Yeah, she just bet he did. “Lead the way.”
They pushed through the crowd, and Dieter wrapped his strong arm around her shoulders protectively as he broke their path to a door on the edge of the floor.
When they got there, Dieter showed the man his phone and said, “We have a reservation for eleven.”
The guy glanced at Dieter’s phone. “Yes, sir. This way.”
They followed him through halls that looked increasingly less like a restaurant, becoming more dungeon-like.
Dungeon?
She said, “Wait a minute—”
“Do you want to go home?” he asked her.
“I didn’t say that. I think I just caught on, though.”
“Good.”
The guy opened a door with an iron key in a large, black lock, and Dieter led her inside.
In the room, boxes and frames made of metal bars and laced together with leather stood around the room. “I don’t know what any of these are for.”
Behind her, Dieter growled, “I do.”
He grabbed her wrists and spun her against the wall. The brick wall felt rough against her back, nearly scraping her shoulder blades. Dieter pinned both her wrists above her head and kissed her, his tongue sliding between her lips and invading her mouth.
Oh, yes. Not that Flicka’d had any doubts for months, but this rough, passionate, protective man was all Dieter Schwarz.
He held her hands to the wall with one hand, and his other traversed her body, bending to her curves, stroking her. He pulled back and ran his teeth down her throat. “God, you’re sexy,” he whispered.
Flicka whimpered, already beyond words.
“I love how soft you are, how womanly your body has become. I want to make you do things you say you don’t want to, but you do. What’s your safeword?”
“‘Invisible,’” she said, “just like always, and yours?”
“I won’t need one tonight,” he whispered against the skin below her ear. “I’m up for anything.”
She dropped her voice and whispered back, “But you have to be careful.”
“I promise.” A note of solemnity in his deep voice convinced her that he knew exactly what she was talking about.
He twisted her in his hands, turning her around to press her front against the wall. Above her, he curled her fingers around an iron ring bolted into the stone or whatever the wall treatment was. “Don’t let go.”
“What if I do?”
“You know that bad girls get punished. Do you want to be bad?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No. I want you to be good, very good, so I can be bad.”
Oh, that was her favorite, too, when she did everything she was told, and Dieter taught her how to be bad.
He dragged her hair aside and ran his teeth down the back of her neck, unzipped her dress, then unwound her fingers from the ring to slide the dress to her feet. “Step out of it.”
Flicka faced the wall, resting her forehead against the rough stone while Dieter peeled her panties and bra off but left her high-heeled shoes on her feet. His hands cupped the roundness of her behind as he kissed her shoulders and the back of her neck. “God, I love the curves of your ass,” he told her. “I love that you’re getting curvier every day. I want to fill my hands with your ass, your thighs, your breasts, and never let you go.”
Flicka turned her cheek to the wall as his hands roamed her body, clutching and clenching her flesh. “Take me,” she whispered.
“Oh, no, my Durchlauchtig. Not for a long time.”
Over the hours, he lashed her wrists and ankles to a wide frame, spread-eagle, and teased her nipples and clit with his fingers until she was begging him to take her, to let her come, but he could tell just as her core was tightening and pulled back. He tied her to a bench with her ass in the air and her wrists bound behind her back, resting on her knees and her forehead, and tongued her from behind until she was crying, but just as she thought she would come or he would take her ass until she did, he slowed, licking her folds, holding her at that most insane point of almost until she thought she was going to scream for release.
Just as her mind crackled with the pain of frustration, Dieter whipped the cords away from her wrists and legs and whirled, ending up with himself sitting on a bench and leaning back, suddenly and somehow naked, with her straddling him.
He murmured, “Durchlauchtig.”
She practically attacked him, kissing him and driving him back against the leather-covered bench. His mouth opened under hers, and her need was so great that she stuck her tongue in his mouth and rose up over him, settling with his body between her thighs, and he drove up into her.
His hardness slammed into her, and Flicka pushed herself down to take him inside. Need rose, swirling her around, and she lifted herself off him and shoved back down. Dieter arched under her, gasping as she surged and twisted her hips, rocking back and forth on him. Under her palms, his rock-hard chest and abs contracted as he thrust up into her, straining as he watched where their bodies met and then staring up at her. “Durchlauchtig.”
“Lieblingwächter,” she whispered and shoved herself back on him as his gray eyes glazed over and he threw his head back, straining into her.
The throb of him inside her broke through the tightness and resistance in her body, and waves of light sang through her flesh as she took him into herself, again and again, over and over.
She was lying on his body, her hot cheek tight against the damp, golden hair of his chest. His arms wrapped hard around her shoulders and back as he panted in hard, uneven breaths.
“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah,” Dieter said, his voice ragged.
“This place is awesome.”
His laugh was a quick huff before he went back to breathing hard. “I like it.”
“Do you think Wulfie knows about it?”
Dieter used one finger to turn her head to look at him. “Nope, and you must never tell him that I took you to The Devilhouse.”
Rogue Security’s Best Assets
Dieter Schwarz
How to succeed
in the personal protection business.
A few months later, Dieter was sitting in the extra living room they had set up as a home office and scowling at his operations and projects sheet. Nothing made sense, especially the personal protection assignments.
In the intervening months, Flicka had taken over the logistics department, including inventory and preparation, and had moved into all areas of operations so Dieter could concentrate on hiring more operators.
He asked, “Flicka, Durchlauchtig?”
She spun in her office chair from the computer where she’d been working. A color-coded spreadsheet looked like a manic dance floor on the monitor. Her pregnant tummy pooched out a bit, and she looked softer and more voluptuous all over. “Yes, Lieblingwächter?”
Dieter shook his head to concentrate on his work instead of all the dirty things he wanted to do to his pregnant little vixen while she was round and soft and bosomy. “I don’t understand some of these personnel assignments.”
“Like what?” she spun back around and peered at her work.
He came over and stood behind her, nuzzling her ear and inhaling the sweet, floral scent of her hair. “Why would Eian Summerhays and Aiden Grier be assigned to a personal protection detail? Aiden’s an infiltrator, and he and Eian are bad for each other.”
Flicka cleared her throat or coughed or something.
“What?”
“It was at the client’s request.”
“Who requested them?”
“Kira von Prussia, an old friend of mine, requested them.”
“Did you ask your friends to hire us?”
“Oh, I didn’t have to. Word got around. Kira wanted guys with specific skills.”
“What skills?”
“Washboard abs and sexy accents.”
“What?”
“Eian has that cute little Irish thing g
oing, and Aiden sounds like he should be wearing a kilt. She has a thing about men in kilts. She read some romance novel about them, and now she wants to go kiss standing stones in Scotland or something.”
“Aiden has a kilt. When he goes drinking, he wears it, in the traditional Scottish fashion.”
“That explains the bonuses Kira keeps giving him,” Flicka muttered. “And how do you know that?”
“Oh, he’ll tell you. And this assignment,” he pointed to a red square on the spreadsheet, “Magnus Jensen and Riordan Kennedy. Those two together make no sense. Riordan is a sniper. He shouldn’t be on close personal protection at all.”
“Matched set of tall, dark, and handsome, with blue eyes.”
Dieter stood, aghast. “We can’t assign people like that. It’s unprofessional. People will say that we’re pimping bodyguards out to rich, bored women.”
Flicka snorted. “They’re saying a lot more than that.”
He frowned. “Like what?”
She turned to face him and braced her hands on her hips. “While no one is saying anything about your professionalism or your integrity, my girlfriends think your operators are hot.”
Dieter rolled his eyes. “These guys are not arm candy. They’re some of the best special forces operators in the world.”
“And they look like it.”
“They should be respected for their skills and knowledge base.”
“And for their time in the gym.”
Dieter pointed at the computer screen. “They’re not supposed to sleep with clients. It’s unprofessional, and it’s dangerous. I can’t have your girlfriends climbing all over my guys while they’re trying to work.”
Flicka laughed. “No one is going to sexually harass your employees. It’s like having a hot car. It’s fun when other people admire it.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“Then you shouldn’t hire such hot guys.”
“I employ the best, most experienced, most accomplished men and women in the world. I have a hiring rubric. I don’t care what they look like.”
“And because you hire the best people, your company is wildly successful. Rogue Security is an amazing organization with a stellar reputation, and it’s operating at full capacity, all the time.”
“Because my operators are sleeping with our clients?”
“Not to my knowledge. I haven’t even heard gossip, and I would have heard the gossip. Your company is a resounding success because the Rogues are the best at what they do.”
Dieter scowled.
“And because they’re hot,” Flicka allowed.
Mr. And Mrs. Schwarz
Dieter Schwarz
Two years later.
Dieter and Flicka stood in the entryway to the cozy suburban house while Suze Meier’s cats rubbed all over their legs.
The tortoiseshell cat seemed to like Dieter’s trousers the best, shedding its three colors of fur onto his legs.
Flicka watched the cat molesting his ankles, while a black cat nuzzled her black slacks. “She should have brought you flowers first.”
Dieter laughed and grabbed Flicka’s hand, bringing her knuckles to his lips for one quick kiss before the chaos started.
Somewhere in the house, a child shrieked, “Mama! Daddy!”
Dieter widened his stance to brace for the coming onslaught.
A tow-headed child rounded the corner of the hallway and barreled straight at them. “Mama!”
He said, “Flicka, be careful—”
Flicka was already on her knees with her arms spread. “Come to Mama, Alina.”
Alina, now four years old, launched herself through the air and flew into Flicka’s arms. She laughed and hugged her child, and both of them giggled like mad.
Flicka got the first hug from Alina, huh?
Biology didn’t count for anything, these days.
Suze Meier walked around the corner, holding a chubby baby on her hip. “Maximilian did very well while you were gone, but he still resists spinach and other greens. He seems to be accepting broccoli adequately.”
Maximilian Wulfram Schwarz reached his chubby hands into the air, opening and closing his little fists. “Dada.”
Dieter lifted the child out of Suze’s arms and settled his son against his shoulder. Max blinked his gray eyes at Dieter, solemnly but not sleepily.
He had Dieter’s eyes, sort of. Max’s eyes were a more intense shade of gray than most of the Mirabauds, with paler shades of dove around his pupils.
Dieter said, “We’ll make sure to work on the greens.”
“And I’m not sure how Max has managed to give up naps so soon. That’s not healthy for a thirteen-month-old.”
Dieter glanced down at his feet. This was one of Suze’s common complaints. Max had stopped napping when he was nine months old, about the same time he’d stood up and cruised the furniture. Yes, they had an insomniac, walking baby with his hands free. Babyproofing the house had reached obsessive levels soon after. Even Alina was conscripted to chase Max around and make sure he didn’t do anything insane.
Flicka said, “All kids are different. I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”
“Oh, he’s no trouble. Luckily, he seems to like playing with his stuffed animals in the crib during what should be nap time. Alina has some coloring homework from pre-K that is due on Monday. When will be the next time you to travel, so I can plan?”
Flicka stood up beside Dieter. Alina transferred over to grab at Dieter’s legs, so he handed Max to Flicka so she could kiss their son hello. “I’m not sure. We should be home for at least a month.” Probably.
Suze frowned at them. “You guys always look so windblown and twitchy when you get back from one of these work trips. What do you do at these conferences?”
Dieter said, “Just some boring business meetings,” just as Flicka said, “Logistics and supply.”
He didn’t dare look at her because they might start cracking up.
At least in theory, logistics and supply would cover the situation when Flicka had been sitting in an unmarked communications van, supplying weapons and ammunition to a dozen mercenaries and then coordinating the assault on a small, Argentinian compound to rescue two kidnapped children.
Flicka was running the operations, and she was amazing at it. Years of commanding teams of caterers and suppliers had prepared her to be a Rogue Security general better than any military career. She’d read all of Dieter’s essays and theses on tactics and warfare in undergrad and graduate school, and she’d read many of the books they were based on, too.
If she had been born in a different place and time, Dieter believed she would have cut her hair and led the Hannover army to war, charging into battle on an enormous, white Percheron stallion, and Carl von Clausewitz would have written his book about her. Hell, she could have taught at the Prussian war college and written Vom Kriege herself.
Clausewitz said, of generals, that “Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”
Flicka had become Clausewitz’s ideal military strategist, but also Sun Tzu’s consummate general. “Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.”
The Rogues would have ridden into the Valley of Death if her voice over the com told them to charge.
Her quiet, alto voice speaking in Dieter’s ear had steadied his arm while he picked off the bad guys with his sniper rifle.
And afterward, with the adrenaline running through their veins like fire, well, that effect hadn’t changed, either.
Flicka said, “We might have another conference coming up in a week or two. We’ll tell you as soon as we know.”
“Yep,” Dieter said, “We’ll let you know.”
Cliffhanger
Two days after the suicide
of Prince Pierre Grimaldi of Monaco.
The helicopter rose into the air, fanning Quentin Sault and the other Secret Service and palace associates with dust and salt water spray. The wintry sun shone down on the helipad high above the Mediterranean Sea and sparkled on the cold, azure water, chilling him to the bone.
The heavy coffin was placed on a casket carriage. Secret Service agents pushed it by the rails, rumbling over the asphalt.
It didn’t matter. A little jostling couldn’t hurt him now.
Claude Brousseau said to Quentin, “I can’t believe we’re having another royal funeral so soon.”
Quentin nodded, acutely aware his own failure had caused this one. He’d replayed the scene in his head a thousand times. In each one, he’d been a little quicker to leap and take the bullet to his own head, or he’d understood the desperation in Pierre’s voice and talked Pierre down before he’d leaped at Dieter Schwarz.
Grief lanced through him, every time.
But he couldn’t show it. He was, after all, a professional.
Quentin Sault drew a deep breath of the salt sea air and turned to Mathys Vitale. “Who’s going to tell Prince Maxence?”
~~~~~
Maxence Grimaldi was born to be the “spare” to the princely throne of Monaco. The throne was promised to his older brother.
Maxence didn’t care.
Traditionally, younger brothers who won’t inherit the throne have chosen a career in the Church: a life of sacrifice, charity, good works, sobriety, and chastity.
But in this modern age, why would a man like Maxence Grimaldi—wealthy, educated, and cultured, tall, handsome, and ripped, and hot as sin—want to be a priest?
He must be hiding something.
Runaway Billionaires: Maxence
at Google Play
Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5) Page 29
