Royal Rescue

by Lisa Childs

  Her purse dropped to the floor next to the couch, but she let it go. She didn’t need the gun. She didn’t need to protect herself from Brendan, at least not physically. But emotionally she was at risk of falling for him all over again.

  “You can lie down here,” he said. “And I’ll keep an eye on CJ.”

  “He’s out cold,” she said. Her son wouldn’t awaken again before morning. But regrettably that was only a few hours off.

  Brendan shook his head. “I can’t sleep anyway.”

  “I can’t sleep, either.” She reached up and grabbed his hand, tugging him down beside her.

  He turned toward her, his eyes intense as he stared at her. The pupils dilated, and his chest—his massively muscled chest—heaved as he drew in an unsteady breath. “Josie…”

  “You gave me a gun,” she murmured, unbelievably moved by his gesture.

  “Most women would prefer flowers or jewelry.”

  The woman she’d once been would have, but that woman had died nearly four years ago. The woman she was now preferred the gun, preferred that he’d given her the means to protect herself…even from him.

  “I’m not most women,” she said.

  “No,” he agreed. “Most women I would have been able to put from my mind. But I never stopped thinking about you—” he reached for her now, touching her chin and then sliding his fingers up her cheek “—never stopped wanting you.”

  Then his mouth was on hers as he kissed her deeply, his tongue sliding between her lips. She moaned as passion consumed her, heating her skin and her blood.

  Her fingers trembled, and she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. She needed him. After tonight she needed to feel the way he had always made her feel—alive.

  He caught her fingers as if to stop her. Josie opened her eyes and gasped in protest. But then he replaced her hands with his. He stripped off his holsters and then his shirt, baring his chest for her greedy gaze.

  He was beautiful, the kind of masculine perfection that defied reality. That weakened a woman’s knees and her resolve. Josie leaned forward and kissed his chest, skimming her lips across the muscles.

  Soft hair tickled her skin.

  His fingers clenched in her hair, and he gently pulled her back. Then his hands were on her, pulling her sweater over her head and stripping off her bra.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice gruff.

  She wasn’t the woman she’d once been, emotionally or physically. She’d worried that he wouldn’t look at her as he once had—his face flushed with desire, his nostrils flaring as he breathed hard and fast. But he was looking at her that way now.

  “You’re even more beautiful,” he murmured, “than you once were.”

  She didn’t know whether to be offended, so she laughed. “Then the marshals didn’t get their money’s worth from the plastic surgeon.”

  “It’s not an external thing,” he said. “You have a beauty that comes from within now.”

  “It’s happiness,” she admitted.

  “Despite all you had to give up?” His hands skimmed along her jaw again. “Even your face?”

  “I have my son,” she said, “our son…”

  “Our son,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was pregnant,” she said, “that I didn’t tell you when he was born.”

  “You didn’t trust me,” he said. “You thought I wanted to kill you.”

  “I was wrong.” She knew that now. She didn’t know everything. He was keeping other things from her—things that he’d shared with Charlotte but wouldn’t tell her. But maybe it was better that she didn’t know. Maybe the secrets kept her safer than the gun.

  He kissed her again, as he had before. Deeply. Passionately. His chest rubbed against her breasts, drawing her nipples to tight points.

  She moaned again and skimmed her hands over his back, pressing him closer to her. As she ran her palms down his spine, she hit something hard near his waistband. Something cold and hard.

  Another gun.

  How many did he have on him?

  He stood up and took off that weapon, as well as another on his ankle. Then his belt and pants came off next.

  And Josie gasped as desire rushed over her. She had never wanted anyone the way she’d wanted Brendan. Because she’d known she never would, she hadn’t gotten involved with anyone else the past four years. She’d focused on being a mother and a teacher and had tried to forget she was a woman.

  She remembered now. Her hands trembling, she unclasped her jeans and skimmed them off along with her simple cotton panties. Brendan reached between them and stroked his fingers over her red curls.

  Her breath caught. And she clutched his shoulders as her legs trembled.

  “You haven’t changed completely,” he murmured.

  He continued to stroke her until she came, holding tight to him so that she didn’t crumple to the floor. But then he laid her down on the couch. And he made love to her with his mouth, too, his fingers stroking over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she completely shattered, overcome with ecstasy. But there was more.

  She pulled him up her body, stroking her hands and mouth over all his hard, rippling muscles…until his control snapped. And he thrust inside her, filling the emptiness with which she’d lived the past four years.

  Their mouths made love like their bodies, tongues tangling, lips skimming, as he thrust deep and deeper. She arched to take all of him. A pressure wound tightly inside her, stretching her, making her ache. She gasped for breath as her heart pounded and her pulse raced.

  Then Brendan reached between them; his fingers stroked through those curls and his thumb pressed against that special nub. And she came. So she wouldn’t scream, she kissed him more deeply as pleasure pulsed through her.

  He groaned deeply into her mouth as his body tensed and he joined her in ecstasy. Pleasure shook his body, just as hers still trembled with aftershocks. But even once their bodies relaxed, he didn’t let her go. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her close to his madly pounding heart.

  And she felt safe. Protected. For the first time in nearly four years.

  *

  FOR THE FIRST time in nearly four years, Brendan didn’t feel so alone. Josie had had their son; he had had no one. No one he dared get close to. No one he dared to trust.

  Part of that had been her fault. After her subterfuge, he’d been careful to let no other woman get to him. But he suspected that even if he hadn’t been careful, no other woman could have gotten to him.

  Only Josie…

  Maybe Charlotte Green was right. Maybe he did love Josie. And maybe he should trust her. He hadn’t noticed any articles she’d written showing up in her father’s papers. Maybe she’d stepped away from the media world. Not that her articles had been sensationalized. They had been brutally honest, stripping the subject bare. That was why he would have recognized anything she’d written—her style was distinctive.

  But maybe becoming a mother had changed her priorities. Maybe she cared more about keeping CJ hidden than exposing others.

  He stroked his fingers over her shoulder and down her bare back. “Your skin is so soft.” He’d thought it was because of fancy spa treatments she would have had as American princess Josie Jessup. But with the new lifestyle the marshals would have set up for her, she wouldn’t have been able to go to expensive spas.

  She would have had to live modestly and quietly, or else she would have been found before now. Because someone was looking for her.

  Why?

  To get to him?

  She was his only weakness. Hurting her would draw him out, and maybe make him careless enough for someone to get the jump on him.

  Had she had to give up everything—her home, family and career—because of him? Then she deserved to know the truth.

  “Josie…”

  “Hmm…” she murmured sleepily.

  He looked down at her face and found her eyes closed, her lashes lyi
ng on the dark circles beneath. And her body was limp in his arms, relaxed. He couldn’t wake her. After everything she’d been through that night, she needed to rest and recuperate. Because their ordeal wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over until he discovered who was trying to kill her.

  But they were safe now, here, wrapped in each other’s arms, so he closed his eyes.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when the alarm sounded. No, the piercing whistle was not from a clock but from the security panel in the den.

  “What!” Josie exclaimed as she jerked awake in his arms. “What is that?”

  “Security has been breached,” he said, already reaching for his clothes and his weapons.

  There were other apartments inside the building, other witnesses or suspects or agents the intruder could have been after. But Brendan knew the alarm was for them—the danger coming for them….

  He had just one question for her. “How well do you know how to shoot?”

  Chapter Eleven

  While she’d held the gun when he’d handed it to her, the weight of it was still unfamiliar in her hands. Before tonight she hadn’t held one in years, let alone fired one. And when she had fired one, it had only been at targets—not people.

  Could she pull the trigger on a person?

  “Mommy, the ’larm clock is too loud,” CJ protested with his tiny hands tightly pressed against his ears.

  Brendan scooped him up and headed toward the apartment door. “Grab your stuff,” he told her over his shoulder. He carried the boy with one arm while he clutched a gun in his other hand.

  “Sh-shouldn’t we stay here?” she asked. “And just lock the door?”

  His turquoise eyes intense, he shook his head. “We don’t know if the breach was someone getting inside or putting something inside.”

  A bomb.

  Josie gasped and hurried toward the door. But she slammed into Brendan’s back as he abruptly stopped.

  “We have to be very quiet,” he warned them.

  “CJ, you have to play statue,” she told their son. “No matter what happens, you have to be quiet.”

  “Like on the roof?”

  Not like that. She wouldn’t dare leave her little boy alone in the dark again. “Well…”

  “We’re all staying together,” Brendan said, “and we’re staying quiet.”

  She released a shaky sigh.

  “Mommy, shh,” the little boy warned her.

  A corner of Brendan’s mouth lifted in a slight grin. Then he slowly opened the door. He nodded at her before stepping into the hall. It was clear. He wouldn’t have brought their son into the line of fire.

  But they needed to get out of the building. Fast.

  She breathed deep, checking for the telltale odor of gas. But she smelled nothing but Brendan; the scent of his skin clung to hers. While they’d been making love, someone had gotten inside the building.

  What if that person had gotten inside the apartment? He or they could have grabbed CJ before his parents had had a chance to reach him.

  Her heart ached with a twinge of guilt more powerful than any she’d felt before. And she’d felt plenty guilty over the years.

  She followed after Brendan, watching as he juggled the boy and his gun. “If we’re taking the elevator…”

  He would need to give her the code to punch into the security panel. But he shook his head and pushed open the door to the stairwell.

  Of course they wouldn’t want to be in the elevator. If the building exploded, they would be trapped. But wouldn’t they be trapped inside the stairwell, too? If the gunmen were heading up, they would meet them on the way down—and CJ would be caught in the crossfire.

  Brendan didn’t hesitate though. He hurried down the first flight and then the second.

  “Brendan…”

  Over his father’s shoulder, their little boy pressed a finger to his lips, warning her again to be quiet.

  They had stopped, but their footsteps echoed. Then she realized it wasn’t their footsteps that were echoing. It was someone else’s—on their way up, as she’d feared. But Brendan continued to go down.

  “No,” she whispered frantically. “They’re coming!”

  He stopped on the next landing and pushed open the door to the hall. “Run,” he told her.

  “To the elevator?” They could take it now. The men wouldn’t have come inside if they’d set a bomb.

  “No,” he said. “Door at the end of the hall. Go through it.” He pushed her ahead of him and turned back as the door to the stairwell opened. But he kept his back toward that door, his body between their son and whoever might exit the stairwell. Before anyone emerged, he fired and kept firing as he ran behind Josie.

  She pushed through that door he’d pointed at and burst onto a landing with such force that she nearly careened over the railing of the fire escape. Brendan, CJ clutched tight against his chest, exited behind her.

  He momentarily holstered his gun, even though the men had to be right behind him, and he grabbed up a pipe that lay on the landing and slid it through the handle, jamming the door shut.

  How had he known the pipe was there? Had he planned such an escape before?

  The door rattled as another body struck it.

  “Go,” he told her. “Run!”

  She nearly stumbled as she hurried down the dimly illuminated metal steps. But gunfire rang out again—shots fired against that jammed door.

  Brendan, still holding their son, who was softly sobbing, rushed down the stairs behind her. The shots, the urgency, the danger had her trembling so uncontrollably that she slipped, her feet flying from beneath her.

  She would have fallen, would have hit each metal step on the long way to the ground. But a strong hand caught her arm, holding her up while she regained her footing.

  When they neared the bottom of the fire escape, the gun was back in his hand, the light from the parking lot lamps glinting off the metal.

  She hadn’t lost the gun she’d carried. She hadn’t used it, either, and wasn’t even sure that she could. But then she heard a car door open and a gun cock.

  And she knew that someone had a clear shot at them. So she slid off the safety and turned with the gun braced in both hands. But before she could squeeze the trigger, a shot rang out and she heard a windshield shatter.

  “Come on,” Brendan urged her. “Your car’s over here. Hurry.”

  “But—”

  There was a shooter in the lot. Or had Brendan already shot him? The gun was in his free hand while his other hand clasped their son to his chest.

  “Do you have the keys?” he asked.

  She pulled them out of her purse and clicked the key fob. Lights flashed on the SUV, guiding them to it and also revealing it to the gunmen as they erupted from the lobby of the building.

  This time she squeezed the trigger, shooting at the men pointing guns at her son and the man she loved. The weapon kicked back, straining her wrist.

  “Get in!” Brendan yelled as he put their boy into the backseat. “Buckle him up!”

  She dropped the gun into her bag and jumped into the passenger’s seat. As she leaned over the console and buckled up their son, Brendan was already careening out of the lot.

  “Stay down!” he yelled at her, just as more shots rang out. Bullets pinged and tires squealed.

  And their son continued to play statue, staying silent in the backseat. “You’re so brave,” she praised him, reaching back to touch his face.

  His chin quivered and she felt moisture on her fingers—probably his tears. But he had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, trying not to cry. She pulled back her hand and studied what was smeared across her fingers. It wasn’t tears. It was something red and sticky. Blood.

  “Brendan! He’s hurt!” she exclaimed, fear and dread clutching her heart in a tight vise. “Get to the hospital! Call the police!”

  *

  “NO,” HE CORRECTED her as blood trickled down his temple. “CJ wasn’t hit.
” He’d made damn certain of that.

  “Th-there’s blood on his face,” she said, her voice shaking with fear and anger.

  Brendan tipped the rearview mirror and studied their son in the backseat. The little boy scrubbed at his face and held up a hand sticky with blood. “It’s not mine, Mommy. It came off…” His son didn’t know what to call him, didn’t know who he was to him.

  “Your daddy,” Brendan answered the boy. “I’m your daddy.”

  Josie gasped, probably at his audacity for telling their child who he was. But then she was reaching across the console and touching his head. “Where are you hit?”

  “Daddy?” CJ asked.

  Brendan’s head pounded. He wanted to pull off the road, wanted to explain to his son who he was, wanted to let Josie touch him. But he had to tip the mirror back up and check the road behind them. Had anyone followed them?

  He’d thought he’d been vigilant on his way from the estate to the complex, that he hadn’t been followed. Had he missed a tail?

  With blood trickling into his eyes, he was more likely to miss one now, so he asked Josie, “Do you see anything?”

  Her fingers stroked through his hair. “No. Where were you hit?”

  He shook his head, and the pain radiated, making him wince. “I wasn’t hit,” he replied, lifting his fingers to his left temple. “I was grazed. It’s just a scratch.” A scratch that stung like a son of a bitch, but he ignored the pain and focused on the road. “Is there anyone behind us?”

  “What?” She must have realized what he was referring to, because she turned around and peered out the rear window. “I don’t see any other lights.”

  The roads were deserted this early in the morning. He passed only a garbage truck going the other direction. No one was behind him. No one had been behind him earlier, either. He blinked back the trickle of blood and remarked, “I was not followed to the complex.”

  “So how did they find us?” she asked.

  “Daddy?” CJ repeated from the backseat, interrupting them. “You’re my daddy?”

  Josie sucked in an audible breath as if just noticing that Brendan had told their son who he was. He waited to see if she would deny it now, if she would call him a liar for claiming his child. If she did, he would call her on the lie. After his close call with that bullet, he wanted his son to know who he was…before it was too late. Before he never got the chance to tell him.