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The next thing she knew, his tongue was tangling with hers and his fingers were wrapped around her hair, pulling it taut and forcing her head at a better angle for him to devour her. It was hard. It was intense. It was a preview of how this man would be in bed, and she couldn’t wait for that to happen. She squeezed her hand between their bodies and cupped his hard cock.
Dom let loose with a half groan, half growl before grabbing her by the hips and pushing against her from the front. He released her hair and snagged her wrists and held them out to the side, her palms pressed against the Mercedes, so she couldn’t touch him as he rocked against her.
It was good—fuck that, it was amazing—but not enough. She needed more. She needed to feel him against her core. What she wouldn’t give to wrap her legs around his lean hips. Whoever had invented the pencil skirt should be shot. She broke the kiss and grabbed him by the tie. “We need to get inside and lose the clothes unless you want to strip me naked and fuck me against your car. Either way, decide now.”
A tiny, high-pitched squeal, almost like feedback, emitted from the silver clip on his tie. Dom froze against her before quickstepping it several steps away. He waved his hand over the tie clip, and the noise stopped. They stared at each other, both panting.
“What the hell is on your tie pin, Dom?” Anger and confusion mixed with regret and frustration inside her, twisting her gut and sucking out the last of the oxygen from her lungs.
Everything about him was hard and tense as he fisted his hands at his side. Lust made his blue eyes hazy, and for the first time since they’d met, he was breathing heavily.
He flicked his gaze from her to the driveway and to the sky before bringing it back to her…but not her eyes. His attention stayed firm on a spot below her eyes, and then he bent at the waist in a deep bow.
“Your Royal Highness, Princess Eloise, please accept my most sincere apologies for my most inappropriate behavior.” Gone was the cocky billionaire, replaced with a more formal man of the royal court she remembered from before the coup. He straightened, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m the Resistance’s second in command. We’ve been watching you since after you arrived in Harbor City ten years ago. We were hoping to never disturb you, as was your father’s final wish. However, we have solid intelligence that the Fjende, who led the coup on your country, are coming for you.” His icy, determined gaze met hers. “They mean to marry you off to your cousin Alton before killing you as soon as you produce an heir, but you shouldn’t worry. We’re going to stop them and take back Elskov.”
Chapter Four
Everything after Dom’s announcement was a blur. A numbness, the same that had trapped her for her first year in America, weighed down her limbs and clouded her brain. It was one thing to know—it was another thing to hear the words she’d feared spoken out loud.
They mean to kill you. The words were stuck on repeat in her head as he ushered her into the huge log cabin–style château and past the butler who looked like he could bench-press a Humvee. The incongruity of the MMA-fighter body tucked inside a formal black suit and white gloves, the same style the servants wore in Elskov Castle, jarred something inside her and revved up her survival-at-any-cost motor to burning-rubber speed.
“We need to talk.” She used the imperial at-court voice her father had always affected when someone had displeased him greatly. “Immediately.”
Dom didn’t ask why. He didn’t stop in confusion. He took her by the elbow and made a sharp right turn through the first available door. It was the kitchen. Once inside he dropped his hand and stole away the one bit of warmth from her while cold panic tried to break free. Needing time to get it under control, she clasped her hands together and inspected her surroundings.
The space was rustic meets modern. At one end of the large kitchen, a grouping of overstuffed chairs and a leather love seat in shocking hot pink sat facing a stone fireplace that took up half the wall. There was a spit in the hearth big enough to roast a medium-size pig. At the other end of the room, a gourmet stainless steel oven was nestled inside a stone wall, as were the oven’s matching appliances. Everything was high-end, beautiful, and utterly impersonal. It was like looking at a magazine spread of what a chichi cabin in the woods should look like. If the coup had never happened, she probably would vacation in a château like this, with servants who doubled as security guards and sycophants who pretended to be her friends. She might not have friends now, but at least the few work friend–type relationships she had were on her terms and they were genuine. The last thing she needed was to go back to her old life, even if she could. There was nothing for her in Elskov besides memories of her father bleeding out on the palace steps and the realization that any sense of security was an illusion.
Her gaze landed on Dom, and a frisson of attraction sizzled across her skin. The bastard had kidnapped her, and she couldn’t sever that vibrating line of want connecting them. The kiss outside had been a mistake. Dom wasn’t like the men she took home after a night out. There was something harder, more dangerous about him. She could see it now when she looked beyond the generically Nordic features of cold blue eyes, light blond hair, and imposing size, a holdout from their Viking ancestors. Even in a mountain hideaway that was no doubt guarded like a fortress, and facing a woman he’d called princess and bowed down to outside, he couldn’t hide the aggressive stance that was as much a part of him as it was of all the people in Elskov. Their home was a tiny island situated strategically between Norway and Scotland that had repelled invaders for centuries. The Elskovians never learned to fight. They learned to win, whatever the personal cost.
That’s exactly what she’d do, but her final prize wasn’t the crown of a country she hated—it was her own freedom. But first she had to survive, and to do that she needed Dom, at least for the time being.
“Tell me about the Fjende,” she demanded as she circled the oversize granite island.
Dom arched an eyebrow, not missing the barrier she put between them. Then his gaze shot to the side, as if he’d remembered who he was and even more, who she was.
“They’re a secret society behind the coup.” He reached for a crystal decanter on the sofa table behind the love seat and poured two small glasses of champagne-yellow liquid. “Their reach is legendary. They orchestrated the attack on your father and then managed to convince the world that your father had a heart attack and died peacefully in his sleep, and that you agreed to let your cousin Alton act as your designee while in mourning.”
“It’s been ten years,” she said. “How have they managed that?”
He strode across the room, the two glasses fitting easily in one of his large hands, and held them out to her. She took one and lifted it to her nose. The sweet and spicy, slightly peppery scent of caraway wafted up from the shot glass.Akvavit. She hadn’t had the distinctly Elskovian spirit since the Christmas before her father died. He’d given her a sip of his, and it had burned its way down her throat like liquid fire, and he’d congratulated her on being strong enough to take it, just like he knew she always would be. The memory made her throat tighten with emotion.
“You don’t keep up on the news at all.” Dom shook his head and sipped his akvavit, not even flinching as he swallowed.
“I have my reasons.” Like the fact that she hated her small island homeland, from its sheep farms to its rocky fjords. A man in a black raincoat might have shot her father, but she blamed the whole country for letting it happen, for not fighting back, for not seeing through the lies, and for abandoning her on a foreign shore.
Unlike the way she’d been taught, she shot back the akvavit in one gulp. It scorched her throat and made her eyes water, but she refused to react to the pain by gasping or wincing. She would remain impervious to it, as she was to all things Elskov. Once she was sure her hands wouldn’t shake, she turned the shot glass upside down and placed it on the island.
Dom lifted his still mostly full glass in toast and took another small sip. “They had a princess impersonator. A few well-timed appearances over the years have kept the questions to whispers.”
Good for them, the bastards.
“So why come after me at all? Surely they’ve realized by now that I have no interest in ever being Princess Eloise again.” For all she cared, the island could sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Because the Kronig coronation celebrating your official acceptance of your royal duties is less than a week away, and two days ago your impersonator died from an overdose.”
Karma’s a real bitch that way. Rounding the island, she swiped her glass and then made her way to the decanter and poured herself another shot.
“So they bury her and the sniveling Alton takes over.” Ugh. That man had always been slimy and duplicitous. The fact that he’d work with the people who’d killed his own wife didn’t shock her in the least.
