“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 of standing outside his brothers’ doors. “Okay, put all that in a file and I’ll come and collect it. Meet in the king’s study in thirty minutes,” she said, before hanging up and taking his hand again. Her grip was hard. “I could punch this bad timing in the nads.”
He winced. “Not what I’m keen to visualize right now.”
She rolled her lips together, but her grin broke through. “I need to stop by my office on the way.”
He let her lead. Ground floor, south wing, and through a door that required her fingerprint and retina scan to enter. It wasn’t full-blown secret service sterility inside, but the white walls and immaculate offices that adjoined the center corridor were unlike the rest of the palace.
“Wait here,” she said, and disappeared through the first door on the right. In the time it took Kris to slide a hand into his back pocket and meet the stare of a blinking surveillance camera, she’d got what she needed, emerging with a slim folder under her arm. “Alright.”
Her office was deeper in the security warren behind another fingerprint-coded door, and he stepped inside as she held it open for him. Roughly a quarter of the size of his tower study, the room was in a better state of organization than he’d expected. The desk was near-empty—just the silver slimline shape of her closed laptop, a relatively neat stack of folders, and several used coffee mugs. Two chairs sat opposite the desk, and a filing cabinet was positioned beneath a high, frosted-glass window. Her wheeled chair was pushed halfway across the room, the seat facing the side wall as if she’d left in a hurry. Or, more likely, she placed the same nonexistent value on pushing her chair in as making her bed or tying up her bootlaces.
“Who else’s fingerprints can open this door?” he asked as it snapped closed behind them.
She tossed the new folder on the pile before unwinding her scarf and draping it over the back of a chair. “You assume someone else is permitted in here?”
“Rephrasing,” he said. “Can anyone else’s prints open this door?”
She gave him an odd look. “Just yours, Mark’s and Tommy’s.”
He huffed a not-quite amused breath as he looked around, recalling having his fingerprints taken for security purposes upon arriving in Kiraly. “So many things we’re not told.”
“Need-to-know basis, babe.”
His attention shot to her.
She’d said it offhand. Babe. Like she might tack on mate or buddy when talking to someone whose name she couldn’t remember. Except she knew his name and she’d never called him babe before. And they both knew it.
The air between them sparked; caught with a whoosh.
He took off his cap and tossed it onto her desk. Raking his fingers through his hair—intentionally dragging it off to one side in a way he’d always sensed drove her crazy—he asked, “How long will the meeting take?”
“Not sure. Half an hour, maybe?” He’d expected the reason for this office drop-in to be the folders on her desk, but instead she moved toward the filing cabinet and knelt down to open the bottom drawer. “Aha.”
She tugged out purple jeans and a grey tank. Of course. She wasn’t about to face her team wearing that dress. Not when one glance would reveal the flawlessness of her figure. The fabric was snug at her breasts and cut high across her thighs; all it would take was one sweep of his hands to peel it clean off her and another few tugs to cast her underwear beside it, freeing her skin to his touch, his hungry mouth, the slide of his hardening—
Aaand he was distracted.
What were they doing here again?
Clothes. Frankie wanted to change. She was kneeling with jeans and tank in hand, watching him with a raised brow.
He tried to interpret her expectant look. “Is your face asking me to assist you or be a gentleman and turn my back?”
Her attention darted to the sealed office door. Her return gaze was slower. “Assist me.”
Lust flared in his veins, but he didn’t cross to her. Helping her change was one thing—one sexy, bare-skinned, ultimate foreplay thing—but he knew himself. Knew the electric arc his body burned to form with hers. And holding himself back that close to her near-naked body would defy the laws of his own restraint.
Unless . . . she knew that.
“When did you say we have to be in the tower?” His question was rough.
She rose to standing, face flushed. “We’ve got twenty-five minutes.”
He sucked in air. Shook his head. “Not enough time.”
The desire bold on her face dared to argue. Her gaze openly traveled his body, undressing him, touching him, working him. His arousal spiked, pulsing hot and hard so abruptly that he hinged forward a little, his breath hitching.
Surprised, her darkened eyes flashed up to his face.
“Need more time,” he managed to protest.
“You sure about that?”
His heartbeat pounded everywhere. His ears. His neck. His groin.
“I feel like it’ll hardly take any time at all,” she said, her voice thick with self-consciousness. “With the way I . . . need you.”
“Is that what you want, Frankie?” He hadn’t intended to move, but found himself in front of her.
“I want something to have changed.” His body thrummed beneath the palm she ran over his chest. “After tonight . . . I need us to have changed.”
“We have changed.”
God, this woman. She’d dragged herself out of the immoral pit of her upbringing—and hadn’t stopped hauling ass until she’d taken charge of the lives of the country’s most esteemed family. Talk about reinventing herself.