His Runaway Campfire Princess

by Gwen Hayes

  “Maryanne,” he growled, and then held his breath when the bottle stopped on a woman across the circle. She chose another woman, who seemed game, and as they giggled their way to the tent, the heat factor of the game went up a notch.

  Everyone felt the erotic turn as everyone imagined what the two women might be doing zipped together in a sleeping bag.

  And then he imagined Merriam as one of the women and he was instantly hard.

  She looked at him innocently. Too innocently. She knew exactly what he was thinking and probably how it was affecting him. “You’ll just go in there with anyone?” he asked.

  “I’ll be safe. You can stand guard outside the tent if it makes you feel better.”

  While the thought of her in there with another woman was hot for a brief moment, the idea she’d go in there with another man had the opposite effect.

  He clenched his fist, downed another shot even though he hated Jell-O, and tried to get the thought of her zipped up into a sleeping bag with one of the others out of his head. Damn it. The hell he would stand guard. He’d rip the tent open with his bare hands and—the bottle was spinning again. He couldn’t take it. A red haze filmed over his vision. The game was ridiculous, and he was done playing. He reached out and stopped the bottle with his hand, pointing it directly at the princess.

  Amid the protests from the campers about cheating and being told that was unfair, which he ignored, he raised his eyebrows at her. Dared her to pick him. Dared her not to.

  She pondered her choices, made him sweat, then as casual as could be, pointed to Harmon. “I guess I’ll take this big one off your hands, ladies.”

  Thank Christ.

  There were some half-hearted protests and more laughter at that. He felt foolish walking to the tent, being the center of attention. Adolescent attention if he were to be honest. He tried to summon Harmon of nineteen and twenty, when silly games with women were harmless and fun. But inside, he knew that young man was dead. He was, as she so often pointed out, the Duke of Curmudgeon.

  The tent was small, the sleeping bag smaller.

  “Why are we doing this, Merriam?”

  “Shush, just get in.”

  “Nobody will know if we just sit in the tent and talk. We can discuss how ridiculous you are being right now.”

  She ignored his comment and got into the sleeping bag, her dress riding even higher up her thighs, and she held up the edge of the bag for him. It was a two-person bag, but it still didn’t seem big enough. He was not a small man, after all.

  “Don’t be scared, Harmon. I won’t hurt you.”

  He tried to remember she was taunting him and not to play into her game, but damn if he didn’t get in that bag to prove her wrong.

  He wasn’t scared. He was terrified.

  He lay flat on his back. She was on her side, her head propped up on one hand. Her scent wrapped around him and that’s all it took. He was rock hard, again, the teeth of his pants zipper biting into him.

  They could hear the campers in the gazebo, but they were cocooned in the dark, the intimacy staggering. He’d not been alone with her before.

  He couldn’t see her clearly, but he didn’t have to. Her face was imprinted in his memory. He knew the shape of her as if he’d been her lover. It was her nearness that was new. Where she pressed against his body here and there. As much as it agitated him, it soothed him to have her so close. Here, nothing could hurt her. No one could sneak her out of his sight. No danger could come between him and her safety.

  In this situation that had spun so completely out of his control, the reality was that being zipped into the bag with her had given him the most peace of mind he’d had since she’d started dating men. Since she’d started rebelling against her father. Since he noticed she was desperately unhappy and there had been nothing he could do about it.

  Since he’d realized she was no longer a child, but a woman.

  “Harmon?”

  “Yes?” he said into the dark.

  “You said you were going to be the perfect boyfriend, as I recall.” She placed a hand on his chest and his heartbeat responded. “Start now.”

  He squeezed his eyes closed. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?” She was killing him.

  “I want you to kiss me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She poked him. “Why don’t you want to kiss me?”

  She was spinning him around with her words. “I don’t not want to kiss you,” he assured her. “I mean, you’re a very kissable woman…just not for me.”

  Did he just stammer? He was acting like he was thirteen. No, he was much cooler at thirteen. Damn it.

  “I think you’re a very kissable man,” she whispered.

  Was she teasing him? He took it back; he didn’t want her to use her wiles on him. He didn’t have the armor for it.

  They were both quiet for a moment, the air heavy. Expectation. Desire. Nervousness. He felt it all from both of them.

  Why was she putting him through this? This heightened anticipation of what could never be.

  Hell, he needed to get out of this tent. She was not for him. She could never be for him. It didn’t matter how unfair it was that she had to marry another. It didn’t matter that just looking at her made him long to hold her, taste her.

  “It will make our charade more believable, I think. If we’re more comfortable with each other,” she said.

  Seconds ticked by as he tried to make that reason sound plausible to himself. Obviously, if he wanted all the men to stay away from her, they had to believe she was attached. That she wasn’t looking. It stood to reason that if anyone was going to believe they were lovers, they would have to express it physically. To make that believable, they might have to practice a little when no one was watching. It would do them no good to pretend to be lovers if they looked awkward every time they touched.

  In the interest of making their cover story believable, he was going to have to get her used to his touch.

  Yes. For her security. That was it. This was about what was best for her safety. In which case…

  “Harmon—”

  He rolled, grasping her by the nape, and took her mouth before he could talk himself out of it.

  Always in the dreams of her that stole his sleep, their first kiss was sweet and gentle.

  This was not that kiss.

  His lips parted hers, his tongue sliding inside. She met him there, tasting him, and he moaned. His lips trailed from her mouth to under her ear, and she shivered as his head spun. He kissed her like a starving man, his hand crushed in her hair, his cock settling near the juncture of her thighs.

  It was too good. Nothing should ever be this good.

  And then she pulled away, her eyes wide, and he heard the counselor outside the tent before he saw the light from his flashlight. “Time’s up. Hope you two enjoyed your seven minutes.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE DUKE OF CURMUDGEON JUST kissed her stupid. How long had he been saving that up?

  She felt everything in that kiss. His frustration with her, the passion he kept hidden under those infamous scowls, and a longing unlike anything she’d ever felt from any man before.

  It was strange that kissing Harmon was much more intimate than all the things she’d experienced with Balton put together, and all she’d done was kiss Harmon for a few minutes. He hadn’t even touched her beneath her clothes. Lord Balton had been a wickedly sinful lover, but there had never been a raw passion in his kisses. Not like that.

  All her senses were intensified. Her head felt light, unattached to the rest of her; her heart was doing a mad sprint and she couldn’t catch her breath.

  Raw passion was damn potent.

  “Harmon?”

  “I need to walk,” he growled, putting distance between them and the gazebo with his long strides.

  She blinked her surprise. Surely, he wasn’t unraveling? Just from kissing her? The stoic commander always so in control.

  “Ooooh-ka
y.” Unfortunately, they only had one flashlight, and he was holding it. “I’ll just go back to—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “I can’t leave you unguarded. You need to come with me, but I need you…not to talk.”

  She didn’t argue with him. Gone was the android man with no emotion that was usually every synonym of uptight. He was wild-eyed and his movements jerky.

  This was just getting good.

  He may have kissed her stupid, but she’d apparently kissed him insane.

  They walked a few minutes and she said nothing, as he’d asked. Yet he began talking. “We need to move your things to my room. I need you to be where I can keep an eye on you at all times. Where are the jewels?”

  Oh, Mr. Tell-Her-What-She’ll-Do was back. Still, it was best not to rile him more. It was kind of fun just watching him try to get back normal. Like he was trying to put on clothes that didn’t fit him anymore. “I wore paste to the party.”

  “You wore fake jewels?” That stopped him for a moment, but he shouldn’t be surprised. She hated wearing the real jewels. The responsibility, the ostentatiousness, the sheer weight of some of them. The glass replicas were bad enough.

  “But they’re in the safe at in the lodge. I told the management I couldn’t lose them or the movie producers would kill me.”

  He nodded and slowed his pace, maybe remembering she was in flip-flops and a dress.

  “How will you explain the move out to your roommate?”

  “It’s not a problem. Lucy told me not to unpack when we got here. She says there is a lot of musical cabins this week. Nobody ends up the same room where they start.”

  He stopped and rounded on her, his hands on his hips. His posture rigid and tight. “And that was okay with you? Just flitting from man to man?”

  She stepped back, stung by his words. “If I choose to sleep with seven different men while I’m here, it’s not any business of yours.”

  She wouldn’t. She hadn’t really planned on sleeping with any men while she was here. She’d just wanted the flirtation and maybe the opportunity.

  But damn him for judging her. If she were Matthew, nobody would care. Men could do whatever they liked—especially those with wealth and power. It was not the same for her. It would never be the same for her.

  “It is very much my business. Your safety is my entire profession, or have you forgotten?”

  “My sex life is not your job.”

  “You were certainly trying to make it my job in the tent.”

  He should have slapped her. It would have hurt less. She took a deep breath, ready to…ready to…she didn’t even know? She’d felt his hunger, his need for her, but he blamed her for…what…tricking him into feeling that way? Did he think she was trying to sleep her way through summer camp starting with him?

  Idjit. Not him. Her. She was the stupid one.

  She’d thought they could have fun. That he would enjoy letting go and being with her. She’d thought she was reaching him on a more personal level. But he thought she was just causing trouble. Like always. And that she was using his body’s natural reaction to a willing female to lure him into some kind of trap.

  “I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time.

  “I shouldn’t have said that, Merriam. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, but it wasn’t your fault. The blame is completely mine.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. Though she didn’t tell him what for. It was too raw. She was sorry he didn’t really feel the way she thought he did when he’d kissed her. She was sorry she read too much into a game.

  She was sorry she was just a silly girl.

  They turned back to the cabins, and she retrieved her meager belongings, some borrowed from Lucy and Monica and some purchased in the lobby gift shop.

  When they got to his cabin—he’d somehow managed to snag a single—she found he’d also brought a small bag of her toiletries from the hotel. The little pink bag looked so out of place in his masculine sack filled with gear he’d need in a zombie apocalypse.

  He made it hard to stay indignant when he did things like that. Damn him.

  Still, she could ice princess the robot. She knew how to regal her way in or out of situations. She just didn’t like to do it. Channel Aunt Elaine. She inclined her head, very slightly, and used her royal tone. “Thank you, Duke Carlysle, that was very thoughtful.”

  “You’re welcome, Your Highness,” he said, barely looking up from his satellite linked laptop.

  Ah, so we’re back to your highness-ing. Great.

  He ignored her a while longer, sending messages to his team and looking at maps. He didn’t even care that she was doing her best haughty princess routine, so she dropped it and washed her face.

  Later, in the dark, they laid in their beds wide awake. She could tell he wasn’t sleeping by his breathing. Finally, he rolled to his side and looked at her. She didn’t have to turn to know he was. The weight of his stare was always enough.

  “In the morning, we’ll have to push the beds together so housekeeping will think we are lovers.”

  Her stomach dropped. The implication that they would not be lovers was there, under his words. As if she needed reminding. “Of course.” She rolled away from him. “Goodnight, Duke.”

  “Goodnight, Princess.”

  Good morning, Campers!

  Hopefully you didn’t have too much fun at the mixer and campfire last night and are ready for some hot, summer fun. If you did overindulge, go back to the scene of the crime where we’ve stashed blue coolers filled with Heather Tully’s Secret Hangover Remedy (pour yourself a glass from the pitcher) If hair of the dog is more your style, the red coolers are stocked with cans of beer and tomato juice.

  After breakfast the next morning, they went back to their cabin to change clothes because the princess wanted to play volleyball.

  Why couldn’t Harmon have been given a princess who liked to read quietly in an air-conditioned cabin? Why did she always want to be doing something, going somewhere?

  He’d have preferred to spend a few hours reading the dossiers they were collecting on the other campers. He could trust his royal guard to do it. He should trust them. But he’d have felt better seeing them for himself.

  Last night, they’d contacted the real Maryanne Marsh to make sure she wasn’t still planning on attending her camp session. She’d had a family emergency and his team had given her a full refund for her trip as though it had come from the camp. There was no evidence that Phillip Stone was working with anyone else yet, and Harmon didn’t expect to find any.

  When he was being honest with himself, he knew that the royals of Sivartania were not likely to be targets of the kind of danger he was always prepared for. He understood that on a logical level. The bone-deep need to protect what was his would not suffer logic, however.

  His family’s honor had been damaged when the queen had been killed in the same blast that took his father. It had been an accident, yet the stain of failure would never be erased. He would be vigilant. He would take himself too seriously and their protection even more so. That was the way things had to be.

  He cared too much about Merriam on a personal level, but that was his price to pay. He would not dishonor her or his ducal lineage by sacrificing her safety for his own happiness.

  She went into the bathroom to change, and he stared at the double bed in the middle of the room. Housekeeping had been there while they breakfasted, and they apparently took the hint and had changed the bedding to make one large bed instead of two. He’d thought he would just move the twin beds apart every evening and back together in the morning, but now they only had one quilt between them.

  He supposed he could just do without a blanket.

  She came out of the bathroom. “Do we have time for more coffee do you think? Why are you staring at me like that?”

  Because he was warm-blooded, male, and alive. He found his voice after clearing his throat twice. “Don’t you think that’s inappropriate?�
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  “Coffee?” Then she realized he was looking at her clothes. Or lack of them. She looked down at her outfit. Then back at him. She narrowed her eyes, and her irritation filled up the room like a swarm of angry bees. “No, Aunt Elaine, I don’t think it’s inappropriate. It’s beach volleyball, not high tea.”

  The white triangles of her bikini barely covered her succulent, round breasts. And while she wore shorts with a Hawaiian flower pattern, they were barely bigger than bikini bottoms. “Where did you get that outfit?”

  “The gift shop, why?” She bent over and scooped all those curls into an elastic band. The shape of her bottom, the length of her back, the tousled curls as she worked them into submission, all allied together to attack every defense he’d tried to build since last night. “What do you want to do after volleyball?”

  He wanted to do a lot of things. Really wicked things. God. Her breasts. That’s where he wanted to spend some serious time. He’d bind her hands and he’d spend hours on her breasts alone. Until she couldn’t form words or thoughts. He wanted the weight of them in his hands. He wanted them pillowing his cock. He wanted…he caught himself before his thoughts took him to a place of no return. He’d just spent the last ten minutes convincing himself his honor was more important than his cock, and it all went out the window the moment he saw her in a bikini.

  She’d asked him a question. He willed the blood back to his brain so he could speak. “I believe it will be time for lunch after volleyball.”

  She straightened. “Okay, then what do you want to do after lunch?” She picked up a camp bulletin from the table. “What is fun for you Harmon? I want you to pick something.”

  Fun. Fun was not in his vocabulary at the moment. There was nothing fun about any of this.

  Liar.

  If they were different people, perhaps, everything about this impromptu retro week would be fun. The fresh air, the lake, the beautiful woman. If they’d met for the first time last night—just a man and a woman—shared a dance, a silly game meant for teenagers, a night alone in a cabin. If they had a whole week to get to know each other, a week of canoe trips and picnics and romance…