by Pippa Grant
She fans her face with her lovely, delicate dinosaur paw. “Shew! It’s warm in here.”
It’s rather warm out here as well. For reasons she’s most likely completely oblivious to.
I help her step out of the dinosaur chest. She emerges in a skin-tight, creamy sweater, low-cut jeans, and mismatched ankle socks that perfectly showcase her delicate feet. The shoes stay tangled inside the costume.
The amusing thoughts of my brothers and father’s reactions if I were to show up to formal dinner at the palace dressed as a blow-up dinosaur are replaced with the more pressing need to remember that, as much as my Viking heritage demand that I pillage and plunder, Gracie is a polite young woman whose only interest in me is an opportunity to sell more cookies.
And I am the third son of a king, awaiting my marital doom on my thirtieth birthday, because apparently my betrothed and her father are not yet appalled enough at my lack of suitability as a husband to beg off on our nuptials.
Which is beginning to grate on me, to be perfectly honest. How many more compromising positions can a single man be caught in during one lifetime?
“Did you lock that door?” Gracie asks, and—is that a wish lingering in her words?
I smile at her. “I’m not fond of sharing my cookies.”
Her dark eyes settle on me as though she’s weighing her thoughts carefully. “You’re not talking about the cookies I baked in my oven, are you?”
The question sparks an arousal that instantly hardens my cock to granite. I’m a doomed man. Ten months of freedom left, at best.
And for once, I find I’m grateful for a lack of photographers hanging about. I give the locker room a subtle glance and, finding no visible video cameras or other security devices, I smile at Gracie. “Would you prefer I speak of your other cookies?”
She tilts her head as though she does, in fact, understand the question. “Are you asking because you like the idea of pissing off my sister?”
“Frankly, I don’t give two figs about your sister.”
“You like baiting her.”
“I enjoy baiting anyone game for being baited. But do you know what I like more?”
She winces. “Sheep?”
I laugh. Wasn’t expecting that from her. “Tell you a secret?”
She winces harder. “Does it have to do with sheep?”
So few women would ask a prince about his proclivities in the bedroom. No, scratch that. Between my royal title and my chosen profession, plenty of women have inquired about my proclivities in the bedroom.
None, however, have ever inquired about my preferences in the meadow. She’s a refreshing combination of honesty, innocence, and bloody hilarity rarely found in either my hockey friends or the circle of acquaintances my royal heritage demands I surround myself with when I’m home. “My brother is the sheep-herder of the family. I have little to do with the wooly beasts. My interests lie with honey.”
Or so I’m to say. Bloody crown. Bloody cover story.
If she doesn’t stop studying me with those delicious midnight eyes, I’m likely to drive a stake through the amicable part of our relationship. Which would be far from the worst I’ve ever done, except I’d rather hate to give Gracie any reason to sever this unlikely friendship we’ve kindled.
“Honey,” she repeats slowly. “Is that another code word?”
“If the lady wishes.”
Her gaze drifts south, to the battle being waged between my royal member and the denim trapping it, and she slowly licks her lips.
“The lady wishes,” she whispers.
Nor am I expecting that. And despite knowing that my father would have my head on a platter if he suspected I was gallivanting about the States, dipping my wick where it doesn’t belong, my hands move of their own accord to grip her waist.
A man only has so much fight in him when he has a ready and willing beautiful woman before him.
Especially a beautiful woman who’s already so easily captured my fancy.
And what my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
“Does she now?” I ask.
“I…lied.”
“Tsk, tsk, my lady. Pray tell more, before I have to summon the king.”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s that pretty smile dancing on her lips and a rosy pink tingeing her cheeks that both make me wish to claim her.
Her fingers rest on my forearms, and my skin ignites like dry tinder. “You don’t seem like a prince,” she whispers.
“As princes go, I am rather worthless.” Spare to the spare to the spare, etc., etc. Prone to giving my father and other national leaders heartburn, derelict in duties assigned to me before I was old enough to choose better for myself. “As I believe we’ve established. So what possible falsehood could you have uttered?”
“And I’m still not attracted at all to hockey players,” she continues.
“I dare say I’m quite the failure as a hockey player as well.”
“Now you’re lying.”
I am. I’m a bloody terror on the ice and quite proud of it. But not at the moment. In this moment, I’d sacrifice my skates for an opportunity to taste this woman’s lips. “Merely modest, madam.”
“And so utterly, irresistibly charming,” she sighs.
And the crowd goes wild. She does like me. “Ah. So we get to the lie.”
“It was for a good reason.”
“More lies, Gracie? For shame.”
“Hush. That’s not a lie.”
“Are you quite certain? It sounds entirely unbelievable to me.”
She returns my smile with such a dazzling beam of glory that my heart swells like a twitterpated fool.
Clearly I’m in need of female companionship more frequently.
Which will be a problem once I’m shackled to the title-hunter, but as wedding plans haven’t yet commenced, I feel no reason to rein myself in.
“I shouldn’t find you attractive,” she informs me.
“Oh, but you should.”
Her nose wrinkles as a delighted laugh slips through her lips. “And that shouldn’t be attractive either.”
A man can get away with saying bloody near anything if he says it with a smile. “Come now, Miss Diamonte. You can’t let a man suffer thinking his attraction is unrequited.”
Her fingers slide up my arms, my royal member surges beyond granite to desperate, and those lovely dark lashes lower. “You really are quite the charmer.”
“Only for you, my lady.”
She steps closer, her soft belly pressing against my hardened cock, and her eyes go impossibly darker. “You’re lying again,” she whispers.
“Then I suppose we’re both liars.” I lower my face to hers. “Whatever shall we do with ourselves?”
She doesn’t answer.
Instead, she wraps her arms around my neck, presses her lovely breasts to my chest, and touches her lips to mine.
Fire erupts in my veins. I slide my hands to the curve of her hips and angle my mouth for a better taste, and any lingering hesitation she might’ve had evaporates into the stale locker room air as she grips me tighter and deepens the kiss, her soft hum of appreciation tickling the flesh of my lips.
None of my fantasies of this woman have come close to her in reality. Her kisses are eager, her hands bold, her body hot and curvy, soft in all the right places and so perfectly molded to mine.
She pushes me against the door, and I happily grip her tighter, licking and suckling her honey lips, stroking those perfect curves under cotton softer than the plush flannel sheets dressing all the palace beds in winter, sliding my thigh between her legs.
She moans into my mouth and squeezes her thighs around mine, grinding her sweet center against my leg, and I can no sooner keep my cock from pulsing against her belly than I could cease breathing.
“Please don’t tell me to stop,” she gasps.
Ask her to stop? “I could never disappoint a lady.”
“Good. Take your clothes off.”
; I’m stripping out of my jacket and trousers as fast as I can, and not only because there’s a distinct lack of knocking coming from the other side of the door. We have minutes, maybe.
And I cannot abide missing a chance at knowing this woman better.
My elbow cracks against the wall, but I barely feel it, because I’m distracted by Gracie. She whips her sweater over her head, drops her bra, and sweet Christ, that emerald sparkling over her belly button, the taut olive skin, the swell of her breasts—she’s damn near the most perfect specimen of the female form I’ve ever had the pleasure of touching.
Right down to her deliciously slender ankles and mismatched socks. One of which comes off in her jeans, the other stays on. I get a flash of black lace before—holy sweet honey sheep.
Gracie Diamonte is seducing me. Completely naked except for a single green sock dotted with lucky clovers.
Lucky clovers indeed.
I rip open protection and suit up, then twist so she’s against the wall, lift her so we’re eye to eye, and push my desperate, ready cock to the edge of her entrance. “You want this?” I say. I don’t fuck around without permission. Ever.
“Please, Manning. Just this once. Please.”
Just this once. My favorite words.
Usually.
They’re fucking annoying tonight, but I’m holding a ready, willing woman who’s been haunting my dreams while her perfect, tight pussy inches down my cock with every pump of her hips against my body.
I thrust into her, filling her deep while her body welcomes me with the exquisite pain in the bollocks that comes with refusing to let myself come before the show has even begun.
“Yes,” she gasps. I capture her lips, our tongues clash and wrangle, her hips buck against mine while I thrust deeper and deeper, higher and harder into her slick channel—Christ, so tight but so ready—until she wrenches out of the kiss with a cry. Her walls clench around me, her eyes sealing tight, those dark lashes settling atop her rosy cheeks while her climax overtakes her.
And then I’m joining her as a powerful force bigger than me, bigger than her, bigger than the two of us together and multiplied by all the sheep in Stölland bursts out of me.
My cock rages uncontrolled, heavy and desperate as wave after wave of pleasure rocks me from my toes to that part of my brain whispering an ominous warning: Once will not be enough.
Not with this woman.
But once is already too much, because royal duty is forever lurking in the back of my brain, and I know she can never be mine.
No matter the temptation of my dreams.
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Books by Pippa Grant
Mister McHottie (Chase & Ambrosia)
Stud in the Stacks (Parker & Knox)
The Pilot and the Puck-Up (Zeus and Joey)
Royally Pucked (Manning and Gracie)
Beauty and the Beefcake (Ares and Felicity)
Rockaway Bride (Willow and Dax)
Hot Heir (Viktor and Peach)
The Hero and the Hacktivist (Rhett and Eloise)
Charming as Puck (Nick and…)
Exes and Ho Ho Hos (Jake and Kaitlyn)
And more…
COMPLETE PIPPA GRANT BOOK LIST
Books by Pippa Grant
Mister McHottie (Chase & Ambrosia)
Stud in the Stacks (Parker & Knox)
The Pilot and the Puck-Up (Zeus and Joey)
Royally Pucked (Manning and Gracie)
Beauty and the Beefcake (Ares and Felicity)
Rockaway Bride (Willow and Dax)
Hot Heir (Viktor and Peach)
The Hero and the Hacktivist (Rhett and Eloise)
Charming as Puck (Nick and…)
Exes and Ho Ho Hos (Jake and Kaitlyn)
And more…
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About the Author
Pippa Grant is a stay-at-home mom and housewife who loves to escape into sexy, funny stories way more than she likes perpetually cleaning toothpaste out of sinks and off toilet handles. When she’s not reading, writing, sleeping, or trying to prepare her adorable demon spawn to be productive members of society, she’s fantasizing about chocolate chip cookies.
Find Pippa at…
www.pippagrant.com
[email protected]
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Pippa Grant
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Lori Jackson Designs.
Edited by Jessica Snyder