Max and the Prince (9 page)

The days continue to pass in a routine of sorts, and this morning
was no different than normal, apart from the fact that it was a Saturday and on
Saturdays Lucien laid in bed an extra hour so they didn’t leave the house until
half seven.

There was nothing in the photos from the meet that jumped
out at Max. Lucien had even looked. Nothing. And there had been no note through
the door congratulating Lucien on his placings or that Cardiff won or, in fact,
any comment at all in the week since the meet.

Jamie wasn’t home, again, and Max still hadn’t met Emily,
who was taking staying with her boyfriend very seriously, so the house they
left was empty and secure. They took the long way to swimming so they could
walk Cardiff’s waking streets. Every morning they would get up early and
exchange blow jobs or some of the hottest rubbing and grinding that Max had
ever experienced. They hadn’t gone the whole way, but Max was just enjoying dialing
into Lucien’s kink of being held down, and the nights flowed into mornings with
ease.

They let themselves into the changing room and saw a couple
of bags hanging on pegs. One had been there for a week and was clearly
abandoned, but the other Max recognized as Kev’s scarlet and black backpack.

“I don’t get how you notice these things,” Lucien said when
Max commented that Kev was already here.

“I’m just observant is all,” Max offered. He didn’t say that
it was the small details that could save lives. No sense in freaking Lucien
out. They passed the single lifeguard sat on a bench seat on his phone and
exchanged casual waves.

He covered the cell phone with his hand. “Be through in two.”

“No worries,” Max answered. Lucien didn’t even seem aware
they’d been spoken to.

They passed through the showers and got ready to swim. Max
even managed to snag a quick kiss, but Lucien pushed him away with a rueful
grin and a glance down at his groin. “Enough with giving me a hard-on before we
swim,” he said. He left the shower first with Max following him closely, and
Max couldn’t help but focus on Lucien’s tight ass and muscled thighs. Which is
why he noticed when suddenly the muscles tensed and Lucien was running from
him, diving cleanly into the pool from the side and heading straight for…

A body. Someone floating face-down in the water. Max dived
in behind Lucien and came up next to him, helping him tug the body to the side.
They rolled the man on his back and saw it was Kev.

Together they got him out of the pool, Lucien immediately
going into first-responder mode.

He checked for breathing, placing his ear next to Kev’s
mouth and nose before checking for a pulse.

“Jesus, he’s not—Call the ambulance.”

Lucien tilted Kev’s head back and lifted his chin, pinched
his nose closed and covered Kev’s mouth with his own.

For a few seconds Max was in limbo. He didn’t want to leave
Lucien, but Lucien was right, they needed an ambulance. Thank fuck the
lifeguard ambled in, took one look, and ran straight back out with a yelled “I’ll
get help!”

Lucien placed the heel of one hand on the center of Kev’s
chest at the nipple line and began compressions. Max spotted the blood on Kev’s
scalp, dripping steadily and pooling at Kev’s neck. He cursed; there was a large
wound there.

“Come on, come on…”

Just when Max was going to try and move Lucien’s hand, Kev
jerked weakly, water spilling from his mouth, his breath a raspy inhalation,
and his cry of pain horrible to hear. Time slowed. Lucien cradled Kev’s head,
pressing a towel to his head wound, talking softly and calming Kev, who had
tears forming and rolling down his cheeks.

“Do you remember what happened?” Max asked.

Lucien snapped a look of warning at him, but Max shook his
head. Whatever they were—lovers, Kev’s friends, whatever—at the end of the day,
this could have been something that was going to hurt Lucien.

“Meet you early,” Kev forced out as he gripped Lucien’s
hand.

“What do you mean?” Max asked.

“A note, and someone watching,” Kev forced out.

“Don’t talk,” Lucien encouraged.

Max interrupted. “Who was watching?” When Kev didn’t
immediately answer Max asked again. “Who?”

“I was checking… I don’t know… stairs… some guy.” Kev shut
his eyes on another moan of pain. “My jacket.”

Max immediately went to the jacket in the changing room and
pulled out an envelope folded into fourths. He considered what to do with it
given he was just wearing these damn speedos, then he just snapped a shot with
his cell and hurried back to Kev’s side with the note in his hand. He was back
before Lucien even noticed he was gone.

“What else can you tell—?”

“That’s enough,” Lucien interrupted. “He doesn’t know
anything.”

The paramedics arrived, jogging their way around the pool to
Kev. Time for questions was over.

“What happened?” the first paramedic asked briskly even as the
second one took over from Lucien.

 “We found him in the water unconscious, head wound.”

“He must have slipped and hit his head,” Lucien said.

“Not necessarily,” Max warned.

“Jesus, Max, not everything is a fucking conspiracy.”

“How are we to know that he wasn’t hit and pushed in the water?”

“Save it for the cops, guys,” paramedic two interjected.

Lucien stood as they wheeled Kev away. He looked down at the
blood on his swim trunks and on the floor and became awfully pale.

“He’ll be okay” was all Max got to say before the police
arrived and asked their questions. He gave them the note from Kev’s pocket and
they took notes and photos, but judging from their reaction to blood on the
side of the pool, Max could see they were agreeing with Lucien that Kev slipped
and fell.

“You sent this note to him?” they asked Lucien.

Lucien looked at the note. “No, I didn’t.”

“Is there another Luke on the team?”

“No,” Lucien said. “Maybe it’s another friend.”

Max listened as they asked Lucien questions, but he didn’t
step in with his theories of the connections that spun in his head.

If only he could subscribe to Lucien’s hypothesis, but
something about this made him feel on edge. He waited until they had showered
and dressed, then before they left he went and stood back out by the poolside,
Lucien next to him.

He pulled out his cell and the picture of the note inside
the envelope.
Meet at pool early, problem with butterfly, Luke.
The note
wasn’t handwritten but typed on a nondescript piece of white paper.

“I didn’t type that.”

“I know you didn’t. Someone sent that to him to get him
here.”

“I really just want to go,” Lucien said.

“One more minute, okay?” Max turned a full three-sixty and
gestured up at the glass cubicle in one corner. “That’s where someone could
watch you if they wanted.”

“You think there’s a connection between what happened to Kev
and me?”

“Call it a gut feeling.”

Cautiously Max took the stairs that led off from one side of
the pool. They doubled back on themselves halfway up and it was there that Max
spotted it, a darkness on the metal. He crouched and pressed a finger against
the smudge. As he’d suspected, it came away red, like blood.

“We need to call the cops back.”

* * *
* *

Lucien felt sick. He’d been asked questions, listened as he
heard Max explain everything. And now it was his turn again to go over
everything for the second time.

The cop regarded him carefully. “So, Your Highness—”

“Please don’t call me that. Luke is fine.”

The cop looked at his notes and cleared his throat. He was a
young guy with buzz-cut hair and a subservient attitude. The hair was nice, the
attitude not so much. Being nice to the prince was not going to find whoever
did this to poor Kev.

“Luke, you didn’t see anyone before you dived into the pool?”

“Just Kev, Kevin Milsen. He was on his front in the water
and my only thought was that he wasn’t moving and the way he was lying, it
wasn’t like he was floating to practice his breathing. He looked broken.”

The cop made notes.

“I think we have everything. We’ll interview the staff and see
if there is anything on the security cameras, then get back to your associate
if needed.”

“He’s not my—” Lucien stopped. What was the point of
explaining that Max was his bodyguard and his lover, his partner, when at the
moment it felt like he was anything but. There was a distance as Max
investigated the scene, but that was okay. Lucien understood distance from
people he loved.

Love.
That was a joke. They’d only known each other a
few weeks. Lust, maybe. That was a better word to use.

So why did his heart ache when Max looked at him and there
was no smile on his face?

When they were done at the pool, they walked the most direct
route back to the house, Lucien fielding calls from the team after he’d sent a
blanket text. He’d underplayed the near drowning, but if he and Max had stopped
to kiss more or had decided to sleep in or hell, one of a million other things
that could have been different, then Kev could well have died.

He was quiet. Max was silent. The house was empty when they
got home. Empty and noiseless. Lucien made it to the shitty sofa before his
legs gave way under him. The next thing he knew, Max was handing him a cup of
tea with sugar and reassuring him that this was exactly what Lucien needed. He
took one sip. It was disgusting, but under Max’s orders he finished it all.

He was in shock. The tea didn’t aid anything. Nothing was
going to help.

Max crouched down in front of him. “Talk to me, Lucien, what
are you feeling?”

Lucien cursed his inability to explain. No one in his life
ever asked him how he felt, and he didn’t know how to answer. Instead he
focused on something else. Anything to quell the nausea in his stomach or the
buzzing in his head.

“Will Kev be okay?”

Max waved his cell, which blurred a little. “Mickey texted
me. Kev has a concussion, but no lasting damage. They’re keeping him in for a
couple days. I might go visit and have another chat with him, see if he
remembers more.”

Something snapped inside of Lucien. “No,” he said. “You’re
not going anywhere.” He didn’t mean to come over like he was ordering Max about,
but shit, wasn’t Max supposed to be here for him? And Lucien really needed Max
to stay with him and stop him from feeling like his heart was going to jump out
of his chest. “Please don’t go anywhere.”

“Okay,” Max said. He didn’t argue or push or anything Lucien
expected, he just said
okay
in an awful, dead voice. Then he moved to
the kitchen and busied himself with coffee.

Lucien had two choices. Go to his room and wallow or
actually face up to the fact he’d probably pissed Max off. Was what they had
enough to survive a prolonged breakdown in his room or was Lucien ready to face
his first adult relationship with some actual talking? He wished he knew what
to say.

“Sorry,” he blurted out. Then he followed it by walking over
to Max and hugging him from behind, crossing his hands on Max’s stomach and
holding tight.

“What for?” Max turned in his arms with some struggling,
until they faced each other and Lucien loosened his hold a little.

“For telling you not to go and see Kev. Ordering I mean.”

“You’re the client,” Max said. He sounded puzzled, and
Lucien didn’t understand why. Then it hit him.
Client
.

“Is that all I am?” He didn’t let go of Max, but he buried
his face in Max’s neck, inhaling the scent of the man and feeling instantly
reassured.

Max stood still for a bit, holding him, then very
deliberately, he extricated himself and pushed Lucien away a little. “Sit
down,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Lucien didn’t want to talk. He’d had people do that to him
before. Friends who said he was too much work, doctors who told him how ill his
brother was, family that told him he needed to buck up and stop grieving, the
authorities who told him to stop drinking.

Feeling dread like none he’d felt since losing Seb, he slid
into the chair at the table and sat with straight back and his hands folded in
front of him. He would take whatever Max said with his mask firmly in place.

Max took the chair opposite him and cradled the mug of
coffee.

“My first responsibility is to keep you safe,” he began.

Lucien’s stomach fell, but his training meant he had to try
and make Max feel good about himself before Lucien could demand more. “And you
do.”

“But this morning, Lucien, when you ran and dived into that
pool, my heart stopped. Way before the adrenaline hit, for those few seconds, I
could think of nothing but the way you ran straight into danger.”

Lucien shook his head. “It’s a pool. Kev was unconscious. I
couldn’t leave him.”

“I know.” Max held up a hand to stop Lucien. “Your first
instinct was to aid your friend, but what if your stalker was waiting in the
pool?”

“He wasn’t—”

“You didn’t know that—”

“What did you want me to do, casually turn to you and say ‘Oh
look, Kev’s in the water and I think he’s in trouble. Let’s call a lifeguard?’”
Every word dripped with sarcasm and a hint of anger. Max winced.

“No. Look. You did what any person would have done in that
situation, and I admire you for that. The man I sleep with is selfless and
brave and thinks on his feet, how can I not respect that? Just… next time, wait
for me.”

“That’s it?”

Max tilted his head, and the puzzled expression was back.
“What do you mean?”

“I get you’re angry that I dived in, I get why that was a
bad thing, but you’re not giving me the speech about how you were compromised
as a bodyguard and how what we have is…” He waved a hand, utterly lost for
words.