Viktor

I cannot recall ever bathing a woman before, but taking a cloth to Peach’s back beneath the pounding hot water feels more intimate than bending her over a bed, blindfolded, and ramming into her as though I were a rutting bull.

“We smell like quite the pair, my lady,” I offer in the dim bathroom light, attempting to keep my voice steadier than my heart. ‘Tis rarely a problem, but I can’t mask the desire flaring deep within me. “And I fear your hair may be in mortal danger.”

“I’ll shave it off.” Her voice is missing its usual bravado, which is replaced with a breathy hum that makes my tallywacker ache so hard I can feel it in my tailbone.

I should not want this woman.

She’s unpredictable and quick of temper. Disdainful of authority and much of the royal way of life.

Yet my blood is burning for the opportunity to kiss her once more.

To lose myself in her touch. Her taste. Her scent.

Even her voice.

“Don’t go getting all women should have long hair, Viktor,” she says, jumping to conclusions as she always does in silence, though the strain of arousal is still as thick as her accent. “You know that won’t end well for you.”

I stifle a smile and wet the cloth, then drip it down her neck. “Nor you, as the weather can be quite cold in the winter, and you would be missing all of your natural wool.”

“Natural wool?”

“You should require rainbow hats to match Fred’s rainbow leggings. Perhaps you might wear a unicorn horn as well.”

She spins then.

I smile, because there’s nothing quite as lovely as Peach when her eyes have gone the shade of midnight, her cheeks have flushed, and she’s preparing to rip into a man’s jugular.

She would have made quite the proficient bodyguard herself.

Though her gaze is lingering on my lips, rather than on my neck.

“Quit dimpling at me,” she warns with a halfhearted poke to my chest.

“Dimpling, my lady?”

She points to her cheeks. “Dimpling.”

“Ah.” I smile broader. “My smile displeases you.”

“It’s hideous,” she agrees, but there’s no masking the mischief filtering into her own tilted lips and narrowing eyes.

She’s quite near glowing.

With pleasure.

At the sight of me.

My bollocks throb insistently, but I ignore them—quite the feat, I deserve a medal—and allow my smile free rein. “Yes, I can see where smiles would be off-putting. Such nasty inventions.”

Her lips twitch higher. “Only on you.”

“I beg your pardon. My smile is no worse than your hairdo.”

She gasps in mock outrage and crowds me into the corner of the shower, away from the warm mist coming off the head. “You’re fixin’ to get your head dunked in that bucket, Your Majesty.”

“Ah, but then who would wash your hair, my lady?”

“I’ll just have to get me a lady’s maid.”

The idea of Peach letting anyone act as her lady’s maid is so utterly absurd I actually laugh.

She sucks in a breath, and I stop instantly.

“I was not laughing at—”

Before I can finish, she’s grabbed me by the ears and pulled my lips to hers.

“You’re not supposed to be so fucking hot,” she gasps before her tongue plunges into my mouth.

Rational thought and long-honed instinct flee as I grip her arse and match her stroke for stroke. She grips my hair and deepens the kiss, pressing her soft curves to my aching knob. I’m so bloody hard my gut is twisted, but despite her willingness to kiss me, I shan’t be the one to push past her rules.

Her hair still smells fairly wretched, but her tongue is so very dexterous and eager, so delightfully real, that I don’t mind.

Nor, it seems, does she.

She rakes her short nails down my chest, and an electric sizzle ignites my skin from my chin to my toes. She whimpers into the kiss and yanks my head closer, and I’m suddenly lifting her against the wall of the shower while she wraps her legs about my hips.

I stroke her glorious breasts, round and heavy and prickled with gooseflesh. Her thighs cradle my erection against the soft blond curls shielding her womanhood, and the sensation of her body against my most sensitive skin is a transcendent delight.

Her hips roll across my cock while she strokes her tongue into my mouth, one hand still gripping my hair, the other scraping short nails over my nipple, and overwhelming pleasure threatens to buckle my knees.

I wrench myself from the kiss. “My lady—”

“Say my name,” she gasps.

“Peach—”

“Oh, god, that’s so hot.” She’s kissing me again, legs squeezing my hips, jerking against my shaft, and the gods help me, I want to be inside her. To bury myself in her wet heat. To plunge and thrust and claim her.

I want to feel her tight chamber clenching about me while she screams my name.

I want to lose myself in her.

I want my own release, which is building so hard and fast I fear I shan’t be able to stop it.

“Peach—” I try again.

“Just once, Viktor. Just once.” She punctuates the request with a nip at my neck, and I cannot restrain myself from thrusting into the cradle of her body. Her slick folds wet my cock.

Just once.

Would once be—

There’s a giant creak and a crackle, and Peach pulls me tighter.

No, she pulls me forward.

There should be nowhere to go—she’s against the wall—yet here we are, falling.

Through the shower wall.

And into the sitting room beyond.

Water spraying about us, Peach shrieking and attempting to climb me, the floor beneath me wet and frictionless.

I reach helplessly for something—anything—to grab onto, but ‘tis no use.

There’s nothing for purchase, because we’ve already crashed.