by Madeline Ash
It just made her dizzier. Kris. He was holding her.
I’ve got you.
She’d hidden so much of herself since they’d met. Her identity as royal security. As a Kiralian citizen. Her nightmare of an upbringing. Now, not only did he know everything, but her father could never ruin her life again.
It was like opening every window in the house to let in a weather change—and having it gust inside all at once.
“I saw him,” Kris said into her hair. “Waiting across the street back there. I didn’t know how to tell you without him overhearing, and I figured he had a plan. I’m sorry I pretended, even for a second, to believe what he’d said. I figured we needed to play into his hand in order to bring him down.”
Overwhelmed, Frankie just hugged him tighter.
“Is your mother likely to be a problem?” His question slipped softly across her head. “Would she tell the press about you?”
Her mother wouldn’t dare put herself in a position that could catch her father’s attention. “No.”
“So—this can be our secret,” he said, and she wanted to fall into the deep vibration of his voice. Then she realized what he meant.
With a strange sense of awe, her grip on him slackened.
“I’m almost scared to ask.” He paused, and she slowly pulled back. “Do you have any other reasons we can’t be together?”
Silenced by disbelief, she stared at him.
Kris. The charismatic young man she’d first found at his college bar—their chemistry immediate and intense as she’d slid onto the stool beside him and asked when the trivia was supposed to start. The blue-eyed rogue who’d offered to be her teammate when her ‘friends’ never showed—who had sat far too close, known far more of the answers than she’d expected, and made her laugh more than she’d ever laughed in her life. The cowboy who’d mentioned that his brother Tommy was unbeatable at trivia—stunning her with the realization that he wasn’t the only child of Prince Erik Jaroka. That to prove herself to Philip, she’d need to find all the heirs, and had to swiftly disengage from this brother’s charm. He was the new friend who had responded to her lie that she didn’t know what to do with herself after college by inviting her to come home with him to Sage Haven, since their local bar had wildly competitive trivia nights and she simply had to help him win.
Kris. The prince who had wanted her since they’d met, but who had never, ever pushed her—was now asking if anything else lay between them.
Stunned, she shook her head.
“Please,” he murmured. “Be sure.”
“I am,” she whispered.
His answering smile held wonder as he leaned in to press his forehead against hers. “Frankie.”
She trembled. Her name had always seemed made for his voice.
“Kris.” Her skin felt worn against his brow; her heart felt unusually close to the surface beneath her breast. The night’s events had left her brittle, but she’d exposed too much of herself to retreat now. On a near-silent breath, she asked, “Be good to me?”
His hold tightened. “Every second of every day.”
“I don’t know how to do this.” But her nervousness shimmered, luminescent. It existed only because this brink was new—not because she feared what waited on the other side.
“Neither do I,” he said. “All I know is that I want to be with you.”
“I—” Overcome, she faltered and brushed her nose against his. His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth, even as he continued to smile. “Me too.”
His smile became a grin—then a groan as he picked her up completely and buried his face against her neck. Reaction flared in her, a tingle from her scalp to the arches of her feet, and she angled her head back as he planted openmouthed kisses down to her collarbones. No protest formed on her tongue. No need to stop him. Just the electric thrill of this man’s desire and the beauty of it reacting inside her.
Then her half-lidded gaze drifted down the road—to the men at the palace gates.
“The guards,” she murmured, stiffening.
After cursing against her skin, Kris stepped back with his hands on her shoulders, putting himself at a distance, but not letting her go. “How do you want to do this? I mean us, going forward. I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your team. Or impact your reputation.”
She ran a hand down her neck. “I don’t know.”
Where was the line dividing her position within his security team from her place by his side? She wanted to be both equally.
“Can we figure it out as we go?” she asked.
“I’ll follow your lead,” he said, and his palms slid outward, cupping her shoulders as his thumbs stroked her skin. Her entire upper body tingled. “How do you want to figure it for tonight? We could go back to our own rooms. Find other ways to be alone, because my guards will always be outside my door. Or yours, if I come to you. If we spend the night together, word will get around among your team.”
She clamped her hands around his wrists, holding onto him. This all felt impossible. Standing on the brink of a relationship with Kris and discussing how to navigate it through their roles of royal life. Knowing, in a held breath of hope, what this meant for their future. And even if this had happened in Montana, with no royal ramifications, surrendering herself to this darkly addictive cowboy would still have felt impossible.
“Frankie?” he said, a quiet nudge.
“Word can get around the royal guard. Most of them already know I’m mad for you.” Heat flooded her cheeks; warmth crept into spaces that had only ever known cold. “I don’t want to spend another night apart. I can’t handle us being within the same walls and not being together. It—hurts.”
His features melted. Softly, he gave another, “Oof.”
Unbalanced by her admission, she ducked her face.
“It hurts me, too,” he said softly. “So much about us has always hurt. But not anymore.” His energy shifted along with his stance, deepening, rippling, and it didn’t take a genius to know desire had settled at the front of his mind. “Would you like to come to my room tonight?”
The question unlocked something inside her that she’d always believed had no key. The possibility of something real and honest and true—and the knowledge that just maybe, she deserved to have it.
Happiness lit her up as she smiled. “Yes.”
9
They didn’t make it to his chambers.
Kris’s blood coursed in an intensified rush as he led her up the stone steps and into the palace’s grand entrance hall. They hadn’t spoken since they’d passed through the gates. Too fixated on the reality of what they were doing, on the new thrill of touching each other without immediately letting go. With one hand gripping hers, he used the fingertips of his other to trace up and down the exposed skin of her forearm. When he grazed the inside of her elbow, his touch as soft as a whisper in her ear, she sucked in a sharp breath.
“That okay?” he murmured, fingers pausing.
She slanted an astonished look at him. “That feels incredible.”
That. He wanted to cause her more of that startled pleasure.
Her shivers and goose bumps and shaky breaths absorbed him so completely that when her phone buzzed, he halted on the marble floor in indignation. Who would call Frankie well after midnight as they were making their way to his bed? Then he remembered that her position, like his, was around the clock.
Holding back a growl—after four years of waiting, surely the universe could slip them a quiet couple of hours—he released her. “If it’s not important, they’re fired.”
“It’s always important.”
His attention strayed to her lips. “So is this.”
“I’ll be one second,” she murmured, raising her freed hand to cup his cheek with a look of unguarded affection. Then she turned away and answered with a clipped, “Report.”
He swore his torso grew several sizes from the swell of his heart.
“Are you serious?” she as
ked after a long silence. She scanned the great staircase in front of them distractedly as she listened, and then snapped her gaze to Kris. Still watching him, she said, “That was fast,” followed by, “Hold on a second.” She lowered the phone, hand over the mouthpiece. “There’s been a development. I’m needed at a quick briefing. It’s something I’d tell you about anyway—do you want to save time and come with me?”
The plea in her eyes was unmistakable. She didn’t want to leave him.
Easiest decision of his life. “Sure thing.”
Phone raised again, she said, “I want all personal guards in attendance. Prince Kristof will join us, but get the other night guards covered.” She listed the names of a lucky few who were about to be woken to fill the role of standing outside his brothers’ doors. “Okay, put all that in a file and I’ll come and collect it. Meet in the king’s study in thirty minutes,” she said, before hanging up and taking his hand again. Her grip was hard. “I could punch this bad timing in the nads.”
He winced. “Not what I’m keen to visualize right now.”
She rolled her lips together, but her grin broke through. “I need to stop by my office on the way.”
He let her lead. Ground floor, south wing, and through a door that required her fingerprint and retina scan to enter. It wasn’t full-blown secret service sterility inside, but the white walls and immaculate offices that adjoined the center corridor were unlike the rest of the palace.
“Wait here,” she said, and disappeared through the first door on the right. In the time it took Kris to slide a hand into his back pocket and meet the stare of a blinking surveillance camera, she’d got what she needed, emerging with a slim folder under her arm. “Alright.”
Her office was deeper in the security warren behind another fingerprint-coded door, and he stepped inside as she held it open for him. Roughly a quarter of the size of his tower study, the room was in a better state of organization than he’d expected. The desk was near-empty—just the silver slimline shape of her closed laptop, a relatively neat stack of folders, and several used coffee mugs. Two chairs sat opposite the desk, and a filing cabinet was positioned beneath a high, frosted-glass window. Her wheeled chair was pushed halfway across the room, the seat facing the side wall as if she’d left in a hurry. Or, more likely, she placed the same nonexistent value on pushing her chair in as making her bed or tying up her bootlaces.
“Who else’s fingerprints can open this door?” he asked as it snapped closed behind them.
She tossed the new folder on the pile before unwinding her scarf and draping it over the back of a chair. “You assume someone else is permitted in here?”
“Rephrasing,” he said. “Can anyone else’s prints open this door?”
She gave him an odd look. “Just yours, Mark’s and Tommy’s.”
He huffed a not-quite amused breath as he looked around, recalling having his fingerprints taken for security purposes upon arriving in Kiraly. “So many things we’re not told.”
“Need-to-know basis, babe.”
His attention shot to her.
She’d said it offhand. Babe. Like she might tack on mate or buddy when talking to someone whose name she couldn’t remember. Except she knew his name and she’d never called him babe before. And they both knew it.
The air between them sparked; caught with a whoosh.
He took off his cap and tossed it onto her desk. Raking his fingers through his hair—intentionally dragging it off to one side in a way he’d always sensed drove her crazy—he asked, “How long will the meeting take?”
“Not sure. Half an hour, maybe?” He’d expected the reason for this office drop-in to be the folders on her desk, but instead she moved toward the filing cabinet and knelt down to open the bottom drawer. “Aha.”
She tugged out purple jeans and a grey tank. Of course. She wasn’t about to face her team wearing that dress. Not when one glance would reveal the flawlessness of her figure. The fabric was snug at her breasts and cut high across her thighs; all it would take was one sweep of his hands to peel it clean off her and another few tugs to cast her underwear beside it, freeing her skin to his touch, his hungry mouth, the slide of his hardening—
Aaand he was distracted.
What were they doing here again?
Clothes. Frankie wanted to change. She was kneeling with jeans and tank in hand, watching him with a raised brow.
He tried to interpret her expectant look. “Is your face asking me to assist you or be a gentleman and turn my back?”
Her attention darted to the sealed office door. Her return gaze was slower. “Assist me.”
Lust flared in his veins, but he didn’t cross to her. Helping her change was one thing—one sexy, bare-skinned, ultimate foreplay thing—but he knew himself. Knew the electric arc his body burned to form with hers. And holding himself back that close to her near-naked body would defy the laws of his own restraint.
Unless . . . she knew that.
“When did you say we have to be in the tower?” His question was rough.
She rose to standing, face flushed. “We’ve got twenty-five minutes.”
He sucked in air. Shook his head. “Not enough time.”
The desire bold on her face dared to argue. Her gaze openly traveled his body, undressing him, touching him, working him. His arousal spiked, pulsing hot and hard so abruptly that he hinged forward a little, his breath hitching.
Surprised, her darkened eyes flashed up to his face.
“Need more time,” he managed to protest.
“You sure about that?”
His heartbeat pounded everywhere. His ears. His neck. His groin.
“I feel like it’ll hardly take any time at all,” she said, her voice thick with self-consciousness. “With the way I . . . need you.”
“Is that what you want, Frankie?” He hadn’t intended to move, but found himself in front of her.
“I want something to have changed.” His body thrummed beneath the palm she ran over his chest. “After tonight . . . I need us to have changed.”
“We have changed.”
God, this woman. She’d dragged herself out of the immoral pit of her upbringing—and hadn’t stopped hauling ass until she’d taken charge of the lives of the country’s most esteemed family. Talk about reinventing herself.
“And I don’t want to wait anymore,” she said to his mouth.
“Me, neither.” He took her small pile of clothes as she shoved it against him. “But for our first time? We can do better. Longer. After this briefing, we’ll go back to my room and I’ll show you exactly what I mean.”
If there was anything she deserved, it was time and tenderness. After the life she’d lived, the years they’d spent building up to this moment. Not rushed and panting and pressed against her work desk with their clothes bunched, her elbow knocking a coffee mug to the floor as he grasped her hips tightly, filling her again and again and—
He almost groaned as his cock strained.
No, God. Not that.
Why was it so damn hot in here?
“I really like the sound of your room,” she said, a throaty admission.
Hauling his desire into line, he made himself nod.
“For our second time,” she added.
Blood roared in his ears.
“Twenty-two minutes and counting,” she whispered with a wicked little smile. “You might want to hurry.”
He was hardly aware of throwing her clothes over his shoulder as he pressed her back against the nearest wall. She moved with him, making a soft noise he’d never heard from her before—a kind of hungry whimper—and it left him awed and gratified and sensually ravenous all at once. Her face was close, chin angled up, her breath a scent he was desperate to swallow. “Frankie, can I—”
“Yes,” she said, and met his open mouth with hers.
Her kiss was like falling into his own heart and landing in her arms. She was there; she’d always been there. It almost knocked his knees
out from under him. She was a wave crashing over him, a slide-tackle hauling him down. He slammed his palm against the wall and pushed harder into the slick sweetness of her tongue, her mouth, her need for him.
This was—she was—everything.
Her taste spread through him like he’d always known it would—like wildflowers and flame and an open sky—and the world levelled out around him.
With Frankie by his side, he wouldn’t slip off the edge of duty and into disaster. He could lead without losing himself. He could be a cowboy royal, for she’d always known him as both and would bind those parts of him together. With her, he could handle his future.
Their future.
They kissed desperately. Wide and wet and fierce like a storm rolling in.
Her hands were tight in his hair, her body hard against his. He ran his knuckles down her side and she broke the kiss as he grazed the edge of her breast, her back arching. He nudged her thighs apart with his knee and pressed his quad firmly between her legs.
“Oh, God.” Her breath hitched as she slid over him.
His bones ached with the urge to please her. “Tell me what you want.”
“I told you, with the way I need you, this won’t take—” Her eyes fell closed as she rolled her hips, rubbing against his thigh again. She shuddered. Hard. Heavy. Way closer than he’d expected. “Kris, please.”
Frankie. His best friend. Begging for him.
Edgy with need, he ran his hands over her hips. Then he was peeling her dress up and over her head, discarding it as he flicked her bra open and drew the straps down, collecting her underpants on the way and letting both drop to the floor.
Skin. Curves. Breasts. Beauty.
It knocked the wind right out of him. He’d never pretended to be a saint—he’d imagined her like this over the years with varying degrees of physical accuracy. But no matter how his mind had played with her, shaped and embellished, nothing could compare to the reality of her before him now—lean and sculpted and every inch the most intense fantasy of his life.