Her Bodyguard Read online

  A look of panic crosses Drink Guy's face. "The Maserati?"

  "That's the one."

  "Oh, shit. What happened?"

  Max shrugs and shakes his head. "I don't know exactly. The valet said something about a scratch –"

  "My dad will kill me," Drink Guy says, running his hand through his hair.

  "Or a crash? It might have been a crash. I couldn't hear the valet really well. Now that I think about it, it was definitely a crash," Max goes on and I bite my lip to hide a smile.

  "I – shit, I have to go," Drink Guy says frantically. I give him a little wave as he leaves.

  Cocking my head to the side, I give Max a look. "His car?"

  Max shrugs. "I didn't like the looks of him."

  "You didn't like the looks of him?" I ask, standing up. The alcohol hits me all at once, and I grab onto Max's arm for support. When his hand covers mine, heat runs through me all the way to my core.

  "You tell me you wanted to be in that conversation, and I'll bring him back here," Max says.

  "Okay, then. I wanted to be in that conversation." I look at him defiantly.

  "He's not coming back."

  "You're inappropriately possessive."

  "You're wearing that." He's turned toward me, standing far too close to me to be appropriate – and in front of everyone, too. Yet I don't want him to move. I could step back, but I don't.

  "The schoolgirl outfit?" I ask, forcing an air of casualness into my voice. "Is that what does it for you?"

  He gives me a long look. "I didn't like the way he was looking at you in that."

  I laugh. "You're my bodyguard. You don't get to have an opinion about it."

  "I didn't like it." He gives me a long look. "I'm your security. It's my job to protect you from creeps. That guy was a creep."

  It's his job.

  And you're thinking way too much about a guy whose job it is to make you follow the rules.

  An arm slides around my shoulder, and I turn to see Finn Asher. "This looks like an awfully serious conversation to be having when you should be partying."

  Max steps forward, reaching for Finn but I hold my hand up to stop him. "It's okay, Max," I tell him. "This is a friend."

  Finn laughs, pulling me toward him, his hands immediately going to the small of my back. I'm totally aware of Max's eyes on me, and I feel suddenly self-conscious with Finn's hands on me right here. I push away from him, laughing it off like it's nothing.

  I remind myself that it is nothing. There's nothing going on between Max and I, and I'm a hundred percent single. I can see whomever I want to see. Not that I'm even seeing Finn.

  "Since when do you call your bodyguards by name?" Finn asks.

  My face flushes hot, and I realized what I just did.

  I called him Max.

  That was a mistake that won't happen again.

  11

  Max

  "Get out of the car," I order, my voice hard. It's been two more weeks since the night at the club when the princess tripped up and actually called me by my name instead of James. I didn't say a word about it, and neither did she. In fact, she's barely said a word to me in general. She's gone out of her way to avoid eye contact, to address me curtly, and to generally be a royal snot. She hasn't even tried to escape from the palace. I'd say that's a positive thing, except somehow it doesn't quite feel like that at all.

  Then this morning, Prince Albert decided to fly himself, Alexandra, and Isabella out to the royal summer home to show Isabella around – and Alexandra had a car waiting.

  "No," she argues.

  I hold the door open, contemplating dragging her out of the car with my hands. I half-expect her to do something stupid, like try to make a run for it again the way she did when the helicopter landed at the summer home earlier today.

  This time, she doesn't have anywhere to go except right back into the waiting helicopter.

  This time, there's no getaway vehicle like the one she had meet her earlier, the one driven by that spoiled asshole Finn Asher. I wasn't the least little bit sorry to chase them down and yank her out of the guy's convertible, if only for the way he looks at the princess – which makes me want to do grave bodily harm to him.

  "This is kidnapping!" Princess Alexandra protests. She crosses her arms, giving me a look of pure hatred as she plants her feet firmly on the floor of the SUV. The girl is like an angry cat, with her dark eyes flashing and her chest rising and falling as she tries to catch her breath.

  I do my best to ignore the way her breasts pour out of her low-cut crop top, and I try not to think about how her ass looked in her tight designer jeans when I put her in the back seat of the SUV a few minutes ago.

  "It's not kidnapping, princess," I inform her. "Not when I'm under strict orders from your father to return you to the palace in one piece."

  I'm lying, of course. I'm not under orders to return her. Technically, she's an adult, and as the princess' bodyguard, I go where she goes. Theoretically, though, the king would probably prefer that his daughter not run off gallivanting around Europe with the likes of Finn Asher.

  I would very much prefer she not see the douchebag again at all.

  "You're under no such orders," she hisses. "Your job is to follow me around and do what I do. Being my bodyguard does not mean you interfere with my social life."

  Social life. The spoiled brat's idea of a social life is partying and carrying on all over Europe with a bunch of rich pricks who just want to be seen in public with the princess of Protrovia.

  Of course, she's right. My role is to ensure her safety, not force her to make good choices. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let her get into a car with some entitled rich prick and drive off to wherever-the-hell she thought she was going.

  The girl is my responsibility.

  "Get out of the car now, princess," I order, "or I will pull your ass out of here, throw you over my shoulder, and carry you back to the helicopter with everyone watching." The chopper is waiting for us in front of the royal summer home, with Prince Albert and Isabella Kensington sitting inside.

  Noah, the prince's personal bodyguard, is also with them – laughing his ass off at the scene we're creating right now, I'm sure. My first day on the job, Noah didn't introduce himself. He just walked up to me and declared, "A hundred euros says you don't last more than a week." "Make it a month," I'd replied. What he didn't know – and what the personnel department in the palace, who had a similar bet going against me, didn't know – was that I love a challenge. Princess Alexandra has turned out to be the biggest fucking challenge on the damn planet.

  "You wouldn't dare," Alexandra proclaims as she climbs out of the car. She glares at me with the haughtiest of expressions. "I don't answer to you."

  "You want to answer to me," I growl.

  The words just fall out of my mouth before I even think about what I'm saying. Over the past two weeks, I've kept my professional demeanor, buttoned things down even farther, and pretended not to notice as she wore transparent shirts and leather pants and skirts that barely covered her ass.

  I've clamped down on my very inconvenient thoughts about the princess, too. My duty is to protect her, not imagine how her lips would feel under mine. Or to imagine my name on her lips, her moaning it over and over as she comes.

  That's what I've been telling myself since I started guarding her a month ago. That's the message I try to telegraph to my cock right now, the message that's clearly not getting through, not with the princess standing this close to me.

  Alexandra's face is upturned, her lips parted, a slight flush on her cheeks. "Excuse me?" she asks.

  "You heard me," I answer, not taking the words back, even though I've gone way over the line now. I must be losing my mind.

  "You're delusional if you think I want anything with you," she whispers. But her movements don't match her words. Instead of backing away, she steps closer to me until her body is nearly pressed up against mine, her breasts almost touching my chest. The wa