Page 51 of Once Upon A Time

Really.

There was something about that guy, though.

Something disturbing.

That word kept recurring to Dieter,disturbing.

Later in the evening, Maxence was discussing something with Flicka, and she was practically hanging over the table at him, reaching for him. When he took her fingers in his hands—a move that didn’t look sexual so much as religious, like a bishop might help a postulant to their feet—a jolt of energy surged through Flicka. Dieter could see it from where he stood across the room. Flicka lunged like she had almost crawled over the table to get to him, but she leaned back in her chair because aprinzessinwould never make such a spectacle of herself.

At the end of the evening, when Dieter had brought her back to their apartment, she’d still been dazed.

He’d inspected her pupils by turning her toward the light, but she didn’t appear physically drugged.

Dieter asked, “What was he talking to you about?”

Flicka shook her head, her fairy blond hair spilling around her milky shoulders in that strapless dress. “His ideas. His thoughts. What I thought. What ideas I had.”

“And?”

“He’s just really persuasive,” Flicka said, chewing on her lower lip.

“What does he want you to do?”

“I’m not sure. Give up everything?”

Dieter crowded her back against a wall. He growled, “Give me up?”

With that, life entered Flicka’s crystal green eyes again. She settled her arms over his shoulders, a tiny amount of weight.“Never.”

He kissed her then, pressing her slight form back against the wall with his body, feeling her soft limbs move under his weight. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, and his hands roamed her body.

“Say it,” he said, crouching to run his teeth over her throat.

“In here, I’m yours.”

God,he loved it when she said that.

His heart jumped, revving as his blood pounded in his veins. A wild energy shot through him, a compulsion to touch her, carry her, and dive into her until she writhed under him mindlessly.

He grabbed her small body, lifted her in his arms, and held her to his heart as he took her to his bedroom. That strapless dress fell away from her skin as he grabbed handfuls of it, yanking it in his rush to get to her skin.

Flicka smiled while biting one corner of her lower lip and watched his hands nearly tearing the dress off of her.

In seconds, she was naked except for her silver high heels.

Dieter ripped off his own suit and grabbed her, rolling on his bed with her.

She laughed at the fun of it, but he was out of his mind for her.

Every time he’d seen that stunned look in her eyes, he’d wanted to punch Maxence Grimaldi.

He ended up on his back with Flicka lying on top of him.

Her slim waist and hips were like silk under his hands.

He couldn’t wait even a second more, and he’d spread his thighs under her.

Confusion creased her pretty eyebrows.