Hot Heir: A Royal Bodyguard / Secret Heir / Marriage of Convenience Romantic Comedy

by Pippa Grant

  I don’t wait for an answer, but none comes anyway except for the soft snick of the door shutting on our bedroom behind me.

  Thank goodness.

  Because between the way he smells and that kiss in the gardens and then the way his expression morphed from arrogant, I shall slay the dragon for the damsel in distress to angry the lady hath been wronged and it pains me, but I must let her slay the dragon herself, I’m in real danger of actually liking Viktor.

  And that’s after all the time I’ve spent ignoring how very, very sweet he was when we first got here last week.

  And how very, very hot he was when he got mad at me for faking my happiness.

  Like my true happiness matters.

  No one’s ever been mad at me before over me pretending to be exactly what they want me to be, and it’s weirdly touching.

  Papaya’s locked me out of her room, and no amount of knocking, pleading, or bargaining to let Fred the alpacacorn come visit her will convince her to open the door.

  I lean against the wall and sink into a squat, and I’m pretty sure I just took a few more chunks out of the plaster here too.

  Meemaw pokes her head out of her room, her hair up in a towel, and I wonder if she’s washing it or dying it neon green.

  “More fallout from the chocolate incident,” I grumble to her.

  “Poor girl. Probably thinks she won’t get a date to the fall dance now, doesn’t she?”

  “She’s not here to get dates. She’s here to get her head on straight.”

  “She can do both. Part of growing up is figuring out how to navigate those dating waters too.”

  I shudder, because my baby sister is smart enough to ride that line between causing trouble and getting caught, and dating implies crossing a lot of those lines, and I don’t know if she’s still a virgin.

  I don’t know if my baby sister is a virgin.

  I was fifteen when I started screwing around with my boyfriend.

  She’ll be fifteen in February.

  It doesn’t matter if the idea makes me want to hyperventilate, the reality is, she spent most of the summer running wild with a boy, and Meemaw’s probably right.

  She’s going to date whether I like it or not. “Oh, god, I need to have the safe sex talk with her.”

  “Honey, just do what I did.”

  “You told me a banana could get me pregnant, and that a sausage could make my cooter fall off.”

  “Psh. You understood what I meant. And I also told you a good eggplant was worth its weight in gold, so long as it was covered up and its farmer knew how to use it. Be glad I worked in food service. You know Jenny Gaughran’s mom worked at the firecracker factor. Imagine the talk she got.”

  “I love you, but you are not right.” I lean over and put an ear to the door, but there’s no noise.

  Dammit.

  She’s probably going out the window.

  I pull myself to my feet. “I’m going to find a guard.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I’ve secured a master key—which will only work until Papaya figures out how to get her hands on super glue and jams the lock—and I peek in on her.

  She’s flopped on her four-poster bed listening to music. Meemaw promises to keep an eye on her, which is better than nothing, so I slip back into my own bedroom.

  Which now smells like spicy man soap and shaving cream.

  Thor help me, I might’ve just ovulated again.

  I don’t immediately see Viktor. One bonus of the bedrooms on this floor is that they’re either all connected, or they all have sitting rooms and dressing rooms attached to them, though it still has all the charm of the rest of the castle, with crooked chandeliers, faded tapestries featuring giant bugs kissing dinosaurs, and droopy curtain rods.

  I thought I loved my cookie-cutter house in Alabama, but all the personality in this castle is growing on me by the day.

  And despite my irritation with this duke, and with Papaya’s mood swings and my panic over her dating, and with Viktor having the nerve to be all beefy and sweaty and sexy, I still smile when I catch sight of myself in the cracked mirror over the fireplace with the missing chunk of marble in the mantle.

  My hair has twigs in it, there’s dirt smeared from my ear to my lip, and I’m wearing my T-shirt backwards.

  I am one hot mess this morning.

  Viktor appears in the mirror behind me. He looks up, we make eye contact—kind of, with the cracks, he has three eyeballs and I have four, but that’s not what makes me suck in a breath.

  It’s that hot, heavy zing in his hooded gaze. The air crackles with suppressed energy, my pussy goes on high alert, and my nipples pebble so fast I get goosebumps all over my chest.

  Men in suits have never done it for me, but Viktor in a stiff blue button-down with the collar turned up, tieless, while he slips in cufflinks is giving me a few dirty thoughts about boardrooms and palace thrones.

  “There’s no need to rush,” he tells me. “The duke can wait all day.”

  There’s no hint of innuendo in his voice, but I still imagine making the duke wait while Viktor bends me over the chair with the missing leg at the vanity and pounds his stiff cock into me until we both shatter.

  It’s possible I’ve been neglecting private playing-with-Peach time.

  Or it’s also possible I’ve just realized my husband-in-name-only is hot.

  His brow furrows, and I realize I’m staring.

  “May I be of assistance with something?” he asks.

  I swallow the request that he scratch my itch. “That’s a bad idea,” I whisper.

  “Is it?” His eyes—all three of them, two left and one right—are watching me so closely, I’m almost positive he can see into my brain where I’m mentally popping his buttons one by one so that I can lick a trail from the straining muscles in his neck, over the hard planes of his pecs, the ridges of his abdomen that I glimpsed two mornings ago when he thought I was sleeping, and all the way from the base to the tip of his rock-hard cock.

  “A terrible idea.”

  “A year is quite a long time to build one’s frustration, my lady.”

  “I brought a few stress-relievers.”

  His lips part and for the first time since I’ve known him, he can’t hide the sheer lust glossing his eyes. He clears his throat.

  Twice.

  “Have you, my lady?”

  “And I’ve used them,” I add in a whisper.

  My clit is throbbing and I’m hyper-aware of every slight movement in his facial muscles. The tick in his cheek. The flattening of his lips as he swallows again. The widening of his pupils and the flicker in his eyelids.

  “In our bed, my lady?”

  “Yes.”

  Unless I’m completely inept at reading men and desire, he’s imagining me on the massive bed, with my legs spread, my fingers teasing my clit. I wonder if he’s imagining me thrusting my hips around a dildo or slipping a vibrator into my pussy. If he’s imagining himself licking me dry with my thighs clenched around his head.

  Holy fuck, it’s hot in here.

  “If you ever wish for a partner, I should be most happy to oblige.”

  My throat’s dry and every inch of my skin tingles. All because of the most proper proposition I’ve ever had. “Bad idea, Viktor,” I force out.

  “’Twould not be my first,” he counters, “though I daresay ‘twould be the most enjoyable.”

  I clench my fists to keep from lunging for him, and I tell myself he’d be horrible in bed. All brute force and mechanics and no nuance or flexibility.

  Except I don’t believe myself.

  He nods once. “Your move, my lady. I shall be waiting in the sitting room.”

  I tear my gaze from the mirror to watch him walk stiffly from the bedroom, and I don’t miss the unmistakable adjustment to his dick in his pants, even though his back is to me.

  “Take as long as you wish in the shower,” he adds without turning around. “I shan’t speak with the duke without you.”<
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  I belatedly process that his invitation to the sitting room wasn’t an offer to come let me ride him.

  But the relief I expect at him walking away doesn’t come.

  And not even fingering myself in the shower helps.

  Because I’m picturing him the whole time my fingers are jerking into my pussy, and for the first time in forever, a self-induced orgasm isn’t enough.

  This is going to be a long, long year.

  17

  Viktor

  Peach is lovely in a pale lavender pantsuit. She’s taken so long to get ready that I’ve missed half my Italian lessons for the day already, though I find I don’t much care, as the opportunity to be next to her is continuing to flood my senses with her unique tangy scent, and I have to restrain myself from touching her hair.

  She’s pulled it back into a loose bun, exposing her slender neck. There are gentle waves against her scalp, and I’ve realized her hair is not simply uniformly blond, but a variety of shades from nearly white to a soft gold, and the texture fascinates me.

  I’m also still imagining her writhing in pleasure atop our stiff white sheets, her lips parted, a natural flush covering her bare skin, the slightest sheen of damp perspiration touching her forehead, her breath coming in gasps and moans.

  We’ve arrived in the king’s receiving room, and I’ve given Leonie instructions to make the duke wait five minutes more. I force myself to concentrate on the candlestick missing its candle atop the fireplace mantle, which is pulling itself from the wall.

  Renovations should be in order, but the monarchy’s coffers are quite bare. I glance at Peach, which risks viewing the slightest hint of cleavage at the top of her blouse. “I’d no idea you were interested in gardening.”

  She doesn’t meet my gaze, but stares somewhere about my left ear. “Oh, I’m not. But it’s been fun taking a whack at it in a place I can’t do much damage. I might try my hand at painting next. When the paperwork from Weightless slows down a little. Joey’s dealing with new hires. And the PR specialist. It’ll get easier once…well. Soon.”

  Once her job functions have been covered and the public fallout over the hot air balloon incident has abated, I assume she means.

  The charges against her have been dropped—the influence of the Amorian government, though she was quite unhappy about it—and ‘tis my understanding Zeus Berger bought the peach field that was damaged to try his hand at finding what he’s supposed to do with his life now that he’s retired from hockey.

  Though he’s being pressured to consider an offer from Manning’s team, where Zeus’s twin brother, Ares, also plays.

  I should be quite curious what advice Ares would have given, but as the man communicates exclusively in odd animated pictures, I doubt I would’ve fully understood.

  “There’s still bad publicity in America?” I inquire.

  She shrugs. “I don’t ask, and Joey doesn’t tell.”

  “You’ve not been watching the news?”

  “I filter it.”

  Probably for the best. I have been watching the news, along with getting daily updates from Leonie about requests for official palace statements about the balloon incident still, though the requests for gossip about the balloon incident are being rapidly replaced by requests for exclusive candid interviews about our marriage.

  Peach focuses on something well behind me now, and a soft smile touches her lips.

  Soft and Peach are so rarely put together that I turn and look.

  The tapestry behind me bears an image of three male tigers standing upright with over-enlarged phallic members sword-fighting with each other’s tails. It’s disturbing at best, though the tigers are wearing quite rapturous expressions on their furry faces.

  “You like tigers, my lady?”

  “You inherited the weirdest kingdom, Viktor.”

  “I understand the previous monarch had eclectic taste.” One of the maids stopped me yesterday to quickly whisper that her mum had worked in the castle when my grandfather was king, and that rumors suggested old family portraits had been hidden away in attic and dungeon spaces. Searching for them seems a task I shouldn’t delegate, but rather suggest to my mum and Eva upon their arrival.

  There’s a sharp rap at the door, and before I can voice an order to enter, it flings open upon creaky hinges.

  A broad-bellied, beet-faced man in brown suit pants buckled at his navel bursts into the room. He appears to possess the temperament of a bull, the body of a sea cow, and the uniform of a cartoon princess movie with all of the trimmings and trappings and military decorations, though Amoria’s army is quite small and I sincerely doubt the duke has ever served.

  “Your Majesty, we have a problem,” he barks.

  I don’t reply, because even when I was a mere bodyguard, the only person allowed to speak to me in that tone was the king himself, and only when I deserved a good dressing-down.

  Which I assure you was never necessary.

  Instead of responding to the duke’s declaration, I stare the man down.

  Peach shifts beside me. I don’t look away from the duke, but I am ever so aware of the quickening of her breath and the subtle shift of her body toward mine.

  The duke notices her and does a double-take. “What the devil is she wearing?” the duke demands. “Queens wear dresses.”

  He’s neither young nor old, though he most likely has me by at least a decade. His graying hair is combed over what I can only assume is a balding patch of scalp, and the smell of cigar smoke chases him into the room.

  “Your Grace, one bows before the king,” Leonie murmurs behind him.

  He spares her as much of a glance as he’s probably given his kid all these years before lowering thundering eyebrows at me. “I expect certain proprieties—”

  “Bow,” I order.

  Softly.

  I have no wish to lord my position over anyone, but any man who thinks he may walk into my home and assume he has the right to all the power shall quickly be proven wrong.

  No matter my title or station.

  A shiver passes through Peach, and I detect a hint of aroused woman.

  Good.

  I quite like knowing that I am not the only one affected in this relationship.

  I also quite like watching the duke realize I intend to take none of his abuse, and I wonder what sort of arrangement he might have had with my predecessor. He freezes as an overgrown squirrel might when faced with a vehicle bearing down on him, his cheeks mottle, and he stiffly bends at the waist.

  First to me.

  And then to the queen.

  “Now,” I intone, still deadly calm, “what is so very important that it requires you to arrive unannounced before breakfast?”

  “We have a problem with that—that—that trollop of a ward of yours.”

  I daresay I’ve never met a more unpleasant person, nor one so unpleasant as to cause both a red haze to enter my vision and my tongue to momentarily be stunned useless either.

  “Viktor, hon, what’s a trollop?” Peach asks.

  Quite as sweetly as her name would suggest she should be capable of asking. With a meter’s worth more twang than she generally puts into her sentences.

  I’ve seen Miss Gracie pull off this trick, and I confess, I’m both anticipating and dreading what might come out of my wife’s mouth.

  “I believe the duke just questioned your sister’s cleanliness, my lady,” I reply.

  “Her physical cleanliness, or is he implying something about her spreading her legs?”

  “You would have to ask him.”

  I suspect the smile my wife turns on the duke would simultaneously make a beauty queen jealous and scare the excrement right out of a tiger.

  “Were you insulting my sister’s appearance or her character?” she inquires.

  He ignores her and looks at me. “That girl—”

  “The queen’s sister,” I supply.

  Peach’s lip curls. “You will speak to me, Mister…?” />
  “His Grace, the Duke of Prievia,” Leonie murmurs.

  “Mister Prievia,” Peach finishes.

  The duke’s face goes positively purple. “You let that girl run wild about town, tempting my son—”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Peach interrupts. “If you haven’t taught your son to not touch everything he sees, we have a bigger problem, don’t we?”

  “—and she’d probably have him with his pants down about his knees,” the duke continues as though Peach hasn’t spoken.

  “Your Grace,” Leonie interjects.

  “Mister Prievia, how big is your douchery—ah, pardon me, your dukery?” Peach inquires.

  Gods above, this was a terrible idea. Yet I’m still inordinately amused in a manner in which I’ve no right to be amused. “Quiet,” I order.

  The duke mutters something in German that I’m easily able to translate, as young boys never forget their favorite profanity, regardless of how rusty the rest of their language skills might become.

  “Viktor, I think you should do the kingdom a favor and cut both their heads off.”

  “Is this how you negotiated your business dealings?” I ask her softly.

  “I never did business with blowhards who stick their dicks in anything that moves but put bad names to the women they need to sleep with. There’s no negotiating when it comes to bullies and assholes.”

  The duke’s face goes beyond purple. “Did you just—”

  “Silence,” I order, “or I shall have your title and lands removed and your family banished to Antarctica.”

  “Could you do that?” Peach asks.

  “Quite easily, my lady. And with a great deal of pleasure.”

  “Is he invited to our reception?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “And not just because he’s going to have a stroke and die right here on your carpet?”

  “Correct, my lady.”

  “I can hear every word you’re uttering,” the duke growls.

  “Are you married?” Peach asks.

  “He is, Your Majesty,” Leonie answers for him.

  “Poor woman. Should’ve sent her. Don’t you worry about Papaya tempting your son anymore. Wherever he ends up at school, you can bet she won’t be there. And if I hear about him causing trouble for any other young ladies you’re fixin’ to blame for his poor raising, you can bet your last dime there won’t be a school in this entire nation who will willingly take him. You’re dismissed, Mister Prievia.”