Page 46 of Royal Guard

She slid onto me with a rustle of fabric, a gentle waft of that exotic scent, and a brush of her hair against the front of my neck. Then her soft ass was on my thighs, twistingas she hooked her feet into the footwell, and I had to fight to keep from groaning. She was still in that gauzy nightdress and Emerik’s jacket. That meant her ass was only covered by a pair of panties and lacy fabric about as substantial as a spider web. The slit up the side of the nightgown had fallen open and those long, shapely legs were nude as they pressed against my jeans.

Suddenly, I was wide awake. “Take the wheel,” I grunted.

Her fingers wrapped around the rim right below mine, her thumbs brushing my pinky fingers. Immediately, thatpullrolled through me like thunder across a Texas sky. Up through my arms, into my chest...and when it hit my heart, goddamn!I had to crush the wheel in my hands to stop myself wrapping my arms around her and pulling her to me. With every breath, I inhaled her scent.She’s there! She’s right there in your lap and tomorrow she’ll be gone!

Tomorrow, she’ll be back home with her kind. With princes and lords and billionaires.

She wiggled her legs, trying to get comfortable. Theproblem was, I’m pretty big. There wasn’t much room between my thighs and the bottom of the steering wheel. Not unless she scooched herself….

...all the wayback.The firm cheeks of her ass nestled against my crotch. If thepullwas like thunder, deep and resonant, the lust was like lightning, blinding bright and scorching hot, arcing and crackling. Any second, it would strike just the right spot and I’d be helpless to stop myself lunging for her. It would be so easy, sogoddamn easyto just slide one big forearm around that slender waist and jerk her back hard against me, her back pressed to my pecs as my hand roved up under that jacket and palmed her breasts—

“Okay,” she said. I could hear that tension in her voice, that urgency. She was on the edge of control, too. “What do I do?”

I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t focus on the road. All I could focus on was her neck, pale and soft and perfect, locks of that chestnut hair drifting silkily across it as she swayed atop me. I needed to lean forward and brush the hair out of the way, kiss all the way down to the lace on her shoulder, then all the way up her throat to her chin, twisting her around in my lap so I could reach her lips—

I could feel myself getting hard.God, no. Not with her sitting right—I thought of all the reasons why we couldn’t be together. The gulf between us. The parts of me I was hiding from her. Most of all, the need to protect her. I couldn’t guard her if I was too busy imagining—

That ass, so fine and pert and toned from riding, bouncing on top of me as my hands traced up her sides. Her twisting to kiss me, groaning as my roughfingers found her nipples—

It was no good, I was rock hard, the bulge under the denim pressing right between those cheeks. “It’s an auto,” I said with difficulty. “So you don’t have to worry about shifting gears.” I pressed my right thigh against hers. “Try giving it a little gas.”

I lifted my foot off the pedal and let her slide hers on. She hesitantly pushed and the car surged forward. Her ass pushed harder against my crotch and my whole body tensed. Her head was right next to mine and I was drunk on the scent of her, driven crazy by the silken brush of that hair on my neck.Just kiss her!

“Now the other pedal,” I told her. “Gently..”

She braked, harder than she meant to. That was when I remembered that she didn’t have a safety belt on. My arms came up before I was even aware of it, criss-crossing over her waist, hauling her back against me, just like I’d been fantasizing. We swerved a little, then she released the brake and we straightened out.

But I was still holding her tight. I could feel every breath she took, every beat of her heart.Goddamn it, I am crazy about this woman.And then I felt the soft warmth against my forearms and realized they were pressing against the underside of her breasts.

I swallowed. She’d gone rigid atop me, her breath shaky with anticipation. I brought my lips close to her cheek, closed my eyes—

“You got it,” I forced myself to say. “You’ll be fine.”

I opened my eyes and met hers in the rear view mirror. I nodded.It has to be this way.

And after a moment, she nodded too.

She lifted herself and I undid my belt and slid out from underneath her and across to the passenger side. Halfway there, I saw Emerik watching me in themirror. When had he woken up? How much had he seen?

His warning stare told me:enough.Sure, we were getting on much better, now, but when it came to the Princess, he was still viciously protective. Tooprotective for it to just be about me being unworthy of her—which I was. It felt like there was something I didn’t understand. All thatunbroken snowstuff….

I shook my head. Maybe there were still things about Lakovia I didn’t understand.

By the time we reached New York, we were all ready to drop. The storm was close behind us, black clouds shutting out the stars. I automatically started searching around for a cheap motel but the Princess shook her head. “It’s my last night in America,” she told me. “I insist.”

And she took us to one ofthosehotels. The ones where there’s a guy playing the piano in the cocktail bar, where bellhops load your suitcases onto those fancy polished carts. The guy at the reception desk looked at me like I’d crawled out of a drain, but he changed his tune when I booked a suite and paid with a thick wad of the Princess’s cash.

Upstairs, in the suite, I looked around in astonishment. My bedroom had a carved wooden bed the size of a boat, with sheets so smooth and soft it felt like I was going to slip right off them. My room alone was bigger than my whole apartment back in LA.

To the others, of course, it was all normal. Emerik was grinning like a man who’d just stumbled out of the jungle after a month lost. Caroline was on thephone to the concierge, giving careful instructions on what clothes she needed him to run out and buy for us. And the Princess had fired up the room’s huge flat-screen TV and was placing a video call to….

The screen lit up. I didn’t recognize the man who answered but I recognized the thick chestnut hair and the imperious jawline.

“Kristina!”breathed the King.“Thank God!” He laid his hand on the screen and the Princess did the same, touching their palms together. Then he glanced around the room. “Caroline. Gentlemen.”

“Your Majesty,”the other three all said in unison.

Then the King looked at me. “And you must be Mr. Buchanan. Thank you for looking after my daughter.”

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