Royal Guard Tiger (Shifter Kingdom Book 2)

by Zoe Chant

  His full name was... Tristan.

  “You only have one name? Like Cher?” She flipped through the pages of the passport, taking in the special stamps and notes that stated his diplomatic immunity.

  “That’s the only one I’m allowed to tell anyone, for as long as I stay in my current job,” Tristan explained, and Poppy looked up sharply.

  He was absolutely serious, his gaze intent on her. “Due to my particular duties, the oaths I’ve taken, and the nature of my present mission, I’m afraid there are many things—important things—that I can’t tell you about myself and what I’m doing here.”

  Poppy frowned. “You said it was... somewhat secret. What does that mean? Is that like, two steps down from Top Secret?”

  Tristan shook his head. “It’s not an official classification. The mission isn’t intrinsically secret—I’ll be happy to explain it to you fully, once it’s over—but for the time being, until I have a better idea of how things are going to play out, I have to keep the details close. Naturally, I’ll understand if you’re not comfortable being alone with me, knowing that there are things I have to keep from you.”

  Poppy looked down and flipped through the passport again. There were only a handful of stamps in it—entry and exit from England, entry and exit from Norway, and, just a couple of weeks ago, entry and exit from the United States. It was right around the time Signy had met her European dream guy and run off with him.

  Poppy was tempted for a moment to ask if he knew a guy named Kai, if he really did know her sister.

  But if she had a Euro for every person who’d demanded to know whether she knew some other random American, she’d never have to sleep in a hostel again. Coincidences happened, sure—look at how her day had started, stumbling over Sasha in the last place Poppy would have expected to find her—but Poppy’s luck had never sent her anyone like Tristan before.

  She turned back to the first page, the picture of Tristan taken more than ten years ago, according to the issue date of the passport. Nothing about it rang false to her. Nothing about Tristan seemed false. When he told her he was a secret agent, he made it sound like a mildly unusual civil service job, not some grandiose James Bond fantasy.

  She looked him over again. “You don’t carry a gun.”

  Tristan’s micro-smile was more like the very tiniest smirk, this time. “I don’t need one.”

  She knew, logically, that Tristan had to mean that whatever it was he did as a semi-secret agent, it didn’t involve crazy shootouts and car chases like a spy movie. But she remembered the way he had just stood there and made Daniel back down, his unmovable cool confidence.

  No, I’ll bet you don’t need a gun at all.

  Poppy closed his passport and slipped it back into the inside pocket in his jacket, curling closer to him again. For half a second she considered whether it should feel different now, being so cozy with someone with so many secrets, but she’d known from the first second she laid eyes on him that there had to be something under that cool exterior, something she wouldn’t be able to guess. She still wouldn’t have felt safer anywhere else in the world, and she still wanted to get closer to him than she dared in the back of a cab.

  “I don’t need to know your last name, or what you’re doing here. I believe that you’re telling me as much of the truth as you can, and you haven’t lied to me.”

  “I don’t want to lie to you,” Tristan agreed, running his fingers over her hair. “I want to be worthy of your trust, Poppy.”

  Poppy had to close her eyes at that, curling close to him to avoid the serious steadiness of his gaze. She wanted to ask him whether secret-agenting left him time for girlfriends, but she wasn’t going to bring that up in the back of the cab. She stayed there, breathing the clean scent of his shirt, feeling the occasional faint touch of his fingers on her hair, letting the cab carry them to wherever they were going.

  She was halfway to dreaming, drifting on thoughts of lying with Tristan in a wide bed with clean-smelling sheets and a view of the sea, when he said, “Poppy?”

  She picked her head up and blinked at the brightness of the lights. They had drawn up to the door of the hotel, and two uniformed men were waiting to help them with their bags and usher them inside.

  Maybe a little bit James Bond, Poppy thought, but she just nodded and grabbed her pack while Tristan opened the door. Tristan handed her out of the cab, waving off the hovering hotel employee, and Poppy swung the pack up onto her shoulder automatically. As soon as she did she realized it would have been more proper to hand it to someone else to carry for her, but her hand tightened on the strap as she thought it. She could carry her own bag, and she wasn’t letting go of it now.

  Tristan just squeezed her hand and said, “Shall we get inside?”

  Poppy nodded quickly.

  Someone opened the door for them, and Poppy nodded vaguely toward him, wondering if she was supposed to tip, or thank him, or what. But Tristan towed her into the lobby without breaking stride, all marble and thick rugs and fine furniture.

  “Ah, there he is,” Tristan murmured. “I’m traveling with an... assistant. Your long-lost brother, there.”

  Poppy looked in the direction of Tristan’s slight nod, quickly spotting the guy with bright red hair wearing a black suit like Tristan’s. He was standing by a pillar, and his posture was perfect except that he had his head down over his phone. Tristan led her over to him.

  “Peter.”

  Peter looked up, straightening to something like attention and all but hiding his phone behind his back, like Tristan might not notice. He was definitely not in Tristan’s league when it came to poker faces.

  Poppy bit her lip and glanced up at Tristan. His face was almost unreadable—definitely lacking any of the tiny smiles she’d seen tonight. She hoped she wasn’t about to find out that Tristan was an asshole boss; that would put a damper on this whole thing.

  “Making an interim report?” Tristan asked.

  Peter’s eyes darted to her as he flushed the painful, obvious pink that was the redhead’s curse. Poppy felt her own cheeks heat a little in sympathy.

  “Just... keeping up on ancillary developments,” Peter said, fairly evenly, though he couldn’t quite seem to meet Tristan’s eyes. “Sorry, I... sorry. Is this...?”

  “Yes,” Tristan said, allowing Peter to change the subject and at least not saying anything mean. “This young lady is named Poppy. I met her earlier and separated her from a disagreeable gentleman, and we agreed that she would be safer sharing my accommodations tonight. Shall we go up?”

  Peter frowned a little, like that wasn’t quite what he had expected to hear. He didn’t seem totally shocked by Tristan’s behavior, but he was still thrown off. “I... see. Yes. I have the keys—adjoining rooms.”

  Tristan nodded and turned, guiding Poppy toward the elevators as Peter followed. None of them spoke in the elevator, but Poppy watched the way Peter kept looking at Tristan, then quickly away. He didn’t look at her at all, but she had a feeling that that was because he was being careful not to.

  When they reached their floor, Peter said nothing but the room number, gesturing down the hall. When they reached it he handed Tristan a keycard, nodding at the neighboring door. “That’s mine. Your bags are in yours already.”

  Tristan handed the keycard over to Poppy. “You can lock the adjoining door on your side, so that I have to knock. If you want to take a shower or make any calls, feel free. I need to catch up with Peter. All right?”

  Poppy glanced between them and then nodded agreement. Poppy was glad to see that he looked more curious than nervous about talking to Tristan. Poppy accepted the keycard and let herself into the room while the two men stood behind her.

  She leaned against the hallway door to close it faster and set the chain on the door while she listened to the faint sounds of Tristan and Peter going into the room next door. Then she went to the adjoining door and unlocked it.

  She did want a shower, though, and she ought
to finally take off Tristan’s suit coat.

  She laid it out on the room’s one king-sized bed, and carefully turned the sleeves back down, brushing a hand over the hint of a crease in the heavy fabric. She thought about bringing it into the bathroom for the steam, then she shook her head—this was definitely the kind of hotel that would press Tristan’s suit for him if he needed it. She picked up her pack, carrying it into the bathroom.

  She shut and locked that door behind her, and just stood for a moment looking at herself in the wide mirror. She was still looking pale, which might have been the lighting in this opulent bathroom, though she had a feeling it was designed to be flattering to its normal wealthy occupants. She looked small, and wide-eyed, and alone, and like she’d reached the end of an unreasonably long night.

  Poppy shook her head and stripped off her dress, bra, and panties, piling them on the counter. She dug into her pack for clean underwear and a t-shirt and yoga pants for pajamas. She pictured, for a second, stepping out of the bathroom in nothing but a posh hotel robe, letting it fall open while Tristan watched...

  It sounded like it would be fun, some other time—she felt a little tingle run through her at the thought of Tristan’s amber eyes heating as they traced over her body, looking at her everywhere with that same serious gaze—but mostly she was tired, and longing to be clean.

  Shower, right, that was why she had come in here. She figured out the taps quickly enough, then sniffed the fancy complimentary soaps and shampoos. They were a pleasing, if slightly bewildering, mix of green tea and lavender; good enough for Poppy. She stepped under the hot water and just stood for a moment, letting her exhaustion catch up with her.

  She’d only just arrived in London today, after five precarious days of travel—planes, trains, automobiles, a godawful amount of walking—from Melbourne, and that was before Sasha, Daniel, and all of that drama. She rubbed at her arm where Daniel had been gripping it, when he decided it was time for Poppy to come back to his place with him.

  Daniel had definitely expected something. Poppy had absolutely no doubt of what he’d been expecting. What he still expected, because he was still convinced that Poppy was coming to Paris with him in the morning.

  Bright and early, poppet. It wasn’t hard to imagine an or else on the end of that.

  But she was safe here. Tristan wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and this kind of hotel wouldn’t let Daniel in the door. She was safe, and Sasha was safe, and Tristan was waiting for her just outside.

  Poppy half-dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and, after a second of considering the bathrobe and some sexy come-on routine, pulled on her own pajamas. Tristan was getting her the way she was—no point trying to fool a secret agent into thinking she was the fancy-negligee type.

  When she opened the door, the first thing she saw was Tristan hanging up his suit coat. She stayed right there in the doorway as he took off his tie and looped it around the top of the hanger.

  He turned toward her as he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, his eyes finding her as if he had known exactly where she was. She waited for his eyes to skim lower, for him to remark on what she was wearing, but he didn’t. He held her gaze, and she realized that he always had, even that first second when their eyes met.

  She thought that he wasn’t looking in the same way that Peter hadn’t looked at her in the elevator: because he was being very careful not to look. Not because he didn’t want to see.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Poppy said, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing down at her pajamas to see if he would follow the gesture with his eyes. “My wardrobe runs pretty casual.”

  Tristan unbuttoned another button of his shirt, revealing more warm brown skin, the hollow between his collarbones and the top of his chest. He was walking toward her slowly as he said, “Wear anything you like, Poppy. I promise you, it makes no difference to me.”

  Poppy swallowed and stood her ground as Tristan came closer, until he was close enough to touch. In her bare feet and pajamas, she was even more conscious of how much taller he was. When he was close enough to kiss, she still couldn’t reach, but she could feel the warmth of him, his closeness making her whole body wake up. Her breasts tingled, and she couldn’t help being aware that they were only covered by a thin, worn t-shirt.

  Tristan put his hand on her shoulder and bent just far enough to press his lips to her forehead.

  “You’re perfect in anything,” he murmured, and as he stepped past her and into the bathroom he added, so low she might have imagined it, “Or in nothing.”

  Poppy turned on her heel, but the bathroom door closed firmly behind him. She stared for a moment, wondering what to make of that, and then she walked over to the enormous bed and peeled back the covers, planting herself firmly in the middle.

  *~*~*

  Chapter 5 - Poppy

  Poppy hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but it had been a terribly long day, and the hotel was so quiet, the pillows so incredibly soft.

  She didn’t know how long she had been when she opened her eyes to low light and Tristan lying on the edge of the bed facing her. She was all the way under the covers and he lay on top of them, so she could see that he’d stripped down to boxers and an undershirt, leaving acres of brown skin and muscular body on display. She was suddenly wide awake, her body flushing hot as she got wet between her legs.

  It wasn’t her most graceful moment, but Poppy didn’t waste any time about shoving the blankets down and scooting across the ridiculously wide bed to kiss him.

  Tristan’s arm went around her instantly, and he let out a shaky breath against her mouth like he’d been holding it, or had been in pain and now was relieved. Poppy made a soft soothing noise and kissed him again and again, little brushes of lips, until Tristan’s arm around her tightened and he rolled her onto her back, bracing himself above her as he took charge of the kissing.

  Her mouth opened instinctively to his, and his tongue pressed in, exploring her, taking thorough possession. Poppy moaned a little, yes, please, but that made Tristan draw back, which wasn’t what she had wanted at all.

  “Hello,” he said softly, not silly or teasing. Like it mattered that he greet her properly before they went further than those few kisses.

  “Hi,” Poppy said, raising her hands from where she was instinctively clutching at his shirt. She hooked one behind his neck and tucked the other behind her head. “Why aren’t you kissing me anymore?”

  Tristan sighed again, but he did kiss her some more. Just little pecks now, more promises of kisses than proper kisses themselves. In between he spoke a few words at a time. “Because I—was going—to take things—slow—and not—scare you off.”

  “I’m not scared,” Poppy promised him, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she was wondering if she should be.

  This whole night had been insane, from rescuing Sasha from Daniel’s evil schemes to Tristan rescuing her from Daniel and turning out to be a secret agent. From Denmark. Who even knew Denmark had secret agents?

  Her own reaction had been mostly submerged under freaking out when she first met him, but this attraction—the way she trusted him so instantaneously—was nothing Poppy had ever felt before. She had met her share of hot guys, and good ones, and she had gone to bed a time or two with guys she didn’t know as well as she should have. But Tristan was different. This all felt different.

  Tristan seemed to sense her second-guessing. He kissed her, very softly, one last time. Then he sat up, gently pushing Poppy away.

  She scooted back as she sat up to face him, curling up in the drift of fluffy pillows against the padded headboard.

  “It’s all right to be scared,” Tristan said, sitting cross-legged with his hands on his knees, so that she had an unobstructed view of his blue-and-white striped boxers and the round bulge of his half-hard cock behind them.

  Poppy belatedly dragged her gaze up to his face, and found him looking at her with a slight smile, not amused at her but... encouraging,
maybe.

  Poppy smiled back. “I’m not that scared. Just a little nervous, maybe.”

  Tristan unfolded one leg, nudging her foot with his toes. “What do you need to be nervous about? It’s just me and you, and I swear that I am only interested in what you’re interested in.”

  Poppy turned her foot, wriggling her toes against his like they could hold feet instead of holding hands. She had exactly enough time to think that she shouldn’t let him see her toes, and then realized that his were as knobbly with calluses and possible old breaks as her own. She leaned forward, cupping her hand around his foot and looking at it, and saw the familiar wonky toenails and small scars.

  She looked up at him with a smile. “Went barefoot a lot as a kid?”

  He winced a little, like maybe it wasn’t a good memory, but before she could apologize his expression settled back to his usual seriousness. “Constantly. And it’s all rocks, where I grew up—when it’s not snow and ice.”

  Tristan leaned in enough to curl his hand reciprocally around her foot, thumb brushing gently over a fresher scar. “Not just when you were a kid, I see?”

  “Doesn’t matter how much my mom insisted my feet would toughen up if I went barefoot,” Poppy agreed, shaking her head. She really should’ve thought to wear sandals that day. “Sharp rocks are still sharp.”

  Tristan leaned in and kissed her, a little off-center on her mouth, splitting the difference between kissing her on the cheek and on the lips. He sat back, putting both hands down on the bed as he did, but he left his foot pressed close to hers.

  Poppy mirrored him, leaning back against the headboard. “Taking it slow, huh?”

  Tristan smiled one of his barely-visible smiles, a corner of his mouth turning up. “Trying to. I fear I’m not very good at it.”

  “I bet you are, usually,” Poppy said. “I bet you usually have everything under control, don’t do one thing you didn’t think through. I’m the one who never walks when I can run.”