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He seems to be up in his head and babbling to no one. It’s general grousing about me and my bad habit of getting injured. It’s kind of charming. Adorable, really. “Sig.”
Oh, but he’s not done.
“If you stumble upon a large predator who wants to attack, it’s too late. There’s no fending it off. All you can do is shoot them, and I don’t have my hunting gear. It’s not hunting season, after all. But that’s not a likely scenario, though.”
“Your Highness,” I repeat.
“But maybe I should have brought my hunting gear just in case. Shit, yes. That was a mistake. I might have stashed one of my crossbows in the woodshed…”
I can’t take it anymore. “Sigurd!”
“What?” Sigurd snaps.
I grab the man by the front of his shirt and drag him forward for a surprise kiss on the lips.
A moment later, the surprise melts into a warm embrace. He leans into the kiss, his arms circling my waist. Breakfast is forgotten.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” I say, surprised by the emotions that bubble up when I say that.
He just stares down at me, the two worry lines between his eyes extra pronounced. “It is what I do,” he says.
I raise one eyebrow at him. “So, you’d do the same if I were an 87-year-old grandma with bad breath and a rotten attitude?”
A flirtatious gleam lights up his eyes. “Yes, but I wouldn’t want to bang an 87-year-old grandma with bad breath and an attitude. Unless she wanted to put me in her will.”
I gasp and retort with a shocked smile, “You would gigolo an old lady?”
“That all depends on how deeply I’m on the King’s shit list when all this marriage nonsense blows over.”
I laugh, even as my insides go a teeny tiny bit numb. I would not run and hide if I had a father who cared so much about my future that he offered to find me a spouse.
Stability and people who care whether I come and go? That’s my catnip.
“What’s wrong?” Sigurd asks.
His hands are still circling my waist, and I feel their width spanning my lower back. They feel so good right there; I never want him to let go. But I can’t revel in this feeling.
Hiding what I’m really thinking, I continue the banter. Giving a sassy shoulder, I say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have an inheritance to share with you. It’s simply me. Simply Stasi.”
He leans in, and with his lips so close to mine that I can feel them move without actually touching, he murmurs, “There is nothing simple about you, Stasi. And that’s the way I like you. You are perfect, but you are not and never will be simple, my girl.”
I swear to every god we honor that if he were to follow that up with a marriage proposal, I would say yes. Immediately yes. A thousand times, yes.
As it stands, that speech ends with our lips fastened together in a passionate, mind-bending kiss. And my lady parts wet themselves and throb for more of his pretty words, more of his everything.
I want to kiss every inch of him for that speech.
And I know we’d be so, so good together.
When we pull apart from the kiss after several long, beautiful moments, I am breathless.
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “You’ve convinced me to stay indoors today.”
“Good.” He gives me a short, sweet, nibbling kiss that heats my nethers. Want more of that. Want more of those teeth…everywhere. Oh gods.
“Wh-what kind of indoor activities did you have in mind?” I ask.
The dark flecks in his gray eyes darken. “This,” he says, slipping his hand from my lower back. He smooths away the blanket spread over my legs on the bed and examines my thighs.
