Chapter Two #2
Of course she wasn’t going to accept a drink from a complete stranger.
At that moment Cassie realised that, somehow, these two amenable-looking guys had manoeuvred her so that they were in a corner of the club and they were blocking her view of the dance floor.
She was alone. No one knew where she was and actually this whole idea had been really stupid.
She forced a bright smile. ‘Thanks, guys, but I’m actually on my way out to meet a friend in another bar, and I’m late.’
‘But you looked like you were having fun. Stay for one drink, come on.’ This was said by the other guy, who had a cute friendly face. Cheeky chappie. But Cassie felt uneasy.
‘I’d really like to but—’
‘Then do.’ The other guy, more forceful now, holding the drink towards her. Cassie’s skin went cold. She felt herself tensing her muscles ready to use a couple of moves to extricate herself when a large shape loomed over them all and a hand reached into where Cassie stood and grabbed her arm.
‘There you are. I’ve been waiting an hour. Come on.’
Cassie was so stunned at first that she let herself be tugged towards the stranger, barely aware of the two guys falling back.
She registered things—tall, broad, powerful, dark messy hair and short beard, intense eyes, dark brows, and…
the fact that the stranger was hands down the most gorgeous specimen of a man she’d ever seen in her life.
His face was hard and stern but it was also beautiful. His mouth in particular was captivating. Firmly sculpted. She had a strange urge to reach up and trace its shape with a finger. Cassie felt a little dazed.
Taking advantage of her surprise, his hand moved down her arm, and he took her hand to lead her out of the bar before her brain had time to catch up with her body. Simultaneously she was registering an electrical charge flowing through her blood out to her skin, making it prickle. Awareness.
They were outside on the busy street and Cassie’s ears were still ringing from the loud music when she realised what had just happened. She pulled her hand free of the man’s and looked up at him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
He stood back and looked her up and down. Cassie realised he was even taller than she’d first thought. At least six feet four. Wearing a shirt with rolled-up sleeves and jeans. Jeans that sat low on narrow hips and hugged powerful thighs and long legs like a second skin.
Mortified to realise she’d just blatantly ogled him, she looked back up and folded her arms across her chest. His dark gaze dropped and Cassie looked down to see her stance was pushing her breasts together and up.
The top precluded a bra and she’d been conscious that she didn’t have the small tidy breasts a top like this merited but it had been too late to change earlier, before she’d lost her nerve completely and left her four-star hotel.
She refused to be conscious of him ogling her even though it made the awareness coalesce into a feeling of tightness deep in her core. She automatically pressed her thighs together to stem the sensation.
‘Do you want to explain why you just manhandled me out of that bar?’ she said, sounding unbearably prim.
He looked so stern, Cassie had a totally unexpected and disturbing image of this man putting her over his knee and lifting his hand—she blurted out in a panic, ‘I was having fun.’
He arched a brow and finally deigned to speak. ‘Really? It didn’t look much like fun dancing on your own.’ His voice matched the rest of him, deep and masculine. The slightest hint of an accent. And censure.
He was echoing her own thoughts and the fact that her decision to take this trip had been so spontaneous and last minute that she really hadn’t thought it through much at all.
He was also unwittingly pressing on the wound of the fact that she was alone because her brother had had to more or less abandon her.
She felt exposed and lashed back. ‘Watching me, were you? Just waiting for a moment to step in and make it look like you’re some sort of saviour? Well, those guys weren’t bothering me at all. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back in.’
Cassie went to walk around the man mountain, because that’s what he was. Powerful. With well-honed, defined muscles. Thick corded muscles. Under dark olive skin.
But before she could take another step he said, ‘Wait, stop.’
Cassie wasn’t sure why she did. But something about him was just too…intriguing, while also being seriously annoying. Disturbing.
She didn’t turn around. Waiting. He moved to stand in front of her again.
She looked at him and raised a brow this time.
A look of definite irritation crossed with something else she couldn’t decipher crossed his face.
Then he gritted out as if almost loathe to give her the information, ‘They had spiked that drink. Most likely with a roofie. They weren’t drunk, did you notice that?
They’re probably on a mission to spike girls’ drinks all night until they get lucky.
You were pretty obviously alone so you were an easy target. ’
‘Can you stop saying that, please? And I’m not an easy target. I could have defended myself. I had no intention of taking that drink.’ But she might have if they hadn’t creeped her out. Cassie had to acknowledge that.
Mr Tall Dark and Stern pointed out, ‘You wouldn’t have had a hope of defending yourself if you’d taken a sip of that drink.’
Cassie shivered a little. No. She wouldn’t have, and she might have let her guard down. And she had ditched her bodyguards. And the royal house of Mansur de Roche did not need adverse headlines before her coronation.
She forced herself to stand tall and say, ‘OK, well, look, I appreciate you had my best interests in mind and were only trying to help.’
She held out her hand and he looked at it dumbly. She said, ‘I’m offering my hand in thanks for your concern.’
As if she’d shocked him with her gesture he took it, wrapping her much smaller hand in his. She noticed his palms felt a little rough and that sent another electric jolt right to a spot between her legs. She pulled her hand back. ‘OK, thanks, bye now.’
She turned to go in the opposite direction but then the man said, ‘Wait. Where are you going?’
Cassie stopped and turned around again. She had to admit helplessly, ‘I don’t actually know. I’d like to have a drink and a dance but that place was just…awful.’
‘There’s not much better here but I know a spot if you’d like to have a drink with me.’
Cassie hovered uncertainly. Had this man been telling the truth? If she accepted his invitation was she in fact being incredibly stupid and naive and jumping from the frying pan into the fire?
She imagined if her sister were here and braver than Cassie, more spontaneous. Before she could think about it too much she acted on instinct. ‘OK, yes.’ She smiled and his eyes widened. He was looking at her mouth.
Then those dark eyes moved back up and with almost a scowl on his face he said, ‘Come on.’
Cassie was totally bemused. This man had clearly not been born with the charm gene and yet perversely it was what made her feel safe to go with him.
He led her over to where a motorbike rested at an angle.
A proper motorbike. Not a scooter as most people used here.
Cassie loved motorbikes. Caius had secretly taught her how to ride them when she was much younger.
The royal staff would have had collective heart attacks if they’d known.
Their parents probably would have been too busy arguing to notice.
The man took a helmet out of a back compartment and handed it to her.
She put it on. Then he put on his own helmet.
He got onto the bike, the movement stretching the denim material over his thighs.
Cassie’s legs suddenly felt a little rubbery.
She realised—as if someone had just punched her—this was it.
She was experiencing desire. Lust. Attraction.
She’d spent years wondering what it must feel like and now she knew. Like a fever.
He was sitting on the bike looking at her, holding out a hand. ‘Use me for balance, put your foot—’
‘I know,’ she said, stepping forward to put the ball of her foot on the footpeg. She ignored his hand, putting hers on his shoulder and stepping up, lifting her other leg over the body of the machine, sitting down.
She slid right down in the hollow between them until her body was flush against his, breasts pressed against his broad back. His very broad and strong back. It felt so much more formidable when she was pressed up against him like this.
He turned his face towards her. ‘Wrap your arms around me and hold on.’
Cassie didn’t need any encouragement. These last few seconds had been the most exciting of her life to date. She wrapped her arms around his lean torso and with a roar of the throttle that scattered people around them, they were off.
What the hell are you doing, man? The voice in Ares’s head wasn’t his, it was Caius’s, and he scowled inside the helmet. His logic had been: Get the princess out of that situation and then…when she’d been about to walk away it had been: Keep her with you so you know where she is. Keep her safe.
But as he roared along a coastal road now, with her arms around his waist, hands linked together, all too close to a part of his anatomy that was very reactive to her proximity, Ares had to admit that his motives had been much more instinctive and less altruistic. Completely unprofessional.
He had sent off a text to Caius though, just before he’d gone over to disrupt the nefarious plans of those idiots, telling his friend that he had located her. And…she was technically under his protection for now.