Page 52 of Once Upon A Time

He wound his legs around her thighs, parting them just enough to nudge between them and inside her. He slipped inside easily. She was already wet for him.

Dieter thrust up harder with his hips, holding her thighs together as he took her with long, slow strokes that fell all the way between her thighs and re-entered her with every arc.

Her rose-colored lips made anO,and then she arched her back, lost in the way he pumped inside her, each stroke a new push inside her.

Her fingernails bit into his shoulders as she pushed back onto him, impaling herself, and he lifted her whole body with his hips as he pounded into her.

Flicka threw her head back, her muscles under her soft skin contracting as she threw herself backward. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she cried out.

Her body pulsed around him, and Dieter couldn’t hold back.

The world whited out as he blindly thrust up into her—nothing around him but her scent and her heat—and his balls pumped into her.

She collapsed on his chest. He could barely feel her slight weight lying on him, and he cradled her in his arms.

As he panted, trying to get enough oxygen to restart his brain, his balls flexed again, another throb.

Horror ran through him. “Flicka! We forgot a condom.”

“S’okay,” she muttered from under her tangled blond hair strewed across his chest and shoulders. “M’still on the pill.”

“It’s not okay. We shouldn’t have done that.” He pulled his hips back, falling out of her as if that made any difference at all.

She raised her head and glared at him. “Something you haven’t told me?”

“No. Just like I told you. I had a clean bill of health upon exiting the military and at my physical last year. No viruses. All the vaccines. I just can’t let you fall pregnant. I’m supposed to protect you, not let something like that happen to you, even by me.”

“S’okay,Leiblingwächter,”she said and rolled off of him. “It’s fine. I never miss a pill. I’m clear in all the ways, too. It’s not a problem.”

“Jesus, Flicka. You’re only twenty.”

“And yet I’m responsible about birth control, and that’s why I’m on the pill.” She sat up. “Now quit worrying about it. Nothing’s going to happen.”

Dieter did worry about it until he saw the little plastic-wrapped things show up in their bathroom wastebasket a few weeks later.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but the thought had been planted.

She shouldn’t have to worry about getting pregnant by someone like him.

Dieter leaned against the wall of theWelfenlegionstaff office in Wulf von Hannover’s house, replaying the best moments of his life when he had been with Flicka, but they were all stolen time.

He should have left her alone. He shouldn’t have ever begun the affair, and he certainly shouldn’t have ended it like he had.

Opposites Attract

Flicka von Hannover

Natural attraction is hard to ignore.

Flicka and Rae Stone-von Hannover were working in Rae’s study office. Afternoon light slanted in the wide windows, drawing bright blocks on the thick carpeting. The cup of decaf coffee sitting next to Rae’s elbow steamed dark brew scent on its tiny warmer plate.

Flicka had an afternoon glass of red wine by her elbow as she worked. Evaluating which tablecloth layers to include at Wulf and Rae’s reception and how they contrasted with which of the hotel’s china and crystal sets was making her head spin.

Too many permutations.

Part of her just wanted to throw some darts at the computer screen because backwoods Rae and insular Wulfram wouldn’t know the difference, but many people at their wedding would. Many guests would notice whether the china settings were a historical mismatch with certain colors or with the crystal, and they would talk.

They always talked.