by Madeline Ash
“Yeah, I don’t have time for you right now.”
He frowned. “Have you consumed recently?”
She seemed hangry; her white skin was paler than usual.
“I’ll get you something to eat downstairs,” he said.
She jabbed a finger toward an empty coffee cup and paper bag, discarded on the rumpled blankets.
“So what’s the matter?” He noted her passport sticking out of her back pocket, and was instantly distracted by the sweet curve of her ass. God above, he loved those jeans.
“It’s complicated,” she said, picking up her phone from the bed and swiping it unlocked. “And like I said, I don’t have time.”
“Need a hug?” he asked, far too casually.
She hardly ever touched him. No contact was Frankie’s unique brand of agony. Except for her sexual energy—that touched him everywhere.
“If you try to hug me, I’ll bite you.” She cast him a small, see-if-I’m-joking smile as she twisted and sat on the end of the bed. Lifting a foot, she tugged hard at the laces of her chunky boots. “I’m having an epically bad day.”
“Why?” Concern instantly rolled his shoulders back. “Did you get hurt?”
She stilled, and then slid a strange glance at him. She didn’t answer.
“Right.” He crossed the room to stand in front of her. “Let me see.”
“You can’t help.” She huffed out a breath and muttered, “It’s too late.” She set back to work on her boots, yanking the laces.
“Frankie.” His concern swelled into frustration, but he did his best to leash it. “Show me.”
“I’m not injured.” Punctuated with another hard pull of her bootlaces. “There are changes at work that are out of my control, and that hurts, okay? I’m overwhelmed and so far out of my depth, I feel like I’m already sinking.”
He stared down at her, and she glared back.
“Alright. Hang on.” Sighing, he dropped to one knee, his eyes on her feet. These laces were one short-tempered tug away from tearing clean off.
She fell still. She was a fighter by nature, but always retreated into motionlessness when he got too close. Her stillness came with a flush on her cheeks and hunger in her eyes.
Yeah.
Suppressed desire was having a fucking field day with them.
Her next breath was shaky.
Like two hands trapping a fly, his focus contracted—latched around the woman before him. It hit him, then. He’d never been like this. On his knees before her, one greedy movement away from filling the space between her parted legs. Victim to the thought, his gaze slid up her shins, skimmed over her thighs. Christ, he needed to—stop looking—needed to just—stand the hell up—pull himself together.
At the sound of her hard swallow, he grabbed his self-control by the scruff of its neck and shoved his attention down. He reached for her laces, ignoring how she jerked her hands away.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she muttered.
The pulse in his neck throbbed as he released the tension at her ankles, passing the slack down the boot. “Excuse me for saving your feet from blood loss.”
“You shouldn’t be—there.”
Still lost in desire, he asked, “Where?”
“On your knees.” She sounded breathless.
Slowly, he raised his head. It was all too easy to imagine her words as a command. One he’d willingly follow, along with every pleasure-drenched plea she made after that.
She sucked in air and raised a hand, scratching her flushed cheek as she fixed her attention out the window.
After he’d loosened the laces and knotted them, then fastened the buckles that clasped over the top, he dared to place his palms over her feet. Greed and panic fueled this reckless contact. For too long he’d let his feelings hide in the shadows of friendship. Today was all they had—the brink of their future.
“Frankie,” he said, looking up. “I’m going to ask you something.”
Something that was supposed to be about moving to Kiraly with him, but was probably going to come out, Can we stop pretending now?
She met his stare in a flash, mouth tightening before she said, “You finished?” Shifting her boots out from under his hands, she stood.
He shot to his feet in front of her, achingly close, a short swoop away from her quick-tempered lips. Attraction glinted in his blood, bright and bliss-tipped. If she said yes, her tight grey tank would peel off in seconds, but he’d take his time with her skinny-leg jeans, and those punk boots would put him back between her knees . . . God, please let her say yes.
“Some space, please,” she said sharply.
His whole body was tense. Locked and howling for contact. “Is that what you really want?”
Startled, she scanned his face.
“Serious question,” he said, voice low. “Would you rather a steady friendship or honesty?”
Alarm widened her eyes.
He practically growled, “Frankie—”
“I can’t do this,” she said, stepping away.
“Please.” He grabbed her arm, his grip loose and breakable, but—there.
She halted before half-turning back, her throat moving as she swallowed. “You’re touching me.”
No shit. His heart thundered. It was either the worst or best time in their entire friendship to push her like this, but he brushed his thumb along her forearm and said on a rough murmur, “I’ve always wanted to touch you.”
“Oh, God,” she muttered under her breath, looking away.
“I know you feel it,” he challenged, because he had nothing to lose. Not today. “And I’ve felt it every—”
“I can’t, Kris.” She cut him off, nudging out of his hold. After swiping up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder, she slid her phone into her pocket and moved toward the door.
He stared after her. Panic landed hard in the chest. “Where are you going?”
She looped her other arm through the backpack. “I have another job.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, it’s come as a shock to me, too.” She didn’t meet his eye as she scanned her apartment, one hand moving to touch the passport in her back pocket.
“Wait.” This wasn’t part of the plan. They were supposed to order food and chat about her latest case before he shared the way his life had just shattered and the future they could rebuild together. “We need to talk.”
“You might, but I need to go,” she said, voice thickening as she turned away. “Time’s up.”
Then he’d take time she didn’t have. He strode across the apartment, feeling her eyes on him as he passed her. Reaching the door, he pressed a palm to the surface and took a rallying breath.
He faced her. “I should have told you years ago—”
“Then you wasted years of opportunities,” she said, “because my flight leaves in forty minutes.”
“To hell with your flight.” It came out as a snarl as she walked up to him, his alarm finding release in his fraying temper. No woman in his life had felt like Frankie—and his reckless libido ensured that was no small claim. He couldn’t do this without her. “I’ll buy you a new ticket. This can’t wait.”
“Years, did you say?” She stared at his chest, and his body tensed in a silent demand for her touch. “Clearly it can.”
“I—” He couldn’t think. Couldn’t believe this was happening. She refused to let him confess his feelings while she was running out the door, yet he had so much more to say and literally no other time to tell her.
“Get out of my way, Kris.”
No. He couldn’t actually leave without her. “Please listen—”
“You listen to me,” she said, the last word catching in her throat. “You have to let me go.”
Body rigid in protest, he stepped aside. What else could he do? Blurt his true lineage as she marched out the door? Call his suggestion for her to move across the world with him down the stairs?
“How long will you take?” he ask
ed, grasping at straws. He could fly back to Sage Haven to meet her after this case and explain everything. But he’d have to time it perfectly or town gossip would tell her for him and there’d be nothing worse. “When can we talk?”
He frowned at the look she cut back at him—burning with regret, wide with pain.
She didn’t answer, but for one unbearably hot second, her gaze slipped down his body like she might command him to his knees for real. Then she turned away, features shuttering. “See you, Kris.”
She closed the door behind her.
He waited until her footsteps faded before slamming his fist against it. As predicted, their conversation hadn’t ended well.
And he hadn’t told her a damned thing.
Now
1
Kris had been king-in-training for less than two weeks and he’d already started a war.
At least, that was what Philip seemed to believe.
“You walked out!” Philip exclaimed as he burst into the royal study.
Exclusive to the monarch, the round room was positioned at the top of the palace’s tallest tower. Kris had only recently started working in here since arriving in Kiraly three and a half months ago, and the curved walls and panoramic views made him uneasily aware of just how far away he was from having earth beneath his feet. A large balcony overlooked Kira City, and he stood in-line with the open glass doors—because blame it on the intense summer heat or a well-founded wariness of palace balconies, Kris wasn’t keen to set foot out there.
He turned to Philip, his peace shattered, as the royal advisor strode across the room to stand before Kris’s desk. Thin as a grass blade and flushed with spluttering indignation, the man said, “Your Highness, with all due respect, you can’t just walk out of the Bergstadt Summit!”
Well. Kris returned to the desk and lounged back in his chair, propping his boots up beside his laptop. “Should’ve told me that before I went in.”
Philip appeared to be holding back some very strong words as Mark entered the study. The look his brother shot Kris as he strode to the lushly-padded sofa against the far wall was equal parts amusement and exasperation.
“I didn’t think I had to.” Philip’s voice rose.
Kris picked up a pen and clicked it. “I’m not psychic, Phil.”
“It’s Philip!”
“Kris,” Mark said, sitting down with a sigh. “Give it a rest.”
“Prince Kristof,” Philip said, and started pacing. “This summit has been an annual tradition for Kiraly and our bordering nations for almost a century. To get up and leave—while a neighboring minister is mid-presentation—is not only a major breach in royal etiquette but could be interpreted as an act of political antagonism.”
Kris looked from his advisor to his brother. He raised a shoulder. “He was talking shit.”
Philip made a sound that should have accompanied great physical pain.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mark frowned at Kris. “You sit through it anyway.”
Sit through another hour of bull? “It didn’t feel right.”
“It is!” Philip raised his hands in frustration. “It is right! That’s what kings do. You sit there—without sprawling like a male youth at the back of a school bus, I might add—and wait until the presentation has finished.”
Mark was still frowning. “You’ll have to apologize.”
“Sure.” Kris had figured that much. “I’ll find him later.”
“Publicly,” his brother said firmly, even as he rolled his eyes.
“I’ll sort it out.” Kris tensed as his irritation resurfaced. The nerve of that minister, trying to manipulate the attending nations with scare tactics and a slick slideshow. “But we’re not agreeing to his proposal.”
“Markus.” Philip spun to him desperately. “Are you quite sure you love Princess Ava?”
Kris scoffed, clicking the pen again.
Mark stiffened despite his smile. “Very sure.”
Understatement. They’d scarcely arrived in Kiraly when Mark—his older brother by a whopping forty minutes—had gone and fallen in love. Ava was the last woman Kris would’ve imagined stealing his brother’s heart, but something about her courage and scathing wit had clearly melted him. Their relationship had come hard won and without a tidy future.
“I need you to stay with me,” Mark had begged Ava when all had seemed impossible. “We’ll figure this out.”
Kris had figured it out for them.
Mark would abdicate.
And Kris would take his place as king.
He was still reeling. He hadn’t suggested abdication because he craved power. It was just that anyone with a beating heart could see it was the only way the pair could be happy.
It had to work. Happiness had become too scarce since leaving their ranch. Some days, Kris felt like an animal in an enclosure built for a different species. His strides down gleaming corridors bordered on agitated prowling, and sensing his brothers trapped beside him only made him want to dig their way out. At least one of them needed to be content and it was within his power to let that be Mark.
Even if it meant jumping the triplet queue so that Tommy—middle-born and seriously socially anxious—didn’t have to rule.
“Markus,” Philip said. “What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“Kris has a point about not agreeing to the proposal.” Mark had sat in an antechamber, privately listening in on the summit while Kris had filled his place at the table. “I was thinking the same thing.”
The plan was to keep Mark’s intended abdication and Kris’s ascension private while Kris learned the ropes. No need to get the public in a tizzy about the royal family shuffling power like a deck of cards. Not so soon after the tragedy that had killed the late ruling family and hauled Kris and his brothers here in the first place. Mark would continue to attend meetings and appearances as himself, as would Kris, but there would be events that expected the king in attendance and would just happen to receive Kris instead. Not his fault if they couldn’t tell him and his brother apart.
The only people who knew were Kris and his brothers, their personal guards, Ava, her friend Zara, and Philip. The household staff who attended Mark and Ava at their mansion believed their king had simply relocated for Ava’s privacy.
His advisor sighed. “Politics is about picking your battles.”
“Then I pick this one.” Kris held his advisor’s unimpressed gaze. “That man was trying to sell us snake oil.” A minister for agriculture, trying to convince all countries in attendance to form an agreement to use new pest-resistant seeds for their farming crops. A supposed protection against pests and plant disease from spreading across borders—but when Kris had asked for information on the existence of such threats, the man had failed to produce evidence. “I’ll bet mega corp lobbyists are paying him a mint to show up here and convince us all to start buying this miracle product.”
Philip frowned. “The modification is designed to protect the crops, Your Highness.”
“From what?” Kris dragged his feet off the desk and stood. He gestured out the tower’s eastern-facing window toward the lush farmland far below, bright green in the summer sunlight. “That’s some of the healthiest damn farmland I’ve ever seen. Rich soil, high crop yield. No tilling, and earthworms aplenty. You know we wouldn’t just be buying the seeds—it’s the fertilizers to go with them, the soil blends . . . The whole thing was a sales pitch disguised as a solution to a problem we don’t have.”
Philip blinked. “But he said—”
“I’ve visited our agriculture communities. Talked to the families who’ve been running Kiraly’s farms for generations. They’re good, hardworking people.” Farmers always were. “They know what’s best for their crops. If they want these seeds, they’re welcome to buy them. But I’ll shoot myself in the foot before I sign anything that mandates where they source their supplies.”
Philip breathed in loudly through his nose, running a hand down the front of his b
lazer. He cleared his throat. Then, tugging at the hem, he answered in a level tone, “Don’t walk out next time.”
Kris sat back down. “Fine.”
Mark caught his eye, shaking his head with the hint of a smile.
“It seems we’re finished for the day.” Philip’s arms came to rest by his sides, his chin level with the floor. “If you agree, Your Highness?”
Recognizing the embedded request, Kris gave him a nod. “Sure.” Then he paused, and picked up a thin folder from his desk. “I’ve been meaning to ask—is this all the security briefing I get? This is basically an itinerary of our days and corresponding security measures.”
“What are you hoping for, Your Highness?” Philip’s brows rose a fraction. “Espionage?”
Kris tilted his head wryly. “Security incidents.”
“The royal guard handles any incidents with precision and discretion. We don’t concern our king with such matters.”
“Let’s change that.” Kris let the folder fall onto the desk with a little slap.
With a small frown, Philip inclined his head and turned to leave.
“Thanks, Philip,” Mark said.
“Your Majesty.” The older man stopped at the door and cast a frown at Kris over his shoulder. “Speaking of security incidents—what are your plans tonight, Your Highness?”
Kris clicked his tongue, holding back a grin. Here we go.
“Oh, you know,” he answered, stretching with a hand behind his head. “Might head into the city.”
Philip’s features hardened. “Do not slip your guards again.”
He quirked a brow. “Why would I do that?”
“Kris,” Mark said in warning.
“I don’t slip them.” Since Kris had arrived in Kiraly, he’d made a habit of getting out of the palace a few times a week. He needed the relief of being surrounded by normal people, and in a crowded bar, he could settle back into his old cowboy skin and forget the royal he’d become. Philip’s problem was that very occasionally, Kris would just . . . leave the bar. “They choose not to follow me.”
Philip’s lips thinned. “From what I’ve heard, you work hard to take that choice away from them.”