by Pippa Grant
“You’re quite good at making enemies, Viktor.”
“’Tis never been my job to make friends.”
“Yet you still managed to marry to a woman with a brain and a conscience.” Mum pats me on the cheek. “Well done, son. Your father would’ve been so pleased.”
I’m spared from the titters about the heat gathering in my face because at that precise moment, a cacophony of feminine voices erupts in the entry hall.
My heart leaps, relief floods my veins, and I stand so quickly I upend my chair.
Alexander lifts a brow.
Eva and Mum both squeal and dart out of the kitchen.
I follow on their heels, as I know an ambush when I see one.
“Oh my god, girls!” Papaya squeals.
Peach winces.
They’re pulling their own luggage, which I assume they’ve accomplished by beating the staff back with a stick and shrieking unique Southern threats. Both women are sporting fresh tans, and I find the utter relief that Peach has returned has put that thick glow back in my chest, along with a tightness in my turnips.
I missed her.
Even though she most likely would have spent the last week driving me mad with her obstinacy, I missed her.
“Please tell me you’re not a big ol’ stick in the mud like Viktor,” Papaya babbles to Eva. “How old are you? Like voting age, or drinking age? Do you like alpacas? Ohmygod! Fred! I have to go check on Fred!”
She drops everything on the floor and grabs Peach’s arm. “We have to go check on Fred.”
“We will—” Peach begins.
“Right now.”
I wade into the madness, my feet moving of their own accord, my hands too as I cup Peach’s cheeks and bend to press a kiss to her lips.
Her soft, plump, delicious lips.
I’ve not kissed her since we fell through the wall, and I’ve no shame in taking advantage of our circumstance of needing to feign love to reacquaint my body with hers.
She sighs softly and grips my shirt, parting her lips and leaning her hips into mine.
I’m instantly hard as diamonds.
What is this woman doing to me?
“Oh, god, already? You two are so gross.”
Peach is yanked away. She blinks in surprise, and I growl.
“’Twould be my pleasure to escort you to the stables,” Alexander interjects smoothly. “Eva, this is Papaya—the louder one—and Peach—the older one mad enough to marry our brother. And I’ve been derelict in my duties in failing to introduce you yet to Fred.”
“Hello—” Eva starts, but Alexander grips her by the collar of her crisp striped blouse and steers her toward the door.
“’Tis best we run before they continue getting reacquainted,” he says loudly enough to be annoying.
As though he shan’t behave as a lovestruck puppy when Samuel returns from putting his medical practice to rights back in Stölland.
“We—” Peach starts, but I don’t give her time to finish.
Instead, I toss her over my shoulder. She shrieks. “Stay if you wish,” I tell my family. “We’ve an appointment. Papaya, welcome home. Mum, Eva, excuse us. Introductions can wait.”
“They’re so disgusting,” Papaya whines as I carry a still gasping Peach toward the stairwell. “How old are you? Eva, right? I’m fourteen, but everyone always mistakes me for eighteen. So we can hang out wherever you want to. Do you have a cool accent too? Have you ever been to Alabama? I got to meet Dax Gallagher at the wedding. Do you know Half Cocked Heroes?”
She’s still yammering as the door closes behind us.
I expect Peach to insist upon being put down once we can no longer hear Papaya, but instead, her entire body seems to sag as though she’s happy to let me carry her burdens.
“Your travel was uneventful?” I ask as I turn us into the hallway.
Is it my imagination, or is she stroking my back?
“Papaya didn’t take any unplanned trips on the baggage carousel, end up earning herself an orange jumpsuit, or try to run away with the Bergers’ teenage cousins, so I think that counts. And Meemaw decided she wanted to visit friends back home in Alabama for a few weeks, so I only had to track one of them through the airports.”
“That does sound rather successful. And how was the wedding?”
She snorts with laughter. “Are you serious? You’re carrying me like a caveman and asking about the wedding?”
“I beg your pardon, my lady. One would rarely mistake you for a caveman.”
She laughs again, though she seems to be trying to stop herself. “You—”
Before she can finish, I enter our rooms. The door lists open, and it takes two tries before I successfully latch it shut. I settle her on her feet beside the four-poster bed. When I glance up, she’s gone from happy to wary.
The feeling is utterly relatable.
Her attention dips to my mouth, and everything inside me ignites.
“I feared you would not return,” I tell her softly.
“I keep my promises,” she whispers, her eyes still on my mouth.
“So you’ve returned for your word only?”
Her pulse is fluttering in her neck, rather as quickly as mine is. “I have a confession.”
Her voice is so soft I have to lean closer and strain to hear, which gives me an opportunity to inhale her tangy-sweet scent. “Shall I call the guards? Or are you hoping for a royal pardon?”
She doesn’t roll her eyes or tell me I’m not funny, and my heart surges into my throat.
I lift a brow, though I fear I’m failing to hide my own anxiety.
Did she enjoy the company of another man whilst she was gone? Commit an unspeakable crime? Confess to a reporter that our marriage is a sham?
“I…” She drops her eyes to the floor. “…missed you.”
My heart is once again pounding, but this time, I feel the beat surging below my belt. I swallow twice as my mouth has gone quite dry. “That’s quite the bold confession, my lady.”
“I just wanted you to know that I maybe…don’t dislike you…anymore.”
Her face has gone a lovely pink, and she’s tugging at the end of an errant lock of hair that’s fallen from her ponytail, still unable to look me in the eye.
“I quite missed you as well,” I tell her honestly.
“It doesn’t count if you have to wait to say it until someone else has already said it.”
She’s such a lovely contradiction of strength and sass and sensitivity. “Perhaps not, but ‘twas I who kissed you first upon your return.”
“You had to, or your family would’ve thought it was weird.”
“And if I kiss you now?”
“Then you’re just trying to prove a point.”
She’s retreating so quickly from her feelings, I wonder what could have possibly transpired in her life to make her fear them so desperately.
I take her hand and bring it to my lips, gently pressing a kiss to each knuckle. “Am I, my lady?”
Gooseflesh races up her forearm. She’s gained more freckles in the sun, an entire galaxy of stars mapped out on her skin.
“You’re cheating,” she whispers, which is a ridiculous argument meant to prick at my honor.
I ignore it, because I rather suspect baiting me is her intention. I lift her hand and kiss her palm.
She doesn’t pull away, though her entire arm does vibrate and tremble. Her pert nipples are standing erect and straining the thin cotton of her white blouse, and the sight makes my bollocks ache.
I wonder if she’s quite wet between her legs.
“You thought of me while you were gone.”
“O-only when M-manning’s new guard st-strip searched me.”
Despite knowing she’s lying, a surge of jealousy and possessiveness rips through my core and makes my cock swell harder. I move my kisses to her wrist, holding her dark gaze captive. “Ah, that must’ve been a joy for him. Pity I had to miss it.”
“You d-don’t ca
re that another m-man saw me naked?”
“I assume you endured it while imagining he was me.”
Her lips twitch into a smile despite her obvious efforts. “You—” she stops with a gasp as I lick at the juncture between her palm and wrist.
“You missed me,” I remind her.
She hooks her free hand behind my neck and pulls me to her lips, devouring me with her mouth, hooking a leg about my hips. I lift her so that she can wrap both her legs around me, and sweet heavens, having her body nestling my aching cock once more is so bloody perfect.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she rasps out.
On the contrary, we’ve already changed everything. “Of course not, my lady.”
26
Peach
I’m going to regret this later, but right now, the only thing I care about is ripping Viktor’s shirt off so I can get closer to him.
I missed him.
I don’t know how it happened, but I missed him.
I’m breathing too fast, and there’s a desperate ache between my thighs that rubbing his hard length isn’t solving, and my breasts are so heavy I need a stronger bra.
And because he’s Viktor, he’s probably noticed, even with his eyes closed and his tongue stroking mine.
I succeed in unbuttoning his shirt and press my breasts against his hard chest—covered with an undershirt, of course, but my nippleage still goes harder. He ran this morning—I can still smell the scent of sweat lingering on him, mixing with his simple soap like he rushed through a shower and wasn’t all the way cooled down before he stepped out.
I wonder if he stroked himself. If he thought of me. If I’m ridiculous for being jealous of the water that was all over him.
Fuck, Viktor’s so hot when he’s all wet.
I’m dry-humping him like a rabbit on a little blue pill, and I don’t care. Every night the past week, I lay awake, listening to Meemaw snore and Papaya mumble to herself in her sleep, missing the steady rhythm of Viktor’s breathing and wondering if he jacked off before he went to sleep.
I need to feel his skin.
I need to hear his voice rumbling out that irritating my lady.
I need to see him desperately needing me as bad as I’m afraid I desperately need him.
He settles me on the bed, and I pull out of the kiss. “If this thing breaks—” I start.
He smiles, pops twin dimples, and my heart creaks out a feeble protest that the only place we’re headed is trouble.
But it’s overruled by the aching desperation of my throbbing clit.
He licks my neck and thrusts his hips, and every last worry in my chest evaporates.
“Pants off,” I gasp. “Condom. Nightstand.”
“Not those, my lady.” He cups my breast and thumbs my nipple through my shirt and bra, and I’m so close to coming I should be embarrassed, but Thor in heaven, I need this. “They’ve been compromised.”
I freeze.
Okay, most of me freezes.
My hips are still pumping against his dick because it’s been months since I’ve had a man-made orgasm and I’m so fucking close and he’s stupidly muscular and delicious and steady and— “Compromised?”
“The kingdom wishes for—I’ve hidden a fresh untampered box within the safe.”
He’s rocking against me, so thick and hard and insistent, and I have to force myself to focus, because god, his suit pants are slick against my leggings, the barriers so thin, his cock so heavy and riding perfectly against that bundle of nerves, and when he pinches my nipple, ten million volts of sheer pleasure rocket from my breast to my core, and I’m suddenly coming fast and hard with nothing for my pussy to squeeze.
I grip him by the hair and press his head into my neck. He nips at the tendons, and I cry out as my orgasm crashes harder.
I’m so fucking easy.
And still not satisfied.
“Clothes—off—now.”
He straightens—the man knows how to take orders—and strips off his undershirt. His abs ripple in the soft light, and his copper nipples are hard as pebbles against the flat, solid plane of his pecs. I fumble with my own buttons while he spins a painting of a goat fucking a sheep on its side hinges and turns a knob on a safe.
My hands still at the realization that if he weren’t so observant—and suspicious—we could be headed down a dangerous path.
“You—they—” I whisper.
He cocks a brow at me, then returns to inspecting the fresh box of condoms. When he pulls out a knife to slice through the tape sealing it shut, I’m simultaneously turned on and horrified.
“I changed the combination,” he tells me as he lifts a string of foil packets to the light and peers closely. “And I continue to change it every three days.”
“That’s—”
“Quite alluring and brilliant of me, I know. Pray don’t fall over yourself worshipping my masterful powers of distrust and suspicion.”
I stare at him for two heartbeats before I burst out laughing.
He grins, shucks his pants, and I suddenly lose my breath.
“Loser on the bottom,” he declares. “And, my dear, you’re quite far behind. I’ve only to remove my socks still.”
“That’s not the rule.” I hustle out of my shirt and sit up to unhook my bra.
He watches, his eyes glazing over with lust. “’Tis absolutely the rule. Now, shall I have you on all fours and take you from behind, or with your legs hooked about my neck, or shall I bury my face between your thighs until you’re quite incapable of walking for three days?”
My empty pussy clenches despite the danger, danger warning my brain is buzzing to my ears. I’m on birth control—learned that lesson the hard way—but the idea of compromised condoms still gives me the chills.
Viktor’s sharp brows narrow downward. “If you’d prefer to be on top—or to not do this—”
I tackle him before he can finish his sentence, and we topple to the floor next to the bed. His socks are still on.
So are my pants.
I jump up and yank them off, then straddle him, right there on the rug, before he can get any ideas. And then I kiss him before he can talk.
Because I can’t remember the last time a man gave me an easy out.
Hey, blondie, know what would look good between your legs? Me.
Just one more kiss, sweetheart, you know you want to.
I didn’t come up here so you could get cold feet.
His big hands cradle my breasts, his fingers and thumb stroking the curve of my breasts instead of going for the easy shot again with my nipples.
And it makes that hollow ache in my core throb harder.
My fingers curl tighter in his hair. I’ve trapped his cock between our bodies, gliding over it with my wet seam, moaning every time my clit rides the ridge of his thick, swollen head.
He’s gasping and grunting too, like maybe Viktor—steady, solid, always-in-control Viktor—is on the edge of losing it completely as well.
I’ve always wanted to drive him mad.
But I never considered seducing him would be the most effective method.
I giggle to myself while I’m still kissing him.
“I don’t want to know, do I?” he murmurs against my lips.
He brushes a thumb over my cheek, and the soft gesture would bring me to my knees if I weren’t already straddling him on the floor.
He licks my lips and continues. “You’re quite diabolical. I’m entirely uncertain if I should trust you.”
“Shut up, Viktor.” I reach between us and squeeze his erection.
His hooded lids drift completely shut, and he arches his head back. He shaved this morning, but he already has a five-o’clock shadow drifting down his neck. His tendons stand out stark and thick, and I lean in and bite one.
For fun.
“Bloody fuck, Peach,” he rasps out.
I stroke his thick length, squeezing to try to make my thumb and finger meet around his girth.
He grunts and strains, bucking into my touch, losing control. My pussy squeezes.
I want him.
I want him inside me.
Thrusting. Pounding. Coming his brains out.
I want to drive him wild. Insane. Ride him until we’re both sex-sated jellyfish.
The condoms have fallen on the floor. I grab the sleeve, rip one off, and roll it down his length. He rolls, trapping me under him, and I wrap my legs around his hips.
“Bloody angel of terror,” he grunts while he probes my entrance with his engorged head.
I laugh until he pushes inside, and then I’m gasping.
He’s stretching my inner walls to the max, driving into me like a man on the edge. “Ohmygod, more.”
I angle my hips, and he rams into me. His pelvis rocks against my clit with every thrust, and that hot coil builds deep in my center.
I didn’t mean to get back to the palace and jump his bones, but Thor almighty, I did miss him.
“So bloody tight,” he grunts. “So bloody hot.”
Our eyes connect, and the Viktor I know is gone.
His dark eyes are searching, seeking, but not the usual what are you up to? suspicion.
No, this is could you truly love me? vulnerability.
Raw desire and blatant insecurity from a man who’s usually buttoned up so tight I sometimes wonder how he can breathe.
“So bloody perfect,” he adds, and I break.
No, not break.
Burst apart in a glittery rainbow of sheer bliss, my walls clenching tight around his spasming cock while he holds one last thrust so deep inside me, I swear he’s touching my soul. I squeeze his ass. I hold him tight against me, taking all of him while we both ride out the powerful, overwhelming waves that are spinning sparkly dots in my vision.
I’m coming so hard, so fast, I can’t breathe, and I can’t remember why I need to. My heartbeat pounds in my ears—or maybe that’s his heartbeat.
He collapses on top of me as the last of my climax is still stuttering around his cock.