His Heir, Her Honor (5 page)

Frowning, she swept water from her wool coat and the hem of her cashmere dress. “Have many more groupies waiting to waylay us before we board?”

Instinctively, he reached for his phone. “I'm more concerned with how she found out we're here and how much more she knows about our travel plans.”

A call to his family's security team was in order. As much as he wanted to launch his quest to seduce Lilah, nothing could take precedence over her safety. Once they were secured on the plane, he would turn his attention to discovering how Nancy Wolcott unearthed his travel itinerary and just how much she knew.

 

Jet engines humming softly, Lilah unbuckled from her seat for a better view out the window at the night sky. Anything to distract her from what she really wanted
to study. Carlos, reclined and sleeping an arm stretch away, kept stealing her attention.

Before they'd even left the ground, he'd been working his phone assigning some security team—apparently he kept one on retainer?—to figure out how Nancy had tracked them to the airport. A security team, for crying out loud. Once his “people” had been given their marching orders, Carlos had fallen asleep in a blink, a skill he'd picked up catching catnaps during long shifts at the hospital.

How could he look so familiar but seem so different out of their medical realm? She wasn't a millionaire, but she was financially secure in her own right. She'd also grown up with her fair share of glitz due to her father's connections to the Hollywood scene—although he'd been known to live beyond his means, which led to a feast-and-famine lifestyle for his family.

Still, even her own experience of brushing elbows with the rich and famous hadn't come close to the scope of influence she was only just beginning to see Carlos wielded. While she couldn't deny Carlos attracted her physically, she refused to be swayed by the wealth of his world of secretive itineraries, plush limousines and private jets. And a very determined female radiologist whose behavior bordered on stalking.

Lilah gripped the leather armrests tighter. Seeing Nancy Wolcott waiting and waving had provided a hefty reminder for how little she knew about Carlos. And how important it was to gauge her moves carefully.

She looked away from the starkly handsome man snoozing across from her and turned her attention to the sleeping world of tiny lights below. If only things were as straightforward as they'd once been with Carlos, just
a few shorts months ago before that fateful Christmas fundraiser. Back during a time when she'd been able to rein in her wayward attraction to the brooding surgeon who haunted her dreams.

 

Carlos didn't believe dreams came only in black-and-white. His always felt far more vivid than that as the real world mixed with the slumber sphere. Perhaps because he'd slept lightly for as long as he could remember.

As a child, he'd been taught to stay on guard against threats to him as heir to the throne. Then he'd been denied REM sleep by the claws of pain recovering from the shooting. And, finally, he'd needed to stay on alert for his patients.

Right now, his dream mixed with the recycled plane oxygen blending the scent of Lilah with some kind of pine air freshener…taking him back to that night at the hospital fundraiser nearly three months ago….

 

Lighted pine trees decorating the sprawling hospital conference room, Carlos stirred his sparkling water, refusing anything stronger until the fundraiser finished. And then, just call him Scrooge, because all bets were off.

Christmas meant celebrations and special family moments to most people. Carlos preferred a bottle of memory-numbing bourbon to get through the holidays.

But first, he had to fulfill work obligations.

He tugged at his tux tie absently. He hated the damn thing, but his presence was required at the formal event. Wealthy contributors liked to rub elbows with the doctors who used their money to save lives.

Apparently he was the celebrity of the hour since news of his Medina heritage had broken. He would give over his entire inheritance if it would get him out of this diamond-studded circus. Even his family's fortune wouldn't be enough for him to bid farewell to fundraiser dog and pony shows.

His back hurt like hell after a relentless day of surgery after surgery. Seeing Lilah offered the first distraction in an otherwise crappy day. Her auburn hair was swept up in a bundle of loose curls rather than her regular tight twist. During office hours she wore button-up power suits, linen and layers that left him imagining peeling each piece off. Now, however, there was much more of her creamy skin on display. Not in an overt way, but enough that his fingers curled in his pockets from restraint.

The gold silk gown wrapped around her curves, giving her a Grecian goddess appeal. Beaded details glinted from the chandelier's light. The luminescent glow of her bared shoulders, however, outshone everything else.

She smiled at him, leaned toward the person she'd been speaking to—excusing herself?—and walked toward him. Silky fabric swirled around her legs with each graceful glide.

For four years he'd resisted the attraction. Persistent. Ever present. Increasingly painful appeal.

Tonight, with memories of that final, ill-fated Christmas in San Rinaldo pounding in his head like the unrelenting bullets that had killed his mother, his ears ringing, ringing, ringing, he didn't have the willpower to resist….

T
he airplane phone rang and rang and rang, jarring Lilah from her dazed stare out the window at the distant mountain peaks below. She started to walk across to answer the phone before the jangling disturbed Carlos's catnap, but he bolted upright in the reclined lounger and snagged the receiver.

“Speak,” he barked into the phone in his normal gruff fashion.

Some parts of his blunt personality were still all too familiar.

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, his groggy look clearing in a flash as he transformed back to the alert surgeon, the intense man she knew from work. He returned his seat to the upright position. After a few clipped responses of “good,” “excellent” and “keep me posted” rumbling from him, he disconnected the call.

Unbuckling, he stood with an almost disguised wince and started toward her. “Apparently Nancy figured out my plans to fly out from a note Wanda had jotted on her desk. If that's the case, then Nancy knows nothing more about our travel plans than the airport location.”

Lilah thumbed the brass casing around the window, polishing a nonexistent smudge. “It's a relief to know we don't have to worry about Nancy waiting for us when we land in Vail.”

“We can move on to the vacation part of our plans with a clear mind.” He glanced at his watch. “Sorry to have napped so long. You must be hungry. Our steward can bring a light snack or supper even. Whatever you wish, I'll make it happen.”

“How about a double bacon cheeseburger with a mint chocolate chip milkshake?” she asked, only half joking. She was learning just how tenacious pregnancy cravings can be.

He reached for the call button. “I'll see what he can put together.”

Resting her hand on his wrist, she stopped him. “I was kidding. Really, I'm not hungry yet. I just need to stretch my legs. The seats are fabulous—” as was everything on this top-of-the-line private craft “—but my back hurts if I sit too long.”

His brow furrowed as he studied her. Muscular shoulders encased in warm black wool called to her fingers until everything else faded. Her mouth went dry. Carlos's gaze fell to her mouth and she couldn't stop her tongue from teasing along her lips. His nostrils flared with awareness.

She and he had a sensual connection, without question. But there was no emotional connection of any
substance. Right? As long as she remembered that, she should be able to protect her heart.

His hand settled at the base of her spine, as if already testing her resolve. She started to inch away, but he pressed ever so slightly, ever so perfectly, against the spot that ached. Again, she reminded herself the physical was different from the emotions. Why should she deny herself the comfort—the undiluted pleasure—of his touch?

His fingers circled with deepening pressure and she sighed. A hint of a moan hitched a ride on the gusty breath making its way up her throat.

While massaging in increasingly larger circles, he reached past her to slide open the shade further to improve the view of the clusters of city lights below. “How much does your back hurt?”

“Just a little…right there.”

His intuitive touch gave her pause as she realized just how he knew what to do. He lived in constant pain without a complaint.

Straightening, she inched aside. “It's nothing I can't handle.”

He followed, his hands never leaving her body. “There's no need for you to handle it all. I'm trying to be nice, so stop arguing. Doctor's orders.”

“Okay, then.” She began to offer to rub his back in return and then almost gasped.

An urge to laugh followed, chased by a bittersweet sense of how special this would have been had it happened the morning after they'd been together. Or if he'd apologized nicely yesterday for being a jerk these past months, providing a perfectly logical explanation for his behavior.

But she wasn't whimsical. She was practical. Therefore she would enjoy this blasted backrub to the fullest. It was about the physical, nothing to do with her emotions.

Talking, however, would help keep her grounded more in reality and less in the sensual play of his fingers working tension from knotted muscles. “We haven't gotten to talk since boarding. Is the plane yours?”

“My family owns controlling interest in a small charter company,” he answered softly from behind her, his subtle accent curling around each word and into her. “It's an investment that also enables us to fly wherever we wish with minimal discussion of our plans.”

“No one knows your itinerary.”

“That's the idea. I've been able to lead a relatively normal life at the hospital since my identity became public. You run a tight ship and I appreciate that. But out in the real world, I need to be careful.”

Which explained why he was especially concerned to find Nancy waiting for them. Her shoulders rose with tension. He skimmed upward to cup them, rubbing until they lowered again. Relaxation radiated through her as he became some kind of medical magician.

“That's better. Just let go,” he said, his mouth closer to her ear this time.

Unable to resist, she soaked in the heat of his breath against her neck, inhaled the peppermint scent of his toothpaste. What would it be like if he were telling her to “just let go” while they were doing other, more intimately pleasurable things?

She dragged her attention off his command in her ear and scrambled for something coherent to say.

“You've got a family-owned air taxi service for the rich and famous.” She traced the teakwood encircling the portal, brass edging gleaming. She'd ridden with her father in similar crafts as a kid. Of course, thinking about her dad was worse than thinking of Nancy.

“Actually,” Carlos's thumbs pressed between her shoulder blades with intuitive precision that sent waves of pleasure radiating outward, “Enrique—my father—diversified the company a few years ago so that when the planes are not in use for the needs of our family and our associates, they are used on call for search-and-rescue emergencies.”

“Your father sounds like quite a philanthropist.” Different from what she'd expected from a recluse monarch. “He sounds like you.”

His hands stilled for the first time. “You're the first to say that.”

“How would you describe your father?” She glanced back at him, catching a hint of tensed jaw before his face became a smooth, handsome mask again.

Carlos stared past her, through the portal, his massage resuming. “He's ill.”

Not at all what she expected him to say. She tried to turn toward him but his touch became steely for the first time as he held her in place without hurting her, but unmistakably insistent.

Accepting his wishes to keep his face hidden from her, she gripped the window as clouds obscured the specks of light below. “I'm very sorry to hear that. What's wrong with him?”

“His liver is failing,” he answered, his voice emotionless other than a thickening of his accent. “During the
escape from San Rinaldo, he spent a lot of time on the run in poor living conditions.”

She'd read the basics about the coup in San Rinaldo, but there weren't many details available. Hearing the event from Carlos, envisioning the terror the Medinas—Carlos—must have experienced, made her chest go tight with pain for them.

“How awful that must have been for your family. I can't even begin to imagine.”

“It was not an easy time in our lives,” he understated simply. He stroked her shoulders, down her arms, never missing a beat even when his breathing became heavier against her hair. “We were not with him. My mother, my brothers and I went a different escape route once the rebels attacked. My father didn't want to risk us being captured with him so he attempted to make them follow him instead.”

The picture unfolding in her mind was beyond imagining, but he seemed unwilling to take any comfort from her. Hell, he wouldn't even let her look at him.

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen,” he answered starkly.

He traced up her arms again and stopped at the back of her dress. He slid a finger inside along her neck, just under the zipper, stroking one vertebra at a time. His sensuous touch was at such odds with their stark discussion, but then Carlos had always been a huge contradiction. The compassionate surgeon, gruff professional.

Tender lover, reserved friend.

And he clearly wanted to keep things on a physical level rather than emotional. How perfect since she'd thought the same thing herself not too long ago. Her head
lolled forward and his hand tucked under the cashmere, fanning along either side of her spine, kneading nerve endings.

The zipper parted, only an inch, but still she gasped at the boldness of his move. Cool air brushed the tiny patch of bared flesh a second before his knuckles warmed her skin.

“Shhh,” he coaxed. “I'm not doing anything other than rubbing your back to make the trip more comfortable.”

She laughed softly. “Do you think I'm foolish?”

“Let me rephrase,” he said against her ear. “I will not do anything more unless you ask.”

Her heart stuttered at the image that conjured and the sensual power that gave her. What would it be like to claim the toe-curling bliss he could give her so easily?

So dispassionately?

She forced her thoughts to disengage from the path, dismayed to think he could pull away from her as smoothly as he could set her whole body to flame. No amount of temptation could lure her into that dangerous terrain. She wouldn't be his next Nancy Wolcott, sprinting to the shelter of her little hatchback car in the rain while Carlos watched with his cool, unmoved gaze.

“Well, take note then, Carlos, because I won't ask for more from you.” She was only willing to let the physical side go so far. For now? Until when?

“That sounds like a challenge.”

She turned slightly, meeting his eyes, their mouths so close every word was almost a kiss. “Do you really promise not to do anything more?”

With the full power of his intense dark gaze staring
at her with frank honesty and desire, there was no mistaking what he wanted. He wasn't thinking of any woman but her.

“You have my word. Tell me to stop and I will, without hesitation.” His low, husky vow vibrated the air between them.

“Then by all means,” she said, her voice breathier than she would have liked to admit, “continue what you were doing.”

She could handle this.

Carefully, she turned her back to him again, her breasts prickling with awareness as she wondered how far this game between them would go. His hands spread and the zipper parted further link by link. The top of her dress stayed on even as cool recycled air swooshed over her back. He worked his way south to her waist, thumbs circling along small but persistent knots of tension and strain.

Down, down farther still, he went until massaging almost at the base of her spine, his skillful fingers teasing along the top of her bikini panties. His hands spanned all the way across her lower back, then wrapped forward to rub lightly against her hip bones.

Her dress eased precariously forward, until she crossed her arms to hold it in place. Yet she couldn't bring herself to tell him to stop. The pressure of his hands so intimately close to where she really wanted,
needed
, him to touch her only served to stoke the ache hotter.

They played with fire here and she knew it. Yet she trusted him when he said he wouldn't take this further without her permission. So she surrendered to the sensations washing over her.

The man had the art of touch mastered. The glide of his hands on her back soothed and stirred at the same time, the healer and the infuriating prince.

Oh God, it had been so long since she'd had a man's touch on her, his touch. Her body soaked up the gentle rasp of his callused fingers, his every move so precise as he explored her, relaxed her, totally in tune as to exactly where she needed his care.

According to the pregnancy books she'd read, the backaches would only grow worse, as if in some cosmic prelude to labor. Nerves pattered in her chest as her mind fast-forwarded, anxiety intensifying at the notion of facing that day alone.

“Shhh,” Carlos whispered in her ear. His hands skimmed around to her rib cage and pulled her back against him. “Whatever you're thinking about. Don't. You're tensing up again. As much as I'm enjoying having my hands on you, I hate to think my efforts here have been for nothing.”

His hands rested right below her breasts, so close her nipples peaked against her bra, tight and needy. As he stepped closer, his body against her back, the rigid length of him pressed to her spine with unmistakable arousal. She longed to writhe against him and tempt him higher, harder. How she burned to lift his palms to cover her breasts, to ease the ache with the warm pressure of him.

It was just physical, she reminded herself. Heaven knew she wasn't too happy with the man himself right now. But her willpower was beginning to wane.

She cuffed her fingers around his wrists and shifted his touch an inch lower. “I think it's time to call a halt to this.”

Just that fast, his hands slid away. Not a word, not even a hint of a protest from him. However, her body shouted loud and clear over the loss of his touch. Her skin tightened, tingly and hot with awareness. Dragging in breaths that did nothing to steady her racing heart, she held her dress in place and faced him.

His features were taut, his eyes as molten as his dark cable sweater.

“We both—” Her voice shook and she steadied the betraying tremble before continuing, “We both know I'm attracted to you, and it's a safe bet to say you're attracted to me as well. I also know I can want you while not liking you very much. However, I'm not so sure that jumping each other is the wisest move—”

“Whoa, hold on there.” He held up his hands while keeping them well off her. “I have no intention of seducing you.”