Page 91 of Royal Crush
He gave me a little shove, and I stood up, cracking my back before passing the living room. “I’m going to change. Get comfy.”
“Don’t wear too much. I want to feel your skin against mine,” Camillo called after me.
That was an easy ask. It was warmer out here, and with the windows open, there was nothing better than lounging on his chest with the ocean breeze floating across my skin. I could waste away for an entire afternoon doing nothing more than that.
Peeling away my shirt, I popped in the bathroom for a piss, then put on a pair of gym shorts, aired out my disgusting feet for a few, then headed back to where my love was waiting for me. He was stretched out in the L corner just the way I liked, his legs parted enough to fit my body.
I grinned, then wormed my way up his body until I was wrapped around him like an octopus, and I breathed out old, stale air I’d been holding in, thanks to all the tension in my body. Every muscle began to relax in little fits and bursts.
Camillo’s fingers danced across my back like he was searching for all the knotted places, and every so often, he’d stop to rub a sore spot. “So. This is it, isn’t it?”
I looked up at him, propping my chin up on his chest. “What?”
“This. Us. This is home.”
“For now.”
He tilted his head to the side. “You don’t want to go back there, do you?”
“I don’t know. You’re still the prince.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m barely a prince. My nieces are already ordering me around.”
I laughed. “That’s because they’re children. They do that. But seriously, you’re more than just a title. There are ways for you to do good things once my schedule is free.”
I didn’t want to count on successes after all this. I had already seen how quickly and how rapidly it could all fall apart. I’d been irrelevant once—and that could happen again far too easily. But this time, I was okay with it. This time, I wouldn’t be alone.
He sighed and shrugged. “I’ll always go back. If my parents abdicate and my brother takes over, I want to be there for the coronation—though I think he’d fight them on that.”
I didn’t think Camillo was wrong. Every time he brought up Carlo being king, the crown prince went green in the face and looked like he was going to throw up all over his shoes.
“I should go back for my parents’ anniversary, and I’d like to be there for the girls’ birthdays.”
“I bet those are fun,” I told him with a grin.
He smiled down at me. “Bouncy castles and pony rides.”
“Fuck yes.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “But those are visits. I want something that’s ours. It doesn’t have to be here. I don’t much care where it is as long as you’re with me.”
“But?” I pressed. I could always tell when he was holding back.
He sighed. “But I don’t want it to be in Caverna. It was home, but that felt so against my will. Nothing in Caverna ever brought me joy except meeting you, and even then, we had to escape to find peace.”
It had been hard once we went public. All of Camillo’s fears had come true. I woke up to paparazzi outside my car when I was heading off for work, and every interview I did was either about him and his disability or about me and my past. And no one wanted to listen to the truth.
No one was willing to believe us.
So I understood. There was nothing back there waiting for us. Nothing that would make what we had better or stronger.
“Marbella,” I said.
He laughed. “Too much sun.”
“Capri?”
“Not the most accessible for me.”
