The trousers looked good on him, though, especially the way the fine fabric clung to his strong behind and legs. During their relationship in London, they’d never gone shopping together, not like this. Even when she’d had that bespoke tuxedo tailored for him, he had gone to the fittings without her, lest someone talk about them.
Here, Flicka tucked their purchases from several stores into one shopping bag, which she carried, not Dieter. Bodyguards never carry shopping bags. It interferes with shooting the bad guys.
For supper, they found a little cafe and sat far inside and near the back, and they ate together. Flicka ate a mild whitefish. Dieter had a tenderloin of beef. The potatoes were creamy and well-sauced, and Flicka ate four carbolicious bites of them.
Nothing bad happened.
Afterward, in the dimming summer sun, they walked back to the safe house by a different route, and Dieter kept her behind him while he inspected first the door, where her hair still clung to the white paint, and then the room. He flicked on a light and continued the inspection.
When he was done examining everything, he locked the door behind them, and Flicka heard him blow out his breath as if relieved. “And we’re home.”
Home.
Dieter had used to call their flat in Kensington Palace home. It felt nice to hear it, even if he meant it about a tiny apartment in Paris that they would leave in the morning.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s good to be home.”
He walked over to the telephone that was plugged into the wall and picked up the receiver. “What was Magnus Jensen’s phone number?”
Flicka told him, starting with the Swiss country code.
He didn’t glance at her while he pushed the buttons.
Dieter said into the phone, “Got them?” He wrote something on the pad of paper and hung up. “Our first flight is at ten-fifty tomorrow morning on British Airways. The flights go all the way to Las Vegas.”
“And after that? How about after we reach Nevada?” she asked.
Dieter looked out the window. “My daughter has been with a babysitter since I left over a week ago.”
“I hired Suze Meier,” she reminded him.
“I have to go get her. I can’t stay away any longer. Alina’s mother abandoned us, and I have full custody. Alina doesn’t have anyone else in the world.” He looked back to Flicka, and anguish shaded his voice. “She’s my daughter.”
“No, no. I understand.” Flicka understood very well how a young child would miss her mother and cling to a father figure as the only stability in her life.
Dieter chuckled, but it was a sad sound. “I put down Wulfram and Rae as her next legal guardians, if something should happen to me. Her mother doesn’t want her at all.”
“Wulfie would be a good father to Alina, if it came to that. He did everything for me.”
“Gretchen played me, I think. I never managed to have a real conversation with her after she left.”
Wulfram always said that Dieter had abominable taste in women. “You said you have sisters.”
His sharp looked warned her to back off. “They aren’t in the picture.”
“Okay. You have to retrieve Alina. I’ll be in Nevada, and I’ll figure things out.”
Dieter took his gun from a holster on his ankle and released the magazine from it. He opened the body to pop out the round in the chamber and check the barrel. “I can’t let you stay there alone.”
“Alina needs you. I can take care of myself.”
“We’ll figure it out later,” he said.
“The important thing is that we’ve got tonight,” Flicka said.
A slow smile reached his eyes as he laid the gun on the little kitchen countertop. “Yes, we’ve got tonight.”
She walked over to Dieter and reached for his hand, letting their clasped hands hang between them.
“What if we pretended like the last few years never happened?” she asked, trying to phrase this right. “What if we pretended that we were back in London at Kensington Palace, and we’ve just come in from somewhere, and now we’re alone? Could we do that?”
Dieter slipped his arm around her waist and drew her against his chest. His heart beat against her palm. “Flicka, I’m worried about you.”
“I’m holding myself together, but I just don’t want to think anymore today. I just want to be happy for a little while.”
“You were happy in London?”
“Every minute. I wish we were back there.” She wished the last two years had never happened, but saying that would be accusing Dieter. She didn’t want to think about when he had walked away. She just wanted a moment with him.
Dieter’s voice dropped low in his throat, and he growled, “When we’re out there, who are you?”
“Prinzessin Friederike Augusta,” she whispered.
“And in here?” he asked. “In my bed, whose are you?”
“Yours,” Flicka whispered.
Dieter stroked his hand down her body and whispered, “If I move too fast, if you want to go slower or stop, tell me.”
“My whole life is shattered. I just want not to think.”
“Durchlauchtig, anything for you.” He bent and lifted Flicka, holding her in his arms. “You didn’t have to pretend you were drunk. I always loved carrying you to bed.”
She wound her arms around his neck. “My Lieblingwächter.”
“I’ve missed you so much.”
She wasn’t going to question that. She definitely wasn’t going to ask him for clarification.
That small glow of vindication might warm her for weeks.
And it might have to, if Dieter had to take care of his daughter and leave Flicka alone in Las Vegas.
This might be their last night.
Flicka squeezed her eyes shut and demanded that her mind not think and just pretend.
Taking Flicka To Bed
Dieter Schwarz
The passports will be a problem,
And we should have talked about them.
As Dieter carried Flicka in his arms to the bed, he thought that he should tell her about the passports.
Tomorrow, they would be traveling on those passports, and she needed to know.
The names on the passports were the problem.
The very large problem.
Giving Flicka time to acclimate to the names on both passports would be a good idea. Everyone needs time to adjust to information like that, especially in case a snooping customs official asked about her birthdate or where she was born.
Plus, there was the problem of the picture on it.
Giving them both time to adjust to the name on Dieter’s passport would be an even better idea.
She would have questions, and he couldn’t answer them.
It would be smart to talk about the passports.
Dieter rested his forehead against Flicka’s temple as he carried her the few steps to the bed. Her body felt lighter in his arms than he remembered when they had lived together in London, and her ribs felt almost frail through her shirt.
The blouse was one that she’d bought that afternoon while shopping. He’d had that wad of operational cash in small, well-worn Euros, and when Flicka had found something she liked, he’d doled out the money and bought it for her.
Every purchase had been a delight.
First of all, her shopping had impressed him. The clothes she’d selected were nice stuff that fit him well, much better than anything he managed to buy for himself. The price for every one of them was less than he usually spent, too, and she’d bought them three outfits each. She was good at shopping.
But also, that money that he’d dutifully spent on whatever she’d wanted was Rogue Security money, which meant it was his. He had built Rogue Security and earned that money, and spending the money on her and making her smile pleased him.
Every item had earned him a grin.
He’d even forgotten himself and gotten a little silly while he tried the clothes on for her.
Every minute had salved his shredded heart.
The last of the summer sunlight fell through the window, and Dieter held Flicka in his arms until she stopped trembling and her body melted against his.
He couldn’t wish away the last two years. Alina was half his heart, and he wouldn’t pretend his daughter didn’t exist. His soul would cave in.
But for Flicka, for one night, he could rewind the years and believe.
One Last Night
Flicka von Hannover
Safety.
If there was anywhere in the world that Flicka von Hannover felt safe, it was in Dieter Schwarz’s arms.
When she’d been a little girl and a teenager, he’d carried her away from danger more times than she could count.
When she’d taken him as her first lover, half the reason had been because she’d felt safer with him than with anyone else.
Plus, there was the amazing way his hard muscles twisted around his body, his slow smile she sometimes earned, and his acerbic sense of humor, and the shielded danger in his gray eyes.
Yeah, okay. Those, too.
And now, as he carried her to the bed, her trust in him blossomed.
Yes, there had been some years and some things that she didn’t understand, but maybe he’d had reasons to leave. Maybe there were things she didn’t know.
Maybe she didn’t want to think about them, anyway.
Maybe she just wanted to be with him tonight.
He settled her on the bed so that she was sitting up, which was weird. Usually, he laid her down and climbed on top of her.
Well, not usually.
Before.
Now, he sat down beside her and wrapped his arms around her, tucking her close to his chest. She had rubbed a cologne sample on his neck while they were shopping, and the faint scent lingered on his skin, a trace of sweet wood, citrus, and musk.
He held her as traffic whirred outside the window and the sunlight dwindled in their small room.
No, this wasn’t what she wanted.
She wanted sex, not cuddling.
Dieter Schwarz didn’t cuddle, at least not before and during sex. In bed, he was rough and dirty and in control of every move she made.
Afterward, sort of, if you could call the dominating way that he handled her body to be cuddling. It was more like making sure she knew he still controlled her and could touch her anywhere he wanted to. Sometimes, he’d made her orgasm again, just for his amusement, she suspected. Just to watch her be helpless under his hands.
Before, when they had been together in London, he had been aggressive all the time. When she was with him, she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to worry, and didn’t have to be in control. She just had to hold on for dear life and respond.
His hand trailed up her neck, and his fingers wove into her hair.
He said, “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Talk? We’ll have hours and hours to talk on the plane tomorrow,” she said.
“We need to talk now,” he said, “before we get on the flight tomorrow.”
Flicka lifted her head from his shoulder. “I don’t want to know. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. I can’t deal with even one more thing today. I can’t get a divorce from that wandering shlong for two more months. I have to hide from him all that time, or he’ll have his Secret Service kidnap me.” Her fear flared into anger. “He’ll make it legal, you know. He’ll have Monaco’s parliament pass some bill so that ‘repatriating’ me to Monaco is legal, no matter what they have to do to make it happen. Kidnap me, drug me, knock me out, tie me up and stuff me in a golf clubs travel bag. He’ll do whatever it takes. I have to hide, and I don’t know whether to hide in a cave or under the floorboards of a house or what. I just know that I have to do it to survive.”
Dieter hugged her closer to his chest, and he kissed her temple. “Nevermind. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” He kissed the side of her face, near her ear, and his lips slid down to her neck. “There’s nothing we need to talk about tonight, Durchlauchtig.”
Flicka dropped her head back, a groan already in her throat, and she tried to forget about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Dieter’s hands on her back moved to her waist. His touch and his mouth made it easy to let her mind unclench and drift away.
When he moved her shirt neckline aside to kiss her shoulder, Flicka turned her head and nipped the side of his neck with her teeth.
He hissed air through his teeth, and his body rose over hers, pushing her back on the bed. He caught her arms and pushed them over her head, grabbing her wrists with one hand. He slipped his hand up her thigh as he kissed her.
Yes, this was more like it.
And yet—
Flicka couldn’t move her arms.
She was trapped.
Too much.
“I can’t breathe!”
Dieter released her hands and rolled off her, dragging her with him so that she lay on the bed beside where he was flat on his back. He grabbed the back of her head, pressing her mouth to his.
Excitement zipped through her, but the fear was gone.
She grabbed his arms and pushed his hands up, holding his thick wrists with her hand. Rough hair on his arms tickled her palm.
He chuckled as she kissed his throat, but he didn’t move his arms.
She unbuttoned his shirt with her other hand and shoved his undershirt up to his neck to touch his chest.
An old scar wound over his pecs and ribs. “What happened here?”
“Bar fight,” he said, still chuckling.
“That’s what you always say. Tell me the truth.”
He sucked in a deep breath as she licked his flat man-nipple. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me or I’ll stop.”
“Bar fight,” he laughed.
She sucked on his nipple, and he growled. She said, “Tell me.”
Dieter sighed. “Fine. Getting some Swiss citizens out of Argentina the last time that country fell into martial law. The police didn’t like us raiding their police station. They started a fight. One guy had a knife like a military utility blade.”
She traced the scar up to his collarbone with her tongue. “He almost cut your throat.”
“Seventy staples when we got back to the ship off the coast.”
She flipped her hair back and looked up at him, lying under her with his arms stretched above his head. “He could have killed you.”
“That was his intention when he sliced me.”
She kissed the scar again, and his chest rose beneath her mouth.
She asked, “Does it hurt?”
“No. It’s sensitive. It kind of tickles.”
“What else tickles?” She ran her palm down the stacked bricks of his stomach to his belt.
He inhaled again. The hard muscles of his abdomen rose under her hand. “That doesn’t tickle.”
She ran her lips down the blond fuzz that covered his sternum to the hard cords of his abs.
He stretched under her mouth, the hard muscle shifting under his skin. “Jesus, Flicka.”
She crawled on top of him, straddling his hips and bracing one hand on his wrists above his head. Her lips were right above his when she asked, “Do you still want to talk?”
Dieter’s gray eyes had taken on that intense focus that could have been mistaken for anger, but she had seen it too many times to misunderstand.
His voice growled low in his throat, and he said, “Kiss me.”
She locked her mouth on his and thrust her tongue between his lips. He twisted one of his arms away from her grip and snaked it around her waist, pressing her front against his muscular torso.
His warm scent and hot skin wrapped around her, and Flicka stopped thinking and worrying about what would happen later.
She let go of his other wrist to move her hair aside because it was clinging to her neck. Dieter grabbed her ass, pushing her stomach against the hard shaft of his erection and biting her shou
lder.
God, she had missed him.
Flicka pulled away and sat up, struggling to get her blouse off.
Dieter sat up with her and ran his palms up her ribs and his mouth over her breasts. She arched under the heat of his mouth.
Her shirt dropped off her arms behind her and drifted to the floor.
Dieter’s arms were around her waist and hips as he mouthed her breasts, peeling her bra away with his scratchy chin to get to the peaks. He sucked hard on her, pulling, and she keened as desire shot through her.
She shoved his shirt off his shoulders, and he released her for a moment as she pushed the sleeves down his strong arms and wrestled his undershirt off over his head.
When she freed his arms from the shirt, he grabbed her again and pressed his mouth on her, biting and sucking hard.
Flicka wrapped her arms around his shoulders, balancing, as he sucked her tits until her nipples turned pink and tender.
He pushed her backward, off his lap.
Flicka stumbled to her feet and started pushing her slacks down her legs.
He helped her, stripping her trousers and panties off.
She grabbed his waistband, tugging them down, and snagged his boxers at the same time.
Dieter pried the waistband off the head of his rod as she pulled his pants down his strong thighs.
Hard, thick muscles braided his legs.
In the years they’d been apart, someone hadn’t been skipping leg day. Wow.
His shaft was as thick and long as she remembered, too, dark rose and curving slightly back toward his stomach. She had thought that she might have been idealizing it in her head, but damn. Thick veins ran up its length to the thick, dark head straining at the top, where a drop of wetness glistened.
She yanked his pants off his ankles.
Dieter held out his hand. “Give them to me.”
She handed over the pants as she climbed back on the bed, and Dieter frantically searched his pockets and came up with a foil packet.
In Shining Armor Page 16
