Captured (Gowns & Crowns #2) Read online

  He understood now how cats felt when playing with mice. Only this mouse had claws and a seriously bad attitude. He needed to remember that.

  In his pants pocket, his cell phone vibrated, the movement unexpected but not alarming. He’d been a captain of the GNSF for only a few months, but he’d gotten used to those summons coming when he least had time for it. Something was up at command, and he needed to report.

  His eyes narrowed as Lauren came back into view. They were close enough to target that he could hand off her escort to one of his men, if she gave him any trouble from here on out. Now he needed to head back to the GNSF home base at the back of the palace, not the front doors.

  The American walked by him, and as if she sensed him staring at her, burst into another panicked run. But he could see her steps were less solid now, her footing less sure. He sprang out of the alley and caught her as she sprawled forward, headlong, his hands clamping around soft curves and rounded muscles as she gasped. He pulled her upright, bracing her against him. “Easy does it, princess. That little jog is going to speed up the effects of the tsipouro.”

  “Let go of me—” Her voice was clipped, or would have been without the alcohol. The booze wasn’t masking her fury now. She’d been stupid, and she’d been caught. He wasn’t sure which pissed her off more. She turned back toward him, battering her free hand against his chest. “I said, let go!”

  In his pocket, his cell buzzed again, and he shook Lauren hard enough that she stopped. “Look, princess, you’re drunk, it’s late, and I’m your ride home. This isn’t America, and you don’t get to vote.”

  She blanched, shocked at his anger or his nearness, he didn’t know what. He didn’t have a chance to ask either.

  She slumped toward the ground, a deadweight.

  This time well and truly passed out.

  Just as his cell buzzed again.

  Chapter Two

  Lauren’s eyes blinked open, and she forced herself to remain completely still, the waves of vertigo doing more to pin her to the bed than…

  Wait a minute. Bed?

  A familiar voice floated over her, but it did nothing to reassure her. Dimitri Korba was speaking in rapid Garronois, his words delivered in the same clipped, professional tone that she’d heard him speak when he’d been hauling her and her friends through Garronia’s back country this past week, keeping them out of the eyes of the paparazzi. Them, or more to the point, Emmaline, who’d made a splash with her whirlwind romance with the prince of the realm.

  Figures that Em gets the prince and I get the frog. But she honestly wasn’t upset about that. Emmaline had been dealing with so much for so long, while Lauren’s life was damned near perfect. She didn’t have the right to complain about anything. Not when in almost all cases, she had the ability to change her circumstances or walk away without thinking twice. Of course, that “almost” was an issue, but not tonight. Tonight she simply had to get back to the palace. Right after she could see things normally again.

  Another burst of chatter, this time not Dimitri, refocused her. He was talking to someone on some sort of screen, standing near enough to touch. She shifted the minutest inch, then froze.

  Something was around her foot, tethering her to the bed.

  It wasn’t thick or clunky—not a manacle. But it wasn’t a heavy rope either. Zip tie? Twine? Whatever it was, it was attached to the bed or the post and was silent. So not a chain, not metal. Had to be plastic or cord of some sort.

  Fury ripped through her, fury and outrage and embarrassment, if she was honest, that she’d gotten herself into this predicament. The last thing she remembered was running past Dimitri, sprawling forward, then…nothing.

  The asshole clearly had hauled her here like a sack of grain.

  And where was here, anyway? She squinted at her surroundings without moving her head. They were in some kind of office. She wasn’t on a bed after all, but a low, flat couch, the kind of thing that could double as a cot if need be. The room was utilitarian, some kind of command outpost. A desk, a chair, this cot thing, and electronics. Dimitri hadn’t turned on the light, probably hoping she stayed asleep until he finished whatever he was doing. Then he would cut her loose and get her back to the castle.

  At least, that was what she assumed he was going to do.

  How dare he tie me up at all?

  Another bolt of irritation cut through more of her fog. She tested her wrists, her other foot—only one was attached to the bed. Only one needed to be, of course, to keep her in place. But why a foot? Why not her wrist?

  The panic, she realized. Dimitri had realized that for her to wake up with her hands bound would be infinitely scarier, and he apparently hadn’t wanted her to be frightened. He’d wanted her to stay put.

  Gee, how chivalrous.

  But what were they doing here, anyway? As she turned her head slowly, Lauren realized that Dimitri was standing far closer to her than she first realized. Shielding himself with the chair, he stood at attention behind his giant desk, his eyes glued to the screen as he spoke. Whether he knew she was awake or not wasn’t really material. He couldn’t look down, not with the focus of his supreme overlord on him, or whoever was on the screen. Cyril Gerou, she assumed, the chief advisor to the king and Dimitri’s boss.

  So that explained why he wanted to keep her quiet. Probably wouldn’t be good form to reveal that he had a drunk, passed-out American in his little captain’s office or whatever this was. And he might not want her to slip away while he was giving his report, but that was too bad. He’d definitely crossed the line by tying her to a freaking couch. She smiled, feeling better by the second. Because you didn’t tie Americans to couches. So Dimitri would have to pay for that.

  She reached out and tugged gently on his pants leg.

  Right in the middle of his sentence.

  To his credit, Dimitri didn’t flinch. The only reaction she noticed was him becoming, if possible, even stiffer, his muscles knotting beneath the thin cotton of his trousers. And she could tell those muscles were tense too, since she reached up with both hands to encircle his left thigh—and her fingers didn’t touch. His legs were tree trunks, and she imagined them, suddenly, beneath her, her own legs spilling over him, her hands on his chest.

  Right. No.

  The idea of getting anywhere near this man in an intimate way had every one of her instincts screaming “danger.” She’d learned the hard way not to disobey her instincts. She chose her partners with excruciating precision—they had to be discreet, easy to hide, and easy to manage. With those provisions in place, she had plenty of play toys to choose from.

  Dimitri Korba was definitely not a play toy.

  His breath seemed to catch as another flurry of words poured out from the screen, and Lauren refocused. It was the advisor, Cyril, speaking to Dimitri in such harsh tones. Then again, he’d always sounded harsh to her, despite the fact that Garronois was arguably one of the more beautiful languages in the world.

  Dimitri’s breath hitched again and she realized that she’d unconsciously moved her hands up his leg as she’d been lying there, trapped in her own thoughts. Now her questing fingers had slipped up dangerously close to the good captain’s groin, and she could tell by the strain on the fabric that Dimitri was not unaffected by what she was doing. Power curled inside her, and she smiled with a triumph that reached all the way to her toes.

  Then she reached up farther yet, stretching to the extent that her tethered foot would allow.

  Dimitri’s shaft was full and ready, and she brushed the top of his trousers, reveling in the sensory explosion. Her foot was now taut enough against the zip tie that her toes had fallen asleep, and her heart rate had definitely picked up. The tactile pleasure of the rough cotton twill of Dimitri’s khakis stretched tight across his groin and his backside, both of which she was kneading, squeezing, pressing beneath her fingers. Being bound and yet in control at the same time was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before, and she reveled in it, her b
reath coming harshly between her parted lips before she clamped her mouth shut.

  For a second, she imagined Dimitri naked, and white-hot need seared through her.

  Back it down, she admonished herself. This could only be a tease. If she kept things in check, no one would know. Because no one could know.

  She needed to stay away from Dimitri.

  Still, the man had tied her down. And he was right here, so hard, so hot, so different from anyone she’d allowed herself to touch…

  She skated her fingers up the hard curve of his shaft, fascinated by the way he didn’t move, didn’t twitch, other than the unmistakable throb beneath the touch of her fingers. Dimitri’s voice remained solid and sure, untroubled, as he answered Cyril’s questions. He leaned forward, and she felt the powerful flex of his hamstrings beneath her other palm. Once again, her mind returned inexorably to the image of those legs, naked and strong beneath her, on top of her, straddling her, and she almost whimpered.

  She wasn’t an innocent, and there were plenty of guys out there hotter than this giant. Well, prettier guys, anyway. Dimitri Korba was arguably one of the hotter men she’d encountered, at least when he didn’t look at her with a snarl marring his lips or disdain in his eyes. She knew better now, though. She knew he found her attractive. Her or at least the idea of her, which was enough for what she needed. From attraction, it was always a very short distance to control, and the idea of controlling Dimitri Korba in secret, for merely a moment or two…

  She could totally pull this off. And no one would know. Because, again, no one could know.

  As she pressed her fingers into him, teasing him with smooth, hard strokes, Lauren thought about all the ways she could tantalize the man in the few short days—maybe a week, maybe two, but no more—that she’d be stuck in Garronia. She’d make sure they were barely in the same room with each other, but she’d give him a glimpse, a taste. She knew from experience that was the way to make a man insane—denying him what he thought he wanted. She’d have fun playing the game until she could get out of Garronia and on with her life. Maybe she’d see him again at the wedding, if the wedding between Kristos and Emmaline actually happened.

  She hoped it did. For their sakes, she really did. No one should go through life expecting relationships never to work out. She did enough of that for everyone.

  The silence in the room didn’t fully penetrate her awareness until it was a hair’s breadth too late. Then Dimitri’s hand snaked down and wrenched hers away from his body, and he pressed her down into the couch.

  “Something you want, princess?”

  Dimitri had never been so close to losing control since he’d been a hotheaded teen roaming Garronia’s Royal Beach for the first time. But now, holding Lauren’s hand against his chest, his body levered over hers, it was about all he could do not to drown himself in the woman right there. Which probably wouldn’t look too good on his next report. Keeping her hand clasped in his, he used his other to unsheathe the knife at his belt. With a quick flick, her ankle was cut free of its zip tie, the handmade noose falling limp.

  He stood up in one clean movement as Lauren quickly massaged her foot then scrambled up. He didn’t miss the way she swayed, then caught herself, ratcheting her body down with every bit of ruthlessness that he was using, though for an entirely different reason. “How much tsipouro do you have in you?” he asked, pitching his voice deliberately rude. A blush marred her cheeks, the bane of her pale coloring. “You gonna vomit before I get you back to the castle, or can you hold it together?”

  “I don’t need your help,” she retorted, though as her gaze raked him, he was glad the evidence of his arousal was all but erased. God love Garronia National Security Force training. As well as parents, who were as keen-eyed as they were not stupid. The number of women he’d nearly been caught with would make the American’s toes curl.

  Not that she wouldn’t be a pleasure to be caught with. He surveyed her as she took another second to get her mad on. Lauren Grant was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen—perfect in the cold sterile way of a classical painting or piece of sculpture, and perfect in the way her haughty eyes had grown hazy with need and her lips had parted, her breath coming fitfully as she’d stroked him. She’d had no way of knowing he could see her every movement in the overhead convex mirror above the screen. She’d also had no way of knowing he’d been looking at anything other than Cyril pontificating on the screen.

  But when he wasn’t making eye contact with Cyril like the exceptional soldier that he was, he’d been watching her. And damn if thinking about her face now as she’d touched him wasn’t getting him hard again.

  “You ready?” he said, the words a slap. “I can carry you if you’re sloppy drunk.”

  “I said I don’t need your help. You tied me to a couch. You’re lucky I didn’t wake up screaming during your little one-on-one with Cyril.”

  “Couldn’t be helped.” He shrugged, savoring the emotions playing across her face. She was affected by him, there was no two ways about it. “If I’d gagged you, you could have woken up vomiting and died before I could cut you loose.”

  That stiffened her spine. “I do not vomit from alcohol.”

  “You might have with tsipouro.” He pointed. “Your purse is next to the water bottle. Probably good to drink something nonalcoholic if you can. Bathroom through that door.”

  She lifted a brow, but the panicked relief on her face was unmistakable. He barely avoided smirking as she squinted back at him. “How do you know I won’t try to escape from there?” she asked.

  Then he did smirk. “No windows.”

  She was back out into the main room faster than he would have expected, somehow looking fresher, smoother. As if she’d come out of a spa instead of a utilitarian washroom. Their brief separation had done little to improve her mood, however. “I should have you reported for restraining me. You had no right.”

  “Your safety was my primary concern, after my duty to my country, and your safety required me to haul you along while I reported in to Cyril. Besides, I figured if you did wake up and realized where you were, you’d have tried to get away without anyone noticing, especially if you thought I was on a command phone call. Which I was. Couldn’t take the risk.”

  “I could have screamed.”

  “Nope. Not and look like the drunk, spoiled little rich girl that you are. That wouldn’t exactly fit with the whole haughty-bitch thing you’ve got going on, would it?”

  Anger flashed between them so hot, he was surprised his eyebrows weren’t singed. “How dare you,” she seethed.

  “There’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t dare, princess.” He held the door for her, and she stomped out in front of him. They entered the courtyard again, and she looked around, trying to get her bearings.

  “This is the military compound attached to the palace.”

  “Yup.” He pointed. “We go that way.”

  She hesitated for a second, then fell into step with him. “We’ve been through this area before, and there’s a corridor to the main building. Why take me around to the front?”

  He flashed her a smile. It was easy to bait her when she stepped so easily into the trap every time. “Cameras line that corridor and feed directly into the royal residence. Who knows if they’re being monitored, but they’re definitely recording. You really want to be seen sneaking into the main castle with a captain of the GNSF? That’s a sure way to get some talk started.”

  She might have blushed, he couldn’t tell. But her words, when they came, were frostbitten. “I assure you, I couldn’t care less about what you people think of me.”

  “Most of us, no.” He was enjoying himself far too much, but he didn’t care. It was a beautiful clear night in Garronia, and he was escorting a stunningly gorgeous woman back to her bed. There were worse ways to spend the evening. “But you do seem to admire the queen. It’d be a pity if her opinion of you changed, and for what reason? This is all perfectly innocent.”

>   She opened her mouth to issue a retort, then shut it again. After a few moments of stony silence, they exited a small, automated gate with the help of Dimitri’s pass card and stepped out onto the wide paved sidewalk. From here it was a five-minute walk to the front gates of the palace. It was not yet midnight, and the American’s wits were coming back to her with every deep breath of the sweet night air.

  Her wits and her sharp tongue. “Who put you up to this?” she asked. “Who assigned you to me?”

  This, he would need to dance around. “No one. When the evening ended and you weren’t with your friends, I got suspicious. They said you’d gone to bed early, but there was no record of that on the cameras.”

  “You’re watching me?”

  “We watch everyone, princess.” He didn’t try to tamp down the amusement in his voice. “What the cameras did show was you out in the front terraced gardens, wandering through the flowers—until you weren’t.”

  “You have cameras in the gardens too.” She sounded dubious, but he let her stew in those thoughts on her own. There were cameras in the gardens, of course. But he wasn’t actually in charge of palace security. He wasn’t even, technically, in charge of the blonde’s security. She’d become his pet project for the past few days, because she was the least predictable of the four girls who were now official guests of the royal house of Garronia. In his work, he didn’t appreciate unpredictable. Unpredictable caused problems. And this time, above all others, should be a period of calm and contentment for the royal family. They’d had enough problems to last a lifetime.

  So he’d watched Lauren Grant, and he’d waited. And when she’d slipped out of the castle grounds with a small purse and unflashy outfit and sensible shoes, he’d followed.

  “It was Emmaline, wasn’t it?”

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “Emmaline. That’s who asked you to track me. She worries too much about everyone but herself.”