Page 63 of The Princess and the P.I.
“Okay, can you…um…give me like five minutes?” Maurice’s voice cracked just a little. “You know, go foam up or…or whatever.” He gestured vaguely toward the door, avoiding her eyes while he pushed her out of his room.
He grabbed the massive vase of blush pink and white peonies from the entryway—a leftover gift from his oldest sister, neglected and about twenty-four hours from going bad. Now, he carried it like he’d stumbled onto something precious.
The vase vanished into the bedroom, the door shutting swiftly behind him like he had someone’s dang surprise party stashed in there.
What is he doing?
Moments later, she saw him collecting every decorative candle in the apartment—dusty, half-forgotten things that had never been lit in all the time he had this place, she guessed.
There were cinnamon-scented ones from some well-intentioned holiday gift set, a tall white taper that had “emergency blackout” vibes, and a sleek black pillar that probably came with the apartment.
He carried them under one arm like a victorious scavenger and disappeared again.
Is he building a shrine? Summoning spirits? After fifteen minutes Fiona was pretty sure she was about to be sacrificed to some pagan god.
When he emerged, his face was glistening from exertion. His broad shoulders gleamed with a fine sheen of sweat, and he wore a ridiculous black top hat.
The smooth peanut butter expanse of his skin was the most she had ever seen of him, and she drank it in.
He breathed from his belly. Some people breathed from their chest, others from their shoulders, but Maurice’s smooth stomach tightened when he breathed, and Fiona couldn’t take her eyes off that tiny movement, his taut abs, the dark line of curls—it was overstimulating.
Maurice hesitated for a fraction of a second before pushing the door open.
“Ready?” His voice was shaky.
The room was bathed in a soft, golden glow from a battalion of candles, artfully scattered across every available surface.
When Maurice reached for her, his hands cast warm, dancing shadows.
White and pink peony petals— so many petals —were scattered over the floor, the bed, even the windowsill.
Velvety, lush, like something out of the over budget and best season of Spinster Island .
(Season 4. Not an argument.) Maurice held a red rose and tilted his old top hat.
Fiona took it all in slowly.
“Wow. And to what do I owe this costume and…fire hazard?” Her voice wavered just enough to betray how deeply she was moved.
Maurice’s jaw tightened.
“I’m supposed to be Tuxedo Mask. I”—he threw the hat on the bed—“apparently I’m pretty cringe when I’m in love. I wanted to show you that I can be…good.” His gaze met hers with a surprising softness.
She blinked, stunned. “Maurice, you sewed me a quilt. You have been good, and if I didn’t know it before, this Tuxedo Mask getup would have convinced me that you are the only man in the world for me.”
He shook his head as if brushing away the compliment, his eyes dropping to the floor for just a beat before finding hers again.
“I’m…thinking about how I behaved after the break-in.” He exhaled like the memory itself was too hot to hold in his chest. “I was cruel. I acted out of fear…I’m ashamed of myself.”
Fiona stepped closer, and he lifted a smooth thumb to her jawline.
“Please…allow me to be gentle with you,” he said. “You deserve that.”
The simplicity of the words— you deserve that —hit her like a wave. Like maybe she could believe him.
“I will never leave you again.” His voice was solemn. Heavy as hell. It felt like the commandments Moses walked down from Mount Sinai with. “Please trust me when I say that.” His dark eyes shimmered. “You’ve…transformed everything in my life. And I can’t go back to the way it was.”
Maurice looked as lonesome and bare as a tree in winter.
Stripped of his usual armor, the man behind the smirks and leather jackets, all that practiced cool he wore like a second skin.
Fiona felt her knees weaken. She’d expected heat from him, wanted it.
All she had wanted tonight was for him to make her feel different than she felt two hours ago, but this honest, openhanded offering, stripped of pretense or performance, was more.
It hit her then: the tragedy of it. Maurice lived in a world that demanded he be hard and unaffected. But he felt the pea in the mattress. He was affected by the world. Here he was, giving her what he’d learned to keep from everyone else.
“I don’t want to go back either,” she said, and something latched and tightened in her chest. A tiny lock.
He clapped his hands behind his back. “I’ve written up an itinerary—”
“You are certifiable, Maurice.” Fiona snatched the piece of paper.
The state of the crumpled paper and the various forms and colors of ink and pencil let Fiona know he had been building this list over time. She squinted at his blockish handwriting.
“?‘Titty F’ is on here twice,” she informed him.
He shrugged. “I’m ambitious.”
“A lot of these involve me in a fur suit.”
“We listen, and we don’t judge.”
“And I see you made time for a water break.”
“See? I’m benevolent.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, dragging his pajama pants so low she could see the dense curls at the base of his shaft. “Fiona, face it. I’m marriage material.”
He turned her neck and kissed her. She was ready for him. He kissed like a mass choir. Deep, then short, soft, then hard. All in one kiss. Like sopranos, tenors, altos, and basses crescendoing all at once.
She tugged him toward the bed, breath trembling, thinking only of what she was about to give him, about to take. When she lay back, soft peony petals scattered around her like feathers, brushing against her bare skin.
Maurice stared down at her like she was some holy thing he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch. His chest rose and fell in uneven heaves, fighting against the restraint she could see he was barely holding on to.
“Ah, god…you’re an angel,” he rasped. “I love you.”
Her heart cracked a little right down the middle. “Well, welcome to the party,” she whispered, almost laughing but too overwhelmed to manage it. “I’ve been here for ages.”
She said it because she had loved him fast. Even if it started off dopey and childish, she loved him and that leather jacket and that up-close magic magnetism nearly on sight. She reached to pull her gown over her head.
Baring herself completely to Maurice, hell, to anyone.
Maurice exhaled, so reverent, he was moved by the spirit. His eyes studied her body like there would be a test after. He sat up on his palm, as if afraid to reach for her too quickly.
And Fiona, for once, did not shrink.
The church had taught her to fear her body, to see it as something unruly, something to be covered, controlled. But standing there, bathed in the warmth of a dozen mismatched candles, she felt right. His gaze moved like fingertips, mapping her skin with silent devotion.
“Goddamn,” Maurice whispered, almost to himself. He kissed a path across her shoulder, the corner of her jaw, his breath warm, his body so solid beneath her fingertips. He trembled slightly, like he was holding himself back, like he wanted to take his time and take her apart at the same time.
“I love looking at you,” he murmured against her skin.
Maurice kissed her smile. The kiss sent tiny licks of pleasure down her body. Who kisses like this?
He guided her hands to his cock, hot and throbbing.
“Now I have you in my bed, and we’re going to do more than cuddle. Hold it while you kiss me, okay?”
She moaned between breathless kisses as his impatient dick wet her soft hands.
His kisses were an all-out assault, leaving her gasping, retreating—only for him to follow, to pull.
His mouth and hands, dear lord, were everywhere , a conquering force met by her constant surrender.
Maurice pulled her even closer, his fingers trailing over her bare skin.
His tongue swept inside to taste her, and Fiona melted into him, moaning into the kiss as heat coiled deep in her belly, pooling wet and slick between her thighs.
Her nails raked down his back as he pressed kisses into her collarbone, lower to the plush tops of her breasts, and lower still, trailing fire down the line of her stomach.
She was already soaked, already trembling, and when his fingers grazed over the damp heat between her thighs, a deep growl rumbled from his chest. “Fiona,” he groaned, his voice dark and thick with hunger. “I gotta taste this.”
When he slipped beneath the covers, she lost him to the dark for just a heartbeat before his palms settled firmly on her inner thighs, thumbs sweeping possessive circles over her soft skin. He pressed them apart slowly, and she clutched at the sheets.
Without preamble or warning, he dragged his tongue from her hot pulsing center right up to her clit. She shot up like she was on a springboard. More, more of this.
She arched against him, rolling her hips into his tongue, desperate for more.
He licked again—long, slow, wet, absolutely obscene drags of his tongue—like he was trying to win the world’s nastiest envelope-closing contest.
Fiona bucked and mewed underneath him, but he was relentless on her clit, catching it between his soft lips and slipping his tongue across the nub until she screamed oaths in Twi.
He sucked her clit until Fiona felt tears slide down the sides of her face, into her ears. The velvet wetness of his tongue felt like deliverance. She may have said words, but she didn’t know. His mouth was the only thing that was real right now.
She bucked so hard he let go of her thighs and held her hips tight like he was tilting up the last gulp of sweet milk from a bowl of cereal. She came on his face, shaking and squeezing his head between her big thighs.