Page 45 of Fake Dating the Prince

Then he looked up.

It seemed he wouldn’t have to extend their stay. He was almost disappointed.

“Brayden,” he murmured, carding his fingers through Brayden’s hair. Irina had cut it into a more European style—short on the sides with a few inches of length on top. It was already growing in, though, returning to his former all-over disheveled waves. Flip looked forward to it. The unruliness suited him infinitely better.

“Mhhhh,” Brayden answered, somewhat muffled by Flip’s chest. “I need at least another hour before round four.”

Idiot.“Should I tell Mother Nature to wait on you, then?”

Something of this seemed to register, because he took a deep breath and then another, tickling the skin of Flip’s neck, and raised his head, brow furrowed. “What?”

Flip moved his hand from Brayden’s hair and tilted his chin toward the sky. “Look up.”

Finally comprehension registered, and Brayden turned onto his back and snuggled close against Flip’s side.

Above them, the Northern Lights glittered through the Milky Way in shades of green and blue, chasing each other in some otherworldly dance. As they did, they cast their colors over the landscape, a nearly pristine canvas of white. Then a wave of fuchsia swept in, arcing across the sky before yielding to green.

And then suddenly the whole sky was alive with color, pulsing in spiked, concentric ribbons of lime and viridian and scarlet.

The two of them remained silent for countless minutes, taking in what felt to Flip to be an intensely private, personal show. And then Brayden drew in a shuddering breath, and Flip tore his gaze from the sky to take in the play of color over Brayden’s features, and found that his eyes were glassy bright. “Brayden? What—”

Brayden raised a hand to Flip’s lips, and Flip kissed the tips of his fingers. “It’s beautiful,” Brayden said. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”

It turned out he didn’t need the full hour after all.

With permission to take his time, Flip put everything he hadn’t said into his touches—a soft kiss at the corner of Brayden’s eye, one at the edge of his jaw, a third above his heart. He’d been a fool to believe anything about their relationship could be pretend when Brayden was his perfect complement in every way. But if he voiced his feelings now, would Brayden believe him? Surely even Brayden, who did nothing by half measures, couldn’t fall in love in a week.

You did, said a tiny voice inside him, but Flip hushed it and laced his fingers with Brayden’s. The beautiful glass bubble that let the sky in kept the real world out just as well.

Chapter Nine

ASFlip had expected, Brayden made an excellent travel companion—when he could be convinced to leave the igloo.

“We need breakfast,” Flip pointed out when Brayden’s stomach growled at nine thirty the next morning. The night before, they’d missed dinner, eating only off the snack tray the hotel staff had thoughtfully packaged away in the refrigerator.

Brayden leered and gave Flip a once-over. Flip threw a pair of underwear at him. “No protein-shake jokes.”

“Spoilsport,” Brayden teased, but he put the underwear on, followed by the rest of an appropriate Nordic winter outfit, and let Flip lead him to the main building for breakfast.

Over slow-cooked oats topped with nuts and preserves and crispbread with thick-cut cheese and paper-thin lox, Brayden flipped through the hotel activities guide and exclaimed every second page. Perhaps Flip might have an excuse to extend their stay after all.

“I’d love to check out the snowboarding, but—oh, a dogsled tour! I’ve never done that.” He looked up abruptly. “Uh, what about you, though? What do you want to do?”

As far as Flip was concerned, the trip’s sole purpose was to be good to Brayden. “Everything you’ve mentioned so far sounds good.” Flip enjoyed skiing, which was what he’d do if Brayden wanted to snowboard, though he’d rather spend the time doing something cozy. Perhaps he could nudge Brayden in that direction. “Do you think it’s too much to do the dogsledding and then the sleigh ride/barbecue?” That was, to put it delicately, a lot of sitting.

“Probably, but that’s why there’s coffee and Advil.” He grinned. “Let’s do it.”

The dogsledding was exhilarating, though cold. Flip marveled at the athleticism of the animals and their sheer joy for the task, but his favorite part of the trip came before and after the dogs were hitched, when Brayden was baby-talking to them and thanking them for a job well done.

But the sleigh ride. If Flip lived to be a hundred, he would never forget it—tucked next to Brayden in a sleigh behind a snowmobile, while overhead every color of the rainbow fought to prove itself the most beautiful. Brayden spent most of the ride with his head tilted back against Flip’s arm as he took in the sky. They were both going to have sore necks tomorrow, because Flip couldn’t tear his own gaze from Brayden’s face.

They stopped for a barbecue under the endless sky and drank blueberry tea to keep warm. When they at last stumbled back to their igloo, even Flip was sore and tired and cold. He was contemplating the fireplace, and maybe a call to the front desk for a hot-water bottle for his feet, when he leaned against the door to the sauna to take off his boots and noticed it was warm.

“Surprise,” Brayden said. “I asked the hotel staff to start it for us so it would be ready. I am a genius.”

In the small, hot, humid space, Flip let him prove it with his hands and mouth and then returned the favor, Brayden straddling his lap and writhing as Flip stroked him and kissed his neck. Flip’s spent cock twitched hopefully when Brayden came, spattering Flip’s stomach with release, but neither of them had much energy left. They rinsed off in the shower, fell into bed, and sleepily watched the remainder of the show.

Eventually it clouded over enough that Flip could close his eyes without guilt. He drifted off to sleep with Brayden half sprawled on his chest and thought if he could spend the rest of his life like this, he would die the happiest man in all of Lyngria.

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