To. Her. Knees.
I wrap my fingers in her hair, gripping tightly as she falls to the ground. Then she's kneeling, looking up at me with large eyes that are clouded with lust and the sudden willingness to bend for me.
She runs her tongue over her lips as she unbuckles my pants, and as she wraps her hand around me, I let out a long groan. It takes everything I have not to come all over her face right now.
I'm being careless, out-of-control, and entirely reckless with her. Yet, I don't care.
Here in my room, I stroke myself faster, the image of Alexandra on her knees with her mouth open and her tongue out almost more than I can take.
She looks at me approvingly before guiding the tip of my dick into her mouth. As she wraps her lips around me, she moans, a long and low sound like she's been eagerly waiting for me.
I can't wait any longer. I fuck her mouth like I intend to fuck her pussy, and definitely not like she's a princess.
I know by the way she groans her encouragement, with one hand caressing my balls as she takes me in deeper and deeper, she doesn't want me to treat her like a princess.
She likes it like this.
In the bunkroom, I let out a long groan, beyond caring that any of the staff in either of the adjoining rooms might hear me. The image of Alexandra's wide eyes looking up at me, her ruby lips wrapped around my shaft, pushes me over the edge and I come hard. When I'm finished, I'm breathing like I've just run a damn marathon.
I've never gotten this worked up thinking about a woman I've only just met. She's gotten under my skin, and that's dangerous in this job – if I still have this job tomorrow.
I need to get this under control.
6
Alexandra
"I've already decided, Alexandra. I won't hear another word about it." My father looks at me sternly, his voice firm. He's in one of those moods where it does absolutely no good to argue, but I protest anyhow. The very idea that my bodyguard can tell me what to do and where to go is insane. I'm a grown-ass woman.
"It's completely ridiculous," I argue. "I'm twenty-one years old. I'm not a child, Father."
"Then stop acting like one," he bellows, his voice booming through the room. The fact that he's yelling catches me by surprise; my father hardly ever raises his voice. Even when we were kids and Albie and I seemed to get into mischief on an hourly basis, he stayed relatively calm.
It's all her fault, the new girlfriend. Excuse me – the new fiancée. He came back from a weekend with her and sprung the engagement on Albie and I yesterday like it was good news. Today, he's suddenly an involved parent, trying to enforce rules and boundaries like I'm a teenager again.
"Stop trying to impress your fiancée." I practically spit the word, totally not cool with the fact that he's remarrying, despite how my father clearly expects Albie and I to think that this whole thing is no big deal at all.
"That's enough, Alexandra," he says sharply, but I seem to be unable to stop talking. I plunge headlong forward, despite knowing that it's not going to get me anywhere. It's only going to make things worse.
"I'm an adult, and I'll go where I want and do what I want, Father," I argue, my words coming out faster and faster, a torrent of frustration. "My bodyguards have no right to pull me out of a club –"
"That will be enough, Alexandra!" my father yells. Then he stops abruptly, clearing his throat as Sofia opens the door.
I couldn't despise her more than I do right now. Instead of being annoyed with the interruption, my father looks positively relieved by it. Sofia stands just inside the doorway, her hands clasped at her waist. My father is too busy looking at her like a schoolboy with a crush to notice she's not even trying to hide the fact that she's looking at me with disgust, her nose wrinkled like she's just smelled something bad.
I'm suddenly self-conscious in my outfit – torn jeans and t-shirt and combat boots. So what? In an instant, I feel like an awkward kid about to be scolded, and the fact that I feel like that makes me angry.
I glare at her, daring her to say one damned word about what I'm wearing, and hoping it's crystal clear what I'm thinking without me having to say anything: It's clear both of us are displeased with this entire arrangement, lady. I don't want you to be my new step-mother, just as much as you don't want me for your daughter.
"Your father and I were just discussing how careful we need to be with the media, Alexandra," she starts.
I bristle at her use of my full name. She's definitely not allowed to call me Alexandra; only my parents call me that. "Don't call me that."
"Alexandra," my father growls.
I'm too angry to have a rational discussion about any of this. My chest feels tight and my head is swimming. I can't believe he brought her into a private discussion about my life – or that she has the audacity to start lecturing me about the media. She's a nobody from America who hasn't had to deal with her entire life being in the public eye. "Spend twenty years in the spotlight," I recommend. "Then talk to me about being careful with the media."
"The bodyguard stays, Alexandra," my father declares sharply, cutting me off. "He stays. And your security detail has the final say on whether a location you go to is safe or not."
"So my bodyguards are my new babysitters?!" I ask, looking back and forth between them in disbelief.
"Don't think of them as your babysitters," Sofia suggests brightly. "Think of them as your personal image rehabilitators."
My personal image rehabilitators.
I blink at my father. I think I might actually have to pick my jaw up off the floor. "Now you're saying that my image needs rehabilitation?" I ask. "It's been good enough for twenty-one years, but now that Sofia Kensington has declared that it needs changing, I suddenly require babysitters?"
My father's face reddens. "I'm not saying that you're not good enough –"
Sofia smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes, causing her expression to seem even more fake. "Of course we're not saying that, Alexandra," she says, using my full name again. That definitely has to be intentional. "When we announce the wedding plans, we don't want the royal family to already be the target of negative press."
"The wedding plans??" I ask, my stomach sinking. My father only just told us that he was even considering marrying the woman; now suddenly we're moving on to public announcements of wedding dates?!
My breath catches in my throat, and the room swims. I need to get out of here. The last thing on earth I want is for either of them to see me cry. The last time I cried was at my mother's funeral, and I'm definitely on the verge of tears right now. I clench my fists at my side and swallow hard, trying to quell the discomfort growing in my chest that threatens to completely overwhelm me.
"You must consider your public behavior," my father goes on, oblivious to how upset I am.
"And if I don't?" I choke out the words, but only barely. My throat feels like it's closing up – not because I'm being told how to behave, but because I'm being told how to behave by a woman who's suddenly appeared in my life out of nowhere, trying to act like my mother.
As if anyone could replace her.
My father pauses, looking at Sofia again, and that's when I realize they've talked about all of this already. They've had discussions about how best to deal with me, the way he and my mother would have, if she were still alive.
I can't breathe. The room tilts to the side, my head dizzy, and before I can faint, I spin around, bursting out of the doors. The new bodyguard stands in the hallway looking at me, his gaze hard. He's as emotionless as one of the guards at Buckingham palace, and I hate him for that.
Any other day, that's how I would be too, with nothing getting to me.
Any other day, except this one.
I don't even have a moment to feel angry at him the way I should for maneuvering himself into a position of authority over me, because every other feeling is eclipsed by how I feel about my father and his soon-to-be-bride.
So I rush headlong past Max, hardly able to catc
h my breath as I head straight for my room.
"Shit, Alex. What's going on?" Albie catches me, his hands on my arms, as I run straight into him rounding the corner to my room, but I push him away, shutting the door behind me.
I don't want to see him or anyone else. Not now.
7
Max
"What's going on?" Prince Albert asks, his voice low. "I haven't seen Alex that upset in a long time."
"She just came out of a meeting with your father," I tell him.
Even though I moved to the other side of the hallway, it was practically impossible not to hear him yelling at her in the room, but I don't tell Albie that. The way the princess looked when she burst out of the room, like she was either about to cry or hyperventilate, said it all.
For whatever reason, even though I barely know her, I feel protective of her. So I'm not about to share with Albie what I overheard.
That being said, I have to admit that I'm relieved Albie showed up in the hallway a moment ago, because if the girl started crying, I'm not sure what the hell I would have done. Give me a a hundred Marines to command or hand me a weapon and tell me to clear houses, and I'm fine. Give me a crying woman to handle and my stomach twists into knots.
Albie groans. "I'm sure that went well."
"It went probably about as well as you'd expect."
Albie sighs. "My sister is difficult."
"Yes, I'm getting that," I acknowledge. "Some warning about that fact might have been useful."
"You're a smart person. Did you think I would have flown all the way to America to recruit you for an easy position?"
"Let me just note that after I saved your life, putting me in charge of your sister is how you repay me."
Albie grins and claps me on the arm. "You're a good friend. You're the only one I can trust to handle my sister."
I laugh under my breath. "I don't think anyone handles your sister."
Albie sighs. "Well, you've been here how long? A week?"
"Five days. But who's counting?"
It's been five damned days and the girl won't call me by any name other than James, the one she uses for all of her security team. The other bodyguards just shrug and pass it off as something that comes with dealing with royals.
It's driving me insane. I don't know why the hell it matters whether some spoiled princess knows my name, but the fact that she won't call me by it is getting under my skin.
"I think one of her bodyguards lasted two weeks," Albie muses.
"Eighteen days," I correct him. Yesterday, I went and checked with the personnel department. They shouldn't tell me that information since it's all supposed to be confidential. But apparently it's common knowledge now that I have some kind of personal tie to the prince, and the turnover with the princess' security is so rapid that there's a betting pool on how long I'll last. They were only too happy to inform me of its existence.
I told them to bet long, because I don't intend to go anywhere.
Nineteen days, and I'll have lasted longer than any of her other bodyguards
You'd think that security personnel would be better equipped to handle a problem princess. I mean, she's probably one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. How hard can it be to spend a couple of weeks guarding a princess?
* * *
As it turns out, I may have underestimated her.
"Rotten brat," I mutter under my breath as two burly men in the crowded street block my path to the alley the princess just ducked into. She turns for a moment and blows me a kiss before a wide grin spreads across her face. Then, she whirls around and heads back through the alley. I speak into my earpiece: "Brat sighted heading into alleyway northeast of the square. Head her off at the other side."
"Brat?" one of the other bodyguards crackles through the earpiece.
Shit. Did I say that aloud?
I clear my throat and use her codename, repeating the order into the earpiece – the real codename, not the one I call her in my head, even though "brat" is a lot more appropriate. The royal brat was supposed to be on her way to an event, but exited the vehicle when we were stopped in the middle of traffic at a stoplight, taking off down the street at a run like she was fleeing the scene of a crime. Of course, she left her phone in the vehicle, making it impossible to track her electronically.
"Where do you think you're going?" one of the men asks. His thick arms fold across him, resting on his large stomach.
"Get out of my way or I'll have you arrested," I growl.
"Says the asshole chasing down his girlfriend," the other one chimes in. "She doesn't want to see you, you know. Maybe you ought to learn to take 'no' for an answer."
"Yeah, jackass," says Dumbass Number One, glaring at me. "No means no. You should learn how to treat a lady."
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my royal identification and shove it in their faces. "I'm not some abusive boyfriend, you tools."
Dumbass Two squints. "That says 'Royal.' You don't look like a prince."
"Yeah, she said she was running from her ex-boyfriend," Dumbass One says, shuffling awkwardly as he runs his meaty hand over his closely-cropped hair.
"She's the princess, you morons," I tell them, shoving Dumbass One and moving through them. In a country this small, how is it I've encountered the only two idiots who don't seem to recognize a member of the royal family? "My ID says 'Royal Security' because I'm protecting her."
"Huh? The princess? Protecting her from who?" one of them calls after me as I weave through the crowd and burst into the alley at a full running pace. My heart races, but only partly from the physical exertion. It thumps loudly in my chest in response to the adrenaline pouring through my veins, the irritation at the princess for hightailing it out of the vehicle, and anger at myself for not anticipating her move.
I should have seen that one coming. Obviously we'll need to employ child-proof locks on the princess' transportation now.
Or you could just sit in the back seat with her.
The thought pops into my head, and I immediately flash to that image – me in the seat beside her, my hand on her leg, then moving farther up…
No. I refuse to think about it. I’m not going there again – not right now in the middle of a fucking chase, and not later in the privacy of my bunkroom.
At the end of the alley, one of the other bodyguards throws his hands up in the air in frustration and shakes his head before darting in the other direction.
Well, that's fucking awesome. I've been on the job for seven days, and now I've lost the princess. Again.
Well, not exactly "again". Yesterday evening, I came onto my shift to find that the genius security guards on the morning shift had lost her at a bar an hour before.
Misplaced. That's the exact word they used. Like she's a piece of luggage at the airport. We misplaced the princess.
Where did I find the Crown Princess of Protrovia? In the middle of a high-stakes poker game with several members of the Russian mafia.
Nothing but classy and princess-like behavior from this girl, that's for damned sure.
Outside of the alley, I pause and scan the crowd for Princess Alexandra. People move past me, mostly young people dressed up to go to the clubs or already pouring half-drunk out of the nearby bars and pubs, apparently oblivious to the fact that several men in suits and earpieces are pushing through the streets looking for someone important.
Of course, this likely isn't the first time the princess has pulled this type of stunt, and probably in this very town square, so maybe the entire Kingdom of Protovia is used to seeing scenes like this.
I scan the nearby stores – a mixture of restaurants and bars and clubs and shops selling clothing and shoes and tourist crap – for someplace, anyplace she might have stopped to enter. She had to have planned this, so where would Princess Alexandra be trying to get to that she wouldn't have just cleared with us?
Someplace shady. Someplace her father wouldn't approve. Someplace dangerous.
All o
f the nearby storefronts look appropriate and normal, like upstanding establishments.
Then I see her not more than ten yards away wearing a baseball cap and a jacket – not what she was wearing when she left the vehicle. The brightly colored strands of hair poking out from her cap are a dead giveaway. Moving quickly through the crowd, I catch her by the arm and pull her into the nearest alley.
"What the –" she squeals, then her expression changes as she recognizes me and groans in frustration.
"Are you kidding me with this shit?" I ask, exasperated. "Where the hell were you even going?"
"None of your business." She turns her face up, her jaw set.
"None of my business, huh?" My hand is on her other arm before I even realize what I'm doing, and she's looking up at me with a defiant expression. Her lips fall open, her mouth pouty as hell, and all I can think about is kissing that smug look right the hell off her face.
That is not something I need to be thinking. Kissing this brat shouldn't be anywhere near my thoughts.
"Yes, James, it's none of your business."
"I'm your bodyguard."
"More like my prison guard," she spits.
"You're my job," I growl. Fuck, why do her eyes have to be so doe-like? I bet she gets away with murder, giving people this wide-eyed look like she's giving me right now. Behind that innocent blinking, she's planning her next poker game with Russian mafia. I'd bet my paycheck on it.
Hell, the girl is probably stealing my wallet out of my pocket at this very moment. I make a mental note to check my billfold later.
A slow smirk pulls at the corner of her mouth. "Maybe. Or maybe not for long."
"Nice try, but no cigar, princess," I tell her. "Your father ain't firing me. Of all people in the world, he definitely knows what a pain in the ass you are."
She shrugs. "You know, there are a lot of easier security jobs out there for someone like you."
Her Bodyguard (Raunchy Royals Book 2) Page 3