Desire

by Mia Madison

  Lucien Max-Callandar holds my eyes locked in his until I feel a glow gather in my cheeks and tear them away before he strips me raw.

  “Is Katie with you?” (he pronounces it Catty, not intentionally, I hope although he wouldn't be wrong. My mother has definitely come out with claws recently).

  The way he looks at me, never leaving my body even when speaking to Daddy makes tingles prickle at my skin lining. When I shake my body, unwittingly, in an attempt to loosen the sensation of heat, Lucien's eyes glint at the quivering.

  “Where are you staying?” he asks Daddy and I’m sure I detect amusement in his tone.

  I must seem so girly young to him. Then I recall all the others my age he was playing with half an hour ago and my shyness is replaced by irritation.

  “At the Carlton,” I inform him, as imperiously as he behaves.

  “No, Baby -” Daddy starts before Lucy cuts in.

  “Great, I’ll buy you another drink.” His orders come naturally. I bet this guy couldn't ask or say please if his life depended on it.

  “No,” my father and I blurt out together.

  Lucien looks between us and I almost swear he looks hurt. Which must be why Daddy tries to appease him.

  “We aren't at the Carlton now.”

  “We aren’t?” My smug smile has slipped away.

  “I had to move us,” he tells me.

  “Where to?” Lucy and I ask in tandem.

  I toss him a glare, my eyes firing a message to butt out. This isn’t a game. Something is still terribly wrong and him being here is making Daddy act more humiliated.

  “I don't know,” he mumbles. “That is, I’m not, I don’t-”

  I’ve never seen my father so unsure of himself. I bet it’s this cocky old friend acting all autocratic that’s making him jittery.

  “Where’s our luggage?” I inquire.

  “Still at the hotel.”

  “Let’s go get it.” I say, trying to exert some authority over the disaster.

  “You’ll come and stay with me,” Lucy announces.

  “No,” I shriek, harsher than I meant to so Daddy looks at me strangely. His eyes bulge with significance. Is he imploring me to be nice? Lucien also looks at me, but with a glint in his eyes that makes me feel like a lamb being circled by a wolf.

  “Baby, the hotel is holding our bags until I settle things,” my father admits, looking down at the ground then explaining to his friend. “My credit cards are frozen. A problem at the bank I’m just sorting out

  “Christ, I hate banks,” Lucien says, lightening the somber vibe. “My country is overrun by bankers, all hiding out in tax-free luxury.”

  My country. The way the guy says that actually makes it sound like he owns the place rather than is a citizen. I’ve never known someone so insanely full of himself.

  “You’re my guests,” he says and walks off, with the natural assumption that we’ll follow along like sheeple.

  I tear my eyes away from his perfect butt that looks amazing even in loose linen pants for the midsummer heat and look at Daddy like; what the fuck.

  “We aren't one of his harem,” I hiss.

  He left those back at the beach and he can go back there as far as I’m concerned.

  My father gives me a shrug which he’s doing a lot of today, like he wants to abort control to someone else. And we’re in a foreign country with some unstable maniac acting like a potentate in control of everything, even if he is the hottest god in existence. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be stuck up close and personal in some poky Mediterranean villa while he continues looking me up and down like what little I’m wearing is long discarded.

  “Come,” he commands, over his shoulder. “I’ll send someone to pick up the luggage.”

  Seriously where does he get off acting like he’s entitled to throw orders? I look pleadingly at my father but he seems cowed by this so-called friend, in his current predicament. He takes my hand and leads me, half pulls me along, to follow in Lucien’s wide wake.

  Chapter Four

  Lucien

  I toss a glance back over my shoulder, dying for another look at smoking Kennedy Summers. My school pal’s daughter all grown up. Has that much time really passed so fast? Her face is fixed in a glare of loathing. I’m about to stop and ask what’s bugging her so as to take care of it for her.

  Then I realize it’s me. What the fuck did I do to rile her up in the space of ten minutes?

  I took care of her check, I’m taking care of her daddy's’ problems – again – and all because of her. Only for her this time. If she weren't here the selfish ass could camp on the beach as far as I’m concerned. But Kennedy I want to see taken care of. And I also want to see more of her, a whole lot more.

  “Loo-Seee, where have you been?”

  Shit, there’s um - her name’s completely slipped my mind but I recognize those tits bouncing toward us. Mellie, is it? Petal? And there’s another couple of girls behind her heading in my direction. This is why we have to keep moving. If I stop on the beach or on the Croisette, or anywhere really, I’m instantly surrounded. I’m surprised the paps haven't’ caught up with me yet today.

  Kennedy throws me an even more intense look of disgust. Like I’m some creepy pervert for loving women’s bodies. And then Mellie charges Kennedy, shoving her to one side to throw herself at me with the usual clawing and pawing at my chest, my biceps, trying to wrap her legs around my pelvis.

  “What about a cock-tail?” she purrs, grinding herself against me, looking for my normally prodigious bulge.

  Not this time.

  How did I ever enjoy these boring attempts at provocative flirtation? Its as if I’ve had every woman under the sun and nothing will ever stimulate me ever again.

  I press her back off me forcefully enough that she startles. Then she watches me stride across to Kennedy and put my hand in the small of her back.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I’m fine, Luc,” she snaps pronouncing my name ‘Loose’ like that’s what she thinks I am.

  If I look through her eyes I guess that’s how it appears. She tears herself away from my touch like it was my fault the girl hip-checked her. Fuck. Now I’m pissed.

  “Good, let’s go,” I rasp out an order at her and her father, standing there like someone kicked the stuffing out of him.

  I wonder whether I look that old and gray? The change in him is so shocking. What does Kennedy see when she looks at me? Right now she obviously only sees a playboy pig she can’t stand.

  I stride across the sand toward where I left the boat at the edge of the water. A group of people are standing around it, snapping selfies. They soon turn their phones at me as I slip out of my pants down to the swim shorts beneath.

  “Lucy, wait I want to tell you something,” Mellie/Petal wails.

  All the usual ploys. She’s trying to make a dash after me but the security detail are holding her back. Thank fuck Kennedy is staring grimly ahead and doesn't notice. I’m sure she’d be even more irate to know I can’t step outside the grounds without a slew of bodyguards.

  The tide’s come in a little since I ran aground on the sand. I push the boat back myself before Jacques and the other guys rush up to help. Kennedy looks between the men in dark suits and glasses that have suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

  Getting to the boat means the water would be up to her waist, so I wade ashore where she’s waiting, stunned, open-mouthed, frozen. I chuckle, clearly her father hasn't said much about me over the years.

  I pick her up in my arms, amazed at how light she is despite her sexy curves.

  She wriggles around demanding to be put down.

  “I’m capable of walking through a little water,” she mewls.

  If she keeps fucking writhing in my arms like this, I’m going to have one agonizing massive bulge all the way back to the island. All kinds of images pour into my head of her on my king-size bed her beautiful curves undulating in time with my thrusts, her roun
d breasts jiggling.

  “Too bad I can’t walk on it, like you,”

  Touché.

  Now I know why she hates me. She finds me arrogant, dominant, imperious. So what? Those are all characteristics I’ve been trained to possess. This is one reason my father insists I marry one of my own kind, one of us, as he refers to it. Because a regular girl doesn't understand the burdens we’re born into.

  I heft her over the side and dump her down on the deck. Once again she snatches herself away from me like I tried to grope her or some shit. I don't need to do that – she’ll be begging me to lay hands on her soon enough.

  Maybe it’s wrong. She’s my old friend’s only daughter and there’s a lot of history sitting there. She’s fifteen years younger than me, not ‘one of us’ and the most pressing predicament, thinks I’m an ass. I don’t give a shit about any of that. I want her. That’s all that matters.

  This woman needs to be taken in hand though. Clearly daddy's’ girl had been well spoiled. I wonder what else he’s trained her into.

  I push up on the side, hauling myself out of the water on my arms then side leap over the edge. Ha! That got her attention.

  “Take a seat,” I tell Cooper.

  He’s moves to bench in back and two of my detail settle themselves on either side of him, penning him in so he looks like a convict heading to trial. Which is probably what he deserves knowing my old buddy.

  I take my wheel as Kennedy looks around. When she finds there’s no option but to take the leather seat beside me, she stubbornly remains standing center of the deck. Okay then. I start the engine and glide slowly away from shore until the water is deep enough. Then I hit the switch that lowers the propeller.

  I look at Kennedy with a grin. She looks away, ignoring me. I pull back the throttle and the nose lifts up smooth as a 747 and with as much power. The force tips her off balance so she stumbles hard into my arm. I grab her, stopping her fall and hold her steady against my chest. Her breasts crush against me and immediately my cock unwinds, hungry to slide into her tightness.

  She tries to tear herself away from me and I hold her firm in my arm wrapped around her waist like a steel band. I jerk her slightly, not too hard, just enough to let her know who’s boss. Her eyes fly up to me and I capture them, holding her immobile with a look of fucking hunger like I’ve never felt.

  She swallows down hard then her lips part as she pulls in a breath. Maybe she’s nervous that I’m driving this huge machine with one hand while gazing down at her and not the waves ahead as we head for open water. She can hide the nerves but not hunger raging in her.

  “Why do you hate me already?” I husk.

  “You treat women like chattel,” she snips right back.

  “That I do not do.”

  I notice she’s stopped fighting me now, her body lining the side of mine.

  “All those topless girls throwing themselves at you,” she mewls.

  “You’re in France, Princess. We’re relaxed with our bodies.”

  “You think I’m uptight? Well I’m not.”

  “Take your top off.”

  “No. You take yours off

  “Take the wheel.” She looks at me shocked so I let go and yank the shirt up. The boat veers off course and she grabs the wheel, straightening it up with both hands. She’s a strong one. The boat and the girl. I throw the tee and it falls on deck. Her head turns to eye me and suck up my torso.

  From the flush that rises on her face I guess she’s not disappointed. She appears to be having trouble tearing her gaze off me and I notice her nipples are hard in her top and also the boat is curving off course.

  I step in behind, my arms around her, taking the wheel over her hands to guide her. there’s no choice but to lean in and line my torso against her back. I fully expect her to rip her body away from me, incensed at my behavior again. But after a clench of tension, she relaxes and while she doesn't exactly lean back into me, she doesn’t push away either. Not until she senses a growing bulge pressing at her and it’s me that shifts then.

  “I have to guide it into the harbor,” I croak, the burning desire to bend her over the wheel and take her from behind is barely, agonizingly restrained.

  “Yes,” she murmurs, softly, her voice a little kitten breath.

  I am going to love making this woman mine and I’m going to take all the time I need.

  Chapter Five

  Kennedy

  Lucien cuts the engine and glides the boat into a slip in a marina stuffed with powerboats like I’ve never seen before. Plus a few yachts and three massive cruisers. Some people here on Monato are clearly swimming in money instead of the ocean.

  I glance over at Daddy, wondering whether he’s still morose or uplifted by all the fancy boats but he seems to not be seeing anything. Perhaps just as well when his old school friend yanked me into his embrace and looked down at me with a heated stare that left me in no doubt what he’d like to do to me.

  I would have been mortified for daddy to suspect how much I wanted his old friend to do those things.

  Having his bare hot skin lining my back, burning through the thin fabric covering me made me wetter than ever. No man has a right to be that irresistible. My imagination ran rampant all the way across to the island, wanting him to take his hands off the wheel again and cup them around my breasts before tweaking the nipples. Then slide them down my tummy and delve into my bikini bottoms, prying my lips apart and heading straight for the throbbing point.

  Being pinned at the wheel, trapped between his solid arms, his huge hands covering mine as together we guided the boat made my heart go skittering in my chest. His breath falling hot on the back of my neck while the wind rushed at the front made rashes of goosebumps rise down my arms.

  No, I have to focus on holding myself aloof from him. He’s a player and I could fall headlong into his trap before I even realize. He may have managed to lure us to this island covered with white stucco villas and very modern apartment buildings but I’m not giving in to him.

  I should have pushed him off but I doubt I could have budged him an inch, judging by the shield wall of rippling muscle lining my spine from nape to butt.

  His fiercely beating heart pounded at my back and when an unmistakable hard bulge sprang up against my hip I didn’t even pull back then. All I wanted to do was press back into it, feel the solid lump grinding into my flesh like a little tramp. Except with Lucien maybe it wouldn’t seem slutty. Sure he’s a playboy but he’s a man and he knows what he wants. Mercifully there were others on the boat, including my father, or I might have lost all will and thrown myself at him like the others on the beach.

  If my prayers had been answered and he had reached an inch further to brush his lips into the sensitive spot on the side of my neck, or lifted even one hand to cup the underside of my swollen mound, I know I would have fallen.

  But he didn’t and now my resistance needs to be stronger. If I’m going to be cooped up in a house with him, I have to have all my barricades strongly erected.

  He leaps out and hands me onto the dock. I make sure to immediately remove my fingers from his hard grasp even though electrical shocks are pinging me.

  “Who are those goons?” I snip at Lucien as we walk up the jetty.

  I take in the two-story long white building with floor to ceiling windows in every room, of which there must be at least twenty running the length. Okay, it’s nothing short of a palace. Lucien Max-Callander can afford to park his boat at a marina in front of a palace, big deal.

  “Just a few guys I have to hang out with,” he says with a mysterious grin.

  He must be a drug dealer if he drives that boat and needs protection. I just wish he wasn’t so breathtakingly handsome. And when he flashes me his smile it makes it even harder to hate him. I almost reach out to take his hand again, then I remember myself.

  Resistance.

  He continues walking up the path toward, not past, the cream painted palace. When he reaches the set of Fr
ench windows and they swing back for him, I stop dead in my tracks.

  “Where are you going,” I say, forcing him to turn back to me.

  “Inside the house.”

  “What for?” My god, he’s a cat burglar.

  “To show you to your rooms.”

  “In – there?” I squeak, trying to repress the gasp. “That’s your house?”

  He shrugs with something close to humility, for the second time since we met.

  “What are you a king or some shit?” I bark at him, still not moving.

  “No, not yet,” he tosses back over his shoulder, not stopping. “My father’s still perfectly healthy thanks for asking.”

  “I didn’t -” too late he’s disappeared through the French windows into the house and a maid or housekeeper or whoever opened the door goes trotting after him. “-ask.”

  “You didn't say your pal Lucy was a king,” I hiss at my father, arrived beside me and standing gaping at the opulent interior through the doors.

  “Crown Prince Leopold Lucien Max-Wallander the sixth, or seventh was it?”

  “How did you forget to mention that?”

  “He’s very humble.”

  “Like hell.”

  “No he really is. It kind of always went with the territory. If you were his friend, especially if you were his team mate as I was, you treated him like a normal dude, no scraping and bowing. And no talking about him to the media. He hates paps and celebrity and all that stuff. He’s very private.”

  “Could have fooled me,” I mutter, remembering the gaggle of beach babes swarming all over him.

  They had hands on him, stroking his body and he looked like he was loving every second. He couldn't wait to get the two twins into a menage.

  The maid returns to hold the already open door open for us.