Peach

I don’t know where I am, but it’s dark, and there’s a man in my room. A big man, by the look of the shadows moving through the dim shafts of light coming through the windows of the round turret room.

He’s stealthy. Quiet. Like a panther.

Though he smells like sausage.

Reality tumbles into place, and I sit bolt upright with a gasp while I check to make sure my clothes are still on—I am dressed, but I don’t know whose clothes these are, since mine are lost somewhere between the airport and this room—and then I nearly tumble off the bed because I forgot the damn thing is shaped like a heart.

A fucking heart. With red silk sheets and a red velour comforter.

There should be a slot to put in a quarter to make it vibrate, but I haven’t found it yet.

“Papaya!” I exclaim as the rest of my life comes rushing back.

“Sleeping soundly in her bedroom after a rousing game of mancala.”

I’m instantly suspicious, because first, when Viktor’s voice is both familiar and comforting, I should be suspicious, and second— “A rousing game of mancala?”

“’Tis a marble game, my lady.”

“I know what it is. I don’t know how it can be rousing.”

“Then perhaps you’ve been playing it wrong.”

He approaches the bed in the dark.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shriek.

“Your sister reports your appetite has been quite off since we wed.”

“Not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I quip.

“I should be quite concerned if you were. Have you slept?”

I open my mouth to sass him—it’s almost as natural as breathing—but there’s a hint of concern in his voice that stops me.

A soft light flickers on in the massive, gaudy room as he flips the switch on a table lamp—yes, the lampshade is stained glass decorated with hearts—and the entire last week comes rushing back so fast I go lightheaded. “I think so.”

“The staff shall be pleased. ‘Tis my understanding no one has been able to sleep in that bed since King Roland died in it.”

I leap up, get tangled in the worn satin sheets, and trip from my knees onto my shoulder in the bed, barely stopping myself from falling headfirst off the heart.

I finally get my balance, and I look up barely in time to see Viktor smiling.

A full, twinkly-eyed, uninhibited smile.

And Holy. Hammer. Of. Thor.

The man has dimples.

Adorable, deep twin dimples over that marble jawline. Dimples that make him more boyish than brutish, momentarily leaving me completely unable to utter a word.

If I’d known he had dimples, I never would’ve agreed to marry him.

Dimples are dangerous. I can pass on the six-packs and the tattoos, but the dimples—fuck me, I think I just ovulated.

“My apologies, my lady. ‘Tis unfair of me to take advantage of your weakened mental state.”

Well. That helped. And there go my eggs, scurrying back to my ovaries. “Weakened mental state?”

“You were carrying on about caterpillars eating your bonbons when I entered the room.”

“I was not—”

“And you haven’t eaten a bite since we left America four days ago—”

“Four days?” Oh, fuck. I could’ve sworn I was only asleep a few hours.

Viktor coughs. “Ah, I’ve done it again. Can’t help myself, it seems. It’s so rare I can win with you, I fear I’ve taken advantage once more.” He sits on the fancy-dancy red brocade chair with the seat shaped like a heart and the back shaped like another heart and gold trim carved with hearts and even the claw feet shaped like hearts, and he pulls at the black tie around his collar before pulling off his shoes.

As though he intends to stay awhile.

“Wha—who—why—what are you doing?”

“Some of us were unable to sleep the day away, my lady. I’m preparing for bed.”

“The hell you are.”

“’Tis on the royal schedule. Bedtime. Eleven o’clock sharp. Up at four if I’m to have time to exercise before language lessons and a round of royal ass-kissing ninnies chewing my ears off.”

“Then you can go sleep in your bedroom.”

“This is my bedroom.”

Once again, I’m momentarily mentally hamstrung.

But only momentarily. “For the love of Thor,” I mutter. “We’re just going to have to tell everyone that you snore.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady.”

“Or that you have to sleep spread-eagle. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to explain not sleeping together.”

“We’ve no options beyond sharing this bedroom.”

“There’s always a way, Viktor.”

“Certainly, if you’re offering to sleep on the floor. ‘Twould be quite awkward for the footmen and the guards to tiptoe around you were you to attempt to nap in the corridor.”

I open my mouth, then close it again.

Of course we have to share a bedroom. We’re supposed to be happily married.

I’m apparently still having my nightmare. The one where Joey will kill me when she finds out why I married Viktor, and then there’s the part of my nightmare where I married Viktor, who loves to torment me, and the part where Papaya is running loose through Europe with a pack mule dressed up like a spiritual guide who’s trying to convince her to buy oats from every seedy oats dealer from here to Norway.

“’Twould give me a great deal of relief if you would eat something,” Viktor says cautiously.

“Is it poisoned?”

“Not yet, but I could call down to the kitchens if you’d prefer it to be.”

I gape at him for half a second before a laugh catches me by surprise. I fling a pillow at him. “Shut up.”

He easily avoids the pillow as he stands and moves across the round room toward the opposite window. “Merely trying to be a gentleman and provide for your every wish, my lady.”

“You’re being annoying.”

“’Tis such an easy task with you.”

I’d reply, except my skull squeezes my brain, and I realize he’s right.

I need to eat something.

And possibly also that I’m easily irritated. Which I’m blaming squarely on him, since he likes to taunt me.

I take the other gaudy sitting chair beside the heart-shaped end table adorned with heart-shaped candles sitting on golden heart-shaped candlesticks.

I swear, I’m going to stop talking about the hearts. Just assume everything’s in the shape of a heart, okay? And that the hearts aren’t nearly as charming as the rest of the castle, because can you be more obvious?

I didn’t think so either.

Now let’s talk about the food.

Which is on a heart-shaped—yes, seriously, a heart-shaped plate, and I really am done talking about the hearts. Cross my—you get the point.

The sausage is lumpy with uneven burnt parts on the outside, the potatoes—I think those are potatoes?—are flat and almost runny and look more like a soupy you-know-what shaped pancake than mashed potatoes, and I don’t recognize the vegetable at all. It’s something green and orange and mushy, and that’s about all I’ve got. “Um…thank you.”

“It seems the chef has been here since before my grandfather was exiled,” he muses as he crosses to the window closer to me. He peers out into the darkness and frowns while he continues to unbutton his shirt. “I rather suspect she’s unable to see or taste the food anymore, and ‘tis my understanding her salary has not afforded wiggle room for saving for retirement.”

My first spoonful of mashed potato is halfway to my mouth when he pulls off his dress shirt, exposing miles of rippling arm muscles and tight, round shoulders. The white, sleeveless undershirt accentuates the olive tone of his skin, and I belatedly realize I’m staring when I feel potatoes sliding off my cheek.

I missed my mouth.

Completely.

And I don’t have a napkin.

That’s me. The trailer park girl with no manners, living in a broken down castle in Europe with the only man they could find for the king job.

I really couldn’t have picked a better kingdom if I had to get tangled up with royalty. Hearts aside. Because the state of the castle doesn’t make me feel like I need to be anything better than who I am.

I swipe the potatoes with my palm and lick it clean, which is about the most unrefined thing I could possibly do.

What’s he going to do?

Divorce me?

His lips twitch again as he reaches for his belt, and I wonder if I’m about to get a striptease.

My face flames, and I duck my head over the plate to distract myself.

“Did you know how run-down the castle was when you agreed to the…conditions?” I ask while I saw into the rubber-hard sausage with a knife that’s not even sharp enough to cut melted butter.

“Are you dissatisfied with your lodgings, my lady?”

The swoosh of suit pants hitting the floor makes my throat go dry. I refuse to look up as I force myself to answer, though even I can hear the breathy neediness that I’ll deny to my dying day. “No. I like it. The parts of the castle I saw, I mean. I could do without the heart fest.”

I press harder with the knife, my grip on the sausage slips as I finally manage to chop the thing in two, and my knife clatters against the porcelain heart while half the sausage shoots off the plate and nails Viktor.

Right in the crotch.

Where he’s wearing heart boxers.

There’s a big greasy sausage stain right in the center of his red and white heart boxers.

I gape.

I can’t help myself.

Viktor is wearing heart boxers.

“Holy hammer of Thor,” I whisper.

I shouldn’t keep staring, but I can’t help myself.

And that’s before something long and thick begins to grow beneath the hearts. Long and thick and oh, lordy, it’s going to pop right out of the bottom of his boxers if it doesn’t—I gulp.

This isn’t right. Viktor isn’t supposed to have a penis.

I mean, yes, of course Viktor has a penis.

But I’m not supposed to notice that he has one, because while we’re married, it’s on paper only, a sham to get him a kingdom and me custody of Papaya, and I don’t even like the man, because his entire life’s mission—until this whole king thing happened—was to do nothing more than serve as a lapdog for a man born of privilege and wealth who’s probably never even seen the inside of a trailer park.

And that’s excluding all the times he’s zinged me with subtle zingers that no one else even noticed.

“Could you—put that—away?” My throat is tight and so are my traitorous nipples, and my voice is so strained I’m probably on the verge of popping my vocal cords.

He shifts so that I can’t see the king-size cock behind his hearts. “If you’re uncomfortable, my lady, may I suggest you look elsewhere? We shall, of course, need to adapt somehow to sharing a bedroom.”

He’s right, dammit. I should look somewhere else. While he’s as well-endowed as he should be for his new title, the square footage taken up by his erection is a fraction of the square footage of the entire room.

But it still seems to be the only thing in the room.

And now I want to see if he’s going to poke out of one of the legs of his boxers. And I can’t see it clearly, because he turned away even more to give me a view of the dimples at the small of his back and his tight ass stretching his boxers and I really need to stop gaping at him. “Your underwear has a heart on—”

I stop myself, because I didn’t quite nail that T on the end of the heart, and he just turned back to me, and his hard-on is now tenting his boxers straight out and I’m starting to have some feelings in places I usually only get feelings after digging around Tumblr for some exquisitely dirty gifs before getting myself off.

“And what do your underwear feature, my lady?” His voice is low, with a gravelly quality that sends more pulses of pleasure pinging through my panties.

“Peaches,” I blurt.

Which is a total and complete lie, but it makes his cock bob upward, and this is not good.

“Do they?” he inquires.

There’s something about that piercing gaze that clearly says he knows I’m lying that makes the truth slip out. “No. I’m not wearing underwear.”

He visibly swallows, and his eyes go even darker in the dim bedroom. “Have your clothes not arrived yet either, my lady? Or do you always prefer to go without undergarments?”

Undergarments.

Thor help me, he’s made the word undergarments sexy as fuck.

Viktor.

Sexy as fuck.

In heart boxers and a sleeveless white tank top and black socks.

“I shouldn’t answer that question.”

He steps toward me as though he can hear in my voice how heavy and empty and wet I suddenly am where my panties should be.

“No? ‘Twould go a long way toward reinforcing the ruse of our affections were I to suffer frequent untimely afflictions from imagining you sans undergarments.”

“I’m sure you can manage finding reasons to pop a boner on your own.” My voice is thick and unsteady, because I’m picturing Viktor thinking of me sprawled naked across that cheesy bed and having to adjust a hard-on during a meeting with presidents and ambassadors and the freaking pope too.

I wonder how his dick would taste.

He stops just out of reach. Right at the border of close enough for his size and presence to be intimidating, and far enough away to not give any suggestion that he’ll force himself on me.

“For all that you drive me quite mad, you’re still among the most remarkable women I’ve ever known.”

“Don’t flatter me,” I whisper. Ugly, old injuries are seeping to the forefront of my heart and mind, the sewage of my past that I can never fully flush away. “You know our rules.”

“’Tis rather difficult to recall the purpose for those rules when you’re gazing at me as though you, too, would like to break them.”

Oh, god, I would. If we had no history and we were hanging out at a bar and he were some construction worker and we both just needed to blow off steam, I’d be pulling him out the back door to my truck before you could say boo.

I grip the base of my chair and press down hard, as though the flattened cushion could do anything to ease the ache in my clit. “I don’t break rules.”

“Oh, come now, Peach. We both know better.”

That voice is growing on me by the millisecond. This is Viktor. He’s not supposed to be hot and charming and blessed by the god of erections. “I don’t break rules that I make.”

“It disturbs me how attractive I find that about you.”

I should be insulted, but warmth is swelling in my chest.

Viktor finds me attractive.

Me.

I know I’m not easy. I know I push his buttons. On purpose as often as I can.

But he still sees something in me.

Or maybe he just sees a cheap, easy lay.

Like another man or three I’ve known.

I bolt upright, upending the plate, because if I don’t, I’m going to do something I’ll regret every morning for the next year. “Stop it. Just stop. I don’t sleep with men more powerful than me, so this isn’t going to happen.”

He takes a half step back, eyes flaring wide, and says something I don’t catch while I stumble into the round staircase leading to the bathroom.

I realize what I’ve done, backtrack, hand shielding my eyes so I can’t look at Viktor even if I want to, and finally find the door to the other round staircase leading down from the tower bedroom to the sitting room, which leads to a stairway down to the weird-ass something room—don’t ask—which finally leads to the main floor and the apartment’s whatever-they-want-to-call-it room.

I call it the family room, because it has couches—do not ask me about their shape or decoration—and bookshelves and fancy-ass fireplaces and more tapestries of mating farm animals and best of all, the exit to the apartment.

And I left my phone in the bedroom.

My first chance to call Joey, and I left my phone in the bedroom.

I sag against the crumbling plaster wall just outside the apartment, and some of it crumbles off under my butt and falls to the floor.

I’ve just moved Papaya and Meemaw halfway around the world. We know no one. We don’t even speak either of the two official languages. I have no idea if the palace guards here are trained as well as Viktor and Manning’s other guards, which means I have no idea if they’ll actually be effective at helping me keep Papaya contained. And I have no idea if I’ll ever be able to go back to work with Joey again at Weightless.

And I just pulled a total chickenshit move and ran away from Viktor.

I hate being a chickenshit.

But I’d hate myself more if I’d slept with one more man who could crush me simply because of his last name.

“Mmmmmmmaawww,” a voice says to my left.

Fred stops beside me, right there in the palace hallway beside a woven tapestry featuring some sort of Robin Hood figure proposing to a horse—what?—and the llama nudges my shoulder.

I reach a hesitant hand to his head and push his fluffy bangs back so I can look in his brown eyes.

It’ll be okay, the llama’s soft eyes say.

“You think?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer.

But he does drop a load right there in the hallway.

I heave a sigh. “Thanks, Fred. You’ve been a big help.”

He hums his weird moo sound again and licks my face.

And I let him, because what else am I going to do?