And then he was right beside her, seating himself as close to her as he could without actually touching her. And although the last thing she needed or wanted at that moment was to be touched by Shane, she was oddly disappointed that he left even an infinitesimal amount of space between them. Until he leaned forward, very nearly touching her, the heat of his body mingling with her own. Until, with his mouth dangerously close to her ear, he murmured, very softly, “Please what?”
The words were warm and damp against her face, and an equally warm, damp sensation meandered through Sara at hearing them. “I…I…I don’t know…what you…what you mean,” she stammered, her own voice a scant whisper.
He didn’t move an inch, neither forward nor back, and his breath was torrid against her neck when he replied, as softly as before, “You said, ‘Oh, please.’ And I was wondering what you were saying ‘please’ for. I mean, if you’re asking what I think you are, believe me, Sara, you don’t have to ask politely. You don’t have to say, ‘please.’ In fact,” he continued in that same sweltering, seductive voice, leaning so close now that she fancied she could actually feel his mouth caressing her ear oh so very softly, “in fact, you don’t have to ask at all.”
What little air was left in her lungs suddenly left her in a quick, quiet whoosh. Her mouth went dry, her throat constricted and every cell in her body flared with a need and a hunger unlike any she had ever known. Need, she then mimicked to herself. Hunger. What common little words those were for what she was feeling in that moment. Urgency was more like it. Or craving. Because suddenly Sara felt as if she couldn’t make it through another moment of her life without having Shane touch her. Pull her close. Kiss her. Make love to her.
Her response made no sense. Sara had never felt a need or a hunger for any man, and certainly not an urgency or craving. It was why she was still untutored in the actual mechanics of lovemaking. Oh, she knew what went on between a man and a woman when they wanted each other, to be sure. But she’d never felt compelled to explore the activity herself. She had no moral or social objection to premarital sex—she’d simply never met a man who’d made her want to have sex, any more than she’d met a man who’d made her entertain the possibility of marriage. Simply put, Sara didn’t want to be married at this point in her life, and she didn’t want to be sexually involved. So she wasn’t. And she was far too pragmatic a person to offer herself up to the likeliest candidate for her deflowering just because she was old enough, or mature enough, or whatever enough, to do it.
Besides, her studies had always come first. As did planning for her career that would follow. She’d had boyfriends in the past, certainly. But none of them had meant enough to her to make her feel as if she wanted to surrender—everything—to them.
Shane Cordello did, though.
In one scant instant, just by his nearness and a few softly uttered words, he made her want to give him all of those things that she had kept to herself for so long now. He made her want to abandon everything except him and the way he made her feel, made her want to forget all about her studies, her career, her family, their current state of captivity…
Oh, God, their current state of captivity! How in heaven’s name could she have forgotten that?
Hastily, she pushed herself sideways, away from Shane, until a good foot of space separated them. Only then was she able to breathe again. Only then was she able to think clearly again. Only then could she remind herself that this was not the place to fall in love, and Shane was not the kind of man to fall in—
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Sara, she halted herself frantically. Watch how you choose your words.
Love had nothing to do with any of this. What she was experiencing was a simple by-product of a stressful, threatening situation. Every instinct she had was on overdrive due to her present circumstances, her sexual ones right up there with her survival ones. Her response to Shane was purely physical, she told herself. Utterly chemical. There was nothing emotional about it. Nothing.
She heard him chuckle low again, and snapped her head around to look at him. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
But he only chuckled harder in response. “You know, you really don’t play this game fairly at all,” he said. “Because you keep asking questions, even though your turn was up a long time ago.”
Sara bit back a growl. “Fine,” she bit off roughly. “Then ask your bloody questions so I can have a turn again. You have six left.”
He opened his mouth as if he intended to contradict her, but something in her expression must have made him reconsider, because he only grinned that maddeningly smug grin again and nodded. “Okay,” he said, “number five.” He hesitated before asking it, however, eyeing her with much speculation, evidently giving the question much thought before speaking it. Finally, though, he asked, “What’s your major?”
“Well, it isn’t boys,” she replied coolly.
“That I could tell.”
“Not that I couldn’t graduate with highest honors there if I wanted to,” she felt compelled to add. Probably because of the bland expression on his face that seemed to challenge her for some reason.
“Hey, I don’t doubt that for a moment,” he assured her.
She strove for a jesting smile that somehow didn’t feel any more convincing than it probably looked. “Actually, if I tell you my major, I’ll have to kill you,” she quipped.
Shane glanced first left, and then right, then met her gaze levelly once again. “Gee, forgive me if I don’t take the threat all that seriously. You might have noticed that I’m already kind of in dire straits here.”
Sara expelled a soft sound of resolution. She might as well tell him the truth. It wasn’t any big secret, really, not her studies. Someday the career she intended to undertake would be very hush-hush and mysterious, but there were no hard-and-fast rules about her university studies. Besides, there was still a good chance neither of them would make it out of this thing alive, making anything they said or did to each other completely irrelevant. At least to outward appearances.
“I suppose you could say my major is political science,” she began.
“Could I?”
She nodded. “Specifically, my studies focus on counterterrorism.”
“Which is why you know so much about the Black Knights.”
“Actually, no,” Sara said. “Them I was already an expert on when I chose my field of study.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nodded. “Yes. You see, they murdered my father. He was killed by a bomb they planted at the RII offices eight years ago.”
The only reaction Shane showed to her announcement was to let his mouth fall slightly open. But his eyes seemed to grow darker somehow, colder, stormier. And his entire body seemed to go rigid, though Sara saw no actual tensing of his muscles. It was just that, one moment, he seemed relaxed and jovial and eager to tease, and the next moment, he seemed poised for attack. Attack on whom, however, Sara couldn’t say for sure. But suddenly he looked like a man who wanted to hit something. Or someone. Very badly indeed.
“Okay, next question,” he said, his voice low and gritty and menacing. “What’s the RII?”
“The Royal Intelligence Institute,” Sara clarified. “They’re a government agency that act as the king’s right-hand men and women, so to speak. My father worked for them.”
She didn’t go into further detail, and Shane didn’t seem to want any. Not about the RII, at any rate. Because his next question was, “And just who the hell are the Black Knights?”
As questions went, Sara thought, that one pretty much used up every one Shane had left, and she told him so.
“I don’t care,” he replied. “I think it’s about time you told me exactly what we’re up against, Sara. Obviously these guys haven’t had any kind of response to their demands, or else we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”
“No,” she agreed, “I imagine we’d be dead.”
His expression hardened even more, something
she wouldn’t have thought possible. “All the more reason for you to give me the whole story,” he said. “I think I deserve to know exactly what we’re up against.”
He was right, of course. In fact, he was long past due being told as much about their situation as she knew herself. They’d been sitting here long enough for the Black Knights to have made their demands known to Queen Marissa. But if Sara knew the queen—and, of course, she did—then Her Majesty was doing everything she could to stall, in an effort to buy some time and organize the Royal Intelligence Institute, so that they could find and free her and Shane. Unfortunately, Sara also knew the Black Knights. And there was a very good chance indeed that the RII wouldn’t reach the captives before they met with a bad end.
“As I told you before,” she began in her most professional voice, trying not to think about that last bit for now, “the Black Knights have been around for about a decade. These days, they’re a sinister lot, to be sure, very well organized and very well funded, and completely without morals or scruples. Who’s doing the funding, no one knows for certain, in spite of extensive investigation. Theories abound, however, and some of them even point rather high in the Penwyck administration. There are even some who think—”
Here, Sara halted. Shane didn’t need an advanced course in the Black Knights. What he needed was the introductory version. Not only were there facts and theories about the group that weren’t relative to their current situation, but knowing too much could honestly be dangerous for him.
She started again. “Anyway, no one can say exactly for sure who runs the organization, and we’ve not been able to identify where their financing comes from. But this past year alone, they’ve been responsible for a number of acts of sabotage against both the military and the government, not to mention the kidnapping of Prince Owen and the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anastasia.”
At this, Shane’s head snapped up. “What? No one told me anything about any kidnappings.”
“Well, Owen and Anastasia both were eventually safely recovered, and the kidnapping of her children isn’t exactly the kind of thing Her Majesty wants to dwell on, is it? But it’s not been any great secret.” She shook her head slowly again. “All in all, it’s been an odd year for the royal family, I’m afraid. The queen found out her brother was involved in an assassination attempt on the king some years back. Princess Anastasia had a bout with amnesia, of all things. Princess Meredith took ill and there was concern she would lose her baby. Owen found out he fathered a child four years ago, while he was in America at school. And Princess Megan turned up pregnant, out of wedlock, which was scandalous enough in itself. Of course, she eventually married the baby’s father, but he’s the earl of Silvershire, of all things, which goes beyond scandal.”
“Uh, why is that such a bad thing?” Shane asked.
“Well, he’s from Drogheda, for heaven’s sake,” she said, certain that would be the only comment necessary there.
Shane, however, didn’t seem to understand. “And that would be significant because…?” he asked.
Sara expelled an impatient sound. She didn’t have time to tell him the history of the warring nations of Penwyck and Drogheda. Instead, she only told him, “Well, the families have been feuding for generations, haven’t they? The last thing anyone could have seen coming was a royal wedding uniting them.”
“Ah,” he said, though he clearly didn’t understand at all.
So Sara continued as best she could. “But as strange as all those developments are, none of them is the strangest thing that’s happened in Penwyck. The strangest thing is that King Morgan contracted viral encephalitis and lapsed into a coma around the time of the wedding—something else we suspect the Black Knights are behind—and the RII trotted out his identical twin to rule the country in his place. They’re quite a powerful group, and they stepped in when the king went into his coma. Thing is, though, the RII never bothered to tell anyone at first, not even the queen, that it was Broderick they’d put in charge, and not King Morgan—”
“Broderick?”
“The king’s twin,” Sara clarified. “Evil twin if you ask me, though no one wanted my opinion, did they?”
“I don’t know. Did they?”
“Well, no one asked.”
“Mmm,” Shane replied blandly. But his expression, one of mild humor, told her she was revealing too much of the personal now, which wouldn’t be tolerated by the RII once—if—she landed a job with them.
“Anyway,” she continued, doing her best to curb her opinions, “Broderick’s been running Penwyck in the king’s place, and mucking things up royally, if you ask me.” All right, so maybe she wasn’t doing her very best to curb her opinions. “And now there’s this mix-up with the princes where, technically, there could be four of you to choose from for running the country. It’s like a bad soap opera, honestly.”
“Three,” Shane corrected her.
“Well, yes, I suppose there is enough going on for three soap operas, now that I think about it,” Sara agreed.
“No, I didn’t mean three soap operas,” he said. “I meant three to choose from for running the country.”
“What?” she asked.
“Three to choose from,” he repeated. “I’m not running any country.”
She gaped at him, not sure what to make of his assertion. “But what if you’re next in line for the Penwyck throne?”
“In the first place,” Shane said, “that isn’t likely, because I find it very hard to believe that Marcus and I were switched at birth with anyone. Hell, I still can’t make myself believe we were adopted. In the second place, Marcus is older than me by almost thirty minutes, so even if we did end up being the missing heirs to the throne, he has seniority over me, being firstborn and all. Plus, he’s been heading up an international financial empire for years now, so ruling a small sovereign nation should be a piece of cake for him. And in the third place, even if they offered the job to me, I don’t want it.”
This, Sara thought, was quite a surprise. Oh, certainly Shane Cordello made it clear that he was his own man who lived by his own rules, but she couldn’t imagine any man turning down the position of king of his own country, no matter what.
“You say that now,” Sara said, “but you’d feel differently if someone actually told you that you’re next in line to be king of Penwyck.”
Shane shook his head. “No, I say that no matter what. I don’t want to be king of anything.”
“Rubbish,” she said before she could stop herself. “Every man wants to be king of something. It’s all about control with you.”
He looked taken aback by her statement, and only then did she realize how vehemently—and revealingly—she had spoken.
“Well, my, my, my,” he said softly. “Haven’t we just hit a raw nerve with General Wallington?”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment, counted slowly to five, then opened them again. “All right,” she conceded, “I’ll grant you that you did in fact touch a bit of a sore spot with me on that one.”
“Why?”
“Why is not important,” she assured him. Well, it wasn’t important to Shane Cordello, at any rate, she told herself. “And perhaps I was a bit overly sweeping in my observation,” she further conceded. “However,” she added quickly when she saw him open his mouth to object, “I still say that most men, if given the opportunity, would jump at the chance to be king of their own country. And yes, with many of them, it is most definitely a control issue.”
He eyed her levelly for a moment, his gaze so focused and so intense, it made her want to squirm. Then, very quietly, very evenly, he told her, “I’m not most men, Sara. I’m not even many of them.”
Well, that, of course, was something she had noticed about him some time ago. Though not, probably, in the way he meant. “But we digress,” she continued, less zealously this time.
“Right,” he agreed. “We were talking about why you think men are control freaks.”
“No,
we were talking about all the strange things going on with the royal family,” she corrected him smoothly.
“Oh, yeah. We can talk about the control thing later.”
Not. Bloody. Likely, Sara thought. Before she had a chance to say anything, however—not that she was going to say that, of course—Shane continued speaking.
“Why wasn’t I told about any of this before now?” he asked.
Sara blew out a weary breath and wondered that herself. “Well, perhaps Her Majesty thought you wouldn’t come to Penwyck if you knew the current climate of the country and royal family.”
“Perhaps Her Majesty was right,” he replied dryly.
“I’m sure she planned to tell you everything once you arrived. This trip was rather hastily put together, after all.”
“Yeah, and look what happens when you fly by night like that,” he quipped. Then he blew out an exasperated breath and shook his head slowly. “I have got to start watching the evening news more often.”
“Not that the American news channels much cover what happens in Penwyck,” Sara reminded him. “The best news I receive of home is what I get from my mother and sisters. You shouldn’t feel badly about not knowing. You know now.”
“But what I know answers very few of my questions,” he said. “I mean, what was all that business about diamonds on the plane? Fawn said something about diamonds, and then one of the other guys shut her up. Fast. What was she talking about?”
“I have no idea,” Sara replied honestly. “I assumed they kidnapped you because of your possible tie to the throne, and your value there. They’ve already kidnapped and released Prince Owen. Perhaps they know something we don’t. Perhaps Owen isn’t in line to the throne and you are, which would put them in a very good bargaining position indeed. But diamonds?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. “I can’t imagine where they fit in. It’s the alliances with Majorco and America they seem most concerned about. Of course—”
Taming The Prince (Crown & Glory Book 8) Page 8
