Page 9 of Her Royal Daddy
Chapter Four
Norah
“I don’t want a nap,” I whined, stumbling along beside him as Mazi half-carried me from the bathroom into the bedroom at the very rear of the plane. I was more than a little buzzed. As nervous as I had been about flying, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. My capacities were more than a little diminished, but even so, I knew three things with utmost certainty.
First, I liked Mazi, and I wasn’t about to overlook everything he’d so far done for me. Not just in the bathroom, either, but before that. He was a stranger, a stripper who’d been shaking his moneymaker the very day I had received my confirmation letter for this job in Osei, on the very night I finally found the strength to extricate myself out of a bad situation and horrible relationship. And now, he was here on the very same plane I was, headed for the same destination, both of us guests to the king of a distant country—coincidence? I think not. Fate had crossed our paths for a reason, and I was a big believer in fate.
Second, there was something mysterious going on here. It was hard to ignore how Jax had stumbled through his introductions back when Mazi first got on the plane. It was even harder to ignore the silent conversation the two of them had shot one another with their eyes. The reporter in me was a curious girl, and even intoxicated, I just kept wondering how a lifelong resident of New York had come to be a special guest to the King of Osei. I mean, I knew how I had come to be on this plane. What was Mazi the Stripper’s story? You could bet I’d get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. But not today. Today, I had a different agenda.
Which led straight to certainty number three: I liked cozying up to Mazi. I’d liked it when he’d touched my head to soothe my hurt, and how he’d helped pick up my mess, and how he didn’t make fun of me or Beatrix. I really liked feeling his arm wrap around me, holding me tight as we stumbled together down the short hall, through another narrow pocket door, and into the lavish stateroom with its blindingly white and shiny gold-gilded décor. White carpet, white walls, and thick white bedspread on a king-sized bed with a headboard that was bolted to the wall and two gold poles that sprouted up from the bottom corner posts all the way to the ceiling.
The bed came with stripper poles.
“They knew you were coming,” I laughed, grabbing onto one when he tried to sit me on the mattress. I threw myself into my best fumbling attempt at being an exotic dancer, but my top half and my bottom half just were not communicating. I swung, but my feet didn’t move and my hands slid straight down the pole, and I landed flat on my back on the floor at the foot of the bed.
I burst into laughter. He was fighting hard not to do the same as he leaned over to look at me.
“You,” he said, grinning, “are a goof.”
“You,” I said back, “are way too attractive for my own good.”
He was too. How was it possible for any man to look this good? If anything, he was ten times sexier now with all his clothes on, than he had been dancing on the stage in his briefs.
His blue eyes laughed at me. “Thank you.”
God, I wanted to be his. Right now. Right this very minute. If only just for an hour; I didn’t care so long as it happened. Forgetting I was lying on the floor, I tried to beckon him down to my level. “C’mere.”
His eyes were still dancing, his mouth still smiling, but something in his expression changed. It was silken, and subtle, and it sent shivery tingles down my back and up my thighs. Between my thighs. It had been a while since last I’d felt arousal quite this raw and needy.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he demurred.
I thought it was a great idea. Maybe it was the mixture of alcohol and lack of food. Maybe it was the luxury of the aircraft, or the sense of adventure that came with traveling to another country, or this overwhelming sense of power I had because I was starting a new life. A new life; a new me. One in which I could be whoever and whatever I wanted—starting right now, this very instant.
“C’mere, Daddy,” I purred, reaching for him.
Hunger and delight darkened his eyes, but just as quickly as I glimpsed the look, it was gone again. He chuckled, low and slow, shaking his head once. “Say that to me again, but do it when you’re sober.”
He reached for me and I took his hands, letting him pull me back up off the floor. The whole room spun and I probably would have fallen again if he hadn’t caught me in his arms. I caught him too, wrapping mine around his shoulders and neck.
“C’mere, Daddy,” I slurred in my sultry best.
“When you’re sober,” he reminded me, scooping me up in his arms and carrying me the short distance around the foot of the bed to the headboard.
“I’m sober enough,” I complained as he lay me down.
“Not so I won’t hate myself in the morning.” He took off my shoes, dropping them on the floor by the bed.
“I’ll ride you again in the morning,” I promised, my head so fuzzy that my eyes kept wanting to close, but my heart was beating like a jackhammer and my naughty bits were pulsing with need. I reached for his belt, but he caught my hand.
“This Daddy spanks,” he warned.
I pouted, only just resisting the urge to stomp my foot. For all the good it would do me, lying here in bed with this weird heaviness creeping up over me. Gravity was pushing my head down deep into the mattress. I couldn’t have raised it if I tried. “That could be fun too,” I sulked. At least I would have the last word.
“Not the way I do it,” he promised. Retrieving Beatrix from where I’d dropped her on the floor, he gave her to me to hug before wrapping an edge of the comforter I was lying on up over the top of me.
“You’re mean.” I tried to pout cute, but it didn’t work. Sadly, alcohol and exhaustion were the only things inclined to have their wicked way with me. If he replied to that sulky comment, I never heard it. I was already asleep.
* * *
