Masked Prince - Nikolai Andrew Page 0,6
I carried her, a single mention of me showing her what it meant to be protected, sent a shiver down my spine. Was it possible that she had the same desires as me? But all that would have to wait until she was ready. To take her the way I needed to, she would have to be healthy and strong.
She’d be worth the fucking wait.
I carried her to a makeshift bench that stood outside the milking shed. Once I’d set her down on the simple plank of wood, I knelt before her and untied the laces of her left boot. She had her skirt hiked up far enough to make me imagine the way my fingers would feel on the inside of her smooth, creamy-white thigh.
Fuck.
Her lower leg was swelling. It looked serious, but she was playing it cool.
“Thank you again for helping me,” she said, smiling, but also wincing in pain. I could tell she was trying to be brave; admirable, but I wasn’t buying it. Not even close.
“I’m fine now, really,” she said. “It’s just a bruise. I’m certain you have better things to do than look after me.”
Fuck that. Nothing on earth was more important than her. There was no way in hell I was leaving her now.
Fate had given me the shove into the mud I’d needed for the last year and a half. Now that I was here, I felt my resolve turn to stone. Somehow, someway, I would be with her, no matter what the rest of the world—or my family—would say.
Carefully, I slipped her boot off her foot and her sock along with it. She hissed in pain when she saw the deep purple swelling that bloomed from her ankle.
“I’m no medical man, but I don’t think that’s just a bruise.” I grabbed a milking stool from beside the bench and positioned it under her foot to keep it elevated.
“Not to worry. Honestly, thank you so much,” she said, again putting on a brave face. “Surely you have other places to be…?”
Kneeling before her, I looked up into her dark eyes. This is where I fucking belong, I thought to myself. But I had to think quick—I needed a good excuse for “passing by” her farm, as I’d said before.
The place was pretty much in the back of beyond. I also wanted an excuse for staying as long as possible. I was usually a shitty liar, but this time it came easy. Necessity and invention and all that shit. So I glanced around at the property, as if for the first time.
“This is Millstone Freehold Farm, correct?” I knew good and fucking well where I was, I’d been coming here for over a year, sitting a distance away where I could watch her, but I could see the sparkle in her eyes as she bought my lie.
Iris nodded. “That’s right.”
“The royal land council hired me to come do some maintenance on the barns. I’m a carpenter.”
Iris blew out an exasperated breath as a smile tipped her lips upward and the thought of them around my cock had me as hard as the anvil I saw outside the barn doors.
“Well, finally. Thank goodness for that. The far stables are one storm away from falling down.”
Never mind. If she wasn’t safe and well, I didn’t give two shits if every outbuilding on the property collapsed that second.
“The barns can wait. Let’s get you taken care of,” I said. “Tell me what to do to help you.”
She shook her head, embarrassed. “No, no. No need. You just go about what you need to do.”
What I need to do, gorgeous, is fuck you until you scream. To taste what I already know will be the sweetest pussy in the kingdom.
No. That’s wrong.
In the fucking world.
If only she knew how badly I needed to look after her, both in bed and out of it. But clearly, she wasn’t used to having someone care for her.
Tough shit. She was damned well going to have to get used to it.
“You just walked me through birthing a calf. Surely you can tell me how to bandage your leg.”
Iris looked away and a blush reddened her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
That fierce independence was sexy as hell, but she wasn’t going to win this one. Time to shut this discussion down for good.
“Iris. Do I look like a guy that likes to repeat himself?”
She looked right at me through wide eyes, and inhaled quickly in surprise. I could tell my change in tone startled