Page 113 of A Princess for Christmas

They were home. “All right. Enough of this.” He looked at his watch. “Gabby’s gonna be home from school in an hour, and then it’s going to be all grilled cheese sandwiches and nonstop chatter, and tomorrow you have your meeting at the UN first thing so...” He let his gaze rake over Marie’s body and waggled his eyebrows to make sure she got his point.

“So we should make the most of that hour?” She was out of the car before he had cut the engine.

He caught up with her and grabbed her hand. “I mean, yeah.While we can, you know? I’m imagining that as soon as the news gets out, there’s probably going to be a shitload of royal wedding protocol unleashed.”

“Probably,” Marie agreed cheerfully. “I’m sure it will provide hours of fodder for you and my father to argue over.”

“I am prepared to lose all those arguments except one.” Marie raised her eyebrows inquisitively as they mounted the stairs. “I want Dani to be my best man. Best person. I know that’s probably ‘not done,’ but I don’t give a shit. I’ll let your father win on everything else. You can dress me up and put me in a pumpkin carriage and I’ll sign whatever papers he wants me to, but Dani’s not negotiable.”

“Of course it’s not. Dani will be your best man, and Max will be my maid of honor. My father will lose his mind. It will be epic. It will be—”

He cut her off with a kiss, pressing her against the inside of his door as he let her bag fall to the floor. Fuck, he had been waitingforeverfor this, to hear her sigh into his mouth as her jaw went slack. To feel her wind her arms around his neck and lean into him and kiss him like she had no plans of stopping.

She lit him up like all the lights of an Eldovian ballroom at Christmas were suddenly flipped on inside his chest. As she moaned softly, trying to rock herself up against him, he started to feel a little frantic, like he couldn’t get close enough to her. But he forced himself to take a step back, shedding his coat as he did so and assessing the problem of how to most efficiently divest her of her clothing. Gabbywasgoing to be home before they knew it. So they could either stand here and make out by the door forever or they could get on with it.

Marie was dressed in her princess gear. Her coat was a sort-of trench coat, but it sloped out at the bottom like a skirt and featured a wide belt tied tight over two rows of buttons. He unwrapped the belt and started on the buttons. So many buttons. But that was kind of her signature thing, wasn’t it? He persevered even though his fingers were made clumsy by lust. She talked while he worked. “You still have your Christmas stockings up!”

“Yep.” It was April, but he hadn’t taken the cardboard mantel down.

Finally, he slid the coat off her shoulders to reveal... a pink suit-dress thing that featured approximately one million buttons. “Are you kidding me?”

Marie looked down, bewildered.

He rolled his eyes and started on them. She laughed, belatedly catching up. “This wasn’t the right thing to wear, was it?”

“Gabby’s going to be home in”—He looked at his crappy watch. He had, so far, refused her attempts to give him a Morneau—“fifty-one minutes.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Well, you’d better pick up the pace then, hadn’t you?”

He picked up the pace.

“Really, Leo,” she pressed. “Why do you still have your Christmas stockings up?”

“Because,” he said, not caring—much—that what he was about to say was going to make him sound like a giant sap. “I didn’t want to take them down until my Christmas wish came true.”

“And what was your Christmas wish?”

“Would you believe me if I said I wished for a naked princess in my apartment?”

The dimples came out. “I would not.”

Finally done with the suit buttons, he paused with one hand on either side of the blazer. “If I open this to find you have a shirt with buttons on underneath, I swear to God...”

She batted his hands away and took over, shrugging herself out of the jacket—she was wearing a silky camisole underneath that was blessedly button-free—and unzipping her skirt. “What did you wish for, Leo?” she said as she hopped on one foot to get out of her tights.

“Itoldyou. And look, it’s coming true.”

She snapped her fingers at him. “Hadn’t you better start on your own buttons?” He was wearing a flannel shirt. “And you are such a liar. You did not wish for me naked in your apartment.”

Instead of doing what she said—he would, but not just yet—he picked her up. She shriek-laughed but wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re right.” He walked them down the short hallway to his bedroom. “I actually wished for you naked in mybed.” He lowered her carefully until she was within safe “tossing” distance and let go, which earned him some more delightfully shrieky laughter. He mock scowled at her from above. “So now we have achieved one-half of that wish.”

“You did not wish for me naked in your bed,” she insisted, even as she shimmied out of her camisole and underwear.

And there she was, Her Royal Highness Marie Joséphine Annagret Elena, Princess of Eldovia, naked in his crappy IKEA bed, flashing her dimples at him and wearing his mother’s engagement ring.

He had to not think of it like that, though, because it would freak him the fuck out. So he tried again. There she was,Marie,naked in his bed, flashing her dimples at him and wearing his mother’s engagement ring.

She was right. He hadn’t wished for this. But only because he would never in a million years have thought it was possible. He opened his mouth to tease her some more, but something caught in his chest and he ended up making a mortifying sort of choking sound.

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