I woke every morning now with my skin humming like a plucked string.
Something had been stirred inside me that refused to settle. My body felt different, aware in ways I'd never experienced, buzzing with an energy that made even the silk sheets against my skin feel electric.
It was as if Rios had awakened something that had been sleeping for twenty-three years, something was now turned on and could no longer be silenced.
And now, it lived beneath my skin like fire under the surface of glass.
My body had changed. Or perhaps, more truthfully, I had finally begun to feel it.
The silk sheets clung to my thighs each morning, damp with evidence of dreams I couldn’t remember—only that they left me flushed and aching, breathless before I even opened my eyes.
And I began touching myself in secret more often.
The first time, I did it beneath my covers with the lights out, heart pounding, chest rising and falling like I’d run across the palace.
My hand trembled as I slid it down my stomach, remembering his voice—the way he’d told me to start slow, to feel every inch of myself as if I was worth being worshiped.
I touched my breasts first, as he’d shown me, not rushed, but reverent, as though learning the shape of a prayer. My nipples hardened under my fingers, and I moaned before I could stop myself.
Soft, desperate. Nothing like the composed princess I’d always been.
When I slipped my fingers between my thighs and found myself already wet, slick and pulsing, the shame that bloomed was no match for the need that surged harder.
I moved in slow circles, mimicking the rhythm he had guided me through before. And it felt good. God, it felt so good.
That first night, I came in under a minute—sharp and blinding, biting the edge of my pillow to keep from crying out loud enough to wake the corridor.
My body shook from the intensity, from the wrongness, from the way it had felt so right.
I didn’t stop after that. I couldn’t. I pleasured myself again the next night. And the night after that. And every moment I could find where I was alone.
In the bath, I let my fingers drift beneath the water, legs spread lazily over the marble rim as I worked myself slowly, imagining it was his tongue, his voice urging me on.
I gripped the edge of the tub with one hand and moaned into the steam.
Sometimes I pressed my pillow between my thighs and rocked against it until I soaked the fabric, the pressure building as I imagined his hands on my hips, holding me down.
Other times, I stood before my mirror and watched myself—eyes glazed, mouth open, one hand cupping a breast while the other dipped between my legs.
I came with my own gaze locked to my reflection, red-lipped and panting. A woman. Hungry.
And every time, I told myself I would stop. But I didn’t.
I touched myself in silence, in shadows, in stolen slivers of time between duty and dignity. I came hard, often. I moaned into pillows, bit down on knuckles, gasped his name more than once without meaning to.
And when I looked at my reflection afterward, flushed and slick and trembling, shame would creep into the edges—a cold echo of the girl I used to be.
I told myself it was curiosity, scientific exploration, anything but longing.
But desire always came back stronger. A living thing now. Wild, unrelenting and starving.
Rios had awakened the part of me no one had ever dared to touch. The part that wanted. That claimed.
I hated how much I craved it. And I hated that it wasn’t just about touch anymore. It was him.
His voice. His mouth. His control. The way he watched me like he knew I’d broken all the rules I’d once clung to.
And if he ever found out how often I touched myself imagining his hands on my body instead of mine…
God help me. I might ask him to do it for real.
Later that day, the invitation arrived on cream-colored paper: Prince Luka requests your presence for tea on the west terrace.
The setting was calculated—public enough to maintain propriety, intimate enough to suggest something more dangerous. A small table overlooked the palace gardens, shaded by flowering vines that created a cocoon of privacy within the open air.
"Princess Penelope." Luka rose as I approached, his movement fluid and predatory. "You look exquisite today."
His amber eyes tracked my every step, lingering on the curve of my waist, the line of my throat. Not crude—never crude—but unmistakably hungry.
"Your Highness." My curtsy felt inadequate under his intense scrutiny.
"Please, sit." He moved behind my chair, his hands hovering near my shoulders as I settled. The heat of his proximity made my skin prickle. "I've been thinking about you since the ball."
Servants poured tea with practiced invisibility, but Luka's attention never wavered from my face. When he lifted his cup, his fingers brushed mine deliberately as he passed the sugar.
"You were magnificent that night," he continued, his voice dropping to something intimate. "So poised, so commanding. You have a presence that's quite... intoxicating."
The word rolled off his tongue like silk, weighted with suggestion.
"Thank you." I kept my voice steady, but something in his praise sent heat spiraling through my chest.
"I find myself wondering," he leaned forward, elbows on the table, closing the distance between us, "what makes you laugh when no one is watching. What makes you gasp when you think you're alone."
The question hit like a physical blow. His eyes searched mine, reading every micro-expression.
"I—"
"You don't have to answer." His smile was knowing, dangerous. "But I see it, Penelope. The way you hold yourself back. The way you watch the world like you're seeing it through glass."
He reached for a pastry, his fingers grazing my wrist as he withdrew. The touch was electric, deliberate.
"You're different lately," he observed, his gaze never leaving mine. "More... alive. Something has awakened in you."
My breath caught. The word awakened hung between us like a challenge.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" He tilted his head, studying me with predatory focus. "Your skin flushes when I look at you. Your pulse quickens when I move closer."
To prove his point, he shifted his chair nearer, his knee brushing my skirts. "Your breathing changes when I speak low, like this."
Heat flooded my cheeks. He was right—every word sent tremors through me I couldn't control.
"You've been taught to be careful, haven't you?" His voice was velvet over steel. "Taught to be proper, controlled, untouchable. But there's fire underneath all that propriety, isn't there, Penelope?"
The way he said my name was a caress and a claim.
"Prince Luka—"
"Just Luka." He captured my hand, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. "When you're ready to stop pretending, when you're ready to let that fire burn..." His eyes promised things that made my pulse race. "You know where to find me."
He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles that burned like a brand. His mouth lingered against my skin, his breath warm and dangerous.
"I'm a patient man, Penelope. But I'm also a hungry one." His eyes met mine over our joined hands. "And I think you're hungry too."
The confession hung between us, raw and electric. When he finally released my hand, my skin felt branded by his touch.
"Until next time." He rose, his smile promising everything and nothing. "Dream of me tonight."