the furniture. Then again, I supposed there wasn’t a piece on the planet comfortable enough to withstand such a long wait. She had to come out of that room eventually, right? Worry started to set in about an hour ago. I’d debated whether or not I should just go check on her, but after her panic attack the day before I wasn’t sure if that would make matters worse. I’d never been so insecure with myself or my decisions as I felt now. The worst part was that I knew I had brought all of this on myself.

  After arguing with Ever last night about her coming to get Anna this morning, I’d gone out and bought groceries for the house before returning and sitting vigil in the damn chair that now had me feeling stiff all over. I felt horrible when Ever pointed out the fact that I’d left a pregnant woman in the house with no food to eat, and then I hadn’t bothered to show again for hours. Hell,
I had just made it back to the house, thinking I could sneak in and just sleep on the couch, when Ever showed up to check on her sister since no one had heard from her all day.

  I was about to stand and stretch, resigning myself to the fact that I would have to go check on Anna, and just deal with the fall out. I couldn’t stand it if I waited much longer, only to find out she’d had something go wrong with the pregnancy and no one checked on her. It was one of my biggest fears after I watched a few videos about nightmare pregnancies. Fuck! I don’t know why I ever did that. The images that were burned in my brain had been haunting my dreams ever since, only the face always changed to Anna’s instead of the women who had been in the videos – some of which didn’t make it in the end.

  Before I could move, the bedroom door finally opened and Anna stepped out of the room. She stiffened a moment, as if preparing for a fight, then without looking my way, she darted into the bathroom like a frightened mouse trying to scurry around unseen. Something about that broke my heart a little bit more.

  Not for the first time, I wondered what Double-D had been thinking when he strongly suggested this for us. I wasn’t sure if it was something he had actually forced on her. It wasn’t exactly done that way with me. I had been given a choice, and I accepted this marriage as a way to make sure my child was taken care of. I hated to admit that I also did so I could get dirt on the girl in case we had to fight for the kid later. After learning some things, and opening my eyes to the situation a bit more, I felt shame wash through me in the face of my ulterior motives. Still, just because I had agreed to this situation, that didn’t mean Double-D had given Anna the same leeway.