Bold Beautiful Love -- A Temptation Court Contemporary Romance: Temptation Court: Passion in New York (15 page)

“Not when I last checked,” she drawls, answering my question. “But when have you known me to check?”

I cock my head. Crunch up my nose. Murmur warningly, “Brooke…”

“Hmm?”

“What have you been up to?” Folded arms. Suspicious stare. “And why?”

She leans on the rail, crossing one ankle over the other. “Not nearly as interesting a story as what
you’re
about to be up to.”

Like a picture suddenly coming into focus, cognizance fully hits—spilling my gasp. “By the Creator.”

“Hmmm. He helped a little. I suppose.”

“Brooke!”

If Vy were here, jibes would be flying about the decibel damage of my squeal and whether I was breaking a princess of Arcadia with my hug. But only Brooke’s laugh fills my ears, as she hugs back just as fiercely.

“Does this mean, maybe once, you’ll forgive the dirt under my fingernails?”

“Crazy
tupalai
.” I tease it back through tears. “For this, I may never look beneath your nails again.”

“Yessss.” She fist-bumps the air then steps back with mock contrition. “I need to be honest. I only helped after the hard part was done. Doyle and Damon risked much more.”

I follow the jerk of her head, sobbing as the two men come into view, followed by Samsyn. I rush over but do not maul them as I did Brooke; if they are injured, I do not want to damage them more. But both curl up grins reminding me of swaggering dogs, despite the strange black stains over their eyes. No. Not stains. Stepping closer, I recognize they have each torn their “mustache” in two, then plastered the pieces back on as eyebrows.

Damon wiggles his before declaring, “The tarantulas have landed. We repeat: the tarantulas have landed.”

“
All
of them?” I shake while forcing myself to ask it.

Doyle’s smile mellows—just a little. He finally murmurs, “Yeah.
All
of us.”

Joyous sob. Uncontrollable. Bursting free. “It
worked
? He just walked out with you?”

Doyle nods and chuckles. “To be fair, Samsyn helped.”

My prince smirks. “Fake fighting is even more enjoyable than the real thing.”

“Dammit,” Brooke mutters. “I still missed all the fun.”

“Psssh,” Doyle snorts. “He had to lose, you know. He was the distraction.”

Brooke quirks a saucy brow. “When my man loses, you
bet
it’s a distraction.”

“Yes, well.” Syn shrugs. “Sometimes the ballsiest moves are the best ones.”

Damon starts to laugh as well, but cuts himself short. “It was
all
pretty freaking ballsy.”

“Aw, c’mon.” Doyle drags it out, scoffing. “You’ve surely pulled off ballsier shit.”

Damon’s snort is noncommittal. “Maybe. but I had bigger crowds to work with than a few overworked Arcadian prison guards.”

“Well.” Doyle dips a deferential nod. “That’ll wash as good enough.”

“And
your
laundry isn’t just as dirty?”

Doyle turns from him—not aware I’ve come closer. At least close enough to see the thunder in his eyes as he all but whispers, “They had to burn my laundry, man.”

He clearly wants to let that go, so I do. Besides, I have a bigger priority. Making sure I hug as much of my gratitude into them both as possible.

But the next second, even that is shifted to a back burner.

A far one.

How can I focus on anything but the electric change in the air. No…the physical shifting of its molecules, funneling to shoot a jolt of awareness down my spine equaling no other…

Possible because of no one else…

But him.

Cassian.

I do not even want to speak it, for fear of shattering the spell and rendering this joy into just another dream. Instead I turn, letting the tired but perfect beauty of him fill my gaze, explode my heart…and compel my body. I lunge into his arms, letting him lift me up and fold me close. Though his grip is as powerful as ever, I feel the creep of exhaustion through his body. Smell the tang of dirt roads, night wind, and sea spray on his still-moist skin. As if I care. The man could have rolled in a damn pig’s trough, and I
would not care
.

“
Armeau
.” His voice is like the sea too, a roll of liquid thunder through us both. Never would I think it possible for the sound to touch deeper parts of me but it does, vibrating through every fiber…

Until I am lost in him once more.

Lost
to
him…

“You are really safe.” I rasp it into his neck.

“Yeah.”

“You are really here.”

“Yeah.” His stance stiffens. He lowers me, in order to push me back by a few inches. “And so are you.”

Uh-oh.

His disappointment—his anger—are real; I see that much in the emerald accusation of his gaze. But accepting them as
valid
is a separate struggle.

And, if I am being utterly honest, an unnecessary one.

“Cassian.”

“Mishella.” His concluding lilt carries an edge of warning. He has not invoked my middle name but I wonder how close
that
came to happening. Higher instinct tells me to be afraid but I simply am not.

I am just as irate as he is.

“No.” I yank back, bracing hands to my hips. “You will
not
turn me contrite about this.” Jerk a look back toward Damon and Doyle. “Nor will you blame either of them for it. I did not even tell them about your order, so they cannot be held—”

“I know.”

The new calm in his voice is unnerving. “You do?”

“He does.” Oh.
There
is the accusation. In
Doyle’s
voice.

Shit.

“Damn right he does.” Damon’s too.

Shit, shit,
shit.

Cassian slides a hand against one of mine. The move is not one of tenderness—even mercy. “And you’re right, little girl. I’ll hold neither of
them
responsible for
your
actions.”

Hard swallow.

And a resolute jerk of my chin.

And an utter gauntlet of a glare, meeting the challenge of his.

“Do you really want to do this
now
?” I hiss.

Why does the appearance of his dimples suddenly make my nerves feel like ice picks? I refuse acknowledge the answer. He refuses to let me do anything else. “Now’s a damn good time,
armeau
. Yes.”

“Fine,” I snap. “But it was the right call. I was able to help, and I am not going to be sorry about it.”

The dimples disappear. Maybe that is because the other men’s chuckles—even Samsyn’s—take over on the nerve-grating duties. “‘Not sorry’ can be turned into ‘please let me be sorry’ very quickly, little one,” the prince murmurs.

“Or very slowly,” Doyle adds.

“Gah.” Damon glowers. “You two want to cool that shit? You’re talking about my baby brother.”

None of their jibes are as intimidating as Cassian’s calm concession to them. As if they are not jokes at all, but…

But what
?

My trepidation is not eased as he lifts a stare toward Samsyn. “How long can you give me?”

I sprint a glance between them. “Give you for what?”

“I would estimate an hour,” Samsyn supplies as if I have not said a thing. “Maybe ninety minutes. My last update on the road closure was just five minutes ago. I have ordered the lockdown for another hour, and can keep it that way for a little while longer. After that, things will start to look suspicious.”

“Road closure?” I officially run the risk of appearing like an idiot parrot but am beyond concern for that as well. Clearly, details of his escape from Censhyr have included details beyond what I helped facilitate—and since they directly impact a commodity as precious as time, I will readily embrace the parrot. “Road to where? And why is it closed?”

Cassian dips his gaze to me, maintaining his odd cloak of calm. Lifts a hand, long-fingered and still a little damp, to the space between my hair and nape. “The coastal road, to the airport,” he states. “And they’ve closed it because they’re looking for the guy who escaped from Censhyr—whom they suspect will make a run for his jet.”

His tone is far from censuring. It does not have to be. He respects my mind too much—what he knows I will be able to infer now—to clobber me with anvils of accusation.

My own psyche does
that
job just fine.

Before remembering that I am
not
sorry about this.

“Well. Their searches will be for naught then, hmm?”

“For now.” Once again, it is underlined with tight calm. As if he is guarding part of himself. No. Not “as if.” He is hiding something from me…

But what?

And why?

“For now?” I bite it out. “What does
that
mean?”

“Exactly what he means, Mishella.” Samsyn’s tone possesses the same careful weirdness. “That the road is closed—until logically, we cannot keep it closed any longer. At that point, the search for Cassian will tighten…and likely focus on Sancti.”

I have refused to veer my stare from Cassian. Until now. “Sancti,” I fire at Samsyn. “And the Palais?
Here
?”

He wastes no time with extra actions to confirm it. “Where they will also find nothing.”

Cassian squeezes my nape tighter. “Because by that time, the escapee
will
be on the road to the airport.”

“Smuggled out in a truck of secured cargo.” Samsyn includes Doyle and Damon in the sweep of a look he tags to his insertion. “Driven by a pair of crazy-ass soldiers with the bushiest eyebrows in the Mediterranean.”

Doyle snorts. “Careful, bucko. You’re biting off some big territory there.”

“Then be prepared to live up to it,” Syn rebuts.

“Just call us Mario and Luigi.”

“Who and who?”

“Dude.” Damon grimaces. “We’d need the mustaches again for that.”

“Yeah,” Doyle concedes. “And hats. If you’re going to do the Bros, you gotta have the hats.”

Cassian’s face contorts between a laugh and a glower. “I have no idea whether to punch or thank you guys for invoking the Mario at a time like this.”

“Thank us.”

“Punch us.”

The tandem answer may inspire chuffs from Cassian and Samsyn but I am
not
on the humor train—or fooled by it. I show Cassian as much by pivoting sharply in his hold—and sweeping up a scythe of a stare. “All right,” I charge. “Pause button.
Now.
” That earns me his renewed focus, eyes intense as twin lasers. That is good. Very good. I think. “What the hell is really going on?” I demand. “What are you
not
telling me?”

Very good
swings swiftly to
very bad.

If Cassian’s stillness is not my first clue, the three other men become his disturbingly quiet lieutenants. Finally, Samsyn utters, “Better take this to the other room.”

Cassian exhales with deliberation. “You’re probably right.”

“The other room?” I resort to darting glances back and forth between them again. “What? Why?”

“It is
fine,
Cassian,” Syn reassures. “I will come knock when it is time.”

Cassian lingers a second longer. Another. I wonder why
I
suddenly feel like the caged lion here—and he has become the poor sot assigned to step inside the bars with me. “Thanks, Syn.” He re-secures his hand against mine, before tugging me into the bedroom where we slept last night. The command in his guidance is
not
to be brooked.

The second we are inside and he closes the door, I confront him head-on, air-quoting Samsyn’s words as an accusation. “‘When it is time?’ And ‘better take this to the other room?’” When he issues no response except a harsher set of his jaw, I persist, “Cassian…
dammit
. Talk to me. Is he going to be returning with a bloody firing squad in tow?”

I wish like hell I could fling it as more of a joke.

That he would smirk, taking it as one.

That he would do anything but hook both my hands into his, pulling in a deep, resigned breath—deep-freezing my heart already for what is
not
going to be a jest of an answer.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

“Because in an hour, he’s coming to get us, Ella. Then we’re sneaking out of here in that truck, and I’m going to put you on the jet with Damon and Doyle. And then Samsyn is taking me back to Censhyr, where I’ll turn myself back in.”

*

Cassian

F
or a strange second
, I ponder who’s taught her how to slap so well.

There’s real talent to this kind of shit—especially connecting hard enough to ring a guy’s ears. I’d actually be impressed, if I wasn’t busy forcing the neurons in my brain to reconnect.

“Are you out of your bloody mind?”

Now that you bring it up
…

“
Armeau
—”

“Stop.” She whirls so swiftly, her hair whips across my chest. Three stomps in and she spins back around, slicing me with the fresh tears in her eyes and the desperation on her face. “You do not get to ‘
armeau
’ me into submission right now. You do not get to shut me out of the damn conversation. I will not stand for it like I did yesterday!”

Scowl. Deep. As in, I’m sure my face has some new permanent grooves now. “Yesterday? What the
hell
about yest—”