31. Galahad
Galahad
The room was still dark, the curtains blocking most of the Prague dawn. Grace was curled against me, her back warm against my chest, her hair fanned across the pillow. My arm was draped over her waist, so her ribs expanded against my forearm with each slow breath.
My woman.
I let the thought sit without pushing it away.
Grace Laurent was asleep in my arms, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I’d dreamed about her instead of about violence.
I woke without any desire to leave the bed.
We were close. We were together. And the rest of the world could wait until we’d had our fill of each other.
My hand slid from her stomach to her hip. Traced the curve of it, slowly, just to feel her skin under my palm. Up over her belly. Higher, over the soft weight of her breast, and she stirred against me.
“Mm.” She pressed back into me, still half asleep. Her body softened into mine, heavy and loose. “That’s better than my alarm.”
“Your alarm doesn’t do this.” I brushed my thumb across her nipple, and she sucked in a breath.
“No, it does not.” She put her hand over mine and forced it to cup and squeeze her breast. It was lazy and unhurried, but my cock was already stiff against her ass—had been since before she woke up—and she rocked her hips to make sure I knew she’d noticed.
“Is that a tactical assessment,” she murmured, “or are you just happy to see me?”
“Both.”
“We should have rationed the condoms last night.” Her voice was thick with sleep. She slid my hand lower, down her belly, guiding my fingers.
“Probably.”
“Three seemed reasonable at the time.” She separated her legs, coaxing my hand between her thighs. Just as wet as last night. Just as wet as she’d been in my fantasies.
I raked my teeth across the slope of her shoulder. “I certainly don’t regret using them all.”
“Is this the part where you tell me it was brain chemistry?”
I slid the tip of one finger inside her. “Does this feel like brain chemistry?”
“That feels like—” She lost the sentence when I pushed my finger deeper.
I pulled her tighter against my chest with the arm she was using as a pillow, my other hand working between her thighs. She reached back and gripped my hip, digging her nails in.
“Garrett—”
“I’ve got you, sunshine.”
She turned her face into my biceps and made a sound that would live rent-free in my head for the rest of my life.
I kept the pace steady, reading her body—her breathing, the tension in her thighs, when she pressed harder on my hand.
When her breathing became labored, I curled my fingers and pressed my mouth to the back of her neck.
“Oh god. Yes. That’s the—” Her whole body shuddered, clenched, and I held her through it. A quiet moment later, she whispered, “Definitely better than my phone alarm.”
I squeezed her tight. My cock throbbed to be inside her, but until I could find some more condoms, it would have to be patient.
“Your turn.” She rolled to face me, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed.
“Want to take this to the shower?”
She playfully widened her eyes and practically bounced out of bed. Yeah, she was awake now. “Teeth, then shower!”
The shower was oversized, tiled in gray stone, with water pressure that ranged from rainfall to paint stripper.
Grace’s hands on me were magic. She started with her fist wrapped around my cock, water running over her shoulders while she gauged my reactions.
Then she sank to her knees, looked up at me through wet lashes, and took me into her mouth.
I braced one hand against the tile. It was, without debate, the best blow job of my life, and I’d have told her that if I’d been capable of speech. Her tongue, her lips, the way she hummed against me were almost as perfect as being inside her.
We’d shared space for over a week, including hotel suites, train compartments, and Jean’s cottage.
But this morning was different. This was me washing her hair in the shower, standing at the mirror next to her while she put on her makeup, the two of us getting dressed in the bedroom together rather than trading turns in the bathroom.
Once we were both ready, she headed for the door with her ridiculous smile, which had lodged itself somewhere inside my chest and was making me do stupid things like smile back. “Ready for brunch?”
“Arthur and Merlin are probably downstairs waiting for us.” I opened the door and ushered her out, swatting her ass as she passed me.
What is going on with you? In my defense, the forecast was for extreme heat, and she was wearing a pair of shorts that fit her ass almost as well as my hand did. “We should get a move on.”
“So bossy,” she said with a wink. But she stopped short once she was in the hallway, and I nearly collided with her.
Ten feet away, Arthur had his hand raised to knock on my door.
Shit.
Something crossed his face. Not surprise. Satisfaction? Like a man collecting on a bet he’d just won. “Good morning! How did everyone sleep?”
“Fine.” Except I’d been caught like the fox coming out of the henhouse, and I wouldn’t be living this down.
“And how was the adjoining room, Galahad?” Arthur continued toward me, with Merlin appearing behind him. “Satisfactory?”
“Fuck off, Arthur.” I raised a finger to Merlin. “And don’t you start, either.”
“The shower is amazing,” said Grace, either because she didn’t catch the accusation in his tone, or because she was just that nice. Probably the latter. Unless it was a diversion.
Merlin coughed into his fist.
Arthur grinned and pulled his phone out as we stepped into the elevator. All hints of his jokes vanished. “Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” asked Merlin.
“We have a guest.”
I didn’t like the way he said that.
He typed on his phone, shaking his head. “Conrad Richter’s arrived.”
“What?” Grace’s wide, terrified eyes snapped to me.
My hands curled at my sides. Werner Kessler’s dog. The man who’d shown up at Grace’s café, who’d followed her through London, and who’d stolen her lip balm thinking it was the egg. Who’d told me his employer loved it when people chose the hard way. “What does he want?”
“Radek was asking how we want to handle it, so he hasn’t approached him.”
When the doors opened on the main floor, Radek was waiting. He nodded to all of us, then addressed Arthur. “Mr. Penn.”
“Where is he?” Arthur asked.
“Seating area near the restaurant entrance. He arrived approximately four minutes ago. He’s alone in the lobby, but there’s a vehicle outside with a driver. Ale? is watching it.”
I wanted to walk into the lobby and put him through a wall. Instead, I turned to Grace. “We can go back upstairs, pack, and leave through another entrance. Or we can find out what he wants.” I held her gaze. “It’s your decision.”
She looked past me, toward the lobby. Then at each of the men with us. “The lobby’s safe, right? With all of you here?”
Arthur nodded. “Four of us plus Ale? outside. He’d have to be suicidal to make a move.”
“I want to talk to him.” Grace lifted her chin. “Maybe we can put this whole thing behind us. If it’s about money, we tell him the egg isn’t for sale, and we’re done with him.”
I didn’t love it. But the lobby of a five-star hotel with four operators plus a former CIA case officer was about as contained as it got. “I’m good with that. You guys?”
Arthur and Merlin nodded to me.
“Okay.” My instinct was to cup her cheek and pull her close. But this was the time to be a professional. “I’m right beside you. Arthur and Merlin are close. Anything goes sideways, we’re done.”
She nodded to me, then to Radek.
He led us around the corner. The lobby spread out—marble floors, high ceilings, upholstered chairs grouped around low tables near the restaurant entrance.
Richter sat in one of them, wearing a light linen suit, legs crossed, and a coffee cup on the table beside him.
He saw us and stood, smoothing his jacket.
“Ms. Laurent,” he said with a slight bow once we were close enough. “I’d like to speak with you.”
“Then speak,” I said.
Richter’s gaze flicked to me and back to Grace. She was his objective. I was his obstacle. “My name is Conrad Richter, and my employer understands you’ve arranged to sell your egg to Henri Dubois. He’d like to present an alternative.”
Grace waited.
“He will pay twice whatever Mr. Dubois has offered. Or twice the authenticated value, whichever is greater. We can make a discrete, private transaction, without the need for auctions or delays.” Richter’s voice was smooth.
He clearly had a lot of experience with these types of transactions, not just the ones involving stealing what he was after.
“The funds can be in your account within twenty-four hours.”
“That’s generous,” Grace said. “But no.”
“I expect Mr. Dubois told you it rightfully belongs to him?”
“He did.”
Richter nodded, as though she’d confirmed something.
“With respect, the Dubois family never rightfully owned the egg. Henri’s great-grandfather removed those artifacts from Russia without authorization.
My employer is Werner Kessler, and his family has a direct connection to the Imperial court. The egg was taken from his family.”
“I appreciate your position,” she said. “But Henri’s family owned the egg, and I’m going to return it to them.”
“Mr. Kessler is a reasonable man. He hopes you’ll reconsider.” Richter reached into his jacket—I shifted my weight—and pulled out a business card. He set it on the table next to his vacated chair, and walked out through the front door.
No threats. No mention of easy or hard ways. Just a well-dressed man making a calm pitch and leaving his card behind. I liked that even less. I swiped his card before we moved toward the restaurant. Radek took up sentry near the entrance, while Ale? joined us inside, floating ten feet away.
Arthur leaned in as soon as we found our table at the back of the restaurant. “He knows where we’re staying. That’s a problem.”
“He’s been a problem since this whole thing started. Someone’s feeding Kessler information, or he’s got resources we haven’t accounted for.” Or Dr. Caulfield found out where we were staying from Henri, and told Kessler about it.
Arthur said, “Let’s have Morganna pull the hotel reservation chain to see if there was a leak on that end.”
Merlin nodded. “I’ll send her a text.”
My attention remained on Grace.
“What Richter said.” She stared blankly at her menu. “About Henri’s great-grandfather taking the artifacts without authorization?”
“What about it?” I asked.
“Does he have a point?” She looked at Merlin, who’d explained about ownership of ancient artifacts over dinner last night.
“We know Henri’s great-grandfather smuggled things out of Russia during the Revolution.
If Kessler’s family really is connected to the Romanovs, and the egg was theirs, doesn’t it belong to him?
Wasn’t Henri’s great-grandfather a thief, in the end? ”
“There are too many unknowns to make that call right now,” Merlin said.
“Morganna hasn’t been able to find any evidence supporting Kessler’s claims. His grandmother may have been in the Imperial orbit, but an actual connection to the Romanovs is tenuous at best. There’s no documentation of direct lineage, and the claim has never been validated by any Romanov heritage organization. ”
Grace put her menu down, fiddled with it, and picked it up again.
If it were up to me, I would have told Conrad Richter to go fuck himself. Maybe his boss had some claim to the egg, maybe he didn’t. What I did know was that Richter lost any opportunity to claim the moral high ground the minute he began harassing Grace.
“Marcel Dubois gave the egg to my grandmother and asked her to hold it for his family. The letter inside the egg agrees with what Henri’s documents show.” She straightened. “I need to finish what my grandmother started and return it. If Kessler wants it, he can buy it from Henri.”