Chapter 20 #2
“Thank you, my love. But I want you to eat it. I shall be fine until we reach the ranch.” He had already eaten two bars and two packages of nuts, making sure to leave enough for both Winzig and Braun.
The food had taken away the harshness of his hunger, but obviously Emberly sensed he was still famished.
She broke off a piece and held it up to his mouth.
He pressed his lips together.
She smiled at him innocently. “When should we tell my brothers about our marriage?”
“Whenever you would—”
She cut him off by shoving the piece of energy bar into his mouth.
He had no choice but to chew and swallow. “I see what you are—”
She stuffed the remainder of the bar in his mouth, her smile turning decidedly smug and making him want to kiss that smugness away until she was breathless.
He loved this woman more than life. That was what the past few days had shown him. The time together had also shown him that he wanted to spend his life devoted to making sure she knew how much he loved her.
As he finished eating the bar, he shifted and took off her hat. He tossed it to the floor and then reached for the tip of her braid. Locking eyes with hers, he tugged loose the hair tie and began to unravel her hair.
Over the past couple of days and nights, he had loved the freedom he now had to touch her and kiss her, including combing his fingers through her hair.
Her hair was thick and silky and glorious, and he reveled in undoing it and undoing her in the process, because she always took great pleasure in having his hands in her hair.
It had grown increasingly harder with each passing night to hold himself back, especially because the desire between them was only getting stronger. However, he had honored his word to her that they would wait.
Regardless, he was not above taunting her just a little. As he unwound her braid, he bent in and brushed a kiss on her jaw, then one below her ear.
Her lashes fluttered down, and she tilted her head to afford him more of her graceful neck to kiss.
He pulled back, caressing her hair but nothing more.
She tried to tug him closer. “Max.” Her voice was breathless with need.
Another bolt of heat shot through him, but he didn’t budge, even though he wanted to keep kissing her. Instead, he gave her a wicked smile in return.
She pushed at him and laughed lightly. Then before he could tease her again, she wrapped her arms around his neck and shifted so that she was sitting on his lap.
“You should know something,” she whispered as she brushed her lips across his.
He almost groaned out his desire but managed to somehow speak coherently. “And what is that, darling?”
“You will never win. I will always find a way to drive you crazier than you do me.” She finished her statement by jerking his shirt out of his jeans and sliding her hand underneath and over the bare skin of his abdomen. At the same time, she teased him again with another ghost of a kiss.
He was suddenly on fire. And he knew she was right. She would drive him to the brink of insanity. But he loved it and would not have it any other way, although he would not tell her so.
Instead, he wound his fingers deeper into her hair and guided her mouth to his, fusing them together powerfully and magnetically.
When they came together like that, he felt as though their destinies had been intertwined.
He’d been a lost comet circling endlessly until she’d come along like a shooting star.
They’d collided and now were both burning brightly together.
Her passion, her enthusiasm, and her momentum with each kiss always seeped through him and brought him an energy and life that he’d never known.
A part of him was beginning to wonder how he’d ever lived without her.
He knew without a doubt that he needed her and that he would be hopelessly lost if something ever pulled them apart.
As their mouths danced to the passionate rhythm of their kiss, he fisted her hair tighter. She made a soft, pleasurable noise in her throat and then dug her fingers into his hair. Her grip tightened, and she pressed her body to his.
This universe with just the two of them enveloped in their passion was the only place he wanted to live. Yet this passion was only a foretaste of what was still possible between them.
Soon.
Very soon.
He deepened the fusing of their mouths and earned another throaty groan from her. He was so lost in their kiss that he barely heard the helicopter door opening, barely heard the growl behind him, and hardly felt the hand gripping his shirt until he was being yanked backward.
“I knew this would happen!” Tyler’s shout reverberated through the helicopter. “That you would help yourself and take advantage of Emberly.”
“Tyler!” Emberly shouted as she slipped off Max’s lap and onto the floor.
Tyler had pulled Max’s shirt up to his throat so that it was strangling him. At the same time, he was dragging him through the helicopter door as though he intended to toss him out and leave him in the cold wilderness alone.
“You are a lying piece of scum!” Tyler roared.
From the corner of his eye, Max could see Kade hurrying toward the helicopter with Braun and Winzig traipsing along more slowly, still on the path that led to the cabin.
“Let go of Max!” Emberly scrambled up from the floor and lunged after her brother. “Right now!”
Max clawed for purchase of something and managed to grab the helicopter door.
Tyler jerked at him, attempting to dislodge his hold. “He thinks he can have anything he wants, but he can’t have you.”
Emberly seized Max’s arm and tried hauling him back, her forehead furrowed with a scowl. “Max has every right to kiss me!”
“It’s obvious he wants a whole lot more than kissing!” Tyler shouted in return. “That’s probably why he brought you up here, so that he could pressure you into more.”
“Absolutely not,” Max interjected, even though Tyler was still cutting off his breathing with his shirt pulled too tight.
Tyler heaved again, but Max held fast.
“Stop!” Emberly screamed. “Max is my husband!”
The words rang out in the silence of the frigid winter wonderland. Only steps away from the helicopter, Kade froze.
Tyler grew motionless as well.
Emberly used the moment to latch onto Max. Thankfully, Tyler loosened his grip at the same time that Max tugged himself loose and stumbled backward toward her. She reached for him, as if somehow that would rescue him from her brother’s wrath.
But Max doubted anything would save him from Tyler murdering him, not even Winzig, who was navigating through the snow as fast as he could, his expression lethal.
Emberly pressed at Max, pushing him onto the seat they’d just vacated. Max wanted to resist, wanted to defend himself, but he literally could not stand in the helicopter. Besides, rather than have another physical altercation with Tyler, Max knew he needed to seek a peaceful resolution.
Emberly plopped back down on his lap, giving them no other choice but to work out the situation more graciously. She lifted her chin and glared at Tyler. “Max and I got married here at the cabin.”
Tyler stared silently for another moment before narrowing his eyes. “Common law marriage might still be legal in Colorado, but it won’t work in our family.”
She shook her head. “It’s not common law—”
“And self-solemnization without an officiant is not okay in our family either.”
“That’s not what we did.”
Max was not familiar with Colorado laws regarding marriage, but apparently a couple could get legally married without a ceremony or officiants. If so, then their marriage would be acceptable in the state as well as his country.
Before Emberly could say more, Max spoke up. “We were married by my personal assistant, Braun, who is a licensed registrar in Karltenberg. He performed the ceremony, and it was witnessed by my protection agent.”
At that moment, Winzig finally made it to Tyler, wrapped an arm around his neck, and put him in a headlock. Kade started to climb onto Winzig’s back, but the protection agent swung around in a fluid move and flipped Kade over, never once relinquishing his tight grip on Tyler.
For a moment no one moved, probably too surprised by Winzig’s power.
Kade lay sprawled out in the snow, staring straight up at the sky. He finally cracked a smile. “That was some move.”
Max expelled a breath. “I do apologize. I should have warned you not to touch me or Winzig.”
Kade sat up. “Should have known that, as a prince, you’d have a really good protection agent.”
A prince?
It was Max’s turn to freeze. How did Kade know he was a prince?
Tyler was watching him now too, with knowing eyes. Did they all realize he was a prince? If so, how had they discovered it?
Max nodded at Winzig, giving him permission to release Tyler.
Winzig let go of Tyler and pushed him away from the helicopter door.
Tyler straightened and stretched his neck. “When you didn’t return to your country on schedule, your father got worried and contacted us.”
“Of course.” Max had been so enamored with Emberly that he hadn’t taken into account that his father and family would be wondering what had become of him.
“Your disappearance has become international news,” Kade added, standing and brushing the snow from his snowsuit.
Max should have realized the tumult his disappearance would cause.
Even though he would have preferred to be the one to confess his royalty to Emberly’s family, at least now they knew. He could only pray they would accept that he loved Emberly and intended to be the best husband to her that any man could be.