A Nordic King(89)

I grin, wishing I could reach out and adjust his bowtie. “Well you look like a Nordic god in that tux, so I guess we make quiet the pair.”

It’s only then that I realize both Clara and Freja are staring up at us, watching.

“Okay girls,” I say to them, overly cheery. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

“Give them to Maja,” he says, reaching out and touching my shoulder.

“Why?”

“I want to dance with you,” he says. His eyes are intense and commanding, I can feel them all the way to my toes. They possess me in ways that nothing else does.

I look around. A lot of people are staring at us. Actually, I think everyone is. They’re watching our every interaction, our every look.

I feel like I’m at the zoo.

The most glamorous zoo in the world.

“You want to dance with me?” I ask. “What happened to you not being able to dance?”

“Perhaps I’ve improved.” He turns and waves at Maja nearby then smiles at his girls. “Go to your Tante Maja. I’ll bring Aurora back.”

They nod and Clara grabs Freja’s hand and they cross the ballroom to Maja, all while I hear Clara start to sing, “I know you, I danced with you once upon a dream.”

Once upon a dream is right.

Aksel holds out his arm for me to take. “If you will, Miss James.”

I do a small curtsey and then take his arm as he leads me to the middle of the floor.

Everyone who was dancing there suddenly scatters, leaving it open for just us.

He won’t stop smiling at me, not as I put my other hand on his shoulder, not as he puts his other hand at the small of my waist.

“Aren’t you afraid people will get the wrong idea?” I whisper, keeping focused on the strong, chiseled lines of his handsome face. From a scar across this nose where he broke it during his rally driving crash, to the sprinkles of grey at his temple and the permanent crease between his arched brows, I’ve memorized his face like a map that leads me home.

“Let them think what they want,” he says, his grasp tightening around me. “You can’t control that anyway.”

He’s got a point.

So I keep smiling as we glide and twirl around the ballroom, the world disappearing around us. Fragments of Clara’s song twinkle inside my head like stardust.

I know you, I danced with you once upon a night. There we were, wishing this dance would last forever all time.

And I know I’ll love him, forever all time.

All time.

But when the dance ends, the dream ends.

Aksel walks me back over to Maja and the girls, and I guess to make up for the attention I got, he takes Maja by the hand and proceeds to lead her over to the dance floor. She protests, bashfully at first, and then somewhat violently trying to get out of his grasp, but Aksel is persistent and wins his aunt over, spinning her carefully around the dance floor as he did with me, until she’s laughing loudly, clearly enjoying the attention from her nephew.

I’m happy.

There have been so many moments these days where I’m struck, almost blinded, by all this happiness and this is just another one.

Happy, happy, happy.

If I’ve been asleep all my life, it’s now, because of him, that I’m finally waking up.

“I want to dance, too,” Freja says in her small voice.

I glance at her. “Okay, but you both have to do it. I’m an expert at dancing with two princesses at a time.”

Both girls give me their hands and while Aksel dances with Maja, I twirl Clara and Freja around, their giggles as bright and bubbly as the overflowing champagne.

This continues for quite some time until my feet start getting tired and the drinks have made me a little loopy.

I tell Maja I’m going to the bathroom and I’ll be right back and before I’ve left the ballroom, Aksel is by my side, hand at my elbow and escorting me down the hall.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he whispers harshly in my ear.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

What did I do?

He doesn’t answer, he just looks around him and when he sees that there’s no one around, he opens the bathroom door and pushes me in there with him.

He quickly shuts the door and locks us in, and before I can say another word, he’s grabbing my face, lips devouring mine, tongue pushing into my mouth, stroking every pent-up desire.

Oh, Your Majesty.

I grab him in kind, my hands in his hair, at the back of his neck while his hands grab my waist, then my ass, trying to pinch and grope me through the layers of tulle. We grapple together in a frenzy of heat and lust and something unbelievably real. Something very us.

I’m pushed back against the tile wall, pinned there, and I’m his, completely his. My body operates on pure instinct, throwing myself into him with no inhibitions, no caution. It craves him as much as my mind and soul do. As he presses against me, breathing hard and kissing me, messy and wet, I put my hands around his shoulders and relish the lean, taut muscles of his back as I pull him in.

One of his hands is lost in my hair, tugging on it the way I like, and I let out a breathless gasp from the sweet pain.

“I’ve never seen such a gorgeous creature in all my life until I saw you tonight,” he says, voice rough with lust. “Once upon a dream, indeed.”