The Christmas Princess (23 page)

“You okay?” She looked okay. Hardly mussed at all.

“If you’re waiting for me to thank you, you can forget it.” She sounded irked. “I didn’t need you bursting in here like that.”

“The curtains were closed.” Why had he said that? Of all the inane comments.

“So we could see the Christmas lights better. We couldn’t see them with the drapes open because of the inside lights.”

“He wasn’t looking at any Christmas lights when I saw him.”

“I was handling it.”

“You don’t know about men like this, April.”

“How do you know what I know— Oh, of course, your file on me. I hadn’t realized it had gone to such detail. But your research wasn’t foolproof, Hunter. Just because you thought I was an ugly duckling before you transformed me, don’t be so damned sure I don’t know about men like Neil.”

“Ugly duck— I don’t…”

He felt a kinship with Nine-Handed Neil he never would have expected. In the closed off area, the warm scent of her twined around him like steam after coming in from the cold. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes glowed and her lips … her lips were moist and surely as soft as they looked.

Hunter Pierce was suddenly angry.

“What the hell were you doing going with him to a spot like this if you know about men like him?” His arm jabbed at the sliver of space between them. “When all a man has to do is—”

He slid his right hand around the back of her neck, then up, to cup the base of her skull, tilting it back.

Her lips parted.

He looked down at her.

Somewhere a voice told him this was his last chance. His very last chance.

He told the voice to go to hell, and kissed her.

Her mouth opened under his. He slid his tongue into her warmth, seeking. Their tongues met.

She made a soft sound, and it drove him deeper, fuller. Wanting the source of that sound, the source of that warmth. Her palm slid along his jaw line, thumb stroking his cheek. Trying to soothe?

There was no soothing this.

He stroked into her mouth, the rhythm certain and powerful. Her hands came around to the back of his neck. Holding on. Opening.

They had been kissing for a heartbeat. They had been kissing forever.

He didn’t know. Only wanted to keep on.

She gave a small gasp. He felt it more than heard it. Gave up her mouth, instantly.

He looked into her eyes, almost too close to see. They both dragged in air, ragged with the need — for oxygen, for more.

If he took her mouth again now… no…

He kissed the corner of her mouth. Her eyes drifted closed. His mouth slid down, over the curve of her chin, down her throat.

He wanted to keep going, to find the edge of the dress, then under it to her breast. To take her nipple in his mouth, to feel it smooth and hard—

He jerked his head to the side. But could not force himself to end the connection.

Never lifting his head, he kissed along her bare shoulder, the skin so smooth, so warm. He put his mouth over delicate flesh covering the bone and sucked on it. She dropped her head back, pressing herself against him. The rhythm took hold again. Something only they knew. His arm across her back supported her as she arched and he covered the curve of her body with his own.

Felt the soft pulse of her breasts against his chest, knew the heat he would discover as his leg found a place between hers despite her dress.

One hand spread across the fabric below her hip, then closed, drawing the material up. Then again.

Once more and he’d feel her skin. Be so close to—

He spread his fingers, feeling the fabric slide away from him, back to covering her. He jerked himself straight, bringing her with him.

He grasped her shoulders, holding her away. Keeping himself away.

He breathed hard. Wanting to—.

No. If he thought of what he wanted to do, he’d do it. Here. Now.

Her hair was tumbling, her mouth was swollen, her skin was flushed from the rub of his skin.

A surge so strong it was painful pulsed through him. The desire, the need—

“No. This can’t— We have to get back.
You
have to get back. King Jozef will be looking for you.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes so clear, yet he had no idea what she was thinking.

“I shouldn’t have—” he started.

She slid out of his hold, as if he’d never had a hold on her at all. Turned so he had only her profile as she reached up, her fingers tucking tendrils of hair.

The motion raised her breasts, brought them tighter against the dress. Another few inches and—

“I’m not naïve, Hunter.” Her voice was almost even. Almost in control. “I know what—”

“Like hell. If you weren’t naïve, you wouldn’t have been maneuvered into this alcove with him in the first place and you wouldn’t have stayed here after ….” After he’d entered and couldn’t control himself. God, she had to be the most naïve woman on the face of the planet not to see the desire revving through him. “Because you would have known what could happen.”

She started toward the doors to the Entrance Hall. He turned with her movement, as if he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. With a hand on the doorknob she paused. “I would have if I wanted that to happen.

She flicked a final look at him over her shoulder — dear God, a shoulder with a faint redness still showing. From his mouth or his hands? — swung open the door and swished through the opening, back into the party.

If she’d wanted it to happen?

Which
it
? Nine-handed Neil? Had he intruded on an interlude she’d wanted?

Perhaps hinted or flirted into happening? But that wasn’t like April. That wasn’t her way.

So… She’d wanted what happened between
them
to happen?

Something surged up through him, hot and thick. It rose higher, threatening to swamp his brain.
Think
.
Analyze
.

She was a woman. He was a man. He wanted her. Okay. Lust was one element of the potent brew he felt. He could deal with that. But the rest of it? What
was
that?

But then his analytical brain, holding out against the onslaught of this surge, found an ally. A response he knew well flowed down over him. The cool, deliberate mantle of duty.

Whatever April had meant, he would protect her — from Nine-handed Neil or from himself.

“Your Majesty.”

“Please, sit down, Hunter.”

“I prefer to stand.”

“I prefer you to sit.”

The impasse last another twenty seconds before the younger man sat stiffly in the chair opposite his at the small table by the window.

“You asked to speak with me before I retired, Hunter?”

Jozef, King of Bariavak, congratulated himself for such diplomacy. Hunter Pierce had barely waited for April to be out of earshot on her way to her room to demand this audience, even at such an unusual time as immediately upon their return from the White House.

The drive from the White House to the embassy would have told him, of course, that something had occurred. Hunter’s grim silence. April’s over-bright cheerfulness in recounting her pleasure for the party. Neither looking at the other.

But he already knew.

So many years of ruling his country. So many connections. So many unofficial and very willing spies.

“Yes. I request leave to speak bluntly rather than as a diplomat would, in the interests of time.”

“You have observed many diplomats, Hunter, so you should be aware that the best diplomats never waste the time of others. It is one of your qualities that would serve you well in diplomacy.”

Only the slightest hesitation betrayed the younger man’s temptation to set the record straight that he would die to protect diplomats, but he had no interest in becoming one.

With some amusement, the king wondered if Hunter decided not to pursue that red herring because he didn’t want to disagree with a king, or because he didn’t want to waste time. Jozef suspected the later. His amusement deepened.

Ah, the introduction of April Gareaux into his life was a blessing indeed.

He nodded, both hiding the twitching of his lips and indicating Hunter should proceed.

“It’s about Ms. Gareaux.”

Jozef stilled inside, waiting for what came next. “Yes.”

“She is a very intelligent young woman—”

“She is.” As he’d intended, Jozef’s prompt agreement stopped Hunter’s set speech. When he resumed, he sounded less like a robot.

“But she is not experienced in…” He cleared his throat. “You have undertaken to entertain her during her stay here. That entails responsibility. The circles that you have introduced her to are not what she’s accustomed to. She doesn’t have the experience rebuffing the advances of certain kinds of—”

“Perhaps my information is faulty,” Jozef interrupted smoothly, “but I understood that it was not the senator’s staff member that she kissed, but you.”

Hunter stood. “I will tell my supervisor that you require someone else to take my place immediately, Your Majesty. My resignation—.”

“You will do no such thing, but you will sit down.” The younger man remained standing “Sit down, Hunter.”

He did.

“You will most certainly not resign. You will not tell your supervisor. And you will not leave this assignment.”

“But—”

“Do not interrupt a king who is insisting you keep your job.” King Jozef did not let the touch of humor undercut the iron in his order.

Hunter’s mouth tightened.

His staying silent satisfied King Jozef, so he proceeded. “Perhaps you think that because I have lived my life as a royal that I am the one to instruct April in the dangers that she might encounter in this world. Instead, I am the last person to do so. This life is too engrained in me, the dangers too familiar for me to even see them. I sidestep them without thinking. So how could I warn anyone else of them? I could not. No, what would benefit April is someone who has knowledge of both the world she has come from and this new world she has entered, for however long that might be, and can point out to her the differences — and the dangers. Someone, in addition, whom she trusts. Someone who cares about her. That person is you.”

“Sir, there—”

“You do care about her, don’t you, Hunter?”

His mouth clamped closed an instant before he responded, “That is immaterial to my job.”

“It’s very material to your kissing her.”

The younger man’s face went still, his eyes cool. Some might say blank. But Jozef knew better. He knew the emotions that could, and no doubt did, roil beneath such a façade.

He thought of the report on Hunter Pierce he had revisited shortly before this interview. The facts there softened his voice.

“A job is not a man, Hunter. Not even
this
job,” he tipped his head toward the painting of his ancestor. “Love defines a man, and gives him a life. Family.”

He cleared his full throat, unashamed. “That is what I have learned. I tried for a time — too long — to persuade myself otherwise. But I know now that I have wasted a great deal of time. All these years of so cautiously seeking my granddaughter because I feared being hurt again, I should have been seeking to build other love into my life. Not to replace the loved ones I had lost, but to honor them by practicing what they had taught me — love and life and family. Do you understand?”

“Your Majesty.”

The straight, taut line of the shoulders told him Hunter had braced himself against truly hearing the message of the words. He sighed.

Perhaps he should not have spoken so soon,

“You are forgiven.” The tiny muscles at the corners of the younger man’s eyes twitched. He wanted so to point out that he had not asked forgiveness. But he was well-trained, perhaps more by his life than by his profession. “And now you understand that it is my wish, as King of Bariavak, that you remain in your position. Indeed, I have a commission for you, beginning immediately.”

He outlined that commission, watching Hunter closely.

He saw the protest before it reached Hunter’s lips, and short-circuited it. “I have, of course, vetted this through your supervisors. They agree. When you check with your office, you will find arrangements are in process. You shall start immediately.”

He waved a hand of dismissal.

But he didn’t start humming a jaunty little Bariavakian folk tune until the door had closed behind the straight back of Hunter Pierce.

He was still humming when Madame entered almost immediately upon the sound of her knock.

“I have come to see if you require anything before retiring, sir. And to enquire if you have a preference for breakfast.”

Madame Sabdoka never made such a check on him, nor gave him a choice in menu.

“I should like coffee, please.” He’d left today’s tea — herbal, decaffeinated, and otherwise robbed of taste — untouched.

“No, Your Majesty. The surgery is in two weeks, and the doctors said no caffeine for two weeks.”

“They advised it, they did not order. And even so, the two weeks do not start until Thursday, so I shall have coffee tomorrow.”

“No, Your Majesty. And I do hope your interview with that American has not upset you. The doctors said—”

“If ‘the doctors said’ is going to be the extent of your conversation, Madame, I shall banish you.” She clattered a lamp she was adjusting but made no other comment. “As for my conversation, rather than upset me, it intrigued me. An interesting young man. With an excellent head on his shoulders and the heart of a lion.”

Madame snorted, if such a word could be used for one so dignified. Ah, but he remembered a time when she had not been so dignified.

When they had both been young and wild, and not yet reined in to the duties that awaited them.

He had fared better in that regard than Marusha. He had come to love his wife dearly. And he had had, for a time, a family as loving and normal as any monarch could hope for. Marusha’s arranged marriage had not been as successful.

Her sole child, too, had died during that damnable uprising. Months later, her husband died unexpectedly, not having had quite enough time to finish the job of gambling away both their fortunes.