Page 20 of Royal Guard

Her tank top was the dark red of ripe cherries. On another woman I wouldn’t even have noticed it. But on the Princess, the dark red set off the pale skin of her arms. Her arms! I hadn’t seen them bare, before, hadn’t realized how beautiful they were, feminine but toned. Something about her naked shoulders made me want to wrap one big arm around her back and pull her into me, like we were teenagers at the movies, my fingers rubbing over that soft roundness.

Goddammit!Since when was a shoulder so sexy?

My eyes roved lower. The tank top hugged the curves of her breasts, showing me the shape of her in a way the dress and the suit and even those fancy pajamas hadn’t. Soft and yet pert...majestic.Watching her breathe was hypnotic.

Her blue jeans were faded and distressed. In a few places there were actual holes, little windows that gave tantalizing glimpses of pale skin. And the way the denim clung to her...I wanted to put my hands under that firm ass and lift her, pull her against me—

“So will I blend in?” she asked.

“No,” I growled. I could hear the lust in my voice. Blend in? Every man in the restaurant was going to be staring at her. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was...glorious.

Androyal.I kept telling myself that.She’s a princess.Except...the more the attraction grew, the more that idea changed. I’d been worried about tainting her, somehow, with my blue collar ways. Now, I was so drawn to her, all I could think about was getting that noble perfection very, very dirty.

“It’s perfect,” I managed.

She gave a shy smile and looked down at herselfagain. “Thank goodness. I borrowed everything from Caroline. It’s not too, um…”—she blushed—”tight?”

I looked down at those lush curves again and that was it. My mind tipped over the edge and became a runaway train on a downhill slope. I needed to take hold of her cheeks, tilt her head back and taste those royal lips. I needed to hook my thumbs under that tank top and hook it up over that magnificent chest. I needed to lift her and pin her against the nearest wall, those long, denim-clad legs wrapping around me, and—

I took a step forward. Now we were staring at each other from six inches away, her on my doorstep and me filling the doorframe. She tilted her head way back to look up at me.

Suddenly, all I could see were her lips.

“Mr. Buchanan?” She sounded nervous...but there was an urgency there, too.

I leaned down to kiss her.

12

KRISTINA

Those gorgeous lips coming closer,the sheer size of him scary and wonderful as he leaned down. God, he was everything my mother had warned me about, big and brutish and definitely not of royal blood. I could see it in that hard, curving chest, in the sculpted shape of his forearms. He was made to till fields and ride horses and fight his country’s enemies. Real work, not signing documents and endless talking. He was my polar opposite, as rough as I was refined andGod,I wanted him.

And then suddenly he stopped. He put both his hands on the doorframe above our heads with a heavythump thump.His knuckles turned white. He was grabbing it so that—

So that he wouldn’t grabme.God, the look in his eyes, a man on the very edge of control: wasIdoing that to him?!

He let out a low growl that vibrated right throughmy body...and draw back from me.Why?

There was something in his eyes, something I’d glimpsed back in the desert when I’d asked about his dog tags. Pain so deep and jagged he couldn’t hide it. My chest ached for him.What happened to this man?

He looked away and the spell was broken. Reality came rushing back and I flushed scarlet. He was from a different country...and a whole different world. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head.What on earth came over you?That was the part that shocked me most: I’d been as out of control as him. Andnowwhat? What did I say to him?

“Your Highness,” said Emerik, emerging from the darkness. I jumped about a foot in the air. He has at least a thousand different ways of sayingYour Highness. This was hisI’m onto you and I disapprovetone. He’d used the same one when I was seven, and he’d caught me sneaking jelly beans from the palace kitchen. I carefully avoided his eyes and I didn’t dare look at Garrett, either.

Jakov and Caroline joined us and we headed towards the restaurant. There was a line to get in. Emerik looked at it in bemusement, then in exasperation. Like me, he’d never had to wait in line to get into anywhere. But I joined the end of the line, then gave him a look.We’ll wait politely like everyone else.

“I can’t call youYour Highnessin there,” muttered Garrett after a few moments. He didn’t look at me as he said it. Both of us were still stumbling and awkward after that nearly-kiss.

“Kristina will be fine, Mr. Buchanan,” I told him. “But I have to call you Garrett.”

Now he turned to look at me, blinking in shock. “Aw, hell. You don’t need to—”

“I insist.” I tried it out. “Garrett.” I nodded to myself: I loved the way it sounded: so strong, so...cowboy.

He looked down at his boots for a few seconds, as if no one had called him by his first name in a long time. But then he rallied. “Kristina,” he said in a low growl.

I flushed and caught my breath. I hadn’t thought about how my name would sound in his throaty rasp. When people announce me asPrincess Kristina,it sounds light and clean, like snowflakes falling on a Danish village. But when Garrett said it, he rolled therin a way that sent a shiver right down my spine and then rasped out thetinaso that it throbbed right in my groin.ThatKristina wasn’t snowflakes and innocence.

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