The man shrugged. “It’s common information, no secret. But I’ll give it to you anyway. That outfit, they run the same routes, always.” He supplied Dimitri with the fisherman’s name, his boat’s identification number, and his crew’s next location. If Dimitri was right about the watch, members of the GNSF would intercept the fisherman at his next port. He’d be questioned then about the watch, yes, but in a way perhaps more circumspect than Dimitri would have done. Either way…it would be news. Information.
In the mirror, he could see the man slip the watch off his wrist and hand it over to Lauren with a grin as she pushed a large pile of euros toward him. She threw her arms around the man, thanking him effusively, all while keeping a death grip on her prize. Then, without looking Dimitri’s way, she turned for the front door, making a beeline out of the bar and into the open air.
Dimitri glanced back to the bartender, realizing he now had no money to pay for his drink. The man waved him on. “Go. I’m glad for you, Dimitri. Had I known this one watch would help you, I would have alerted you to it long ago.”
“You’ve done me a great service.” Leaving the man with the promise of payment, he turned as well. His gaze took in the laughing table of fishermen. They would be met in Samothrace by members of the GNSF and would not be so happy then. Let them enjoy their beer and good fortune while they could.
Lauren was already halfway to the beach rover when he caught up to her, and she was moving fast. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she said, though she didn’t look at him. He frowned but could sense the anxiety rolling off her in waves, and they didn’t speak until he’d started the rover. As they exited the parking lot, she relaxed enough to lose her death grip on the watch, though her hands shook as she handed it over to Dimitri.
He eyed her as he took the watch, then glanced back to the open beach. He quickly slid the watch on his wrist. It hung there with a reassuring weight. “I thought you were a master negotiator. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I wasn’t negotiating for myself, I was negotiating for you, and for a man who was your best friend. It changes things.” She gestured toward the watch. “Is it the right one?”
“It is.”
“How can you tell? You’re not even really looking at it.”
“I can tell because the watch has two diving chronometers that most flight watches don’t, and a world time meter that most diving watches don’t. It’s also engineered for high-altitude antifogging. And,” he offered her a lopsided smile, “the band is cracked.” He held the watch toward her, and she saw the thin crack in the metal next to the case. “Ari had a new one on order. It arrived three days after he was lost at sea.”
Lauren stared at him. “Do you think those men—those men saw Ari? Knew him? Maybe they helped him out of the water or saw where he, I mean—” She broke off, clearly unsure of how ready he was to deal with the concept of Ari being finally gone. He wasn’t sure himself, and the need resurfaced to go and interrogate the men. Lauren apparently felt the same way. “We should go back! You should ask them directly now, before they leave.”
“No.” With clear assurance, his training reasserted itself. No. He had waited too long to do this wrong now. He would make his report and let the royal family follow up. Their need to find out what happened to Ari was every bit as great as his own. And their need to do it with ultimate secrecy was paramount. They did not want to look weak or foolish to either their allies or their enemies.
He shook his head. “We’ll go in town to make the full report and ensure I have a strong enough signal to send pictures. But we’ll stop first at home to radio it in with the sat phone. I don’t want to wait.”
“Well, I should say not.” They raced across the sand, Lauren practically bouncing in her seat. She was almost out of the rover before it stopped in front of the villa, running around to tug him out as well. “I can’t believe you can’t video call. Can you even take a picture with this thing?”
“No, which is why we’re going into town. King Jasen will also want the watch secured, so our timetable has probably moved up as well.”
That stopped her, and she turned back to him. She’d made it as far as the porch, and as he mounted the stairs, her manner seemed suddenly far too tense. “Moved up as in—”
“As in I expect I’ll be recalled back to the mainland immediately, with you as well.” He frowned at her as her expression flickered between disappointment, loss, and finally resolve. “What is it, Lauren?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lauren looked up, blinking as Dimitri loomed over her. They were on the porch, the porch where the day before she’d sat, clutching her beer, wondering if she was reading Dimitri’s signals wrong, and practically desperate to have sex with the man, if only once. Her time on the island had been a remarkable, time out of time experience, and she was already losing the memory of it, her mind already moving forward, everything happening too fast.
Now she felt as if she had to memorize everything around her, because it was all ending. Everything would be going back to normal, and she wasn’t ready for normal yet, though she knew that was selfish, knew that that wasn’t her place. She didn’t care.
“Lauren.” Dimitri’s large hands came up to her upper arms, and he gently steadied her as if she were a filly about to bolt, or a skittish child about to have a meltdown. Was that what he thought of her, she wondered? And what did it matter if he did?
But it did matter. It mattered a lot. And if she wasn’t careful, she would betray how much it mattered, and then the big hulking bodyguard would have a better story to tell his military buddies for the rest of his life, about how he swooped an American heiress off her feet without so much as lifting a hand, and then she turned into a blubbering mess at the prospect of him leaving her. They’d all have a good laugh about that, probably, or at least they should.
“Lauren,” Dimitri said again, more sharply this time. “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” she snapped, smiling to soften the harshness of her tone. She glanced away to compose herself. How many times had she done that over the years? A simple pause to center on what was important, what counted. A resetting of her expression to ensure that she conveyed exactly what she wanted to convey—and only what she wanted to convey.
But when she looked back to Dimitri, it all fell apart again. She prayed she sounded artful when she spoke, that he couldn’t tell how much he affected her, but her heart was in her words too much to her own ears, and there was nothing she could do about it. “It’s just that—once you make that call, we’re done here, right? We’ll pack up and leave this house, this beach, and head back to the mainland on the earliest possible boat.”
“Well…yes. But that’s better for you anyway. You didn’t plan on staying hidden for any longer than a few days, remember?” He smiled, and suddenly he seemed larger, more powerful than she wanted him to. Definitely more in control. Where had all that predictable confusion gone? “Unless you simply can’t imagine life without me?”
His tease let her recenter herself, far more than any of her training could have. See? He didn’t consider this any big deal. Why should she?
“Ha, no. Of course not.” She straightened with a bright smile as Dimitri lounged back against the railing, watching her. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “What will your role be anyway, after you give up the watch? Are they going to let you take part in the search?”
He shrugged, apparently completely unconcerned. “I’ll go where they order me to go,” he said. But he wasn’t looking at the watch; he was looking at her. “That’s what you do when you commit to serve.”
“Whatever.” She looked out to the ocean. “Sounds kind of mindless to me.”
He chuckled, clearly way too happy about the idea of getting rid of her. “Not really. The military doesn’t want you to stop thinking, princess. They want you to think very hard about the right things.” He didn’t move, but she still
sensed him edging toward her, somehow, like a net that was closing in too quickly. “You aren’t paid to counteract your orders, you’re paid to be creative in the pursuit of your orders.”
“Creativity, right,” she muttered, stung to the quick though he hadn’t said anything offensive. Once again, he simply seemed so…blasé. So matter-of-fact. As if none of this mattered. As if she didn’t matter. “I don’t remember creativity being a key attribute of a good soldier.”
“I suspect you probably haven’t gotten your hands dirty with too many soldiers, good or otherwise.”
The fact that he was right didn’t make the comment any less annoying. “You have no idea what kind of men I’ve been with.”
“I think I have some idea.” He moved toward her then, easy and relaxed, and she took a sharp step back, forgetting how near she’d already been to the wall. The cool, rough plaster pressed against her as Dimitri rested a hand on the wall above her, leaning in to stare down at her, his expression smug. “I suspect you are the kind of women who likes her men pretty but weak. Easily controlled. Fit enough to look good jogging beside you or playing tennis, but not someone you actually expect to get any real work done. And certainly no one that would qualify as creative.”
“And you are?”
“We’re not talking about me.” A hot surge of embarrassment flared through Lauren at Dimitri’s chiding tone, but when she would have moved away, he put his other hand against the wall, effectively caging her. “We’ll get to me in a second. First I want you to describe the last man you allowed to make love to you.”
Lauren’s eyes widened at the rude question, but she couldn’t stop her brain from jumping to the man in question—not really a man, just some guy she knew from college, someone who was tall, lean, good-looking in a Ralph Lauren model kind of way. His hair had always been perfect, she found herself thinking now. His face always smooth. His manners always careful, precise. Even in bed.
“On second thought, never mind,” Dimitri said. “You’ve told me everything you need simply with that disappointed look on your face.”
She scowled up at him, taking in his hot, hooded eyes, his skin bristling with a two-day beard, his lips curved into a mocking smirk.
She pushed against his chest, not expecting to move him. She didn’t. “Well, at least he had manners,” she snapped, pushing him harder. Instead of shifting back, Dimitri leaned closer, tilting his hips until they connected with hers, the pressure of his hard shaft shocking though she expected it. It was rough, almost crude, and she wanted to spit out a rebuke. But it was also exactly what she wanted, what she needed. And there was no way she could think of words as her knees wobbled beneath her, her belly swimming with a damp heat that she could no more articulate than ignore.
“Manners,” Dimitri murmured, and he dipped his head down to her ear, as if to whisper a confidence to her. Instead, she felt the cool slide of his tongue as it traced the rim of her ear, his teeth then closing lightly around the lobe. Unable to stop herself, she clenched her hand in his shirt, half grabbing it, half bracing herself against Dimitri’s body, unsure of anything but the heady sensation as he kissed his way down her neck and into the curve of her shoulder. His right hand came away from the wall and cupped her breast, hard, as his gaze reconnected with hers. “I’ve never been a big fan of manners in bed. Perhaps you’ll have to explain to me how that works.”
“You’d never pick it up,” she managed, and then his other hand was massaging her breast as well, practically steaming through her clothes.
“You’ve got my attention now,” he murmured. “Believe me, I’m all ears.”
His words were calm and measured, but she could feel the heat beginning to roll off him as his body reacted to hers. His hands moved again to her bare arms, and the touch of him electrified her. She tilted her head up, searching his gaze.
“Do we really need to leave yet?” She broke off at the embarrassment of what she was asking. But suddenly, the world outside this villa seemed a big and lonely place, whereas standing in the circle of Dimitri’s arms felt perfectly safe, impossibly right.
Dimitri leaned closer to her. “Something you want, princess?” he said gruffly, his lips skimming her cheek before barely brushing against her mouth. “Because I’m more than happy to give it to you. But this time, we have to do it my way.”
Dimitri grinned hard as Lauren’s startled gaze met his. She acted like she was this remote, untouchable woman, unwilling and unable to be moved by any man. But he knew differently, had known it since the first time he’d seen her. She wasn’t made for the neat little men in their tidy suits and expensive cologne that he suspected adorned all of her boyfriends in the past. She wasn’t made for someone willing to toady to her and give into her every imperious request.
She was made to be met halfway—more than halfway. And then taken completely over the edge.
Beneath him, Lauren trembled, but only a little bit. He was kissing her face, her mouth, barely willing to let her breathe, to let her talk, but he heard the “yes” she managed as she tangled up her hands in his shirt. Heard the sigh of relief as he pulled her roughly into his body, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her inside. She wanted him to take control. He was more than happy to oblige.
Dimitri didn’t stop this time at the living room. His long strides ate up the distance to the stairs, and when Lauren made to regain her own feet at the steps, he growled, bending down to find her mouth again with hers. His kiss was fierce and brooked no argument. She didn’t give any. He bounded up the rest of the stairs to the room—his room. The room she’d slept in two nights before, the bed now hotel-neat, the place spotless, as if no one had been in there. But she had. And now she would be again.
Dimitri hit the bed within three strides, dropping her on it and immediately covering her body with his. Lauren wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her fiercely, her legs going around his hips and her hand at the back of his neck, as if she could crawl inside his body. Sounded good to him. He kissed her roughly, tasting, demanding, and the harsh, desperate breath of her response drove him to higher and higher need.
“You have other clothes?” he demanded, and he pulled away, staring fiercely down at her.
She blinked at him. “Clothes? What—yes.” She frowned as his hand moved to the neckline of her loose tank. “These are—they weren’t expensive, they’re just—”
“Good.” He dipped his hand into the neckline and yanked, the thin material giving way, exposing the lace of her bra. It buckled in front, and he snapped the clasp easily. With a guttural growl, he leaned forward to take her bared breast in his mouth, reveling in the way Lauren shifted and writhed beneath him, her hands now in his hair, her body arched. She was made for sex, but now he decided it was more than that. She was made for sex with him.
He lifted again long enough to shred the rest of her shirt open, the soft curve of her belly begging for his mouth, his hands, and he gave into the compulsion. Curling his hands beneath her ass, he scorched a trail of kisses down her stomach and over the thin linen of her pants, quieting her squirming as he felt the heat swell up from her and envelope him. The rush was intense, and when she struggled to reach her waistband with her own hands, he batted her hands away, instead ripping open the cheap placket and revealing the soft cotton panties beneath. “You lie there,” he ordered, his voice a harsh rasp.
He ripped down Lauren’s trousers and her panties with it, then licked and kissed his way down to the most intimate part of her, the soft folds already full and ready for him. Lauren hissed out a curse as he drew his tongue down the very center of her sex, teasing and tasting, pressing into her while she buried her hands in his hair, asking him things incoherently, to stop, to not stop, to go, to keep going. Her body trembled with adrenaline and desire, and he could feel her climax building by the raggedness of her breath, the looseness of her thighs, the way she pressed his head first one way, than another, unconscious that she was doing it but unable to stop, un
able to do anything but lose herself in the pleasure he was giving her.
His own cock throbbed so hard, he thought it was going to burst, but he pulled away from Lauren, hesitated briefly as she cried out in alarm, then lowered his head again and returned to the most sensitive part of her, the nub he had been teasing and brushing. Now he licked into her like a starving man granted a meal, and she clamped her hands on his shoulders, arching back as she convulsed with a gasp of surprise and pleasure. That cry turned to confusion as he lifted himself off her, ridding himself of his own cargo pants in a quick jerk and reaching for the condom to sheathe himself. Lauren was curling away, lost in her own reaction, but he wasn’t going to let her evade him now. He reached for her wrists, pinning her to the bed, and pressed himself into her body again, her legs falling open naturally to accept the intrusion of him.
Her eyes fluttered open as he slid his cock along her already sensitized skin, setting off another wave of involuntary shudders.
“You can’t—I can’t,” she gasped. “Not now. I want you inside me.”
“I want that too, princess,” he gritted out. He slipped his shaft into her without hesitation, and she drew in a sharp breath as her body clamped down on him. “I’d say I want that more than you do.” He thrust once, twice, filling her to the brim before pulling out again, then burying himself inside her once more. His own need to explode was pulling him apart at the seams, but he was enjoying watching her too much. Her mouth open, her breath coming fitfully between her lips. Her eyes half-lidded, unseeing. Her hair wild around her head, ground into the covers in a helpless tumble. Her clothes hanging off her, exposing her full breasts, her pink, smooth skin. He leaned forward and inhaled the essence of her, his face in the crook of her neck, his lips tracing a line up the curve above her collarbone to rest beside her ear. He nipped at her earlobe, then traced along the delicate arc of her ear, reveling in the way she shuddered.
Captured (Gowns & Crowns #2) Page 16
