I take the stairs two at a time after making my excuses to any guests who waylay me between the kitchen and my quarters. Elin notices me disappearing, but not even the disapproving crinkle between her eyes will stop me.
Because Gracie Diamonte is carrying my child.
The only child I will ever have.
And she needs to know how very much she is mine. And that I will be hers.
No matter the cost.
She’s not in the sitting room, nor the bedroom. When I peek into the office, my hot blood suddenly runs cold.
Someone is in my private room.
Someone is gleefully chuckling in my private room.
My shoulders hitch, and I cross to the open wall panel ready to pounce.
No one—not even Viktor—is allowed in my hidden chamber.
Gracie spins amidst my collection, examining everything, her smile wide, blacked-out teeth showing prominently, the beer-can curlers in her hair wiggling, eyes dancing with amusement. She stops when she spots me. “Manning! Oh my dog, I had no idea—”
She stills, and her smile drops off. “Right. I shouldn’t be snooping.”
I realize I’m not smiling.
Nor can I fake one in this moment.
I’ve known joy in my life. Celebrating my father finding happiness. Meeting my nephew. Assisting with the goal that would take my country to the ice hockey final in the Olympics for the first time in history.
But I’ve never known joy in something so small as a collection of children’s toys as Gracie seems to be experiencing right now.
That’s what Gracie is though.
Joy. Light. Happiness.
All wrapped up and braided together with strength and determination and a drive toward that which is right.
I want to kiss this woman every moment for the rest of my life.
“Please.” I swallow against the thickness building in my throat. “Snoop away. Enjoy yourself.”
She sweeps a glance about the room, her lower lip caught in her teeth, and a surge of desperate need rockets through my bollocks as she takes in the replica of Mink Arena that I’ve designed and built of Lego bricks during my downtime since I’ve been in the States. A miniature version of the Schuler Tower, the building to my northwest, sits in a corner of the room. I’ve begun a model of the manor house on Heartwood Estates, but have made little headway.
“It’s so magical,” she whispers. “I didn’t know they made Lego hockey players.” Gracie bends over the brick arena and peers at the teams I’ve arranged just so. “Is one of these you? Oh my dog, is that a shark on the ice? That’s hilarious.”
I turn back to the door and press it shut. The click makes her look up.
“You played Lego as a child, yes?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Joey did. She made cool things. Not this cool, but still pretty awesome. I was never smart enough.”
“Who the bloody hell told you that?” I step beside her, inhale that delicious peach-vanilla scent, admire the curve of her belly, and my cock springs to attention
She rolls her eyes, a small smile showcasing her blacked-out tooth. “It’s fine. Not everyone can be smart.”
“You are quite brilliant in so many ways that most people will never master.”
“I’m okay with not being smart. It’s not a big deal.”
It is a big deal. I can’t put my finger on why, but it is.
I’ve no wish to fight her though.
I wish to kiss her. Touch her.
Love her.
I’ve never wished to love a woman, but I would very much like to be worthy of loving Gracie. I angle closer under the pretense of showing off my creations. “I’ve a row of bunnies in the stands as well.” I gesture to six Lego men in bunny costumes among the fans sporting jerseys of every professional hockey team, some in costumes to match the teams, and one dressed as a hot dog.
“Puck bunnies?” Gracie asks.
“Seemed appropriate. Though I much prefer Hermione here, operating the Zamboni.” I point to the Lego witch riding the ice-smoothing machine sitting just beyond the Lego ice, and Gracie claps her hands in sheer joy.
“This is so amazing,” she says. “Why do you hide them behind a secret door?”
A flush creeps over my body. “My brothers were rather fond of destroying my creations when we were younger,” I confess.
She giggles. “No.”
I’d pay half my hockey salary to the man who could bottle Gracie’s giggle. “And once we were older as well,” I tell her.
“How old?”
“Three years ago, over Christmas, I built a model of my father’s palace on the table in the dining hall. The two of them engaged in weaponry practice over my creation, right there upon the table, until the head of my father’s guards interrupted to save the table itself from the battle axe Gunnar had borrowed from a suit of armor in the grand hallway. I’ve sent my nephew every bloody Lego set under the sun at every opportunity since, and I also sometimes bury Lego amidst the sheep pens Colden works in, as he gets rather testy at finding Lego buttons stuck to the bottom of his shoes.”
Gracie’s leaning into me as she laughs. “That’s terrible.”
Is there anything more natural than holding hands and laughing with a woman whose very presence makes my soul sing? “Mere child’s play, my lady. I happen to also know he’ll sit amongst the straw and read while he eats lunch in the barns on the days he’s able to escape his normal duties and live amongst the sheep, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as hearing his yelp when he takes a brick house up the arse.”
She’s laughing just as hard now as she did when the bloody monkey started talking. “You are bad.”
I rest a hand on her shoulder and lean in. “You’ve no idea, my lady. You should hear the things I wish to do to you right now.”
Her breath catches, and her eyes go dark. “You want to get rid of me,” she whispers.
“I should want to get rid of you. For your own good. But I find I’m too weak to be good tonight.”
The soft skin of her neck beneath my thumb tempts me so.
Surprisingly, so do the large beer-can curlers in her hair.
But it’s the curve of her belly that has made me completely and totally mad.
Heaven above, her belly is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“This is a costume,” I say as I settle my hand on the large bump protruding from her abdomen. I mean it as a question. I need reassurance babies do not, in fact, sprout so large overnight.
She lifts her eyes to mine, her lips mere inches away. “It is,” she whispers.
“But this is how you’ll look in a few months’ time.”
She nods, never breaking eye contact.
“You’ve done this to me on purpose.”
“Maybe.”
Her breathy whisper enriches my blood with lust.
“But you don’t want us,” she reminds me.
There’s nothing silent about her dare for me to contradict her.
She knows I want her. She must know. Just as she must know the only thing keeping me from her is a responsibility far greater than myself.
“You’re a bloody minx,” I murmur.
“I will save you from having to marry Elin.”
My lips twitch up. She shall save me? “I believe it’s the prince’s role to save the damsel in distress, my lady.”
“Oh, fuck that old fairy tale. You need someone who can get shit done, and you’re looking at her. Your Royal Highness.”
I’m unable to stop a bark of laughter. She’s so bloody adorable. “And I’m to be your prize for slaying the dragon?”
Her nose wrinkles. “No.”
“No?”
“Princesses don’t say fuck,” she informs me, “and I have no intention of stopping, which means I have no intention of being your princess.”
“Who’s to say I would wish to make you a princess even if I were not entangled in a political shithole?” I counter.
Would I? If I could ensure our child would have free will to choose his own path in life?
“Moot point. I don’t want a crown.”
Neither do I. “So if not to claim me as your prize, why?”
“Do you ever wish you could’ve known your mother?”
The air around me is suddenly too thick and heavy and difficult to pull into my lungs.
She searches my face. “My daddy was such a good man, and he did everything he could to make sure I knew I was loved, but I still I wish I could’ve known my mother. I don’t want my baby ever wondering why she couldn’t know her father, and because he had more important things to do is complete and utter horseshit.”
I could’ve been standing at the palace gate completely nude and felt less exposed. Both because I, too, never knew my mother, and because I’m a mere mortal unable to move the heavens to ensure I may know my child.
Not that I’m not trying. “So you’ve no interest in me for yourself at all.”
She chews her lower lip, showcasing that blacked out front left tooth. My cock lurches, and that organ in my chest that tends to have no place in any dalliance with any woman roars to life.
“No,” she lies.
And I know she’s lying, because she stares me straight in the eye as she says it.
Which gives me a clear view of her dilating pupils, her quickening breath, and the flare of desire that sparks a primal answer in the pit of my soul.
“You’re quite possibly the only woman in the world who’s even more attractive when she’s avoiding the truth.” I angle my body closer, my hand sliding from her costume belly to her waist where the heat of her skin warms the soft cotton of her tank top, my other hand holding the back of her neck and rubbing circles beneath her ear with my thumb.
“I’m not lying.” This time her gaze dips, and the tip of her pink tongue darts out to wet her lips.
“A test then,” I breathe.
“A test?”
“I shall kiss you.”
She inhales sharply, her eyes darkening, her pulse visibly fluttering at the base of her neck.
“I shall kiss you,” I repeat, “and if I find your body unwilling, I shall concede defeat and apologize for calling you a liar. But if I find your body willing, you will concede defeat and return home until I can safely solve my own royal problems.”
“No.”
I still, because no is not a word I’m accustomed to hearing from anyone other than my father and the occasional stubborn-ass coach. “I may not kiss you?”
“You can kiss me when—”
I don’t wait for her to finish, because permission to kiss her is the only part I care about. My lips crash against hers, I pull her tight against my body, and I lick at the seam of her mouth.
Her lips part with a groan, and I take every liberty with dipping my tongue into her mouth, tasting, plundering, owning.
The fake belly sits between us, my hardened cock pressing through my own leather costume against the oddly squishy foam bump.
She whimpers and deepens the kiss, her tongue gliding against mine, her breath hot on my cheek, her hands bold and unapologetic in their exploration of my skin. Her fingers leave a trail of fire everywhere they touch, and when she reaches beneath my skirt to grip my ass, all rational thought abandons me.
I need this.
I need her.
Nothing about my life is uncomplicated. Nothing easy. Nothing just mine.
Even my hockey career is being used for the betterment of my country.
But Gracie—Gracie is mine.
Not because she wants to be a princess or a puck bunny. Not because I’m her train ticket out of her quiet small-town life. But because she wants me.
She has nothing to gain from being here, and so much to lose, yet here she is. Kissing me as though I’m her very soul despite all the reasons we cannot be a normal couple, exploring this explosive attraction, seeing where our relationship might go, not just for the sake of a baby, but for ourselves.
All my smooth moves are gone. I fumble with getting my hands beneath her shirt, where I find not skin, but more fabric.
I curse into her mouth, and she replies with a giggle that makes me feel ten years younger and lifts a lifetime of royal duty and responsibility from my shoulders.
“I cannot resist you,” I say against her lips. “And if you don’t remove this bloody costume, I shall tear it off you.”
Her fingers are on the prowl again, tripping over the sticky alcoholic liquid drying to my chest. Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing rapid, her pupils wide. “Manners are so much more effective.”
I growl.
Her dark chocolate eyes light up as though the sun itself finds its fire from within this woman, seductive and glorious and so bloody happy.
“And you’ve had your kiss,” she continues as she strokes my waist above my skirt. “I’m clearly unaffected.”
I sweep her off her feet. She shrieks, but I carry her to the table where I’ve sorted my Lego into piles by size and color in preparation for continuing my latest project. I sweep them all off, scattering them over the rug, and set her down on the edge.
“You’re unaffected,” I repeat, leaning down to her eye level, nose-to-nose, those tantalizing lips mere inches from mine. I can feel her soft breath, smell her earthy feminine scent, see the intoxication caused by arousal darkening her cheeks and lowering her lashes. My hands cup her breasts, my thumbs teasing her pert nipples and making her gasp.
She arches into my touch even as she brushes a hand through my hair, the gentle, affectionate gesture tugging at something deep within my chest. “Completely unfazed,” she lies again, a mischievous grin dancing across her delectable lips.
“Do you know what I do to vixens who lie to me?”
She tilts her head as though she’s pondering the question while her gaze rakes down my bare chest and lingers on the movement beneath my gladiator skirt. Her fingers dance over my nipples, triggering a desperate surge of need in my cock.
“Beheadings?” she guesses, her voice breathy and aroused.
I need to get this shirt and costume off her. “That would be an easy solution to some problems,” I murmur. “But for beautiful vixens who lie to me, I find I must kiss them again.”
Her lips part in a smile again as her fingers dance lower on my abdomen, tracing and exploring the ridges. “Don’t make threats you can’t follow through on.”
Should I kiss Gracie?
No. My duty dictates I walk away.
But every fiber of my being demands that I stay.
Kiss.
Claim.
Conquer.
She is mine.
“Remove this costume,” I say as I lean in to nibble her plump lower lip, “and I shall reward good behavior.”
“We shouldn’t do this.” But she’s tugging at my arse again, pulling my straining cock against her plump belly.
“We’ve already done this.”
I suckle her lower lip into my mouth. She moans and wraps her legs around me, twisting to assist me with removing her shirt. We break apart, and she flings the fabric somewhere while I lower my lips to the hollow at the top of her cleavage. “I should like to feast on your breasts every morning,” I tell her.
My hands are utterly beyond my control, reaching around her to unhook her bra and finding the clasps to release her belly as well. The padding falls away, the peach satin holding her perfect mounds slips too, and I swallow against the rising wave of desire to touch, inhale, lick every millimeter of her skin all at once, to experience her entire body.
The emerald stud just above her navel winks at me. Her belly has yet to show evidence of the child she carries, but it will.
And I want to be there to watch her grow.
“I want all of you,” I tell her neck. “I wish to lick you from head to toe. I wish to linger on the soft skin of your thighs. To suckle the sweet tips of your breasts. To taste your climax on my tongue and feel your slick heat clenching around my fingers and my cock.”
“Yes,” she gasps.
I lap at that tender spot beneath her ear, and her legs wrap tighter around me, pulling my aching member against that sweet heat between her thighs. She grinds against me, and even through my leather and her denim, I fear I might not be able to hold myself back.
“Do you like it when I touch you here?” I cup the sweet weight of her breasts in my palms and rub circles around her puckered pink areolas, avoiding the hard tips, teasing her with the idea of more.
“More,” she pants. “Touch me more.”
“Here?” I skim my fingers across her ribcage.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps here?” I glide my hand around to her backside, trace up her shoulder blades, and then down her spine.
She moans my name and pumps her core against my cock.
These jeans of hers need to go. As does my own costume, which I release and let drop to the floor. The weight of the skirt rubs across my shaft as gravity works its magic. I imagine Gracie squeezing me instead, and every drop of blood in my body surges to take me impossibly hard. My bollocks ache so desperately that the sensation ripples outward to cramp my gut.
If I don’t taste this woman—now—I will go right fucking insane.
I claim her mouth while I tug at the button of her jeans. Her tongue thrusts against mine, her arms clamp around me, and she happily slides off the edge of the table to allow me to push her trousers over her smooth, curvy hips.
“We shouldn’t,” she whispers again.
Heaven above, I need her. “Tell me to stop and I will, but by the stars, I will do whatever it takes to have you. If not tonight, tomorrow. The next day. The day after that. I will be the man you need, and by the heavens, I will have you.”
Her breath audibly catches. I grip her chin and stare into those beautiful pools of dark chocolate until I’m certain I have all her attention. “My heritage may ask that I give another my name, my crown, my land, but it may not rule my affection. I fancy you, Gracie. Only you.”
She wraps her arms about my neck and pulls me to her, her lips taking the lead. She kicks her jeans off as she claims my mouth, once more grips my hips with her legs, and my bare cock brushes the hot wetness of her core.
Yes. Yes.
I catch her moan in my mouth while I rub my shaft amongst her slick folds. I’ve never entered a woman without protection, but I want to feel her. All of her. Her flesh against mine.
She’s already carrying my child.
I’ve no earthly reason to bother with wrapping it up.
I push at her entrance, the crown of my cock delirious with the sensation of being welcomed into her silky channel. She spreads herself open wider, her hips thrusting, her fingernails biting into my shoulders as a hum of pleasure emanates from deep within her.
“More, Manning,” she gasps.
I pull back, much to the disappointment of my royal member, because we’ve done this quickly once before.
Tonight will not be quick.
Gracie whimpers.
“Fear not, love.” I lick and nip my way down her neck while I reach between us and stroke that sweet pussy of hers. She rocks into my hand, gasping and writhing. “I’ve no intention of leaving you unsatisfied.”
When I take the tip of her breast into my mouth, she fists her hands in my hair and holds me. I swirl my tongue about her erect nipple. She groans, so I suckle her breast deeper.
“Manning, more,” she gasps.
I release her breast with another lick to her nipple. “Tell me what you like, love.”
“Everything.”
“What luck. I happen to like everything too. Especially this beautiful nipple right here. Is it lonely, love?” I suck and nip at her other breast while stroking between her legs, coating my fingers in her juices. She jerks erratically, moaning my name again.
My lips explore lower, to that emerald stud, while my fingers slip inside her channel. “Exquisite,” I breathe.
“Oh, dog, Manning,” she whispers. “I’m going to—I’m—yes! Ohmydog, I’m coming!”
Her release catches me by surprise as her walls clench and spasm around my fingers. I’ve not even touched her clit or taken my mouth to her pussy, yet she’s exploding about me, her come coating my fingers and leaking onto my hand.
I watch her neck arch back, the deep flush overtaking her skin while I coax her higher with a thumb to her engorged pearl. “That’s it, love. Come for me.”
Is she always this sensitive?
Or is she merely this sensitive for me?
Her grip on my shoulders is tight enough to leave bruises. The feel of her pussy milking my fingers makes my cock throb in desperation, and the sheer bliss on her face as her climax fades into softer, irregular spasms makes me mad with desire to shag this woman every hour of every day for the foreseeable future.
“Ohmydog,” she whispers reverently.
I flick her clit once more.
Gooseflesh erupts over her entire body, and her channel squeezes again. “You’re magnificent,” I murmur.
I pull my fingers from her pussy and lick at her come. “And delicious.”
Her eyes have barely focused, but they go dark once again. “The party,” she whispers.
“We’re not done, my lady. Are you always so sensitive?”
She shakes her head, a bit of pride sneaking into her smile. Still with that blacked-out tooth. Those ridiculous beer-can curlers.
I’ve never in my life been quite so raging hard for a woman so very bloody improper and yet so perfectly cute.
Cute.
Cute is for lambs and schoolgirls and my nephew learning to swing a stick. Cute is not for the women I bed.
Yet I very much love how very bloody cute Gracie Diamonte is.
“I wish to bend you over my table and bury my cock so deep inside you that I’m unable to tell where I end and where you begin,” I tell her.
Color rises on her cheeks. “You talk dirty,” she whispers.
“What would you have me do?” I ask as I nip at her shoulder.
She slowly licks her lips, her gaze dipping to my aching cock, and I can’t decide if she’s gathering courage to say what’s on her mind, or if she’s drawing out the suspense.
“First?” she asks like a bloody minx, her fingers trailing down my chest. “Or do you want a list?”
I swallow. “Your choice, my lady.”
Her fingers follow her gaze, down down down to the very prominent reminder of my own arousal. “I’d have you laid out on this table so that I could ride you like a cowgirl.”
The image of her breasts bouncing above me while she pumps her hips over my swollen cock nearly makes me go cross-eyed.
“Or maybe I’d rather you fuck me against the wall,” she whispers. “Or eat me in the shower. Or take me from behind on all fours in your bed. Or maybe I’d like you to stand absolutely still while I give you a blow job.”
Black dots are dancing in my vision, because all blood flow has ceased except to flood my raging hard-on. She grabs my bollocks in one hand while she grips me about the base with the other and strokes me to the tip, and I nearly come all over my table.
I grab her wrists. “Gracie.”
She twists to capture my mouth with hers and pulls me down as she shifts back and spreads herself on the table. “I want you inside me,” she whispers. “I want you inside me now. Just you. Please.”
I’m not one to make a lady ask twice. I lift her beneath her knees, scoot her back, and follow her onto the table. She spreads her legs wide, giving me a glimpse of her sweet glistening pussy, ready for me, wanting me.
I settle between her legs and kiss her as I press my cock to her entrance once more. She grips my arse and tilts her hips into me, taking me deeper inside, her hot silky flesh welcoming my aching cock. We glide together, skin to skin, and I find I’m unable to hold a steady rhythm.
I want her.
I need her.
She’s the only thing in the world that is mine and mine alone. “I can’t be smooth, love,” I tell her. “I can’t be slow. I need you hard and fast.”
She whimpers and moans, pumping her hips up to meet my every slam into her body. I should slow, go easy, but she’s driving me wild, pushing out rational thought in my desperate attempt to imprint her forever with the feel of my cock in her pussy, the reminder that she is mine, that I’m giving her a piece of me that no other mortal being shall ever have.
“Gracie—”
“Manning,” she cries.
She clenches and squeezes my cock deep within her, her eyes lock on mine, and I swear I glimpse the heavens as her climax overtakes her again.
I thrust once, twice more, and join her, unable to tear my gaze from hers as we ride wave after wave of pleasure together, me spilling into her, her body welcoming me and spurring my release harder, hotter, higher.
I’ve traveled the world. I’ve stood on an Olympic podium with the team of my nation. I’ve been cheered in parades and arenas, stood atop glaciers and helicoptered through dormant volcanoes, and yet nothing—nothing—compares to the thrill of pleasuring this woman.
And it’s not merely a thrill.
It’s also peace.
As though I’ve finally come home.
I spend my last and catch myself before I fall atop her. My muscles are lax rubber bands, my bones as sturdy as jellyfish, my throat suspiciously thick as I watch the last of her aftershocks leave her body.
Her head is tilted, her beer-can curlers askew, her breath coming rapidly. And she’s giving me a soft, sweet smile that I do not deserve. I stroke a hand up her side, wishing to kiss her and stroke her and to stay here in our private cocoon, the rest of the world carrying on without us.
“You shall sleep in my bed the remainder of your visit,” I inform her.
“No.”
Confounding woman. My grin easily finds me, because how could I not relish the opportunity to spar with this woman over which of us will care for the other? “Yes.”
“No—mmph!”
I clamp a hand over her mouth, because there’s a sound from outside the wall.
She attempts to bite my fingers.
“Sshh,” I warn, unable to hide a smile at her spunk even as I twist to watch the closed entrance to my secret chamber.
The noise comes again.
My name.
On a woman’s lips.
In my private quarters.
Elin.
Fuck.
