McKinnon's Royal Mission (11 page)

“But I...”

“No.”

She opened her eyes and stared up at him for long seconds, varied emotions flitting across her face. Finally she said, “I do not understand. Do you not want me?” Her voice wavered, and her eyes held such pain and fear of rejection it broke his heart.

He took her hand in his and dragged it down his body, forcing her to cup him, to feel the throbbing intensity of his desire. “Tell me I don’t want you,” he rasped.

Hesitantly at first, her fingers stroked, squeezed, measured, and Trace groaned. He couldn’t get any harder...but then he did, and the ache between his thighs threatened to overwhelm his good intentions.

“You want me,” she whispered, the startling revelation reflected in her lovely green eyes, and then she smiled at him, shyness replaced by a womanly resolve. “You
do
want me.” She strained toward him and brushed her lips against his.

No man ever had a woman offer herself to him so sweetly. No man ever had to fight so hard not to take what was offered. A shudder tore through him as savage as his desire to possess her completely. “No,” he said, tearing himself away from her. He hunched over, pain wracking his body in waves that seemed endless, and all he could hear was his own tortured breathing.

Eons later he glanced back at her, only to find her watching him with confusion written across her face. “I’m sorry, Princess,” he said, gently caressing her cheek. “You don’t understand. I have no way to protect you. And I won’t be like my father, whoever he is. I’ve never made love to a woman without protecting her.” He clenched his jaw fiercely.
“And I never will.”

Her face was solemn as she took in his words. Then she smiled at him as Eve must have smiled at Adam in the Garden of Eden. “I cannot ask you to be less than the man you are,” she said softly, sitting up and moving closer to him, so that he could smell the sweet fragrance of her. “But I
can
ask you to let me be a woman for you.”

Her hand slipped down to stroke him through his jeans, her green eyes darkening with desire as he swelled against her touch. “Please,” she said, that one word sliding through his shattered defenses. “I
want
to do this. For you. Only for you.”

Helpless against her, helpless against his own raging desire, he didn’t resist as she slowly popped the button and unzipped his jeans. One small hand reached in and caressed him through the opening she’d created, through the cotton fabric of his briefs, but suddenly it wasn’t enough. He needed her touch against his naked skin, wanted her to see what she did to him, what she would always do to him merely by her presence. He caught her hand. “Wait,” he said. Then he raised his hips and forced his jeans and briefs down together, revealing himself to her. Hard. Achingly hard.

She breathed deeply, but she didn’t shy away. She took his erection in her hand, her fingers encircling him, and he groaned. “You like that,” she said to herself in Zakharan, a tiny smile of discovery playing over her mouth. She raised her gaze to his as her fingers tightened around him. In English she asked, “You like that, yes?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, more harshly than he intended. Part of him wanted to take her hand and show her the rhythm he needed, but another part of him wanted to let her discover it for herself—if he could stand the torture.

She stroked him, petted him, all the while her breathing quickening along with his. She whispered to him in Zakharan, little words of praise he didn’t think she even realized she was saying, and which he desperately wanted to respond to...if he could let her know he understood.

Then she bent over him, her golden brown hair falling in soft, cooling waves against his heated skin. She whispered something in Zakharan, words his mind processed automatically but which his brain refused to consider in the heat of the moment. And when she took him into her warm, moist mouth he thought he’d die from the exquisite pleasure. Unable to stop himself, he arched upward, head thrown back, eyes closed. He groaned again. “Princess... Oh God, yes!” Shudders wracked his body when her tongue swirled around him.

His eyes flicked open, and he propped himself on his elbows and watched her, the sensations she was creating with her touch nearly unbearable, but the erotic picture she made as she loved him with her mouth in the glow of the firelight even more unbearable. He’d had more skilled lovers, but never one like her. He never would again. His body trembling as it had never trembled with a woman before, he surrendered to her without a fight.

* * *

When it was all over Trace lay there, his body spent, one forearm across his eyes as he wondered what the hell he was going to do. Wondered how he would survive the endless remaining months as her bodyguard without making love to her, without taking what she’d so sweetly offered. Wondering how he was ever going to let her go back to Zakhar when the year was over.

Because the words she’d whispered—words she hadn’t wanted him to hear since she’d uttered them in Zakharan and not English—now came back to haunt him. She loved him. Or thought she did. And now he had no defenses against her. Now the losing battle he’d been fighting was lost. Because whether she loved him or not, whether she wanted it or not, now he knew he loved her, too.

He removed his arm, opened his eyes, and sat up. The princess was kneeling beside him, her hand still wrapped around his sex as she watched his face, waiting for him to say something. Her face was soft and defenseless. Her eyes, those lovely green eyes were so full of love and hope as she gazed at him that Trace said the only thing he could think of, repeating the words he’d uttered earlier. But this time they weren’t uttered in the heat of passion even though they were meant just as fervently. “You are the sweetest gift God ever made.”

She flushed up to the roots of her hair, but she didn’t glance away. “Am I, Trace?” she asked shyly.

“Yes.” Gently he removed her hand and kissed her palm, then tugged his jeans into place and zipped up. Other words struggled to escape, but he fought them back. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t tell her he loved her, but that there was no future for him in loving her. No future for them.

He should remove himself from this assignment—he knew that as surely as he knew anything. What he’d just allowed to happen had compromised his objectivity, his professionalism. But there was a part of him that refused to accept what his head was telling him. And besides, what reason could he give for wanting out? Not just Walker—he might have been able to tell Walker the truth. But there was no way in hell he was going to tell the State Department what had happened. No way. Not after what they’d originally asked him to do where the princess was concerned. He could just see the smirks, the sniggering, knowing smiles, the
humiliation
the princess would suffer because of him.

No, he had to protect her from that any way necessary, even if it meant staying on this assignment. He just had to pull back. Had to return—if he could—to the way things had been between them before today. Yes, it would be difficult. Especially now that he knew it was more than just desire...on both their parts. Now that he knew he loved her and she thought she loved him, it would require every bit of resolve he could muster to stay with her and not touch her again. But he had to do it. Not just because it was still his job to protect her, but because he couldn’t bear for anyone to know her intimate secrets. And because he couldn’t bear for her to think herself rejected again, when that was the last thing he wanted to do.

No, he had to somehow carefully pick his way through the quicksand and find a way to let her down gently over the remaining months of her stay without anyone else being any the wiser. All he could give her was the protection she deserved...and the love coursing through his body and his heart. Not the words. But he could set her free of the chains of her past, and when he let her go—when he was
forced
to let her go—she would know exactly who and what she really was: beautiful, desirable and so damned lovable she’d never believe otherwise again.

But when she left, she would take his heart with her. The heart he hadn’t known he still had to lose...until it was lost.

Chapter 10

M
ara hummed a joyful little Zakharian folk song from the eighteenth century to herself as she gathered up her books. Another school week was over, but that wasn’t why she was so happy. She was happy because she had the whole weekend ahead of her...with Trace. Tuesday and Wednesday this week had been Alec’s days on duty, and Thursday and Friday had belonged to Liam.

She’d only seen Trace occasionally since Monday—at dinner, walking around the grounds and once in the stables when she went to check on Suleiman. He had scarcely said a word to her, nothing that couldn’t have been overheard by anyone in her household. And when others were around his face wore that professional appearance she knew now was a mask hiding his deeper feelings. But the few times they’d been alone his eyes had been alive with emotion. And the emotion she wanted to believe she saw reflected there was...love.

This weekend—Saturday and Sunday—were Trace’s days to guard her, and she had plans to spend as much time as she could with him. She knew she probably couldn’t convince him to take her back to his cabin, although she would gladly go there if he would. She just wanted to be with him—to listen to his voice, to watch the way he moved with that silent, graceful power, to read what he felt for her in his gorgeous blue eyes. Doing
nothing
with him was better than doing anything with anyone else.

“You’re happy,” Liam commented casually as Mara slung her computer case over one shoulder, picked up her briefcase with one hand and her purse with the other, and headed for the door of her office. But there was nothing casual about the way Liam’s eyes swept the corridor as he walked out of her office a step ahead of her, his jacket unbuttoned for quick access to his gun. “Starting to feel more at home here?”

“Oh, yes,” she assured him.

“The other day Alec said it seemed as if you weren’t homesick anymore. That true?”

She allowed herself a tiny smile. “Everyone is so nice to me here. My students—most of them try so hard any teacher would be pleased and proud. My fellow professors treat me as if I am truly one of them. You and Alec take such good care of me. And Trace...” Her tiny smile grew.

“Yeah. Alec and I, we noticed.”

Mara shot a quick glance at Liam’s face, wondering exactly what he meant by that statement, but all she read in his expression was the same casual interest.
Liam and Alec cannot know,
she reassured herself.
No one knows except Trace, and he would never tell anyone.

“So how’s the book coming?” Liam asked her as they walked to the faculty parking lot.

She sighed a little. “It would be easier if I could write it in Zakharan,” she told him with a droll smile. “Equations are the same in any language, but the text...the right words will not always come to my mind to convey the exact meaning of what I wish to say.”

She remembered then how she had whispered to Trace in Zakharan last Sunday. She had wanted to tell him everything she was feeling, had wanted to share with him the glory and wonder of knowing he understood all the things she couldn’t bring herself to say about her father, about her growing up years...
and he loved her anyway.

And then she’d told him she loved him. Not in English. In Zakharan. She hadn’t been able to hold back—the words had tumbled out despite her best efforts. But at least he hadn’t understood her. At least she hadn’t put that burden on him. When he was ready he would tell her. She knew he loved her as surely as she knew she loved him. She wanted to shout it to the whole world, but...

Mara knew she was old-fashioned compared to American women, but that was the way she’d been raised. In Zakhar a woman did not tell a man she loved him...not until he spoke first. And she wanted those words from Trace. She wanted him to tell her what his eyes had surely told her on Sunday...and every time they’d been alone since. Then and only then would she tell him—in English—that his love was returned.

But if she couldn’t tell Trace yet, there was one person she
could
share this with.
Andre,
she thought, smiling to herself.
I must tell Andre.

* * *

“So are you going to ask him?” Liam said to Alec in an undertone as the two brothers stripped off their boots and mufflers in the guest house mudroom. “Or should I?”

“Ask me what?” Trace said from the doorway. His stance appeared casual as he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder and one jeans-clad hip against the door frame. As always when he was awake, he was strapped, his SIG SAUER nestled in its shoulder holster. It was such a part of him he would only have noticed if he wasn’t wearing it. He knew neither of the Jones brothers would be intimidated by him openly displaying the weapon as other people might be, so he never bothered covering the shoulder holster with a jacket when he was in the guest house.

But something was up, and Trace had a fairly good idea what it was. He knew Alec and Liam were too smart, too aware, not to have noticed the change in the princess this past week. Not to mention they could probably read the change in him, too. If nothing else, the tension in his muscles right now was a dead giveaway, so he tried to relax. He was only partially successful.

Liam glanced up but didn’t reply right away, just removed his coat and hung it on the wall rack above his boots before meeting Trace’s eyes and saying, “Is there something we should know...about the princess?”

Trace’s face hardened. “Like what?”

Alec answered for both of them before Liam could. “Like the way she looks at you.”

Trace’s eyes narrowed as he quickly decided the best defense was a good offense. His gaze moved from Alec to Liam. “Weren’t you the one who said from the get-go that the princess looks at me differently than the way she looks at either of you?” he asked Liam. He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about that.”

Liam glanced at Alec, then back at Trace. “Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

“It’s different somehow.
She’s
different.”

Trace cursed mentally, but refused to allow anything he was feeling to be reflected on his face. Instead he shrugged again, feigning disinterest. “You told me to cut her some slack, so I did. That’s all.”

Liam started to respond, but Alec put a hand on his arm. “Never mind,” he said. “It’s not important. ’Cause if it was, McKinnon would tell us. Right?”

His brown eyes, so like his sister Keira’s, sought Trace’s eyes. And something in that steady gaze made Trace say, “Yeah. If there was anything you needed to know to keep the princess safe, you’d know. That’s the only thing any of us have to worry about—keeping her safe.”

“Okay then,” Alec said, as if that ended the conversation. But Liam looked unconvinced, and Trace wondered just what the Jones brothers thought they knew about the princess...and him.

Once again he resolved to keep the secret of their tryst in his cabin to himself. Alec and Liam didn’t have a need to know in order to do their jobs—that was something private and precious between the princess and him, and
no
one needed to know about it. And he was doing his job...difficult as it was. He’d managed to regain his objectivity after an intense internal struggle, and he knew he was providing the princess with the same high standard of professional protection Alec and Liam were, if not higher. So he had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing he’d done or was doing was putting the princess at risk. Nothing.

* * *

He had always known that with great power came great responsibility. He had never hesitated to exercise both when called upon, had never shirked the difficult life-or-death decisions most men never faced. Now he bent a hard stare on the two men standing at military attention in front of him. Young. Proud. Warriors both. The crème de la crème of his fighting corps, men he had trained with. Men he trusted with his life. Men who were nearly fanatical in their desire to protect him—from anything. And even more importantly in this situation, men who would willingly kill or die on his command. Knowing he could be sending them to their deaths, but knowing, too, he had no other choice.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
he murmured to himself. That reminder was the final deciding factor.

“Make no mistake,” he said abruptly. “You have not volunteered for an easy assignment. This man has killed before. He could kill again if he perceived you as a threat. Even if you are not killed, you could be captured. Imprisoned. Put to death or left to rot for years, with no possibility of escape. No reprieve. No chance for freedom. The prison doors would open only if you were willing to talk. But that must
never
happen. No one must ever know. Are we clear on that? Lukas? Damon?”

Both men replied with military precision and fervor, and he allowed himself a faint smile. “Good,” he said approvingly. “You will be met upon your arrival, and your contact will provide you with cash, documents and everything else you need to maintain your cover. Cars have been arranged that will be nearly impossible to trace, but do not let yourself be spotted. Changing vehicles often will help, so rotate at least twice a day.”

He flipped open a file, turned it around so it was facing his men, and spread the contents out on the desk in front of them. He pointed to the picture of a handsome, dark-haired, blue-eyed man only a few years older than he was. “This is your target. He is always armed, and I have it on good authority he has lightning-fast reflexes, so be wary.”

He paused for questions and got none. “I want daily reports. Your contact will provide you with the cameras, encrypted computer, virtual private network and internet access account you will need to do this.” His eyes narrowed. “Stay in the shadows. Watch him carefully from a distance. Photograph him. But do not kill him. Let me repeat, do
not
kill him. Not yet. He dies
only
on my direct command.
I
say if and when. Understood?”

Affirmation came with the same military promptness. “Good,” he repeated softly. “Very good. I am depending on you. Do not fail me in this. You are dismissed.”

* * *

October slid into November. The days grew colder and shorter, and several times it snowed, although the snow melted after a few days. Now when Mara and whichever bodyguard was on duty left for work the sun was barely up, and when they returned the sun had already set. Trace refused to let Mara ride Suleiman in the dark, so she was restricted to riding him only on the weekends. But Trace rode with her every weekend now, whether or not he was on duty.

And although they did nothing else, they talked. Since that afternoon in his cabin when they’d shared their darkest secrets, it was as if a dam had been breached for both of them. Mara confided in Trace as she had once confided only in her brother. And Trace...Trace did the same—hesitantly at first, but as day followed day and week melted into week, he opened up to her in ways she’d never imagined.

The taciturn man she’d first fallen for was replaced by a man who shared his thoughts, and to a lesser extent his emotions. Not what he was feeling where she was concerned, but other, deep-rooted emotions that played across his handsome features as she watched and listened, enthralled.

“...I was on the bomb squad in Afghanistan—disarming them. A futile effort in a futile war. But someone had to do it. If you’ve ever seen a child maimed or killed by a roadside bomb, you’ll understand why I volunteered for that duty. Why I’m still alive is a mystery—a little bit of skill, I guess, and a hell of a lot of luck. Not everyone was as lucky. But at least the civilians were protected...

“...I’d worked for D’Arcy as a US marshal ever since I got out of the marines. When he was recruited into a new agency and asked me to join him I couldn’t tell him no. I respect him more than any man I’ve ever known. Don’t get me wrong, Walker’s a great boss—he’s brilliant and his instincts are always right on target. But D’Arcy’s in a class by himself, and yeah, there are times I miss working for him...

“...No man likes to admit failure. So when my marriage failed, I refused to admit it for the longest time. I kept thinking if I just tried harder, Janet would realize her suspicions were groundless. I’m no saint, Princess, but I never cheated on her. Never. I can’t help it if women find me attractive, but I took my marriage vows seriously. The bottom line was she just couldn’t bring herself to trust me, and that defeated me...

“...Keira’s special. She was my partner for three years, and we closed some tough cases together. She’s a whiz at research and analysis. Except for D’Arcy, I’ve never known anyone better at solving a puzzle no one else can solve. I was glad for her when she and Walker got married—I really was. But I lost the best partner I’d ever had when she gave up being a field agent and took a research-and-analysis job with the agency, answering directly to D’Arcy—and that still hurts. Not even being Alyssa’s godfather quite makes up for it...

“...I saw Keira lying in a pool of her own blood, Walker beside her, desperately trying to save her life. And I knew in that instant I had never really loved my wife, not the way a man should love the woman he marries. Not the way Cody loves Keira. He would have taken that bullet for her in a heartbeat, the same way I—”

Trace never completed that sentence, but Mara knew what he was thinking. As her bodyguard it was his job to protect her, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. But she wasn’t just a job to him, not anymore. He loved her the way Cody loved Keira, and he would take a bullet for her in a heartbeat. It was in his voice when he called her
Princess
when they were alone—tender and loving now, not mocking. It was in his eyes when she turned around suddenly and caught him watching her with that deep longing and a hunger she was just beginning to understand. He never let anyone else see, but she knew in her heart no man could look at a woman that way and not love her.

Mara blossomed, knowing herself loved. Even though Trace had not touched her since that time at his cabin, these were halcyon days for her, each one more special than the day before, and each one leading to the inevitable conclusion. And though part of her was impatient for the words of love, another part of her was content to let Trace tell her when he was ready. She just wished it would be soon. Andre never asked when they spoke on the phone, never pushed her for details in any way, but it had been more than five weeks since she’d told him she was in love, and she knew he was waiting for her to tell him more. There just wasn’t anything to tell him...yet.