Syn nodded, every inch the in-control commander again. Clearly, he’d anticipated my
confusion. “If we want to get to the Palais before the nuptial announcement spreads,
then yes.”
I followed him across the building’s central vestibule, still wearing a frown. “And
how the hell do you propose…”
My demand faded as my surprise jumped several notches.
This time, with damn good reason.
He’d pulled open the massive wooden doors leading to the front entrance—if a place
as sprawling as this could really have a “main” entrance. There, on stones likely
graced by stallions and carriages at some time, was horsepower of a different kind.
Sleek, shiny, black—
Gasp-worthy.
After I indulged in a couple of those, I finally squeaked, “Whoa.”
“A fascinating first,” Grahm remarked from the step above me, where he stood with
Jagger and Evrest. “I think, Your Highness, you have rendered the Badger speechless.”
“He is
Your Majesty
now, Foxx,” Evrest prompted. “And his predecessor issues an approval of the choice
from the grave.”
“
Not
humorous,” Syn snapped—though the tone didn’t touch the warmth in his gaze, lingering
since our kiss. He directed that summer sky intent back toward me. “Are you all right,
astremé
?”
I let myself sway in his thrall once more. I didn’t know what made my knees mushier:
his open concern, or the pumpkin he’d brought to the party—and turned into a Ferrari.
Not just any Ferrari. “This is a five ninety-nine SA Aperta.”
“Hell,” Jag muttered. “I believe
I
just fell in love with her.”
“That is
really
not funny.” Syn’s stare iced over. I punched him before he could succumb to any more
chest-thumping stupidity.
“They—they made less than a hundred of these,” I stammered.
“So I was told.” No more chest beating—but his posture puffed like Tarzan in a damn
tree, and he curled a tiny smirk. I couldn’t sock him for it this time. It felt good
know that my pleasure gave him a little, too.
He clicked a fob and the doors swung open. I stepped a little closer, instantly giddy
from the smell of the clean leather interior. “Have you ever even driven it?”
“A few times. But when I come up here, it is usually for altitude training or some
climbing. Not much time left over for recreational driving.”
I beamed up at him. “Let’s recreate away.” The drive to Sancti usually took about
six hours. I’d already bet we’d cut that nearly in half.
The scenery during the drive didn’t suck, either. Watching Samsyn at the wheel was
like observing a master equine trainer with his horse, or a maestro with his orchestra.
Massive power, turned into pure majesty. Focusing on him helped me forget the aching
goodbye to Camellia, who’d become such a fast friend, as well as the longing in my
heart as we took the back roads through Tahreuse. Since we couldn’t afford the time—or
most importantly, the attention—of stopping at home to tell Mom, Dad, and Dillon the
“good news”, we had Grahm’s word that he’d inform them within the hour, and he could
bring them to Sancti to “congratulate me” in person.
After we’d gotten there first.
After Syn made it clear, to
everyone
in the kingdom, that there was a new king to deal with—and to bear the wrath of.
The thought almost made me feel sorry for the two outlaws still on the loose.
Almost
. They were idiots but they were also zealots, prepared to cut Camellia’s throat while
Evrest watched. Quick thinking on Jag and Grahm’s part ensured they hadn’t escaped
the island yet. Well, not alive. If Samsyn’s team found them, they’d wish they
were
dead.
And that was more brain cells than I desired to give the subject. Right now, I refused
to think about violent, foreboding Samsyn. Or closed, belligerent Samsyn. Or even
reluctant King Samsyn. For the next three hours, I had sexy, behind-the-wheel Samsyn:
hair free in the wind, hands sure on the controls, body relaxed and loose…his attention
on nothing but the road and me. Okay, so we had to report in every thirty minutes
on the comm, too. It was a small price to pay for one last spurt of freedom, before
the circus our lives really hit the big time.
No. Not our lives.
Our
life.
Semi-hysterical giggle. Like I could help it? Not for every strawberry in the fields
whizzing by, as we transitioned from the winding mountain roads into the agricultural
valley that would be our scenery into Faisant Township.
“What is
that
about?” Syn lowered the volume on the music. We’d spent the first hour of the trip
simply listening to A-Rock, the island’s version of a rock ‘n’ roll station. The songs
were surprisingly current, and it sure as hell beat our only other two choices: A-Jazz
and A-Oldies. Admittedly, it was fun watching my burly husband belt out every word
of the newest Foo Fighters hit.
My husband.
“We’re…married.”
I laughed again, but didn’t hold back a note of my bewilderment. He
had
asked.
“Second thoughts already,
astremé
?” His tone teased but I caught the tension at the corners of his eyes, shaded beneath
his aviator glasses. The hard line beneath his jaw didn’t lie either. I swallowed
down the thrill they both gave me. I was bound for hell, taking such delight in his
discomfort.
In the end, I opted for the humorous route, too. “Not if you let me call you my ol’
ball and chain.” Where would prying at him get me? Parts of his psyche—huge parts—were
off-limits. Poking at them would only rouse the bear—and selfishly, I just wanted
to enjoy the man a little more. To believe in the fantasy a while longer. Right now,
we were just a pair of newlyweds on the open highway, basking in the sun and planning
for a future as endless and colorful as the fields of fruit around us.
“Ball and chain.” He picked his way across the words in his kid-with-a-new-food way.
His face twisted as if that new dish had been lima beans. “Really? Ball and chain?”
“Another one best left alone,” I quipped.
He tossed a quick glance. “I believe I want to stick with ‘big guy’.”
“Fair enough.” I laughed again. Turned a little to see him better, though tucked my
arm in carefully. “All right. Turn-about is fair play. What do
you
get to call
me
now?”
“You don’t like ‘
astremé
’?”
“I love
astremé
. Ditch it and I’ll have to break something.”
He rumbled out a chuckle. “Ah.
There
is my girl.”
My girl.
That was it. The man had to be reading my damn mind—and heart and soul—and was doing
his best to test them.
Challenge accepted.
I slammed the taffy pull of my stomach to a halt, and returned, “Let’s just play
around. Do a ‘what-if’. So…if
astremé
wasn’t already around—or some hot young thing showed up one day and claimed she was
your ‘little star’ first—”
“
Brooke
.”
“Fine. Objection sustained. Let’s just say you had to come up with something new for
me. Don’t be shy, big guy. What would it be?”
He was silent for at least half a minute. I actually started struggling for something
to say, afraid I’d miffed him more than I’d first thought.
But then he reached over. Curled his right hand into my left, which poked out from
the sling. And finally said, “I would call you my
raismette
.”
“Your…what?” I’d heard him just fine. Even thought I understood the word. But ohhhh,
I wasn’t passing up the chance to hear him say it like he just had, with that rough
rasp in his voice and that slight roll of the
r
. That single word, with that shaved granite emphasis, clenched deeper places in my
body than any wanton thing he’d ever growled to me before.
“
Raismette
,” he repeated. “It means ‘reason’.”
Trembles. Yes, even down to the fingertips pressed against his. It was just as well
that he knew, though my reaction was born of things I still didn’t fully understand.
“I know the word,” I finally said. “But…why that?”
He shrugged. “It is my favorite of all the endearments we can choose for ‘wife’.”
“Reason?”
“
The
reason,” he emphasized.
“The reason for what?”
“For everything.”
A Mack truck of emotion parked itself behind my frontal lobe. I wanted to hurl myself
into his lap and out the window at the same time. My logic was stuck in the same disgusting
bind, working to reconcile how a man who confessed something like
that
could still proclaim he had nothing to give a woman. And that wasn’t even the real
dysfunction here. The statuette for that honor had my name on it.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, thank you so much for this distinction. Yes,
I really am more in love with him than ever before. I’ve worked so hard to be this
insane, so your recognition truly means the world…
“Brooke?”
I blinked. Tried to stow the ache again. Wasn’t so easy with him still practically
purring at me. “Hmm?”
“Your silence is deafening.”
Sorry about that, buddy. Let me get right on turning that down for you. Just don’t
expect it to be with the truth.
“You do not like
raismette
.” A statement, not a question.
“I didn’t say that.”
But I wasn’t going to confess anything else either. The goulash he’d stirred in my
stomach and the anvil he’d dropped on my chest were need-to-know only. He did
not
need to know.
I went for relieving everything with another laugh. Thank God he joined in. “You know,”
I finally felt strong enough to remark, “if this whole thing
were
for real, we’d have some damn good stories to tell our kids.”
Syn snorted. “We had them the night we met,
astremé
.”
“Right?” This time, the laugh was more genuine. “Shit. It was your birthday. I’ll
bet Tryst and Cullen threw you quite a rager.”
“Something like that.” Our fingers had started to loosen. He retightened the clasp.
“But you were the best present of the day.”
“So…your friends all brought lumps of coal? I’m serious, dammit,” I girl-snarled in
reprisal to his dragon huff. “I was so young and silly and terrified.”
He abruptly swung the car to the shoulder. Cut the engine before shifting to confront
me, his hands framing my face. “Do not
ever
use those words to describe yourself again.”
“
Syn
,” I chastised. “I really
was
—”
“Bold and determined and brave.” They weren’t pretty words on his lips. They were
complete command, and the firm lines of his face ordered me to obey. “And beautiful.”
Still a mandate, despite the ragged breath it came on. “Always…so damn beautiful.”
I gulped hard. Again.
Don’t feel it. Don’t give in to it. Don’t let it sweep you away.
But the tenderness tore in…threatening to let in the love right after it.
Countermeasures.
Now.
“You know, mister,” I drawled, throwing in whatever shred of sassiness I possessed,
“Comments like that are liable to land us in deep trouble.”
His eyes flared. He bit his lower lip. “Trouble?”
It was almost a dare. Should I call him on it? It might be my only chance to actually
do so. And we
were
wild and free newlyweds, were we not? What would my husband do if I really jumped
into his wicked challenge?
“Mmmm hmmm.” I stalled and taunted with the same naughty syllable. “Deep.”
“But deep…can be good.”
“Certainly can.”
As we magnetized toward each other, I slid one finger down the V of his shirt. He
moaned against my mouth as I slipped three buttons free, gliding into the muscled
alley of his chest. He made another sound, rough and needy—and in that sweet, perfect
surge, he gave me something I’d badly needed since the invasion at the Rigale.
He returned my power.
Controlling this—controlling
him
—was a mini miracle, a reconnection with so many things that those ninja bastards
had taken from me. My strength. My self-belief. Even the feeling that I could do something
good.
Something
so
good…
His erection swelled beneath my fingers the moment I dipped my good hand to the apex
of his legs. The flesh grew hotter, warmed even more by the streaming sun through
the windows, stretching the black fabric. I sighed. Syn swallowed. We sucked breaths
back in together, passions growing, lust taking over.
I cupped him harder. He grunted and bucked his hips. Ohhh, I remembered this. Every
incredible inch. I’d wanted it this morning after Syn had made
me
come, my channel wet and ready, my mind blown and open. But Jagger and his damn timing
had taken care of that fantasy becoming reality.
Time to make up for lost time.
Now, in the perfect time. Here, in the perfect place.
I urged him back into his seat. As his head fell against the headrest, he punched
a button. With a low whir, the seat slid back. I wasted no time crawling to the new
space in front of him, directly between his knees. Before the whirring stopped, my
fingers tore at his belt buckle.
I didn’t get very far.
“Shit!” I whined, staring up like a kid denied an ice cream cone. “Help?”
Like the kid tasked with finding the chocolate sauce, his movements were fast and
fierce. He barely made a sound until his cock came free, a perfect pillar of burnished
beauty. As I watched, evidence of his lust brimmed from his dark red crown, glistening
in the sun. I bent my head and sucked in the milky drops, reveling in the tart taste
of his desire, loving how his flesh hardened and surged beneath my mouth.
“
Astremé
,” he grated. “Do not strain yourself…”
I chuckled, following one of his pronounced veins with the tip of my tongue. “I’m
definitely not the ‘strained’ one here, husband.”