Blue Knight (35 page)

“Thank you,” Daniel said.

* * * * *

For the first time in weeks, she heard waves and seagulls and felt real fresh air on her face.

Olivia blinked and looked up at the carved wooden beams above her head, then down at her feet. The bed she was lying on was huge, ancient and hand-carved. Beyond it, rows of old mahogany shutters stood open, letting in fresh air and beyond those lay blue sky.

Instinct told her this was the big house on the beach at Acapulco. Somehow, by some small miracle, Daniel had managed to have her delivered here and not some American military emergency post.

She relaxed and looked to her left and realized that part of the answer lay next to her. Daniel, still wearing the black operational overalls and boots, was sprawled on the bed next to her, soundly asleep.

Someone had dressed her in a light cotton robe and she could feel that she was clean and fresh beneath it. Between the White Sands and here, she had been nursed and tended to with the most considerate care.

Olivia had been putting it off. Now she lifted her left hand and looked at it. Just the effort of lifting it set off a minor throbbing. The first three fingers were lightly bandaged, hiding the damage. She bit her lip. She would have to find out later.

Daniel’s fingers stroked the back of her hand. “You got this protecting me again, didn’t you?” He was awake once more.

“You might have fared far worse, rushing into the hotel to rescue all us useless hostages. It evens out.”

He lowered her hand gently onto her stomach, then got up off the bed and stretched. He unzipped the coverall. “You can’t keep trying to pull that bullshit on me, Olivia. I’m way past the point where I’ll actually buy it anymore.”

Her insides jumped. Her heart lurched. But she managed to maintain a calm façade. “I’m being perfectly straightforward,” she said with as even a tone as she could manage.

His boots hit the ground. So did the coverall. He wore the trousers and shirt beneath that he’d left the hotel with and there was blood on his arm and a bandage around it, just where the muscle bunched into a vee.

He started undoing buttons on the shirt. “Truth for you is as layered as it is for me. I thought we were such polar opposites but we’re the same, you and I. You got pissed at me about my masks and layers. Well, what about yours?”

She stared at him. “Mine?”

He dropped the shirt. His shoulders gleamed in the soft light of the afternoon. His trousers rested just where the ridge of abdomen muscle dipped down to his pelvis and Olivia could feel her body tightening, growing aroused and slippery just from the sight of him. It wasn’t fair. He was pissed at her for some reason she still couldn’t fathom and her thoughts were scattering to the four winds because he was standing there with no shirt.

Damn it.

“Your layers,” he confirmed softly. “Were you ever going to get around to telling me your father is the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, for instance?”

Her stomach dropped. “I never tell anyone that,” she breathed. “Daniel, I haven’t spoken to him for nearly six years. Until I picked up the phone and yelled for help last night he and I hadn’t exchanged a single word since Jerry and I separated six years ago.”

Daniel tilted his head. “Never? Not a word?”

“Nothing.”

“More and more like me with every passing second,” he murmured. His hands rose to his trousers and Olivia swallowed as he unfastened them. He stood for a moment lost in thought, the trousers barely hanging from his hips.

Olivia’s breathing quickened.

He dropped the pants absently, stepped out of them and moved around the bed.

She drew in a shuddering breath. His ass was tight and hard and the hips lean. She wanted him with a desperate neediness that seemed incredible given her current condition.

Daniel lifted a big shallow pan of water and carried it over to the windows and balanced it on a chair there. He spread a towel on the floor. “This house is so old it doesn’t run to ensuites,” he explained, dipping a cloth and soap into the water.

He washed himself there in front of the window and in front of her.

Olivia thought she might go mad as she watched the cloth travel all over the curves and dips of his body, making it glimmer in the rays of the sunset. He would rest a foot on the chair and run the cloth from his ankle to his hip, from the outside or along the inner thigh. Then his back and his backside. His arms and chest. She was breathing hard by the time he leisurely reached for a fresh towel and began to dry himself off, running it over the same limbs and joints.

Then he dropped the towel and prowled over to the bed. From the look on his face, she knew that partly, he had been teasing her.

He climbed onto the bed beside her once more and this time, his thigh rested over hers. She could feel his cock stirring against her.

“Tell me what it is you want, Olivia. No lies. No layers. We two are too good at the games. We have to get rid of the games if we’re to stand any chance of being together.”

Her heart jolted. She looked up at him, hope soaring.

His eyes, the blue eyes of a hot summer day, looked back. Calm. Unflinching. “Yes, I’m talking about love. I love you. I love you so much that when I realized you’d called in the Americans and left yourself vulnerable I…well, Nick Escobedo is the only man alive who has ever seen me throw up in sheer panic.” He ran a finger down the strip of flesh peeping between the fronts of the robe, making her shudder. “I think I fell in love when you smashed that goddam coffee cup, but definitely when you turned up in those Vistarian boots and the silver buckle. It was like you were calling yourself mine for the world to see. I just couldn’t admit it. I was too scared.”

He picked up her undamaged hand and kissed the knuckles.

“So, no games, Olivia. What do you want?”

“Use Spanish. If we’re to play no games, we do this in Spanish.”

“If you want,” he said, switching to Spanish. “Why?”

“You’re you, in Spanish.”

“But you’re not. This is not your language.”

“I want it to be.” She took a breath. “You ask what I want. That’s what I want. Marry me. Now. Today. As soon as we can arrange it. I want….” She took a quick breath. “You speak like you know Nicholás Escobedo well. That will help. I want asylum, Daniel. More. I want to become a citizen of Vistaria as soon as the papers can be pushed through. If marrying you will make it go faster, then good. I want a Vistarian passport as soon as one can be processed. If you can arrange for me to talk to Nicholás Escobedo, then I want to offer my services as diplomatic or consular official to Vistaria. I’ll work my ass off to make sure the loyalists get a seat at the UN table.”

She shrugged as Daniel stared at her. “I know it’s a lot to ask….”

“Okay,” he said.

Olivia sucked in her breath.

He tugged on the tie of her robe, pulling it undone and pulling the fronts aside.

She caught her breath again as he sucked the tip of her breast into his mouth and arched hard against him.

“Keep still,” he said, his lips moving against her breast. “You’re injured.”

She struggled to keep still. “But you can’t just say ‘okay’ like that. No arguments? Not even to marrying me?”

“No.” His teeth tugged on her nipple, making her moan. “Shall I tell you what I was going to say I wanted?”

His hand separated her thighs.

“Yes, tell me.” She was breathless again.

He lifted her thigh and slid between them. His cock pushed inside her, thick and hot and filling. He slid all the way home and rested her thigh over his hip. He kissed her lips.

“I was going to tell you I wanted you to marry me now, today, sooner. I wanted you to come live here in Vistaria and get away from your cantankerous family and your odorous ex and live among my family and my friends instead. I’m going to have to finish this war and help Nick and Duardo win back Vistaria and I want you with me. I want you to go on being devious and political and powerful and full of games and layers and masks, but just with everyone else. For me, I want to know if I put my hand in your pocket I’m going to find lace panties and no bra and pert nipples and they’ll be just for me, my secret, underneath the staid suits.”

His cock was twitching, shifting inside her, even though he wasn’t moving. Olivia’s pussy rippled around him and she gasped.

“Can we possibly arrange all that today?” she asked him, panting. She so desperately wanted him to move.

“Arrange, yes. Executing it could take a bit longer.” He ran his tongue the length of her throat. “I forgot to mention, didn’t I? Do you know whose bed you’re lying in?”

“No. Whose?”

“The President of Vistaria’s.”

She gave a gasp that came out more like a squeak.

Daniel laughed. “So you see, my love, anything is possible.”

Olivia reached up to kiss him. “You got me out of that White Sands hellhole, Daniel and for the first time in ten years I’m actually happy. Truly, anything is possible.”

His smile was genuine, actually reaching his eyes. She knew that he was happy, too. She was willing to bet that happiness wasn’t something he’d known in vast quantities in his lifetime, either.

“I have a message for you,” she told him.

“For me?”

She gasped as her pussy rippled around him and paused to collect her breath. Daniel watched her, his gaze hot with arousal, but touched with curiosity, too.

Olivia slid her tongue over his lips. “I was told to tell you that you’re an idiot, and that you should thank god every day I choose to be in your life.”

His quick intake of breath was unsteady as he stared at her. Then he slowly closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. “I will,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s the best advice I’ve ever had.”

“But if you don’t start moving,” she warned in mock anger, “I’m going to kill you!”

His laughter was muffled in the nape of her neck as he slid a hand carefully beneath her hip. Finally,
finally,
he began to move.

White Dawn
is book 4 of The Vistaria Affair Series and is scheduled to be released in June 2015
Need a fix in the meantime? Get more sexy romantic suspense:
Delly’s Last Night
, part of the Go Get ‘em Women Collection
This will be the last night in the life of Delly Alexander. A talented cat thief, Delly cracks one safe too many. The safe belongs to an old enemy, Neal Cadogan, who catches her red-handed and ties her up while he decides what to do with her.
Neal and Delly were once lovers but the rift that separates them is filled with bittnerness. Now with Delly at his mercy, Neal takes his revenge, which reverts to a night of heated sexual need seasoned by years of lies. It is a sensual power-play with each determined to outsmart the other. But their warped passion is the key that unlocks the door on a decade-old conspiracy that will utterly change their lives.
WARNING: This book contains frequent, explicit and frank sex scenes and sexual language. It includes heart-stopping sexual scenes and light bondage. Do not proceed beyond this point if hot love scenes offend you.
PS: Don’t try this at home -- the neighbours may not understand...and the police certainly won't.
This book is part of the Go Get ‘Em Women series.
___
Nominated Book of the Year
. The sex is hot, but never feels forced. The steamy chemistry between Delly and Neal quickly rises in the first few pages. Their long night together reveals many secrets and a few twists. I highly recommend you grab this one up. 
Romance Reviews-Erotic
With twists and turns that I didn't see coming, it kept me turning the pages. What a fun read!
Romance Junkies
I've rarely read a story with as many startling twists as this one. High marks for plotting!
eCataRomance Reviews
Delly’s Last Night
is now available at ARE!

For Bunty. You’ll like this one, I think.

.

Blood Knot
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive
Blood Revealed (Upcoming)

Bannockburn Binding
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Romani Armada

Kiss Across Time
Kiss Across Swords
Missing
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Deserts

Carson’s Night
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Sabrina’s Clan (Upcoming)

Beth’s Acceptance
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift

Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance

Red Leopard
Black Heart
Blue Knight
White Dawn (Upcoming)
Silver Noon (Upcoming)
Golden Day (Upcoming)

The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights
Sian’s Run (Upcoming)

Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance
The Perilous Maiden (Upcoming)
To Soothe a Savage Heart (Upcoming)
The Heart of the Enemy (Upcoming)
The Cherlebury Rose (Upcoming)
The Duchess of Winter (Upcoming)
Despite The Sands Of Time (Upcoming)

Forbidden
Dangerous Beauty
Rhys Davies’ untitled story (Upcoming)

Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair

Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover