Page 83 of Ruling the Green

“Good. Because I’d like to do a lot more of that.”

“Yeah?” I asked, wincing at how hopeful my voice sounded.

“Anytime we’re not strategizing or training, I want to be buried deep inside you.”

My needy body pulsed in pleasure at the idea.

“One day, when all the bad stuff is done, I’d like to do it in the lake.”

A rumble moved through him at that.

“That’s going right to the top of the list.”

“There’s a list?”

“Spent every night in this bed beside you since you came to the castle. Yeah, I’ve been making a mental list.”

“Like where?”

“You, bent over the desk in my study. You riding me on the roof. You going down on me when I finally sit on the throne. There is no shortage of ways I have thought about fucking you.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Why not you?”

“You said you’ve been with a lot of women. You can have anyone you want. Why me?”

“That’s a good question. And I don’t have an answer. I just know that this is what I want.”

“Only this?”

“Only you, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, Lake Girl, only you. Guess I’m taking those vows a lot more seriously than I’d intended.”

My heart seemed to squeeze in my chest at the idea that he was mine. All mine. That no one else would ever get to know him this way again. Even if the rational side of my brain reminded me that this was never a legitimate wedding, that he’d been clear from the beginning that this would all end up with him on his throne and me back in my lake.

But maybe, maybe he’d changed his mind.

I just wasn’t going to be brave enough to ask.

Not yet.

“Sound good to you?” he asked.

“Mmhmm.”

“So maybe you’ll stick around even after the dust settles.”

There it was. That heart squeeze again.

“Two conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“I get as many trips to my lake as I need to keep it happy and thriving.”