Nicolette's life takes a dramatic turn when she discovers her true identity as Princess Ameena of Foressa, a world filled with magic, political intrigue, and ancient rivalries. As she navigates her newfound royal duties and rekindles a passionate relationship with Lucien, a powerful Kirillian, she must confront dark secrets and dangerous enemies. With her past and present colliding, Nicolette embarks on a journey to protect her loved ones and reclaim her destiny.
Book Two
Lucien
My hands clenched and unclenched many times the day of Nicolette’s flight going to Brazil. I was hoping she would commit to wearing the ring I gave her but she damn didn’t.
I could feel the ring’s presence inside a cold, dark compartment, her bag surely, and it fucking pissed me off.
But the fact that I was partly at fault too somehow lessened my anger toward her. I should have told her the main purpose of that object. I should have said it was meant to protect her.
Or better yet, I should have given it to her in person; slid the ring onto her finger like a fucking lovestruck husband.
I should have made her promise not to take it off. How stupid of me to let the letter do my job. Now, that mistake bit me in the ass. Big time.
I was torn between my willingness to learn Ira’s agenda and the need to protect Nicolette from him. If I showed myself, then it’d be game over. For me. For my kingdom.
For the sacrifices I made just to ensure the traitors got what they deserve. But, thinking more about it, Nicolette—this woman who caught me by surprise—outweighed them by a long shot.
She was far more important than all my life combined. I just unfortunately realized that late. Very late.
I should have prohibited her to join in this stupid expedition. Now, she was together with Ira inside a plane, possibly alone with him.
He could well take advantage of her, and I wouldn’t have the means to know how she reacts because she didn’t wear the ring. I wouldn’t have the power to stop him. I hated it.
The waiting, the thinking, the what ifs, the thinking…the waiting…the fucking thinking.
I’m a King. I’m not supposed to do this but here I am, drowned in this pathetic situation.
Feeling helpless, I decided to waltz into the bar, planning to drink my ire away, hoping the liquor would soothe my nerves, lessen my desire to slice someone to death with my Kirillian claws.
It was a successful plan. I could feel the kick of the alcohol inside my system.
Back in New York, I was able to get a copy of Ira’s so-called expedition plans. It was hard, I admit it, but my lackeys managed with the help of some greedy pigs in his research company.
I studied every detail of their stay in Brazil and I hastily set up my own plans in line with it that included arriving before them in the hotel Ira had booked.
I’d occupy the room next to Nicolette’s, and have my bodyguard become her personal butler.
This was the best way I could think of to protect my desime. I didn’t own this hotel, but the hotel manager was star-struck with my presence and easy to manipulate.
But for all the strings I pulled, I still had my main problem: Nicolette’s stubbornness to wear the ring.
I drank and drank, didn’t care how many bottles of scotch I downed, and passed the time away, waiting for them.
Sometime later, my bodyguards reported their arrival.
I guess I was drunk because the moment I left the bar and found Nicolette’s room, I was attacked with flashbacks of a woman that had hunted me for nine whole years: Ameena.
Except for Nicolette’s copper-red hair in contrast with Ameena’s ebony black ones, she was a mirror image of her. Perfect in every way.
And dare I say it, her curves too: the ampleness of her breasts, her hour-glass figure, the stretch of her legs, and the roundness of her buttocks. Everything. Inch by inch. Perfectly similar.
I planned on keeping this realization to myself because, you know, I might have been wrong, but the instant I saw Nicolette across the room, I lost it.
I uttered Ameena’s name like a new breath of life, everything I felt for her came crashing down on me: desire, anguish, longing, and love.
Yes, despite how rudely I mistreat the Zaxonian women in my kingdom, I’m a man who used to love a woman.
“Ameena.” My knees slightly shook when I tried to take a step. My head felt numb and lightheaded, but still I was acutely aware of her and how she reacted. “Here you are.”
Yet my body betrayed me. The next thing I knew, I was wobbling down to the floor.
“Oh God, Lucien!” I heard Nicolette’s alarmed voice call out and before I hit the ground, she was before me, cradling my stone of a head with her arms. “You’re drunk!”
Her daring eyes flashed at me, accusing me of something so obvious.
I just grinned at her, embarrassment slowly hitting me like a hammer. “The fir…st time ev…er.” My speech slurred, yet I didn’t mind.
No matter how drunk I was, I’m confident enough to make a sane conversation with her.
“Stand up! Help me put you on the couch,” she commanded, all signs of her earlier nervousness, confusion and fear gone.
It appeared hard determination replaced them if the tight pressing of her lips was anything to go by. I shook my head in reply, suffering a mild dizziness thereafter.
The thought of teasing her was too good to pass. “No, I want your bed.”
She audibly groaned as she hooked my arm over her shoulder. “And risk my sheets getting soiled when you vomit?”
Despite my drunk self, I had the ease to boast. “I have an excellent stomach. You know that already.”
Nicolette lifted me up while I straightened my legs. I knew I was heavy, but I didn’t seem to be a problem for her.
“I know nothing of you, Mr. Ozric, except being an arrogant man who thinks he is on top of the world and believes all panties get wet at the sight of him,” she stated as we walked to get to the couch.
I nodded at her.
She did hit the spot.
“Thank you for the compliment, Ameena.”
“Stop calling me that!” Her loud, angry voice took me by surprise.
I rapidly blinked to erase the droopiness of my eyelids. She seemed to be averse to it. Why?
“My name is Nicolette!” she continued, huffing as she placed me on the couch.
I stared up at her flushed face and shook my head. “No, you are Ameena.”
“I’m Nicolette!” She stomped a foot against the white carpeted floor and clenched her hands into a tight fist. Her rage seemed to infect me.
The next second, she was lying on the couch with me above her. With me seething at her. With my legs and arms caging her in place.
“Are you playing with me?” I felt a shooting pain in my head briefly and I winced, but it was nothing compared to the anger growing fast inside me.
“Really, are you?”
She frowned, looked like about to speak but I beat her to it.
“Fuck. You’re dead. I held your cold body myself! You left me. You didn’t even say goodbye.
“And now you’re here, so very alive, confusing me. Ameena, how much more will you make me suffer?”
“You are mistaking me for somebody else!” she lashed at me, pushing my chest up in an attempt to free herself.
A growl from deep within my chest sounded. “No, I’m not. I’m certain of it.” Being drunk has its perks. It makes one feel more uncaring.
Well, I’m aware I’m like that already, but in that moment, seeing her lipstick slightly smudged from what I suspected was a recent kiss with Ira, the liquor had dulled my wit.
Instead, I did the thing I’m best skilled at doing. Kiss. I swooped down to capture her mouth, lips to lips, pressing my head closer to her so she couldn’t shift away.
I secured her jaw as a backup and there, she was instantly at my mercy.
“Luce…,” she breathed against my lips. I flicked my tongue under her bottom lip as a response. “Lu….cein!” She shot a hand up to push my face, but I grabbed her wrist and secured it above her head.
“You belong to me,” I grounded, withdrawing slightly to stamp those words on her brain. Ira could fuck himself for all I care.
I kissed her again, plundered the very depths of her mouth with feverish intensity and she groaned, trying her best to fight me.
“Hmmm!” Despite the strong bitterness of scotch on my tongue, I could still taste the sweetness of her mouth. And both created a wonderful duo on my palate, fueling my need for her.
“Stop this…,” she managed to say in between my blistering kisses. “Please, Luce, stop it…now!”
And I did, but only because I skated my tongue down the plane of her neck. She shivered; I could feel the fine hairs standing on their ends.
“Ah…” Damn, she was sensitive in this region, exactly as I remembered.
I focused on the throbbing pulse of her neck, skimmed the tip of my tongue along it to create a visible hickey. Then, I moved up to her earlobe, eliciting another melodious gasp from her.
“Ahhh…”
“Let me suck your breasts, Ameena. I’ve been missing it for so long,” I whispered sensually in her ear. With a short tug of her dress and brassiere, two smooth pinkish mountains were freed.
I stared at them, venerating them, my mouth drooling at them.
“Lucien, I’m. Not. Her.” She covered one glorious breast with her free hand.
As if that would stop me.
I growled low, reached up to interlace my fingers with hers and pulled her arm away. With none to cover her breast, openmouthed, I hastily closed over a nipple.
Its amazing hardness called my attention, and yes, it did betray Nicolette’s protests of dislike.
“Ahhh!” She breathed out sharply again, arching her back as I laced her nipple with my tongue.
Continuously, I gently sucked and sucked and nipped one taut pink with my teeth while squeezing her breast, then I repeated the whole sensual process with its sister.
I lowered my weight onto her, made her feel the huge bulge of my pants against her belly.
She reacted by gasping again. Releasing her wrist, I slipped my hand under her dress, pushing it further up, then I hooked her knee and pulled it out past my thigh.
I did the same with the other, spreading her legs apart so that I could settle in the middle, then thrust my bulge against her, so she would gasp again. She did and shivered, also.
“Lucien…please, stop. This is not right. This…is…not…right,” Nicolette cried out.
I glanced up at her with smoldering eyes. All I wanted to do was to impale my cock inside her core. Everything. From the root to the velvet tip. I fucking couldn’t wait any longer.
“What makes this not right, huh?” I asked her, sitting up to raise her right leg. “You know we both want this.”
I hooked her leg over my shoulder and then darted my tongue out, licking her inner thigh up to her ankle in a slow, torturous motion. I felt her squirm.
Once I released our interlaced fingers, she immediately grabbed my black shirt so hard that a button popped out.
“Why fucking prolong the moment?” I aided her by undoing the remaining buttons with a forceful pull: my ripped muscles exposed for her to adore.
She looked at me, taking me in while weakly panting. Then, I returned my attention to her other leg, this time licking her from the ankle down.
Down, down, down to her moist underwear. She whimpered in response. The smell of her femininity teased my nose.
It hardened me even more, made my shaft twitch to the fullest. Then, my mouth boldly sucked that small bundle of nerves, despite still being protected by the cloth.
It was the spot I know where her pleasure equaled the ecstasy of Heaven itself. And more.
“Ahhh!” She screamed, and whimpered, and screamed again.
My drunkenness seemed to momentarily disappear. “See, your moans say otherwise,” I watched her with a grin, proud of the raw effect I gave her.
That grin weakened, though, when I saw a tear escape from her eye. Why was she crying?
“Ameena?” I asked, lifting myself up.
“I’m not…,” she spoke, her eyes still closed, but by the time she opened them, more tears came down like a river. “Lucien, I’m not her.”
I grounded my teeth. Hell, this is so messed up.
“Please, if you’re going to fuck me, the least you can do is not think of another woman. Fuck me as I am. Do not use another woman’s name.”
“Nicolette!” A surge of regret filled me. I had hurt her. But it was all unintentional. Really. I honestly believed she had been Ameena.
Her soul, her aura, her very person was the same. Was I wrong then? “I’m sorry,” I said, truly regretful. Confused.
“It’s okay. You’re drunk,” she replied, glancing away.
She pulled her dress and brassiere up to cover her breasts and I just watched silently. Shit, her wetness was still so clear to see under her clamped legs.
My cock wanted for that earth-shattering release, demanded it through the strain of my pants, but I held myself, trying to control my desire for her.
Then, with a defeated sigh, I neared and lifted her up, like a husband lifts his new bride.
“Lucien!” Her arms flung in the air.
“Shhh, do not worry. We will just sleep,” I told her, eyeing the double doors of her bedroom. “Let me clear my head first. After that, I am going to make love to you as you rightfully deserve.”