“Elvis” would have been better.
Katherine’s jaw dropped down to her chest. Her knees lost their starch, and it was one heck of a good thing that Al was holding her up.
Her mind started to function again, and she shook her head. A prince on Pirate Island? Al must be deluding himself, she thought, because it simply wasn’t possible. It was painful to admit, but the man was a couple of cookies short of a dozen. He was crazy. Sexy, but crazy. She felt a surge of sympathy.
“Al,” she began, smiling gently and pulling her hands from his, “is there any sort of medication you’re supposed to be taking?”
Al looked puzzled. “Medication?”
Katherine nodded. “Yes. Something a doctor may have prescribed for you.” She waved her hand. “Perhaps for your head.”
“I rarely get headaches.”
“Yes, but—” She was at a loss. “There are effective medications for confusion and depression and mood swings.”
“Since I’m not confused or depressed, I don’t have a need for those medications.”
She remained silent, unable to keep the pity and disbelief from her face.
It took him a minute, then the clouds cleared away. He chuckled. “You don’t believe me!”
“Now, Al,” she began in a soothing tone.
He couldn’t contain his mirth. “Would papers help?” He continued laughing.
His helpless laughter was getting on her nerves. “Papers can be forged,” she said primly.
Al hooted, losing all semblance of dignity. “I could always get my bodyguard to identify me.”
Katherine frowned at the man holding his stomach and laughing without restraint. “Al, this is serious. If you have a mental problem, you need to get medical attention.”
“Mental problem?” His chuckles gradually subsided into occasional spurts of laughter. Finally he gave a long sigh. “Okay, I’ll supply some evidence.” He extended his hand. “Have you ever noticed my ring?”
Katherine looked at the elaborately engraved gold ring and shrugged. “I just assumed it was a fraternity ring.”
“Look again,” he said. “It’s my country’s seal. The translation for the words is ‘Merrick, Ruler of Moreno. Forever.’”
A shiver ran through her. Still, she found it difficult to accept. “I’ve never heard of Moreno.”
“It’s a small country in the Mediterranean. We export spices, and tourism is growing every year. We’re probably best known for our annual fencing tournaments, although most of our visitors are from Europe. The Americans tend to stick to the French Riviera.”
Hanging on to her skepticism, she cocked her head to one side. “Where do you live?”
He shrugged. “In the palace. It’s not,” he said in response to her unspoken question, “as glamorous as it seems. The original structure is over two hundred years old, and it seems to be in a constant state of renovation.”
“Sort of like our state highways,” she murmured. Bits and pieces of their conversations nudged at her. The gears of her mind shifted slowly, grinding and dragging with the effort. It all started to make sense. Al’s fencing skill. His natural tendency to lead and, she grimaced, often give orders. His fine clothing when he first arrived. His inability to make coffee.
She looked at him and suddenly felt out of her depth. He was a man, yet somehow much more. She could easily imagine him wearing a fine robe and a crown on his head. She could easily imagine him dressed in a stunning formal uniform at a ball, waltzing with a beautiful woman.
She could not easily imagine the woman being her.
He stepped close to her, his gaze intent. “Don’t pull back now.”
Her pulse picked up. “I don’t know what to say.” She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know what to call you.”
He lifted her hand and brushed the back of it with a kiss. “When we’re alone, call me Alex.”
She felt her skin burn. “I’m not sure being alone is a good idea. How do we know when we’re really alone?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think of it. For the rest of my time here the guards will keep their distance. They won’t intrude.”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. For the rest of my time here. It stuck like a scratched record, playing over and over in her mind. She looked at him again. So, what was she to him? An amusement? That stung.
For that matter what was he to her? The implications of that question troubled her. It shouldn’t matter what he was to her, because he was leaving. She’d always known that. So why did it hurt?
Once he left, she’d never see him again. She didn’t move in his circles, never would.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
She pushed back her hair and turned away from his questioning eyes. “I’m thinking.”
“God forbid,” he muttered.
She shot him a reproving glance. “It’s a lot to take in, Al—Alex. It changes things.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he insisted, full of determination. “Not for the next two weeks.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Yes, it does,” she argued. “For Pete’s sake, you live in a palace, you have bodyguards. Someday you’ll rule a country. You are not an ordinary man.”
He swung her around to face him. “Yes, I am, dammit!” His eyes flashed with anger. “And after last night, if anyone knows that I’m a mere mortal man, it should be you.”
She felt the heat of his emotions. He was so full of masculine passion, anger and pain, she felt it in every crevice of her mind and heart. It was too powerful, too potent for her to handle. At a loss, she took a step back.
“Katherine,” a voice called from the door. “Are we still on for dinner?”
Katherine darted a quick glance at the door and winced. “Oh, no! It’s Jeff. I completely forgot. Be there in a minute,” she called, then turned back to Alex with a look of distress.
Alex fought the urge to make her stay, make her accept him and everything he was. The instinct to slam the door in Jeff’s face was overwhelming. Nothing had been settled between them, and Alex could feel her slipping away. “We need to finish this,” he said in a low voice. “You need to see that nothing is changed.”
“Oh, Alex.” Her eyes were sad and confused. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
He refused to believe it. “We’ll talk after you get back. I’ll wait.”
She shook her head slowly. “Don’t,” she whispered, then turned and left.
Katherine looked out the window at the downpour and flashes of lightning.
“Is it always this rainy?” Jeff asked.
“This summer’s a little wetter than usual.” She glanced at him and tried for a smile. “It hasn’t affected business, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He paused, then nodded in the direction of her plate. “Full?”
Katherine felt the strain of keeping her lips curved upward. “Yes,” she said, thinking that was exactly how she felt. Not full of food, but full of confusion and shock. So full she didn’t feel like smiling or talking. The idea of eating the rest of her hamburger made her stomach turn. She thought of Alex and what he was. A prince. Another politician, she thought, and shook her head at what a lousy joke fate had played on her.
“Earth to Katherine, come in please,” Jeff said. “I asked that last question three times. Where are you?”
“Oh!” She winced, chagrined. “I’m sorry.”
He gave a wry smile. “I guess I’m not riveting company this evening.”
“Oh, no,” she protested, feeling guilty. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m the one who’s not riveting. Now what was that question?”
“I wondered how often you get to the mainland. I’d like to take you to dinner some time.”
She couldn’t be less interested, and wanted to kick herself for feeling that way. “I’m so busy with the—” She stopped as the dining-hall door flew open, and Chad burst in, wet and panicky.
He rushed to her side. “We’ve got a problem. Georgia Hawkins said Davy’s missing. She’s been looking for him for an hour. She turned her back, and he just disappeared.”
Alarm shot through Katherine. “But he’s only three. Where could he have gone?”
Chad shook his head helplessly. “Who knows? She checked all the community rooms. I checked the bathrooms and showers. Al is searching the woods.”
“Al?” A loud boom of thunder split the air. Katherine thought of the heavily wooded acres on the edge of the campground property and shuddered. “That’s a horrible place to be during a storm.”
“Yeah, listen, you’d better look in on Georgia. She’s getting all upset.”
Another sharp crack of thunder echoed through the room. “Where are you going?”
Chad shrugged as if the choice were obvious. “To the woods.” Then he hurried to the door.
“Be careful,” Katherine called. She turned to Jeff, rising at the same time. “I’m sorry, but I really must leave. If you have any other questions, just call.” She lifted her palms. “I guess I didn’t do a great sales job.”
Jeff waved her off. “Don’t worry. I’ll call.”
Katherine headed for Georgia Hawkins’s tent.
A long sixty minutes later Katherine brought Georgia to the cottage and fixed her a cup of herbal tea. The woman was in tears. “It’s like he vanished,” she said in a wobbly voice. “My husband left six months ago, and I’ve had to work such long hours. I thought Davy would love a camping trip.”
“I’m sure he has,” Katherine said soothingly, keeping one eye on the time. Where was Alex?
“But—”
The door flew open, and Alex strode in with Davy, drenched and crying, in his arms. Chad and three other men came in behind them.
“Davy!” Georgia rushed to take the little boy in her arms.
“He’s got a few scratches,” Alex told her, handing over the little boy. “He was in the woods and got scared when lightning struck a tree and knocked it down.”
“Oh, thank you,” Georgia whispered. “This has been the longest night of my life.”
Fifteen minutes later Georgia and Davy left to spend the night in a cabin. Katherine sent along milk and cookies, but Davy was asleep before Georgia said her last thank-you. The three other men followed Georgia out the door, and Chad raided the kitchen.
Al and Katherine stood silently facing each other in the den. After the din of anxious, excited voices, the room seemed painfully quiet. The tension between them was thick and awkward. She searched for something to say, noticing the scrapes on his arms and face.
“Davy wasn’t the only one who got scratched,” she finally blurted out.
Al rubbed a mark on his cheek. “He was hiding in some berry bushes. They had thorns.”
Katherine felt a trickle of relief. As a first-grade teacher, she felt scratches and scrapes were her domain. She was glad to have something to do instead of staring at him like a tongue-tied idiot. “You’ll need some antibiotic cream on those scrapes so they won’t get infected,” she said briskly. “Wait right there, and I’ll get it.”
“Is that an order?” he asked in a mild voice.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to see what his mood was, but his face was blank of expression. “Yes, it is. Have a seat, Your Highness.”
She heard his muttered curse as she turned, and didn’t have to wonder about his mood anymore. Royally nasty, she thought, and grinned at her private joke. She dampened a washcloth with warm water, collected the cream and Band-Aids from the medicine cabinet, and returned to find him on the sofa with a dark expression on his face.
Sitting beside him, she immediately decided there was a huge difference between caring for a first grader’s scrapes and caring for Al’s. She considered leaving the first-aid paraphernalia with him and retreating, but her conscience got the best of her. She squared her shoulders. “Hands first.”
He extended his right one, and she winced at the damage. “This must have hurt. Why didn’t you mention it when you first came in?”
“It’s just blood, Katherine. All men bleed, even me.”
Her gaze shot up to meet his, and the silence hung between them, again, this time more charged than before. She bit her lip.
She gently cleaned his hand, feeling its warmth and strength beneath hers, remembering the tenderness in his touch. The quiet allowed her to think of things best forgotten, to hear the melody that had become his theme song in her heart. She fought against it. “The washcloth might burn a little bit,” she said, her voice sounding loud, “but the cream won’t hurt.”
She looked at his arms and remembered how they felt wrapped around her. His skin was smooth, but he was hard beneath. She wondered about his heart. Was it hard too? Was it jaded? Was it capable of love? Damn. The back of her neck grew warm, and she began to feel edgy. “Need a drink?” she asked, abruptly standing. “We’ve probably got something around here. What’s your pleasure?”
He looked at her in that dark, intent way of his. It was annoying because it made her feel exposed. It made her heart jump and her mouth go dry as sand. It made her wish like hell he’d hurry up and answer.
“What do you have?”
Katherine turned to the cabinet where her uncle kept his liquor and began pulling out the bottles. “I don’t know. Vodka, Caribbean rum, gin, Scotch.” She stopped. “I guess that’s it.”
“Scotch, neat.”
“Okay,” she said, splattering some of the liquid into a glass. In deference to her nerves she poured some into another glass and took a gulp. The bitter liquid nearly scalded her throat. She wheezed and made a face.
“Not your poison?” Al asked in dry tones.
“No. I’d just as soon keep my vocal cords intact.”
Deliberately avoiding his gaze, Katherine gave Al’s glass to him and started with his other hand, working quickly. She hummed “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in her mind and planned what color nail polish she’d put on tonight.
After a few minutes she took a deep breath and turned to Al’s face. She could have used another drink now. She looked into his eyes and almost moaned. Make that two drinks.
Al broke the silence. “You asked what was my pleasure.”
She bit her lip and counted the remaining scrapes—five. If she worked fast, maybe—
“Shall I tell you what I really want?”
“I can guess.” Her voice was squeaky. Three more to go, she thought desperately.
“It would be my pleasure to take you to bed and spill a glass of wine over your body, then sip up every drop.”
Katherine swallowed. “Alex—”
“The next glass would be your chance to return the favor.”
Katherine’s mouth went dry. She was suddenly shamefully thirsty.
“After we’d driven each other completely crazy with our mouths, I’d pull you on top of me and slowly push my way in where you’re wet and ready for me.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and branded her with a quick dart of his tongue. “Are you wet and ready now?”
“No!” she lied, jerking her hand from his. “No, dammit, no.” Tears of frustration, sexual and emotional, burned her eyes like fire. She stumbled backward, feeling raw and vulnerable. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
He stood, and his face showed some of the torment she felt. That only made it worse.
“Because you need to see,” he said in a low, urgent voice, “that like any other man, I bleed and want. Like any other man, I can need so much it hurts.”
Katherine shook her head. She couldn’t deal with the intensity of him. He was so powerful, she worried she might lose herself in him and never find her way out. She shook her head, torn between terror and want. “I can’t be what you need. It’s too much.” Her voice broke. “I’m not enough. And there’d be nothing left of me. I’m sorry.”
“How can you not be enough when you’re more than I’ve ever had before?”
Her chest tightened painfully.
He stepped forward and cupped her jaw in his hand. The tenderness stalled her movement.
“I’ve hurt you again, chérie, when I only want to make you happy.” He gave an ironic smile. “If I can’t have you tonight in my bed, I’ll have you in my dreams. Say you’ll dream of me.”
Katherine squeezed her eyes and breathed in his scent. The music played again. Her throat hurt. “That’s easy,” she said huskily. “I always dream of you.” She kissed his palm. He sucked in a deep breath, and she felt cheated. She wanted the wine and his naked body and the taste of his passion. Katherine opened her eyes and felt his smoldering desire wrap around her like a velvet chain.
She jerked free and walked away, one foot in front of the other until she stood in her room. Her neatly made bed mocked her. Katherine flipped on both lights and turned on her radio. She pulled out her fingernail polish. “I’m gonna have the best damn nails in the Western Hemisphere,” she muttered to herself as she unscrewed the top of Passion-Fruit Plum.
He just wants two weeks. Just two weeks. The words played in her head over the next two days, nudging her, tormenting her. A superficial truce seemed to have been called between them. Alex didn’t touch her. He didn’t make any more heated comments about his desire for her. But his eyes did. The restlessness and wanting were always there ready to explode.
The wanting was the worst. It was almost a visible force, with her every minute, a threat and an invitation. She couldn’t escape it in her sleep. The last two nights, she’d heard him stop outside her bedroom door. She held her breath, and an eternity passed before he walked on to his room. He hadn’t said a word, but she’d felt his call. In the middle of the night she woke, reaching for him, and feeling foolish when she heard herself murmur his name out loud.
She was sitting right on the edge, and the only thing that kept her from going over was the fact that her emotions went far deeper than a two-week romp in bed. She cared about him. She cared about what went on inside him, what he had to hide because of who he was.
The oddest development in all this, Katherine thought, was the way Chad had begun including Alex in his daily activities. Their joint search for Davy must have forged a link between them.
They had spent most of yesterday taking a chain saw to the fallen tree in the woods. After dinner they disappeared with a couple of six-packs of beer. She’d later found them smoking cigars and playing a cutthroat poker game in her office.
Too stunned to chew them out, she’d told them to clean up before they left. She’d lay odds Chad was teaching Alex everything he knew about cheating. Her brother was corrupting him.
Katherine frowned, looking at her alarm clock. Twelve o’clock. There’d been talk of a coon hunt tonight, murmurs about Chuck’s Bar.
She punched her pillow and turned over, refusing to think about it one second longer. At this rate she’d use up all her nail polish in one week. Alex had bodyguards to protect him against any mischief Chad might dream up.
She’d barely drifted off when a loud noise woke her. She sat up, clutching the front of her gown. Someone was singing. She cocked her head to the side, listening. Her eyes widened in surprise. Make that two male someones.
“…dead skunk in the middle of the road,” they loudly chorused together, a mile off-key.
“Great,” she muttered, snatching her robe and thrusting her arms through the sleeves. “This is just great.” She pushed her hair out of her face and stomped into the hallway.
Leaning on Chad, Alex started bellowing out lines from “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
“Stop it! Stop it!” Katherine glared at her brother and Alex. “You’ll wake the guests, and I’ll have to explain why I have two lunatics in my house.”
“Aw, Katie,” Chad began, stumbling forward.
Katherine stepped back. “Don’t you ‘Aw, Katie’ me. You’re drunk, and look what you’ve done to Al. He can barely stand.”
“I’m in full control of my faculties, Katherine. I’m never drunk.” He swayed.
Katherine rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure I want to know, but where have you been?”
“Chuck’s,” Alex said. His lips twitched. “The whiskey was better this time.”
Chad started laughing. “That’s ’cause you weren’t wearing it.” He slapped Alex on the back.
When they started up the chorus of another song, Katherine groaned.
“Go to bed,” she said over the noise. She pushed Chad toward his bedroom. “You’ll be worthless in the morning.”
“But, Katie—”
“Go,” she said firmly, wondering how Chad would feel about being responsible for causing an international incident. He reluctantly meandered away, alternately humming and laughing.
Turning to Alex, Katherine took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of whiskey and overpowering perfume. She gritted her teeth. God help her, the man was sexy even when he was drunk. His hair was attractively mussed. His shirt was unbuttoned nearly to his waist.
She wondered how many female hands had caressed his chest tonight. A swift surge of jealousy took the bottom out of her stomach.
“You look angry,” he said.
“How can you tell? You’re drunk.”
“Not really.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Princes don’t get drunk.”
Katherine sighed. “I can’t believe you did this. What if someone from the press had seen you?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. She bit back a moan. Even his shrug was sexy.
“I’d tell them a woman had driven me to it. A siren redhead plucked my heart and ‘stomped that sucker flat,’” he quoted in round, cultured tones.
She smothered a laugh. “Go to bed.”
“Come with me.”
Her breath caught. “No.”
“Then let me sleep with you.”
Katherine swallowed, shaking her head. “You need to get some rest, Alex. You’ll feel better in the morning.” What a crock, she thought. He was going to feel terrible in the morning.
He leaned closer. “I don’t want to sleep without you tonight.”
Katherine caught sight of something on his ear and lost the thread of the conversation. It glinted in the light. She blinked, then gasped. “You’ve got an earring!”
“It’s a stud,” he corrected her. “It has some sort of sexual connotation in your country. Lucy said—”
“Lucy,” she repeated in a deadly voice. “Just what is your relationship with Lucy?”
For a moment Alex actually looked flustered. Katherine was torn between amazement and feminine pique.
“It’s not what you think. She pierced my ear and offered—”
“Pierced!” she shrieked. “You mean this isn’t temporary?” She was furious. This woman had violated Alex. She’d stuck a needle in his ear. Katherine narrowed her eyes. “I’ll just bet she offered you plenty.”
“You’re not listening. She offered me some advice on how to win you over.”
Katherine didn’t believe it. Not for one minute. “And did she demonstrate?” she asked sweetly.
“No,” he said in a blunt voice. “A few others tried. You want me to name them?”
She saw the menace on his face and ignored it. The idea of another woman’s hands on him made her crazy. “I’m sure it would take all night,” she hissed back at him.
“You may be right.” He took her by the shoulders, and she felt the strength of his grip, heard the frustrated power in his voice. Too late, she realized he was past reason.
“I want you right now.” His voice was rough. “Do you understand? No preliminaries. No romantic words. I want to put you against that wall, lift your gown. And to hell with who I am, I just want inside where you’re hot and slippery for me.”
It should have sounded crude, but the same wanting pulsed inside her with every beat of her heart. He wanted her, desperately. And she wanted, desperately, to know him as intimately as possible.
“Are you scared? If you’re not, then you should be,” he bit out, holding her gaze. “Because I’m three seconds away from following through on my words.”
When she didn’t move, his eyelids lowered. “One.”
Katherine swallowed.
“Two,” he said harshly.
She closed her eyes. Where was her sense? She should be running—alone—back to her room.
“Three.”
She could almost hear the click of a locked door. No going back. She’d made her choice. She licked her lips.
He took a deep breath. Katherine opened her eyes to find him staring at her, unvarnished need on his face. His hand slid to her hips, and he lifted her gown.