His Runaway Campfire Princess

by Gwen Hayes

  But they were not different people.

  It was easier to not answer her question. “You need sunscreen.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “You offering to do my back?”

  He swallowed.

  “Relax. I have the spray kind. I put it on in the bathroom.” She swiped her water bottle off the table. “You going to play too or just watch?”

  Harmon didn’t think he could just watch. His knuckles were already dragging on the ground. Watching her bounce around the sand would probably make him grunt and pull her back to the cabin by her hair. “I intend to play.”

  She grazed a long look down his body. “In jeans?”

  “I suppose I should change into shorts.”

  “I suppose so.”

  The air charged between them. As if she were thinking of him undressing and he was thinking of her thinking about it. She might just be trying to get the upper hand again. Using her body and his weakness for her.

  But he didn’t think she was immune.

  A long dormant urge rose inside him. An urge to play, to make her blush. To call her bluff for a change.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he reached back and pulled the t-shirt over his head, gratified by her widened eyes, the shock of color on her cheeks. “Mind if I use some of your sunscreen, Princess?”

  She shook her head…barely. “It’s…” She cleared her throat. “It’s in the bathroom.”

  He crossed the room to his bag and pulled out a pair of shorts. But not another shirt. “I’ll change in there then.”

  She recovered. He could see it in her eyes. And now came the imp he was accustomed to. “I’ll just wait for you here then.” Like a cat, she crawled onto the bed and laid on her side, facing him, her breasts pushing together. Tantalizingly so. Straining against that damned bikini.

  Her eyes challenged him. To what? Join her?

  Don’t let her know she’s winning, Carlysle.

  He began to take off his watch, keeping eye contact with her. Then he moved slowly to the bed. “I better leave this here. Wouldn’t want to get sunscreen on it.” He put a knee on the mattress and reached over her to put the watch on the nightstand. She rolled a bit, to give him better clearance, and he paused when he was directly over her. Not touching, but only by scant inches. Her heat warmed him. Her scent, coconut and woman, seeped into him.

  He could see her pulse, see her take a shallow breath, but he knew deep down he was the one who was more apprehensive. She was winning the war, but the battles were turning out to be a lot of fun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MERRIAM HAD SEEN SHIRTLESS MEN before. Lots of times. Plus, princesses got to watch Magic Mike just like everyone else.

  But Harmon shirtless, well she hadn’t seen that. At least not since she’d developed hormones. Hormones that were all on Red Alert at the moment.

  She’d had a chance to cool down after the innocent “pardon my reach” moment on the bed, but volleyball was heating her up again. And it had nothing to do with the sun and sand.

  Some of the other guys were shirtless—though she saw one put his shirt back on when she and Harmon got to the sandy beach on the shore of Lake Waawaatesi and the man saw his competition. But those men were not distracting. And when Harmon got put on the other side of the net from her, she forgot about things like…hitting the ball away from her face. She had a goose-egg forming on her forehead right now. Harmon tried to take her away after that, but she told him to stop making a scene and get back to the game.

  She’d just have to be more careful.

  But damn.

  A light sheen of sweat glistened over all that glorious, swarthy skin. Every time he jumped into the air, all the women stopped and ogled, forgetting the game, manners, and likely their names. His crazy training was evident in every hard-cut muscle. He broad back and shoulders tapered into trim hips. His arm muscles rippled under the sun, and the man played volleyball like he did everything else.

  Intense. Focused. Dominating.

  Her ovaries just clapped as he spiked the ball across the net, the sand flying into her face.

  She had to get back into this. She wouldn’t win. They were too far behind, but she had to make a showing. She wasn’t great at volleyball, but she was better than this. She was better than sand-eating.

  She vowed to play like she meant to win. And when the next serve came at her, she bumped it. Only not well. She must have misjudged the ball because it grazed the wrong part of her hand and pain shot through her thumb and wrist.

  “Son of a—”

  He was there, helping her settle into the sand as her knees gave out and stars covered her vision. “Are you all right?”

  Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. She winced, biting her lip.

  He shook her shoulders, not as gently as he should. “Are you?” he demanded.

  She was supposed to say something. What was she…? “Sha-la-fucking-la, Harmon,” she answered and then groaned.

  After a couple deep breaths, the stars bursting behind her eyes slowed down, and normal sound replaced the ringing in her ears.

  Time to get up.

  She groaned again and found him staring at her. His eyes a mask of horror. “Harmon?”

  “Not on my watch.”

  She saw it then. The panic that was too much for the situation. Her getting hurt sent him someplace dark.

  So many times, she’d thought he’d been unscathed from their parents’ tragic deaths. He hadn’t had time to grieve, thrust right into this new title. His new life. He’d never expressed any emotion in front of her that wasn’t disdain after that day. She just sort of assumed he was a man of few emotions.

  But she saw through him now.

  Every instinct inside her demanded she comfort him. Make him okay. Make him understand. “I’m fine.” She gritted her teeth against the pain and cupped his face in her hands. “Look at me. Baby, I’m fine. It’s not your fault.”

  His color returned, and his eyes lost some of the glassy faraway look. “I…” He shook his head to clear it. “Let me help you up.”

  “Sorry guys,” she said to her team.

  “You okay?” one woman asked.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  They went to the little clinic room in the lodge and were given ice and Ibuprofen. He brought their lunch back to the cabin, and they sat on their stoop eating hot dogs.

  Hot dogs! How much fun was summer camp? Princesses might get to watch Magic Mike, but it was rare they were given an opportunity to eat hot dogs.

  She didn’t care if she’d broken her thumb, which she hadn’t, she was still enjoying herself. Except for Harmon’s quiet.

  She tried to break the silence several times, but he met her with indirect looks and one word answers. Finally, she got frustrated.

  “I’m thinking about skinny dipping in the lake tonight.”

  Well, there was a direct look anyway. He held her gaze, and she felt him probing, reading her like she didn’t think anyone else knew how to do. And then he smiled. And that smile spiked her heart down hard into the pit of her stomach like a volleyball in the sand. Splat.

  She was well-used to his scowls but had zero defenses against a smile like that. And something inside her answered, and she realized she was smiling back. Probably the smile of the slightly deranged, but she couldn’t hold it back.

  “No, you’re not thinking about skinny dipping.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. But I am now.” Another beat of silence. “Talk to me. What happened out there?”

  He sighed. Rubbed his beard. Sat back. “I shouldn’t have over-reacted. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “I need to check with the team,” he answered. Gruffly.

  He was using his grumpy voice to push her away so she wouldn’t get too close to his feelings. Was that what he always did? Were the scowls and the grimaces and the tones of his displeasure with her a cover all these years?

  He stared into the distance. A place she c
ouldn’t follow him.

  “Harmon,” she began, pushing back the impulse to annoy him and letting a new, different instinct come forward. The one that instructed her to be gentle, nurturing. “Please tell me why you were so upset earlier.”

  He was quiet. Still gone wherever it was he went. Perhaps she wasn’t quite ready with her innate powers of womanhood. It seemed a little silly now, that this powerful man, this warrior really, would lean on her for strength. That she had enough to offer him when he was in need. Maybe she wasn’t the gentle and nurturing sort.

  He was out of her league. So much.

  “You called me ‘baby’ today,” he said, jarring her out of her thoughts.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She could tell him it was part of their act. She could tell him she was in character as his new girlfriend. She could tell him she wanted to jolt him back into the here and now from wherever he’d gone that had turned his skin so white and his eyes so glassy.

  She could tell him the truth. That it slipped out. That her only concern was him. That the endearment felt natural and real.

  Or she could ignore the question.

  “Who do you talk to?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “About your day? About what you like? Movies…annoying princesses…sport scores?”

  “I don’t have a lot of time for those kinds of discussions.”

  “Really?”

  “I suppose I talk to Matthew about some things. Not annoying princesses, though.”

  He looked at her with those eyes still a bit haunted and that feeling came again.

  Go to him.

  No. She was a problem to him. Not a helpmate. Not a friend. Not a lover.

  But he was wounded, inside where no one else could go and she knew—knew with every fiber, every ounce of blood, every piece of her heart that he needed her. That she could give him what no other person could. At least in this moment, in this stolen week of time, the man behind the title was right there in front of her.

  Hers if only temporarily.

  But she had to grow up, at least a little, to deserve him.

  She felt the pull, the undeniable urge, and heat blossomed in her ribcage.

  A strength of character she didn’t know she had came with it. He could hurt her, maybe more than anyone. He could turn her away, reject her. Say it was for her own good. But she would not give up on him. Not today.

  She got up and moved over, climbing on to his lap.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We’re a couple, remember?” She brushed the fingers of her uninjured hand through his hair, surprised by how silky and soft the dark tresses felt. Like satin. His breath caught, but he didn’t stop her. “We have to make a good show.”

  “This is not a good idea.”

  But he didn’t push her off him. Didn’t say the things he knew would send her away. He closed his eyes and relaxed into her touch.

  “Who do you talk to about your feelings, Harmon?”

  He opened his eyes. “I think we both know I don’t have any of those.”

  She smiled wryly. “Try again.”

  “I’m not a man who needs to discuss feelings, Princess.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re a warrior. A protector. But, Harmon, you’re a man first.”

  He shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. And that’s where you’ve always been wrong. That’s why you try so hard to shake me, rattle me.”

  “No, I’m right and that is why it works when I try to rattle you.”

  “I don’t think anyone is watching us. This public display is likely unnecessary.” Yet his hand supported her firmly on her lower back, and his other squeezed her upper thigh.

  “You could talk to me…about the things you don’t tell Matthew.”

  His jaw clenched. “About annoying princesses?”

  “About how you’re afraid you’ll repeat your father’s mistakes.” He started to push her away, but she held onto his shoulders tightly. “It was an accident. Nobody blames him. My mother wasn’t even the target of that attack. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “This is not an appropriate conversation for us to be having.”

  Oh, but it so was. When he thought something had happened to her on his watch, he’d obviously thought that history was repeating itself. “You have devoted your whole life to righting a wrong that is not yours.”

  “I’ve devoted my whole life to making sure you’re safe. There is nothing more honorable than that.”

  He’d told her more than he wanted to. He was trying to shut down, pull back.

  Not on her watch.

  She wiggled. Just enough to make him hiss. “I’m feeling pretty safe right now. Here, in your arms.”

  “I can assure you this is not the safest place for you right now, Your Highness.”

  “Show me why.”

  He growled. Oh, this was excellent. “Princess.”

  She took the cheap shot and pulled the band from her hair, let it loose. His hand tightened then rubbed her leg. “Come on, Carlysle. Show me why you’re so dangerous to me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Damn her.

  Her lips were parted, her dark eyes trained on him with a little bit of that impish fire behind them.

  Her body was soft, warm. Angled just right for him to take. Plunder.

  A low-charge humming inside his head built, drowning out his ability to think, to rationalize. His heart drummed a primal beat.

  He could not have her. He could not. They both knew it. His sole purpose in life as the Duke of Carlysle was to serve as security for her family. It was more than duty. More than honor. It was as much a part of him as his blood. Just as much as being royal was in hers.

  Nevertheless, she persisted in pushing him. Always pushing him.

  And now she wanted to know just how dangerous he could be.

  So, he’d show her. Damn it, this one time, he would show her.

  Where she expected a violent expression of lust from her constant rattling of his soul, instead he gave something more fatal.

  He gave her sweetness.

  A gentle press of lips. Tender. Her eyes flew open at the assault so mild, and he added a hint of friction. Each slow pass deepened the kiss until she went boneless in his arms and surrendered a soft sigh.

  This. This was the kiss he’d imagined for so long. So many times. When she was troubled. When she was sad. When he could see in her eyes the pain her father could not, he’d dreamed of swooping in like a fairy tale rescuer and showing her this softness. This tenderness that no one, least of all Harmon, thought he could really possess.

  And he’d known she would melt. He’d known she needed this. Known she chose to date men who would never give her this.

  He sipped at her lips, the quirky corner of her mouth that always gave him so much trouble. She was the sweetest candy, and the temptation to taste more was one he could not fight any longer today.

  He deepened the kiss, pressed his tongue to the seam of her lips until she opened and welcomed him. All his senses celebrated as if this kiss were a homecoming. As if he was finally where he’d been meant to go. Sparks lit up every nerve ending in a fireworks show of light and color. His heart pounded a primal beat for their dancing tongues. She tasted like sweet, effervescent champagne, and the part of him that had been dormant for so long cheered when she pushed her soft breasts against his heart.

  He closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. Let his heartbeat return to normal, let his mind coalesce into rational thinking again.

  He picked up her hand, kissed the inside of her wrist. She made a small, needful sound, and he fought the instinct to give them what they both wanted.

  She spoke first. “If you’re about to apologize, please don’t.”

  He wasn’t sorry he kissed her. He should be, but he wasn’t.

  “How do you feel about lawn darts?” he asked instead.

  She blinked a f
ew times. “I don’t know that I have any particular feelings about lawn darts, sir.”

  He smiled. “I happen to be very good at them. And there is tournament in half an hour. Would you like to be my partner? If your hand is feeling better?”

  “I’m right handed. I can throw a dart.” Then she smiled at him and his entire heart just bowed to her.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. Not last night, not today. And he shouldn’t be here, pretending to be her boyfriend. But this would be all he had, and part of him wondered why he was fighting it so hard.

  Someday, he’d be guarding her children. Children with another man. Someday, his son, his heir, would take the oath and guard her children as well.

  The princess would never be his.

  But this week, Merriam was.

  And Harmon would learn to be content with that.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Good morning, Campers!

  We hope you’ll join us for a picnic lunch on the greenfield today. We’re featuring a live band from the neighboring town of Briarsted.

  After dinner tonight is Capture the Flag, so you might want to get a nap in after lunch.

  Merriam was not a morning person.

  Apparently, she wasn’t an afternoon person either.

  Her hand hurt, she needed more coffee, and sexual frustration might actually kill her.

  That was sort of a new thing.

  She liked sex. Sex was fun. But she’d never panted after it like it was an element of her survival before.

  She paced the small cabin. Waiting. She’d wanted to go to archery at eleven o’clock, but her thumb and wrist were not cooperating and Harmon told her no. Well, she’d still intended to go, but then he uttered the words “surprise for you” if she didn’t. And now she was stuck in here waiting for Harmon.

  Because the idea of Harmon surprising her was just too interesting to ignore.

  But he’d better hurry back because cabin fever was a real thing. At least for her.

  Because this frustration was sure to do her in.

  Sleeping next to him last night had been a test of endurance. Listening to him shower had been a test of endurance. Watching him play Frisbee that morning had been a test of endurance.