A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember Read online

  He felt good, too, but she wanted more, she wanted all of him.

  Especially before he figured out she hadn’t done this before.

  11

  “MORE,” NATALIA SAID so politely Tim might have laughed if he wasn’t on the very edge, barely holding on to any semblance of control.

  “Tim?” She wrapped her legs around him and tried to pull him inside her. “I said more.”

  “Yes. More,” he promised, and thrust into her.

  By the time he figured out the truth, it was too late. She’d arched to meet him at the exact moment of resistance, and then stared up at him in startled surprise at the bite of pain.

  “Oh, my,” she said a bit tearfully.

  Buried to the hilt, he went utterly still. Not easy when his body had started the happy dance toward orgasm. “Natalia. My God.”

  She blinked, sending a tear dancing down her cheek. “Don’t get mad.” She wriggled, just a little, and he clenched his teeth trying not to plunge again.

  “Don’t move,” he managed. “I’ll hurt you.”

  “You’re going to kill me if you don’t move.”

  “What?” This couldn’t be happening. He was hurting her. His worst nightmare. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. Let me—” He started to pull back but she grabbed his butt with both hands and dug her fingernails into him, but good. She wriggled some more and panted at the same time.

  “Tim, wait. It’s good. It’s…” Her breasts were flushed, her eyes glossy as she tossed back her head, pulling back her knees, everything within her power to make him understand.

  “Natalia—”

  “Please.” Grabbing his hand, she thrust it between their bodies.

  And he finally got it. She was good. She was great. She was rubbing herself against his fingers and pushing him in and out of her body, driving them both toward the finish line.

  She got there first, but only by a fraction of a second as the sight of her lost in her own pleasure totally and completely undid him.

  He was still shuddering when he felt it, something cold and wet nudging against his bare butt.

  Mrs. Pig.

  Her snout, to be exact, and when he craned his neck and peered over his shoulder, she nudged him again, less politely this time. “Oh, for the love of—”

  Oink.

  “Damn.” If he didn’t know better, he’d think that pig was grinning. He must have left the gate open in his hurry, which meant both Pickles and Misty were wandering the countryside, as well.

  Still deeply embedded in Natalia, he turned back to her.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” First, he was never going to rescue another ungrateful animal again. Second, why had she had been a virgin? Why hadn’t she told him?

  And damn, that was her blood on his thigh.

  “Tim?” She turned her head to the side and came face-to-face with Mrs. Pig. “We seem to have an audience.”

  “I know. Natalia—”

  “Wait.” She cupped his face. “You’re not going to mess this up by saying something stupid right now, are you?”

  “I just might.” He pulled out of her and discovered the third major issue. “Uh…Natalia—”

  “Because a speech right now would really be annoying.”

  “Natalia.” He swallowed hard and tried not to panic. “I really need to make a speech.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. The condom broke.”

  “Oh. Oh.”

  He groaned and rubbed his face.

  “Uh…Tim? Do condoms expire?”

  He dropped his hands from his face. “Tell me that condom wasn’t old.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

  NATALIA WOKE UP with the sun streaming into her bedroom. Stretching luxuriously, she froze as three things hit her at once. Okay, four, but really, the condom thing didn’t count. No use panicking this early, right?

  Anyway, first, she was sore. Strange, though, how it was a good kind of sore, if there even was such a thing.

  Two, for the first time since she’d arrived, she’d failed to get up before Tim and get breakfast together.

  And three…and here was the shocker…she’d fallen hard for the cowboy.

  She was in love with Timothy Banning.

  Not just a little in love, either, but the something-old-something-new-something-borrowed-something-blue type of love.

  She couldn’t tell him. He was one of the good old guys, a man she hadn’t realized still existed. He’d feel honor bound to do something stupid, like offer to marry her.

  She was a lot of things, but one thing she was not, was a woman willing to trap a man into a lifelong commitment, no matter how much she’d suddenly discovered she wanted one.

  Damn, she should have gotten up this morning, just like always, so he wouldn’t know anything had changed, but it was too late now.

  He’d tried to talk to her last night, between catching Mrs. Pig—who didn’t want to be caught—and Pickles, who had delighted in playing the game of running off into the night every time Tim had gotten close.

  When he’d realized Natalia was escaping, too—she’d tried to sneak off to her bedroom so she didn’t have to answer the obvious questions he’d have—he’d immediately stopped catching animals and caught her, instead.

  She’d begged off, promising him a talk today before she left.

  Before she left.

  She had no idea which was worse, the thought of that, or facing Tim with all his questions. Neither appealed. Not when she just wanted to be alone to bask in her new knowledge.

  Which was being a woman far beat being a princess any day of the week. God, she wished for Annie. Annie, so tough, so strong, would know what to do.

  Still in her borrowed nightgown from Sally—which was a big, old, ragged, cut-up T-shirt she suspected had come from Tim’s throwaways, she threw herself backward on the bed, arms and legs spread out and grinned up at the ceiling.

  Oh, yeah. Today she was all woman.

  Now all she had to do was figure out how to combine the best of both worlds. To do so, she’d have to say goodbye, and make her arrangements. Then actually leave.

  Her grin vanished.

  Leaving was going to be next to impossible. Worse than she could have ever anticipated. It wasn’t just the affection she’d developed for Texas. Or even the odder affection she’d developed for the people here, including the fiercely proud, protective Sally.

  No, there was far more she’d miss.

  With all her heart, she’d miss Tim. She’d miss his smile, his voice, how he made her feel.

  And no doubt, being forced to go back to her own battery-operated pleasure, she’d miss the wild, screaming orgasms he’d given her.

  Just thinking about them, and how incredible last night had been beneath the stars and Tim’s hard body, she tingled. Her body ached. Her nipples hardened.

  Oh, definitely, she could lie here for a while and think of all those delicious things he’d done to her.

  But a knock came at her door. She leaped up, then stood still, her heart racing, even before his unbearably familiar voice came.

  “Natalia.”

  Just the sound of him had her thigh muscles clenching together.

  The handle jiggled, then opened to reveal Tim, looking larger-than-life and unusually subdued. His gaze ran over her, from the top of her rumpled head to the ragged old T-shirt slipping off one shoulder, to her bare legs and feet. “I woke you. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said, oddly breathless. Had his voice always had this effect on her? This trembling, got-to-have-his-hands-on-me effect?

  Or had it just been since last night?

  “I’m sorry about breakfast,” she said. “You must be starving.”

  A funny expression crossed his face. “Starving? Um. No. Natalia, last night—”

  “I feel so bad, letting you down like this. Here, I’ll hurry and throw something together.” She was talking, talking, talking, a nervous hab