Secrets of a Reckless Princess (14 page)

A faint pink touched her cheeks. “I mean I know how reckless he can be. Are you sure he should—”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Maybe one day she would worry over
him
the same way. Marc shoved himself to his feet. “The entire planet is on lock down. Le Clerc will be fine. Only a fool would threaten him.”

“You have no idea how idiotic he can be,” she muttered. “Oh, I know he is intelligent almost to a fault, which always gets him in trouble, but he is also impulsive and
that
is his real downfall.”

It was probably true, but it was also only good sense that Damon not drag along the new consort to the princess if he wanted to dig up any information. Marc was experienced enough to know that his high profile was likely to send any potential informants running. On the other hand, Le Clerc was—if not one of the militant anarchists—a person that those that distrusted authority might still talk to despite his recent appointment. His persona as a folk hero gained him entrance to places where Marc knew he couldn’t go.

“I
know
he can be idiotic,” he argued, admiring the way the soft lighting gave her hair deep gold highlights. “He was incarcerated when I got here, remember?”

“I remember.” His wife smiled in a rueful curve of her soft mouth. “I kissed him on purpose to make a point to my mother.”

He’d wondered about that, the timing much too convenient.

“It looked to me like he didn’t mind in the least.” Marc laughed softly, holding her gaze. “Not that I blame him. For two very different males we do think along the same lines in some ways.
You
would be an example.”

Wearing a soft tunic in a light blue color, her hair loose, she looked very young, and also very desirable. Marc couldn’t do anything at the moment to help Damon in his quest for information, but he could ease her anxiety—or at the least distract her from it.

“Spoken like a true S-species male,” she said tartly.

“I
am
an S-species male,” he said mildly.

“I’ve noticed.”

“I’m glad I’ve made an impression. Look, Jayla, it’s getting late,” he said persuasively, “and while I know you are worried, pacing the floor doesn’t do him any good.”

“It
is
getting late,” she burst out, her emerald eyes flashing. “And I’m worried and I
loathe
the feeling and if he was here now, I’d—”

“What?”

Neither one of them had heard the swoosh of the door, and Marc had to admit he was a little thankful to see Damon stroll in, his hand casually loosening his tunic. They exchanged a look, but immediately Damon refocused on Jayla. “You’d do what?” he asked softly, a slight grin shaping his mouth.

Marc could have told him that was a mistake, but then again Le Clerc didn’t seem prone to taking advice.

“What would you do, Jay?”

“Flay you alive,” she said defiantly, but there was a definite expression of relief on her lovely face.

“Flay? I can only vaguely recall, but that’s a medieval Earth tradition, isn’t it? Be my guest.” Damon shed his tunic and, clad only in fitted trousers, strolled over to where the open bottle of wine sat by the large window overlooking the gardens. The sound of the fountain in the background lent a musical note to the conversation. “But before you skin me alive, let me tell you about my inquiries this evening. If I die with my secrets intact, you’ll have to start over.”

That certainly sparked Marc’s interest. “I take it the meeting went well.”

“I met with Kale, yes, but as predicted he couldn’t really tell me much, because if he’d known anything, he would have moved on his own to negate the threat. However,”—Damon’s smile was slow and deliberate—“it occurred to me I might find some answers elsewhere. I went to a little place I used to visit as a student. It’s on the edge of Anasta City. It’s a bit dangerous to ask too many questions there, but then again, the clientele are of a sort so eclectic if you can find just the right person who will actually speak to you, there’s no telling what you might find out. That’s why I’m so late.”

“You went to Belgravia?” Jayla’s voice held a hint of disbelief and open disapproval.

Though Marc had taken the time to research Anasta’s culture thoroughly, the name was unfamiliar. “What’s that?”

“Named for a part of old Earth’s city of London that was particularly aristocratic, it was supposed to serve as the same sort of status building address here on Anasta when the colony was founded,” Damon explained. “The opposite happened. The main city grew the other direction and it has acquired a different sort of reputation altogether.”

“Dangerous.” Jayla chose a chair and sank down, her slender legs outlined by the silhouette of her sleeping gown as she visibly shivered. “Violence. Crime. To use the word unsavory is an understatement. It’s dark, half in ruins, and even the soldiers have given up patrolling it. There is no law there.”

“This from someone who once begged me to take her there.” Damon smiled over the rim of his goblet. In answer to Marc’s raised brows, he shook his head. “I refused. I have my moments, and rules are not always meant to be followed, but I wouldn’t risk her.”

It was nice to know they understood each other. This protective urge was new, but strong. Marc was no novice when it came to females, but he’d never taken a life mate before.

“Yet he went himself.” Jayla leveled an accusing stare at Damon. “You idiot. And don’t either of you try to tell me that males have unique privileges, because I’m not interested in hearing it. Since you seem to still be in one piece, just tell us, what did you discover when you went into a violent slum with no protection?”

For a moment Le Clerc looked as if he was foolish enough to argue, but he wisely just said, “I went because I remembered there was an underground newspaper always available there. Nothing that is ever put on digital mediums. If you were not willing to go to Belgravia to read it, it was not going to be put in front of you. Frequently, if there was a rumor about subversive activities, they commented on it. I just wondered.”

“And?” Marc asked pointedly.

“What’s happening isn’t about assassination,” Damon said flatly. “I think the national treasuries of the major colonies are the real targets. We aren’t dealing with terrorists, but thieves.”

* * * *

Jayla dozed, not because the subject of conversation wasn’t interesting, but because it was very late, she’d had a stressful day—no, make that a stressful week, and oddly enough, Damon’s hypothesis, as he and Marc tossed ideas back and forth, made more and more sense.

“…good diversion.”

“I agree. What if they…”

The voices faded in and out and Jayla woke to the sensation of being gently lifted. It was Marc’s amused eyes she saw, the aquamarine color unique and vivid. “I think you’ve passed the point, my beautiful princess, where you are interested in the conversation.”

Was she his? She supposed she was, actually, she thought drowsily as he scooped her up and carried her into their sleeping quarters. When he deposited her on the cool sheets, she murmured, “The two of you have been arguing over this for hours. What are we going to do?”

“Worry about it in the morning.” He kissed her throat, just a subtle tease of his warm mouth, and then lifted away. “Nothing can be done right now.”

But she found, as tired as she was, she wanted him to stay. Jayla half sat up and caught his arm. “I might sleep better,” she murmured, “if you were with me.”

His brows arched. “You aren’t too tired?”

“I’m tired,” she acquiesced, “but I’d like to be exhausted.”

“That can be arranged.” Heat flared in his eyes and Marc began to swiftly unfasten her tunic, lifting her up to strip it swiftly off and toss it away. Her sheer undergarment went next and she was nude in a flash, supine on the bed, her legs spread wide by his insistent, strong hands. On a growl he asked, “How tired do you want to be?”

“Very,” she said on a challenging pant, knowing she was already wet by the rush of warmth between her open thighs, the heat tangible. She meant it too, because what she wanted was a deep, dreamless sleep in which she forgot about the threat to her planet, to her mother and Damon’s father, to Marc’s father also…to them all. In the morning, she was willing to face it again, to try and work out the solution, but for now, she just wanted to…
feel
, not think.

Marc leaned forward and ran the tip of his tongue over the quivering muscles of her stomach. He muttered against the underside of her breast, “I think we can accomplish that.”

“I know we can.”

Damon had followed them into their sleeping quarters, which didn’t surprise her. It pleased her, actually. Sex was pleasurable with each one of them alone, but together…it was decadent and wonderful and she surprised herself by how much she enjoyed being with them both, as if the three of them were one unit, connected, and not just by pleasure. That Marc and Damon also had a natural understanding with each other was as much a joy for her as the tie they had with her.

Damon unlaced his trousers and stepped out of them, his cock already swollen and rigid in arousal. “I want to taste you, Jay.”

She’d learned to recognize that particular husky tone, deeper than his usual voice, and a small thrill twisted in her stomach because she also knew exactly what he meant. Marc nibbled at one of her nipples, not quite taking it into his mouth, making her squirm. He stroked the other breast. “I’ll undress and play with these.”

“We both win.” Damon climbed onto the bed, but to her surprise—and disappointment—he didn’t lower his head between her legs as Marc slid away to take off his clothes. Instead he lay down beside her and caught her hand, giving a small tug. “Climb on up, Princess.”

Uncertain, still new to sexual play, she gave a look of confusion.

“On top of me,” he explained with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’ll do the rest, don’t worry.”

A part of her wanted to refuse him because he was obviously a great deal more experienced than she had ever guessed. Trust Damon to make her irritated with him even when she wanted him so badly the throbbing between legs was almost painful, but her aroused body refused to let her start an argument right then. So she did as instructed and went up on her hands and knees to perch above his lean body, straddling his waist and moving backward enough the tip of his cock rubbed her sex and she made a low appreciative noise.

“Soon,” he promised softly, but his hands cupped her ass and urged her forward. “Come a little closer.”

Now she really had no idea what he wanted but obediently inched forward until her hands were braced on either side of his head, her tense body poised over him. “Damon…”

“You’ll like this,” he promised. “Lower yourself just enough I can reach your sweetness with my tongue, Jay. I swear you are going to really enjoy this position. It gives you more control.”

The idea of some measure of control when with two such dominant males made her do as he asked and she leaned forward so she was over his face, lowering her body in response to the pressure of his hands until the first warm touch of his tongue in a long, tantalizing lick along her labia caused her entire body to quiver. “Oh.”

Pleasure radiated in tingles along her nerve endings and she spread her thighs wider to give him better access.

Being Damon, he took full advantage of it, his mouth busy on her sex, his tongue first pushing into her vaginal passage, mimicking the act of mating, and then teasing her clitoris in a way that sent jolts of rapture with each small circular motion. Jayla moaned, arched her spine, and adjusted her position again a little lower. The pleasure built as he stroked her inner thighs, his mouth moving between her legs, and he was right she found, she could rotate her hips so it produced the most acute sensation.

On her hands and knees, she rocked slightly, the nibble of his lips on the most intimate part of her making her entire body quiver.