Kidnapping the Duchess: A Hot Bodyguard with Secret Identity Romance, Racy Royals #1

by Gina L. Maxwell

  Time slams to a screeching halt and I pull back in shock. “No one? As in, ever?”

  Trapping her lower lip between her teeth, Daria nods.

  Jesus Christ, she’s a fucking virgin?!

  Everything I’ve just learned explodes into a barrage of newer, hotter fantasies of Daria Copeland, rendering me speechless as my brain and cock fight for control. But the duchess takes my silence and retreat as something else entirely.

  Like the flip of a switch, she goes from soft and wanton to cold and distant. “I think it’s time for you to leave, bodyguard. Let me go.”

  It’s the last fucking thing I want to do, but I’d never force her for any reason. I release her wrists and take a step back. I open my mouth to make things right, but my boss’s voice crackles over my comms unit with orders to report as backup for the dukes’ downtown publicity tour.

  Fuck. I hate the thought of leaving things like this, but I don’t have a choice. Pressing the button on my earpiece, I tell him I’ll be right there, giving me a couple minutes at most. Pulling the earbud out to avoid another interruption, I try again. “Dar—”

  “Mr. Blackstone, we may very well be on this side of my bedroom door, but you are still in this family’s employ, and as such, you’re to address me with the respect my title deserves. Now go.”

  I barely restrain a growl. I’m aggravated that everything went to shit, and I’m pissed as hell we were interrupted because of that asshat’s visit.

  “Fine,” I bite out. “We’ll pick this up later because believe me, your grace, this isn’t over.”

  “Believe me, bodyguard, nothing was ever started.”

  Erasing the space between us, I use every inch of my towering height and innate dominance to test that claim. I watch as her breath catches, her pupils swallow the blue of her irises, and her pulse visibly races in her neck.

  Assurance tugs my mouth into a cocky grin. “Oh, Duchess, it very much has. In fact, I doubt even your army of toys will be able to satisfy you now that you’ve had my fingers a breath away from plunging into your sweet cunt. But go ahead and try; see if they can still make you come.” Dipping my head to her ear, I whisper her words from earlier back to her. “I double-dog dare you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Daria

  Swiping another glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray, I down the contents in one go, then turn to place the empty flute on a different waiter’s tray. A man steps in close behind me. I don’t have to wonder who it is. I know by the scent of his skin and the tingles of awareness tripping up my spine.

  “Perhaps you should slow down, Duchess. This isn’t one of your clubbing hot spots.”

  Just the sound of Izak’s low rumble in my ear makes me think of that afternoon in my bedroom three days ago. When he pinned me with his powerful body and his long fingers stroked between my legs. I flush red at the memory and my panties are suddenly damp. Simmering anger—at my body’s willful reaction and my current impossible situation—has me grabbing another glass of champagne. I can practically feel Izak’s disapproving frown behind me.

  “No, it’s not,” I reply tightly while keeping a carefully pleasant look on my face lest anyone is waiting to snap a picture of me acting inappropriately. “It’s an art gallery showing where Geneva’s elite have gathered to simper over the bombastic work of Lord Chamberlain; a man who could lose a drawing contest to an Irish wolfhound.”

  Sparing a quick glance over my shoulder, I notice the slightest hitch of a smile on my bodyguard’s face, though his eyes never stop scanning the room for possible threats. I should tell him he can relax, because the only thing threatening my immediate future is the metaphorical clock counting down my last few days of freedom.

  “I admit, I was surprised you planned to attend. This definitely isn’t your scene.” Then, in a voice low enough that only I can hear he says, “And I can’t recall a time when you ever did something you didn’t want to do.”

  Including three days ago. His unspoken words hang in the air and I want to take a step back to feel his hard body pressed on mine again. Ignoring the temptation, I toss back an unladylike gulp of champagne. “Yes, well, we all have to grow up sometime. And I’m afraid time is a luxury I no longer have.”

  “Why?” he demands. “What aren’t you telling me? Why is Applebaum’s visit any different than the eleven before him?”

  I look where Cyrus stands across the room admiring a canvas with a few black drizzles of paint on it like it’s a goddamn Rembrandt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.

  Cyrus’s gaze breaks from the painting to seek me out in the crowd. When he finds me and our eyes meet, he smiles wide and gives me a shy wave. I do my best to return the smile, and for the hundredth time, the talk I had with my father this afternoon starts over in my mind like a sad song stuck on repeat.

  “Please don’t fight me on this, Daria. It’s a good match, one that will allow you—with some discretion, of course—to be who you are.”

  “You’d have me enter into a loveless marriage?”

  “Darling,” he says, dipping his head to better hold my gaze, gently commanding me to be honest with him. “Is it truly a love match that you’re after? Or one that will grant your wild spirit the freedom it craves.”

  “Hiding my wild spirit in secret isn’t true freedom,” I argued. “It’s just a longer process for suffocating it.” Granted, the kind of marriage he’s proposing I have with Cyrus Applebaum is a best-case-scenario for the situation I’m in, but I still prefer no scenario at all. I glance over to where I know Izak is standing on the other side of the thick double doors. No scenarios that are available to me, anyway.

  Sighing, he rounds the massive desk to grasp my shoulders comfortingly. “You know that your title is merely honorary; it legally grants you nothing, and the trust you’re entitled to when I pass is not enough to live on indefinitely. Everything will go to Thomas as the only male heir, and Talia was practically born for the old ways, eager to raise her station through marriage.

  “It’s you I’m worried about, Daria,” he says, pausing heavily before continuing. “As was your mother. I didn’t want to tell you this, but the last thing she asked of me was to promise I would secure a good future for you. To know that you would always be taken care of. I believe you could be happy as the Duchess of Sasquine, and your union would ensure that I kept my promise to her.”

  Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I blink several times and draw in calming breaths to keep them from betraying my show of strength, weak as it may be. I know my father’s not trying to purposely manipulate me by bringing Mum into the equation. But sharing her dying wish for me has all but cemented my full cooperation.

  I’m not ready to let him know that just yet though. I still have a few days left, and I intend to take them.

  “All right, Daddy,” I say, forcing the corners of my mouth up for reassurance. “I’ll spend time with Cyrus. Then, at the end of the week, I’ll either accept his proposal, or you can choose another suitable noble for me to marry, as promised.”

  Those fateful words have been ringing in my ears all night, making my head feel like I’m already afflicted with the wicked hangover I’ve planned for tomorrow morning. Well, if I’m going to feel like shit anyway, I might as well make the best of it. I turn and stop another waiter.

  “Duchess, I don’t think you need any more champagne,” Izak says, his words clipped.

  “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Blackstone.” To the waiter, I say, “I’d like your finest single malt whisky, neat, and make it a double.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Izak

  It wasn’t long after Daria switched to whisky that she decided she’d pandered enough to the masses for one night. She gave Applebaum a weak excuse about going home with a headache, then we made a hasty exit. Not that we went home. For the last hour, I’ve watched the duchess cure her “headache” by partying with a group of rich assholes in the VIP loft of a popular exclu
sive nightclub. Another gathering of intoxicated twenty-somethings blowing their parents’ money while blowing smoke up each other’s asses.

  “Dar, that dress is positively killer on you. I could never pull off something that low-cut, I’d look like an absolute whore.”

  I grit my teeth and force myself not to react, because the prissy bitch is implying that’s exactly how Daria looks, despite saying otherwise. That’s how these people talk to one another—barbed compliments coated in sugar and served with a fake as fuck smile.

  “Alma, darling,” Daria says, placing a hand on the girl’s arm and a devilish twinkle in her eye, “you don’t need a low-cut dress to make you look like a whore when you go commando in a mini-skirt and flash your cookie to anyone with a pair of eyes in their head.”

  I don’t bother hiding my smirk, but Alma’s bodyguard standing next to me fakes a cough to cover his bark of laughter. I mentally amend my earlier thought: that’s how all of them talk to each other except Daria Copeland, the Duchess of Geneva.

  When I first got assigned to her detail, it disappointed me to see the kind of crowd she hung around; it was worse than cliché and exactly what all the celebrity gossip sites portrayed. But the more I paid attention, the more I realized she isn’t anything like her “friends,” despite what she lets the public think. And when she gets fed up with their games enough not to play along—like now—they let her get away with it because she’s a filthy rich royal, and they’re just filthy rich.

  Daria finishes her drink, then points at where I’m standing with a half dozen other bodyguards at the roped-off entrance to the VIP section. “Mr. Blackstone, I need a word, if you please. George,” she directs to one of the bouncers, “let Mr. Blackstone in. I need him.”

  A conflicting mix of concern that something’s wrong and the desire to hear her say those words and mean them for more illicit reasons snaps me into action. The burly man named George unhooks the velvet rope, and I cross the space in a few large strides. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  She stands—amazingly enough without difficulty, considering the amount of alcohol she’s had—and arches a haughty brow. “I said I need a word with you. In private.”

  Instead of taking her by the hand like I want, I use the more impersonal move of grabbing her upper arm and guiding her away from the main part of the loft that’s set up like a posh sitting room. In the back, I tuck us into the alcove for the women’s private restroom, anxious to hear what—

  Daria shoves me against the wall and crushes her mouth to mine. My primal instinct roars to life and shoves all logical thoughts into the dirt. I spin us around and crowd her into the corner. My shoulders shrug up as I grip her face and thrust my tongue between her lips, ravaging her like she’s my last meal. Her moan ripples through me and makes my balls ache—

  “Blackstone, you still have eyes on Raven?”

  The sound of Andrew’s voice in my ear is like waking up to a bucket of cold water in the face. Wrenching away from the siren’s trap, I spin and check for anyone down the hall who might have seen me royally fucking up. Pun intended.

  “Copy that, Raven’s with me,” I respond, hoping he can’t hear the pounding of my heart through the comms mic. Daria’s eyebrows raise at the mention of her codename. What felt like fractions of a second in comparison to the time I want with her, Daria and I have been out of sight for several minutes. And since she had a history of giving her security the slip before I joined her team, I can’t blame Andrew for checking in. “Restroom break. Be back shortly.”

  “Shortly,” she says with a scrunched nose and reaches for my tie. “I intend to take much longer than that, bodyguard.”

  Before she can pull me closer, I grab her wrist and smooth the tie back down my front. “We’re not doing anything tonight, Duchess, and we’re sure as shit not doing anything here where we’ll be front page news for every paper in the kingdom.”

  It’s a thing of wonder to watch her arousal fall away and be replaced with indignation. Squaring her shoulders, she raises her chin and glares a hole right through me. “I find I’m quite tired of you toying with me, Mr. Blackstone. Either you want to fuck me, or you don’t. Which is it?”

  The crude way in which she offers herself would be a turn-on if I weren’t fuming from her insinuation that my feelings for her could be so trite that I would toy with her. Making sure our bodies don’t touch, I step into her space until she’s forced to tip her head back to maintain eye contact with me.

  “Make no mistake, Duchess, I’m not toying with you. I very much want to fuck you, and I swear to you that I will. But it won’t be when you’re drunk, and it won’t be when we have an audience for every deviant fucking deed I do to you.”

  Satisfaction swells in my chest at her shocked gasp. No one—not even Edwin—speaks to her with this domineering tone. Her entire life, she’s held the dominant position over everyone around her. Not because she demanded it or even asked for such control, it’s simply been given to her without question from over-indulgent parents, people under her employ, and her so-called friends.

  But dominance is not Daria’s truth.

  She is my perfect counterpoint. I recognize it in her as easily as I know my own face—the desire to submit. Like a flower kept out of the sunlight, it’s lain dormant inside her so long she doesn’t even know it exists. But now it’s beginning to wake, to blossom and unfurl its petals under my touch, and bathe in the warmth of my commands.

  “Like I said, I will fuck you. I’ll make you scream the name—my name—that you work so hard not to use. But it’ll happen on my terms, Daria. Not yours.” I watch as a shudder of excitement rolls through her body and her pupils swallow the ocean blue of her eyes. “Now, if you’re done living up to your reputation for the night, I’ll escort you to the car.”

  It takes less than a second for her to shed her arousal and shrug back into her armor. Fixing a wicked grin on her face, she uses a single finger against my chest to push me away. “Oh, I’m not nearly done, bodyguard,” she says, emphasizing my position and my earlier statement. “I’m a woman with needs, and if you won’t accommodate them, I’ll find someone who will.”

  I don’t have the chance to respond before she’s halfway down the hall, relegating me to my proper place as head of her security detail with every determined step. I resume my position next to Andrew and the other bodyguards behind the velvet rope and focus on keeping my muscles loose. I don’t need anyone reading into why I’m so worked up after a private “discussion” with the duchess.

  For the next couple of hours, Daria subjects me to the infuriating torture of watching her act the part of her debauchery moniker to perfection. Seemingly carefree, she laughs and drinks and dances, grinding against every asshole in the loft like it’s her job. If she doesn’t end up with friction burns through her clothes, the fire I’m shooting from my eyes should do the trick.

  The only silver lining on this fucked-up cloud is her consistent refusal to touch the lines of white powder on the marble coffee table. Daria might be a party girl with the alcohol tolerance of a man three times her size, but she’s always drawn the line at hard drugs. In fact, I noticed she switched to water a while ago, signaling that our night is finally coming to an end.

  “Andrew, go to the car and sit tight. I’ll tell you when you can bring it around. Shouldn’t be much longer now.”

  He nods and heads out, following the protocol we perform every time the duchess has a night out, which is regularly. I have another half a dozen men stationed in different areas in and out of the club, keeping an eye out for anything sketchy and ready to spring into action if needed. I check my watch and press the button on my comms to give my team the estimated time for departure and tell them to standby.

  When I look up again, I don’t immediately see Daria. A pang of alarm hits me square in the chest until I find her toward the rear of the space. She’s leaning back against the entrance to the restroom hallway with Aron Ashby, a tech company heir,
leaning into her with his face tucked into her neck.

  My blood boils at seeing another man’s hands on her while I’m forced to stand here and do nothing. But this is hardly the first time. At least now I know what happens every time she brings one of these dickwads home. Not a fucking thing.

  The hair stands up on the back of my neck when she turns her head away from Ashby and pushes on his chest with the strength of a newborn foal. Daria’s no weakling; I’ve watched her put men on their asses multiple times. My senses go on high alert and I notice everything wrong at once: how her movements are slow and uncoordinated, her knees look like they’re about to give out, and her brow is knitted in confusion as she repeatedly tries to push Ashby away.

  Normally we try to avoid making a scene, but I don’t think twice about the dozens of camera phones around. Daria’s safety is all that matters. Leaping over the velvet rope and ignoring the shouts from the bouncers, I race across the room, barking orders to my team for backup and crowd control. “Andrew, hold your position, be ready for a fast exit.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Hey! Get the fuck off of her,” I growl, shoving Ashby back and catching Daria around the waist when she falters. He starts to advance, clearly pissed I interrupted his good time, but I pull my gun and level it at his head. “Don’t you move a goddamn muscle.”

  The color drains from his face and he reaches for the sky like this is a cartoon stick-up. My team arrives a second later. “Take him in for questioning. He roofied the duchess, I’ll stake my job on it.”

  Two of my guys apprehend Ashby while the others deal with everyone in the VIP loft, confiscating their phones to delete any pictures or videos they took that can be leaked to the media. But my full attention is on Daria. Her eyes are glassy, and her cheeks are flushed, but she’s still conscious. For now.

  “You okay? Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head lightly and stared up at me with moisture welling in her eyes. “Take me home?”