curling around my extra-large belly. We lock right together in a way I fear will be addicting.
“This is wonderful,” she whispers, her arms securing tighter around my neck.
And then she climbs into my lap.
I almost hit the ceiling.
No. No, no, no. I’m a gentleman. Always have been. But I can’t pretend her delicious rump in my lap isn’t making me think terrible thoughts. Like how Britta is a virgin. Between her legs, between her ass cheeks. She’d be tighter than a knot in both places.
She’d squirm underneath me, all that soft, golden skin on mine.
Whimpering my name.
Enough.
And yet my arms tighten around the innocent princess, rocking her in my lap. “Just a few more minutes now, love. All right?”
Love?
Are you out of your fucking mind, calling the princess “love”?
Britta looks up at me, her eyelids at half mast, and it’s not lost on me that she’s finally stopped crying. That I helped. It fills me with a solid block of pride. “Lie with me for a little while, please?”
“I can’t do that,” I rasp, my pulse slamming into my eardrums.
“Oh. I know.” Her face nuzzles deeper into my neck and she sighs with feminine satisfaction, making my dick throb. Painfully. “That was a silly thing to ask.”
Don’t say what you’re thinking. Don’t do it. “I suppose you could order me to lie down with you. Then I wouldn’t have much choice.”
She sucks in a breath and I think she’s going to scold me, smack me across the face, throw me out of the palace. Instead, she says, “That’s a fantastic idea!” She wets her perfect, bow-shaped lips. “I hereby order you to lie in my bed and hug me until I fall asleep, Rexington Monroe.”
Sensing my own doom, I run toward it like a love-struck idiot. “Anything for the princess.”
Britta bounds off my lap, her ass taunting me with sexy swishes as she crawls on hands and knees back toward the pillows, throwing herself beneath the covers and gesturing me to follow. It’s humiliating how the bed creaks and groans beneath my weight, but I manage to make it to the headboard without breaking the furniture, slowly laying my head down on the pillow beside Britta’s.
“I’ll stay on top of the covers,” I say hoarsely.
“Okay,” she responds cheerfully, green eyes sparkling.
And then the princess, the future queen of the entire bloody kingdom, snuggles right up against me, tucking her little hands between my pecs. I put my arms around her and she smiles up at me with teeth, ruining me for any other woman on the planet, and drops into a dead sleep, her breath warming my throat.
“Congratulations,” I mouth into the darkness. “You are fucked.”
2
Britta
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
That’s what they say—and it’s true.
Because this crown weighs around seventy pounds.
Honestly, I’m going to have the neck of a gladiator in a week’s time. Something has to be done. Perhaps I can wear a crown of daisies? Or no crown at all? Now that would be preferable. I could just give the garish, bejeweled thing to someone else and let them make all the hard decisions. Spend my days wading in the river and writing sonnets.
I’m sitting on the throne my mother used to occupy.
An hour ago, I was hastily ordained queen in a private ceremony.
Now the palace advisor, Richard, is standing before me with many questions. I have the answers to none of them.
I am a smart girl. I think. My tutors have said as much. I’ve sat in this great hall my whole life and listened my parents make decrees, judgments, give opinions. My inability to focus probably has a lot to do with the giant guard stationed by the wall. He stares straight ahead, as always, not a hint of the gentle understanding he showed me last night. No character, whatsoever. But I know it lurks under his armor. I’ve witnessed his humor and compassion and the greatest hugs in the known universe.
No matter that I’ve only experienced one hug.
I don’t need to test other embraces to know he has the best one. All warm and cushioned and safe and cherishing. Right before I dropped into the deepest slumber of my life last night, I swore his mouth ghosted over my hair and that simple gesture gave me…dreams. Dreams that stain my cheeks red in the light of day.
I dreamt of Rexington Monroe naked.
I should be ashamed.
This dear man showed me such kindness and here I am, objectifying his…excitingly large body. Saints alive, if