“Have you seen Rachel?” Gaelen asked.
SMACK!
Tarin stared up at his brother, the matt underneath him barely absorbing the brunt of his fall. “That was a good one!” Amit called, walking over and peering down at Tarin.
Tarin growled as he lunged upwards, furious that his brother had distracted him.
“Damn, Gaelen, you’ve woken the beast!” Amit laughed, smacking Gaelen on the back hard enough to send a normal man flying. But the Raminar brothers weren’t normal. Amit and Gaelen were about the same height at six feet, three inches, but as the youngest brother, Tarin must have gotten a bit of extra testosterone because he was six feet, four and a half inches. Plus he easily added muscle to his tall frame with his daily workouts. When they were younger, the brothers used to tease Tarin, calling him “The Hulk” because he was so big. Now they didn’t tease him because he would flatten them, although Tarin knew that his brothers still used the old nickname when he wasn’t around.
“Low blow,” Tarin grumbled. But along with his extra height and brawn, he’d also gotten a smooth temperament. Of the three, Tarin was the most laid-back, easiest to tease, and…the fastest to get retribution.
This time however, his brothers’ teasing remarks had hit a nerve. He looked around, his hands fisted on his hips. “She’s back?” he asked.
The other two had gone back to sparring, but they answered in between seemingly harsh blows.
“I heard from Rashid that she checked into the apartment late last night,” Amit confirmed as he circled Gaelen, referring to the set of royal apartments set aside for diplomats or special guests. Or in Rachel’s situation, for someone working on a special assignment as a favor to the palace.
Gaelen didn’t even glance in Tarin’s direction as he circled their oldest brother. “I heard she’s wearing a pretty flowered dress this morning.”
Tarin rolled his eyes. “She’s always wearing a pretty flowered dress, you ass!”
Instead of wading into the fray, he headed towards the showers. “I have things to do. You boys can play around if you want.”
The older two brothers stopped circling and straightened to watch their youngest brother head for the locker room. “He’s got it bad,” Amit muttered.
Gaelen nodded, smiling smugly. “Oh yeah. He’s smitten.”
Amit punched Gaelen’s shoulder playfully. “Excellent idea bringing her back here.”
Galen shrugged, and moved back into position for another round. “The idiot would have gone on moping around here if we hadn’t done something. At least now he has a chance with her.”
“If he doesn’t mess it up,” Amit agreed, then with lightning fast reflexes, moved in and tried to flip Gaelen over. He almost had him too, but Gaelen anticipated the effort and shifted his weight to the left, throwing Amit off balance. Heavy thuds echoed through the room as they pounded each other.
An hour later, Tarin adjusted the cuffs of his suit as he walked towards his office, his body alive and alert, ready to tackle the world. Or if not the world, at least one slight, delicately boned, beautiful, and elusive lady with magical curls and huge, green eyes, he thought.
Turning the corner, he only half listened as someone came up to him and asked for guidance on a bridge under construction. As Minister of the Interior, Tarin was ultimately responsible for every bridge, road, water system, and electricity grid within the country. He was in charge of ensuring their safety and building new infrastructure systems when needed.
And this latest project might not be completely within his area of responsibility, but he’d happily taken on the task when it was suggested last month. Even better, after his initial grumbling, Tarin was eager to work with Rachel on the project. She was a hell of a detail person, amazing at organizing everything and…!
She was pulling her stockings up.
Tarin stood in the doorway, admiring Rachel’s very long, very sexy leg. Her flowered skirt was pulled all the way up to the top of her thigh. Tarin could clearly see the black lace of her garters holding up the taupe stockings. Holy hell! The demure, overly-efficient, flowered skirt was covering sex-kitten stockings and garters?!
Her legs were even sexier than he’d imagined. And he’d imagined a lot! Never, not in any of his dreams, either awake or sleeping, had he pictured her wearing stockings and garters! Cotton panties? Yep! And damn it, he’d thought even those would be sexy on Rachel! Cotton bra with no lace or any sort of accessory? Oh yeah! He’d thought himself a sick puppy when he’d considered that hot!
But silk stockings held up by a lacy garter?
Tarin watched as her long, delicate fingers slid her stockings up, as if they’d sunk down her legs somehow. She unattached the black clasp and reattached the stockings in a different place, the garter holding those sex-fantasy-things up against her pale skin.
Breathe, he reminded himself as he backed away into the hallway. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back, clenching his fists as he took in deep gulps of air.
“She didn’t know I was there,” he told himself. “She thought she was alone!”
Damn it! He took several more breaths, trying to get himself back under control. It was difficult though, because keeping his eyes closed meant that he kept picturing her delicate hands sliding along her legs…her long, slender fingers doing that sexy thing with the clasps. Damn, how many times had he taken stockings off women in the past? Or left them on? Hell, he loved feeling stockings on a woman when he made love to her.
But never had he ever considered that Rachel would wear anything like that! Never! No way! He was almost angry about his discovery, because it would only add a whole new level of pain to his desire!
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Tarin’s eyes flew open and he found Amit standing in front of him.
“Go to hell,” he snapped, his normal laid-back manner obliterated because of long, slim fingers gliding against silk stockings. And garters! He couldn’t forget the damn garters!
Turning, he knocked on the wood panel of the doorframe before he entered Rachel’s office this time. But instead of finding Rachel sitting behind her desk with her skirt pulled up and her leg slanted sideways, he noticed her standing up, looking for a file in a stack on her desk. As soon as he stepped into the room, she straightened, pushed those adorable glasses up her pert nose and smiled at him. Professionally.
Hell, he was fighting to hide the most painful erection he’d ever experienced and Rachel was standing in front of him in a damn flowered dress that went all the way up to her freaking neck. The thing even had a lace collar! But now he knew that she wore garters! And silk stockings!
His eyes darted to her chest, then back up to her eyes. Was she wearing a sexy bra too? Would it match the black lace garter?
Oh hell, his erection throbbed now and he had to lean over her desk in order to not scare her.
“Good morning. Thank you for coming back to Izara to help with this project.” White socks, he thought frantically. She probably wore white socks and sweatpants to sleep in. And curlers. Yeah, he could picture her in curlers. Maybe the curlers were why her gorgeous, auburn hair curled like that.
Nope, that wasn’t working. The white socks were fine, but then his eyes moved over her figure as she searched for a file and all he could do was picture her in the white socks and…nothing else.
Ah hell!
“On the flight last night, I read through the information you sent me. I’m eager to get started. I had some thoughts and…” she looked up and must have seen the pain on his face. Pulling back, she folded her hands. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I’m sure that you have this covered already. I shouldn’t presume to have any additional information.”
He laughed softly. “Rachel, your ideas are exactly why I thought you would be an excellent addition to this project. So please, don’t worry about me. I got slammed onto the mat by Gaelen this morning.” He stood up, back in control. Barely. “How about if we go into my office and discuss the project? I’d love to hear your ideas.” Also, his desk might help hide his inevitable erection!
Her smile brightened and Tarin was once again reminded of how lovely she was. Rachel wasn’t the glamorous type who wore long, dark lashes and red lipstick. She didn’t wear a size double D bra or teeter around on five inch heels.
Just the opposite and, for some reason, the combination of her perfect, pale skin, soft lashes, pink-tinged, wide mouth and those cute glasses just…did it for him. Her hair was an auburn brown, but had the most intriguing red highlights. He knew because he’d sat behind her during a conference last year and watched the overhead lights shimmer in her tresses.
He looked down at her fingers with the clean, tapered fingernails and no rings, and thought about wrapping his fingers around her wrist. She was so slight, he could circle her wrist with his thumb and forefinger and have room to spare.
Meanwhile, he was a huge hulk of a man who knew how to build things and tear them down. With a sigh, he moved into his office, thinking that they were the perfect example of opposites attracting.
Except that she hadn’t ever shown even the slightest bit of interest in him. In fact, she barely even seemed to know he was alive while she’d worked for Talia. She never looked at him, always moved out of his way when they met the hallway and, even when he’d tried to smile in her direction, she was so busy and focused that she never noticed.
She followed him into his office, perching on the edge of the leather chair in front of his desk.
“Okay so what’s on your mind?” he asked.
She flipped the page on her notebook. “You have a meeting in four minutes with…” and she started to list his agenda for the day. Tarin leaned back, enjoying the soft, lilting southern accent in her voice. It wasn’t thick, like some people he’d heard. Instead, it was subtle. It was things like “ay” instead of “I” or just an additional syllable in some words.
She sat there, looking at him expectantly, and he realized that he needed to say something.
“Your meeting, Your Highness?” she offered.
He leaned his arms on the desk in front of him. “We need to get something straight first.”
Rachel immediately lifted her pen, her eyes riveted to him as she eagerly awaited his instructions. “Yes?”
“My name is Tarin. You are never to refer to me as Your Highness, is that understood?”
She pulled back and he wanted to laugh at her indignant expression. “I don’t think that’s appropriate, Your Highness.”
He laughed softly. “Isn’t it my call?”
She pressed her lips together, the perfect picture of a disapproving librarian. A sexy, disapproving librarian. One that hid garters and silk stockings underneath a demure flowered dress!
Rachel glanced pointedly at her watch. “Shouldn’t you be in your meeting now?” she repeated, a reprimand in her tone.
He chuckled again. “Fine. We’ll talk about it later. But Rachel?” he prompted, standing up and waiting until she was standing as well, looking up at him with those huge, green eyes that were barely tempered by the severe glasses.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
His grin widened. “I always win,” and then he walked out of his office, heading towards his first meeting of the day. “Are you coming?” he called over his shoulder.
He felt her jump at his bark, smiling as he glanced over his shoulder towards her.
“Coming?” she parroted, startled.
“Yes. This meeting is the first discussion about the university project. I need your feedback and you need to hear what’s going on right from the start.”
With huge eyes, she jerked forward, stumbling slightly. He caught her arm and they both froze. He looked down into her eyes and wanted to lose himself in those emerald depths.
Before he could do something stupid though, he pulled away and nodded towards the opposite door. “This way,” he replied, his voice gruffer than he’d intended.
They walked into the meeting and sat down. He noticed that Rachel took one of the chairs along the wall, even though there were several empty chairs at the conference table. He didn’t understand why, but let her sit where she was comfortable.
Rachel smiled as she walked down the hallway later that afternoon. She felt as if she was tingling with happiness and challenge! And excitement. She couldn’t ignore the excitement she felt just being near Tarin again.
He was so amazing! She’d watched him in several meetings today, encouraging everyone to talk, never shooting down an idea, no matter how ill conceived. Rachel didn’t think he’d care about her opinions on the ideas being tossed around. She knew that her job was to facilitate everyone else’s ideas. Hence why she was walking back to her office now to organize a long travel plan. Tarin wanted to interview several leading architects, needing to feel them out and get a sense of who they were.
An hour later, she’d called the palace travel office and given them Prince Tarin’s itinerary, organized hotels in each of the cities, and coordinated with his housekeeping staff and security team.
It was after hours now and she guessed that Tarin had gone to eat dinner with his family. She knew that they enjoyed meals together, especially since they all seemed to take a hand in raising the two orphaned nieces, Elsa and Ellora. Those two darlings were getting on in school now and were normal, rambunctious young ladies. Amit was the closest to a father figure that the girls had, but Gaelen and Tarin both made themselves available for advice or conversations, or especially fun activities.
It was one of the things she loved about this family. They were just that: a family. There were no harsh insults, no passive aggressive compliments, and no power grabs, which she knew happened in other royal families. Furthermore, there was no ridicule for dressing one way or another, no competition for grades or friends or girlfriends.
Unlike in her family, she thought with a groan.
Not that Rachel and her older sister, Wendy, ever competed for anything. What a ridiculous thought. As if Rachel could even compete with Wendy’s beauty and glamor.
Packing up, she glanced around to ensure that everything was neat and tidy, then headed home…or at least, back to the temporary apartment she’d be calling home while working on this project.