Royally Claimed (16 page)

“I can tell you're sincere.” She wiggled against his erection, the biggest proof of his sincerity.

“Oh, I am sincere.” His fingers played with the nape of her neck. “Can I tell you how much I sincerely want to take your new bikini off?” He pulled the neck string and the yellow triangles were floating between them. “Very nice.” He stroked his fingers down her neck to her collarbone and then across the plump upper curves of her breasts.

“I float.”

He laughed. “Easier for me to reach.” He cupped each breast, his thumbs gliding over her wet nipples to tease them into hard peaks.

She arched back and enjoyed his warm hands playing over her. The water supported her weight so it was almost as if she were floating in midair. The water didn't feel so cold anymore against her super-sensitized skin. In fact, she wouldn't have been surprised to see steam rising from the ocean around them.

He dipped his head and captured a nipple in his mouth. She yelped in pleasure and grabbed his shoulders to keep from sinking. He found a side tie to her suit bottom and loosened it, finding her own wetness underneath.

She almost went underwater at that point, but he let go of her breast and braced her again. “Ever wonder how mermaids make love?”

“Why don't you show me?”

He found her clit, circling and petting it. Occasionally
the cool water swept over her, making her shudder in delicious shock. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck, flicking her earlobe with his tongue.

“Oh, Franco.” She sighed, closing her eyes. It was perfection being in his arms under the warm sky. He murmured her name and kept touching her until she clutched at him, her climax pouring over her in a giant wave. He anchored her to the ground but let her fly toward the sun in pleasure.

He gathered her into his arms and carried her out of the water toward the cabana.

“Put me down, Frank.” She dropped to her knees in front of him in the sand, her fingers hooking over his waistband, the scrap of black fabric begging to be released. So she did, pulling the wet material down to his knees.

He caught her shoulders but couldn't move his legs for fear of tripping. “Julia, wait…”

She was eye-to-eye, so to speak, with the pride of the Dukes of Santas Aguas. They must have been a virile bunch, if Frank was any indicator. “Good grief, Frank. However did you get all of that in your suit?” He was hard and thick, pearly fluid rising from him like foam on the seawater.

He gave a choked laugh. “I wasn't like this when I put it on. Now come on, stand up.”

“No.” She sank onto her haunches and resisted his efforts to raise her. “Stop fussing, Frank.” His outraged squawk turned into a groan when she put her mouth on him. His skin was cool and salty from the ocean, quickly warming as she swirled her tongue around him.

She lifted her head and smiled up at his face, pulled into taut lines.

He broke then, kicking his suit free and picking her up as she squealed his name. He carried her toward the tent, but she stopped him. “No, here.”

“On the beach?” He gave her a sly smile. “Between the woods and the beach, you're turning into a real nature girl.” He set her on her feet and grabbed a blanket out of the cabana. He tossed down the blanket and tugged the corners to smooth it.

Julia untied the rest of the bikini strings and lay down next to Frank. “You're so beautiful.” She stroked his face, and he actually started to blush.

“Men aren't beautiful.”

“You are.” She rolled onto her back, the sand soft under the blanket. “Make love to me under the sun, Franco.”

He swallowed hard and moved on top of her. “Julia, open for me.”

She eagerly did, and he slid into her. His thrusts were hard and possessive, making her gasp with pleasure. She tightened down on him and he groaned, his skin turning slick with sweat.

“Come with me, Julia. I can't wait much longer.” He balanced his weight on one strong arm and stroked her sensitive nub again. She wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked with him, becoming one with him. His fingers teased and caressed her, and her climax built again. He noticed and thrust harder.

She cried his name as she came. He groaned in relief and followed, the sounds of their pleasure swirling in the air like the calls of the seabirds.

Frank rested his head next to hers, his breath still choppy and fast. Julia kissed his cheek and stared up into the sky. This was pure perfection—if only life
could be like this forever. She shoved her worries away, determined not to let them intrude again as she held her wonderful man in her arms.

T
HE DREAM CAME AGAIN THE
next night, the first time in the two weeks she'd been with Frank. Julia knew she was in their bed back in Belas Aguas and knew she was only dreaming. But she couldn't stop it, couldn't wake herself. She was crying in her sleep at what would come.

It hadn't started out as anything but the typically drunk patient on a Saturday night in her Boston emergency department. He had come in for stitches for a scalp wound—nothing serious, but it looked as if someone had bashed him due to the bruising around the wound.

He'd only mumbled something about standing up under an open kitchen cabinet when she'd asked him what had happened. She had her doubts but he was a large guy, definitely big enough to take care of himself. His dark flannel shirt was covered in dried blood. His chart said his name was Mark.

She'd numbed his wound and prepared it for suturing, her needle ready to close the edges. She probably wouldn't need most of the suture kit, which included several different clamps and a scalpel.

Julia inserted the needle into his scalp, trying to line up the edges of the skin as neatly as possible. He twitched. “Did you feel that?” He might need more local anesthetic.

“No, just do it.”

“Okay, but let me know if it starts to hurt.” She moved along the wound, knotting and cutting the threads.

She focused on her work but noticed Mark getting more and more agitated, twitching from side to side and breathing rapidly. He didn't flinch when she poked him, so it wasn't pain. Was he mentally ill?

Through an opening in the privacy curtain, she caught sight of Lyle, the retired cop who worked as a security guard in their emergency department. She jerked her head slightly in her patient's direction and Lyle's still-sharp instincts made him amble casually in her direction.

Lyle stuck his head in the room. “Julia, how're you doing today?” His broad Boston accent always made her smile, but she was getting a weird vibe from her patient. Lyle was, too. He came into the room, his tan uniform pressed neatly and his silver hospital security badge shining on his chest. “How are you tonight, sir?”

“Gotta get out of here!” Mark jumped off the bed and jerked away. Julia yelped, her thread still sticking out of his head with the needle dangling in his hair.

“Easy, buddy,” Lyle tried to soothe him, thumbing his radio for back-up.

Julia tried to get out of his way but the agitated man grabbed her wrist. “Help me, Lyle!” she yelled. She vaguely remembered him tossing her away from him, her head cracking into the corner of the countertop.

When she opened her eyes next, she was on the floor, her head splitting in pain. Lyle lay near her, blood pulsing from his chest. He was pale and clammy, losing blood at an alarming rate. The patient stood about ten feet away, a red-stained scalpel in his hand. The scalpel from her kit. He must have grabbed it after shoving her and then stabbed Lyle.

Julia brutally forced back the pain, pushing up to a sitting position. “What are you doing?”

“I've had a rough evening.” He laughed nervously. “Any minute now, the cops will be here for me.”

What did he expect? A mint on his hospital pillow?

He read her scorn. “Oh, yes. But what you don't know is that he's not the only person I stabbed tonight. Caught my wife cheating. Tonight she grabbed a knife and well, I got to her first.” He swallowed hard. “I didn't mean to, but she wouldn't stop screaming at me about her stupid boyfriend. I had to shut her up.”

“Don't make this worse for yourself,” she stated as firmly as she could. “Put down the scalpel and let me help the guard.” Other staff were yelling in the hall for help.

“Get back or I'll finish them both off!” He shrugged. “What's one more murder tonight? I'll get life in prison whether it's one life—or many.”

Julia went cold. Lyle wouldn't make it if he didn't get medical help soon, and she was pretty sure she had a bad concussion.

Sirens sounded in the background, distracting Mark. He looked away briefly, and she caught sight of a small ankle holster above Lyle's heavy black shoe. She never would have seen it if she weren't sitting on the floor.
Non-regulation, but the guard was a retired cop and probably never went anywhere without a gun.

She crawled toward the guard. “Please, let me help him.” She clutched at his leg, unsnapped the holster and pulled out the small black revolver. She pointed it at Mark's middle. “Drop the scalpel!”

“Now where did that gun come from?” He sounded more interested than intimidated, and that was more frightening than rage. He was a man with nothing to lose, holding her and a dying man hostage with a deadly weapon in the middle of the emergency department. He moved toward her.

“Get back!” Her vision split him into two and then back into one. But the scalpel was her focus.

He waved it so it glinted in the light. “You're as bad as my wife. My
late
wife. My dear, departed, unfaithful wife.” His laugh echoed crazily. “Put the gun down and I won't kill you.”

No,
her father's voice floated in her mind.
Don't. He's lying.

“I know,” she whispered.

He grinned, blood trickling down his face and growing bloodlust in his eyes. The first murder might have been an accident, but she feared he was beginning to enjoy himself. “That's a good girl. Gun's getting heavy for a tiny thing like you, isn't it?”

It was.

“And you don't even know how to use it, do you?”

But she did. Her father had taught her in the pistol range when they lived in the Azores. Oh, Azores. Oh, Franco. If she failed, she would never see him again.

Thumbed back the hammer, the click deafening in the small room.

His eyes narrowed. His shoulders bunched. He was coming.

Her finger tightened on the trigger. God help her.

Aim for center mass,
her father commanded.
Start shooting. Don't stop until the gun's empty.
He came.

She obeyed her father. For once. And he saved her life.

Julia sat up in bed with a scream.

“Julia!” Someone grabbed her around the shoulders and she screamed louder. She was immediately let go. “Julia, please! You are safe.”

She opened her eyes and saw Frank kneeling next to her. “Oh, my God, Frank. I am so sorry. Did I wake you?”

His eyebrows shot up even higher and she realized what a silly question that was. But he didn't point out the obvious. “Julia, are you all right?”

“Fine.” She pressed her hand against her thumping heart.

“No.” He rested his hand on her knee. “Sometimes you cry out in your sleep, but nothing like this. What is your nightmare, Julia?”

She sighed. “I lived it a few months ago when I got hurt.”

“What?” He sat next to her and gathered her into his arms. “You told me you hit your head at work and got a concussion. Does that give you nightmares?”

“In a way.” She took a deep breath and told him about the man coming into the emergency room needing stitches. How he had grabbed her, slamming her head against the wall and stabbing the guard. Frank
listened silently but his distress grew as she told how the man had killed his wife.

“I grabbed the guard's gun when I fell next to him and scooted away from him. The bad guy came at me and I shot him.”

Frank gasped. “You shot him? You?”

Julia almost didn't believe it herself. It had been something out of a cops-and-lawyers TV show. The cops had just arrived. The first one on the scene yanked her out of the room, the second aimed his gun at the dead man.

Her savior dragged her around the corner and took the gun from her hands. The emergency team rushed in for poor Lyle as soon as the second cop called the scene clear. “Are you okay, miss?”

The floor wobbled under her feet, and he called for help, supporting her weight. “You did good, miss.”

It was a good thing to kill someone?

The cop read her unsaid question. He was in his forties with a ruddy, lined face and weary, though kind blue eyes. “He would have killed you, too. You get to go home tonight. He doesn't.”

With her concussion, she didn't go home that night. But she did go home.

It was still very raw, but she'd come to see the older cop had been right. “Yes, he had a scalpel and would have killed me as well as the hurt security guard. I had to do it to save us both. And we both survived. Lyle needed surgery and lots of blood tranfusions, but the last I heard, he was doing well.”

“Thank God you did what you had to do.” Frank's voice thickened. “Or you would have been lost to your
family. Lost to me. How could we have gone on without you?”

She touched his forearm. “Frank, you haven't seen me in eleven years before now. You went on without me for that long.”

“No, I didn't.” He pulled her against his strong chest, her cheek resting in the springy hair. He stroked her head. “I didn't go on, Julia. I went back to New York that August and was a mess. George and I went out to a bar and I got drunk and cried in my beer. I told him some of what had happened between us, he dragged me home and poured me into bed. He's the only one who knew about us.”

“I was a mess, too, Frank. I went back to school and slept-walked through the first semester, waking up only when my grades took a nosedive.”

He gave a melancholy laugh. “I wouldn't get out of bed for my classes. George dragged me into the university counseling office after I missed the first week. It helped me cope, but not much more. Portuguese dukes are not good at taking suggestions. Arrogance and anguish are a bad combination.”

“I had to go to a counselor a couple weeks after I got hurt,” Julia blurted out. “They said I was at high risk for post-traumatic stress and made me visit the police psychologist, of all people.”

“Why him?”

“Her. Because she knows what to say to people who have just shot criminals.” Julia nudged him in the side. “That's typical of you to assume it would be a man.” Her effort to lighten the topic made him grin.

“Julia, my love, you of all people know I would never underestimate a woman.”

“
That
guy did.”

He actually growled. “I am glad he is dead, Julia, because I would kill him myself for daring to hurt you. My darling.” He kissed her forehead.

She allowed herself to sink into him, to let him comfort her. Although her parents had tried their best after the shooting to help her through the trauma, she had purposely hidden her distress to protect them and their feelings. Looking back, she probably hadn't fooled them at all, especially her dad, who had lost several Air Force buddies to warfare, training accidents or airplane crashes.

“Come, lie down with me again,” Frank coaxed, fluffing her pillow and covering them up with the soft cotton sheet and summerweight blanket. “I'll keep you safe. Don't worry,
meu bem
.”

Julia rested her cheek on his chest. His heart thumped under her ear, fast but slowing gradually as they relaxed. She drifted back to sleep, knowing somehow that her dream wouldn't return that night.

 

F
RANK STARED AT THE CEILING
, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily as to not alarm Julia. Julia, his Julia, forced to face down a deadly criminal and kill him herself. None of this, not one bit of this would have happened if he hadn't been such a coward after they'd parted. He'd taken to his bed like a melancholic poet instead of chasing after her.

He'd handled their break-up poorly, but in his defense, twenty-year-old men were not the most polished creatures. And he'd lost more than only Julia.

He'd let her sleep, let her dream more pleasant
dreams. And in the morning he'd make it very clear that he wouldn't make the same mistake of letting her go again.

 

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, F
RANK
had something on his mind, Julia could tell. She'd fixed him
chouriço
and pancakes topped with honey and pineapple jam again but he'd been unusually quiet. She wondered if he was thinking about her nightmare last night. “More coffee?” she offered.

He shook his head. “Let's go for a walk.”

Julia looked out the window at the gray clouds scudding along. An Atlantic storm was blowing in, but she was used to them. “Promise me we'll head back before we get blown to the mainland.”

“It won't take long.” He handed her a slicker and put one on himself.

She didn't quite know what to make of that but it sounded as if he wanted to have a relationship chat. Not what she was looking forward to, but inevitable. Her life and career was back in Boston, and his was at his Portuguese estate.

She suppressed a sigh and walked out the kitchen door in front of him. They crossed the stone terrace and descended onto the lush green lawn.

The lawn ended at the rocky cove near the boat dock, but he kept going over the rocks until they were out of sight of the house, a raised bluff at their backs and the ocean at their feet.

“We never did talk about why we broke up eleven years ago,” he said.

“We've talked about the past somewhat, Frank. Why do we have to dwell on it?”

“Because our problems lie in the past.” He took a deep breath. “We both remember why we broke up back then.”

Blood rushed to her face. “A misunderstanding.”

“You were pregnant, Julia.” His expression was as serious now as it had been eleven years before. “And then you weren't.”

“Shut up, Frank!” It burst from her before she could stop. “Just…stop.” She really didn't want to discuss this. They'd never discussed this. “It doesn't matter…it was only a couple weeks that we knew about…that.”

But he battled on. “I'm so sorry you lost our baby, Julia. I could have handled it better.”