Page 35 of Happily Ever After

At Midnight

Flicka von Hannover

And like a dream,

he was gone.

Flicka was dreaming about floating in the blue water of the swimming pool at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco while seaweed grew all around her, winding around her legs and arms as she tried to swim away.

One of the seaweed tendrils grabbed her shoulder and rattled her so hard that she flew out of thepool and off the bed.“What!”

Silver light filled the room from the moon outside the narrow windows, and an illuminated clock cast a blue glow from the other side of her bed onto the face of the man standing over her.

She struggled and crawled backward.

White metal and azure glow traced the sides of his face—the slashes of his cheekbones and hard jaw and straight nose—and gleamed in the grayof his eyes.

“Dieter!”she whispered so hard that her voice scratched her throat.“Lieblingwächter undRaphael!”

She scrambled over the bed, her fingernails catching on his suit coat and then her hands finding the fine black wool he wore.

The faint cinnamon smell of his cologne and faint, clean musk of him filled her breath as she inhaled, and she clutched him to her, crying.

“Flicka, no.Shhh,”he shushed, holding her face tightly against his suit jacket.

He hasn’t been smoking recently,she thought, her head still muzzy with sleep. She couldn’t smell cigarettes in his clothes at all.“Don’t go. Don’t go away.”

“I’m here,” he whispered.

“I’m so sorry I left you there.I’m so sorry.”

“Durchlauchtig,myDurchlauchtig,you saved Alina and yourself. I will thank God every daythat you walked out of that warehouse with Alina. I hated that you went with Pierre, but I thank God foryou.If the situation would ever occur again, promise me you’ll do exactly the same thing. Well, maybe not with Pierre, but promise me that you’ll go and take her if you can to someplace safer.”

Flicka shoved the sheets away with her bare feet and climbed Raphael, grabbing him around his shouldersand locking her mouth over his.

He gasped under her lips, and his chest swelled. His arms wrapped around her, crushing her against his chest. He swept her legs around and rolled onto her, crawling over her on the bed. He muttered against her skin, “We shouldn’t—”

“Please,”she whimpered. Though she was trying not to sound pathetic, relief and joy that he was alive burst through her. She shovedhis suit coat back and bit the side of his neck above his shirt.

“Someone might walk in—”

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered, her fingernails digging into his suit and finding the hard lumps of weapons beneath. “I thought you were deadand I was alone.”

“Never,” he whispered, his lips hot against her throat as she arched under him. “Even if I were dead, you wouldn’t have been alone.”

“Touch me.I can’t feel you touching me.”

His hands stroked her sides, long, firm slides that she felt through her silk nightgown. He whispered against her skin, “Flicka, myDurchlauchtig.”

Her laugh caught in her throat and turned into a sob. She shoved at his suit jacket, pushing it down his arms.“More.”

“You do have a thing for adrenaline, don’t you?” Raphael struggled out of his jacketand let her unknot his tie and throw it on the other side of the bed. She fought with his shirt buttons, getting half of them open before he ran his hands under her nightgown and stripped it off over her head, then did away with the little bits of silk she wore under it.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he murmured against her chest as his lips moved down her stomach. His fingers found her folds and pressedinside, slipping on the wetness there. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Flicka arched off the bed, his fingers spinning sensations through her.

His mouth moved lower, his tongue flicking her clit as he breathed warm breath over her skin.