Manning Frey (aka a royal heir so spare he’s been donated to the NHL for a year, and the fourth in line behind his brothers and nephew for the crown of Stölland, a Viking country in the Norwegian sea)

Spare heirs are rarely well behaved. Causing scandal is practically an extension of our otherwise stodgy and superfluous royal duties. Dress the part, kiss the king’s knuckles, get caught with your trousers around your ankles to give the world some juicy gossip.

Hockey may be my first love outside the palace walls—and sometimes inside as well, though it’s been years since I pulled off icing over the throne room floor—but enjoying myself comes in a close second. So it’s safe to say I’ve seen a variety of interesting things in a variety of interesting places.

An eight-foot-tall inflated Tyrannosaurus Rex holding a bakery bag and walking in place in the tunnel leading out of a hockey arena?

This is a new one. So is the stirring in my royal jewels at the sight of said T-Rex.

I lift a finger to tell my royal guard to halt. In principle, were I nearer the top of the list to inherit the crown one day, I might agree that a suspiciously cloaked—or dinosaured—figure in a secured part of a hockey arena should be investigated. However, I’m fourth in line to the crown, destined only to a small dukedom created solely to provide the youngest son of the king a dukedom. I’ve also been banished to America for a year on the pretense of drumming up interest in my country by playing professional hockey with the Copper Valley Thrusters, when in fact, my father is smoothing things over with all the politicians, royal ass-wipers, and the father of my betrothed—not my choice, believe me—all of whom are appalled by my lack of judgment in, shall we say, keeping appropriate company.

In other words, I’m rather expendable at the moment.

My teammates and I have just finished a pre-season game in Nashville. Neither team uses dinosaurs for mascots or crowd entertainment, which is one more reason my guard has reason for concern.

But this particular T-Rex is sporting the most brilliant platform trainers I’ve ever seen.

There’s a whole bloody rainbow under those casual shoes. Six layers of colors, each thick as a normal sole, so that the T-Rex is literally walking on half a foot of rainbow.

I know a lovely young woman who would favor such a pair of shoes, and who also cannot stand still for the life of her, a fact which amused me beyond reason when we first met at a charity fundraiser a month ago.

And as luck would have it, I have plans to rendezvous with said young woman after the game tonight.

For cookies that, in theory, could be delivered in exactly such a bag.

Hence the stirring in the royal jewels.

If someone’s stolen her shoes—and her bakery bag, and I suppose her unexpected dinosaur costume—well, as we say back home in Stölland, the sheep shall bleed tonight.

“Pleasant night for a raw leg of lamb,” I say to the dinosaur. “Or perhaps a meaty bite off a hockey player.”

“Shove it,” comes the muffled voice of one Gracie Diamonte. Her order is colored with that subtle Southern dialect of hers, as though even telling someone to shove it cannot possibly be done without a relaxed tongue and take-your-time drawl.

I’m fond of smiling—it’s my fourth favorite pastime behind hockey, sex, and tormenting the hell out of nearly everyone I meet—and her voice, which I’ve missed these last few weeks, prompts my lips to spread wide enough to make my damned bloody nose ache.

In the best possible way, of course. I earned that bloody nose fair and square on the ice by insulting Zeus Berger’s girlfriend when the brute tried to stop me from scoring.

“This is literally the only thing I have in my closet that my sister wouldn’t recognize,” Gracie continues, “and she’d shit a brick if she knew I was meeting you here to swap cookies.”

She makes our plans sound so wonderfully filthy. I’d happily swap cookies with this woman if I weren’t on such a tight leash. My royal guards have been instructed to keep me from causing any more scandal while I’m abroad.

Alas, a lack of opportunity—and, unfortunately, a lack of interest on her part—have waylaid my fantasies. Last month when we met at the charity event, during a delightful stroll across a golf course under a starry sky, she confessed to her interest in me being a ruse to irritate that dear sister of hers.

And a fact I may have lied about on the ice tonight, since her sister is Zeus Berger’s girlfriend.

Both of whom are so very, very easy to bait.

Gracie, however, seems to be the only woman in the world immune to my charms. She refused all suggestions of meeting me here tonight until I ordered four dozen cookies and asked for delivery.

Yes, delivery of pastries. How far I’ve fallen in my quest for fun.

Damn bloody leash.

I nod to the bag and wonder if Gracie can actually see me. “Let’s have a taste then.”

She tries to grasp a door handle off the hallway with her adorable little Tyrannosaurus arms and fails with a sweet combination of grace and muttered profanities. The grace, I’m certain she’s gotten from her name. Having spent a fair amount of time with her sister, I have strong suspicions about the origins of the profanity as well.

“Allow me, my lady.” I easily turn the knob and gesture the dinosaur into an empty locker room. It smells of sweat, sticks, and bloody noses—no, wait, that’s mine again.

The locker room also smells of my royal guard not being allowed to join us. Viktor’s a decent man, and it’s hardly his fault my father insists he shadow me everywhere—no, that would be my own bloody doing—but our relationship has its limits.

I shut the door in his face and lock the door, which I’ll undoubtedly hear about later. The man can pick a lock, I’m certain, but I have it on good authority he’s missing the multi-tool he carries everywhere.

Because I myself relieved him of it not twenty minutes ago when we were being bustled about the dressing room, getting ready for loading onto the bus that will take us to the hotel.

“I must say, you are by far the most dashing Tyrannosaurus Rex with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing cookies,” I tell Gracie.

She tosses the bag onto a bench near the door, then pats up and down her chest with her short little hand. Or tries her best, I should say.

“Cut the flattery and help me get out of this blasted thing,” she says. “I can’t find the zipper.”

Her proposition—and my memory of what her chest looks like outside of a dinosaur costume—makes my royal jewels ache. The lady has no idea how much I’d like to help her get out of all of her clothing. Those delectable curves hiding inside that T-Rex have haunted my memories and kept my hand occupied on several occasions since we first met.

I’m nearly certain my fascination with her isn’t merely because she’s the only woman I’ve managed to spend more than two minutes with alone since I arrived in America two months ago.

Bloody crown. Bloody royal orders for how I’m to live my life.

Bloody Prime Minister and his bloody minx of a daughter.

And bloody Earl of Austling laying claim to me before my sixth birthday for his barely-tolerable, title-hungry daughter.

I oblige and tug down the dinosaur’s zipper. Gracie’s pretty face peeks through the dinosaur’s chest. Her thick dark hair is tangled, her round cheeks flushed, her full lips parted as she takes a deep breath. Her pure cocoa eyes are alight with a natural glow that would make her the belle of any ball even if she showed up coated in mud and dressed as a pauper.

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.