“Just because you can’t understand something, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.” —King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
King
My phone has been going off in my pocket the entire walk down the hall, but I don’t have time for it—only for her. I touch her lower back, my fingertips dancing along her spine, wishing they could touch her skin again and drink her in.
Our moment in time was incredible, and now I feel like a complete simp because I can’t stop thinking about each line and plump curve of her lips, each moan, knowing full well that I am the lucky bastard who got her to scream.
I’m so busy patting myself on the back that I don’t notice when the elevator doors open, revealing Roman and Tiffany, another one of the bodyguards I assigned to Del. It’s too late to avoid running into them.
Roman’s eyes burn into both of us as though he had his own ticket to our show last night and decided to splurge and plop himself in the front row with popcorn, Junior Mints, and the extra-large Coke.
I lift my chin; he lowers his as if to threaten me. It takes every shred of strength I have not to shove Del behind me, blocking her from his view.
“You should answer your phone more often,” Roman barks out.
I wrap an arm around Del and grin even though I know he’s right. “I was a little busy—we… were a little busy.”
Roman clenches his jaw. “Right, of course, how could I forget, congratulations again on a beautiful wedding based on true love and fairy tales, sorry to interrupt the birds flying around your head while you skip through the forest but—there’s a hit out for both of you.”
The blood drains from my head. “Both?”
“Both,” he confirms. “So the boss sent us down here for extra protection.”
“Yes, he nearly had to leave his spleen on the table in order to come down with me, right, Roman?” Tiffany elbows him. The overhead lights gleam on her short blonde hair that’s slicked back into a tight bun. Her ever-present red lipstick stands out vividly against her fair skin. Her “uniform,” the black suit provided for her, is crisp and perfectly tailored.
Roman grunts and rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Tiffany snorts and looks over at Del and mouths. “It was.”
“Anyway.” He clears his throat. “We’ve been instructed to shadow you two for the rest of your six days here.”
Wow, could that be any more uncomfortable? Already I feel Del scooting away from me, already he’s pulling her with this invisible thread, and he’s supposed to be doing nothing but protecting her.
Angry, I pull her against my side. “Fine. Sounds like fun.”
You know, if you like torture on the side with seventeen root canals and a swift kick to the nuts, then sure, perfect. We get in the elevator, and it’s so tense I want to fight.
“Just doing our jobs,” Roman says softly, his expression unreadable.
I step out of the elevator with a speechless Del and lower my hand from her back to her ass, then squeeze. “Good. And I know how to do mine.”
Del shoves me away, a look of hurt crossing her face before she stomps toward the restaurant. “If you guys are done comparing your dicks, I’d like to eat.”
“I like sausage!” Tiffany charges after Del, and honestly, she may be annoying as hell, but she’s good at her job, one of the De Lange recruits from Eagle Elite who wants nothing more than to prove her family is worthy of being part of the Five Families again.
She’s also gorgeous but not my type at all—I would say she’s too prickly. Then again, Del was currently at the breakfast buffet, stabbing sausages and making an obscene amount of eye contact in my direction.
“That’s definitely your dick,” Roman says.
“Bullshit, mine’s bigger. She’s stabbing yours.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
“Stop calling me boss. I’m not a boss yet,” I grumble.
“Yeah,” he says under his breath. “You are. You just refuse to accept it until they give you the kingdom.”
“Was that a pep talk?”
“Oh, not at all.” He grins. “I’ll stay here at the entrance and make sure you guys are safe.”
“With my luck, you’re the one planning an all-out assault on me.”
He’s quiet; his eyes flicker down then back up at mine. “I may hate this situation, but I would never hurt you.”
I hate that he’s right and look away, ashamed I even thought of it. “I know, man, I know.”
“Go eat your fucking sausage.”
“You eat your sausage,” I fire back like I’ve never been in any verbal spars like ever in the history of the world.
He just laughs and shakes his head while I grumble to myself the entire way to my seat only to see Del cutting every single sausage she has into bits and explaining to Tiffany in graphic detail the size of my cock.
“…and then I was like oh man, it’s so big, is it going to fit?”
“Tell me everything.” Tiffany sits down. “Spare no detail.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol?”
Tiffany holds out her hand then slams it down on the table causing the silverware to fall off the table. “Some things are more important than life or death!”
“Yeah,” Del agrees with a grin. “Like teeny,” another slice through the sausage “pieces of dick,” one more cut down the middle, ouch, “that get cut off,” two more slices, “because they’re being,” cut, cut, cut, “a giant,” cut, “dick!”
I wince when the last piece falls to the ground, only to nearly laugh when Tiffany leans over and whispers, “You gonna eat that?”
“I would never eat that.” Del glares.
I lean over the table. “Pretty sure your tongue is still sore from all the sucking it did last night, princess.”
Tiffany leans in. “You sucked but didn’t lick?”
“Can we not?” Del interrupts and starts drinking her orange juice. “I’m tired, and this is… stressful.”
“I’m not stressed at all.” Tiffany grins, leaning back in her chair, arms going behind her head like she’s at a spa and the most relaxed she’s ever been. “I’m quite entertained. You guys should write a book one day and definitely put a sausage on the front of it.”
“Done.” Del takes another bite, and I can’t get the image of us from last night rubbed—hah—rubbed from my brain. It’s like she’s all I can see and feel, and now we have a stupid audience of one annoying person and another that I want to push off a cliff but can’t because he’s only doing the stupid job I gave him.
“Tiffany…” I grunt out her name. “I’m going to sit next to my wife, so if you don’t mind, could you please check the permitter again?”
She scoots her chair back and tosses down her napkin. “More hostile in here than out there, but sure thing, boss.”
I wince. “I really wish people would stop calling me that.”
“What?” Tiffany actually grabs a piece of sausage from Del’s plate and pops it in her mouth. “It’s true; we’re just your minions, though I really appreciate the healthcare and 401K.”
“Go.” I point toward the door.
She just winks and waltzes off.
I’m suddenly exhausted as I stare after her and then see Roman again. How did my life get this complicated? “You’re not really going to chop my dick into tiny pieces, are you?”
Del’s quiet, and then, “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“I can’t decide if that’s funny or just really alarming on an extreme level of Dateline mixed with a really bad crime show.”
“Meh.” She shrugs.
We both go quiet.
It’s not a bad quiet, though.
She finally speaks. “It’s going to be hard.”
“Are we still talking about dicks?” I joke.
She elbows me. “You know what I mean.” Her eyes lift, and I know she’s looking at him. “I know what we have to do, what we agreed to. I’m just saying it’s going to be hard.”
My heart twinges in my chest as I whisper back, watching her as she watches him. “You have no idea.”
We eat the rest of our breakfast in nice silence before Tiffany returns and announces that we should go back up to the room and go over my father’s plans—aka his directions for them for the next six days of torture. And I’m suddenly in a better mood because I know what he’ll see when he walks through that door. Roman’s going to see what we did last night, have actual confirmation in the room, and he’ll suffer just as much as I am.
For some reason, though, it doesn’t make the pain any less. If anything, it’s worse as I take Del’s hand in mine and squeeze it. Walking toward the elevator like I’m heading for a pirate’s plank I wonder if it would be better for everyone if I just jumped off into the tumultuous waves of my own doom and sank to the bottom of the ocean.