by Laurie Paige
The older man nodded solemnly. “My pleasure, sir.”
Alone, Max quickly showered and dried, then returned to the bedroom to dress. Stopping by the reading table, he lifted one perfect rose from the bouquet and sniffed the delicate perfume.
He closed his eyes as memory poured through him. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he brought the flower to his lips, feeling the fragile coolness of its petals. A shudder went through him as the vast emptiness of his chambers assailed his heart. For that one night he hadn’t been alone….
“You’re trembling,” he had said, drawing back a little from the kiss, reluctant to let go of the treasure of her mouth.
“It’s…I don’t know what it is,” she’d admitted. “It’s all so strange. The night…the whole day…seems like a dream. Unreal.” She laid her hands against his chest. “And yet so real.”
“I know.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, their blue depths so clear it was like looking into her innermost thoughts. He saw doubt and uncertainty, but also passion and intrigue. All the things that raged through him in undulating waves of desire. “I’ve never felt this way before, not about anyone.”
“Nor have I,” she said, gazing at him with a worried frown on her beautiful face.
He kissed her cheek, along her jaw, then behind her ear, careful of the tiny gold earrings she wore. Against his chest, he felt her breasts rise with a quickly drawn breath. A groan of need escaped him as the passion rose higher between them. Her arms crept around his neck as he drew her tight against him, unable to disguise the strength of his response to her.
For a time he was content to hold and kiss her, to stroke her back, her arms, her sides. Then that wasn’t enough. He’d always made it a point never to become involved with anyone not of his set, women who knew the rules and expected only a night of pleasure with no promises.
He wanted to make promises to this woman, he found. Words like forever danced on the tip of his tongue. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind.
When she swayed against him in sweet surrender, rational thinking scattered like birds before a storm. He cupped her hips in both hands and rubbed against her, needing full body contact.
“Beautiful princess, will you stay?” he asked, oddly humbled by the passion in her eyes and the sweet confusion in her trembling lips. “Say yes,” he urged, afraid she was going to say no.
“I…I may not please you,” she whispered.
A realization came to him. “Are you an untried rose, opening her petals for the first time?”
White teeth sank into beguiling pink lips, kissed bare of makeup long ago. He hardly heard her answer.
“Yes,” she finally said, pressing her face against his throat in sweet embarrassment.
A tenderness, so strong it was almost an ache, spread through him. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised, “if you’re willing. If this is what you want.”
An eternity passed between one heartbeat and another, then she lifted her head, met his eyes and nodded. She was brave, and she was his. His.
Golden stardust seemed to shower them in magic. They were surrounded by it, then suffused with it as they kissed again. He touched her hair, her face, then her breasts, feeling the hard points of passion there at the tips.
Without releasing her lips, he lifted her, then carried her to the bedroom. Although she was shy, there was no awkwardness between them as he undressed her, then himself.
Once nude, he clasped her slender body to his, letting the full tactile sensation of skin against skin flow over them as they touched, chest, belly, thighs. When he stripped back the covers, they fell onto the sheets as one, laughter bubbling between them in that mysterious sharing of feelings that had happened nearly from the first moment they met.
When he pressed lightly on her shoulder, she lay back and let him gaze his fill at her.
“Breathtaking,” he murmured.
“So are you,” she said with a little catch as her gaze ran over him.
He wondered if he frightened her with his blatant male desire that couldn’t be hidden as easily as hers could. With the gentlest touch, he stroked from her shoulder, over her breast, down her abdomen and to her thigh. Then he paid homage to her breasts with his hands and his mouth.
When he probed her belly button with his tongue, it made her laugh. He smiled at her, then went back to the exploration that tantalized them both to near madness. When he kissed along her thighs, first one, then the other, she gasped.
Her eyes grew big when he glanced up, then nudged her legs apart, asking entry to the secret treasure that was hers to give or withhold.
“Please,” he murmured, “I need to taste you.”
When he’d brought her to the peak once, then twice, he finally heeded her little cries that he come to her.
“At once,” she said. “Now. I want you. I want everything.”
The red heat of desire shimmered between them. He observed the flush that caused her skin to glow as it swept up her chest and into her cheeks, telling him of her growing hunger and feeding his own until his mind was hazy with it.
“I’ve never wanted a woman this way,” he whispered. “This much.”
“How much?” she asked with such innocence it seared his heart.
“With everything in me. As if the world would perish in one of your tender sighs if we didn’t share this. As if my life depended on this one moment. On you—”
Max crushed the rose in his fist, jolted out of the lovely remembrance by the knowledge that his life had depended on her at that exact moment. Their passion had literally saved him from the assassins. Would he ever get a chance to tell her?
“I must leave tomorrow,” she’d said when they had consummated the union and lay entwined in blissful contentment after he’d taken care of her with a warm washcloth and a towel tucked under her hips.
He smiled now, recalling the blushes and her embarrassed protests, which he’d ignored.
“No,” he’d said, the command of a king if she’d but known it.
“I have to. I have a job to do.” She’d sighed plaintively.
He’d tightened his arms around her. “I will follow you to the ends of the earth,” he’d vowed.
Releasing the crushed rose, he dropped it into the wastebasket. The conspiracy had taken all his time and attention during the next six weeks. His presence as king, in deed if not yet in name, had been required. Now that the trial and sentencing were finished, he could think of other things, like finding his rose.
Quickly dressing in jeans and a T-shirt, he grabbed the phone and punched in his security advisor’s private number.
Chuck answered on the first ring.
“Can you come to my quarters?” Max asked.
“Be right there.”
No sooner had he hung up, than a knock sounded on his door. “Come in.”
Bartlett entered with a serving cart. On it were a coffee urn, two cups, two plates and a platter of muffins, plus another with a variety of fruit. He didn’t know how the man knew exactly when to arrive, but it had been this way since Max’s earliest memories in the palace.
“Thanks, Bartlett. I’ll be going out for a hike in about an hour.”
“Very good, sir.” The man left as quietly as he’d entered, leaving the door ajar and speaking to someone in the hall.
Chuck Curland came inside and closed the door, then pulled the pocket doors from their hiding place and closed them, too. Two sets of doors had been built into all the king’s rooms when the palace was constructed to ensure privacy in conversation. Max, upon his father’s advice, used them.
“Coffee?” Max asked.
“Please.” The American glanced around the room the way he did each time he entered.
Once, Max had teased him about expecting a spy behind every curtain. Lately the idea didn’t seem funny.
Chuck’s eyes were light blue and seemed to see everything that might be the slightest suspicious. His hair was brown with blond streaks from their hours o
f jogging on the beach. His frame matched Max’s inch for inch, pound for pound. In college they’d shared a room the first semester, then, finding they got along superbly, an apartment after that until they graduated.
Chuck was five years older than Max and had been an Army Ranger before going to school on the G.I. bill. That the two had met at all was a demonstration of American democracy in action when they’d been randomly assigned to share a room.
Max’s father, the late king, had suggested Chuck come to Lantanya and advise them on security matters. Perhaps the king had known at that early stage of their friendship that Max would need a friend in the palace. Chuck, with his all-seeing gaze, had detected the conspiracy and warned Max, thus bringing him home early.
Max poured the coffee and filled a plate, then sat in his favorite chair. Chuck did the same.
“This reminds me of days with my father,” Max told his friend. “Except, the king sat where I am, in a big black leather chair, and I sat in this chair, which was located where you are.”
“What happened to the king’s chair?” Chuck asked, taking a muffin and several spoons of fruit.
“I had it placed in the royal museum along with his suit of armor and ceremonial outfits.”
Chuck smiled. “Are you going to have armor made for yourself?”
“No. The bulletproof vest you insisted I buy is more than enough for my tastes.”
“It’s more effective when it’s worn,” Chuck said dryly.
Max cocked one eyebrow. “I’m not going to sleep in it, and that’s final.”
They smiled at each other with the ease of companions who’d seen each other puking their guts out after their first—and last—overindulgence in beer, moaning over the fickleness of college girls who threw them over for the captain of the football team and cursing their professors for tests that were impossible to pass.
“Speaking of sleeping. Or not sleeping, as the case may be…” Chuck said, the words trailing off as he studied Max with his omniscient gaze.
Max tossed him a questioning glance as he bit into a muffin. It seemed odd, in light of the morning activities, to realize he was hungry. Life had a way of going on, he reasoned.
Chuck lifted a muffin. “You gotta get married,” he said, and took a bite.
Max nearly choked. “What the hell brought that on?”
His friend chewed and swallowed, then took a sip of coffee. “Last year, before he died, your father made me promise to see that you found a bride by the end of the mourning period. You must produce an heir.”
Max muttered a curse, then another. Neither helped calm the swirl of emotion in his breast.
Chuck observed him with an odd little smile playing about the corners of his mouth. “An heiress will do,” he continued. “Either English or European would be acceptable to your people. Or American.”
Max glared when a full smile broke over his friend’s face. There was knowledge in those blue eyes that said Chuck knew more than he was saying.
“Spit it out,” he invited, knowing there was more.
“Your tryst at the resort probably saved your life, or at least prevented a nasty injury. I like to tell myself that the guards, whom I trained, would have interceded before great bodily harm was done.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“So?”
“So?” Max echoed, not sure what the question was.
“Is it the American?”
Like the petals of a flower suddenly clamping shut, Max withdrew, not wanting to share that night with anyone, not even his best friend. He shook his head slightly, not in denial of the possibility, but of sharing it.
“She might be pregnant,” Chuck said and calmly put the rest of the muffin in his mouth.
Max sprang to his feet as if an electric current had suddenly run through his chair. He paced to the window. The vase of roses blew gentle kisses of sweet scent at him. He paused and touched one.
“What makes you think that?” he finally asked.
“I’m your security chief, Your Highness. I’m paid to know what goes on around you.”
Chuck always reverted to formalities when he gained insights into Max’s life that might transgress friendship. Max appreciated the gesture. That left it up to him to decide the level of the discussion.
“She was a virgin,” Max said softly.
“Yes, sir.”
“It was a night like none other,” he continued. “When I ran out of condoms, I took a chance with her. How did you know that?”
“There was, uh, evidence on the sheets. I took the liberty of confiscating them…in case there were future questions about the child’s conception, if there should happen to be a child.”
“In case I got whacked,” Max said sardonically, catching on to his advisor’s line of reasoning.
However, his demise wasn’t uppermost in his mind at the moment. He recalled pulling the petals from a dozen roses and sprinkling them over the bed and her. His friend would have seen those, too, and known what a sentimental fool Max had made of himself. He groaned internally.
Chuck studied him for a long minute, then smiled in understanding. “Are you in love with the American beauty?” he asked, one friend to another.
“Love? I’m not sure what that means at the present. I loved my uncle and trusted him with a child’s belief in those close to him. That nearly got me killed.”
“Does she know who you are, or did you go by Max Hughes?”
“Isn’t there anything you don’t know?” Max spoke in irritation. His alias, like that night, was his alone to enjoy, his little secret from the demanding public of his world. Secret? Ha!
“It’s my job—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Max interrupted impatiently. “Due to the circumstances, the treason and all, I’m cutting you some slack here, but you’re on dangerous ground.”
Chuck raised his eyebrows and showed no signs of quaking in his boots. “Crosby Systems is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. If you leave on the nine-twenty flight tonight, you can be there tomorrow morning.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To woo the American beauty. It wouldn’t be a bad match. She’s smart, well-educated and used to moving among the elite of her society.”
“In other words, she wouldn’t be an embarrassment as my queen,” Max cut in dryly.
“She’s also compassionate and does more than take part in charity auctions. She volunteers at a clinic called Children’s Connection. It’s an adoption agency, mostly funded by another family in the area, the Logans.” Chuck paused. “The Logans and the Crosby family are enemies, I think. Twenty-eight years ago, two of the sons were best friends, then six-year-old Robbie Logan was kidnapped while playing at Danny Crosby’s house. His mother was supposed to have been watching them.”
“The year before Ivy was born,” Max said, combining what she’d told him with Chuck’s information.
“Yes. The families are also rivals in the high-tech-systems business world.”
“You have been busy,” Max murmured.
“Once the conspirators were behind bars, I had time to check out…other things.”
“Like my wild, passionate night with the rose.” Max gave his friend a sardonic glance. “Have you booked my reservation on the nine-twenty flight?”
“Well, I did take the liberty of reserving a seat for you. And alerting Ned to pack a bag.”
Max exhaled heavily. “Are you coming, too?”
“If you like. Someone has to, but it can be another security agent, if you prefer.”
Max laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You’ll do. Who, besides Ned, knows me better?”
“Are we going as prince and bodyguard?”
“This isn’t an official visit, else I’d have to contact the White House, then the press would be all over us. Let’s go as Max Hughes and Chuck Curland. We’re consultants on the educational system Crosby is planning for the country.”
“Fine by me.”
Another
worry came to Max. “I’ve never investigated a woman with an eye toward her being my queen. You have any suggestions?”
Chuck stared at him for a full fifteen seconds, then burst into guffaws.
“If you weren’t my friend and security advisor, I’d have you thrown in irons for that,” Max told him, becoming somewhat irritated at the joke he didn’t get.
Chuck laughed harder. Finally he clamped an arm around Max’s shoulders and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Try flowers. That usually works when courting a woman.”
“This is not a courtship,” Max informed the American coolly. “This is business.”
Three
Friday night Ivy stood near the door of the recreation room located in Children’s Connection annex. The combination adoption agency/fertility clinic was holding a bazaar to raise money for new equipment.
“Hey, Ivy,” a masculine voice called.
She turned and smiled warmly at the handsome widower who caused no flutters in her heart whatsoever. His hair was blond and sun-streaked, but his eyes were brown, like those of another man who had made her heart flutter.
“Hunter, hello,” she said. “I was wondering when my cohost for the big event was going to show up.”
“Sorry to be late. You know the life of a rancher. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.” His complaining words were belied by the humor in his eyes. His face became somber. “Actually, Johnny wasn’t feeling well. I was a little worried about leaving him with a sitter.”
“A late-summer cold?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. He seems…tired. Not the usual bundle of energy four-year-olds normally are.”
Ivy frowned. “We haven’t had any cases of West Nile virus around here, have we?”
“Not that I know of,” Hunter replied.
“Nor me,” Morgan Davis, director of the adoption agency, said, stopping beside Ivy. His new wife was at his side, looking radiantly happy. There was a contented aura surrounding Morgan, too.
“Oh, hi, you two.” Ivy hugged the other couple. Emma, a children’s counselor, had been her best friend since college days. Ivy was so glad the other woman had found happiness after her first husband had run out on her.
