An Officer and a Princess

Despite his reluctance, he draped a hand over Isabel’s shoulder, keeping her close to his side and establishing a proprietorship to her for every other man in the bar.

“So, you were a friend of Shane’s?” Adam asked, once again directing his attention to Willie Tammerick.

The man was a skinny weasel of a man, with eyes set slightly too close together, a long pointed nose and a scraggly gray beard that cried out for the touch of a sharp razor.

“Sure, Shane and me…we were like this.” He held up two fingers twined together and stumbled slightly as if in raising his arm he’d thrown off his balance. “Poor Shane, shot to death by them royal guards like he was nothing but a damn dog.”

Somehow Adam doubted that a man as smart as Shane Moore would have been close friends with Willie, who appeared to be nothing more than a loose-mouthed drunk.

“I guess Shane got into something over his head,” Isabel said.

Willie grinned at her, a loopy smile that displayed a broken front tooth. “Now he’s in way over his head…six feet under, he is.” His smile fell away as he realized his morbid joke wasn’t appreciated. “There’s lots of us here that are going to miss old Shane. He was always good for buying a round or two.”

He looked at Adam expectantly, obviously hoping Adam might spring for a round of drinks. Instead Adam focused his attention on a tall, burly man with tattoos decorating tree-trunk sized arms who was intently focused on Isabel.

Hunger. It radiated from the man’s eyes and Adam found himself looking at Isabel not as a subordinate who had once served a tour of duty beneath him, not as a princess whom he was sworn to protect, but as a woman.

A woman with a killer body and a full, slightly pouty mouth that could muddy a man’s thoughts. A woman who could cause a bar fight just by fluttering her blackened lashes.

As he watched, the man sauntered toward them. Adam tensed, anticipating possible trouble. He tightened his arm around Isabel, then breathed a sigh of relief as the man swept past them and toward the billiard tables in the back.

The last thing Adam wanted was a brawl. What he wanted was to get the scantily clad Isabel out of here before he had to fight for her honor.

“I need to talk to you,” he said pointedly to Isabel.

Her eyes narrowed slightly and she nodded, then flashed Willie a winsome smile. “We’ll talk to you later, Willie. My old man wants to spend some time with me.”

Her “old man?” Where on earth had the princess learned such slang? As Willie wandered away, Isabel took a key from the tiny glittery purse she carried.

“Our room is up on the third floor,” she said and pointed to a doorway at the back of the bar. Beyond the doorway Adam could see a narrow staircase. “I haven’t been up there yet. Just let me get my bag.”

She stepped away from Adam and motioned to the bartender. “Bart, sweetie, can I have my bag?”

“Sure thing, doll.” The stoic bartender beamed a smile and winked at her then grabbed a hot-pink duffel bag from someplace behind the bar and slung it onto the polished surface where Isabel could grab it.

Adam watched the flirtatious exchange between the two and felt as if he’d entered some alternate universe. From the moment he’d walked through the door, he’d felt off-center and fought against a growing sense of unease.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. It hadn’t been from the moment he’d walked through the door. It had been from the moment he’d seen her in that sexy get-up, and kissing her had only sent his senses further afield.

He felt utterly out of control and he didn’t like it one little bit. It was definitely time to get some control back. As he followed Isabel up the steep staircase that led to the rented rooms above the bar, he tried not to notice how tight her skirt fit across her shapely bottom. He tried not to notice the wiggle that accompanied each of her steps.

And he desperately tried to ignore the shaft of heat that each wiggle shot through him. He couldn’t do this. And she shouldn’t do this.

This place was too dangerous, and her choice of clothing, the role she’d chosen to play, were like tossing a lit match into a can of kerosene.

And at the moment, he felt like that explosive can of kerosene.

Isabel was acutely conscious of Adam just behind her as she climbed the steep wooden stairs to the third floor. The moment she’d first seen him sitting on the stool at the bar, her breath had caught in her chest. In all the years she’d known Adam, worked with him, she’d never seen him out of uniform.

Clad in a tight pair of worn black jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged the hard, well-defined muscles of his torso, he had looked as dangerous, as on the edge as any man in the room. The scruffy growth of whiskers that darkened his jawline only added to his dangerous appeal.

And that kiss. Heat swept through her as she thought of that moment when Adam’s lips had claimed hers. How many times had she fantasized about kissing him? Her fantasies hadn’t even begun to live up to the real thing.

Nothing she’d experienced so far in her life had prepared her for the utter pleasure and intense excitement of Adam’s kiss. In that single kiss, he’d claimed more than her lips, he’d stolen her breath and touched her frantically beating heart.

Adam didn’t say a word as they made their way up, but she felt an angry tension rolling off him. She’d worked with Adam often enough in the past to recognize when he was angry. But, this time she wasn’t sure what was causing his anger. So far their undercover subterfuge seemed to be working just fine.

By the time they reached the third floor she was slightly out of breath. She didn’t know if it was from the physical exertion of climbing the stairs or her mind playing and replaying that kiss over and over again in her head.

She found their room and inserted the key into the lock. When she shoved open the door, she couldn’t help but release a sigh of dismay. The place was a dump.

They stepped inside, and Adam closed the door behind them. “What did you expect? The Ritz?” he asked. His voice was curt, clipped.

“At least it looks relatively clean,” she replied. It was true, the room was small, holding only a double bed, a cigarette-scarred nightstand and a lumpy chair. The only light in the room was an ugly lamp with a shade that sat askew. But, the carpet was clean and the room held the scent of a pine cleanser.

She peeked into the tiny bathroom. No tub, just a miniscule shower stall, but this room also looked clean. She turned and looked at Adam, who stood in the center of the room with a frown marring his handsome face. “It’s not so bad,” she said. “It could be worse.”

“No, it’s not so bad,” he agreed, but she wasn’t fooled by his affable reply. “And it doesn’t really matter if it’s bad or not because we are not going to stay here,” he added.

Isabel looked at him in astonishment. “What are you talking about? Of course we’re going to stay here. It’s part of the plan.”

“It’s a ridiculous plan, and what have you done to your hair?” He looked at her as if she were an alien from another planet.

She reached up and touched a strand of her bright copper hair. “It’s a rinse. The directions said it would wash out in a couple of weeks. It’s part of my disguise.”

“And what about those clothes? Where on earth did you get them?” His gray eyes glittered like hot metal in the sunshine. “You look like…you look like…”

“I look nothing like a princess,” she interrupted.

“And that was the whole idea.” She frowned. She’d been so pleased at her selections, certain that her clothes would allow her to fit right into the crowd in the bar.

“Half the men in the room were ready to make a move on you,” he exclaimed, his eyes stormy seas of anger.

She shrugged, surprised yet oddly pleased by this piece of information. “Really? But that’s good then. It means my disguise worked.”

He eyed her ruefully. “Isabel, they probably thought you were a working woman and wondered what kind of fee you charged.”

“You mean they thought I was…I am…a hooker?” she squeaked and sank down on the edge of the bed. “Maybe I did overdo it a bit,” she admitted ruefully and looked down at her tiny skirt and midriff top. “But, at least it worked, nobody recognized me as a princess.” She flashed a smile in hopes of breaking the tension.

He didn’t return the smile, but rather began to pace in front of her. Clad all in black, he looked like a dangerous panther seeking an escape route.

Isabel waited for him to speak, knowing he wouldn’t until he had his thoughts in order. It was one of the things that had always driven her crazy about him. Adam never did or said anything spontaneously.

He finally stopped pacing and stood before her. “I won’t allow you to do this, Isabel.”

She stood and narrowed her eyes, rebelling against the authoritative tone of his voice. “You won’t allow me to do this?” she asked.

She stepped so close to him she could feel the heat radiating from his body, see the tiny silver flecks that gave his gray eyes a magnetic depth. “You forget, Adam. You aren’t my commanding officer anymore. You can’t stop me from doing this.”