Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke

Well that answered that. Blowing out an angry breath, calling himself several kinds of a fool for not handcuffing her to the bedpost the way instinct had told him to, Max strode out the door.

“Does this mean you’ll be checking out?” the man called after him, leaning as far over his desk as he could manage. “There’s a half day charge after six in the morning, you know.”

Max ignored him.

Trying to think, he walked into the courtyard again. He scanned the area, looking out onto the street, hoping against hope.

Hope died a quick, harsh death.

Rivers was nowhere in sight. Somehow, she’d managed to start up his car and make good her escape. The woman had too many hidden talents.

Hurrying back to their room Max took a fast inventory of what was there. Her things, including the laptop she’d brought in with her, were gone.

Rivers had played him for a fool.

Again.

Chapter 7

Stupid Americans.

Toying with his bourbon and soda, Jalil Salim looked up and studied his own face in the mirror that lined the back of the hotel bar. He watched his mouth curve in a self-satisfied smirk. It had been almost too easy. He would have enjoyed more of a challenge, wanted more of an adrenaline rush than what he’d sustained.

Did they really think they were going to catch me?

The thought seemed ludicrous. Salim raised the two fingers of amber liquid in his glass to his lips and drank deeply. He closed his dark eyes for a moment, savoring the bourbon’s hot, raw burn as it made its way down his throat into his stomach.

Except for the bullet that had grazed his shoulder, the Americans had proven to be unworthy adversaries. A great deal like the fools in Montebello.

Salim set the glass down, wrapping both hands around it and hunching the thin, wiry body beneath the light gray suit, as if he meant to surround his glass. Idly he looked in the mirror and watched the people in the hotel bar come and go without really taking note of them. He was too busy congratulating himself on eluding capture.

The whole thing was rather stupid on his part, he supposed. He shouldn’t have tried breaking into the Chambers ranch. It was beneath him. He should have left it to someone else. The brotherhood could have sent him someone to handle that. He had enough on his mind without looking over his shoulder, trying to elude being captured again by some would-be American law enforcement dolts. If he hadn’t gotten out on bail because of a technicality, he might be rotting in jail right now.

Bail, what a foolish, foolish concept. That was why his country was so superior. It didn’t have such things as bail. If you were believed to be guilty, justice was swift. It did not mince around.

Lucky for him the authorities here in the United States could be easily circumvented. Here people took you at your word and believed in an honor system.

As if they were on the same plain as he, Salim sneered into his drink. Why else would they have released him, believing that he would be back when the time for trial came.

Idiots.

Jalil laughed to himself. If those poor fools only knew what his true mission here was, they would be stunned and horrified. As well they should be. He liked the idea of striking fear into people’s hearts. Fear was a way of controlling people, of wielding power. The more fear you struck, the more powerful you were.

And he belonged to a very powerful organization. He’d been sent to this country to find a way to build up the depleted coffers of the Brothers of Darkness, the terrorist group he had pledged his allegiance to when he was just a boy. The organization was his mother, his father, his god and he would gladly die for it.

But not yet.

He sighed, frustrated. He needed to be in Austin by the end of the week. His contact would be there, the man who could put him in touch with others who thought the way he did, who believed in their cause. But it was moving far too slowly for his tastes. Finding a way to rebuild resources, to make connections that would allow a way for money to begin flowing back to his organization, took too much time.

And once that was started, he would go on to an even bigger mission. Killing the son of the king of Montebello. This time, for good. According to the intelligence network, Prince Lucas had escaped the jaws of death despite the plane crash.

But not for long.

Right now, though, Salim was getting bored, restless. From where he was sitting, he could see into a booth that was to his left. A man occupying it was there with a woman who was obviously not his wife. The man was running his hand up her skirt.

Salim shifted on the stool. He needed diversion. He needed a woman.

Being on the run this way hadn’t left him much time for the simpler, necessary pleasures of life. A man needed to feel like a man once in a while and though these western women were inferior to the women in his country and far too stubborn for his tastes, with their big breasts and tempting hips, they had their uses.

A slight movement in the mirror caused him to look to his right, toward the bar’s entrance. A dark-haired woman wearing a clingy white dress walked in. The wide folds of the short dress caressed her body with every step she took. She made his mouth water.

She seemed to smile right at him, though his back was to her. Their eyes met in the mirror.

A working woman, by his estimation.

He could smell them. High-class from the looks of her. A woman who knew how to work a room, who knew how to say the things a man wanted to hear. Do the things a man wanted done. Obviously a whore, but still infinitely superior to the ones he saw frequenting selected corners and streets, offering instant gratification in the time it took to pull down a zipper.

There was a time and a place for instant gratification, but not from a common slut ripe with diseases.

He liked quality, even in his whores. Salim was willing to pay if it meant that his needs would be pleasured, that the woman was clean and attractive, not used-looking or cheap.

The very word turned his stomach. He’d had enough of “cheap” hiding in those run-down motels, staying ahead of that bounty hunter who had been after him. But now the hunter was behind him, most likely gone for good. He was through running, through with the game. The next encounter, if there was to be one, would be deadly. And he intended to be the one walking away.

The stool beside him was empty. The woman in white had crossed to him, standing behind it.

“Is this seat taken?” she purred in a voice that seemed to have been dipped in honey.

He could feel his arousal beginning. This one he would have, first quickly, then slowly, until he was tired of her.

“If you sit down, it will be.”

She took it as an invitation. Smiling, she sat down beside him, adjusting her skirt so that he could see her long legs, her bare, silky skin. As she turned toward him, the neckline of her dress dipped down. The firm cleavage that was exposed to his hot gaze rose and felt seductively with each breath she took.

Salim was fairly salivating.

“Would you like a drink?” he offered.

She lowered her eyes to the one on the counter. “I’ll take a sip of yours,” she murmured, her voice low, husky. She took the glass from his hand. Slowly she ran the tip of her fingernail along one edge of the rim. “Is this where your lips touched the glass?”

He felt his throat and his loins tightening. “Yes.”

As Salim watched, the woman pressed her own lips to the spot and took a long sip. Her eyes never left his. He found that his breath caught in his throat.

The drink was a particularly strong one. He expected to see her eyes water. Instead she merely smiled as she placed the glass on the counter.

“Smooth,” she whispered. The word seemed to graze his very skin.

His arousal increased. He inclined his head toward hers. “Perhaps you would like to leave here for a little while?”