Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 Read online

  “I think you’re thinking too much,” he murmured as Nicki caught her breath. One of Stefan’s hands had snaked around her back, and he pressed against her. The heavy muscles of his chest against her breasts her made her nipples go hard and alert despite the thick fabric of her jog bra. She’d dressed for running, not seduction, and the result was a curiously muted and wholly infuriating sensation, her body demanding more….more. Whatever Stefan would be willing to give. Which was impossible and stupid and pointless and yet—

  Screw it.

  Angling her face toward him, Nicki surrendered.

  Stefan met her more than halfway. His mouth was hard and firm against hers, his hands tightening to pull her close, despite the sand and sweat caking her skin, despite the tangle of nets around their feet. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest, but not too fast, not too hard, and she groaned with very real relief against his mouth. Stefan tasted of salt and heat and she wanted to wrap herself in the moment and hold it tight, a barrier against the outside world.

  Nicki lifted both hands to his shoulders, pulling herself closer to him. He was a fair amount bigger than she was, but their bodies fit together perfectly. His chest and abs were hard, the thin fabric of his running shirt pressed tightly against them and leaving nothing to the imagination. As he arched her back and moved his mouth from her lips to her cheek to her chin, he pulled her over on top of him and rolled to his back. Suddenly she was straddling his lap, his body rock hard, her knees sinking down into the sand alongside his hips as his hands locked into place. Stefan’s eyes were dark, intent, and they fixed on her with unmistakable need.

  “Kiss me again,” he rasped.

  She leaned down into him, and for one precious moment she poured everything she had into that kiss. All her wants, needs, desires, fears—all the things Stefan knew nothing about, could never know anything about. For that beautiful second, suspended in time, she was as free as she’d ever been in her adult life, ever since she’d learned that life could be taken from her at any moment, ever since—

  Stefan jerked himself away from her like a man who’d been ripped free of an oxygen tank, his eyes startled as he re-focused on her.

  “What?” Nicki said. “You didn’t want to be kissed back?”

  He stared at her, his expression becoming one of intrigue…and desire. “I think, Nicki Clark, you turn everything into a competition. It makes me wonder what else beyond kissing I should be training for.”

  The unexpected heat in Stefan’s words made her blink—but not as much as the shift of movement behind him. On the edge of the beach, wavering in the heat so as almost to appear a mirage, was a man walking toward them. Not one man, either, but many of them. “Um, are you in trouble or something?”

  Stefan stiffened without turning around. “No,” he said crisply. “There is nothing scheduled this morning, and my itinerary was logged.”

  She lifted her brows. “Your itinerary included making out with me on the beach?”

  HIs smile was back for a moment. “It should have, but no. I advised that I was going to search for you. Clearly, I was successful.” He’d moved back far enough that she could scoot completely off the netting, and she folded up the strands in as neat a packet as she could manage while he watched her.

  “They could be coming for you,” he said.

  Nicki snorted. “Not hardly.” She said the words without heat, but she knew her place among her friends. She was the fun adventure-girl sidekick, a little difficult for the rest of them to figure out, with their careful plans for the future—never mind that for two of them so far, those careful plans were falling to pieces around them. But either way, she wasn’t the one that people would be coming for, unless…

  She glanced up with sudden interest. Just a few days earlier, she’d offered her services to the royal family in one highly specific way, a way that meant more to her than any of them realized. She’d never thought they’d take her serious but…

  She cleared her throat, going for casual. “You don’t suppose they found something new about Ari, do you? Maybe where his plane landed in Turkey?”

  Predictably, all of Stefan’s good cheer fell away from him like an avalanche. Prince Aristotle Andris had crashed his small plane a year earlier, somewhere over the Aegean Sea. The family had been in mourning ever since—until recent new evidence pointed them toward a coastal town in Turkey…a coastal town that Nicki, of all people, knew well. Alaçati, Turkey was host to an international windsurfing competition, and she’d competed there the previous summer. It was a thin connection, and in truth she didn’t know how she could truly help—yet. But she wanted to help.

  Needed to.

  Stefan’s face shuttered. He had no interest in accepting her aid, he’d made that abundantly clear. “Then they would definitely not be coming for you.”

  He rolled to his feet and held out a hand, which she ignored as she pulled herself to her feet as well, dusting the sand off her legs. Somehow Stefan had managed to thrash around without marring a single hair on his head or dirtying his spandex with so much as a grain of sand. It almost made her want to push him down into the dune.

  Instead he turned smartly and began walking back toward the approaching men, and Nicki squinted into the sun and followed behind him. She knew the tall, slender man in the center, his face impassive as he stopped, allowing them to come to him. Cyril Gerou was the royal family’s chief advisor, with ties to the military and communications and probably every other arm of royal rule in the tiny country. He was a good man, she supposed, but he suffered from a perennial case of the grumpies, which Stefan seemed to catch whenever he was within ten feet of the guy. Like now.

  “Sir.” Stefan nodded as Cyril bowed to Nicki. “Is anything wrong?”

  Cyril shook his head. “We weren’t sending a search party out, I assure you. The men are about to go on maneuvers, and I decided to accompany them. When you were spotted, I thought it would be a good time to discuss developments. My apologies,” he turned to Nicki. “I didn’t know you were with the ambassador.”

  Yeah, well, that’s because the ambassador was mashed up against my face. “No worries. I was leaving for a jog anyway when Stefan and I ran into each other. I can let you guys talk?”

  “Where are you going?” Stefan’s words were too sharp, and she pivoted toward him, gratified to see the warring emotions flit across his face for a moment. He needed to get debriefed or whatever the term was, but he also didn’t want her out of his sight. His sight or his arms—though maybe, for him, they were both the same thing.

  That thought made her stand a little straighter. Had his kiss been something more than simple lust? Maybe some sort of weird move to control her or keep her in place? It was exactly the kind of high-handed move Stefan would enjoy, and irritation riffled through her.

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “One of the hotels is setting up their kayaks and boogie boards. I’m going to go work on that. You guys have a good time.”

  “Don’t leave the beach,” Stefan said, the words more an order than a suggestion.

  “Sure thing,” Nicki waved. Not. “I’ll see you later.”

  She stamped off through the sand, aware that Stefan was watching her. Her heart had quieted finally, and she breathed a sigh of relief for that. The true condition of her heart was a complete unknown, though she definitely had dizzy spells and migraines, which were problematic enough. She’d been prescribed beta blockers for the migraines, and despite her disdain for pills she’d continued taking them, hoping they’d keep any worse heart issues at bay.

  Which was silly, really. Beta blockers wouldn’t fix her heart if what she really feared was true. Her brother and father had been diagnosed with familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy…basically, their heart muscle was thick and inefficient, slowing down the flow of blood out of the heart. Her father had had a devastating heart attack five years earlier, and lived in fear of having another one. Her brother, once he’d been diagnosed, had lived in fear, too.
Neither one of them had done anything active since.

  Nicki had been tested…once. But she hadn’t gone back. She couldn’t live in constant fear. She wouldn’t live in constant fear.

  Still, any time her heart skittered out of control she knew was facing a potentially deadly risk, and she needed to watch that. And there was no denying that whenever Stefan got close her heart definitely did kick up a few notches, and not in a comfortable way. He made her feel out of sorts, defensive and aggressive at once, and she wasn’t used to anyone making her feel that way, especially not a guy. Especially not a guy who people called “ambassador” with a straight face. That wasn’t the kind of man Nicki had ever attracted.

  And what was Stefan’s attraction to her about, anyway? He had a way of seeming simultaneously interested and oppressive, and she thought more about that kiss. She hadn’t been imagining his interest, had she? Was this all truly some weirdly obscure strategy to allow him to keep tabs on her?

  Well he could go spin in small circles if he thought she was going to put up with that. Regardless of what Emmaline and Kristos’s upcoming wedding plans were, she would need to come up with an excuse to get out of Garronia. Otherwise, she was going to go crazy.

  If Nicki Clark didn’t leave the peaceful kingdom of Garronia soon, Stefan vowed silently, he was going to go crazy.

  He watched her jog across the sand as if she owned the entire beach, his attention fractured between her sun-browned legs and Cyril’s pre-emptive throat clearing. “You are doing yourself no favors by displaying your interest in her,” Cyril said, the words so blunt that Stefan swung his gaze back to him.

  “My interest?” he scowled. “Since when do you care about any woman I speak to?”

  “Since the queen has become fixated on the romantic lives of every one of the four young women presently under the royal roof. And don’t think she hasn’t noticed the way you and the American seek each other out. You would do well to be more circumspect, if you don’t want to find yourself in Queen Catherine’s sights.”

  “Seek each—” he glanced toward Nicki then back toward Cyril. “Cyril, half the time I’m trying to track her down, not meet up for a chat.”

  “Half the time, yes,” Cyril gestured to the dune where Stefan had most assuredly found Nicki…and for more than a chat. “The queen has eyes in the back of her head when it comes to ferreting out presumed romantic entanglements. Because you have not been careful, and given the woman’s apparent connections in Alaçati, the queen is giving serious thought to assigning Miss Clark to you when you go to—”

  “No,” snapped Stefan, so sharply that Cyril frowned at him in surprise. It was not his place to rebuke the chief advisor, but he didn’t care. Almost against his will, Stefan let his gaze snap once more to where Nicki was haggling with a body board vendor in front of one of the posh hotels along the beach. A small crowd had gathered around her, as small crowds tended to do. Again, not because she was beautiful, in the traditional sense…she was merely irresistible.

  She was also a menace.

  “She is untrained to go on any sort of mission, diplomatic or otherwise,” Stefan snapped. “She also has no sense of decorum, of her limits, of—”

  Cyril’s lifted hand cut him off.

  “I’m not the one you have to convince,” he said. A cheerful horn beeped behind them, and they both turned. Stefan’s eyes narrowed as Cyril merely sighed.

  “As I said,” Cyril murmured.

  Rolling up to them in a golf cart was none other than Queen Catherine of Garronia, wife to King Jasen and mother to the crown prince Kristos…and the late crown prince Ari. She appeared thoroughly delighted to be out on the beach, and it was early enough that there were not enough tourists who understood the significance of a lead cart surrounded by three attendant carts, each with men holding guns below the sight line of the vehicles’ dashboards.

  For her part, Queen Catherine appeared to be unarmed, but Kristos rode with her. Dimitri Korba, bodyguard to the royal family, rode in the closest cart to the queen’s, and Stefan grimaced. “What’s happened?”

  “The final interviews with the man found with Ari’s watch were reported this morning,” Cyril said quietly. “I’d hoped to work out a strategy with you before the queen was made aware of the information.”

  “It appears we’re too late on that.”

  “It seems so.” Cyril nodded. “And given her state of excitement, the news supports her desire to find Ari alive.”

  “And do you believe he is?” Stefan asked. “Still alive?”

  Cyril managed a pleasant expression, but spoke through his teeth. “I do not. At this point, however, we have to find something other than a few bits of debris scavenged by fishermen in order to put the queen’s mind to rest. Otherwise, I fear she will never get past this.”

  Stefan schooled his expression into polite interest. He understood Cyril’s concern. When Prince Ari had crashed his plane over a year ago, flying into a dangerous storm that he had no business trying to weather on his own, the entire royal family had been devastated. King Jasen had seemed to age a decade overnight, while the queen had held on to a fleeting hope that Ari was—somehow—still alive. A hope that was fanned with each new discovery of some missing piece of wreckage offered up by the Aegean Sea.

  Now that hope had flared into a brilliant beacon of light.

  “Stefan!” Queen Catherine said, jumping lightly out of the cart as Kristos slowed the vehicle. “Tell me I’ve not come too late and that Cyril hasn’t spoiled my update.”

  Cyril bowed. “Not at all, your majesty—”

  “Oh, please.” She waved off the honorific. “There is no one around. Dispense with the formality, I beg you.” She turned to Stefan. “Our plans are moving forward. We have additional information about Ari’s watch, and where it was located.”

  “Near Alaçati.” Stefan nodded. Ari’s custom flight and dive watch had been spotted by Dimitri and the American Lauren Grant while Dimitri had been traveling with her to a nearby island. Dimitri had nearly leveled the fisherman who’d been wearing the watch before he’d agreed to let the interrogation be handled by less invested souls. Ari had been his best friend—and his responsibility.

  “Yes, Alaçati—which is fully invested in its summer windsurfing season,” the queen beamed. “So there are tourists there, people, outsiders. It will be easier for you to blend.”

  Stefan didn’t dispute her words. “What is the new information?” he asked.

  Behind the queen, Kristos grimaced, his face unusually grim compared to his mother’s excitement. The prince’s eyes were fixed on the open water, however, not the queen, and Stefan angled himself carefully to allow a wider view as the queen spoke again.

  “There’s a whole network of scavengers along the Turkish coast. Small wonder, given the state of the economy and lack of military protections there outside the main cities,” she sniffed.

  “Your highness,” Cyril said mildly. “They are our neighbors and allies.”

  “And we are here, in Garronia, among friends,” the queen shot back with an uncharacteristic snap to her tone. “Anyway, the fisherman who bought the watch told us there were other debris as well—a gold chain, journals, shoes—but that the watch hadn’t come directly from the ocean, according to the man who sold it to him. It’d come from its owner.”

  “Its owner!” Stefan’s exclamation had the queen straightening. “When was this?”

  “He wasn’t clear—months ago.” Her mouth tightened but she pushed on. “But the man was alive, the scavenger had said. Disoriented, confused—the scavenger apparently thought he’d sustained some sort of head injury.”

  “Possibly concussed,” Kristos put in.

  “Dressed in rags but he had the watch. He’d been exposed to the elements. Hadn’t showered.” The queen’s lower lip began to tremble, and Kristos stepped forward.

  “Mother—”

  She ignored him. “Bottom line, we need to act. The fisherman had that w
atch since January—January! And here it is June, and Ari could have been wandering this whole time.”

  “You don’t know that the man who sold the scavenger the watch in the first place was Ari.”

  “And you don’t know that it wasn’t!” she retorted. “There are windsurfers currently in the city of Alaçati, some exhibition, and we should be there too, finding out whatever we can.”

  A cheer went up from the crowd gathered at the edge of the beach. The queen glanced up—and her excited exclamation made Stefan turn as well. The reason behind that exclamation made him groan.

  Out on the open waters of the Aegean, Nicki Clark stood balanced on a thin board, her arms locked on the cross beams of a brightly colored sail. Flipping and twirling, she was doing an almost acrobatic job of angling the sail to capture the most wind it could, resulting in her leaping over the small whitecaps offered up by the gusting winds over the azure water.

  “Emmaline tells me that Nicki is a champion windsurfer, and her work as an adventure blogger makes it perfectly reasonable that she would take a side trip to Alaçati while she is so close,” the queen said triumphantly. “And of course, we would not want her to travel alone in a foreign country with such rapidly changing safety concerns. A small group of NGSF soldiers and you, Stefan, will go with her.”

  “We have already discussed this, your highness—” Stefan began, but the queen barreled on.

  “Look at her! This is not an idle queen creating a fit where none exists. Nicki is clearly skilled, and if her reputation in the windsurfing community checks out as Emmaline indicates, she is the perfect choice to travel with you, and the perfect excuse for us to encroach on our neighbor despite the fact that we’re not agreeing on much of anything these days.”

  “It’s not safe, and she could be placed in danger. She isn’t trained.”

  “No, but you are,” the queen said. “And I would trust you with my life, Stefan. Can you really tell me that Nicki Clark couldn’t?”

  Stefan followed her gaze, following the tiny form of Nicki as she crested one wave and swooped into the curl of another, drawing more applause and cheers as a line of tourists formed at the vendor’s stand to try the windsurfing boards for themselves. Nicki, oblivious to all of it, watched the wind and the water, her body taut, her energy focused. She was in her element, and she took his breath away.