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He shook his head, moving a step closer. “No. In fact, I’ve found I haven’t noticed much when you’re in the room.”

He moved a step closer and a delicious heat ran down my navel directly between my legs. For once, I was able to shed the mantle of queen and all the responsibility that went with it. I could let myself be chased and eventually caught by a large man with mossy green eyes and black, shaggy hair that could as easily split a tree with his bare hands as he could nurse sick flowers and bees back to health.

Trying not to smile too widely, I backed up a step. “What do you notice now?” I asked.

Ambrose went forward, following me. “Fiery red hair, unbound and driving me mad.”

“This?” I asked, running my fingers through it.

He nodded, licking his lips. “Freckles I could spend a lifetime counting and kissing.”

“These?” I asked, touching my nose. I kept backing up and he kept following, stalking his prey.

“A curved shoulder peeking out of a fine dress. A dress too fine for hands like these to have any business touching, your majesty.” He held up his calloused hands, nearly as large as my head, and began unlacing his shirt. He pulled it over his head, and I watched as his muscles rippled in the low light of the hearth.

I put my palm on the bare skin of my low-cut gown, my fingers skimming the tops of my breasts. My chest moved up and down, faster and faster, as Ambrose stalked closer.

“Here?” I asked, still backing up. Suddenly, I bumped into something near the hearth. Something I swore wasn’t there when we entered the room. It was a small, round table set up by the fire.

“What in the…” I asked, giving Ambrose the opening he was looking for. He swept me up in his arms. I squealed as he began ravishing my neck with his tongue. It sent delicious shock waves through my body, but I still had questions.

“Ambrose, I’m serious, what is this?”

He set me down, his teeth grazing my ear and I shivered. He tilted his head. “Odd. It’s the beginning of a candle I was crafting for you. In case I had to leave.” He held up a vial.

“What is it?”

“Unicorn horn shavings. I wanted you to burn it to call the unicorn, and even if the unicorn didn’t come, its horn is renowned for protection and healing. It would have kept you safe.”

“I think the castle wants us to finish it.”

Ambrose paused. “Finish it?”

I nodded, more vigorously. “Together. Will you help me?”

“I would do anything for you,” he repeated.

“Like burn a prophecy made from wyvern fire?”

“I would burn down a kingdom for you.”

He moved closer, now that he had permission. I reveled in it. The thought of being wanted for no reason other than myself was so erotic that I began to pant. I put my hand on my chest to steady my heartbeat, but it was no use. I was too far gone with want–of him and his earthy smell of soil and moss and honey.

“I want you to be so satisfied, so full of me, that you can’t think of anything else while we’re together. I want you to be free with me, Bessa.”

“It’s already working,” I whispered. “I can’t think of a thing right now.”

Slowly, he turned me around, unlacing my coronation gown starting at the top. His fingers were cool to my warm as they brushed my skin. I felt his lips trail kisses down my spine as he slid off the gold and white satin. Slowly, I took off the gold crown and set it on the table, allowing him to turn me around, completely bare before him.

He stood staring, a look of appreciation on his face as he finally allowed me to reach for his breeches. It made me shiver to feel his erection already thick and swollen. Despite having let him put his mouth, his fingers, and even his tongue inside of me already, I had not felt him. He wouldn’t let me that night in his shop, only focusing on my pleasure. Finally, we were both bare before the candle.

“Show me your craft,” I whispered, turning to the table.

Ambrose came around behind me, his thick cock pressed between the curves of my backside as he put his hands on mine, bending over my shoulder. “Together, my queen,” he whispered in my ear before putting his tongue inside and making my whole body quiver. “That feels so good when you move like that,” he rasped, and he did it again, just to make me quake. Our bodies were fire and ice, pressed together to make magic.

His hands were steady, but his hips were pressing me harder and harder against the table, his desire evident. I arched my back into him and felt the fullest satisfaction at his moan. I was so wet, my thighs were slick with my own want as I tried to steady myself and keep my knees from buckling.

Slowly, we added the shimmering unicorn shavings and chunks of honeycomb in a bowl, heating the mixture until it flowed. The whole thing smelled heavenly, like snowdrops.

“Careful,” he said, pouring the wax into the mold. A drop fell on my hand, but it didn’t burn. It slid off, hotter than when it landed, merely by touching my skin. I was immune now. I let the drop fall on Ambrose and it hardened immediately, already cold to the touch. He looked up at me with a devious look. “I think this is going to be very fun.”

Sweeping me up again, he laid me on the bed and spread my legs with his hands. He knelt over me, his cock hanging thick between us. He took the remaining wax and slowly dribbled it, drip by drip onto my soft belly, before taking his fingers and swirling them through the wax, hardening it instantly at his touch. My hands fisted the sheets, and my hips couldn’t keep still as I tried not to thrust upward, searching for him to fill me. It was torture, waiting. I ached and ached between my legs until I finally resorted to begging.

“Please, Ambrose.”

“Yes, Bessa?” he asked, his voice a light tease. His fingers swirling hot wax around my nipple, teasing it into a hardened bud that made me forget how to form words for a moment. “Now for the other one,” he said, spilling hot wax down my chest and swirling circles like art over my nipples.

“Please!” I gasped.

He finally took pity. “Guide me,” my candle maker murmured. “Take me inside of you, my queen. I want to kiss you until you’re wild and dizzy and feel your heart beating next to mine. I want you.”

Holding him with one hand and gripping his hip with my other, I put his cock right at my entrance and slid him up and down my slit, feeling where the tingles exploded the most pleasantly and how deliciously thick he felt in my palms. All at once, I felt as if I might die if I couldn’t have him inside me. I pulled him harder against my opening, but his hips resisted.

“Say it, Bessa,” he ordered.

“Take me,” I said. “I’m yours,” I promised.

He finally took a hold of my wrists and pinned them to the bed. I gasped as he pushed inside of me, the pressure of him immense, more immense than I could have imagined as he filled me completely. I couldn’t help but gasp again as pulled out, panting over the top of me before pushing himself in again.

And again.

And again.

Keeping me pinned to the bed, I did the only thing I could do; I thrust my hips up to meet him, taking him as deep as I could, needing to feel him pressed against every inch of me. The lingering heat of the wax was exquisite as it dripped between us, alternating between cold and hard and hot and silky every time it melted and hardened anew between our bodies.

My womanhood began to clench around him, and Ambrose’s eyes dilated in the firelight. “Come for me, Bessa.”

I could already feel his own orgasm beginning, and it sent me over the edge. The feel of hot wax hardening on my stomach and his semen spilling out between my legs sent me over the edge again–or perhaps I was still climbing. I was in ecstasy. I couldn’t stop my moans from turning into screams even if I wanted to.

“Ah, Bessa. You feel so good.” He pressed a kiss to my lips, the tip of my nose, my forehead, and back down, before finally lying next to me, propped up on an arm. The moment was raw and vulnerable, the aftershocks of pleasure fading into something real—something meaningful—and I knew I had made the right choice of consort.

Rose petals rained down from the ceiling as my newly sentient castle showered us with its own love and affection. Ambrose threw a fistful in the air over my head as I laughed.

“I could get used to this,” I said, taking a petal to drag along my bare collarbone, over my breast, my nipple. I didn’t get much farther as he wrapped me in his arms, abandoning the petals for kisses.

“I love you, your majesty.”

I smiled, sinking into his wide arms. “And I love you, Chandler.”

In the end, the cold never could claim us. We burned much too hot.

And they lived Happily Ever After.

Follow life in Frostvale as the kingdom defrosts and the castle wakes up… alive! PRE-ORDER available now for KNIGHTS AND NEGOTIATIONS .

Knights and Negotiations

What’s a newly-sentient castle to do when its inhabitants refuse to fall in love? Tether them together, of course!

Liora Estelle has spent her career building bridges between uneasy kingdoms, but her latest assignment may be the strangest yet: serve as her kingdom’s envoy to the fledgling court of Frostvale—a place where magic, long thought lost, has mysteriously returned. Rumor says it bloomed from the love of the new queen and her consort. Liora doesn’t believe in fairy tales… but the castle might.

To keep the new magic from misbehaving, Queen Bessa assigns her most trusted companion to Liora’s side: her brother, Sir Wyot. A former knight without a cause, Wyot is loyal, brooding, and far too handsome for Liora’s peace of mind. Worse, the castle’s newly-simmering magic likes them together—enough to bind their magic in a tether that reacts to every spark of emotion.

One shared room. One moody knight. And a castle that seems determined to play matchmaker. Rule one of diplomacy: never get magically bound to your bodyguard.

As Liora and Wyot try to keep things professional, the castle conjures cozy gardens, dreamy ballrooms, and unexpected moments that feel dangerously like fate. But with visiting dignitaries watching closely and the future of magical diplomacy at stake, falling in love might not just be a risk to her mission—it might change the course of magic itself.

A cozy fantasy romance full of enchanted spaces, slow-burn longing, and the kind of magic that knows exactly when two people belong together.