Arranged: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella Read online

  “I’ll have him killed. I’ll use the horse that shits constantly. I’ll find three more exactly like him. Terribly gassy horses. I’ll tie that motherfucker to each of them and quarter him and then I’ll allow the horses to shit on his corpse. His suit won’t look so perfect then, will it?”

  Day couldn’t help but smile because Kashmir looked adorable when he was angry. Also very masculine and threatening, but adorable. She particularly liked the reason for his anger.

  “They thought someone was trying to set off a bomb,” she pointed out. “They didn’t know it was merely fireworks. You know your guard was only doing his job.”

  “Rai would never have choked me until I passed out.” Kash was off, his words spitting out in a rapid-fire volley of rage.

  Day simply poured him a glass of Scotch. The poor man had had a long day. Kash had heard the chaos and tried to reach her. When Simon Weston had rightly attempted to get the king out of the line of fire, Kash apparently fought like hell to get to her. He was angry he hadn’t been the one to protect her.

  The instincts to love and protect and cherish were still there. He wasn’t even fighting them. He cared about her, and that was a good thing, since the afternoon had brought on a revelation of her own.

  She’d realized when she’d heard that sharp, shocking sound that she’d never gotten over him. Not really. She’d heard that explosion and her first thought had been to get to Kash. The idea that he could be hurt or even dead had chilled her to the bone. She’d known in that moment that she would hate herself forever if she didn’t try with him. She’d started running toward where she’d known Kash was waiting.

  The intensely large Mr. Boomer had simply scooped her up and run. She’d known she didn’t have a chance against him and she hadn’t thought to offer him a pizza to let her go. She’d found herself shoved in what was basically a tank masquerading as an SUV, and she’d been at the palace before she could breathe. Kash had come in a second SUV along with Chapal, who’d been forced to explain why her bridegroom was unconscious.

  It was now hours later and they’d made an appearance on the balcony of the palace so everyone could see they were alive and unharmed. Her first balcony. She’d stood at Kash’s side and waved, her free arm around him. She’d been the one to convince him to calm down and show his people that all was well. She’d also been the one to convince him not to kill the Brit who’d merely been doing his duty.

  Now she had to calm him down again, and she thought she knew how she would like to try.

  There was nothing holding her back. She wanted him. She needed to see if she could make this work between them. If what Chelsea and Phoebe had said could actually be true.

  “Have a drink and let’s talk about this.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he took the drink. “I don’t want to talk. I want to punch Weston in the face. Rai would never have overreacted in such a manner.”

  “Rai was running toward me full tilt when Mr. Boomer tossed me over his shoulder. He reacted to that terrible sound in exactly the same manner as the other bodyguards,” she explained. “I think we should have a talk with him about why he didn’t stay with you.”

  Kash took a long sip. “To tell you the truth, I’m glad he went after you. He’s unhappy with me right now. At least he thinks enough of his job to try to save you. I wish the ceremony hadn’t been ruined. You know now a lot of people will say we’re cursed as a couple.”

  “Only the superstitious ones.” She knew there were already rumors spreading, but they didn’t matter and he needed to see that they didn’t. “We show them how uncursed we are by presenting ourselves as a happy couple.”

  He was suddenly still, his eyes on her. “Are we a happy couple?”

  “I don’t think we’ve had time enough to be sure of that yet, but I know we were once.” She’d thought it through in a way she never had before. She had a much different view of those months with Kash in England. “You were courting me back then, weren’t you? You wanted me to be your girlfriend.”

  He sat down in the plush chair that dominated the sitting area portion of his bedroom. Normally they stayed in the living room, but he’d wanted more privacy. This was the only place in his suite that wasn’t covered by CCTV, the only place where they could truly be alone. Everything about the space was masculine and decadent, including the man himself. With his hair disheveled and his chest on display, it wasn’t hard at all to see him as a primal male.

  One she’d dearly enjoy taming.

  “I don’t think you realized it at the time.”

  She was willing to admit her faults. “I didn’t. I had my nose in a book most of the time back then and I had little experience with men. No, I had no idea you were interested in me beyond copying my notes from class when you slept in.”

  “It would surprise you to know that I often thought about sleeping in with you.” His voice had gone low and gentle. “I was crazy about you back then, Day. I find myself in the same position today, but I don’t want to scare you. I know you think we should take this slow and I will honor your wishes, but I want this marriage to work. You see me as a playboy, but I don’t want to be some forty-plus player who trades on his money to keep young girls around him. I think it might be time for me to find out if I can be the king my father would have wanted me to be.”

  It was all she needed to hear. If he wanted to try, she was ready. Despite his reputation, she’d fallen right back into a peaceful friendship with him. He’d been the old Kash, supporting her when she needed it. He’d asked her questions about her work with the education department and then gave her ideas on how to handle the parliament. He hadn’t told her what she should do. He’d suggested, debated.

  “I think you’ll find me less averse to giving this marriage a real try than you think. I was planning on talking to you about using the Palm Ceremony to begin to explore what we could be as a couple.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure what that means. You want to talk? Or have counseling? Because that sounds terrible.”

  “I was talking about sex, Kashmir. I thought we could use this time to see if we’re sexually compatible.”

  He popped up out of his chair like an eager puppy. “Yes. I think that is a brilliant idea. We should start now. Don’t worry. I intend to be gentle with you.”

  She didn’t move at all. “Like you are with your lovely flowers?”

  “Women deserve a man’s care,” he said quietly. “Day, I can’t erase my past.”

  “I don’t want you to.” He misunderstood her problems with his statement. “But I do need you to understand that I’m not one of those flowers. I’m not here to sit at your side and bat my eyelashes in the hopes that you’ll buy something for me. I don’t work like that. I don’t care about your money.”

  “That is easy for you to say. You’re about to have access to all of it, aren’t you?”

  He had a point. “Even if I wasn’t, that wouldn’t be why I would want you, Kash. Sit down. We have some things to talk about before we get started.” This was the point where she would normally introduce the idea of a sexual contract, but she had to ease him into this. Show him how good it could be to hand the reins over to her in this one part of their relationship. “Come here close to me.”

  He moved to the chaise she was sitting on, lowering himself down with a sullen frown. “I knew there would be talking.”

  She was fairly certain his lovely flowers did very little talking, but he would get used to it. “Why did you want me back then?”

  “I liked you. I liked talking to you. I liked being around you. I rather liked who I was when I was around you.” His expression softened. “I don’t think you knew how alluring you were to someone like me. You didn’t understand how beautiful you were, so you didn’t use it against me. Most women do.”

  “Well, that happens when you surround yourself with women who are mostly valued for their looks. I don’t blame them. They’ve been told their beauty is the only thing worthy about them.
If you want to meet women who don’t feel that way, you should probably expand out of models and actresses.”

  “Well, you would be surprised how many gorgeous, sexy physicists turn me down because I’m not smart enough for them.”

  Oh, she loved this part. She loved the flirtation, the push and pull of verbal foreplay, and Kash was a master. “Somehow, I doubt that. You’re one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. You could talk about anything. It makes me wonder why you don’t still study.”

  “Well, I have a busy schedule of smiling at the public and waving. Then there’s all the ministry meetings I take. I note that you never once asked for a meeting with me.”

  There had been a reason for that. “You didn’t seem interested. Honestly, you haven’t been interested in much of anything for the last five years or so. Is it because your secret project was taken down?”

  He seemed to freeze for a moment. “It was more than a secret project. It was a passion project. I suppose you know about it from Chelsea. She was there at the time, though I only met her briefly. I lost an entire generation of our most brilliant minds that day. Ten of the smartest engineers and scientists in Loa Mali. I did that. Is it any wonder I haven’t gone back? You know if I’d reconnected with you, you could have been on that rig that day. I would have asked you to help me with the project.”

  So guilt had sent him on a half-a-decade bender. “Kash, it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t trying to hurt anyone.”

  “I would have hurt the oil companies.”

  “Including your own,” she pointed out. “You weren’t doing anything but attempting to push our country forward. Would you have kept the technology for yourself?”

  “Of course not. It would have belonged to Loa Mali. I was doing it because someone will. I want to be the first. Our oil reserves won’t last forever. Our country is in the unique position to move in a direction others can’t. That’s why I did it. To put my country on the cutting edge and honestly, so that I could patent the process and make money for us, money to keep our standard of living high.”

  She reached over and put a hand on his. “A noble cause and one only a man of your intelligence would even understand to pursue. Do you know why I was attracted to you?”

  His lips curled up. “I do not have the same false impressions of my own beauty that you do.”

  Such arrogance and yet she found herself laughing. “Your masculine beauty was the least of your attractions. I liked how smart you were, how passionate you were about making a place for yourself in the world. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to support you and yes, I wanted to advise you. I loved how you never seemed intimidated by me.”

  “I wasn’t intimidated. I wanted you. I wanted to get my hands on you and show you how hot you could get.”

  She was already heating up, but this wasn’t going to go the way she feared his other encounters went. “You do know I’m not a virgin, Kash.”

  His gorgeous eyes rolled to the back of his head in a pure expression of disgust. “Of course you’re not. You’re thirty-five years old. I would worry if you were.” He reached out, putting a hand on her knee. “But you don’t have my experience, either. I have to remember that.”

  “And what kind of experience is that?”

  “You know what I mean. I’ve slept with many women.”

  “But you haven’t slept with me. You don’t know what I want or what I need to get hot.” She wasn’t about to tell him that simply being near him was getting her hot. “I want you to forget about all those other women. I’m unlike any from before. Learn how to please me. Let me teach you how to make love to me.”

  She saw him still, his eyes heating. “All right. How do I start?”

  “Show me what you have to offer me.”

  His lips curled up in a decadent grin. “Are we going to play games?”

  Only the most important one of her life. “It’s for pleasure, Kash. I enjoy some games. I find them relaxing, and they help us get to know each other better. If you would rather we simply went to bed, I can do that, too. You should know that I was going to run from you today.”

  “At the ceremony? Of course. It’s part of the ritual. The beautiful bride is unsure of the king. She tries to flee, but he catches her.”

  She shook her head. “I was going to run. I was going to make you chase me. I was going to make you work for me, and in front of all those people. I would have struggled in your arms until you let me go, fearing you’d hurt me. And then and only then would I have placed my hands on either side of your face and brought my lips to yours. I would have touched you and found you worthy and allowed you to take us both away.”

  “You would have run from me?” He asked the question in an icy tone, but she couldn’t miss the fact that his cock was already hard and straining against his pants.

  She didn’t move from her chaise. Already, her heart and soul were moving into top space, a place where she was in control, where she could relax and have her way. He would accept her or not. “I cannot be that queen from long ago who allowed herself to be kidnapped and taken away. The choice will be mine. The choice to be queen. The choice to have you. I will make these choices not because I’m about to be royal, but because I am a woman and that is what I do. I will not play that game with you, love. I won’t give over and then protest that I had the choice taken from me. I will choose and accept the consequences. I wanted to show them who they are getting as their queen, not some gentle flower who will stand by her man and wave, but a woman who will fight for them as I fight for myself. As I would fight for you.”

  “You want to see what I have to offer you?” The chill was gone from his voice. His hands were on the medallion around his neck. He took it off and placed it on the table to the side of her chair. “I wonder what will please you. I don’t think you’re impressed by the palace I’m offering you.”

  She gestured to the room around her. “That’s not yours. It belongs to the people. In essence, they’re offering me this magnificent space.”

  “A hard woman to please,” Kash mused. “How about wealth? By marrying me, you’ll never worry about money again.”

  “All your money comes from oil,” she replied, enjoying the fact that he was playing along. “Again, that belongs to the people. I should thank them with my service to them.”

  “Service you can only offer because of me.”

  “Is it you or your mother? Because you had no idea I still existed. So I have to ask you, Kashmir, what exactly are you offering me?”

  He stopped and for a moment she thought he would laugh and give up the game. Instead, his hands went to the drawstring of his pants. His chest was already on display, each and every muscle beautifully defined. The man was sheer perfection physically. He shoved his pants down and he wore no boxers. No, when he shoved those pants aside, he was standing in front of her, proudly naked. “I can offer you my body.”

  She sat up because he was getting closer. “I have a body of my own.”

  His jaw tightened, but she saw the light of competition in his eyes. He might be frustrated, but he was also intrigued. He put his hands on his hips, perfectly comfortable with his nudity. “All right, my future queen. Let me tell you what I can offer you. I can offer you the touch of my hands on your flesh, skimming every inch of your body. I can offer the heat of my mouth, my lips and tongue exploring you, tasting your essence. I won’t stop quickly because you’re complex. I’ll have to taste you everywhere, nipping and licking and sucking until I know you by heart.” His hand went to his magnificent cock. “And I can offer the pleasure of my cock. I can offer you everything I have, every trick I’ve learned to bring you joy in bed.”

  She stood and closed the space between them, her eyes on him. She took in every gorgeous inch of his body. Like those delicate flowers he’d spent so much time with, so much of Kash’s self-worth was wrapped up in his handsome face and perfect body. He was celebrated the world over for being beautiful. How many magazine covers had he grac
ed? Likely more than she could count. She needed him to believe in more than his own looks. “Hold still and let me look at you. Don’t move. And let go of that cock if you’re offering it to me. How can I touch it if you’ve got it in those big hands of yours?”

  He immediately let go, his cock bouncing slightly. He stared forward as she took him in, as though he knew instinctively that this was a moment for him to submit.

  “You offer me a lot, Kashmir. Certainly you come in the most beautiful package I’ve ever been offered. You’re the single most stunning man I’ve ever seen, but I need more.” She ran a hand over his chest, letting her skin enjoy the warmth of his, the smooth touch of flesh against flesh. “I need that brilliant mind. I need your intellect. But I also need you to need me.”

  “I need you, Day,” he said with a laugh.

  She continued her slow exploration. She couldn’t punish him, though later on such sarcasm would be dealt with if they signed a contract. He would probably enjoy the discipline. “Not yet. Right now you think I’m nothing more than another pretty female body, but you’ll learn I’m going to be more.”

  He finally looked down at her. “Fine. What do you offer me, my almost queen? I’ve laid it all out for you. Tell me what I get.”

  She sighed as she moved around to his back, enjoying the play of his muscles as she continued to stroke him. He was a massive panther and she wanted to see if he could purr for her. She also liked that he’d asked the question. It made her more certain than ever that he was right for her. She didn’t want a man who followed her blindly, even inside the bedroom. Certainly not outside of it.

  Now she had to discover if she was right for him, if she could give him what he needed. What he might not even know he needed.

  She ran her hands over his broad shoulders, enjoying the shiver that went through him. “I offer you the warmth of my hands on your body, the feel of my skin against yours, promising companionship and comfort. My hand in yours when you need to know you are not alone. I offer you the joys of my mouth. My lips and tongue tasting you, but more than this, my words will lift you up, will always be kind. I offer you my body for your pleasure, so that we can be one with nothing between us, no space, no lies, no heartache, only joy. I offer you my body to grow whatever children we’re blessed with. It will be yours while I’m young and vital, and yours when I’m too old do to anything but hold you in my arms. This is what I offer.”