“Yeah, honey?”

“If the queen comes again . . . I’m going to push her down the hill first.”

What was she supposed to say to that? “I think you’ll have to get in line. You have a lot of dwarfs who want to push her for you.”

Melanie kissed her daughter and left the room, leaving the door open.

Wyatt waited outside in the hall. “You heard all that, right?”

She nodded toward the stairs to lead the conversation away from Hope’s room.

As soon as they rounded the stairs and Wyatt turned on the lights in the sitting room, Melanie let him gather her into his arms.

“She’s going to be okay,” he whispered into her hair.

“Her fairy tales are littered with black clouds. I hate that he did that to her.”

“None of this is right.”

The weight of Wyatt’s arms around her grounded the world. “We should call Jo, let her know what Hope said.”

“We all knew the man pushed her.”

She moaned and Wyatt leaned back to look down.

“We’ll call Jo in the morning. I’d hate to wake the woman if she found time to sleep.”

Melanie agreed with a nod.

Wyatt ran his fingertips down the side of her face. “Hope isn’t the only one with dark clouds in her fairy tales.”

“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

“Oh, really?”

She shook her head. “Magical kisses and princes who save the day? Doesn’t happen.”

There was a twinkle in Wyatt’s eyes. “What about the knight?”

She paused.

“You mean the man who offers to put his responsibilities aside to protect the princess?”

“Yeah, him . . . do you believe in him?”

He was fishing.

And Melanie needed to laugh.

“No, he doesn’t exist either.”

Wyatt pretended shock by placing a hand over his heart.

“Oh, you mean you?” She grinned.

Wyatt reached around and pinched her ass.

She squealed and hopped away from his hand.

“I’ll get you for that.”

She scrambled around the couch and put several feet between them. “Have to catch me first.”

He bent his knees and acted as if he could hurdle over the couch, then darted right and chased her around the sofa. She caught herself squealing and muffled the sound.

“Are you ticklish, Mel?”

She did a little hop, step, jog over a cord to avoid toppling a lamp.

“I’ll never tell.” She placed a high-back chair between them and used it as a shield to keep him from grabbing her. Problem was, she was literally cornered. Distraction would be the key to getting away.

“Now where you gonna go?”

“I have superpowers,” she told him.

“Oh?”

She stopped pretending like she was going to run and brought both hands to the top button on her shirt.

Wyatt’s eyes were drawn to her chest, and he paused.

After releasing one button, she teased the top of her breast with the back of her index finger.

Then she ran from behind the chair to the right. She made it three feet before Wyatt’s arms wrapped around her waist, his fingers dancing over her, making her giggle.

“You are ticklish!”

“No I’m n—” He found a spot under her arm and had her doubling over.

She tried to twist away, but his grip wouldn’t let her go. Wyatt relented the tickle attack and lifted her off her feet. When he set her down, her back met the sofa and he was on top of her, pinning both her arms with one of his hands.

And the tickling continued.

“Oh, my . . . Wyatt, I’m warning you . . .”

He didn’t stop. “What are you going to do?”

She attempted to buck him off. He didn’t budge.

“I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.”

Wyatt sighed and eased up his efforts.

And Melanie was smiling. It felt so good to laugh and forget, even for a few minutes.

“You have a beautiful smile,” he whispered.

“Says the man with dimples.”

He flashed them and Melanie felt her entire body relax. When Wyatt released her hands, she lifted one to his face and brought it closer to hers.

The taste of him was becoming familiar, the feel of him missed when he wasn’t beside her. The need for him, in these quiet moments that didn’t happen often enough, was something Melanie was finding hard to live without.

Wyatt kept his full weight off of her as he sank deeper into the kiss. His tongue darted around hers until he found the spot he wanted to explore longer. There was no hurry in his pursuit as he heated her body from the inside out.

Melanie wiggled one of her legs out from under his and wrapped him close.

The fully clothed, full-on make out session on the couch hadn’t been something Melanie had experienced in over a decade. Although the weight of Wyatt’s erection teased her, he made no move to remove her clothes. He kissed her breathless, then moved to tease her ear and neck with his tongue.

She, however, didn’t have the same restraint. The space between his shirt and his jeans became her playground. The edges of her fingernails ran up and down his back, the motion of her hips providing some contact.

Melanie forced her lips away from a never-ending kiss. “I need you inside me.”

Instead of saying anything, he pushed into her, captured her lips, and didn’t let her breathe.

The constant pressure on her core, the movement of his hips, was doing the job. The beat of her heart sped with his against her chest, the angle of his hips shifted and pressed closer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to taste the edges of an orgasm.