His Undercover Princess (Tempt Me) (6 page)

The air crackled with possibility and promise. Her nipples strained against the cruel confines of her sports bra, and it took everything she had not to moan out loud and grind her hot center against him. Even if she could wriggle free from him, she didn’t want to—a recurring motif over the past few days. The more she moved away, the closer she got to him. Over the past few days, she’d learned the compound’s layout, familiarized herself with the security personnel and their procedures, and filched a set of car keys and a thick stack of unmarked bills from the kitchen cookie jar. Yet here she was, hoping like hell that he’d rip her pants off and pound into her until she came all over his hard cock. She wanted it despite knowing she shouldn’t—maybe for that exact reason—and even with knowing there were surveillance cameras in the room.

“It seems no matter what you do, you keep ending up on your back beneath me.”

With his fingers around her wrists as the epicenter, desire spread out over her skin, making her breasts heavy and her core ache. “I have no idea how that happens.”

His jaw hardened, the vein at his temple going into overdrive, and time stopped moving. The rest of the world fell away, and her hips arched upward of their own volition, the need for contact overwhelming her better judgment. He was iron against her slick softness. Dom squeezed his brilliant blue eyes closed, glorious torture etched into every line on his face. Then he sprang up to a standing position, his hands fisted.

“You ready to go again?” He settled his stance and let his arms fall loose at his sides.

Pulse racing through her tingling body like a runaway train propelled by a nitro boost, she fought to regain her composure, like she always seemed to be doing around this man. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He laughed but didn’t come closer, didn’t offer her a hand up as he usually did. Looked like she wasn’t the only one affected by their constant proximity. A few days ago her plan had been to use that to her benefit. Now she had everything she needed to escape, but she was still here torturing herself by teasing the Viking warrior who meant to lock her away in a castle. What in the hell was wrong with her?

Dom circled her, stalking her as he prepared another attack. “Did I mention this place has its own movie theater and access to almost every movie on the face of the earth?”

She rolled into a sitting position, sweat dripping down her neck and exhaustion making her limbs heavy now that he wasn’t touching her. “That’s not fair.”

He’d scored a direct hit to her weakest point without a single swing. No one knew her like the Netflix recommendations algorithm. Movies were her drug of choice, especially the old black-and-white romances. When deciding what color to dye her hair as part of her I’m-not-Princess-Eloise disguise, she’d almost gone with Audrey Hepburn black, but with her pale Nordic skin it would have looked more Morticia Addams than Sabrina, so she’d gone with Nancy Drew strawberry blond instead.

“One last go-around and winner gets to pick the movie,” he said and set the timer on his cell phone to four minutes.

She leaped up and eyed him for weaknesses; after all, he had to have at least one. “Your ass is mine, Dom.”

“Talk dirty to me all you want, Elle, I’m still going to win.” He smirked, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling up at the corners, and hit the start button on the timer. “Just like I always do.”

Not this time.
“We’ll see about that.”

She lunged. He bobbed and weaved. And so it began again. A few sweaty minutes later, she was standing above Dom, adrenaline coursing through her veins, with her foot resting gently on his windpipe. “I’m sensing a chick flick in your future.”

He rolled, and she tumbled. Her cheek ended up flat against the vinyl mat that smelled of Dom—a trademark-worthy combination of pheromones, musk, and a hint of lumberjack—right as the timer went off. “I know exactly what we’ll be watching, and it won’t be some crappy movie about bridesmaid dresses or missed trains.”

She pushed herself up on her hands and knees, sucking in a deep breath, and glanced at him over her shoulder. “Just two hours of shit blowing up?”

His gaze skimmed across her skin, as devastating as his touch. “You’ll have to wait to find out.”

Giving in to the urge to play with fire, she stretched into downward dog, staying there a moment before transitioning into a standing position. His body tensed, and he fisted his hands as he stared at her, hunger coming off him in waves that battered her.

Three steps. That’s all it would take to be close enough to run a palm across his chest. “I don’t like waiting,” she said, the words referring to more than her curiosity about what movie he’d pick.

His shoulders tightened, and he took half a step forward before stopping abruptly. The heat left his eyes, and his gaze went away from her and over her left shoulder as a neutral mask replaced the flirty smirk he’d had only a heartbeat before.

“In a few days, when you’re queen, you won’t have to anymore.” He dipped his chin in deference and walked out of the sparring circle.

The cool breeze of dismissal chilled her skin, sank underneath and cooled her to the bone. Queen. That thing she’d never wanted or planned to be. The sooner she could shake off whatever was holding her here, the better. She’d give herself one more night. When Dom walked into the library tomorrow morning, he’d find himself without a sovereign. A one-two punch of guilt left her stomach aching, but she couldn’t give in—not to exterminate the ghosts she saw in his eyes when he talked about the coup, not to live up to the standards her father had set, not to protect the Elskovians unknowingly supporting a farce of a government. She didn’t owe Dom or Elskov anything. And the more she repeated that to herself, the more likely she was to finally have it sink in and take root. But somehow, no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn’t shake the realization that she was only wasting time lying to herself.

“I’m serious about my movies.” She grabbed a hand towel and wiped her face to cover her own confusion and indecision. “This better not suck.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I never disappoint.”

With any luck, she’d find out the truth of that statement herself.

Chapter Eight

This wasn’t a date.

Dom dug through the stack of sweaters he owned but never wore for a minute before he found it. Dark blue, it reminded him of the sweater Elle had offered up for him to try on at Dylan’s. He hadn’t lied; he didn’t do casual. The tags were still on the damn wooly thing, and he’d owned it for at least a year. But he also didn’t do movie nights or days on end of only his hand for company instead of a woman. He yanked on the sweater with more force than necessary and looked at the result in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. Jeans. He was in fucking jeans and a sweater. It was like he’d turned into an ad for casual lame suburban dad. The slacks and button-down shirts on the ha
ngers called out to him, but he didn’t listen, surrendering to the inevitable. She’d gotten under his skin, and now the man who plotted to take down governments was as nervous about his wardrobe as a teenager before the first day of school.

Fucking ridiculous.

He stormed out of the walk-in closet and through his wood-paneled room without taking a moment to enjoy the breathtaking mountain view, the huge stone fireplace that dominated the south wall, or the oak bed big enough for five women when there was only one he wanted to see naked and twisted in its steel-gray silk sheets. And she wasn’t ever going to be there.

For a man who lived by a very specific set of rules, all built around obtaining his one life goal, Elle was the exception to every one. He should back out of movie night. That was the right move, the one that made sense. The one that kept him focused on the plan. The one he wasn’t going to make.

He grabbed his cell and dialed the security room. It barely made it through the first ring. “Sir.”

“Status report, Major Bendtsen.”

“Everything is quiet here, and our sources in Harbor City report the Fjende contingent remains in the city.”

Unease crept up Dom’s spine. The Fjende weren’t the sit-around types. “Have they connected Princess Eloise to Elle Olsen?”

“Unknown, sir.”

He tugged at the crew collar of the sweater as heat blasted up from his toes. “We have moles in their organization. What in the hell are we paying them for?”

“The leadership is keeping a tight lid on this one, sir.”

Big fucking whoop-de-do. “I want answers. Now. Tell the moles to do whatever it takes to get them.”

“Yes, sir.”

He disconnected, pocketing his phone as he strode out of the room. The door clicked behind him, his thoughts centered on unwinding the mystery of exactly what angle the Fjende were working. They hadn’t given up on finding Elle, and with forty-eight hours until the Kronig, the clock was ticking down.

“Nice sweater,” Elle said. “I knew indigo was your color.”

His brain braked to a stop so fast his ears rang with the squealing of rubber against pavement. She was in black jeans that fit like second skin and a T-shirt of the same color that hung off one bare shoulder. Then the fact that a bra strap wasn’t showing registered in his already lust-fogged brain, and the little things like remembering to breathe became a hardship.

Standing outside her door, she took her time looking him up and down, and it took everything he had not to gather her up and carry her back to his oversize bed. By the time her heavy-lidded gaze had made its way back up to his face, his entire body was on fire. The woman was going to kill him.

“So what’s the movie?” she asked, her eyes hooded with lust.

“You have to wait and find out.” He laid his palm against the small of her back, relishing how she relaxed into his touch.

They walked in silence to the movie room in the basement, every unspoken word a current running between them. A large screen took up almost one entire wall, the Paramount Pictures logo in black and white paused on the screen. Facing it were small leather couches on risers. The staff had put a tub of popcorn as well as an array of candy and sodas on the table next to the center front-row love seat.

“Wow.” She let out a low whistle. “This is heaven.”

“Glad you approve.”

“You have no idea.”

They sat in the designated love seat. There was more than enough room for both of them. He grabbed the remote and pushed the green button. The back of the seat tilted, and a footrest rose up from beneath them.

“I might never leave.”

“If I’d known a night at the movies was all it took to make you this pliable, I would have brought you here right away.”

“You’ll have to remember that tidbit for the next princess you kidnap.”

He hit the blue button, and the lights dimmed. “I’m hoping you’ll be my first and last princess kidnapping.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She set the popcorn tub between them and grabbed a handful. “Enough stalling—movie time.”

He tapped the red button and watched her from the corner of his eye as the credits rolled. The movie he’d picked was a gamble. If she took it the wrong way, he was fucked.

“Dom.” She half sighed his name. “
Roman Holiday
is my favorite.”

Only then did he relax back into the plush seat. Included in her dossier was an ever-growing spreadsheet of her Netflix movie history.
Roman Holiday
had more entries than any other. Still, he hadn’t picked the story of a runaway princess who has to decide between a regular life and her duty to the crown lightly. She still wasn’t totally on board with the Resistance’s plan. With any luck, Elle would make the same decision as the movie princess.

…

Throat bu
rning and her bottom lip quaking, Elle held her breath as she watched the reporter walk alone down the marble hallway, his lonely steps echoing. The princess wasn’t going to come back and tell him she loved him, she couldn’t. He was a commoner, and she was a princess. She’d made her decision to do her duty and sit on her country’s throne. They’d never see each other again. And it was the right choice. She owed it to her country and her people to remain on the throne—like Elle’s father had, like she’d always known he would.

Before he’d been killed, she’d begged him to go somewhere safe, but he wouldn’t leave his home, his people. “We owe this country everything,” he’d said, wiping away her tears. “It is not our right, it is our duty, and it comes before everything, Eloise, everything.”

The memory settled in her stomach like a lead weight. Less than twenty-four hours later he’d been dead, but like the princess in the movie, he’d made the right choice to stay. He would have hated himself for the rest of his life if he hadn’t. Not just because it was his duty, but because it was the right thing to do. And her father had raised her to always do the right thing.

Inhaling a shaky breath, she filled her lungs until the stolen car key tucked into her bra poked hard into her breast. Two days ago, she’d sneaked the pilfered money and a change of clothes down to the garage, but had kept the Mercedes key fob on her at all times in case the opportunity arose to make a quick escape. In reality, that moment had come and gone several times since then. She’d never taken it…her breath whooshed out of her…and she never would. Running away from her duty wasn’t the right choice. Like father, like daughter, like movie princess who chose duty over freedom.

Elle couldn’t deny her country when it needed her. She’d never be able to honor her father’s memory if she did. The screen went black, and the lights came up.

“That was emotional blackmail.” She sniffled and swiped the back of her hand across her damp cheeks.

Dom didn’t even bother to look innocent. “What do you mean?”

“Like you just happened to pick
that
movie out of the eleventy billion movies out there?” She snagged the tub of popcorn and grabbed the last bits of salty, buttery goodness. There was no eating like emotional eating. If she had some Mike and Ikes she could really get the party started. “You’re about as subtle as a slobbering Labrador with a tennis ball.”

“Subtlety wouldn’t get my message through.” He curled his fingers around her chin and tugged so she faced him, a frisson of attraction dancing across her skin at his touch. “So are you going to return the keys to the Mercedes and the kitchen’s rainy-day money and follow through with your promise?”

Her stomach slid out her toes. “You knew.”

“Of course.” He dragged his thumb across her bottom lip with a roughness that added just enough friction to make her catch her breath.

“Were you going to try to stop me?” she asked as she twisted in the seat, brushing her knee across his as she turned to face him completely and opened her mouth so she could graze her teeth across the rough pad of his thumb still pressed to her lip.

The vein in his temple throbbed, and his jaw tightened. “I’ve already told you, trying isn’t an option.”

He dwarfed her—his warm hand so large against her jaw and his broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the room. She kissed the spot on his thumb where her teeth had been. Hard and soft. Bite and caress. Need and denial. That was them in a nutshell. And this push and pull between them that had nearly knocked her to her knees the first time she saw him? It scared her almost as much as the realization that she’d be taking back her crown.

“Is there anything that matters more to you than getting me on the throne?”

He dropped his hand, her question seemingly the reminder he needed that he shouldn’t be touching his queen. Still, he didn’t move back, didn’t inch his knee away from hers.

“No.” There wasn’t a trace of doubt or hesitation in his answer. It was like she’d asked if the sky was neon pink.

She slid her hand inside her loose T-shirt and plucked the key fob out of her strapless bra. “Give me your hand.” He held out his hand, palm up, and she pressed the key into its center, closing his strong fingers around it. “You’ve got your queen.”

The nausea she expected never rose in her throat. Her palms didn’t become clammy. And for the first time since the coup, she knew what was coming next and the part she’d play. Finally, her destiny was her own.

Dom stood up, and she had to crane her neck to take all of him in from her sitting position. The man knew how to fill out a pair of jeans and a fisherman’s sweater. Thick thighs. High, round ass, broad chest, and thick, corded forearms visible where he’d pushed the sleeves up. It wasn’t just his muscular build, though; it was the stubborn tilt to his chin, the confidence shining in his blue eyes, and the aura of power that emanated from him every time he so much as breathed.

Plain and simple, she wanted him, and this would be the last few days of her life when she could have what she wanted without worrying about how it fit into her life as queen. For the next two days, they weren’t the billionaire commoner and the future queen with the same likelihood of being together as the princess and the reporter in
Roman Holiday
. For a little bit longer, she could be just a woman and he could be the man who rocked her world.

“You’re staring,” he said, his tone gruff with want, pulling her attention to his handsome face.

“I know.” Liquid heat flowed through her, and she let her gaze skim across his body, her mouth watering with want of him. “We have less than forty-eight hours. I suggest we take advantage of it.”

There went that vein at his temple again. “What’s your proposal?”

She slipped her hand under her shirt, reaching around behind for the hooks holding her strapless bra closed, loving the soft growl of a groan he made as he watched. “Our own Roman holiday, but with more naked and fewer tourist attractions.”

“After that you go back to your royal duties.” He stepped closer, putting her practically within licking distance of his hard cock fighting against the confines of his jeans.

“Exactly.” More words weren’t possible right now. She was surprised she got a three-syllable word out, considering the trouble she was having unhooking her bra, an action she’d done a million times before.

Finally, it gave, and her boobs swung free, her stiff nipples pushing against the soft cotton of her T-shirt. She slid the bra out from underneath her shirt, dropping the black lace lingerie where Dom had sat only minutes before. Then she looked up at him through the fringe of her lashes and teased her full bottom lip with the edge of her teeth.

His jaw tightened even as his cock twitched under the thick denim. “I’m not an easy man, not even for forty-eight hours.”

Keeping her gaze locked on his face, she stroked the hard outline of his dick with the tip of her fingernail. “Good thing I like things hard.”

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward him, his face an icy mask of control when she knew how hot he burned for her. The intensity of it should have frightened her. Instead, it left her panting for more as her body ached for his touch.

“There won’t be a repeat of what happened in the library,” he said in a low tone as he held her arms aloft, his grip tight but not cruel. “When it’s the two of us and that pussy of yours is soft, swollen, and wet, I’ll be the one in control. I’ll have you wherever and whenever I want—in my bed, on my desk, on the floor right now if I want to. I’m going to own that sexy body of yours so thoroughly that you’re going to beg for my cock, because it’s going to be the only thing in the world that you want. And once I’m buried balls deep in you and you are filled with me, I’m going to make you come apart in the best way possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” The single word came out half promise, half plea as she clenched her thighs tight, almost convinced she could come just from the mix of pressure and his words.

“Say it.” He jerked her arms high and back, forcing her to arch her spine so her breasts jutted out.

Thrill shivered up her body. “I understand.”

“What do you understand?” He lowered one hand and drew lazy circles around her still covered nipples, too soft to be what she needed and too hard to be ignored.

Her pussy quivered as she watched his long finger trace a figure eight as it traveled from one nipple to the other. He loomed over her, bold, fierce, and commanding, with only one thing on his mind—her. It was almost enough to make her orgasm on the spot. Almost. But first she had to make sure he understood her ground rules.