Again his words echo Michael’s from the other day and as they start to register, really register, I sit down, hard, on the nearest chair. There’s a lot of knowledge and emotion that comes along with those stats and I can barely begin to process any of it.
From the beginning, the King’s been telling me no one likes a prince who’s been abducted. Worse, he’s been saying that the people will never trust me again. After all, how can they trust me to look after them when I can’t even look after myself? How can they trust me to do what’s right for the country when I was too soft-hearted to recognize an abduction attempt for what it was? For months now, his words have crawled around in my head. They’ve plagued me during the day and haunted me in the middle of the night. They’ve kept me from sleeping, from eating. Kept me drowning in guilt over my weakness, over how I’d let my people down.
But these numbers say just the opposite. They say I didn’t let my country down. Just like they say that it’s not the people who don’t trust or like me. It’s just him. Just my father who thinks I’m weak and a coward and a failure.
I run a hand through my hair as I try to figure out what to think about this new understanding. More than that, what to feel about it.
Kian has no such problems, but then he wasn’t the one who sat in that goddamn militia camp for three months being tortured, being ridiculed, waiting for rescue, and then—after a few weeks—just waiting for death.
He wasn’t the one who lived in fear every day that he would betray the people—and the secrets—he’d been charged with protecting.
And he’s sure as hell not the one who lost the throne, who lost everything, after making it through it all without going insane—and without spilling any classified intel at all.
I am.
Rage slams through me, pure, unadulterated, all-encompassing. It starts as a ball in my stomach, then grows until it takes over every part of me. Until it’s all I can do to think, all I can do to breathe, around it.
But rage won’t get me anywhere right now, so I shove it back down where I’ve been keeping it for nearly a year, then slam the lid down over it to keep it from boiling up and escaping.
“Admittedly, these numbers are all cushioned with the rose-colored glasses of your new relationship with Lola—which, I’ve got to say, is polling ten points higher than Savvy’s and my relationship ever has. Guess the country likes the idea of a female entrepreneur as queen more than they do a romantic suspense writer.”
With someone else there might be bitterness there, but Kian’s so overjoyed at just the idea of shedding the crown prince mantle that he’s practically dancing. I don’t blame him—we both are who we are, who we were trained to be. After all, I’m just as thrilled at the thought of getting that title back. Or at least, I think I am.
“One poll is a long way from overruling the King’s prejudices,” I remind him—and myself. No use getting too far into this new reality until we see how our father reacts to the numbers.
“I know, I know,” Kian says. “But it’s a start. So go find your woman and take her out for a night on the town. And make sure you get photographed a lot—the people will love it.”
I don’t even know where my woman is. When I find her—when she comes back—I have plans to do a lot of things, and none of them involve parading her around Paris like a trick pony. We’ve done more than enough of that today as it is.
I don’t tell Kian that, though. Instead, I mouth a few more platitudes and hang up—after giving him some suggestions on how to go back to Parliament and broach the treaty talks again. He grumbles a little under his breath, but he listens and takes notes. Still, beneath the conversation are undercurrents neither of us can ignore, not when they put paid to the idea that soon this nightmare might be over. Soon I could be the one once again browbeating Parliament into doing what’s right.
I can’t fucking wait.
After hanging up with Kian—who promises to keep me posted on what happens with the King—I go back to pacing the hotel suite and doing a shitty job of not worrying about Lola. Sure, those polling numbers bode well for her safety as people seem to love her, but it takes only one crazy to mess everything up. I know that better than anyone.
I try to wait it out, try to give her the space she so obviously needed when she all but darted from the hotel. But it’s hard, so much harder than it’s been with any other woman I’ve ever dated. Add to that the fact that my realizations about the King are still roiling around inside of me, no matter how hard I try to keep them locked away, and I’m a total mess by the time a knock sounds on the suite door.
At the same time a text comes in from Xavier, telling me that they’ve finally returned. That he’s brought Lola back to me safely.
It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to run for the door. But Lola doesn’t need to see how freaked out her absence made me—she doesn’t need that kind of pressure and neither does our brand-new, still undefined relationship. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I force myself to walk slowly and deliberately across the suite.
I’ve got my apology all prepared as I open the door, but I never get the chance to deliver it. Because suddenly, Lola is crowding into the room. Slamming the door in Xavier’s face. Throwing her arms around my neck and muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as she presses her suddenly desperate mouth to mine.
“It’s okay,” I tell her as I pick her up and carry her straight through to the master suite. “It’s okay.”
But she’s too far gone to listen and really, who am I to get in the way of a woman hell-bent on making love to me? I may not be smart enough to have avoided being abducted, but I sure as hell am smart enough to recognize the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Chapter 24
Lola
“I’m sorry,” I tell Garrett as I push inside his room. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I feel like such an idiot, panicking because of a few ridiculous stories. We both went into this with our eyes wide open—Garrett even warned me what it was going to be like. Then, the first day I actually have to live up to my end of the agreement, I freak out like a child.
It’s not a good look for me and it sure as hell isn’t a good precedent to set.
“It’s okay,” he tells me as he picks me up and starts carrying me toward the bedroom. It’s something he does a lot, and something I’m more than okay with, I realize as I wrap my arms around his waist.
Normally, I’m not crazy about men manhandling me, even in consensual sex, because it upsets the balance of power. But with Garrett, I don’t care about any of that. The only thing that matters when I’m with him is the reverent way he touches me and the care he always takes of me.
It’s time I start taking that kind of care with him.
Which is why, when he lowers me to the bed, I roll right back off.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I can see his face close up right in front of me, looking like he’s expecting the worst.
“No,” I answer. Because I’m not. “I was a moron and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“You were human,” he disagrees as he reaches for me again. “And it can happen a thousand more times and I won’t care, except that I hate to see you suffer. This life, it’s a lot for me sometimes, let alone for someone who didn’t grow up in the limelight. You think I don’t understand that?”
“Why are you so good to me?” I ask. It’s a real question, not some cute little response that doesn’t mean anything. Because no one in my whole life has ever treated me as well as Garrett does. Not my mother, who was always too busy looking for the next man to take care of her to worry about taking care of her only child. Not my father, who was more concerned with hiding my existence from the world than he was with acknowledging that existence in any but the most basic ways. And definitely none of the (very) few men
I’ve let get close to me since I reached adulthood.
But Garrett does it so effortlessly, giving me what I need before I even have a clue I need it, as if taking care of me is a privilege instead of a burden.
“Because you deserve it. Because I—” He breaks off, eyes going wide as he leaves the rest of his answer unsaid.
I don’t know what he was going to say, but my heart goes wild anyway. Because there’s something in the way he’s looking at me, something in the way his hands are skimming so lightly, so tenderly, down my arms that has emotion burning deep inside of me. I know it’s only been a few days, know this whole relationship thing is just supposed to be pretend. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours reminding myself that that’s exactly what I want.
Yet now that I’m standing here looking at the concern on Garrett’s face, feeling the exquisite care with which he touches me, I can’t help wondering if there’s more to this thing between us than either of us expected. Can’t help thinking that I’ve fallen for His Royal Hotness—no, for Garrett—even though I promised myself I wouldn’t.
There’s a part of me that wants to run away again. And this time I won’t come back. This time I’ll find someplace to hole up and lick the invisible wounds that are already starting to hurt—at just the idea of walking away from Garrett.
But I can’t do that. Not when he’s looking at me like he’s fallen just as hard. And not when everything inside of me is begging me to touch him, to hold him, to fix whatever those months of torture broke deep inside of him.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, moving closer until my body is pressed up against his and I can feel the burning heat of his skin through our clothes. “I’m right here.”
His hands slide from my arms to my back and from my back to my ass. I know he’s getting ready to pick me up, but I’m not going to let him. Not this time.
This time, it’s my turn to be in control. My turn to walk him toward the bed. My turn to lower him softly upon it. The need to take care of him, to show him some of the same care that he’s always shown me, is an inferno burning within me.
“Lola, let me—”
“No,” I tell him as I straddle his hips. “This time it’s your turn to let me.”
I reach for his hands, twine our fingers together. Then press them back against the bed and hold them there. Hold him there as I rock my hips gently against his. Once, twice, then again and again as his jaw goes tight and he thrusts up against me.
“My turn,” I remind him, leaning down to press my lips to his. He opens immediately, his tongue licking along my lower lip before thrusting inside my mouth to stroke against my own. I’m tempted to pull back—he needs to know that I’m the one in charge here—but it feels so good that I linger for long seconds, reveling in the warm chocolate-and-whiskey taste of him.
He groans as I deepen the kiss, his fingers flexing against mine in an obvious need to take control. But I don’t let go. Not this time. Instead, I keep him pinned in place as I finally manage to pull my mouth from his.
We’re both gasping for breath now, chests shuddering and bodies straining against each other. It would be so easy to slip his clothes off, so easy to lower myself on top of him and take him deep within my body. But I want more from tonight—more from him and more from us.
So, instead of unbuckling his belt, I settle for taking off his tie. For flicking open the top two buttons of his custom-made dress shirt. For pressing my mouth against his skin and licking small, slow circles over his collarbone and the hollow of his throat.
He groans, arching against me. “Lola, please—”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper against his throat. “Let me show you.”
He groans again, low and dark and desperate, but he settles back against the bed with a nod. “Do your worst,” he says with a wicked grin, right before he throws an arm over his eyes.
I don’t answer, just smile back. Because I can’t tell him that I’m not looking to do my worst here. And I sure as hell can’t tell him that I’m looking to do my best to take care of him, to give him the tenderness he so desperately, desperately needs.
Instead, I undo a few more buttons on his shirt, pressing kisses to each swath of newly exposed skin as I inch my way down his body. When I’ve opened the last button, I coax him into sitting up just enough to slip the silky fabric off his shoulders.
He’s a little stiff as he settles back against the bed, and I know it’s because of the scars. He’s more relaxed with me now than he was when he first let me see them in my kitchen, but I can feel the tension in his body. I know that he’s still waiting for me to ask. Still waiting for me to try to force him to open up about the most terrifying and painful time in his life.
That’s not what tonight is about. There may come a time when I ask about the abduction, not because I want the gratuitous details but because he needs me to know. Needs me to listen. But tonight is not that night.
Which is why, at least for now, I focus on the top of his V-cut as it tapers into the waistband of his pants. I press kisses to it and lick along its edges, relishing the way Garrett tenses for a whole new reason now. The way his legs tighten up and his hands fist in the butter-soft sheets.
“Lola, sweetheart,” he says, voice all dark and husky. “Let me—”
“Let me,” I interrupt, kissing my way up the center of his chest and flicking my thumbs back and forth across his nipples as I do.
“Baby—”
I stop him with a kiss that takes both our breaths away, that has him trembling and heat coursing through me. When I finally move away, he groans. Fists a hand in my hair. And pulls me back down.
We kiss and kiss and kiss, until my lips are swollen and my jaw aches. Until fire burns in my veins. Until I want nothing more than to take him inside me.
Every time we’ve made love, he’s taken care of me. Pleasured me. Made me feel like the most important, most exquisite woman on earth. I want to give back to him, need to make him understand how much I adore him and how important he’s become to me in so little time.
This time, when I pull away, I slip down his body before he can pull me back in. I kiss my way back down the lean muscles of his chest, the hard planes of his abdomen. I’m trembling so much that my fingers fumble with his belt buckle, can barely get it undone.
Garrett reaches down, helps me, and then I’m unhooking his pants, lowering his zipper. Reaching inside his boxers and pulling out his long, hard cock.
He groans as I stroke my hands down his length, his hands fisting in my hair as I stroke a thumb over the leaking tip. “Fuck, Lola.” His voice is gravelly now, and it turns me on even more. Garrett’s always in charge, always in control, and the fact that he’s yielded that control to me—and that I’m pushing him beyond the boundaries of that inimitable control—makes me hotter than anything ever has.
It also makes me wonder what it will take to shatter it completely.
With that goal in mind, I scoot farther down the bed. I rub my cheek along his hard, silky length before turning my head and softly kissing just the tip. He calls out, reaches for me, but I push his hands away as I swirl my tongue around the head of his cock. Then I reach between his legs and cup his testicles in my palm.
Garrett groans, his eyes hot as they follow my every move. He reaches for me again, and this time I let him tangle his hands in my hair as I lean forward and slowly flick my tongue up the length of him.
“Lola, sweetheart, you’re killing me.”
“Garrett, sweetheart,” I mimic with a wicked smile. “I haven’t even started.”
I swallow him down then, pulling him deep as I continue to stroke my tongue back and forth along his length. He groans, tugging at my hair until it burns just a little, in the best possible way. I can feel myself getting pulled under, can feel my sex growing hotter and slicker with every tug of his fingers.
/> Reaching up, I grab onto his hip to steady myself—to anchor myself in the middle of this maelstrom of pleasure and heat—and slowly, slowly pull back until only his head is between my lips. He arches a little, his hips thrusting upward as he searches for more. I stay where I am, though, and keep him where he is, too, as I flick my tongue back and forth across the small bundle of nerves centered at the bottom of his tip.
His fingers twist in my hair as he calls my name, harsh and breathless, but I don’t stop. I can’t. It feels too good to do this to him, feels too good to watch the always-in-control Garrett lose a little more of himself with every slide of my mouth, every stroke of my tongue.
“Lola, Lola, Lola.” Half-chant, half-mantra, he calls my name again and again and again.
I like the sound of it, like his sweat-slicked skin beneath my palms even more, so I reward him by sucking all of him slowly, carefully, into my mouth and down my throat.
He groans again, and when I look up at him, it’s to find him staring down at me with dark eyes and blown-out pupils. He looks good like this, so good, all sexed up and raunchy as hell. This Garrett is so different from the prince the world gets to see that I can’t help the shiver of delight that moves down my spine. Can’t help the little thrill that tightens my nipples and makes my sex throb hotly. I love that I get to see him in a way that no one else does, love even more the fact that the eyes staring down at me are unguarded, open.
Sucking him even deeper, I run my tongue along the underside of his cock just to see how he’ll react. He doesn’t disappoint, his hips slamming up like a piston, thrusting in and out of my mouth again and again and again.
“Fuck, Lola, sweetheart. You’re so beautiful,” he says hoarsely. “So fucking beautiful. But you’ve got to stop. I don’t want to come yet.”
His words slide along my nerve endings, sending shocks of electricity through the most sensitive parts of me. I pull off, then let his cock rub against my breasts as I tell him, “I want you to come. I want to see you lose control.”