Unfaded Glory

CHAPTER THREE

SOME PEOPLE WOULD think that because Damara was a princess, she didn’t understand the word no. She understood it plenty. She heard it so often that yes was more of a surprise. So rather than be upset, she asked, “Why not? Am I not pretty?”

“You know you’re beautiful.”

“Am I?” She lifted her chin, wondering if that’s actually what he thought of her or if he was just being polite.

“Now you’re fishing for compliments and you’re not going to get them. You know how you look.”

“I don’t. Not really. My suitors all tell me I’m beautiful, but all they want is the power that comes with being married to me. I have maids. I have servants. They all tell me I’m beautiful, but they all must. What is it you don’t like?”

She dared to ask the question, but she was actually afraid of the answer. She didn’t want to be told that she wasn’t enough—that she had nothing to offer him since he didn’t want a crown.

“Your innocence.”

“I see.” Damara didn’t. Not really. “Because you’re a bad man?” She turned the conversation back to familiar territory.

“A very bad man.”

“A bad man wouldn’t care. Had I offered myself to Grisha, he wouldn’t have waited.” She shivered, both with fear and anticipation.

“You deserve better than a man like Grisha.”

“I know that. That’s why I picked you. But you’re not cooperating.”

Damara Petrakis wasn’t sure who was more surprised by what came out of her mouth. The expression on his face looked like she’d kicked him somewhere unforgivable. She wasn’t sure what strange maggot had burrowed into her brain, but she suddenly realized that this was the answer to half of her problems. Not only would it eliminate many of Abele’s contenders for her hand; on a more selfish note, it was something she wanted to experience. She wanted to know what it was like to be wanted for herself, not her position. She had a feeling that Hawkins didn’t care if she was a princess or a beggar.

His eyes widened. “You have lost your mind.”

She scowled. “That’s not what a lady expects to hear from her chosen beau.”

“This ain’t a cotillion, Princess.” He sneered.

This wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “No, it certainly isn’t.” She pursed her lips and decided to appeal to his logic. “But my brother is going to have a hard time marrying me off if I’m not a virgin, isn’t he?”

“That’s still a thing?” He wrinkled his nose.

Still a thing. Damara closed her eyes for a second as the emotion threatened to overwhelm her. The whole of her self-worth had been wrapped up in the slight veil of flesh. It had been drilled into her head that it belonged to her country and she owed it to her people to keep herself chaste until she was married. But now, getting rid of it seemed like only way to give them and herself some measure of protection until Abele was captured and tried for treason.

Of course, this soldier wouldn’t understand. She knew that. It was part of why she’d chosen him. So she couldn’t be angry at him or hurt that he didn’t understand. His culture was different.

She took a deep breath. “It’s very much still a thing in Castallegna and in many parts of the world. I was under armed guard for most of my life. If I’m worthless to him, maybe he’ll stop killing people to get to me.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know if anyone told you, but he could lie.”

She swallowed. “He could, but the kind of men he wants an alliance with would demand an examination before we were married.”

“How about I just kill him for you?” Hawkins said as if he were asking her permission to do something as mundane as trimming the hedges below her window. Hope surged in her chest for all of a single millisecond. Life would be so much easier. So many people would be saved. One life for many—one of the founding principles on which she was raised. His death would mean she’d be free to dissolve the monarchy, to bring true democracy to Castallegna, just as her father had always dreamed.

But she couldn’t do it on the back of an assassination.

“I can’t ask you to do that.” She swallowed the hope that had turned to bile in her throat.

“You’re not asking. I offered. See, like I said, killing is what I’m good at.”

She wet her lips, as if that would help ease her next words into the world. Damara may not have been experienced in the ways of the flesh, but she did know people. Politics and manipulation had been part of her extensive education, as well. “So are you saying that you’re not good at making love?”

“Fucking, little girl. It’s called fucking,” he snarled.

Damara found it so telling that he could speak of killing—of death—without blinking an eye, but when the discussion turned toward softer things, it made him angry and defensive. At first she’d thought intimacy was the problem, but it didn’t get much more intimate than taking a life.

A million retorts came to mind. She wanted to tell him she was no little girl, she was a grown woman, but she didn’t need his validation to know that. It didn’t matter if he wanted to use those words to push her away, to keep her from whatever it was he didn’t want her to see.

“You still didn’t answer the question.” Damara was proud of how steady her voice was, how she met his regard with unflinching resolve.

“I’m warning you, Princess. Steer clear of this and me.” His eyes raked over her with an intensity that made her feel exposed, naked.

He didn’t have to answer the question. She sensed that if he touched her, she’d never be the same.

But she supposed that would be true of experiencing this with anyone. Maybe it was because he seemed reluctant that she wanted it to be him so very badly. Men always wanted something from her, and this one didn’t want anything. How perverse of her.

She responded before she had time to think it through. “Steer clear of you or what? You’ll do what I’ve asked? What exactly do you think is going to happen to me? Do you have some hideous disease? Are you malformed?”

“I am formed very well, and clean, thank you,” he growled. “How do you propose we do this, Highness? Hmm? Here in the boat? With no condom?”

She blushed.

“Oh, for— You demand I service you, but you blush when I mention condoms? If you can’t say the word, you shouldn’t be using them. And if you’re not using them, you definitely shouldn’t be having sex.”

“I can say the word.” Damara brushed some imaginary bit of something from her pants so she could get away from his scrutiny. “I just...I hadn’t thought about the geography of where. Obviously, this boat isn’t very practical for such things.” She couldn’t fight the heat that suffused her cheeks.

She was very aware of his proximity. Of his scent, of his strength.

Of her reaction to him.

And how what she’d said couldn’t be unsaid. He didn’t want her. Her tutors and trainers all made sure to tell her that any man who got her alone would try to “ruin” her. As if all men were ravaging beasts who couldn’t control their baser urges. Even without a crown she did nothing to inspire his “baser urges.” If her tutors had been wrong about that, what else were they wrong about?

She shook her head as if the action would rattle those thoughts out of her brain. Damara always said she wanted to be just a girl. Now he treated her like one and it rocked her worldview. Damara wanted to be strong; she wanted to be fierce and brave. Only she was alone and on unsteady ground. She felt incredibly weak and small.

At the core of that, what cut her the most was that she felt useless. She was a princess who’d escaped from her tower but didn’t know how to do anything to care for herself.

She couldn’t even seduce a man.

“Are you crying?” he asked her in a low voice, but with the same inflection as if he’d asked her if she had the plague.

“No.” She wasn’t. She wouldn’t. But she wanted to.

“You think I don’t want you,” he stated in a monotone.

“You don’t.” If he did, why wouldn’t he take what she offered?

He turned off the motor and dragged her against him. She went willingly, pliant in his arms. That was when she realized that he did want her. His erection was pressed against her intimately, which both thrilled and terrified her.

“I— Oh. I thought that was your gun.”

He’d wanted her the whole time. Her whole body tingled.

Byron glanced heavenward as if she were the very definition of a cross to bear.

“As a princess, aren’t there things that you want but can’t have? Aren’t there things that you know better than to reach for because you might lose the hand doing the reaching?”

His shoulders were so wide and hard. She found her hands wandering of their own volition down his broad back, his biceps. He was like one of the statues at the museum.

She understood what he meant, but Damara was much too distracted by his physicality.

“Oh,” she said again breathlessly.

His fingers tightened and released around her hips before tightening again, finally drawing her even closer against him.

Damara burned in a way that she didn’t know was possible. Every nerve ending was awake and wanting—this was desire.

She rose up on her tiptoes slowly—this was madness. He said he couldn’t—they couldn’t—but she needed his lips. She had to know what it was like to kiss him. She might never have another chance.

Hawkins didn’t turn away from her, and he could have. He was bigger than she was, stronger. He was the one who’d hauled her against him, who kept touching her. One hand slid up her spine to cradle her neck and angle her for his pleasure.

His mouth crashed into hers with all the intensity she’d expected. It was a furious heat, but there was a need there, too. He gave as much as he took. His mouth was so hard but soft at the same time. Her blood turned to molten lava, and Damara was sure she’d burn up from the inside out. Just when she thought she’d incinerate to ash, he broke the kiss. But he didn’t release her.

“Please,” she whispered.

He touched his forehead to hers; their breath mingled in the aftermath of the kiss. He said with a ragged exhale, “If you still want this when we reach the safe house in Barcelona, God help you.”

* * *

THAT MOMENT WAS everything that kissing a beautiful woman should be, Byron realized.

In a word, it was awful. The expectation, the hope—and the difficult truth that he could never fulfill any of those higher needs.

Her kiss made him want, made him remember what it was like to need something he couldn’t have. She tasted of all things sweet and pure, and it roused something animal in him—something primal that wanted to claim her and mark her as his own. Hawkins wanted to touch all that lovely honey skin that he knew would taste just as good as her kiss.

But she was a princess, a regular damsel in distress.

And he was no knight, no prince and certainly no champion. He was Byron Hawkins, fuckup extraordinaire.

There’d been a time when he would’ve tried to seduce her just to see if he could get away with it. Part of him was tempted, sorely tempted, to see just how far the lovely princess would take this. He couldn’t believe the way she pressed herself against him, so innocent but so wanton at the same time.

He tore himself away from her and concentrated on the task at hand. Where to stay once they got to Barcelona and the fastest way to get her on United States soil. Just as he’d promised.

But instead of focusing on those issues, his thoughts kept wandering back to how good she felt pressed up against him and the jasmine scent of her hair.

The things he wanted to do to her.

Her innocence should’ve been a mood killer—he broke fragile things and dirtied the pristine. Instead, it only stoked the flames hotter. He wondered what she’d look like writhing beneath him, what sounds she’d make from those luscious lips while he tasted her—pleasured her.

Hawkins steeled his mind to chill the heat of his arousal and shut down his imagination.

“You keep telling me that you’re a bad man, but you’re a better man than you think.”

Perhaps she was the one who was dangerous. The sooner he could get away from her and that fragile hope he saw in her eyes, the better. “And sometimes, people who believe they’re good have tunnel vision and can’t see the destruction they leave in their wake,” he answered.

“A bad person wouldn’t care.”

“Are we really having a philosophical discussion in the middle of the Mediterranean?” He tried to change the subject before he proved to her just what kind of man he was.

“Why not? What else is there to do?” She arched a brow and put a hand on her hip.

Hawkins wondered if she meant to dare him to take what she’d offered. If she meant to tease him. The expectant look on her face told him that she actually wanted an answer. She wasn’t just taunting him—and he was a twisted bastard to think that she was.

“I’m not here to entertain you, Princess,” he said more sharply than he meant.

She was contrite. “I’m sorry to pry. I won’t do it again, but don’t shut me out. I’ve never had anyone who talks to me like you do. Like I’m a real person rather than a dress-up doll.” Damara put her hand on his forearm. “Please?”

It took everything in him to walk the line between jerking away from her as if he’d been burned or crushing her against him and drowning in her sweetness.

It was the please that was his undoing. He supposed that he’d be able to say it was Damara herself that was his undoing. He knew if she didn’t get away from him, all his noble intentions would be shot to shit.

All it would take was a glance, a touch, and he’d do anything she asked—even ruin her. It wasn’t that he thought a woman was ruined after she lost her virginity, but she’d be ruined if she lost it to him.

“You’re not a doll, but you are a princess.”

“That doesn’t make me any better or any worse than anyone else. All it means is that I was born into a certain family.”

“Don’t be so quick to shed the protection that affords you, Highness.”

“Don’t call me that. Just Damara.”

But he had to call her “Highness,” because it reminded him of all the reasons—no matter her words—why she wasn’t for him. He flexed his fingers around the controls, wanting to reach out for her, but he knew better.

When he got ahold of Renner, he was going to punch him in the dick. Maybe until he couldn’t raise his arms. That would only be half of what this felt like for him. There were any number of operatives who would’ve been a better choice for this gig.

Part of him was ready to hand the man his resignation the next time he saw him, but then where would he be? A killing machine with no purpose. What would he do? Where would he go? And what would happen to him once he had no outlet for the darkness inside of him?

No, Byron had no other options. This was where he belonged; this was what he was for. He had to believe that.

She sat quietly for a long time. It could have been hours, or it could’ve been minutes. Time lost its meaning when he was around her. He hated that. It made him ineffectual.

“Will you talk to me now?” she finally asked.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything. Where are you from?” She looked down at her hands. “I wasn’t going to pry. Right. Seems I can’t help myself.”

He cocked his head to the side. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her where he was from. That was nothing. It was in his jacket. He could share those things. They weren’t intimate; they weren’t where his demons had hidden themselves.

“We lived in Virginia Beach when I was a kid and we had a boat. My dad would take us out at night and we chased what he called the Moonlight Road. He always said Blackbeard’s treasure was at the end.”

“That’s how you know your way around the sea. I bet you could tell me all about the stars, too.” She smiled. “Don’t the stars inspire wonder and curiosity?” Her eyes were bright, and there was a kind of excitement on her face.

Hawkins hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Not since he was a kid chasing moonlight ribbons across the water. They were maps and signposts for navigation, burning masses so far away that the light they were looking at was from something long dead and dark. They weren’t hopeful or inspiring. They were pale remnants of what had once been.

“Not so much anymore, Princess. I see constellations and stories made up to make sense of a world a primitive people didn’t understand. Andromeda, Perseus—myths that, like starlight, aren’t real.”

She laughed. “What do you mean it’s not real? I can see them. The shapes they take, the stories behind them.”

“Wishing on stars is like pinning your hope on the past and expecting it to change.”

“I didn’t say anything about wishing, although it’s a nice thought. I used to wish all the time that I was just a girl instead of a princess. I know how far wishing gets you. That doesn’t mean that they’re not awe inspiring.”

For the first time, it hit Byron that she had her own pain. He supposed that was a stupid thing to think. Of course she had her own pain, her own demons. Everyone did.

The wonder on her face was suddenly snuffed, like turning off a light. “Where do you live now?”

“Everywhere, really. I don’t have a home base. I haven’t since my parents shipped me off to a military boarding school my junior year in high school.”

“But surely you’re from somewhere? Virginia Beach, then?”

“No, we lived there until I was seven. Then we moved to Glory, Kansas. What about you, Princess? Did you spend your whole life on an island?” He turned the conversation back to her, shutting down all the memories, all the emotion that flooded over him whenever he thought of Glory.

She smiled and looked down at her hands. “I did. I’m the Jewel of Castallegna. I’m never supposed to leave the island. Going to Tunis was the farthest I’ve ever been from my home.”