Page 41 of In Shining Armor

Flicka laughed out loud. “I went to boarding school and hung out in the upperest of upper-class society. Don’t tell me about cliques, personal politics, and drama llamas. I’m an expert.”

He frowned, and his hands clenched at his sides. “If we try this, it has to be a secret from everyone.”

“Okay, fine,” she gave in.

He slid his hands up her shoulders, stroking her neck. “You can’t tell Wulfram, for the love of God. You can’t tell your girlfriends. You can’t dance around the suggestion that you might have a secret lover.”

She nodded as his firm hands stroked down her back to her ribs. She would have agreed to anything.

“You have to go out with other men. You have to dance with them at these balls and cotillions you go to. I can’t dance with you. I’ll be on duty.”

His hands dipped farther, grasping her hips. She nodded again, almost unable to hear what he was saying.

“Out there, I’m your bodyguard. I’m a personal protection professional, and that’s all.”

“Lieblingwächter,”she whispered.

“In here, you’re mine. I’ll make love to you, and you’ll be myDurchlauchtig.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“But no one can know, ever. I’m begging you, Flicka.”

“No one cares whether or not I’m a virgin anymore, Dieter. That’s so eighteenth century.”

“No, but they might use your youthful indiscretion with a bodyguard against you in some way. It’s the oldest cliché in the fairy tale: the princess sleeping with her bodyguard. I don’t want you to be a joke.”

Flicka’s heart caught as she recognized the truth in it, but she didn’t want to admit it. “No, it’s not like that at all—”

“And I’m supposed to be a professional,” he continued. “It’s unprofessional to sleep with your client, or actually, your client’s younger sister.”

“One more time.” She let some steel enter her voice. “I am a grown woman. I am twenty years old. My body is not my brother’s property nor a feudal bargaining chip, and I willnotbe treated like it.”

“He trusts me to not take advantage of you.”

Flicka kneeled on her padded piano bench. “Stop treating me like Ibelongto someone else or am a child. I’m Flicka von Hannover, I’m an adult, and if I want to take a man to bed, I will.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

Dieter didn’t hesitate.

He picked her up with his arms behind her back and her knees and carried her to his bedroom.

When he carried her like that, she felt small and delicate, which was funny considering that she was usually the tallest woman in the room, a tad shy of five-feet-eleven.

Dieter lifted her far off the ground and held her close in his burly arms. Everything about him was tall and muscular and ripped and oversized.

Everything.

Seriously, a few days before, she’d almost choked to death, and she hadn’t even sucked down half of it.

He laid her down on the bed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She grabbed fistfuls of the crisp fabric of his shirt, trying to drag him down to kiss her.

“This weekend,” he said. “We’ll order dinner in and have a glass of wine.”

“Tonight,” Flicka said, still clutching his shirt. “Now.”