The Swedish Prince (Royal Romance 1)

Until I can’t remember the person I’m supposed to be.

But I need to remember the person she thinks I am.

The person she fell in love with.

I need her to fuse to me, bend to me, I need to take her so hard that she knows exactly why she’s here.

I need her to know that this place, with me, inside her, is her home.

Without realizing it, I’ve pushed another finger inside her, rubbing eagerly against the right spot, feeling her swell around me.

“Viktor,” she gasps, her head down, her hair over her face as she breathes heavily, her body pressing back into me, wanting more. “God, you’re so good. So, so good. Never stop, never stop.”

Her words are so desperate and urgent.

They’re everything I needed to hear.

I have to get inside her now.

I quickly withdraw my fingers, rubbing them along my lips briefly, savoring her sweet and salty taste, and then I hold my shaft, rigid and heavy in my hand and angle it into her. I try to go slow, rubbing my head around her soft opening, getting my tip wet before pushing in just a few inches.

But just a few inches are enough to make my jaw clench, trying so hard to keep myself in control.

It’s been too long.

And she’s so hot and slippery and tight as a fucking fist that I want to slam myself inside of her, bury myself deep. It takes all of me to try and keep breathing, my fingers digging into her sides that I’ve bruised many times before.

“You’re perfect,” I tell her, my voice guttural as I push in deeper, watching as my cock disappears into her, her resistance deliciously tight. “So fucking perfect, Maggie.”

I pull out in a slow slide and she shudders beneath me before I push back into her, staying cautious. “I want all of you forever. I want every day to be like this. I don’t want the distance anymore, not when we’re both here.”

My words are coming out rough and jagged and I know I should probably stop talking but she makes me want to talk. She makes me want to tell her everything.

She arches her back into me and I slip myself deeper inside her, almost to the hilt. She stretches around me with a loud gasp, her cunt so snug and wet as I roll my hips against her bum. I’m lightheaded, breathless, and the fire inside me builds, licking me until I’m lost in this haze. The world has been reduced down to nothing but pleasure.

Nothing but us.

“Fuck,” she cries out. “God, Viktor, fuck me. Harder. Fucking harder.”

A growl escapes my lips at her dirty commands and I slam myself into her until she’s hugging every throbbing inch. She’s yelling my name and I hear nothing but my blood rushing through my head as I bury myself deep inside her. My hips thrust into her, hammering in this driving rhythm and I reach beneath her hips, trying to stroke her clit.

It’s wet, messy, and I can barely touch her where I need to but it’s enough for her to take over just as the couch starts to inch along the hardwood floors.

She braces herself on one arm and reaches back, and I straighten up, my hands splayed wide around her waist, gripping her harder and harder as I pound into her with reckless abandon.

Then Maggie is moaning, then screaming my name and swearing, and I don’t hold back. With a guttural groan, I come, the pleasure ripping through me, turning me inside out. I swear and cry out, coming into her as I go into some mindless, hypersensitive state. In this moment, I’m without thought or self-awareness. I’m just here.

I come back down to earth slowly, trying not to collapse onto her delicate body. I place my hands on the pink cheeks of her bum, leaning on them to keep myself up as I try to catch my breath. My skin is damp with sweat and burning hot, and I feel absolutely liquid inside.

Maggie is breathing hard too, her back rising and falling, having collapsed into the couch with her sweet bum in the air. She turns her head to the side, her face red and beaded with sweat, her eyes heavy-lidded and completely sated.

There are no words to say to each other.

We just know.

We know that’s what we both needed to reconnect.

We know that’s what we needed to feel whole.

We know that on this earth, no matter the time zone, all we need is each other.

She knows my heart and I know hers.

Sometimes it takes time to find it again.

* * *

***

* * *

The next day, our plans change.

They change because Magnus, dear crazy Magnus, somehow deduced that Maggie was at Haga Palace and then insisted on visiting.

I insisted on him not visiting.

But he’s a relentless and charming bastard.

“It’s just for a day,” he says over the phone. “You know I need to meet her. You know you need my approval.”

I don’t need his approval but there’s no point arguing with him at all. Magnus does what he wants.

“Fine,” I tell him. “But just so this gets in your head, we aren’t going out. She is a secret, you understand? I will protect her and guard this secret with my life.”

I instantly regret everything.

Magnus shows up like he always does. Well, I guess this time he doesn’t have a bottle of half-drunk booze in his hands, but he does show up loud and boisterous and ready to party.

For a moment there I forget who Maggie is, forget that she’s not some uptight, stuffy, boring noble woman that my parents have set me up with in the past. I forget that in many ways, Maggie is a lot like Magnus.

Hell, they even have roughly the same name.

“Mags,” I say to her as she comes down the stairs. I point to him. “This is Mags.”

“Hello,” Maggie says, immediately charmed just by looking at him. “So nice to—“

And then she’s swept off her feet in a second.

Magnus literally picks her up and twirls her around and she’s both screaming and laughing and I’m laughing too, trying to ignore the hot coal of jealousy inside me. I know I can be a possessive man, so Magnus isn’t helping.

“That was quite the, uh, greeting,” Maggie says as she’s placed back on the ground. “Is that how all Norwegians say hello?”

“I hope not,” Magnus says, raising his dark brows. “And here I was thinking I was original.”

I look down at Magnus’s bag, now a Formula One race car duffel. “What happened to the Louis Vuitton?”

He shrugs and gives me a devilish grin. “The girl wasn’t worth it.” He looks at Maggie. “Are you ready to party?”

“Party?”

I had warned her about Magnus but perhaps she thought I was exaggerating.

“Yes, party,” he says, clapping his hands together. “You know. I’m saying the word right, yes?” He pretends to boogie down like a lunatic, then mimes drinking and, well, mimes snorting something up his nose.

“There’s still the whole issue with us not being seen together in public,” I remind him before he gets out of hand.

A look of horror comes across his face. “You mean you’re ashamed of me?” He clutches his chest.

“I mean me and Maggie,” I say with a sigh. “This is still a secret that I’d like to keep and even if we used a back door,” he giggles at that, exchanges a look with Maggie, “people would still see us and speculate.”

“Relax,” he says to me, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I have thought this through.”

He leans down and zips open his duffel bag and pulls out a mask, the type you'd see during the carnivale in Venice. "Here you go Viktor," he says, waving a gold one at me until I take it from him. He then pulls out a silver one with teal feathers and hands it to Maggie. "And here you go, Mags." Finally, he pulls out a black velvet one for himself.

Maggie turns the mask over in her hands. "It's beautiful."

"Yes," I muse, looking at mine. "But I think this will only draw more attention to ourselves if we go to a club with these on our faces.”

"Silly, silly Swede," Magnus says. "You think I haven't thought of everything? Not only are we going to a sexy little masquerade party tonight, but I've also got five other masks in there for the bodyguards who will no doubt be following us. I already gave mine his and I think he was overjoyed by all the sequins and sparkles."

"You've got to be kidding me," I say.

"Viktor," Maggie says as if she's scolding me. "This is the best idea I've ever heard."

Magnus beams at me and gestures to her. "You see this girl here? She's all right. In fact, I think I like her better than you."

"I think you like most people better than me. I have no idea why you come by here."

"Because you never come to Norway!" He looks at Maggie, shaking his head. "There I am in Oslo all alone."

"Yeah right." I laugh.

"All alone," he repeats, "and he never comes to visit me."

"You know I'm too busy. I'm not used to this stuff like you are," I tell him. "All the engagements and formalities and officials and charities and..."

"I'm not necessarily used to it," Magnus says, straightening up. "I just don't let it dictate my life. I might be a prince but I have my own boundaries. This job does not define me."

Meanwhile as we're talking, Maggie's eyes are volleying back and forth between us. I suppose it is kind of odd to hear two princes arguing about their jobs.

"Sorry Maggie," I tell her. "Sometimes we forget how good we have it."

She snorts as she tries to slip the mask on. "Are you kidding me? You couldn't pay me to be a princess. Who wants that job?"

She slides the mask on just in time, as if she didn't want me to see her expression as she said that.

I can feel Magnus staring at me. Of course the truth is that I've thought about her becoming a princess. If we ended up together and I didn't end up abdicating that's what she would be. Princess Margaret…Mayhem. And now she's saying I couldn't pay her to do it. I'm sure she meant it in a glib way but I have to admit, that remark bothers me.