Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  “La Reine De La Mer is hosting a charity ball in a week. All the major players in town are invited.” He read the small announcement that had been put up on the Hilton website.

  “Oh, well. Now we don’t have to storm it in the middle of the night, right?” Akira asked Brand with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “No,” he agreed. A glimmer of an idea forming in his head.

  “What’s our plan, boss?” Jared asked him expansively.

  “Our plan? I guess we break out our tuxes. It’s time to go gambling.” He winked at Akira.

  ~~~~~~

  Barnaby Quinton checked into one of the most expensive hotels in Monte Carlo with his stunningly gorgeous wife two hours later.

  Barnaby immediately ordered champagnes by the trayful and opened a line of credit for a sum that opened every single door in the casino for him. He also got a private villa with a view to die for and a wife who spent a lot of time in the designer boutiques.

  Then Barnaby’s wife accompanied him to the casino. Where they lost money so spectacularly over the next few hours, it was fascinating to watch.

  But, Barnie Quinton belonged to old Australian money – his folks owned cattle stations in the Werrangal region and even the current bushfires hadn’t diminished their fortune at all.

  So, when Barnaby Quinton took his slightly tipsy but adoring wife to their villa, he was a happy man. If several hundred thousand Euro poor. And he was in the mood to play.

  “Such deep thoughts, cherie,” he said, still in character, running one finger down the open back of her midnight blue gown that shimmered with every movement she made.

  The gown was floor-length, and cut in the Greek style, with gathered shoulder straps. She’d taken an expensive mink coat along with it. It was lying on the blue Turkish carpet now.

  Housekeeping would attend to it tomorrow.

  “I… yes.” She nodded, closing her eyes. Chills running down the length of her spine.

  “This reflects very badly on me, doesn’t it?” he whispered, blowing his champagne and whiskey scented breath through her. Just before capturing her lobe, which had a tiny diamond stud and flicking his tongue over it.

  She clutched his wrist which was tracing lazy circles on her churning stomach.

  “How does it reflect badly on you, honey?” She wasn’t sure her voice would hold out against such concentrated seduction.

  “You shouldn’t be thinking of anything but me, should you?”

  His voice was guttural as he pulled her against him, and slid the straps of the dress down. The dress slipped down to her arms and she circled her arms around his neck.

  “I don’t,” she answered, softly, raising on her toes and kissed him, once on each cheek.

  Her shoes, five inch excuses of Italian footwear were kicked off near the mink and she could feel the strain on her arches.

  Barnaby closed his eyes now. Struggling against something that he wasn’t even aware of. And with that one gesture, he handed all power to her.

  “How about?” Akira kissed his chest now, while she undid the tiny pearl studs on the Zegna dress shirt and gathered them in one hand. “You think of nothing but me tonight?”

  He didn’t answer, just clenched his fists and let her take the lead.

  She kissed each part of his chest that she uncovered, while he stood trapped in his suit jacket and shirt.

  Aching to get closer, to get inside of her so that he could finally remember who he was. Finally, she reached his cummerbund and unsnapped it from behind.

  “I never found men in tuxedos sexy. Ever.” She slid the zipper on his dress pants down.

  He couldn’t believe she was still talking when he was already half out of his mind. Nowadays, all it took was one look. One thought. And he wanted her. He couldn’t stop wanting her. And it was starting to freak him out.

  She knelt at his feet, an erotic goddess with flame-colored hair and mysterious brown eyes who made him feel too much. Everything.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?” he asked at last, while she slid his black silk boxers down too.

  “Oh, yes I do.” She nodded, and her hair, all that gorgeous free-falling hair, touched his upper thighs.

  “I am glad I didn’t find them sexy till you,” she said simply, while she proceeded to drive him over the edge with her hands and tongue.

  After about eighty seconds of the most exquisite torture, he hauled her up by her hair, and kissed her. Tasting himself on her. It inflamed him, engulfed him to the point of madness.

  “You were right,” he muttered, shucking his jacket and shirt and kicked off his pants and boxers.

  “I am, but about what?” she asked him, while she kissed a line across his clavicle.

  His muscles bunched and trembled around her, and he could see how insanely pleased she was…that she could reduce him to this. A burning, quivering mass of want and desire that only she could satisfy.

  At least here, in their lovemaking, they didn’t hide.

  He hiked her around his waist and attacked her mouth, feeling her legs curve around him. She was small, delicate and the ways he wanted her would most assuredly hurt her. He tried to remember that.

  “Your mouth is very talented.”

  She laughed, and leaned back in his arms to look at him. His bruises were all healed now, leaving no scars, leaving his face as handsome as ever.

  “Now use that mouth to tell me how to peel this dress off you before I rip it.” He ordered, while he found her underneath the dress and pressed against her.

  One touch and she peaked, a liquid wave, that shimmered somewhere between pleasure and ecstasy.

  There was more to come, she knew. But she could hardly think, hardly breathe while she found the words to tell him how to get the dress off.

  “Zipper on the side,” she whimpered, slumping on his shoulder.

  He released the zipper and whipped the dress off her, still holding her captive. She laughed breathlessly, and then lost her breath, her mind, herself in his touch. His kisses.

  In him.

  Forty-Three

  On their third day as Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby Quinton, a monogrammed envelope arrived for them, where they were lunching at Maxim’s. There was a gold seal on the recycled paper envelope.

  The last two days had been great fun. They’d gone sightseeing on the boats, sunned at the hotel pool and played in the Casinos some more.

  Brand had started winning. Slowly but steadily, he’d won almost half the amount he’d sunk at the tables and slots. If the Hotel staff was aware that a different Barnaby was playing now, they didn’t bother too much about it. He was still a gregarious chap to talk to, and he was still besotted with his wife, despite offers from some of their patrons or even waiting staff.

  On the surface, they were still the honeymooning couple with money to burn and not enough brains to care.

  But there were undercurrents.

  Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby Quinton were aware that they were drowning since the night she’d made love to him so desperately. They didn’t laugh so much in their suite and they pretended not to notice.

  They kept up the pretense on the sightseeing tours and the shopping trips. And if she wore her designer sunglasses around him even in the evenings, he tried to not let it bother him.

  And when she caught him brooding at her, like she was a puzzle to solve, a problem to sort, she pretended to not care.

  All in all, it was an excellent arrangement that carried them as their week in Monaco wound down.

  Now he fingered the envelope that had been hand-delivered to him by one of the concierges at the hotel. The gold seal depicted a falcon swooping on a fish, flying towards a palm tree. A small oasis completed the circle of the seal.

  “Open it, honey.” Ashley Quinton urged her husband with a small excited smile.

  Only he knew that it was meaningless and left him feeling more and more clueless as to what she was thinking.

  “Sur
e thing, sweetheart,” he murmured carelessly and flicked the envelope open.

  A gold-embossed RSVP card fell out, along with an invitation done on cream paper so thick it had to weigh at least half a pound.

  “What is it, Barnie? Who’s it from?” she asked him impatiently, leaning in to check it out herself.

  “It’s an invitation from Prince Murad of Asharfil. There’s a charity ball on Sunday, five days from now. He’s invited us.”

  She’d heard of the country, knew that it was a small principality in the Middle East and not as prosperous as some of its neighbors. But her frown was genuine when she scanned through the gold-engraved letters on the invite.

  “See the venue,” he told her quietly.

  Akira’s heart about stopped when she found out where the gala event was to be.

  “It’s La Reine De La Mer,” she whispered through bloodless lips, finally whipping her white sunglasses off. Her hand trembled on the paper.

  He lifted it to his lips to kiss it and to give her strength.

  “Tell Prince Murad to save us a couple of seats.” He told the concierge while he looked at Akira and desperately wondered if there was any way he could get her out of this country so that a Prince wouldn’t kill her.

  It was his damnable luck and his irrefutable logic that he knew there was no such way.

  Forty-Four

  Akira finished steaming her dress. The new dress that Brand had asked her to buy, carte blanche on his numberless card and, for once, she’d heeded his order.

  She’d bought shoes and jewelry, underwear, accessories to go with the dress. And even the faux fashionista in her sighed in approval at the sheer gorgeousness of her outfit.

  She came out of the bathroom and found Brand staring at the opened bathroom door.

  Akira worked up a smile for him, because she knew he hadn’t been sleeping at all these past two nights.

  He was busy studying the blueprints of The Sea Queen and trying to figure out entry points, exit points and attack points. He was also trying to recruit a couple more men here in Monaco itself to help his core crew set up command central at the Hilton suite.

  One person, a certain Pierre La Roue had been found. A scarecrow-like French-African, who seemed to be some kind of explosives expert, and who found comfort in words like C4, Semtex, dynamite. The new guy, Jared, seemed to become his mate overnight and they were both drinking buddies before morning arose.

  It was all great, and still Brand worried.

  Brand fretted.

  He smiled continuously at her, kissed her at odd moments, while she worked on the series of stories that would catapult her career into orbit. She’d commandeered his laptop, so he made do with one that Murad had rigged up for him and they went over options and scenarios, one by one.

  Security over La Reine was tight. Tighter than any they’d expected, and the one busboy they’d managed to bribe would only talk about the amount of real gold silverware that was being unloaded at the docks and being carried to the ship.

  Nobody else, onboard, on the streets, could be bought.

  A last minute plan that Brand had suggested was to make a solo run the night before the party, check out what was what, and report back.

  Everybody had vetoed him out of it. There were too many unknown variables, they didn't know what the Prince’s Royal Guard was like, and they couldn't risk Brand this late in the op.

  Akira hadn’t voted, she hadn’t even known. If she’d known, one of two things would have happened.

  She would have made Brand take that one final step to protect her, to offer himself and Sebastian in exchange for her safety. Or she would have screamed and slapped him and pulled away from him so that he lost her forever.

  Either way, it would have meant the end for him.

  A part of him, the part of him that was still human and he was amazed that such parts existed, was fiercely glad that they’d had last night. Where he’d shown her over and over what she’d come to mean to him. How much he trusted with her.

  Last night, there had been a moment Akira was sure, when he’d been in her and held her so close, she couldn't tell them apart anymore.

  And he’d looked at her.

  Straight out at her, no barriers, no defences. Just pure emotion glimmering in the depths of those sin-black eyes. And he’d looked like he was going to say something. Something important.

  Something life-altering.

  But he’d surged into her too, at the same moment, and the connection had been lost. They’d just made love.

  ~~~~~~

  “I should send you away before we do this thing.” His muffled voice sounded so strange. Almost unsure.

  It was ridiculous, since the Brand she knew and loved was never less than two hundred percent certain. “I’ll always come back, you know that. I'm the original bad penny.” She held him close, and felt the single shudder run through him.

  He leaned back and glared at her. “Why won't you listen to me?”

  “Why won't you tell me your battle plan?”

  Brand sighed. But did not tell her the battle plan.

  She leaned down to kiss him on his unbroken nose. “Do me a favor?” she asked him lightly, while her heart thudded in crazy terror.

  “Anything,” he replied seriously, in just that way that made her already terrorized heart stumble.

  Akira worried about having a spontaneous coronary nowadays. “I know you’ve been staying up all night for the last couple of days. And before that, with the casinos. And before that we left San Magellan in the middle of the night. Brand,” She frowned. “When was the last time you had an uninterrupted night’s sleep?”

  He cocked his brows. “You’re asking me when I last slept, when you’re the one keeping me awake.”

  She nodded. Now as serious as him.

  “Alright, I think it was at the Excelsiora,” he admitted reluctantly. “Maybe, that first night we were there. Or the second. I’m not sure. I don’t need a lot of sleep, Akira. I am trained to get by with little.” He insisted, while she climbed on his lap and pushed him back on their bed. He went down without a fight but he was still frowning.

  “All you cavemen are alike,” Akira announced, scrambling down and removed his combat boots.

  He grinned. “Yup, we are, Princess.”

  She shot him a mild look, that strangely reminded him of his mother when he came home bloody from some schoolyard battle. He’d gotten into his fair share of scrapes and she’d tended every single one of them. But, there had been this look she had in her eyes.

  The ‘how-could-you-be-so-stupid, Brand?’ look.

  “You are going to war tonight, and you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days!”

  Brand opened his mouth to argue; then watched in some pain while she yanked his socks off, knife holster and all. He shut up.

  “So now you’re going to sleep. For me. So that you aren’t dead on your feet when we walk into the lion’s den and I have to save your sorry, but extremely bitable ass,” Akira ordered, setting his boots down by the bedside and loomed up over him.

  “Your favor is that you want me to sleep because I might close my eyes around the entrée course and get us both killed?” he asked her warily, although he was crawling backwards on the bed, and piling the pillows now.

  She nodded, arms folded under her breasts.

  His breath left him in a whoosh. “Alright. But on one condition.”

  She tilted her head. “What?”

  “You sleep with me too.”

  He saw the fight go out of her eyes and waited for her to nod yes.

  She didn’t. But she crawled up next to him and drew his arm around her, as they spooned. His leg was thrown over both of hers; they’d established this pattern over the last several nights.

  To escape her kicking, Brand insisted.

  But inside, where it counted, he knew. He knew he was trying to hold onto her. He was trying to hold onto her even when he had no right to. She didn’t b
elong in his world, and she certainly didn’t belong to him. Even if she made him think.

  Made him wish.

  ~~~~~

  Akira lay wakeful and watchful, while Brand dropped off. She wanted to move away, but his arms trapped her. And she didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to work on the story of her life. It was so complex, so woven, that writing it was making her head ache.