The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,36

first.”

I turn my face into his shoulder, drawing in the scent of him. “Later. We’ll let people know later. So you see, no need for security quite yet.”

He doesn’t respond right away, but reaches up to cup my head and lift my chin, catching and holding my eyes for a moment. “Let’s talk about how we found you in Costa Rica.”

His statement catches me off guard. “Well, I know your friend Grim owns a security firm, called in some favors and arranged the rescue. So I assumed through his contacts.”

“No, not his contacts.”

“What do you mean?” I try to laugh, but he looks so dour. “You’re being cryptic.”

“We used your bracelet to find you.”

“My bracelet?” I touch the compass dangling from the links he clipped around my wrist. “I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

“There’s a geotracker in your bracelet.”

The air seems to go even chillier around me. “A geo—”

Anger stunts the words in my throat. I swallow a string of curses and accusations. This relationship, this man is precious to me, and I know the first things to spew from my mouth will be words I could never take back—words that might damage us irreparably. I stew in outraged silence for a few more seconds before trusting I won’t have a nuclear reaction.

“You’ve been tracking me?”

“Not at first, no.” He sits back on the bench and stretches his long legs out in front of him.

I strip my glove off with my teeth and my cold, stiff fingers fumble with the bracelet’s clasp.

I can’t get the damn thing off.

“Stop.” He puts a staying hand over mine. “Don’t take it off.”

“I thought it was a gift, not a monitoring system.”

“It is a gift. I meant it as a gift.”

“It just does double duty as a tracking system for your pet girlfriend. Isn’t that how people make sure if their dogs get lost, they can find them? I guess this is much more efficient than putting posters of me up in the neighborhood if you misplace me.”

“Will you listen to me and stop talking just to vent your anger?”

“I get to vent my anger.” I stand up and pace in front of the bench. “Me talking only when you want to hear me and shutting up when you don’t like what I have to say is not communication.”

“I know that, but if you work yourself up—”

“You mean like a tantrum?” My harsh laugh is an explosion of white, puffy air that disappears as quickly as it comes. “Make up your mind, Maxim. Am I a pet or a spoiled child?”

He drops his head to the back of the bench and sighs. “When I gave you the bracelet, it was our first date in ten years, and I didn’t think that was the best time to bring up . . . tracking you.”

“Is there ever a good time really? Right after sex? Over morning coffee? Before a dangerous service trip?”

“I intended,” he continues, sitting up and looking at me without acknowledging my sardonicism, “to tell you when you came back from Costa Rica, and I didn’t activate the chip. I wouldn’t have done that without your permission.”

“Well you don’t have my permission.” I fumble with the clasp again. “Take your damn tracker back.”

He’s in front of me in seconds, towering over me and pulling my hands to his chest. “Stop. Please listen to me, and after we talk, if you want to deactivate the chip, we can, but I would like for you to keep the bracelet because I wasn’t lying about why I gave it to you.”

He dips until our foreheads kiss. My cold skin against his impossibly warm. “I found you when you were seventeen.” He lifts my hand to kiss my wrist. “I found you again in Amsterdam.” He brushes his lips over my knuckles, setting a thousand feathers free in my belly. “And I found you after a decade of waiting for just the right moment.”

“Is it really finding when you arrange the meeting, coerce a television host and recruit your brother?” I ask dryly.

“Details,” he says, his husky laugh dusting my fingers and chasing the cold away for the space of a breath. “My point is, this bracelet is significant. It’s symbolic of the fact that I’ve been all over the world, but you are my one place.”

I close my eyes, scrambling to reinforce my defenses, but failing with him so close. “This is not okay, Doc.”

“I know. Let me explain.”

I nod, fixing my eyes on the

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