embarrass you in front of your team. Or impact your reputation.”
She ran a hand down her neck. “I don’t know.”
Where was the line dividing her position within his security team from her place by his side? She wanted to be both equally.
“Can we figure it out as we go?” she asked.
“I’ll follow your lead,” he said, and his palms slid outward, cupping her shoulders as his thumbs stroked her skin. Her entire upper body tingled. “How do you want to figure it for tonight? We could go back to our own rooms. Find other ways to be alone, because my guards will always be outside my door. Or yours, if I come to you. If we spend the night together, word will get around among your team.”
She clamped her hands around his wrists, holding onto him. This all felt impossible. Standing on the brink of a relationship with Kris and discussing how to navigate it through their roles of royal life. Knowing, in a held breath of hope, what this meant for their future. And even if this had happened in Montana, with no royal ramifications, surrendering herself to this darkly addictive cowboy would still have felt impossible.
“Frankie?” he said, a quiet nudge.
“Word can get around the royal guard. Most of them already know I’m mad for you.” Heat flooded her cheeks; warmth crept into spaces that had only ever known cold. “I don’t want to spend another night apart. I can’t handle us being within the same walls and not being together. It—hurts.”
His features melted. Softly, he gave another, “Oof.”
Unbalanced by her admission, she ducked her face.
“It hurts me, too,” he said softly. “So much about us has always hurt. But not anymore.” His energy shifted along with his stance, deepening, rippling, and it didn’t take a genius to know desire had settled at the front of his mind. “Would you like to come to my room tonight?”
The question unlocked something inside her that she’d always believed had no key. The possibility of something real and honest and true—and the knowledge that just maybe, she deserved to have it.
Happiness lit her up as she smiled. “Yes.”
9
They didn’t make it to his chambers.
Kris’s blood coursed in an intensified rush as he led her up the stone steps and into the palace’s grand entrance hall. They hadn’t spoken since they’d passed through the gates. Too fixated on the reality of what they were doing, on the new thrill of touching each other without immediately letting go. With one hand gripping hers, he used the fingertips of his other to trace up and down the exposed skin of her forearm. When he grazed the inside of her elbow, his touch as soft as a whisper in her ear, she sucked in a sharp breath.
“That okay?” he murmured, fingers pausing.
She slanted an astonished look at him. “That feels incredible.”
That. He wanted to cause her more of that startled pleasure.
Her shivers and goose bumps and shaky breaths absorbed him so completely that when her phone buzzed, he halted on the marble floor in indignation. Who would call Frankie well after midnight as they were making their way to his bed? Then he remembered that her position, like his, was around the clock.
Holding back a growl—after four years of waiting, surely the universe could slip them a quiet couple of hours—he released her. “If it’s not important, they’re fired.”
“It’s always important.”
His attention strayed to her lips. “So is this.”
“I’ll be one second,” she murmured, raising her freed hand to cup his cheek with a look of unguarded affection. Then she turned away and answered with a clipped, “Report.”
He swore his torso grew several sizes from the swell of his heart.
“Are you serious?” she asked after a long silence. She scanned the great staircase in front of them distractedly as she listened, and then snapped her gaze to Kris. Still watching him, she said, “That was fast,” followed by, “Hold on a second.” She lowered the phone, hand over the mouthpiece. “There’s been a development. I’m needed at a quick briefing. It’s something I’d tell you about anyway—do you want to save time and come with me?”
The plea in her eyes was unmistakable. She didn’t want to leave him.
Easiest decision of his life. “Sure thing.”
Phone raised again, she said, “I want all personal guards in attendance. Prince Kristof will join us, but get the other night guards covered.” She listed the names of a lucky few who were about to be woken to fill the role