by Cassie Cole
Me: All of you make me feel safe.
Cairo: I miss you.
Me: You just saw my shining face five minutes ago!
Cairo: That’s not the part of you I miss.
I glanced at Logan, who was busy typing into his phone to notice that I was blushing again.
A new text popped up on my screen, filled with typos:
Unknown: Don listen to him i miss u more
Unknown: and not just ur ass
Me: Hunter?!?!
Unknown: I miss ur ass too, but its not the only thng
Unknown: u have a nice ass round an squishee
Me: Gee, I never would’ve guessed you were an ass man.
Unknown: I like ur boobs too
Unknown: ( . Y . )
Then a text from Cairo again:
Cairo: Let me know if he gets annoying and I’ll punch him in the arm.
Me: He’s getting there!
The lighthearted texting did a good job of making me relax. I’d been tense since jumping in the box truck, and only now did I feel like things were somewhat normal. Like we weren’t suddenly going to blow up.
The taxi drove out of the city in the night. Logan spent most of the time making phone calls where he did almost no talking, and the volume was too low for me to hear who was speaking on the other end.
“Where’s the safe house?” I asked when he finally put away the phone. He pointed ahead.
“We’re almost there. I can see the gate.”
I didn’t know what I expected. A bunker-like building like the one hidden in the cafe, or a glorified hole in the ground where we had to relieve ourselves in a bucket. Huddled under a blanket eating power bars for 72 straight hours without hot water.
I didn’t expect the reality: a mansion.
25
Logan
I took immense pleasure in the look on Karen’s face. Her shock was worth all the trouble of the day.
“This…” she mumbled. Her mouth moved silently, totally at a loss for words. “I… What is this?”
“You’ll see.”
The taxi pulled up to the guardhouse, where retractable metal barricades stuck out of the ground to block the road up to the mansion. The guards were expecting us, so they lowered the barricades and waved us through. The driveway extended half a mile up a hill to the mansion, which was more of a palace both in function and form.
I wasn’t an expert on architecture, but the palace was a baroque work of art.
The entire wide structure was built with tan-colored stone and old glass. Solomonic columns with composite order surrounded the palace with curvilinear extravagance. Two towers rose from the center of the compound, with four-story wings curving away on either side to form a courtyard in the middle. Having been here before, I was disappointed that Karen couldn’t see its daytime splendor as a first impression.
“It’s huge!” she said.
If Hunter were here, he would have made a that’s what she said joke. I only smiled and nodded.
A servant opened the car door for us, then escorted us up the wide steps into the palace foyer. I carried the duffel bag of supplies over my shoulder and hoped none of the armed guards—of which there were several—said anything.
We were greeted in the foyer by a woman wearing white pants and a silver jacket. Sofia Garcia was handsome rather than beautiful, with dirty blonde hair similar to Karen’s and the dark eyebrows that were famous for her lineage. She smiled widely when she saw me and spread her arms in a welcoming embrace.
“Logan Carpenter!” she said in flawless English. “I was overjoyed when they told me.”
“As was I, circumstances aside.” I kissed her on both cheeks and gestured. “Karen Helmandollar, I’d like to introduce you to Infanta Sofia Garcia, the youngest daughter of Juan Carlos.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Sofia said, extending a hand.
Karen’s jaw was practically detached from her face. “You’re Felipe’s sister. King Felipe IV.”
“That is correct.”
Karen gave a half-bow, then changed her mind and tried to curtsy in her jeans, which looked absurd both because she was in such casual clothing and because she had very clearly never curtsied before in her life. She stumbled to one knee then popped back up.
“Your majesty,” she breathed. “It is an honor to meet you!”
“Technically you’re supposed to address her as your highness,” I said with a grin.
“Your royal highness,” Sofia said, sharing in my humor. “But I’d be overjoyed if you would call me Sofia.”
Karen shook her hand, then turned to me and hissed, “You brought me to a princess’s castle!”
Sofia stuck her head out. “I’m loathe to be such a poor hostess, but I’m leaving quite early in the morning. You two are welcome to stay up. I had the chef stay up in case you required anything.”
“I think we’ll be going straight to bed,” I said. “We’ve had a very long day.”
I kissed her on both cheeks again and then one of her servants escorted us to our rooms.
“The chef stayed up,” Karen whispered as we climbed the huge staircase, which was covered with soft burgundy carpeting. “The princess’s chef, Logan.”
“Infanta is the exact title,” I corrected.
“Which is the equivalent of a princess in Spain and Portugal!”
“Sure.”
“My mother is a huge royalty snob,” Karen went on. “She keeps every issue of Majesty magazine going back three decades. If she knew where I was…”
I grabbed her arm before she could pull out her cell phone. “You know you can’t do that.”
“I know.”
“Promise me you understand.”
She sighed. “I promise.”
“You can take all the photos you want, but wait until we leave to send them. Just in case. Nobody is supposed to know where we are.”
It took us close to five minutes of walking to reach our rooms on the east wing of the palace. We shared one large common room, with each of our bedrooms branching off of that. Karen let out a noise like a choking giraffe when she saw it.
“This room is bigger than my parents house back home!”
“Stop gawking.”
“There’s an echo, Logan!”
I waited for the servant to close the doors and then lowered my bag of weapons on the ground. “You handled meeting her well,” I said sarcastically. “Hardly starstruck at all.”
She spun around with a huge grin on her face. “I just met Spanish royalty! I’m sleeping under the same roof as her!”
“Same roof is a stretch. She’s practically in another zip code.”
“How are we here?” she demanded. “In what universe is our safe house the Catalonian palace of the Spanish royal family?”
I unzipped the bag and began sorting supplies out on the ground. “Sofia Garcia has been very outspoken against the Catalan Liberation Front. She and her family have a vested interest in seeing the CLF separatists smashed.”
“As if someone needs a reason to be anti-terrorist.”
“Well, yeah.”
She fell into the plush sofa, an antique at least as old as the United States itself, and sighed with pleasure. “You seemed like you knew her.”
“We’ve hidden out here before. Sofia is very hands-on with the fight against the CLF, whether that involves SEAL Team 13 or Interpol or any other local authorities.”
“Logan,” she said with a very serious tone, “We’d better call for the chef to bring us some coffee because I have so many questions.”
Once I had the supplies sorted on the ground, I grabbed the spare clothes and toiletries included. “Save them for tomorrow, when we’re both rested.”
“I’m not going to be able to sleep!”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
She rose from the cushions and surprised me by embracing me in a hug. Her body pressed tightly against mine, as if she’d just been rescued from the bottom of a well and I was her savior. Clin
ging to me with every ounce of strength she had.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into my shirt. “For everything.”
“Sure,” I said, patting her on the back. It was impossible to ignore how beautiful she was, and how her breasts pressed tight against my chest. I could feel my cock stirring, so I pushed her away before she could feel it too.
But she kept her arms around me, and looked up into my eyes with warmth.
A look that suggested far more than just a hug.
The desire to kiss her was overwhelming. It would be so fucking easy to give in and press my lips to hers, to hold her body tight against mine again, to do so much more than just kiss. I could picture lifting her off the ground and carrying her into one of the luxurious bedrooms, stripping her clothes and kissing her bare skin and making love to her to cap off what would otherwise have been a pretty shitty day.
But I was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, a SEAL who had far too many responsibilities to surrender to such a fleeting impulse.
I pushed her away. “Goodnight, Karen.”
“Goodnight,” she said.
I left her standing there as I went into my private bedroom and closed the door.
Long after I’d brushed my teeth and washed away the sweat from the day’s stress, I lay in the four-post bed thinking about her. Wondering what she was doing right now in the room across from mine. If she was sleeping in the pajamas I’d retrieved from her apartment, or if she preferred panties alone. Or if she slept in the nude. I could picture each scenario, and once pictured I couldn’t get it out of my head.
My cock was hard and hungry for her, and would not let me sleep.
26
Karen
Logan closed the doors to his room. I stood there for a while simply staring at the doors, doors plural, 14 feet tall and wide enough to drive a car through. I wondered how old that ornate wood was, how long ago it had been carved.
I would have gone to bed with him.
I was shocked by my feelings for Logan. He was something of a hard-ass, more like a drill instructor than someone I’d ever consider sleeping with. Yet when I hugged him goodnight I couldn’t help but admire his body, covered with hard muscle and as warm as a furnace, and I felt something within me stir. I would have given myself to him.
I wanted him to take me.
But he’d resisted. Either because he wasn’t attracted to me, or because he was tired from a day of running from terrorists, or because he knew it was a bad idea.
Well, I knew he didn’t think I was unattractive because I had felt the warm bulge through his pants, pressing against my navel. Although that happened randomly to some guys, or at the slightest touch. Maybe it meant nothing.
Or maybe it means more.
Finally I peeled my eyes away from his door and went into my own tremendously-large room. You could fit a gas station in this room and still have room to walk around on its roof without touching the ceiling! The king-sized bed was dwarfed by the room’s enormity.
As I showered and brushed my teeth, I thought about how ridiculous it would have been to sleep with Logan. I’d already slept with his two SEAL teammates—and Cairo twice. I bet they had stories about the kinds of slutty girls who would sleep around with several military guys.
But that thought didn’t fill me with distaste. If anything, I felt a tingle of excitement at the prospect.
Maybe it was the craziness of the day getting to me. That would make anyone want to cling to someone else, if only to feel alive.
I stood at the edge of my huge bed and relived the events of the day. I’d been kidnapped off the beach, and beaten by the head of a terrorist organization. A woman nicknamed the Red Bitch. Then we’d survived a bomb going off in the same apartment where I’d slept with Cairo and Hunter last night, destroying the very couch where we had done the act. I might have died if not for Hunter shielding me. Not to mention being attacked at the cafe, and having Logan shot in the chest, and then fleeing for our lives while men and women tried to kill us.
And just like that, the trauma of the day finally caught up to me.
I staggered, gripping one of the four bedposts to steady myself. My entire body broke out in a cold sweat, which simultaneously made me shiver like I was freezing even though the room was comfortable. My throat went dry and my tongue swelled as if I’d had an allergic reaction, filling my mouth unnaturally. Each breath seemed inadequate to fill my lungs, giving me the sensation of suffocating.
I scrambled back into the common room to get a glass of water.
Logan stood in his doorway, pausing in mid-step when he saw me.
“Hi,” he said.
Finally my body succumbed to the waves of emotional trauma. My eyes welled with tears and I began sobbing.
“Oh, Karen.” Logan crossed the room rapidly and took me in his arms. He pulled me against his hard chest and rubbed his palm up and down my back.
“I… don’t… know why… I’m crying…” It was difficult to speak as my lungs spasmed.
“Shock finally wore off,” he whispered. “Shh. Just let it happen.”
We slid to the ground and he cradled me in his arms while I wailed against his shoulder, letting the terrible events of the day overcome me.
“You must think… I’m some stupid… stupid girl…”
His body rumbled with silent laughter. “Happens to the best of sailors after their first taste of combat. Hell, it happened to me. Just relax and let it out.”
He stroked my hair soothingly as I wept in the beautiful palace.
*
I woke in the most comfortable bed in the world, and had to blink several times to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming. Then I remembered where I was.
I had no memory of how I’d gotten back into bed. I’d wedged my face against Logan’s shirt, and everything after that was a blurry mess. Maybe he’d carried me.
But regardless of what had happened, I felt a thousand times better. As if my mind had been keeping everything deep down all day, and crying had helped me let it all out.
Sure, I knew emotional trauma was not so easily resolved. But for now I felt okay.
Logan’s door was open and he was gone, so I changed into fresh clothes and made the long hike back to the central part of the palace. Everywhere I looked along the hall were beautiful paintings, and even hanging tapestries as large as oriental rugs depicting famous battles. I felt like I was in a museum. Like if I touched anything, an angry-looking guard would come running up and escort me from the premises.
I found a servant waiting at the end of the hall with a glass of water in one hand and a folded towel on a golden tray. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said in pretty good English. “Would you like some water? Or a hot towel?”
“Yes please,” I said. I tried not to make a face when I realized the water was sparkling, but rubbing the hot towel over my face and neck was instantly refreshing.
He escorted me the rest of the way to the dining room—or rather, one of the dining rooms, which held a table with a measly 24 place settings and chairs. I felt woefully underdressed in jeans and sneakers, so I was relieved to see Logan seated at the table wearing equally casual khakis and a tight-fitting t-shirt. A row of servants stood behind him, ready to spring into action if needed.
“Morning,” he said while stabbing a piece of jamón ibérico with a tiny fork. It slid into his mouth and he gave me a curt smile. “Sleep well?”
“I slept incredibly well,” I said while taking a seat across from him. The moment I sat down one servant rushed forward to push my chair in, while another placed a cloth napkin across my lap.
“¿Cafe?” one woman asked.
“Si, por favor.”
She turned over my cup and filled it from a silver coffee pot. The rich aroma immediately filled the room.
“How about you?” I asked.
“I have coffee, thanks.”
“I mean, how did you sleep?”
He smiled at his food. “Like I’d spen
t yesterday with adrenaline running through my veins. If not for years of training, I could have slept all morning.”
“Me too.”
Logan never looked up at me; he was focused intently on his food. I got the impression that things were awkward after last night. I couldn’t decide if it was because I’d tried to come on to him, or because I’d cried in his arms until passing out.
Logan was soon forgotten as the servants piled my plate high with food. A dozen different slivers of deli meat, two hard-boiled eggs already peeled, and scoops of fresh melon. Everything tasted incredible. Realizing that I’d hardly eaten anything yesterday, I had to force myself to eat slowly rather than shoveling the food directly into my mouth like a homeless woman. Even with my restraint I wondered if the servants were judging the silly American who was stuffing her face. Every time I took a sip of coffee—which tasted incredible, even without cream or sugar—the woman with the silver pot rushed to refill it to the brim.
Once the food was gone they didn’t offer me seconds, though I could have eaten an entire second plate. It was probably for the best.
“Ready for practice?” Logan asked, finally meeting my eyes with his steel gaze.
“Practice?”
27
Karen
Logan led me out into the back gardens, which were in the process of being manicured by gardeners with electric hedge clippers. We followed a cobblestone path out into an orchard, then to a clearing beyond. Two wooden crates were stacked on top of one another, and beyond them was a field that stretched almost endlessly.
Logan went to the crates and pulled a roll of paper from the side. His muscular arms flexed as he stretched the paper over the wood and pinned it into place. It was a circle with concentric rings. A bullseye.
“This is where I’m going to teach you to fire a gun.”
I stared. “I thought you were joking about that.”
“I never joke.” He returned to me and pulled his gun from his hip. “This is a Sig Sauer P226.”