Chapter 1: Ale-Stained Sheets & Royalty Revealed
The air in the Rustic Tavern was a thick, living thing. It tasted of woodsmoke and old beer, of sweat and roasted pork fat. Teresa Laveille breathed it in like a tonic, the coarse linen of her borrowed dress itching against her skin, a delicious secret beneath the rough fabric. Here, she was just Tess. No curtsies, no carefully measured smiles. Just the roar of a dice game in the corner, the thump of a tin mug on oak, the boisterous, off-key song swelling from a table of farriers.
It was heaven.
She was ordering a second ale—the first one still sour and wonderful on her tongue—when a presence solidified at her side. Not threatening, but undeniably there. A solid wall of heat and leather and man.
“A merchant’s daughter with a taste for crossroads swill?” a voice murmured, its tone a lazy ripple against the din. “Interesting.”
She turned, and the world narrowed. He was tall, his frame athletic under a travel-stained tunic. Dark brown hair fell across a brow dusted with road, and his eyes were the bright, unsettling green of sunlit moss. A prince’s eyes, though she knew he was not her prince. Just a wandering noble, perhaps. A knight errant. Oblivious.
“A traveler with a taste for stating the obvious?” she shot back, lifting her chin. The ‘Tess’ persona held, sharp and unafraid.
His grin was slow, roguish, utterly captivating. “Callum,” he said, as if offering a gift. His gaze swept over her, not with the sterile appraisal of the court, but with a raw, hungry interest that made her stomach tighten. “And I find the obvious often hides the best secrets.”
Before she could form another retort, his hand—broad, calloused, decidedly not a courtier’s hand—closed around her wrist. It was not a harsh grip, but it was inescapable. In one smooth motion, he guided her back a step and sat, pulling her down onto his lap as he settled onto a bench.
“What are you—?” she gasped, the protest half-hearted, drowned by the sudden, shocking intimacy. The hard muscle of his thighs pressed against her backside. His arm, solid as an iron bar, banded around her waist, holding her firmly in place.
“Proving a point,” he said into her ear, his breath warm. “The obvious is you’re the most beautiful thing in this rotten tavern. The secret is what you’ll do about it.”
His other hand, which had been resting on the table, slid beneath the rough-hewn wood. It found her knee through the linen of her dress, a brand of heat even through the fabric. She should have shoved him away. Called for the guard she’d posted outside. Ended this farce.
Instead, a thrill, dark and liquid, shot through her. She let her body relax incrementally against him, felt the immediate, hard ridge of his arousal press against the curve of her ass. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her lips.
“See?” Callum murmured, victorious. His exploring hand slid higher, pushing the skirt up her thigh. The tavern’s noise faded to a dull roar, the world condensing to the rough pad of his thumb stroking the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Higher and higher, until the cool air of the room touched her dampening flesh.
“You’re presumptuous,” she breathed, arching her back just slightly, grinding down against the stiff denim of his trousers. The friction was maddening, perfect.
“You’re wet,” he countered bluntly, his fingers finding the slick heat between her legs. He didn’t enter her, not yet. He just circled the swollen nub of her clit with a relentless, teasing pressure, his green eyes locked on her face, watching every flutter of her lashes, every bitten-off gasp.
Her own hands came up, one tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, the other clutching the front of his tunic. She pulled his mouth to hers. The kiss was not gentle. It was all teeth and tongue and stolen breath. It tasted of ale and desire and the profound liberty of being unknown. She rocked against his hand, her hips moving with a rhythm as old as time, chasing the coil of tension he was so skillfully winding inside her.
“Fuck,” he growled against her lips, his own control fraying. He shifted, his fingers leaving her throbbing core to fumble with the laces of his trousers. She helped him, her fingers clumsy and eager, and then he was free, his cock springing hot and heavy into her waiting hand. She squeezed him, stroking the silken steel of him, spreading the wetness pearled at the tip.
“Now,” she demanded, her voice a ragged whisper lost in the tavern's din. It was not a princess speaking. It was a woman, starving.
He needed no further encouragement. Lifting her slightly, he guided himself to her entrance. He entered her in one slow, devastating slide, filling her so completely her vision blurred at the edges. She cried out, the sound swallowed by a sudden roar from the dice-players. He held her there, impaled, both of them trembling with the shock of the fit.
Then he began to move her. His hands on her hips, he lifted her and pulled her back down, setting a brutal, perfect pace. She rode him, her forehead pressed to his shoulder, each downward stroke pushing a whimper from her throat. The coarse bench, the raucous laughter, the smell of him—all of it fused into a single, overwhelming sensation of pure, illicit pleasure.
“God, you feel incredible,” he gritted out, his mouth hot on her neck. His thrusts became harder, faster, chasing his own end. “So tight. So fucking perfect.”
She was close, so close, the pleasure a white-hot knot in her belly. Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Callum, I’m—”
The main door of the tavern slammed open with a crash that silenced the room.
A figure stood silhouetted against the twilight, dressed in the royal colors of her own house. The herald’s voice, trained to carry across tournament fields, boomed into the sudden quiet.
“Hear ye! His Royal Highness, Prince Callum Nicholson, is awaited at the gates! The escort is prepared!”
The words hung in the stunned silence.
On Callum’s lap, Teresa froze. The pleasure, so near its peak, curdled into instant, mortified ice. She felt him stiffen beneath her, inside her. His hands on her hips went slack.
Slowly, incredulously, he turned his head to look at the herald. Then, even more slowly, he looked back at her. His green eyes, clouded with passion a heartbeat before, cleared into a dawning, horrified understanding. He saw the fine blonde hair, now mussed. The piercing blue eyes, wide with panic. The regal bearing that no rough-spun linen could truly hide.
“Your… Highness?” he whispered, the title a curse.
The herald’s gaze swept the room, landing on them. On her, perched on the stranger’s lap, skirts rucked up, her intimacy with this man obvious to the entire world. The herald’s face went ashen. He recognized his princess.
Teresa couldn’t move. She could only feel the slow, shameful trickle of Callum’s release beginning to seep from inside her, tracing a warm path down her inner thigh. The ultimate evidence of their crime, hidden under her dress, but known to them both.
The secret was out.