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  want her more.

  I reach up and grab a handful of her hair at the nape of her neck and pull hard. Her hair is swept up in an arrangement for the engagement party, something that probably took hours to do, and I destroy it with a single yank.

  I want to undo her completely.

  Her face turns up toward me, and I'm inches from her mouth. I want to possess that smart-as-hell mouth of hers. "You're going to say my name, princess," I whisper, brushing my lips against her ear. She whimpers, her response completely unintelligible. "You're going to moan my name, do you understand? Over and over. It's going to be my name on your lips. No one else's."

  She opens her mouth, her lips beginning to form a response, but there's a loud noise at the entrance of the passageway, and voices echo through the tunnel. Instinctively, I immediately let go of her hair. We both move quickly and silently down the passageway in the other direction until we're exiting right into one of the hallways in the palace.

  "Oh, Alexandra!" The future queen calls. "Where have you been? Your father's been wondering where you were. You've heard about the bomb scare, I presume?"

  I clear my throat. "Of course," I jump in before Alexandra can answer with something inappropriate and sarcastic. "The princess was taking in some air outside, and I retrieved her. Per protocol."

  "Per protocol?" Alexandra seems amused, suddenly completely composed and sure of herself, no longer the undone girl from a few moments ago.

  Except for the hair. The hair is… a mess. Disheveled and in complete disarray. It looks like she's been freshly fucked.

  "Of course," I reply, my tone clipped and businesslike, only a hint of irritation at myself for not ensuring she was presentable before we left the passageway. "Protocol."

  The future queen squints at the princess. "Your hair," she says, wrinkling her nose. "It's… quite…"

  "Oh, yes." Princess Alexandra's hand flies up to her head and she gives me a knowing look. "It's bedhead."

  I choke, then cover it with a cough before feigning that I hear something through my earpiece.

  "Bedhead?" the future queen asks.

  "Oh, yeah, bedhead. You see, James here lied to you about my taking in air outside. I wasn't taking in air at all."

  That's it. She's about to report me for groping her in the passageway, for pushing her up against the wall and nearly putting my mouth between her legs.

  "I see." The future queen's expression is pained.

  "Oh, I'm glad you understand," the princess says. "I'd hate to have to spell out for you exactly what James here discovered me doing outside, because it's exceedingly inappropriate."

  The future queen's face pales and she clears her throat. "Yes. Well. I see. I haven't seen Isabella. Have either of you seen her?"

  "I'm certain the bomb scare is all a misunderstanding," Alexandra says firmly, giving me a look.

  "These things are typically false alarms," I say with authority, even though I've been at the palace only a bit more than a month.

  "Yes, quite," the future queen says. "I'll look for her elsewhere."

  “That would probably be best left to security," I tell her. "They'll find her."

  But the future queen has flitted off to somewhere else, obviously eager to get out of a conversation about Princess Alexandra's supposed bedhead.

  "The princess is accounted for," I speak into my earpiece. Then I turn toward the princess. "Bedhead?? What you were doing outside??"

  She shrugs. "I'm being forced to attend my father's engagement party to a woman who will never be able to live up to my mother. Don't deny me the small measure of comfort I get out of making her uncomfortable by behaving inappropriately."

  "You're inappropriate whether you're making others uncomfortable or not," I point out.

  A sly smile crosses her lips. "Thank you for noticing," she says. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to my room."

  "You can't ditch the engagement party when there's an active bomb threat," I tell her.

  She sighs. "It's not an actual bomb," she whispers.

  "Do you have some knowledge about the threat?"

  She rolls her eyes. "It might have been reported by Finn, who mistook something else for a bomb."

  "What does something else mean?"

  She sighs. "It's not important."

  "Of course it's important." I narrow my eyes. "What are you withholding?" And why the fuck does it always have something to do with that jackass, Finn? A surge of jealousy rushes through me that I can't explain. I shouldn't feel jealous of that twit, and I certainly shouldn't feel anything about the girl who just refused to call me by my fucking name back there in the passageway.

  "Get Noah on the radio," she commands.

  "You're not going to tell me, but you're going to tell Noah?"

  "It's personal."

  I raise my eyebrows. "Really."

  "Just ... send Noah by my room, okay?"

  "No."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You heard me. I said no."

  "I think I heard you tell the Princess of Protrovia no."

  "That's correct."

  "It's almost as if you're not sure what your job is here."

  "I know exactly what my job is, princess," I tell her, my voice low. I'm standing far too close to her again, and I want far too much to cover her mouth with mine, to stop all of her smart-ass objections to everything I tell her to do. "My job is protecting you, and that means you're not leaving my side until the bomb threat is over and you're cleared to leave my side – or until you tell me what you know that makes it not a credible threat."

  "That's stupid."

  I shrug. "Maybe so. But you stay with me."

  "I just told you there's no security threat."

  "You didn't give me any credible information that suggests there's no threat."

  "Because it's none of your business," she insists, her eyes wide. "And you're acting like a jackass because I wouldn't say your name, not because you're concerned about a threat to my safety. So, like I said before – if you'll excuse me, I'm going to my room."

  Alexandra turns on her heel and flounces off down the hallways. Her fluffy skirt bounces as she walks, the material flying up just high enough to give me a perfect view of the bottom of her ass cheeks. I'm absolutely positive she knows the effect the skirt has on me as she walks. My cock is hard, pressing against the thin fabric of the tuxedo pants, our special uniform for the engagement party so that security doesn't stick out like sore thumbs among the other guests.

  Of course, the hard-on I have in these damn pants is definitely going to stick out. It's impossible to disguise, and will be immediately obvious to anyone walking down this hall. I pause for a moment and take a deep breath, forcing myself to think of something else – anything else – that's not sexy.

  Anything that has to do with something other than the princess' long legs and her ass and the absolutely feminine way she smelled back there in the passageway.

  Fuck. That doesn't help in the slightest.

  I take off after her.

  18

  Alexandra

  I walk away without looking behind me, even though I know that Max is probably following. I head straight toward my room, my heart racing, my breath still short – not because of what just happened, but because of what took place earlier in the tunnel.

  I didn't think he would dare do what he did in the passageway, that he really would transgress the boundary between royal and bodyguard. That man plays by the rules. It's written all over him, the military bearing that's clearly been drilled into him over the years, from the way he stands with his back ramrod-straight to the way he obeys my father without question.

  Max follows rules and believes in order.

  I break rules.

  Except for this time. This time, he's the one transgressing boundaries and tossing the rules aside.

  The way he looked at me back there, the way he touched me, left my skin on fire. The way he talked to me, telling me what he