“Ma’am,” Hanna said, quite frankly. “You’re intimidating—flat-out terrifying if we have to deal with you before breakfast—and the closest any of us will ever get to an actual badass. Your time up and down The Scepter thrashes anyone on the team, I can’t beat you at anything and you took down that psycho misogynist like a boss. Everyone’s seen the footage. You deserve your position. Favoritism will never cross anyone’s mind.”
“Oh.” Frankie looked down, twisting the pearl necklace that she’d forgotten to take off. “Good.”
“It’s criminal how fast she takes those steps,” Kris said.
“I know, right?” Hanna answered in mock scandal. “And the way she elbows you as she passes you on her way back up?”
Kris’s chuckle tingled down Frankie’s spine as he walked around the desk to lounge against it beside her. “I think she thinks it’s cute.”
Frankie barely held back a laugh. Then she yawned. “Sounds like me.”
Hanna grinned. “See you tomorrow, sleepyhead.”
Frankie offered a small wave as she yawned again and the guard closed the study door behind her.
Then Kris’s hand was sliding around her waist, drawing her in, and she turned to press her cheek against his chest. She shivered at the feel of him even as exhaustion dragged her eyelids closed. She could do this now—lean against him, bury into his strength. Marveling, she buried harder.
“She knows what we did, doesn’t she?” Kris kissed the top of her head, his hand slipping to the rear of her jeans.
“One hundred percent.” Frankie pressed her ass into his palm, a challenge he accepted when he shoved back, pushing her firmly against him. Her lips parted on a light, hot breath, before her mind played a distracted game of hopscotch.
Hanna—friends with Gul—would talk to Gul about her and Kris, assuming he’d have heard about it from Ava—except Ava couldn’t tell Gul because she didn’t know—because Mark didn’t know—
“Oh, God.” Horrified, she drew back and scrubbed a hand over her face. “I told the guards before you’d told Mark and Tommy.”
Kris raised a shoulder, unfazed, his eyes on her mouth. “I’ll tell them in the morning.”
“They’re your brothers. You’re not upset?”
“Upset that you announced our relationship to a room full of people? Are you kidding me?”
Well, when he put it like that.
Blushing, she leaned her forehead against his chin. “I missed touching you.”
“When?” That clever hand of his was getting lower. Sliding over and down her ass, following the center seam of her jeans like a beeline to her core. “During the meeting?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, shifting so he could reach more easily. Eyes closing, she sank against him—more completely than she’d intended. He was just so comfortable . . .
“You’re crashing.” He withdrew his hand, running it softly up her spine, and spoke the words she’d spent years yearning to hear. “I’m taking you to bed.”
Frankie didn’t get a good look at his royal suite. She’d only visited these rooms once before, but she’d been too distracted by Kris’s hurt to take it in. Now, the lights in the wall sconces were dimmed, a barely-there amber glow that cast most of the sitting room into shadow, and as Kris led her through the open double doors to his bedroom, she could hardly make her eyes focus. Not that she needed to see to sense the understated wealth of the bedroom furnishings and the enduring stately luxury weighted in these four walls. She’d have been more comfortable in his old room at the homestead in Sage Haven, with his clothes strewn over the chair and his hat on the side table. But then again, so would he. And they were here now.
By the bed, Kris let go of her hand and faced her with a frown. “Unless you’d prefer your room?”
“Obviously,” she murmured. “The ceiling fan makes a really cool clicking noise and the pillow stuffing has separated into independent states.”
“Great, let’s go there,” he said, and undressed her in smooth movements. Top over her head, bra off and over his shoulder, and then his hands were at her jeans, knuckles pressing low on her stomach as he unbuttoned her. Her body started to tighten and ache despite her exhaustion, and as he knelt to peel the jeans down her legs, she swept her fingers into his hair and star-fished her palm over the crown of his head. She pushed back with a murmur of protest when he tried to rise.
She heard him smile. “As badly as I want to stay on my knees, I intend to be thorough when I get my mouth on you, and you’re not in a position to withstand that right now.”
Hey.
Wait. She’d meant to say that out loud. Hmm. Brain lag. Then she realized she was standing with her eyes closed, swaying between the real world and a thick, hazy dream-state, and had to concede his point. She slid her hand off his head.
“We’ll get back to it,” he said, rising and brushing his lips over hers. Still aching for him, she opened her mouth to catch him in a kiss, but he drew back, murmuring, “Later.” He gave her a gentle push. “Sleep.”
Too tired to be intimidated by the oceanic bed, she crawled beneath the water-soft green covers and collapsed onto her side. “Your bed’s nice,” she spoke against the sheet, dully noting it held his woodland scent.
He slid in close beside her. His body was warm—stripped as bare as hers. “It’s nicer now.”
Hardly knowing what she intended, she reached out and ended up with her hand on his face. After a moment, she felt his cheek lift under her palm and he said, “This is slightly less nice,” and peeled it off, lacing his fingers through hers.
“Night.” She managed to say that one out loud.
“Frankie,” he said quietly, tugging at her drifting mind. “Would you give me your brass knuckles?”
The question sank in slowly. Confused, she cracked an eye open. “What?”
He was watching her, lashes heavy in the dark.
“Why?” she asked.
“Not to use on anyone.” He lifted his other hand, brushing it softly over her forehead and into her hair. Lulled, she closed her eyes.
Not to use. To dispose of, then. If she was truly to stand by his side, she couldn’t be tied to her past. This can be our secret. And the best-kept secrets left no evidence behind, symbolic or otherwise.
Smart man. Asking when she was too exhausted to suffer the full impact of his request. It wasn’t just loss at having to hand over the only keepsake of her childhood—it was the indignity and identity-deep humiliation of having to shed her upbringing in order to be worthy of a life with him. Her truth literally wasn’t good enough. Most of the time, she wanted nothing to do with her past, yet something inside her gave a significant tug of resistance, resenting that he was doing what had to be done. No. That part of her almost refused. Those knuckles saved me.
Then he ran his fingers over her scalp and sleep reached out, curling around her like a sun-warmed cat, and she found herself surrendering with a fuzzy, “Sure,” into the new, tender space between them.
She’d miss the reminder of what she’d overcome.