Page 15 of The Princess Tied

“A woman, naked, on a horse.” Saying that made her feel perverted.

“Wrong. Not in Kostan.”

It wasn’t?

He ambled to her, watching as she did up the buttons on her shirt, concealing her cleavage.

She blushed. This was about blush number seven of all the major blushes of her entire life, and most of them had been due to John.

Then he reached and brushed aside her fingers to do up the last button himself, with both hands there, beneath her chin. She wasn’t sure why she let him do that, but… since she was entranced by the smile he was wearing, just for her, she didn’t particularly care to figure out why. Not yet.

He leaned in, cupped the back of her head, and delivered another of his soft, teasing kisses. “Besides, I guarantee you’d have liked it.”

This, she thought, her mouth still open as he turned away, was getting far too complicated. He beckoned her to the horse.

Po steadied herself then followed him, no longer sure what she was doing, though she knew what she was not doing: being a sensible and morally upstanding princess.

CHAPTER FIVE

the guarded border checkpoint between Bitzocoin and Kostan hove into view, they arrived at a small roadside marketplace. The road widened here where a plateau had formed. A copse ran along one side, and far off to the right the mountain climbed into a nearly vertical cliff. A few other travelers had stopped to stock up on the provisions and/or novelties the five little stores provided. Three were merely goods laid out on blankets under the sun, for the wind to trail her fingers over along with the occasional idling insect. One store was a cart with a roof of blue-and-white striped canvas.

He ignored the food and clothing stores, ambled Rocky by them. The mare followed obediently and Po, soft female bundle that she was, the arrogant temptress, sat before him making his cock wish it were inside her. This was a dilemma he’d not ever faced before.

Women tended to like him. He and Xander had shared a few, though he’d had most solo in his bed. None of them had been princesses or as theoretically off limits as was Po.

The things he’d already done to her made him feverish for all the wrong reasons.

He halted the black stallion to study the last stall before they passed it.

Was that a giant? A woman taller than he by several feet, and far broader, dressed in pants and flowing shirt with purple flowers, sat cross-legged beside the last stall. On her rounded, muscled shoulders sat two bluebirds, preening themselves or peeking about at the people walking by. They launched into the air to swoop and circle above her.

This was a true stall, with a canvas roof and walls behind a front display of wares on a shelf. On the cloth-draped shelf brightly colored objects were laid in neat rows. He wasn’t sure those were fruit. Were they toys?

The banner above declared, THERAPIST AND TOY SELLER.

Po spoke. “You know, sir, once caught you will be condemned to execution. The laws are impossibly strict when it comes to defiling royalty. Especially me.”

“What?” He glanced down at the head of scarlet curls that represented Po. “Oh. Yes. I know.”

He still had her wrist roped.

This reminded him of his previous thoughts. He loved what he’d done to her for all the wrong reasons—and not, of course, because he might get executed for abducting her, kissing her, and birching her bare ass while she was sexy and squirming on his lap. His toes curled in their boots at the memory; his cock gave a twitch in his pants. Blue balls were apt considering her lineage, and his.

Yes, he’d condemned himself to every nasty punishment in the Bitzocoin legal system, and he gave not one noble fuck. He was here to save his brother. The consequences would be dealt with when and if necessary. If.

In fact, he would do all those bad things to her all over again, except that his rather frayed morals were whispering no to him.

Wait, had she called him, sir? He looked down at her again. Hmmm.

“You should release me. Beg for clemency before the courts, or better yet, before me, and we shall let you go free… to seek your brother.”

We, meaning the royal we.

John sighed. His cock had swelled but so had the royal princess’s head.

“Any guards ahead will have been warned by now. You have heard of semaphore? Signal towers?”

“You are not going to be good when I pass the border checkpoint, are you?”