“It’s okay,” I tell him, pressing against his hands in an effort to take more of him. To take all of him. “I want you.”
He growls deep in his throat, pressing his lips together in that crooked smile that melts everything inside of me. I lean forward then and lick the grin like I’ve been wanting to for what feels like forever. And then I press my mouth to his at the same time as I twist my hips out of his grasp and sink down on him, fast and hard, until he’s balls deep inside of me.
Kian yells then, a low, hoarse cry that races through my already oversensitive body. He starts bucking against me, hips slamming against my own.
He’s racing for his own pleasure now, his body totally in control as thrusts into me again and again and again. He buries his head against my neck, his mouth working at the hollow of my neck, and I wrap my arms around him. Hold him tight as much to soothe him as to ground myself.
He’s close now, his body strung tight as he calls my name over and over again. But even as pleasure takes him, even as he careens over the edge, he slips a hand between us and circles my clit once, twice, a third time.
That’s all it takes and I’m shooting over that edge with him, my body slamming down as his slams up. Then we’re flying, flying, flying over the edge and straight toward the sun.
His Royal Hotness indeed.
Chapter 25
When I can breathe again, I rest my forehead against Kian’s. Kiss him softly. Then start to slide off of him.
“Don’t,” he whispers, his hands going to my hips to hold me in place. “Stay. Please.”
There’s a part of me that wants to ignore his request, that wants to pull off and head to the bathroom under the guise of cleaning up. Not because I mind being a little sweaty and mussed up, but because I need a moment to get my composure back. A moment to try to build back a little of the wall he’s decimated so completely.
A moment to just breathe.
Because Holy. Fucking. Shit. What the hell just happened? It’s not the sex—or I should say, it’s not just the sex. Because sex with Kian is always like this. Mind-blowing. Soul-shattering. All-consuming.
But today…this was different. It was more. It was like that moment in the ice cream shop when I realized I was falling in love with him, only magnified times a hundred. A thousand. A hundred thousand.
I feel like I’m caught in a whirlwind, like a tornado has just blown through my insides and left me shattered, destroyed, laid bare in front of Kian and I don’t know what to think about that or how to feel.
I shiver a little at the thought and he wraps his arms around me, pulls me impossibly closer. “You okay?” he asks, running his hands up and down my back. “You cold?”
I shake my head, brushing my face back and forth against his chest as I do. It feels good to have him holding me like this. More it feels right, like I belong. I know it’s not true, but I’m not quite ready to admit it. Not quite ready to pull away.
“I’m good,” I tell him, brushing kisses along the powerful line of his stubble-covered jaw before moving on to his throat.
“Yeah?” He tilts his head to give me better access. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” I kiss my way across his shoulder. “How about you? You okay?”
He stiffens, his whole body going rigid for the space of one second, two. I start to pull away, wanting to get a better look at his face—his eyes—but he keeps me in place, pressing one hand against the center of my back and cupping the other around the back of my head.
“Yeah. I’m better than good.”
His voice is warm, his hands comforting, and if I couldn’t feel how tense he is beneath me, I might actually buy what he’s trying to sell. But I can feel the tenseness, can feel the way he’s so tightly wound—even after that mind-blowing sex—that it’s like he’s vibrating.
I know not to push, though. I may not have known Kian that long, but I know him well enough to recognize the No Trespassing signs he’s currently got posted all over him.
It hurts. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, considering I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life than I do right at this moment when it looks a little like he’s readying himself for battle. Or worse, like he never dropped his guard at all.
The knowledge is enough to have me sliding off his lap onto my still shaky legs. He reaches for me, tries to pull me close again, but I elude him by reaching for my nightshirt, pulling it over my head.
“Hey, wait.” He grabs my hand, lifts a brow. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I’m just going to go to the bathroom and clean up.”
“I thought maybe we’d go another round.”
It’s my turn to lift a brow. “Oh, really? Is that what you thought?”
He doesn’t get the prickles. Instead he smiles lazily at me, tugs me closer. “It is.”
“I have work soon. I need to get ready.” I’ve got an hour before I have to get ready, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He lets go, as I hoped. But then he’s buttoning up his jeans and trailing me through the house, which kind of ruins my plans to grab a couple minutes alone, a little air. “I was actually hoping that we could talk.”
I want to tell him no or at least tell him not now, but there’s something in his voice that has me turning back, concerned.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Visions of Garrett’s dead body fill my head, make my own worries of losing myself to Kian seem insignificant.
He shakes his head. “Nothing’s happened yet. But they think they’ve found Garrett. We’re sending a team in to extract him tonight.”
“Oh my God! That’s amazing! Kian!” I throw my arms around him, hold him tight. “Baby, that’s wonderful!”
He holds me back just as tightly, and this time when he buries his face against my neck, I can feel a wetness that has my knees wobbling from something other than a few fantastic orgasms.
“Oh, sweetheart, I can’t imagine how hard waiting is for you.” I drop kisses on whatever parts of him I can reach. “But you have to think positive. You have to believe it’s going to be okay.”
He nods, but the wetness only grows. Shit. He’s been balancing everything so well since I met him—his new position, the search for his abducted twin, me—that I forgot he’s not superhuman. That underneath all that competence he is a man with the same doubts and fears and insecurities as any other. I forgot he bleeds just like everyone else.
Wrapping an arm around his waist, I propel us the rest of the way down the hall to my bedroom. Then I pull him onto the bed with me and hold him tight against me as his whole body shudders like he’s undergoing electroshock therapy.
He never makes a sound, never lifts his face from where it’s pressed against my neck. But somehow feeling his tears—and the pain shooting through him—is so much worse than seeing it. I don’t know what to say, don’t want to promise him that everything is going to be okay when I really don’t know that it will be.
So I just hold him instead, muttering all kinds of nonsensical things as I find myself falling deeper and deeper down the damn rabbit hole of my emotions. So much for catching my breath, for finding some perspective. Right now, we’re so close I don’t think we could get a piece of paper between us—and I don’t just mean physically.
There’s a part of me that wished I did.
But then I wouldn’t be able to give Kian what he needs, wouldn’t be able to hold him as his own emotions overwhelm him, and the truth is—I wouldn’t trade this for the world. Kian’s been strong for months—for the country, for his family, for himself. If he needs to replenish that strength for a few minutes, I’m honored if I can somehow help him do that.
Long minutes go by as I hold him, my arms and legs and body wrapped around him as tightly as I can. But eventually the shaking stops, eventually he gets himself under control and raises his head.
“I love you,” he tells me, those crazy green eyes of his staring directly into my own.
/> It’s the last thing I’m expecting to hear right now. “I’m sorry, what?”
That stupid crooked smile flashes again. “I said, I love you, Savvy. It’s not what I expected to have happen when you dumped that champagne on me—”
“When I rescued you, you mean?”
“Yes.” He lifts my hand to his mouth, presses a long, lingering kiss to the center of my palm. “It was the last thing I expected when you rescued me. It’s certainly the last thing I’m looking for right now.”
I stiffen a little at the implications of that, but he just smooths a hand down my back. “But just because I wasn’t looking, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you. Because I do, so much. I know my life is a mess, I know it’s asking unbelievable things of you to expect you to be with me considering my family has a giant target on its back right now and considering it’s never easy to be a royal—or be with one.
“But I’m asking anyway. Because I love you and I really, really hope you love me, too.” The cocky smile fades as he says the last, and so does the prince. I’m left with the man, just the man—with the anxious green eyes and the worry lines on his forehead and the kindest, softest touch I’ve ever felt.
And I know, even though everything he’s just said is right, that it doesn’t matter to me. None of it matters to me, any more than the title and the money matter to me. Because, “I love you, too, Kian. I love you so much.”
He stares at me for one second, two, like he can’t believe what he’s heard. And then he’s kissing me like I’m the most important person in the world, like nothing matters but this moment and the two of us. It’s not true—I wouldn’t want it to be true even if it was—but for right now, it’s perfect.
When he finally lifts his mouth from mine, I take in great gulps of air. Watch as he does the same. Then tangle my hands in his hair and start to pull him back to me.
He comes willingly, but before our mouths can meet again, his phone is buzzing in his pocket. He stiffens as soon as it does, then rolls away from me.
“Is it about Garrett?” I whisper as he pulls it out of his jeans. I know it’s ridiculous for me to ask before he’s even looked at the thing, but I can’t help it. I can feel the tension in him.
My hands are clenched into fists, and my heart is beating way too hard as I wait for him to swipe his phone open, as I wait for him to answer me. I loved Garrett once and I love Kian now and both are reason enough to have me praying that the man I used to care about is safe.
“It’s starting early,” Kian tells me, voice hoarse and eyes wild.
“What is?”
“The extraction.” He’s off the bed in seconds, tucking his shirt into his jeans as he heads for the bedroom door. “I have to go. I’ll call you.” He drops a swift kiss on my mouth and then he’s gone, moving fast.
I’ve barely made it out of bed before he’s at the front door. I follow him anyway, at a dead run out of the house and down the walkway to the curb. “Is there anything you need?” I ask. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Nothing,” he answers. He reaches for me again, this time dropping a kiss on my forehead. “Thanks.”
His eyes are distracted though, his mind a million miles away as he climbs into the car.
“Call me when you get the chance, please” I tell him, breaking my own rule about never asking a guy for anything. “Just to let me know how things go, if Garrett’s okay.”
He nods as he pulls shut the door of the SUV. And then he’s speeding off into the night without a backward glance.
Chapter 26
Kian
I get off the helicopter in Montrose after four of the longest fucking hours of my life. Extracting Garrett only took one hundred and three minutes, and that was fucking horrific enough. But the last two hours, when I’ve been in transit here…if I thought it would get me here faster I would have jumped out midair.
But we’re here now, on the roof of the largest—and best—trauma center in Montrose province, and that’s all that matters.
Once I clear the helipad usually used by rescue helicopters, I race across the roof to the elevator that will take me to the intensive care unit—to Garrett—at breakneck speed. My father is right behind me, though he’s walking at a more civilized clip.
Fuck civilized. Especially when what they did to my brother was anything but.
Thankfully, the Royal Guard has already cleared the area, because I’m not waiting for anything or anyone. And the last thing I need right now is for Lucas or Niall to tackle me to keep me in place while they secure things.
I make it to the secure elevator that is waiting, doors open, to take us to Garrett and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to close the elevator doors before my father even makes it inside. But I wait, the reassurances of the doctors we spoke to on our way in ringing in my ears.
He’s alive.
Garrett is alive.
And he will recover.
He’s injured—a broken nose, numerous cracked ribs, broken fingers, a pretty bad concussion, and numerous other injuries that have healed badly over three months and will require surgery to rebreak and fix properly. Not to mention the fact that he’s one giant, bloody bruise—at least from the video we saw during the extraction.
Rage is a living, breathing animal inside of me. I want to kill the people who did this to my twin with my bare hands, want to tear them to pieces and then set those pieces on fire. And still it won’t be good enough. Still it won’t be enough to make up for what they did to my brother.
The fact that the bastards who did this are forever out of my reach doesn’t help matters. Raids have started at every known address to round up every member of the organization. But once they’re in the system, they will have lawyers and humane treatment and everything else that comes with being arrested in a constitutional monarchy. And while I believe in those rights for every citizen of this country—including these bastards—it’s killing me that I won’t be able to avenge my brother. Won’t be able to make the masterminds behind this fucking plan suffer the way Garrett has.
My father’s on the elevator now, all stone-faced and quiet like he gets in situations like these. Not that there’s ever been a situation like this before…but in general, when shit goes bad, the king tends to go completely impassive.
It’s a talent I’ve never wanted before tonight.
Because right now, I want to shut down. I want to lock up tight every emotion burning inside of me. Want to be as stone-cold and impassive as my father is. As a crown prince should be.
But I’m not the crown prince anymore, the little voice in my head reminds me. Garrett is back, and now things can go back to the way they should be.
The elevator dings on the second floor, and we step off into the ICU, which looks more like a police station than a hospital wing right now. Police are here manning every exit, entrance and hospital room while the Royal Guard has personnel posted up and down the hallway and at the nurses’ and doctors’ stations.
I don’t know Garrett’s room number, but it’s hard not to know what room is his. Five members of the Royal Guard are standing at attention outside of it, while two more are literally in the doorway, examining nurse credentials before letting anyone pass.
What a fucking mess. And that’s not even counting the fact that we haven’t been able to control this the way we wanted to. We got Garrett here in secret, but news of him being found leaked out from one (or more) of the medical personnel who worked on him, and there’s a feeding frenzy going on outside the hospital’s front doors. Press from all over Europe—all over the world—are desperate to get in here, desperate to get the first photo and the first word and the first interview from Wildemar’s injured Prince Charming.
And no, I didn’t make up that name. One of the big news websites is actually referring to Garrett that way.
It’s one more reason I want to punch a wall. I get that as crown prince, Garrett belongs to Wildemar—and the world—as much or more than he
belongs to himself and to us. But whoever he belongs to, whoever he is, he deserves the chance to recover in peace. Deserves to not have his pain and anguish played out for ratings on the six o’clock news.
We’re outside the closed door now, and my stomach is one big knot. The doctor wants to talk to us before we go in, and though I understand the importance of what she’s telling us as she details Garrett’s very significant injuries, all I really care about is getting through that door.
Seeing my brother, talking to him, hearing his voice after the three worst months of my life.
It’s not that I don’t want to know how badly he’s injured—or how I can help him. It’s that I need to make sure this isn’t a hoax, need to make sure he’s really alive, really here, and the only way I’ll believe it is for me to see him, live and in person, with my own two eyes.
For a moment, just a moment, I wish that Savvy was here. That she was beside me to hold on to when I walk into that room. But I’m pretty sure neither one of us is ready to kick off a Royal Wedding Watch right now. Besides, I can only imagine how messy her past relationship with Garrett, combined with her present relationship with me, could make this reunion.
That doesn’t mean I don’t wish she was here to wrap herself around me and promise me that it’s all going to be okay. Because I need that right now. I really, really do.
The doctor finally finishes talking—I’ve caught enough to know that Garrett is in both worse and better shape than I feared. Worse, because there’s been a lot of damage inflicted to cause the most amount of pain possible. Better, though, because the bastards obviously wanted to keep him alive so with proper medical care none of his injuries is life-threatening.
It’s probably my father’s right to push the door open and go into Garrett’s room first, but I can’t take it anymore. So while he thanks the medical staff, I shove the door open and walk inside.
It’s dim in here—probably because of Garrett’s concussion—but there’s enough light for me to see that Garrett is sleeping. Sitting next to his bed are Nigel and Benedict, two senior members of my father’s own protection detail. They stand at my entrance, their heads bowed respectfully, but their faces are grim and their anger palpable.