Chapter 3 Callie

The shiver trembled through me, every single nerve in my body sparking and sizzling at his nearness.

He's so close.

Him. HIM. Right there, in the flesh, standing right in front of me like something out of a dream or a fantasy. Like, for instance, the forbidden one that'd been roaring through my head for months. The illicit, terrible, filthy fantasies that'd kept me up late into the night. Fantasies of the man I imagined whenever I had to close my eyes to escape the reality of who I was actually marrying.

But I was awake, this was no dream, and he was really standing right in front of me, with those piercing dark eyes blazing right into me.

King Hayden Anders.

Rough, gorgeous, a little scary, but in a way that sent shivers through my body and lit the fires in places I knew it shouldn't. King Hayden was not like other royals or kings - certainly nothing like the one I was supposed to be marrying that day.

Kings come from bloodlines, but not him. Not Hayden. When his country was in the middle of a bloody civil war, he'd fought his way to the top, reuniting the country and single-handedly pushing the country into peace and prosperity by sheer iron will.

Of course, those stories were legend by now, and I'd heard them dozens of times. But then, those weren't the only stories about King Hayden.

I felt my face heat furiously at the mere thought of those other stories - the ones princesses whispered to each other to make each other giggle and blush. Because it wasn't the legends of King Hayden's ability to rule, or of his not-so-royal beginnings that I and other younger princesses had shrieked to each other during sleepovers. It wasn't his tattoos or his chiseled jaw, or his huge muscles, or the fact that he was gorgeous - though we certainly gossiped about that.

No, the legend of King Hayden that'd made me blush furiously the first time I'd heard it, and then given me some of my first filthy, dirty dreams, was the legend of what was between his legs.

...King Hayden was huge.

All. Over.

I felt my whole body tingle as my eyes dragged up his thick chest, and his broad shoulders, and that beautiful, chiseled jaw to his piercing dark eyes. He was just a large man, right? I mean, no one was actually that, you know, big, down there. Right?

What, like you've got any experience?

I bit my lip and clenched my fingers into a fist, digging my nails into my palm to try and wrench myself from the dirty thoughts running through my mind concerning the man standing before me, closing the door and shutting us alone together in my chambers.

On my wedding day.

I shivered, feeling my core tighten, and nipples harden to little beads under my thin, gauzy white dress.

There was no love in what I was about to do that day. Only duty, which was a bitter pill to swallow. I mean, King Milton was awful. He hadn't touched me - thank God - but I knew what was coming soon. That very night actually. He'd spoken at length about how he was going to "make me a woman" after our wedding, and how he was going to "bed" me.

Gross.

Milton was pushing sixty years old, and he was sweaty, and crude, and disgusting. He had three mistresses that I already knew of, he smelled like fried food, and his breath was horrendous.

But, he was paying off my parents' considerable debts, and for that, he'd demanded a prize in return.

Me.

My parents had been completely against the idea - my mother heatedly so. But I knew what had to be done, for the good of my family and for the Kingdom of Arbor.

Sacrifices had to be made, which is why I was marrying the grossest king in the world. Well, or at least I was supposed to.

But when King Hayden moved close, and sent my breath catching in my chest, and when his hands slid around my waist to pull me into him, sending my pulse racing, I wasn't so sure that was going to be happening anymore.

I whimpered as my body fell into his, my palms falling to his chest as my heart jumped into my throat. I gasped, feeling the urgency in his grip and the heat in his eyes. And when his big, hard body pressed to my much smaller one, I felt the shiver of heat shudder through me, the desire pooling between my legs.

And then I felt it. I felt something huge throb against my belly, and I gasped.

...That couldn't be real, could it? As real as it felt?

My head spun, and it felt like the heat of the room was pulsing through me as he pulled me close. One hand slid up the back of my white wedding dress, sliding up into the carefully piled curls and loops of blonde hair on top of my head and tangling in them. He tugged, just enough to make me whimper and make my heart race as he tilted my head back, his eyes blazing right into mine.

"I'm counting to three, Princess," he growled, making me shiver. I could feel the thick bulge in his tuxedo throb against me, turning me into a puddle as I lost myself in his eyes.

"And on three, I'm taking what's mine."

I moaned.

"If you don't want that, tell me to go," he hissed, his jaw tight. "But do it before three, because after that, I'm not stopping."

His hand tightened on my body, and I could feel my hips moving against him, like they had a mind of their own, or like they were genetically programed to do so.

"I'll never stop when it comes to you."

My eyes were wide as they locked with his.

"One," Hayden purred.

This was insane, right? I was completely losing my mind, right? I mean, Milton being terrible or not, this was my wedding day, and here I was with the gorgeous, captivating, panty-meltingly hot King Anders inches from my lips with a promise to steal me away on his.

"Your Highness!" I peeped out.

"Two."

I whimpered, and I knew it was already over. I knew I was already his.

"Three."

His lips crushed to mine, and when I felt my whole body melt into him, I knew I was lost. Blissfully, wonderfully, never-want-to-be-found-again lost.

He kissed me slowly, letting me feel every second of it as the whole world blurred around me. My blood sizzled like fire, my body ached for more, and when I opened my lips for his tongue, I never wanted him to stop.

But slowly, like a runaway train slowly stopping, he broke away, leaving his lips inches from mine and his eyes burning into me.

"Now you're mine, Princess," he growled quietly, his hands tightening on me. "And you're going to be my queen."