Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4

by Jennifer Chance

  But the man lying beneath her now, staring at her with such intense need, was about as far away from princely as she could imagine. The face hadn’t changed much except for an ineffable age that seemed to settle on him, the result of a year’s worth of harsh living that she suspected wouldn’t go away. But his body was traced with fading bruising and a constellation of small scars—some thick, some thin.

  Her breath caught as he shifted beneath her, the sensual heat of him a needed counterpoint to her the discovery of the trials he’d undergone. “You’ve been so hurt.”

  “I haven’t,” he growled, his hands tightening on her. “Banged up in the crash, and the work at the construction site was hard. I wasn’t mistreated. If it’s me you’re concerned about, don’t be. If there’s something else…”

  His gaze held hers and she saw the question in them. It was all she could do not to laugh out loud. “You’re not seriously about to question whether or not I want you to make love to me,” she murmured, and the relief in his gaze was immediate and sharp. He opened his hand, where she realized he’d been clutching a foil wrapped condom, and she lifted her brows.

  “When exactly did you pick this up?”

  He grinned as she ripped open the package and scooted back along his legs, but his gaze left her face and dropped to her hands. “It was part of the identity kit I bought,” he joked. “In Garronia we believe in safety first.”

  “Do you?” She finished sheathing him and slid forward again, kneeling as she walked her hands along the bed until her face was level with his. “I have to say,” she murmured, “I like your country more and more the longer I’m here.”

  Ari’s next words were lost on a hiss as she fit herself over his shaft, pausing a moment to let her body get used to the sensual intrusion. Twin desires warred within her—one to let her eyes drift shut and simply enjoy the moment, the second to open them wide, drinking in the site of Ari’s face, his body, his stricken expression as she slid inch by careful inch over him, the pulse of their bodies finding their own perfect synchronicity.

  “You—feel incredible,” he murmured and there was a year’s worth of wonder in his words—a year and probably more, the depth of his pain going beyond the simple pleasure of a woman and to the deeper, more damaging loneliness of being without friend or countryman or even the solace of his memories.

  Fran leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. He kissed her back almost tentatively at first, his hands coming up to cradle her face as she slid further over him, taking him fully into her body. They were one unit, one being, and the rightness of it shook her to her core. She didn’t trust herself to speak or even to look at Ari anymore, so she sighed and deepened the kiss.

  He didn’t seem to mind. One of Ari’s hands slid around her head, the other down the length of her back as they moved together, both of them memorizing the other, fixing this moment in their minds.

  She exhaled deeply and drew herself upright again, finally trusting herself to open her eyes. Ari lay bathed in sunlight, his face arrested with pleasure, his hands now on her hips. His gaze roamed over her body, but she was pretty sure her view was better.

  She smoothed her hands over his chest, her fingers taking in the raised surface of a myriad of scars, her mind refusing to process everything she was seeing. When she met his eyes again, for a moment she saw challenge there, challenge and maybe a little fear. Then Ari pulled her down to him, his arms wrapped around her body and her breasts compressed against his chest. In a smooth, athletic move he reversed their positions, and once again she was stretched out on the bed and he was on top, staring down at her with glee.

  “Don’t think you’ve got the upper hand because you’re on top,” Fran sniffed, her assertion clearly so ludicrous Ari laughed out loud. “I can be very tough if I need to be.”

  “I’ll keep that mind,” he rumbled. Then with a sigh he bent over her, and took her mouth with his.

  Ryker wasn’t sure what heaven might feel like, but he was pretty sure he was experiencing it now. Francesca was everything he was certain he’d always loved most in women—confident, strong, and driven to achieve. Right now she was about to drive him to distraction, but he could manage it—would manage it.

  She had no idea how much he needed this right now. Needed her.

  Beneath him, Francesca sighed again and stretched out over the plush mattress, a bed he now appreciated so much he would happily take it with him from hotel to hotel if it meant more moments like this. Her body stretched with her, and the pressure on his shaft ratcheted up, scattering his thoughts then hyper-focusing them into one blinding need.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, and she smiled in a way he suspected meant she was used to hearing such platitudes. But he couldn’t take the time to explain why his declaration was different. She wouldn’t believe him—not here.

  And there would be time for talking later.

  Leveraging his weight to one hand, he reached out with his right and cupped her breast as her eyelids fluttered open again. As she watched him he squeezed, his fingers parting to allow the tight tip to peek through, and she hummed with a purely feminine pleasure. That hum, and the slight curve of her lips, knocked him up another level. He had no illusions that he was going to last this first time.

  He also had no doubts that there would be many future opportunities to make up for his lapse.

  He rocked into Francesca, gritting his teeth as her legs fell open, allowing him to fill her more thoroughly. He bent and covered her mouth with his again, smiling as her lips opened against the pressure of his mouth. She was baring all to him, he thought. Or, perhaps not all, but all she could.

  Her hands lifted and settled on either side of his back, guiding him thrust for thrust. As he lifted himself again, moving to his knees, her fingers fell away and she bent her knees, straightened her legs. The resulting shift to her body slid him nearer to her center, and he was surrounded by her damp heat, the pressure of her slickly tight around him almost too much too bear.

  He would have been able to bear it—would have been able to continue indefinitely—were it not for the expression on Francesca’s face.

  Her eyes weren’t closed, exactly, but they’d narrowed to near slits, her lids drooping sensually as she stared at him, her mouth slightly open and her breath coming out in pants as he slid into her then out again, each time pressing harder, deeper. Her face was a study not in relaxation, but a soul-deep expression of satisfaction. When he murmured a sigh her gaze flicked up and he was taken with its intensity for all her apparent languor. In that moment she was perfect—not solely for him, but for this place, this country, this world. The one thing he knew that was right and true in his life, when everything else was in shambles.

  Francesca chose that moment to smile, and her bright and sudden joy was all that it took to send Ryker crashing over the edge. He stiffened and her hands tightened on his arms, her eyes now flaring wide as she understood what was happening, wanted it to happen. As ready for it as he was, his climax came swift and strong, so powerful that he clamped his hands on her hips and held her as his eyesight dimmed then flashed white.

  When he shook his head it cleared again, and there was Francesca beneath him—beautiful, serene Francesca, watching him knowingly.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured again.

  He leaned down to kiss her then rolled away, ridding himself of the condom then grabbing a fistful of towels from the stand by the door. Suddenly, the weight of the day’s events overtook him, and he stumbled his way back to Francesca, restored by her quiet laughter as he climbed into bed with her once more.

  “We should stay indoors, I’m thinking,” he said as he moved up beside her.

  If he was afraid that she would be self-conscious, he needn’t have worried, Francesca rested on her bent elbow, as relaxed as he’d ever seen her. She nodded. “A lot depends on where you want to go, but no matter what, nighttime is better. Stefan and his men will have likely moved out of the city by
then, or they’ll restrict themselves to wherever they think you might be. That can’t be too many places, especially in a city as small as this one.”

  He lifted his brows at her. “Now that so much time has passed without me doing any harm to anyone, you truly think they’ll be searching for me so diligently as that?” he asked, testing her. “Why would they care? Stefan assured me I had not committed any crime, and if I should stumble across someone who knows me or my family, what is the harm in that?”

  Francesca’s response was stilted. “They want to ensure your safety is all. That you return to your family healthy and whole.”

  He shook his head. She knew Stefan would be searching for him. If he hadn’t committed a crime, there was but one explanation. “That’s not reason enough.” He sighed. “I know the truth.”

  Francesca went still, and he shook his head. “I’m not an idiot, Francesca. I was flying an expensive craft and wearing expensive gear when I crashed. I was being very well paid to do what I did, and someone likely feels guilty for what I have suffered.”

  Her brows went up. “Guilty?”

  “It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” he said. “Whoever put me into that plane on a regular basis is now trying to ensure I return to my family healthy and whole as you say. To put me up on the island of the royal family, give me the level of care they have, watch over my every step—they are a very rich group indeed. And I am grateful. But their guilt is misplaced.” He grimaced. “And that doesn’t change the fact that I have a family out there—perhaps in this very city, perhaps all the way to Mikala, with my friend Conti Goba. If my benefactors are not willing to contact them, that is certainly their choice. But it is my choice to attempt to find them. To piece back together this life I’ve been unable to live for so long.”

  He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. “You watch me with such concern, but this is the right thing for me, Francesca. I do not have my memories, no. But I have my back, I have my hands. I have my mind, what is left of it. I was able to row a boat, and steer a larger craft as if I’d been doing it my entire life. I suspect I’ll be able to pilot an airplane as well. Or run fishing lines. Or do whatever it is I did before the storm dumped me into the sea. All I have to do now is find the trailing edge of that life and follow it back to my family.”

  “But every time you think of them, or remember something about them, you experience pain,” Francesca said, frowning. “Don’t you think that’s a warning? Not about your family, necessarily, but—I mean, shouldn’t you have a professional with you when you go searching for these answers?”

  “I do have someone with me,” he said. “I have you.”

  The flash of wariness was back, skittering over her features before she once again composed herself. “I’m not a professional anything,” she said. “Not yet, and certainly not with you.”

  He lifted himself on one elbow. This was a good enough time as any to learn a bit more about her. “I don’t know about that. You seem to have some skill in acquiring false papers in the capital city of my homeland—kind of a trick, considering you’re American.”

  “I wondered when you’d get around to asking about that.”

  To his surprise, Francesca didn’t balk at the line of questioning. Instead she lay back on the pillow, her gaze on him light, her manner deceptively easy.

  “Where I grew up, the neighborhood bar was a favorite hangout for college kids—and kids who wanted to be college age,” she said. “There was a thriving market there for fake IDs, and the locals had gotten pretty good at it. Then, when I went away to college, one of the neighborhoods near the campus had the same sort of bar on the same scrubby street. I went inside, and it might as well have been an identical collection of guys in the back, setting up shop.”

  He lifted his brows, and she shrugged. “I’ve traveled a little with school, not always in the nicest of towns, and it’s sort of become a thing for me. I find the shabbiest little bars near a thriving tourist or student district, especially if there’s a port or a marina or a border crossing—anywhere people can get through that doesn’t require public credentials. Chances are, you’ll find a bar like the one you went into today.”

  “It sounds like you should travel in safer circles,” Ryker said, and as he’d hoped she would, Francesca laughed. She shifted her gaze away from him, relaxing yet another notch. It didn’t take much convincing for her to shift in his arms, her back to his chest, and drift in the soft sunlight.

  As she settled into a drowsy slumber, Ryker kept his gaze on the window, focusing on keeping his body loose, his breathing even. He lowered his face to her hair, kissing her softly, but he knew the truth.

  Francesca was lying to him.

  He didn’t know why, but he suspected it was to protect him, not her, and that made no sense. There were too many things that made no sense, but that was going to change, he decided.

  Starting tonight.

  Chapter Ten

  Fran’s nerves ratcheted higher with each block they sped by. Ari had insisted on taking a cab to the municipal airstrip where small engine planes were kept, including the planes of the royal family. He didn’t say that’s why he wanted to go, but it didn’t matter.

  She should be happy, she knew. He was clearly remembering more. He knew he was a pilot, and he knew he had taken off from this airstrip. Whether that was simple deductive reasoning or legitimate memory she didn’t know, but Ari was getting closer to a breakthrough.

  She could only hope it didn’t come with a breakdown.

  Ari had agreed to a clothing change but his new attire was no less distinctive—loose cut work pants and a work shirt. He’d even acquired a belt of tools that now lay next to him in the back of a cab. He looked the part of a mechanic, and he sat forward, tense and alert, with each turn the cabbie made to getting them closer to the airstrip.

  “What if they don’t let you in?” she asked.

  “They will,” he said, patting the tools. “Workers come in and out all the time.”

  “But workers for planes that people actually own. People you don’t know.” She shot him a glance. “Right?”

  He shrugged. “Right.” Still, his expression was intent as the cabbie slowed, and their conversation was cut off. Ari paid for their fare with cash, and then he was out the door, holding it for Fran as she stepped into the warm evening sky.

  The airstrip was a smaller affair than she expected, and to her shock—it wasn’t fenced off, not in any meaningful way. “Don’t you people believe in security?”

  “It takes a special kind of criminal to steal a plane, and all flight manifests are logged,” Ari said automatically. “Cars require clearance, foot traffic goes through the main building usually, but not always.”

  Fran frowned at him. “You’re remembering this”

  “Not specifically, no. It’s simple knowledge.” Ari’s attention was fixed on the squat metal building at the head of the field. “In the evening though, there’s a simple watch. One man, generally the same man who’s been here all day.” Ari’s wince told her that remembering did cause at least some pain, but he pushed on. “He’ll be tired now, probably bored, but a distraction would alarm him. No one but an asshole sends his mechanic out to tune up an airplane in the evening unless they’re getting ready to leave at an odd hour.”

  Fran scanned the building. A parking gate blocked its driveway, with low fencing stretching out in either direction. No one in a vehicle could enter the drive without keying themselves through the long bar. She glanced at Ari as he strapped on his tool belt, and she had to admit, he did appear to be a man who knew his way around airplanes. But they were on the outside of the airstrip, looking in. And there remained the man in the security building.

  “Okay, how do you plan to get in?”

  “There’s some men out there,” Ari said, gesturing to the field. She could see two or three small golf-cart-style vehicles—but not their men. “It’s not a matter so much of getting in among the
planes as looking like you’ve been there for some time.”

  “But…” Fran shook her head, still confused. “If you go trotting across the field—the security guard will see you.”

  “He would, ordinarily,” he nodded. He pivoted to her then, and the expression on his face was one she recognized all too well—and not from the halls of the royal family.

  “Oh no,” she said, lifting her hands. “You can’t expect me to serve as your cover. I don’t speak Garronois! I can’t even credibly ask for the bathroom.”

  “I need no more than a few minutes,” Ari said. “You see that plane over there—the larger one?”

  She squinted in the direction he was pointing. “Yes,” she said warily.

  “The insignia on the back—it’s the same as was on the royal family’s yacht. I don’t know Stefan Mihal’s role with the family, but I suspect it’s prominent, if they gave him the run of their pet island.”

  Fran stifled a groan. “And that’s good, why?”

  “If I get stopped, I’ll tell them Stefan Mihal sent me, and they can call him themselves.” Ari grinned.

  “Won’t they check your ID?”

  He shrugged. “If they do, I’ll tell them to contact Stefan Mihal. They’ll have no choice but to do so, though it’s dinnertime and I’m sure like any good aristocrat, Stefan has obligations. He could still actually be on the royal island.”

  Fran rather doubted that. Once they’d decamped to the city, she suspected the island had been deserted within a few short hours. By now everyone would be back in the capital city, searching for them.

  She glanced around the remote airstrip. There hadn’t been a limo sitting idle in the parking lot, so maybe they hadn’t guessed Ari would be here. But they would, eventually. “What is it you think you’re going to find?” she asked. “The plane you flew—even if it took off from here, it’s gone. And if you’re out in the field, you won’t be able to check flight records, even if they do keep those onsite from so long ago.”