A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember (15 page)

“Really?” Her gold eyes looked him over. “Don't take this wrong, but you're not exactly doing a great job so far.” She turned away to inspect their surroundings. “Don't worry,” she said in a patronizing voice that made his jaw clench. “I'll figure this out for both of us. Just stay down so you don't get hit.”

Not only was he in a tux, not only did he have a mobster trying to gun him down, he had to be
stuck in an elevator with the most irritating woman on the planet. “That's supposed to be my line.”

“What?” She was distracted as she studied the ceiling.

“The ‘don't worry' line. The ‘stay down' line.”

She sent him a vague smile, then went back to inspecting their surroundings as if she knew what she was doing.

Clearly, she thought he was an idiot.

Kyle didn't need Jimmy to kill him. This nutcase in pink was going to do it by stress alone.

 

A
NNIE STUDIED
the ceiling carefully, while wracking her brain, conjuring up every action-adventure film she'd ever seen—of which there were many—for inspiration. “There's always a way out,” she said. “I just have to come up with it.”

The man behind her made a rude noise. “This whole thing could have been avoided if you'd only listened to me in the first place.”

“Oh, you mean when you told me to
get out of here
?” Hmm, the ceiling had several panels. Assuming she could reach one, she might be able to crawl out. She was good at escaping. She'd mastered it at age two, when she'd escaped into her mother's royal closet to avoid eating her peas at dinner.

It had taken the entire army of Grunberg royal bodyguards to find her, as this had been before her mother's death, when the closet had been the size of a house and filled with enough clothing to clothe everyone in their entire country.

By the time Annie had become a teenager, she'd gained enough skill that no one could find her when she wanted to be hidden, not even Natalia—her sister and closest friend. No one could find her but Amelia, but since Annie was convinced Amelia really was a fairy godmother in disguise, she didn't count.

“If you'd stayed back,” the man said, “I could have tackled him and wrestled away the gun. Arrested him.”

She turned on him in surprise. Which was not an easy move wearing such a stupid dress. While the skirt might be too wide, the top sure wasn't. When she turned, she threatened to expose more of herself than she planned on exposing.

Secret exhibitionist fantasy or not, she didn't plan on showing off her wares to just anyone. Especially this man, with his intense eyes that gobbled her up and his tall, rangy body that could make a grown woman drool. Not that she was drooling.

No, not over him. He was too big, too…real.

Then what he'd just said sank in. “You're a cop?”

“What did you think?”

She had no idea. Hmm…a cop. He'd dedicated his life to serving and protecting others. How irresistible was that?

But he was about to get married. To someone else. If they lived.

Not that he'd have been interested in her anyway. Well, not past the tiara and prestige anyway. She'd learned, hadn't she? She should have had it down by now. No men. They wanted only one thing.

Well, make that two.

Sex and money.

Too bad she wasn't any good at the first and until she came into her trust fund in another year, had a lot less of the second than anyone would believe.

“Maybe,” she said, “the other people in the store, the ones Jimmy sent outside, called the cops. Or maybe the shots alerted someone else in the building. Maybe there's help on the way.”

“You're awfully full of maybes.”

“Call me an eternal optimist.”

“In that dress, you'd have to be.”

She ground her teeth together. “This dress is hardly
my
fault—”

“Look, let's just get ourselves out of here before Jimmy figures out how to find us.”

“Right.” She figured they'd have to go out the ceiling, crawl along whatever sort of system there was and—

“We'll go out the ceiling.”

She stared at him. “That was going to be my idea.”

The look he shot her was nothing short of patronizing. “Right. I'll go first, and—”

“I should go first.” She came up to him, startled anew by his sheer size. She refused to acknowledge how her head barely reached his wide shoulders, or the fact that his gaze dipped down to the barely there neckline of her dress, which she prayed had stayed in place. “I'll need a boost.”

“Did you forget who's the cop here?”

“So you're one of those guys who have a problem with strong women—”

“I most definitely do not have a problem with women, strong or otherwise.”

His voice had gone low and dangerously soft.
Sort of the way her father's got when he was really close to losing his temper.

She had a feeling seeing this man blow his lid would be quite a show, but they didn't have time for that right now.

A fact that was reiterated when another bullet hit the panel, again piercing the back wall above their heads and echoing throughout their small confines.

She put her hands over her ears at the same time he reached for her, covering her body with his.

“You have to stop doing that,” she said against his chest.

Against his really hard chest. She wondered if he had a smattering of dark hair across it or if he was smooth—

“Shut up.
Please,
” he begged. “Just shut up and let me rescue you.”

“I'll rescue myself.”

“This is a nightmare.
You're
a nightmare.”

She'd heard that before. “Just bend down and let me get on your shoulders. Do it quick before another bullet tears into us.”

He stared at her, then shook his head. “This isn't some great adventure, you get that, right?”

“Of course—”

“Because I don't think you realize that if Jimmy
gets smart and gets upstairs before us, and your pretty little neck appears first, he's not going to drop his gun, give you a hand, and help you out.”

“Well—”

“Unless, of course, you do exactly that.”

“What?”

“That.” His eyes remained on her face, but his voice changed again. Silky soft now.
Very
silky soft.

And she was clueless. “Do…what?”

“Pop a nipple out of your dress.”

B
ECAUSE HE COULDN'T
handle looking at her for another second, Kyle turned his back. Counted to ten. Calculated complicated algebra problems in his head.

Didn't matter. He could still picture her nipple poking out from the top of her dress. Perfectly rose-colored and perky. Perfect size for a man's mouth.

He was a man. A typical red-blooded man. With sex now firmly on the brain despite the fact that they were on the run from a bad guy with a gun.

Damn it.

“Sorry.”

This from behind him, in that voice that somehow screamed innocence and sex all at the same time.

“I haven't had my dress fitted yet,” she said amongst the rustling of her dress. “And—”

“It's okay,” he said to the wall. No way could he look at her and hold eye contact. Nope, his gaze
had a mind of its own suddenly, run by the boss between his legs, and it wouldn't be able to hold back from taking another look to see if she'd managed to cover herself.

“I couldn't wear a bra with it because—”

“It's okay,” he repeated, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, trying to think of something else, anything other than how absolutely delectable her nipple had been.

“Let's get out of here,” he said in what he thought was a remarkably casual voice. “To do that, I need to concentrate. And to do
that,
I need you to be really,
really
quiet. Can you do that one little thing, do you think?” He risked a look at her.

Her eyes narrowed. Her mouth opened. Then closed.

“Good girl,” he said.

“I'm not a girl. I'm a grown woman.”

He knew his eyes went hot, knew his voice sounded low and husky, but he couldn't help it. “I realize that.”

“Do you? Do you realize there's no need to be rude? Just because your manhood feels threatened by me suggesting you might need my help—”

His manhood didn't feel threatened so much as…horny. “I don't need your help—” He broke
off when another bullet tore into the control panel, getting ensnared high in the corner this time. Not forgetting to save her ungrateful hide, Kyle drew her down into the corner yet again.

They stayed that way for a moment, until he realized how still she'd become. Damn. She'd probably, finally, gone into shock.

But then she shoved him off her, stood and hiked up her dress, revealing a pair of long, toned legs in thigh-high stockings rimmed with lace, held there by a simple white, devastatingly sexy garter belt.

His jaw dropped. “What—” His voice cracked like a teenager and he tried again. “What are you doing?”

“Did you see that? The direction of the bullet entry?”

Yes, damn it, he had. Jimmy was still below them.

“I'm safe going first.” She put her lifted skirt between her teeth. Then she shoved not one, not two, but three hoops down her legs. Stepping out of them with a sigh, she took her skirt in her hands.

Rip.

Okay, she'd succumbed to the stress. He'd never actually seen it happen, but had heard of such things. She was going to tear off her dress and go
running naked through the streets. Maybe even sexually attack him. He had to stop her, help her, but good God, he'd gotten a quick glimpse of barely there white-lace panties. Just a tiny little wisp of material between her legs, hardly covering—

With one last rip, she straightened and tossed aside miles of material, leaving her with the form-fitting bodice of the dress still in place, but the wild skirt was completely subdued and laying nicely against her body to midthigh.

“There,” she said. “Better. Now… You need to lift me up to get us out of here.” Without another word, she walked behind him and lifted her hands to his shoulders.

“Say pretty please with sugar on top,” she breathed in his ear, “and I'll be sure to pause at the top to give you a hand.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Boost me up.”

“But…” What had just happened? Here he was, poised to fight off her sexual advances, but she hadn't jumped his bones at all.

“Come on,” she said, pushing on his shoulders. “Up.”

So that's how he found himself putting his hands over hers to steady her and going to his knees.

Helping her to his shoulders should have been a breeze, but by the time she'd plastered her chest to his upper back, then climbed up his body, rubbing her breasts against the back of his neck, panting in his ear, pausing for balance, he was sweating again.

“Okay,” she said, balanced on his shoulders, still holding his hands. “I'm ready.”

“Be careful.”

“Just lift me up.”

He had a moment to think again about how amazing she really was. How she was together and perfectly willing to pitch in to save their lives. That she was also annoying and bad tempered went without saying. Maybe it was her way of showing shock.

Her toes dug into his shoulders. They were bare of polish but she had a silver ring on the second toe of her left foot. Her hands in his remained cool and steady, and as he straightened, so did she, in perfect balance, reaching for the panel above them.

“Nice and easy,” he said, sliding his hands from her ankles to her calves for extra support, then farther up the backs of her legs to hold her low on her thighs.

He knew, or his
brain
knew, that now wasn't really the time to enjoy the soft, smooth silkiness
of her stocking-covered legs, but it wasn't his brain running the show at the moment.

“Nice and easy has its place,” she said breathlessly. “But not here.” Grunting, she manhandled the middle panel aside. Another grunt and she started to pull herself through the hatch above the elevator.

Kyle made the mistake of looking up.

Directly beneath her dress. With the help of his hands on her, she used her muscles to rise. He watched her legs strain, tremble. Watched her perfectly rounded butt clench.

And because he was watching where he shouldn't, he didn't see her foot kick out for purchase and find his face until stars exploded in his head.

By the time he could see again, she was gone. Completely gone.

“Hey,” he whispered, panicked. Damn, he'd known better. He'd sent her, an innocent, no matter how irritating and sexy and brave, directly into the hands of Jimmy.

Then her face appeared in the hole above. “What's taking you so long?”

He was so weak he nearly stumbled back against the wall of the elevator. “You're okay.”

“Of course I'm okay. Hey, cop man, hurry up, will you?”

He tore off his jacket, shoved up his sleeves and leaped up, but couldn't quite reach the top of the elevator.

“Hang on,” she said, then vanished. She reappeared a moment later to toss down a large empty box. “I got this from the second-floor hallway. We're only a few feet short of that floor. Be quick, I think I hear him coming.”

“Be quick,” he muttered to himself, using the box as leverage, grabbing on to the opening to pull himself up.

“Took you long enough,” she said in lieu of a greeting, waiting with barely contained impatience.

Kyle's fingers itched with an overwhelming desire to reach out and put his hands around her neck. “I'm here now.”

“Good job,” she whispered, absently patting his shoulder, as if he was an idiot. As if
she
was the one in charge. As if he was
her
burden. “Now stick with me.”

“Wait a minute.
You're
sticking with
me
or I'll leave you here as bait. Got it? Good. Now I'll lead, so move over.”

She blinked at him in surprise and he felt like a jerk.

Hell, he
was
a jerk. What had happened to his legendary patience? “I'm sorry.
Please
move over.”

Not surprisingly, she thrust up that chin again. “Saying
please
when you're still being a bully, does not make it okay.” And with that, she took the lead and crawled through the space out into a dark hallway. Then she craned her neck to peek at him, her finger to her lips, because clearly he couldn't be trusted to know when to shut up.

“Wait.”
He
was supposed to lead.
He
was saving
her.

But she didn't wait, and it occurred to him, he'd never followed before. He didn't like that, or the fact that she was moving too fast, too recklessly. Surely she was going to fall and break her pretty little neck, or at the very least, alert Jimmy to their location. Reaching out, he grabbed her ankle and tugged.

And tugged.

“I said wait,” he said into her ear when he'd pulled her to him. He had all that gold hair and sweet, sexy scent tangling his brain cells now. “Get
behind
me.”

“Fine.” Now
her
jaw was all bunchy. “But let's climb up to the third floor,” she said.

He hated to admit that it was the logical thing to do. Going down was a bad idea, at least until reinforcements came. “Okay, back into the elevator shaft, to the third floor,” he agreed. “Me first.” He was fairly certain Jimmy wasn't smart enough to locate them, but if he did, Kyle wanted to be out front. “Did you hear me?”

“How can I help but hear you? You're yelling in my ear.”

“Yeah, yeah…” He moved to crawl past her, his big body brushing against her much smaller one, and he was simultaneously bombarded with sensations. Temper and heat.

Temper and need.

But mostly just temper.

 

A
NNIE DEALT
with her own temper. “So who is this guy anyway?” she asked as they climbed. “Someone you've won over with all your considerable charm and wit?”

He stopped to send her a dry look. “He's the punk nephew of a mobster I just helped put away.”

“Interesting life you lead.” They'd gone about five feet up, when she stopped.

She sniffed and went still. “I smell smoke, cop man.”

“Pull your shirt over your nose and keep climbing. We'll get out on the third floor, find the stairs and come back down,” came the terse reply.

So much for comforting platitudes. She was climbing as fast as she could, which was pretty damn fast. Good thing she had an affinity for climbing. All her tree scaling and climbing walls or whatever she could get her hands on since she could walk, had come in handy today.

But the smoke burned her lungs, and she fought the urge to cough.

“I said cover your mouth,” he said.

“I don't have a shirt.”

“Then don't breathe,” he said gruffly, and encouraged her to follow with a sharp tug on her wrist.

That was another thing about him, this soon-to-be-married cop. He kept touching her.

She wondered if his wife-to-be knew he had a thing with touching.

It wasn't often that she was touched, period. People in her country respected their royals, and kept a distance. She had her father, once a warm, loving man, but he'd lost much of his zest for life after
her mother had died twelve years before. She had her sisters, when they weren't fighting.

Few others had been allowed to touch Annie, though there had been the occasional affair during her naive days, back when she believed there was a man for her out there somewhere. Once in a while she dreamed about that still, a man's hands on her. Solid and sure and arousing.

But the dreams had turned out to be better than reality.

The smoke was thicker now. She let out a cough, her lungs starting to feel squeezed.

“You okay?” He patted his hand between her shoulder blades, but she kept coughing, mostly because he didn't seem to know his own strength. “Damn, Pink, keep your lungs in your chest.” Without a care for the loaned shirt on his back, he ripped it off, tearing the thing in half with his bare hands. He put one half over her face, before he covered his mouth with the other half.

Their eyes met, and she saw the frantic concern in his, so she nodded, then continued shimmying up the narrow hatch.

At the top, he held her back, making sure he was the first one out into what she feared would be an open hallway, making them easy targets.

But the third floor was some sort of warehouse, filled to the brim with huge storage containers the size of wardrobes, each probably filled with more torturous dresses. And while containers provided cover for them, they also provided that same cover to Jimmy.

Her cop—sooner or later she'd have to stop thinking of him as hers—reached down, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. For a moment, their bodies collided and he held her still, looking her over.

“I'm okay,” she said.

“You're amazing, is what you are.” He moved to a window and carefully peered out, leaving her with the most incredible view of his now bare, sleek back. “At least five black-and-whites down there. That's the good news.”

“And the bad?”

He moved away from the window. “Until Jimmy is caught or gives himself up, we're on the third floor of a possibly burning building, the hostages of a wild idiot with a gun. Let's go.”

“Where?”

“Out of ideas, are you?” He guided her to the west wall, where there was a door.

“Stairs?”

“Shh.” He put his ear to it, then his hand.

She wrestled with the urge to put her ear and hand and everything else against his bare back.

Taken,
she reminded herself.
He's taken.
“Let's go out the window,” she suggested. “The cops can cover us.”

“Unless you're Spider Woman, bad idea. There's no fire escape.”

“No, but we can shimmy down the storm drain.”

He stared at her. “Who the hell are you?”

“Cops aren't the only ones with nerves of steel,” she said. “Try being a princess.”

“What?”

“You want a formal introduction?” She curtsied, not an easy move in her cut-off dress. “Your Serene Highness Andrea Katrine Fran Brunner of Grunberg, at your service. But the at-your-service part is just a formality, you understand. I'm not really at your ser—”