by Sara Arden
The Ladies Auxiliary, with their large purple hats and myriad of baking dishes, had detonated an explosion of all sorts of homemade dishes in his kitchen.
Damara watched with bright eyes as Mrs. Cresswell, his former math teacher, dished up plates of everything and handed it to them.
Half the time, her class had been the only one he’d bothered to attend.
Damara was getting a heaping serving of his past whether he wanted to share it with her or not.
“Come give us a hug, kiddo,” Mrs. Cresswell said.
He embraced her, and she patted his back reassuringly. She still smelled like roses. He remembered that her room always smelled like that rose perfume. It reminded him of the time she’d caught him pulling the fire alarm. He’d been meticulously removing the plastic covering that was supposed to repel such activity when he’d smelled her rose perfume. He’d thought for sure he was busted.
All she’d done was sigh and motion for him to hurry up. She’d said it was a nice day outside and they could all use a break, but if he did it again, she’d rat him out.
She probably should’ve turned him in to begin with.
“You’ve done well for yourself. I always knew you would, once you found an outlet for your...talents.” She smiled.
“Have you had anyone as bad as I was since?” He raised a brow and Helena Sutterfield sniffed indignantly.
“Johnny Hart gave you a run for your money—that’s for sure.” She shook her head. “Brilliant with numbers but no ambition.”
He considered. “You know, I think your class actually saved my life a couple times.”
She lit up. “Maybe you’ll come speak at the school and you can tell them that. I hear from kids all the time that they’ll never use advanced math in their everyday lives and it’s a waste of time.”
“You never know when you’ll have to calculate the gross national product of a country in relation to a mobster’s investments and how much you’ll need to pretend to make to get him to take a meeting with you. And then to discuss market trends without sounding like an idiot.”
She held up her hands. “See, ladies? What did I say? He was really a good kid underneath all that trouble.”
Her praise made him uncomfortable.
“A good kid? He’s the best of men,” Damara said.
Now it was more than uncomfortable. He itched. Damara’s praise had given him a rash.
“I bet the princess here has no idea just what a little hoodlum her ranger used to be,” Helena announced.
“Oh, I think I might. You don’t get the skills you need to rescue princesses without getting your armor dinged up just a bit.” Damara smiled at him.
No, no, no. He could not let her make this okay. It wasn’t. Because then she’d have him thinking those thoughts again. That he wasn’t born bad. But he was. He knew he was.
“Frankly, we were all surprised,” Helena said.
“I wasn’t,” Mrs. Cresswell said.
“Then you were the only one.” Helena sniffed again.
Damara bristled beside him. “In my country, it’s rude to enter a person’s home and say disparaging things about them. I can’t imagine it’s much different here. Is it, Mrs. Cresswell?”
The woman laughed. “No, dear. It’s exceedingly rude.” She eyed Helena.
But Helena Sutterfield wasn’t about to be intimidated or put off. “Rude would be the time he—”
“Helena, really,” Mrs. Cresswell interrupted her.
She was right, though.
He realized this was why he liked covert work so much—he could be someone else. “No, by all means.” He held out his hand in invitation. Let them say what they would about him, let them warn Damara off him as if he were a rabid dog that needed to be put down. Maybe that would make it easier to stay away from her.
Helena looked back and forth between them, but she shoved a bite of gelatin surprise in her mouth instead of speaking.
Which Byron had to think was a first.
“Ladies, I’m going to share a secret with you, but you must promise not to tell anyone else.” Damara quickly changed the subject.
They all looked at her and nodded, appearing to be eager for whatever gossip the princess would share with them.
“Byron and I didn’t want to wait anymore. So we got married this morning.”
There was a collective gasp.
“We’re still going to have a ceremony, but—”
“You’re newlyweds and you’d like to enjoy your privacy,” Mrs. Cresswell said with a knowing grin. “Well, ladies. Let’s leave our young prince with his princess.”
Byron rather thought getting them together to do something as a group had to be like herding cats, but Mrs. Cresswell managed it. Probably the same way she managed him. With a flurry of hugs and well wishes, the ladies were gone.
“How do you do that?” he asked her.
“What?” She turned to look at him.
“Make everyone want to do things for you.”
Damara shook her head. “I didn’t realize I did.”
“Thanks for getting rid of them. I know they mean well.” He was secretly grateful she’d gotten rid of them before they could sour her on him, before they could tell her all the horrible things he’d done and why he’d never be anything better than what he was.
“So you ran with a bad crowd, huh?” She smiled.
“I was the bad crowd, Damara.”
“I meant what I said. I don’t care that you were some bad-boy kid.” She shook her head. “You’re a good man.”
“Stop saying that.” He was almost pleading.
“Why?”
He turned to look into her eyes, hope and fear warring inside him. “Because I might start to believe you.”
* * *
DAMARA WAS DONE fighting herself.
Even if she never gave her body to him again, her heart never had a chance. The connection she shared with him wouldn’t ever let her be free. She wasn’t naive enough to think she was in love with him already, but she’d already tripped over the ledge and she was falling hard and fast.
And she knew he wouldn’t be there to catch her. She would hit bottom and she’d hit it alone.
It was really quite something to make the choice knowing he’d never be hers. Never feel the same way about her that she did about him.
He’d already touched her once. Didn’t they deserve to have some pleasure, something that felt good? If that’s all he had to share with her, she’d take it. By handing down edicts she’d been trying to change him, and she knew you couldn’t do that with people. You had to accept them as they were.
Byron didn’t want to cut himself open and show her his pain, and who was she to demand that he do it? Why was that her place? It wasn’t. The same as he couldn’t make her choices for her, she couldn’t make his for him. His pain was his. Why did she need to dig around in his wounds?
They were married now; they might as well reap some of the benefits.
“That look on your face is even more terrible than the one before.” He took a step back, hands in front of him as if that could protect him from whatever she was thinking.
“Is it?” she asked, not really looking for a response.
“You’ve come to some kind of decision, and from the set to your jaw, I don’t think I’m going to like it.” He shook his head.
“You’ll like it. You’ll like it a lot.” She hoped. “You said you wanted to kiss me before the Purple Hats showed up. So kiss me.”
“I thought we decided that was a bad idea.”
“Changed my mind.” She wet her lips.
“Because someone said something to me you thought was mean? The world is full of cruel people.” He stepped back from her.
“It is, but it’s full of good people, too.” Like you, she wanted to add.
“Are you going to kiss everyone Helena Sutterfield was mean to? Even if they deserved it?”
He was still trying to do the right thing, trying to take care of her and protect her from herself. But he needed to understand that you could never protect a person from their own wants, desires, angels and demons. They were always present. “Do you remember when you said I could see anything I wanted?”
His eyes closed. “You’re offering me what I want most knowing I can’t give you the same.” She could see his pulse beating in his neck, and she wanted to touch her lips to that place.
“I don’t care anymore, Byron. You said if I wanted to see anything to just ask. I want to see everything.”
“Then let’s go upstairs to the bedroom where there’s no camera.”
She’d forgotten about the cameras. She was so used to being on display, to being watched, that she’d put them right out of her mind. Damara took his hand, rough and calloused as it was, in her own soft one.
Then she closed the door behind them.
Desire warred with nervousness. “Show me,” she commanded, leaning against the door for support. She wasn’t going to back down now.
“You like being in charge so much, maybe we should play princess and the bodyguard.” He arched a brow.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Not like this.” He pulled his shirt off. “See, you give me commands and I’ll do anything you want. I’m at your service.”
Service. Made her think of all the ways she could require his talents.
“Is this a thing? People do this?” She blushed thinking about it.
“People do lots of things to get off. We could switch it up. You could be my bodyguard.”
He was totally naked under his jeans, but she knew he would be.
She didn’t know it was possible for her mouth to water and go dry at the same time. Every inch of him was gloriously perfect. Even the scars from knives, bullets and other violence. That was what she’d liked best about his hands—that they were scarred.
He was a weapon, and he was offering to let her wield him as she wished.
“As if anyone would ever believe that.” She snorted.
“I would.” He stood proud, unabashed in nakedness. Allowing her to drink in all of him.
“Only for pretend.”
“No, I saw you handle that guy in Carthage. You know how to fight. You’re small, but you’re strong and fast. With the right training, you’re capable of doing anything I can do.”
This was why he was dangerous. He believed in her. Not just what her name could do or her position, but the woman underneath.
Oh, she was in so much trouble. Her eyes were drawn down to his arousal.
She wanted to touch him, taste him, own him and be owned by him.
“What’s it going to be, Your Majesty? How shall I serve you?”
“Maybe all I want to do is look.” Her voice was hoarse, guttural and completely unlike her. That didn’t sound very commanding at all.
“Maybe. And maybe you want me on my knees between your thighs.”
Jolts of white-hot lust scalded through her. “Yes, I do.”
“Then what is your command?”
She couldn’t find the words. She was still afraid of what it would mean for her—for them. She didn’t want to tell him to fuck her, but she couldn’t ask him to make love to her either. And “take me” was too trite.
But he didn’t move forward, didn’t take control. Byron waited for her.
He wasn’t letting her off easy. She’d have to articulate exactly what she wanted from him to get it.
She understood now what it was like to be on display. Damara thought she knew, but she didn’t.
“Worship me. Make me believe I’m the only woman you’ll ever touch again. Make me feel like being your woman is better than being a princess.”
“As you wish.”
“You keep saying that to me.”
“What should I say?”
“It’s just... It sounds like it means something different than the way you speak it.”
“Do you want to talk about my vocabulary or would you like me to demonstrate my cunning linguistics?”
“Demonstrate.” That was the easiest answer of the night.
He moved toward her, and she was entranced with every part of him that was on display. Byron held out his hand in invitation to the bed. She sat on the corner gingerly, feeling more inexperienced than she had that night in Barcelona. He hooked his fingers around the waist of her pants. He held her gaze as he pulled them down her body.
She decided she liked him stripping her much better than stripping herself.
“You can still change your mind,” he said, his lips hot on the inside of her knee. “You should change your mind. You should tell me to stop, because you deserve better than this.”
She shivered with need. “No, I think we’re both getting exactly what we deserve.”
Next came her panties and still he didn’t look away. No, he met her stare—all dark intensity—even as he dragged her forward to the edge of the bed and drew her feet up onto his shoulders.
Even as he dipped his head.
Damara remembered how much pleasure he’d wrought with his tongue in Barcelona. She knew what he could do to her, and the anticipation was an erotic treat all on its own.
She was torn between wanting to watch his every motion and hold that connection with him and surrendering to the sensation. He pulled her farther forward so that he supported her weight and she couldn’t see him but for his dark hair.
He was like a bird of prey, flying higher and higher until he dived in for the kill. Even as she flew with him, they were twisted in some death spiral toward culmination. Making love with him was like watching a master paint on canvas. His hands and mouth the brushes, her body the canvas and her ecstasy the paint.
It would be a masterpiece for them both. She writhed and arched, moaned for more.
Again, as before, she felt as if she were a bowstring that had been strung so tight she’d snap, but he pushed her further until her whole world narrowed to a tiny pinpoint of light collapsing in on itself until it exploded outward in a bomb blast. She experienced every sensation, every bliss, all at once.
He eased her legs down and rose up to kiss her on the mouth. She tasted herself—sweet.
“I want to do the same for you that you did for me,” she offered shyly between kisses.
“You don’t have to.” He almost sounded afraid.
“I want to, Byron. I really want to.” She took him firmly in hand, as she had in Barcelona, but this time, she was going to do all those things with her mouth.
Damara reversed their positions on the bed.
She realized that for Byron Hakwins, a growl could mean so many things. Usually, it meant he was angry, but that low rumble in his throat when she took him, the jerk of his hips and the way his fingers curled gently but firmly around her shoulders told her everything she needed to know.
Damara still hadn’t finished exploring him, so she decided to indulge. She traced his length, learning what was sensitive, what he liked and what he didn’t as she went.
“Damara—” Even though he growled again, it was as though her name were a curse or a blessing—she wasn’t sure which. But she hoped for both. She wanted to make him feel so much pleasure, he thought he would shatter, and maybe she did want him to shatter. Just a little bit.
And she’d pick up the pieces again, the same as he’d done to her in Barcelona.
Being as new to the love game as she was, she might have been unsure of herself, but Byron wasn’t. Byron believed she could do anything.
So maybe she could.
“What you do to me—” His whole body was taut even as his hips surged forward. He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. She was determined to have all of him. Even his culmination.
He spasmsed and cried out her name as he spent his seed.
Damara was very satisfied with herself, indeed.
She’d given him these moments, this bliss. This was something that the future couldn’t steal from them. It would always be theirs. Damara slid down into the crook of his arm. That had become second nature to her. She tried not to think about how she’d miss sleeping next to him when it was all over.
She’d miss a lot of things. The way he touched her, the way he made her feel...not just in the bedroom, but as a woman. As a princess, too.
He made her feel as if she could do anything.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THIS MOMENT, RIGHT HERE, was the best thing Byron had ever experienced. It was better than sex, better than his first kill, even better than when he’d finally realized what his purpose was—killing. Destruction.
Simply lying in bed with Damara Petrakis— No, his wife. Damara Hawkins.
Guilt bloomed.
She’d told him no, but he’d pushed and coerced and seduced until he’d gotten exactly what he wanted and made her think it was her idea.
Yet he continued to bask in the warmth of her arms, the softness of her body pressed against him and the comfort she offered.
For him, this was happiness. Or as close as he’d ever been. The worst part was knowing it couldn’t last. Part of him wished he’d never had it at all. Then he wouldn’t be able to miss it when it was gone.
He tried to remind himself that she was just a mission and this heat between them was a bonus, but he knew it was more than that. So he had to cut it out like a cancer before it had a chance to spread.
Even though he didn’t want to break free from the cocoon they’d wrapped themselves in, he forced himself to get up.
“Where are you going?” she said sleepily.
“Shower.”
She stretched lazily. “I’ll join you.”
