by Valerie Parv
She rolled her head from side to side, her fingers digging into the mattress, "Yes, no. Don't ask trick questions."
He lifted her across his lap. "Then I'll make it simple. I want to make love to you. Right here, right now. If you want me to stop, you'd better tell me while it's still an option. Because it won't be for very much longer."
She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her throbbing body against him. Everything ached. Everything tingled. There was only one possible answer. "This is crazy. I don't want you to stop." Not ever, she suspected, her mind spinning.
His breath blasted out. He'd actually feared she would end this, she realized. How could she when every touch of his mouth was the most exquisite torment?
She slid her hands down and worried at his shirt buttons, tremors making her fingers clumsy. Getting it undone at last she splayed her fingers over his chest. Wonderful, rock-hard body. Sensuous rasp of fine hairs scraping nerve endings raw. Fast beating heart keeping time with her own.
He caught her shoulders and pressed her to him, his teeth teasing the side of her neck as he brought them both to their feet. Unsure that her legs would support her, she clung to him, meeting fire with fire. If he doubted what she wanted, needed, craved, she would show him.
Wantonly, recklessly, she did.
"Do you know what you're doing to me?" he rasped, sounding tortured.
"Yes." Because his effect on her was just as all-consuming. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. About us."
"Thinking isn't what I have in mind right now."
Just as well because she was barely capable of rational thought any longer. He released her, and she swayed as he unzipped his jeans and kicked them off. Shrugging out of his shirt he balled it and tossed it aside, then hooked his thumbs into narrow black briefs, sliding them off.
Drugged by passion, she didn't even try to look away, devouring his incredible male beauty with heavy-lidded eyes. He was everything she had dreamed of in a man, and more. And he wanted her.
When he stepped back and ran his hands down her arms, she shuddered with pleasure.
Then urgency gripped her and she pulled the top over her head, dropping it on the floor. The rest of her clothes followed, her fingers tangling with his as he tried to help. And they were falling, falling back onto the vast bed with nothing between them but the scorching, slick, passionate collision of skin to skin.
Whoever he might be, he was hers, she recognized. As she was his. Right now nothing else was allowed to matter.
She whimpered when he pulled away, but it was only to delve into a drawer beside the bed. "Sorry, Grandpa," he said, using his teeth to open the small packet.
His grandfather had intended the bed to be used by future generations to make babies, she remembered. A pang shot through her. Garth was only considering her, but as he covered himself, she felt a tearing ache deep in her womb. It dragged at her, catching her unawares. She didn't want Garth's child, did she?
The answer crashed over her like a tidal wave. Yes.
This bed must be making her crazy, she thought. After being used by her parents for so much of her youth, the need for a child of her own had never been on Serena's radar screen. Now it was abruptly there, clamoring for attention as if the alarm on her biological clock had suddenly gone off.
What was the matter with her?
He was the matter. Garth had believed in her before she had the confidence to believe in herself. He had wanted the best for her. He still did, warning her against getting involved with him because he wouldn't be good for her.
Just how good he was sent her senses reeling. His touch, his murmured words, the very scent of him made her wild. She wound herself around him, touching, tasting, insatiable.
"Serena," he said warningly, bucking underneath her, beneath the frantic demands of her hands and mouth.
"You said I'd get my turn."
His fingers tangled in her hair, lifting her head. "Have you ever heard a grown man beg?"
She smiled. "Might be exciting."
"No, this is exciting."
And he rolled her onto her back, lifting himself over her, making her mindless with anticipation. She kept her eyes open, feasting on the tempestuous look in his, glorying in her power to drive him to the edge of control and beyond.
In the end it was she whose control snapped. Unable to bear the suspense and the wanting a moment longer, she wound her legs and arms around him, pulling him down and into her until he was part of her.
It was more mutual giving than surrender, the miracle of shared joy surging through her as great tremors of emotion carried her on a cresting wave of fulfillment beyond words. Then he was with her, shuddering with the power of his release, crying her name, tumbling with her over a cliff edge of sensation, falling, falling, until at last there was only serenity and the jagged sound of breath mingling.
* * *
The stars were out, millions of them, as dazzling as diamonds in the velvet blackness. Garth crooked a hand behind his head and looked at them, then at Serena curled against his chest, his other arm around her. In sleep she looked so vulnerable that his heart constricted.
After the night at Brett's place, Garth had promised himself this wouldn't happen again. That no matter what it cost him, he would keep his distance unless and until he had something more to offer her. He had truly meant to keep the promise—until tonight. Learning that he was unlikely to be his parents' biological son had shaken something loose, stirring elemental needs that only Serena had been able to assuage.
As well as wanting her, he had needed her.
His behavior was inexcusably selfish. Hadn't he condemned her parents for using her to fulfill their needs? He was no better. That she had wanted him, too, was also no excuse. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he knew he would do it again in a heartbeat.
So much for honor and virtue.
There was no condemnation in her look. Just sleepy satisfaction and something else he was almost afraid to interpret. "Is it morning yet?" she asked, stifling a delicate yawn.
He activated the liquid-crystal display on his diver's watch. "Just after midnight."
Absently she stroked a hand down his chest and would have continued lower but he caught her hand and held it, giving honor a fighting chance, however belatedly.
"What are you doing awake?" she asked.
He could ask her the same thing. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You didn't. I just realized I'm hungry."
"There's a good reason for that. We never got around to dinner."
She tried to tug her hand free. "I'll go down and make us some supper."
He kissed her fingertips. "I'll do it. I know my way around this place. I'll bring a tray up here."
She gave a sigh of contentment and lay back against the pillow. "Room service? I like the sound of that."
He didn't tell her that unless he got out of the bed, there would be no room service anytime soon. Her touch had triggered a fresh battle with himself and this time he was determined to win. He stood up and tugged on his jeans, leaving his feet bare. Then he leaned over and kissed her lightly. "I won't be long."
Her arms wound around his neck and her lips parted. "You taste much better than canned chicken soup."
Cursing honor and virtue, he uncoiled her arms. "But chicken soup is what's on the menu."
"Pity," he heard her murmur as he slipped away.
By the time he returned with the tray, she was asleep again. He placed the tray on the bedside, switched on the lamp and stood beside the bed, drinking in the sight of her. Her hair spilled across the pillow like moonbeams. She had rolled the blanket around herself so she looked like a beautiful butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Her blue-painted toes peeped from beneath the bedroll.
He tickled her toes gently, amused when she withdrew them into the cocoon. He followed, tickling again, and she withdrew farther. Gradually he became aware he was playing with fire, and straightened. "Sere
na?"
The sharpness in his tone penetrated her torpor. She pushed the hair out of her eyes and stretched her legs out. "What's wrong?"
"Room service."
"Oh."
Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, dragging the blanket with her. He placed the tray between them, as much a barrier as a source of nourishment. On it were two mugs of chicken soup he'd mixed with the canned asparagus and heated in the microwave, as well as a bowl of crackers. "No lobster, it's the chef's night off," he said.
She curled her fingers around a mug of soup and sipped it. "I'll eat anything someone else cooks. It's delicious."
He crumbled crackers into his soup. "Serena, about what I did tonight."
Reaching across the tray, she touched a finger to his lips. "You didn't do anything. We did. And it was very, very mutual."
He should be grateful for her assurance. Instead he felt angrier with himself. "I don't even know who the hell I am."
"Does it matter?"
"It should."
"Not to me. Disappointed because I've broken through your tough-guy facade?"
"There's an even tougher guy underneath."
Serena didn't smile as she sipped her soup thoughtfully, her whole body vibrating with achy pleasure. Whoever he turned out to be, he was still the one man who could set her on fire. She finished the soup and crackers and put the mug on the tray. "Thanks for the porridge."
His brows made a vee of confusion. "What?"
"In this bed I feel like Goldilocks in Papa Bear's too-big bed."
He put his mug down and lifted the tray onto the bedside. Two heartbeats were all it took for honor and virtue to shatter into bits. He snapped off the light and reached for her. "Want to know how that story ends?"
She had a fair idea how this version would. Suddenly she tensed, her security-honed senses jumping to alert. "Hear that? Someone's downstairs."
"I'll check. It's probably only the house settling."
They both knew it wasn't. She hooked a hand around his wrist. "I'll go, it's my job."
He lifted her hand, kissing her knuckles, and desire shot through her as potent as it was inopportune. "We'll both go."
There was no time to argue with him. Her clothes were a twisted mess, and dressing took seconds longer than she liked, but she didn't want to switch on the lamp. Whoever was downstairs was an amateur, stumbling and knocking into furniture. A herd of sun deer would have moved more stealthily.
She groped for her bag and cursed colorfully. Her phone was still on the desk in Garth's study and her bag was in the kitchen with her wallet-size P32 revolver in the specially made pocket of her jacket. She had stupidly let passion overwhelm years of training. What was that going to cost them?
Signaling to Garth that she was going outside, she gestured to him, then the staircase, her meaning clear. He nodded and started down, silent as a shadow. The sea breeze tore at her as she stepped onto the widow's walk. She hoped the name wouldn't turn out to be too literal.
There was no point crouching. The wrought-iron railing left her completely exposed, so she hurried to the staircase and took the steps two at a time. On the ground she scouted around, satisfying herself the intruder had left no backup outside.
Courtesy of their guest, the kitchen door she'd heard being jimmied stood ajar. Keeping to one side, she eased it open. No one inside. Her jacket was draped over her bag beside the stool and she padded to it, feeling better as soon as she had the weapon in hand and a spare magazine in her pocket. At only a third the weight of the R.P.D.-issue .38 revolver, the P32 took up less space than a spare magazine for a 9mm pistol. The plastic frame might feel less solid than steel but the stopping power was respectable, the intimidation effect every bit as good.
Flattening herself against the wall, she held the gun against her shoulder and pulled the door open with her free hand. The hall was empty. Faint movements from her left had her swinging the barrel around. Seeing Garth come into the hall, she lowered the gun and cocked her head toward the study alcove. He nodded. Someone was definitely in there.
The intruder was dressed in black jeans and a black shirt and had his back to them as he riffled through files. She saw Garth's hand snake around the arched entrance, then a light snapped on. "Looking for something?" he asked.
The man went for his pocket and she stepped out, leveling the gun. "Stop right there." Seeing the black circle aimed at his heart, the man lifted his hands away from his body. Serena patted his pockets, retrieving a bone-handled hunting knife that she passed hilt first to Garth. "Who are you?" she demanded.
The man had recognized Garth, she saw from his reaction. Even more interesting, Garth had evidently recognized him. "You're David Lebrun, the attendant from the gym."
The man straightened. "What of it?"
"What are you doing in my house?"
"I thought you were away. I needed cash, so I decided to rob the place."
A lie if ever she heard one. "You bypassed my purse, didn't even check the money in it. Nobody would blame me for shooting an intruder in self-defense." She aimed at his knees and saw him blanch.
"Don't, please."
"Give me a good reason not to, starting with your real name."
She was too focused to look at Garth, but she heard his breath tighten. The intruder seemed to collapse in on himself. "It's David Junot, but you already know, don't you?"
She nodded. "Other than Dr. Pascale, you're the only one left with connections to Prince Louis's birth. I suppose you're looking for the package of souvenirs your father left?"
His gaze flared. "You have it?" He looked at Garth, "I thought you…"
"Do you think I'd be stupid enough to keep it here?" Garth played with the knife and she saw the intruder swallow hard. "Who sent you?"
The man's eyes never left the blade as Garth turned it to catch the light. "Nobody, I swear. The stuff belonged to my father. I wanted it back, that's all."
"A sentimental family treasure, is that it?"
"Yes."
Garth stepped closer, touching the tip of the blade to the man's chest. With a careless flick, he sliced off a shirt button. David Junot looked as if his knees would crumble. "It's so precious that you'd let the Hand use it to keep the Americans out of Carramer," Garth said.
"I didn't know that's what he planned to do with it." Realizing he'd betrayed himself, David Junot slumped against the desk.
Garth's mouth curled into a sneer. "What did you think he'd do, frame it?"
"He only wants to make the royals look foolish."
"By using me."
She put a hand on Garth's shoulder. "Don't let him get to you, he isn't worth it." To David Junot, she said, "Since you're the Hand's buddy, you must know his identity."
Junot shot Garth a nervous look, not trusting him with the knife. She thought the fear was probably justified. "I was told what to do by phone. I've never met him. None of us has," he squeaked as the blade neared his throat.
Garth lowered the tip fractionally. "Why pick on me for your dirty scheme?"
"My father told me the royal kid he delivered had two webbed toes. When I saw your feet in the gym, and how much you looked like Lorne de Marigny, I got this crazy idea—what if you were the real prince, alive after all this time? I took a photo of you and showed it at a Carramer First meeting, thinking it would get a laugh."
Serena nodded. "Instead they took you seriously. When did the Hand approach you?"
"He called me as soon as I got home, wanting to know more about Garth. I don't know how, but the Hand already knew about the baby souvenirs. He said I was to give them and the photos to another member who'd be told where to deliver them."
The member being the undercover agent they'd spirited to safety after the R.P.D. intercepted the delivery, Serena surmised. How had the Hand known that David Junot's father had kept items from the baby's birth? Was he a palace insider after all? A member of the royal family?
"The Hand must be thrilled that you lost the package," sh
e drawled.
Terror clouded Junot's gaze. "He's going to hurt me unless I get it back."
Garth ostentatiously cleaned his fingernails with the tip of the blade. "Seems nobody values your safety too highly right now."
Junot looked wildly at Serena. "You can't let him knife me."
"What makes you think I'd stop him?"
"You're the law. I have rights."
"I used to be the law. Now I'm R.P.D. We play by our own rules. What was the Hand going to do with the package?"
"I'm not saying any more without guarantees. How do I know you won't kill me as soon as I've told you all I know?"
Garth's eyes narrowed. "You don't. But if you don't start talking, it won't even be in question."
He pushed the blade against Junot's throat. The slightest additional pressure would draw blood. She thought the man was going to faint. Not confident that Garth wouldn't carry out his threat, she moved the knife aside with her hand. "I'm prepared to guarantee your safety provided you tell us everything you know about the Hand and his plans."
"You can't mean to make a deal with this lowlife? He killed my parents."
She flinched inwardly from the fury in Garth's tone, but kept her expression impassive. "Somehow I don't think David had anything to do with the sinking of the boat, did you?"
She used the man's first name deliberately, instinctively falling into the good-cop, bad-cop routine she'd become skilled at while in uniform. Garth wasn't aware of how naturally he played bad cop, if he was playing at all.
Now Junot's head shook furiously. "I'm not a murderer. I only found out about the sinking afterward. The idea was to make the monarchy look foolish in front of the Americans. Nobody was supposed to get hurt."
"Not by you, anyway," Serena said. "Do we have a deal?"
"How are you going to guarantee my safety?"
Aware of Garth's restlessness beside her, Serena said, "We'll get you out of Carramer to a neighboring island."
"That won't do any good. The Hand lives outside territorial waters."
Garth looked interested. "Where exactly?"
Junot looked miserable. "I don't know. He comes here when he has business, then goes again. That's all I know. Some say he lives on his own artificial island, out of reach of any law."