The late afternoon sun is streaming through my bedroom window when I wake, disoriented and too hot. My stomach lurches, my head pounds, and I barely make it to the bathroom in time.
I am not going to miss morning sickness.
Or afternoon sickness.
Or whatever this is.
My bathroom door creaks open, and I yelp in surprise.
“Okay, love?” Manning says softly. He doesn’t recoil in horror or beat a path out of the house.
Nope.
He squats beside me, brushes my hair off my cheeks, and rubs my back. “What can I do?”
He’s in pressed jeans, a Henley shirt that smells like toast—dog, toast sounds amazing—and bare feet, which may be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
Yes, I’m hanging with my head over the toilet, contemplating Manning’s adorably large feet and long toes.
I might need more sleep.
“You’re here.” Memories stir. “Just one of you.”
He chuckles and presses a kiss to my hair as though that split lip isn’t bothering him at all. “Heaven above, I missed you.”
Having him here is so right, my chest aches. I push away from the toilet, flush, and move to the sink to clean myself up. Unlike in his bathroom, it’s not far. “Do I smell toast?”
A flash of guilt dims his smile. “Possibly. Did the smell make you ill?”
“No. Hungry.”
He dashes out of the bathroom, and by the time I’ve managed to clean myself off and zombie-walk out of my bedroom, he’s putting two pieces of toast onto one of my white Corelle plates. There’s something different about my living room, though I can’t quite put a finger on it and I don’t really care.
“Dry? Jam? Peanut butter?” Manning offers as he swivels with my toast.
His eyes are hopeful, as though his offering might be found acceptable. I smile and go up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
Given the state of his lower lip, I don’t want to hurt him by kissing him on the mouth.
I’m also not sure how his family would take that, but since he’s here, I’m assuming it’s not a point I need to worry over.
“Peach jam,” I tell him. “I can—”
Before I can finish, he’s already pivoting to the fridge. “Sit,” he orders.
Sitting does sound nice. My back and shoulders are sore from all the decorating, and—“Oh, shit, I have eight billion more orders—”
“Joey’s handling everything. Sit.”
He balances the jar of jam, the toast plate, and me, crowding me until I sit at my tiny two-person table between my kitchen and living room. He lets me put my own jam on my toast, but he watches so closely I’m convinced he knows down to the eighth of a teaspoon how much jam to put on if I want more toast when I’m done with this.
Once I’m eating, he takes the seat across from me.
And that’s when I realize something else weird.
“Is Viktor with you?” I ask around a mouthful of toast.
His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles at me, as though he’s amused that I’m talking with my mouth full, my arms propped on the table like a mannerless sloth. “Outside making sure you’ve not hidden any keys under any rocks.”
I roll my eyes. “Goat’s Tit is—”
“At risk of being invaded by half the Thrusters, since your packaging is metered at the post office here, and most of my teammates are highly amused by the word tit.”
I grimace. “I will never be able to look Nick Murphy in the eye again. Or whoever that guy was that he was shipping those to. I didn’t peg him for the boyfriend type, but whatever.”
His smile grows wider and he coughs. Several times. “As I believe I mentioned, he’s one of my charity cases.”
“I don’t think charity can fix what’s in his pants,” I whisper.
He tips his head back and laughs, and dog, he’s so ridiculously sexy when he’s laughing like that.
But I need to get a grip on myself. It’s fine to get along with my baby’s daddy.
It’s not fine to keep getting ideas about the two of us having a normal future.
He rubs his palms down the denim covering his solid thighs, his smile shifting into something else entirely.
Something warm and affectionate and starry-eyed.
I gulp down my toast while willing my pulse to slow. Why is he here?
He covers my forearm with his hand, his long fingers heating my skin while he rubs my arm with his thumb. “I’ve a proposition for you, love.”
I hiccup, and I swear my heart does too. “That sounds ominous,” I joke.
He scoots closer. “It’s been an eventful day,” he tells me as he picks a piece of frosting paper from my hair. “I’m free, my father’s reign is safe, and I’m in the rather remarkable position of being afforded the luxury of continuing to play hockey here in the States for as long as I’m able to secure a contract.”
Words.
I know words.
But they’re not coming, because I’m getting ideas based on what he’s saying, and the hope is building so fast and furious that if he pops my hope bubble, I’m going to crash hard.
“Move to Copper Valley with me. We’ll summer here. Winter there. Holiday occasionally in Stölland.”
I gape at him as words slowly start to filter into my brain, but the words still aren’t sifting fast enough for me to form coherent sentences.
Mister Beans leaps onto the table between us, turns, and lifts his tail to show me how well he cleaned himself after his trip to the litter box.
Manning sneezes.
“Oh, dog,” I whisper.
He grins despite his rapidly reddening eyes. “Bring the cat. We’ll dress in dinosaur costumes and chase it about the palace.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “You’re insane.”
“I’m a man who has unexpectedly found himself head over heels in love.”
My eyeballs are burning again. “And now you’re cheating.”
“You are quite possibly the only person in the world who has never wanted a thing from me, despite what you’re more than entitled to request. ‘Twould be far more difficult to not love you than it would be to not breathe.”
“Manning, I am not princess material.”
“On the contrary, my love, you are the best kind of princess material. You’re fierce. You’re loyal. You’re resourceful. You’re selfless. You’re kindness. You’re joy incarnate. You would make a far better princess than I shall ever be a prince.”
Tears are dripping down my nose. Mr. Beans meows and rubs his tail in my face, and I gently deposit him on the floor. Manning scoots closer. “There’s no rush, love. But I would be a shell of a man if you continue to insist you want nothing to do with me. Before you, I was unaware I even had a heart. Now, you hold it in your hands, my lady.”
“Manning,” I whisper, because my throat is clogged and I’m sniffling very unlike a princess, but it doesn’t matter, because he folds me into his arms and strokes my back and peppers me with kisses.
“I love you, Gracie,” he tells me. “Heart and soul. All of you. You’ve made me a better man, and I’d like nothing more than to spend my life proving to you just how good of a man I can be. This should be bloody terrifying, but you’re so perfectly you, it’s nothing but right.”
I hiccup into his shirt and follow it with a laugh.
Move.
Move to Copper Valley. Visit Goat’s Tit in the summer. See Stölland for myself—
“Are you sure your father won’t deny me entry into the country?”
He pulls back to gaze down at me, and the utter admiration in those perfect pale eyes makes my heart swell. “He damn well better not. Because I’m rather inclined to not go without you. Anywhere.”
And I’m about to become a blubbering mess.
He believes in me. And he wants me badly enough to put me ahead of his family.
I shake my head. “That’s—that’s—”
“Have you any idea how rare it is to find a woman willing to tell off a king for you?”
That smile. Oh, that irresistibly, joyful smile. “You can’t write your family off for me.”
“You are my family. My family, my heart, my hero. I know I’ve no right to ask you to leave your home, your friends, nor your business for me. And there’s little I can promise about the public scrutiny beyond my steadfast loyalty and belief in you. I don’t have all the answers, but you are my very soul, Gracie Diamonte.”
I launch myself at him, because here he is, pouring out his soul, offering to take me exactly as I am, offering to love me exactly as I am, offering to give me the world.
Travel.
Adventure.
Family.
This should be terrifying, because he’s right—there’s nothing simple or easy about a prince falling in love with a small-town dirty cookie baker. And the world does love a good scandal.
But he’s worth the challenge.
He cradles me in his lap, touching, kissing, stroking, loving. “I love you,” I tell him between kisses. “I’ve tried so hard not to, but I love you. I can’t help myself.”
His fingers tangle in my hair and catch on something. We lock eyes, he smiles, and I break into giggles. “Do I have frosting in my hair?”
He slides his hand down my thigh. “I do believe you’re in need of a shower, my love.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
He lifts me easily and carries me to my dinky bathroom where we barely have space to tear each other’s clothes off. I clock an elbow onto my towel rack and the bar drops out of its holder. He almost falls in the toilet. We’re both laughing so hard by the time we step into the shower that I’m struggling to stay upright.
Manning has the perfect solution though.
He lifts me against the cool tile wall, nestling his thick length between my thighs. I wrap my legs around his hips, and his red-rimmed eyes glaze over as he studies my breasts pressed to his hard chest.
“This is somewhat familiar, love.”
I touch his injured lip. “You had a bloody nose,” I whisper.
“And you were quite determined to kiss it better, as I recall.”
This man. He’ll keep me on my toes. I laugh. “Is your memory going already? I think I know someone who can help with that.”
“Ah, score one for the lovely baker with the dirty cookies.”
He kisses me softly while he pulls his hips back and rubs my pussy with his cock. I let the sensations wash over me—the hot water, his lips, the hard muscle, his solid hold, the soft vanilla scent always lingering in my house, his earthy male scent adding perfection.
“I’m giving up dirty cookies,” I tell him.
He presses at my entrance. “Don’t sacrifice what you love on my account.”
I reach between us and squeeze the only manhood I want to see for the rest of my life. “I’m not.”
His eyes cross. “Heaven above, your touch is exquisite.”
“My pussy’s even better,” I whisper. Better, and aroused, and empty, and so very, very ready.
The only thing better than his smile is knowing I caused it. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Such bold claims warrant an examination.”
He tilts his hips, and I guide him to my entrance. “Gracie,” he whispers.
“Make love to me, Manning.”
He fills me slowly, carefully, tenderly, holding me captive with his unblinking gaze as my body welcomes him. We’ve always been so frenzied, but the emotional intensity of every whispered I love you and I want you and I need you as he fills me slowly, and withdraws, and so very purposefully fills me again, coaxes my body into a physical high so far beyond anything I’ve ever felt, even before the first strings of my orgasm begin to unravel.
“Manning,” I gasp as the threads of pleasure spiral out from within me. I jerk against him, unable to stop myself.
“That’s it, love,” he urges. “Let go, Gracie.”
I come in a blinding flash of Technicolor fireworks, the world a kaleidoscope of brilliant hues of pleasure radiating from my soul out to my fingers and toes. I cry out, curling my toes, tightening my legs hard and fast around his waist, and he moans my name as he pins me to the wall while his own release overtakes him.
We stay there, together, panting, and gasping, until the water runs cold.
We dig towels out from under my sink, dry each other off, and he carries me to bed where we wrap ourselves in my threadbare sheets and ancient quilt, whispering secrets and confessions until I drift off to sleep with his hand on my belly, right over our baby.
And I don’t care that he’s a prince, nor do I care that he’s a terror on the ice.
I just care that he’s mine.
And I’m his.
And we’re going to have the most amazing, fun, love-filled life.
Together.
