37 Her Highness and the Bodyguard

by Christine Rimmer

After they’d walked for a while, they got soft drinks from a street vendor and sat on a bench under a tree on the Promenade that rimmed the pier. Rhia sipped the sweet drink and thought how lovely and fizzy it felt, cool and welcoming on her tongue.

  Marcus leaned over and tapped his bottle against hers. “You’re smiling.”

  She looked at him and saw her own face reflected in the lenses of his aviator sunglasses. “I always feel free when I walk around Montedoro. You know how it is. We’re so security conscious now when we travel outside the principality. But here at home we’re still free to move about without trained men watching over us. I hope that never has to change.”

  He leaned closer. “You don’t like having a security detail?”

  “It’s all right. Necessary, I know that. But it’s nicer to be free.”

  His brow crinkled above the dark glasses. “I’ve been meaning to apologize....”

  She frowned back at him. “Oh, no. What now?”

  “I should have asked to be reassigned when I got the orders for the trip to Montana. But I was a coward.”

  She put her hand over his. “Don’t. Please. Yes, I hated it, at the time. But even I understood that refusing your orders wasn’t an option.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I should have thought of some workable way out.”

  “Marcus. I swear you have to learn to lighten up a little. It’s water under the bridge...or over the dam. Or however that old expression goes.”

  “You forgive me, then?”

  “Completely. Don’t bring it up again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me ma’am.”

  He actually chuckled. And then, for a few lovely minutes, they just sat there, enjoying the shade of the tree, watching the people stroll by on the Promenade. It was quite companionable.

  Or it was until two men in the uniform of the Sovereign’s Guard came toward them along the Promenade. One was tall and very lean, the other shorter and stocky. They saluted her, murmured solemnly, “Your Highness.” Marcus rose.

  “Sir,” the men said in unison, and saluted him. It seemed to her they made quite a show of it. Marcus returned the salute, but without all the fanfare. Rhia watched the exchange with interest. There was something—challenge, animosity?—in the way the two men looked at Marcus and the way he stared back at them.

  The men moved on. Marcus sat beside her again.

  She asked, “What was that about?”

  “Just two soldiers, men of the guard.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “I do.”

  “Do they have names?”

  He let out a slow breath. “Private Second Class Rene DuFere—that’s the shorter one. The tall, thin one is Private First Class Denis Pirelle.”

  “You don’t like them?”

  He took off his dark glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose and then hooked the glasses on the collar of his shirt. “I like them fine.”

  “Marcus,” she chided. “What was all that to-do about the way they saluted you?”

  “I have no idea. They weren’t required to salute, as I am not in uniform. Perhaps they decided going overboard couldn’t hurt.”

  “Hurt what?”

  “Rhia, I don’t know.”

  She loosed an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you see? This is what I’ve been talking about. You’re always so guarded. Everything is a secret with you.”

  “It’s not a secret. They are noncommissioned officers in the Sovereign’s Guard.”

  “And?”

  He glanced heavenward. And then he confessed, “They were at St. Stephen’s with me. They are and always have been a...team, you might say. And I never really got along with either of them.”

  “A team? They’re like brothers, you mean?”

  He took her hand, held it between both of his and gazed directly into her eyes. “If you have to know...”

  “I do. Absolutely.”

  “We were boys with nothing, no one to claim us,” he said quietly, for her ears alone. “Sometimes we formed alliances. Sometimes we made enemies.”

  “Those two were—are—your enemies?”

  He raised her hand toward his lips then. For a moment, she held her breath, sure he would press a kiss to the back of it. But he didn’t. She felt regret, but she understood. It was a public place and she was the sovereign’s daughter and he just couldn’t go that far right then. He said, “We all do what we have to do, to survive.”

  “You’re talking in riddles.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

  “Please. Try.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “But I want to understand. And I swear to you, Marcus. I would never tell anyone something you told me in confidence.”

  “I know you wouldn’t.”

  “And I know that there’s something you don’t like about those two men.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like them.”

  “Oh, please. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I swear on my honor. I am not lying to you. We’ve had our disagreements in the past—Denis, Rene and I—but I don’t hold any of that against them now.”

  “But do they hold something against you?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t answer for them.”

  Rhia let it go. She wasn’t satisfied with his answers, but it was only their first evening together in this new, more open way. She could hardly expect to know everything in one night. Over on the pier, she saw a man with a camera snapping pictures of them.

  Marcus saw it, too. “Now we’ll be in the tabloids together.”

  “Maybe it’s only a tourist taking shots for his travel album.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Marcus. If we’re going to be together, the paparazzi will get pictures of us eventually.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  She chuckled. “Learn to live with it. You’ve provided security for most of the members of my family at one time or another. You know how it can get sometimes. Especially if there’s any hint of a scandal involved.”

  He leaned closer and said softly, “All the more reason we should marry immediately.” She didn’t reply. What was there to say? She’d made herself painfully clear on that subject. He looked at his watch. “It’s almost seven. Time we were getting back to the villa, don’t you think?”

  They were quiet with each other on the walk up the hill.

  At the villa, they shared the evening meal, just like a real couple at home alone together, dining in. She gazed across the table at him and remembered what her sister had said.

  Rhia, be bold.

  After dinner, she offered a tour of the villa, upstairs and down. That didn’t take long. It wasn’t a large house—not compared to the Prince’s Palace, where she’d grown up, anyway. The master suite and the living area were on the first floor, with three more bedrooms above and a third floor where Yvonne and the cook had private quarters.

  She purposely ended with the master suite. “And this is my room.” She led him in there. “My private sitting room...” She led him through the door to the bedroom. “My bedroom.” He made an appreciative noise low in his throat and she led him to the next door. “The bathroom.” She took his hand and pulled him in there. He flipped on the light. They stood before the wide mirror above the vanity and twin sinks.

  “Very nice,” he said.

  “The tub is big enough for two.” She stepped right up to him, put her arms around his neck.

  And kissed him.

  He captured her face between his two big hands. “Rhia. What are you up to now?”

  Be bold. “Well, as a matter of fact, I was just about to take you back in the bedroom and show you an intimate view of my bed.” It came out slightly breathless. Lord. Was she making a hash-up of this?

  But he reassured her—with another searing, perfect kiss. He covered her lips with his and he pulled her closer, so that her breasts
flattened deliciously against his hard chest. He even pressed his hand to the small of her back, so she curved into him. He felt wonderful, so hard and strong. He wanted her. She could feel that, too.

  Relief and desire swirled through her, making her knees a little weak. She clung to him. He didn’t seem to mind.

  When he lifted his head, she let her eyelids drift open. He regarded her gravely—or mostly so. There was also a definite flare of heat in his eyes. “I would love an intimate view of your bed.”

  She touched the side of his face, ran her finger around the neat rim of his ear. “You won’t think I have no backbone, will you?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I said separate beds for a while, remember? That was the plan.”

  “Plans change.” His voice was deliciously gruff. He bent close for another kiss—a sweet, quick, brushing kiss this time.

  She stroked the side of his neck, breathed in the clean, manly scent of him. “Allie said I should be bold. And I’ve decided that I agree with her.”

  “Bold is good.” He feathered another kiss against the tip of her chin and then lifted away a little. “Bold is excellent.”

  She wrapped her hand around the nape of his neck and drew him closer once more, close enough that they shared the same breath. “Oh, Marcus...”

  “Anything.”

  “Tell me that we will be all right.”

  “We will,” he whispered. “I know we will.”

  “Tell me we will work it all out.”

  “We will.”

  She brushed her lips against his, pressing herself up to him, feeling his heat and hardness, so acutely aware of everything about him: his strength and his goodness. His all-too-ingrained sense of propriety and his natural reserve. His fine, deep voice that made her want to rub herself all over him, the scent of him that had always drawn her. His very pigheaded insistence that she was above him and they couldn’t make it work all those years ago.

  His insistence that it would work—that it had to work—now.

  “Take me to bed, Marcus.”

  His answer was to scoop her up high in his arms and turn for the other room.

  Chapter Ten

  Marcus reached the side of her high, turned-back bed, and didn’t want to put her down. He feared she might change her mind if he let go of her even for a moment—change her mind and send him to the room she had originally assigned him.

  She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. “Um. So...are you just going to stand there holding me all night?”

  He bent his head to her. “I might. I might never let you go.”

  “I might like it, if you never let me go....” She lifted her mouth for him.

  He took it, hard and hungrily. She tasted of everything he had ever wanted, all he’d thought he could never have. He sucked her soft upper lip into his mouth, caressed the slick inner surface with his teeth. She moaned. He drank in that sound.

  And then, still holding the kiss, he lowered her feet to the floor and began to undress her. She allowed that—more than allowed it. She sighed, swaying against him, whispering “Yes” against his lips as he unbuttoned her silk shirt and eased it off her shoulders, as he unzipped her snug skirt and pushed it down, taking the tiny lace and satin panties she wore along with it. With a flick of a finger, he undid her bra, quickly guiding the straps down her arms, pulling it off, tossing it aside.

  She had her hair up. He speared his fingers in it, feeling for pins. “Let it down. Loose.” He growled the command against her mouth.

  She obeyed, lifting her arms, pulling at the pins until the heavy mass fell in a dark veil to her shoulders. He stroked the seal-brown strands, let the curls fall between his fingers, combing them.

  He needed...everything. All of her. To touch her. Every smooth, soft inch.

  And he took what he needed. He cupped those fine, full breasts of hers, and he played with her nipples as she bumped her hips against him, sighing, moaning, using her sweet, eager body to beg him for more.

  More worked for him. More was exactly what he had in mind.

  He pressed his hand against her still-flat belly, wondering at the miracle within, the baby they had made that had changed everything.

  “Oh, Marcus. Yes...”

  He inched his fingers lower, until he touched the short, silky curls that covered her sex. She lifted to him, moaning more yeses into his mouth.

  So he went on touching her, parting her, delving in where she was so wet and sweet and ready for him. He found the hard little nub where her pleasure was centered and gave it special attention.

  About then her knees gave way.

  She clutched at his shoulders. “Marcus!”

  “It’s all right. It’s good...” He eased her down across the bed, guided her slim legs apart and stepped in close between them. Bending over her, he pressed his mouth to hers.

  She kicked away her shoes and caught his wrist to guide his hand. He knew already what she wanted from him. He gave it, caressing her the way she’d always liked it most, so long ago, in California. He dipped one finger in, then a second....

  She cried out again. He cupped her, holding her, and let her rock herself against his palm as the finish took her.

  A moment later, she went lax. She stared up at him through glazed eyes. He started to step back. She grabbed his arm and held him close and began pulling at his shirt. “Take this off. Now. All of it. Everything...”

  Getting everything off sounded like a fine idea to him. He reached both hands back, gathered the shirt up and yanked it over his head. She got hold of it and threw it off the far edge of the bed.

  He started to straighten again, so he could take down his jeans.

  “Come back here,” she insisted, reaching for him.

  “One minute. Less.”

  She let him go long enough for him to kick off his shoes and tear off his socks, to pull his fly wide and shove his jeans down along with his boxers.

  “There,” she said approvingly. “Better.”

  He leaned close to her again, sliding a hand under one smooth thigh, lifting that leg, pushing it wider as she gazed steadily up at him, dark eyes full of night and wonder and sex.

  “Oh, Marcus. At last. Yes...” She reached down between them.

  He groaned at the pure perfect agony of it as she encircled his aching hardness and drew him to her, touching the tip to her wetness, guiding him where she wanted him to be.

  He surged forward, filling her.

  She cried out. She pushed herself up to him, taking him deeper. He went. All the way, burying himself in her wonderful heat, her unbearable sweetness. He went deep. The moment hung suspended.

  The sight of her, below him, open to him, his in a way that he’d never allowed himself to think of her before....

  That made him drive harder, move deeper within her, withdrawing only to surge close again.

  It was glorious. Perfect. He wished it might never, ever end.

  But of course, it did. The wave rose up, cresting over them. He went first, turned inside out by it, surging over, flying high.

  And then he felt her contracting around him. He braced his arms on the mattress to either side of her flushed, beautiful face and he let her have him, let her move against him at her will. She called his name as she found the absolute hot center of her own pleasure.

  * * *

  She didn’t give him long to recover before she was pulling at him again, arranging him to her satisfaction, dragging him fully onto the bed with her, so that they both lay with their heads on the pillows.

  “There,” she murmured. “Better. Wonderful...”

  He nuzzled her hair, cupped one breast, flicking the hard pink nipple so that she sighed. “You amaze me. You always did. So damnably beautiful....” He stuck out his tongue and licked the perfect, swirling shape of her delicate ear.

  She laughed. “I have to ask...”

  He nipped her earlobe. “What now?”

  “Boxers? When did
you start wearing boxers?”

  “Boxers shock you?”

  “It’s just...you always wore briefs before.”

  “I like boxers. They’re comfortable. And what does it matter?”

  “It’s a little thing,” she admitted.

  “Exactly.”

  “But little things do matter, especially now. I intend to know everything about you.”

  He grunted and thought of the biggest secret, the one he had never planned to tell anyone, the one he supposed he would now have to find a way to tell her. Because she wanted all his secrets and he’d more or less promised he would give her whatever she asked of him.

  And he would. Just not right now. He couldn’t bear to tell her now.

  So he kept it light. “Everything? Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “You’ve always been much too self-contained. When did you start wearing boxers?”

  He smoothed her hair, loving the feel of it under his palm, catching a lock of it and rubbing it between his thumb and fingers. “If you must know, I bought some in a department store, in America, when I was providing security for your sister last fall. I tried them.”

  “Silk boxers?”

  “What can I tell you? Silk feels good.”

  “I don’t remember boxers, that night in Montana....”

  “It was dark under that tarp, and we were...” He sought the word.

  She offered it. “Urgent. It all seemed so urgent.”

  He remembered. And agreed. “Yes, it did.”

  She braced up on an elbow and stared down at him through somber eyes. “It was so strange, in Montana at the wedding, to see you shaking hands with the McCade men, and to realize that you had been there, lived in the ranch house there, with Belle and Charlotte...” Her voice trembled a little.

  “Shh.” He pulled her down to him again, kissed her hair, her cheek, the tip of her nose.

  “It’s only, well, it hurt. To think that you had been there for months, and I didn’t even know.”

  “Rhia. Why should you know?”

  She gave a slight shrug. “You’re right.” Her voice was thoughtful and more than a little bit sad. “Of course, you’re right—but it’s strange. When you come right down to it, I know so little of your life. And you know my sister’s new husband better than I do.”