“Viktor, Viktor,” I whisper to him, cradling his head, feeling his soft hair under my hands. “My moose.” I feel him smile faintly against me. “You are more than enough. So much more. You live by your family’s moto so well. Always more, never less. You are the always more and you…you fucking astound me. You know, growing up, as a little girl, you have fantasies about princes. Blame it on Disney, blame it on the fairy tales. You want that man to be noble and kind and powerful and oh so good-looking.” I let out a soft laugh. “Man, I thought Prince Eric was such a babe.”

“From The Little Mermaid?” he mumbles into me.

“Yes. Him and Prince Phillip. The way he slayed that dragon for her…anyway. These princes were ingrained in our heads as children and as we got older, we not only realized that Prince Charming was never coming for us, but that we didn’t want him. The real princes seemed so stuffy, so cold. Don’t get me wrong, I love Prince Harry and I guess William is okay, but in general, the term prince lost its meaning. It no longer conjured up the fantastic. But you…you Viktor, you are a prince in every way shape and form. You embody the word, you are selfless and kind and proud and smart and noble and you care, more than anything, you care. You’re the prince that every girl had a fantasy about but you’re more than that, because you’re real. You’re so real. And you’re here right now and you’re with me and I can’t…I can’t thank you enough.”

He raises his head to look at me. His eyes search my face as if he’s found something he’s lost and he has to double-check that it’s still his.

“What about Prince, the musician?” he asks and though his voice is hoarse, there’s a flutter of amusement in his eyes.

I can’t help but smile. “Different prince,” I tell him. “Everyone wants that prince and to be that prince.”

Viktor stares at me, giving only the subtlest of nods. I’m very aware that my arms are still wrapped around him from the side but I can’t figure out how to let go or if I even want to.

I never want to.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says as he gazes up at me, heat burning through whatever sadness was there before.

I laugh sharply. “Is that so? Because I don’t—”

What I was going to say was I don’t believe you.

But all of that falls away the moment he places one large, warm hand against my small face and presses his lips to mine.

For a moment I’m stilled. I’m reduced.

Every atom around us slows and slows until the world focuses on just one thing.

His lips.

My lips.

Then…

His mouth.

My mouth.

Then…

His hunger.

My hunger.

His step into this great unknown.

My leap off the cliff.

Viktor is kissing me, his lips moving against mine in a long, sweet, soft embrace until my own lips are dancing with his. He tastes like wine and salt and something I never knew I needed, never knew I craved, until right now. He kisses me with confidence, like he knows how to kiss me already and somehow he already does. As our kiss deepens, our mouths open in unison, our tongues tease and touch and lick like we are discovering who the other is for the first time.

Then his fingers press into the side of my face and another hand comes up to grab the back of my neck and I’m pitching backward onto the blanket. I know that food and wine and plates and knives are below me but I don’t care. I will roll around in a sea of wine, I so don’t care.

But he has me, his grip strong as ever and he lowers me back gently to the ground, brushing away anything in the way until I feel the wool blanket scratch at the back of my neck.

Now he’s partially on top of me and I’m so conscious of the weight of him, how big he is, and then I’m conscious of how much I’ve craved this. Craved this feeling of being under him, being dominated, no matter how slightly, of being wanted, needed.

Consumed.

Because now his kisses are consuming me, not just his soft lips and the wet warmth of his mouth moving hungrily against mine, but that he holds me, as if I might blow away in the breeze, the way he presses into me. I can feel the hard, long length of his cock dig into my thigh.

I’ve needed this. I didn’t realize how badly until now, the fact that he has me in his grasp, that I’m feeling every single part of me scream to life. It has me shaken to the core and…

His lips trail away from my mouth, places soft and hard kisses along the length of my jaw, then down the side of my neck. I can tell he’s eager from the way he’s rushing, his stubble cutting across my skin, the way he bites me just sharp and quick enough. Then he’s battling himself, a low moan escaping him, the kind of moan that makes me wet in a second. His breath becomes labored as he struggles to regain control, tries to slow down. The bites turn to licks, long wet swaths of his tongue in an attempt to soothe his damage.

But I want to be damaged. I don’t want the poised and regal Viktor that I’ve seen lately, the one in the suit, the one who always knows the right things to say. I want a Viktor that’s raw and messy and wild. I want him to fuck me up before he fucks me, fuck me up while he fucks me. I want to see him lose all control and struggle to regain it back.

He groans into the hollow of my neck, his hands gliding down the sides of my waist. I buck up into him, aware of how desperate I must seem and yet I don’t care. I want him, all of him, fast and hard, I just want to be free of this constant craving I have, an itch that I’m begging to be scratched.

Set me free, the thought shoots through my head like jagged lightning.

He’s trying. His hand slides between my thighs, his knee parting my legs, and I curse myself for wearing jeans, for the thick wall of fabric between my sensitive flesh and his willing fingers.

* * *

My phone rings, the sound shooting between us like a lancer.

I ignore it. I have to. Nothing is more important than this, than having Viktor settle between my legs, than wanting to slide my hand into his jeans, feeling him pulse in my hand.

But something is.

Something that Viktor realizes.

He pulls away, breathing hard, his eyes glazed with hunger and lust that only turns me on more. God, I’m so fucking wet I swear that I’m drowning.

“Your phone,” he manages to say, pressing the tips of his fingers into my cheek.

I nod. “It will go to voice mail,” I say breathlessly, my hands going behind his neck, trying to bring his face back to mine, to suck on those plush lips of his.

Not that I ever, ever check voice mail.

Viktor frowns and I know that he won’t relent until I answer it. He thinks it could be the kids.

And one glance at the phone tells me that it’s Pike.

Shit.

I roll away from under Viktor and put the phone to my ear, trying not to sound like I was moments away from having sex. “Pike?”

“Maggie we have a problem.”

Oh shit fuck.

“What?” My heart was already getting a workout, now it’s stepping it up a notch.

“April went back to Tito’s.”

I groan, closing my eyes. Just the other day I had tried to talk to her about why a guy like that was bad news, not to mention he could go to jail if it continued between them. She wouldn’t have any of it, not even when I started pleading with her to at least use condoms and birth control if she’s going to do it anyway. Even when I was fourteen and I got my first boyfriend, my angst levels weren’t cranked that high.

“Shit.”

“I’m going after her,” Pike says.

“Do you need back-up?”

“No, I have the cops,” he says. “One of the guys who comes into the shop regularly is an officer. I told him what was happening and he said they’re all very aware of the guy. Not sure if we can prove anything but at least this way it’ll scare the both of them.”

“Yeah until April decides to be a martyr or something.”

“Anyway, I’m going over there with the officer. I need you to come home and watch the rest.”

I know if I really wanted to I could bring up the fact that Rosemary and Thyme are old enough to take care of Callum and had recently volunteered. But I know I’m needed. As much as I want to, I’m not going to continue to roll around on this hill with Viktor while all this other shit is going on.

“I’ll be right there,” I tell him. “Thank you for getting her, for doing this.”

“No problem,” he says and hangs up.

“What is it?” Viktor asks. He’s now sitting up, watching me with concern.

I sigh and adjust myself, adjust my clothes. “April. As usual. She’s back with Tito but Pike is going over there with the cops. Maybe he’ll end up in jail. Tito, that is.”

Viktor nods. “I’ll take you home.”

Something inside me sinks. Suddenly. Like my heart has been weighted down with concrete. The idea that he’s going to take me home after this, after I’d finally gotten a taste of what we could be, how good it could be, feels so…finite. He leaves so soon and it’s like every second we have together counts.

Actually I’m hating myself for spending the last two days interviewing him for some article when I could have been kissing him. Fucking him. Being with him on so many different levels, so many ways that count. From the first moment his lips met mine I knew that this was what was supposed to have happened all along. This was how we were supposed to know each other.

“Hey,” Viktor says softly, reaching over to cup my cheek. “There’s no cow on the ice.”

I can’t help but laugh. It’s a sad laugh because, shit, I can’t let this be it for us. And it’s a warm laugh because here he is, always trying to make me smile.

But after he leaves for good, I’m not sure how I’ll ever smile again.

Chapter Thirteen

Viktor

When I wake up the next morning I struggle to remember where I am. For the first time since I ended up in this wayward town, I feel like a different person. I wake up feeling like I’ve gone somewhere else entirely, not just inside my mind.