Foreign Affairs ❥ lrh

Chapter Eighteen: Damage Control

Birds chirped away outside the windows of Camellia Palace, singing at the top of their lungs with no regard for Prince Luke of La Gracía's exhausted state. Their incessant tweeting finally roused him enough to take a look around his room, almost as if he expected to find that a breast of robins had pecked through the glass and stationed themselves around his four-poster bed for the sole purpose of gawking at him.

But everything down to the bench of his grand piano was empty and bare, including the other half of his mattress. He was completely alone; Violet had left him at some point during the night and he had been so heavily under the influence of codeine that he had missed it.

There was no sign of a pink and white steel string guitar. No sign of the blonde girl whose body heat he craved more than anyone else's. No sign that she had even been there at all, apart from the stack of pillows under his right leg. It didn't seem like nearly enough of her.

He wiped his tired eyes and attempted to turn over to the other side of his bed, but was interrupted by heavy boulders crashing down on his body. A pained groan escaped his lips as a dozen memories of being knocked from his horse came back to him; the sound of his heavy lance landing squarely in Ashton's chest in a moment of unharnessed rage made him wince. Even after he'd recovered from the terrible visions, his body continued throbbing in unpleasant ways as if to further prove to him that his emotions hadn't been the only weapons at play the day before.

His face scrunched as he stretched out his worn body and then fluffed his pillow before turning it over to the cold side. After a heavy sigh, he collapsed into the cool cotton and gently kicked the tower of pillows under his elevated knee to the ground. Though it hurt quite a bit, he carefully turned his body one muscle at a time until he was able to fully flip onto his stomach. Almost feeling like he'd not gotten any sleep at all, he tried readjusting into a comfortable position but it was impossible given the state of his injuries.

The Prince yearned to slip back under for just ten more minutes and he gave falling back asleep one more go, despite the yammering birds just outside his window. His expensive, hand-woven comforter draped around his shoulders was woefully cold on the other side; he tried to imagine what it would be like if it were still full and warm the way it had been last night.

A familiar feeling had creeped through his body in his sleep and he had woken up with the type of ache that had been reoccurring more frequently over the past several weeks. There wasn't much he could do except take care of them when they persisted too long. And this one... was certainly persisting.

With another shuffle of sore movement, Luke wrapped his arms around his pillow and inched his body further down his bed. Desperate thoughts overcoming him, he pushed his hips harder against the bed and moved back and forth a couple times in a row. He closed his eyes to block out the sun coming through his curtains and focused on the sensation. Rutting into his mattress so deeply made his breath hitch. While it felt good to keep going, he soon had to admit it was taking too high a toll on his injured knee and ankle and no longer felt worth it.

Though he knew he was at home and alone, and that his door was locked, and that he couldn't be seen through his windows, he still had to look around and make sure. Just over two decades into this life, he was well used to the precautions he had to take. Something that should've been innocuous could still be used to not only publicly humiliate him, but his entire family too, if he forgot to be careful. Even just once. It would only take one time. But his room was closed off; he was truly alone.

He didn't have a ton of energy but he resolved to pull his dominant hand from the backside of his pillow and bring it below his waistline to palm himself back and forth while he pushed down into his hand. A short, staccato hum spilled from his throat and his eyebrows laced together at the sensation of tucking his hand under the fabric; he tried to let the sound come out without stifling it but was only partially successful.