Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke. Marie Ferrarella

it in his heart. And this man, this vermin who now called himself Kevin Weber, might hold the key to that as well as many other things.

      Marcus knew he would rest easier once Weber was brought back to Montebello. And Max was just the man to do it.

      Chapter 6

      Max liked staying abreast of current events and watched the nightly news whenever he could. But the reception on the small television set within the rundown motel room left a great deal to be desired. Mainly a picture and clear sound. Giving up, he shut the set off and decided to turn in.

      He noted that Rivers seemed to be of like mind. She was already in bed. Or rather, on top of it. She looked exhausted and more than a little disgruntled. She was also still wearing the clothes she’d put on again after her shower.

      He looked down at her from the foot of the bed. “Aren’t you going to change?”

      The mattress beneath Cara felt as if it predated the Second World War. She sincerely doubted it had a comfortable place to offer up. Turning, she laid flat on her back and laced her hands beneath her head. Looking up, she didn’t particularly like the way he was looming over her.

      “I like me just the way I am.”

      She was playing with words again, he thought. “I meant your clothes.”

      Her expression remained unchanged. “I like those just the way they are, too.”

      He wondered if she enjoyed being perverse and decided that she must. She was so good at it. “What do you normally sleep in?”

      “A bed.”

      Games, she was in the mood for games. Crossing to his side of the bed, Max dipped into his dwindling supply of patience and tried again. “What do you have on when you get into bed when you’re home?”

      “Generally a very tired expression.”

      And then it hit him, she wasn’t playing games, she was being evasive. And he had a feeling he knew why. “You sleep in the raw?”

      Cara felt freer that way, but it wasn’t any business of his that she did. She knew she should just turn her back on him and ignore the question, but something goaded her to respond.

      “What of it?”

      He gave her a careless shrug. “Just a coincidence, that’s all. I sleep in the raw, too.” Sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks and then began unbuttoning his shirt.

      An edgy feeling caught hold of her stomach. Cara propped herself up on her elbow. “Well, not tonight you don’t, Ryker. Stop right there,” she ordered him.

      He’d already peeled off his shirt and was sitting there, bare-chested. She forced her eyes to his face.

      “What are you afraid of?”

      “Nothing,” she snapped. “Because you’re not going to do anything.” It was an order, not an observation. “Except to lay down on your side and drop off to sleep—now.”

      The dulcet tones were certainly missing. He laughed. “You’re going to make one hell of a mother someday, you know that?”

      She took offense at his tone. It was her heart’s longing to have children. And to give them all the love she’d never had, the love she’d been storing up all these years.

      “Yeah, I will. And let me worry about that, you just get some shut-eye. Now. Or I’ll leave without you.” The threat slipped out before she could think to stop it. She didn’t ordinarily overplay her hand. She told herself it was because she was tired.

      “You can’t. I have the only set of keys.”

      Max held them up for her benefit. Then, he made an elaborate show of pushing them down deep into his front pocket. He knew she wouldn’t attempt to go digging there while he was asleep.

      She looked at where he’d tucked the keys. Her mouth curved wryly. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Aren’t you afraid of sustaining permanent injury if you should roll over during the night?”

      He laid down on the bed. “I’ll risk it.”

      Cara was acutely conscious of the way the mattress had dipped down, acutely conscious of the man laying less than two feet away from her.

      “Does that mean you don’t trust me?” she asked flippantly.

      His eyes met hers. “No more than you trust me.”

      Something tightened within her. She inclined her head. “Fair enough.”

      Lying back down, she realized that he’d propped himself up on his side and was looking at her. A jittery feeling snaked its way through her body. And then Max moved closer to her until the top of his torso was almost directly over her. Her heart began to hammer harder than she was happy about, the beat keeping abreast of the throbbing in her pulse.

      She needed him back in his space, not invading hers. “Unless you’re looking to pick bullets out of your teeth, Ryker, I’d back off right now if I were you.”

      Max heard the slight thread of tension in her voice, felt the crackle of electricity between them. “You need to relax, Rivers.”

      The jerk was being condescending, as if he could read what was in her mind. How could he? She couldn’t even read what was in her mind right now. Except that she didn’t want him so close to her. “And you need to back off, Ryker. Now.”

      He didn’t move a single muscle. “Is that a challenge?”

      Was she going to have to fight him off after all? Every muscle in her body tensed. “If that’s what it takes to get you back on your side.”

      She had pretty eyes, Max thought. Even when they darkened. He’d never been partial to blue-gray before. “You know, as a young boy, I could never resist a challenge. My mother said I was a constant source of worry for her.”

      His mother used to despair, he remembered fondly, that he would die an early death, led there by his own recklessness. Instead she had been the one to die too early, through no fault of her own.

      “At least you had a mother,” Cara heard herself murmuring, her voice hardly audible above the rushing noise in her ears.

      She knew she should push him away, knew that all it would really take would be one quick turn and a well-placed flexing of her knee and any impromptu moves on his part would be summarily terminated.

      But curiosity got the better of her. Curiosity and a strange physical pull that crept out of nowhere and presented itself to her with his name on it. Desire unfolded within her like a deck of cards being fanned out before a magic trick took place.

      “You have a death wish.” Her lips practically touched his as she uttered the declaration.

      “Maybe.”

      And maybe he just had an insatiable thirst to discover what it felt like to kiss her. An insatiable thirst that wouldn’t be quenched until he found out on his own what her lips tasted like.

      And then he wasn’t speaking any longer and neither was she.

      Contact occurred and the air around them suddenly became even warmer than it already was, its edges singeing the instant their lips met.

      He gathered her to him. Or perhaps she pulled him in toward her. The logistics weren’t clear. They overlapped. All that mattered was that they occurred.

      He tasted of something dark and sweet and compelling. She felt like she was a dried flower getting its first taste of summer rain with the promise of more lingering in the air.

      Cara wound her arms around his neck, telling herself she was anchored in reality so it was all right if, just for the moment, she lost herself in this sensation. Purely for reasons of edification. A woman always had to know exactly what she was up against.

      Max felt Cara’s heart hammering against his chest as he drew