Unfaded Glory. Sara Arden

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.”