Page 8 of Kidnapping the Duchess
CHAPTER FOUR
Izak
It wasn’t long after Daria switched to whisky that she decided she’d pandered enough to the masses for one night. She gave Applebaum a weak excuse about going home with a headache, then we made a hasty exit. Not that we went home. For the last hour, I’ve watched the duchess cure her “headache” by partying with a group of rich assholes in the VIP loft of a popular exclusive nightclub. Another gathering of intoxicated twenty-somethings blowing their parents’ money while blowing smoke up each other’s asses.
“Dar, that dress is positively killer on you. I could never pull off something that low-cut, I’d look like an absolute whore.”
I grit my teeth and force myself not to react, because the prissy bitch is implying that’s exactly how Daria looks, despite saying otherwise. That’s how these people talk to one another—barbed compliments coated in sugar and served with a fake as fuck smile.
“Alma, darling,” Daria says, placing a hand on the girl’s arm and a devilish twinkle in her eye, “you don’t need a low-cut dress to make you look like a whore when you go commando in a mini-skirt and flash your cookie to anyone with a pair of eyes in their head.”
I don’t bother hiding my smirk, but Alma’s bodyguard standing next to me fakes a cough to cover his bark of laughter. I mentally amend my earlier thought: that’s how all of them talk to each other except Daria Copeland, the Duchess of Geneva.
When I first got assigned to her detail, it disappointed me to see the kind of crowd she hung around; it was worse than cliché and exactly what all the celebrity gossip sites portrayed. But the more I paid attention, the more I realized she isn’t anything like her “friends,” despite what she lets the public think. And when she gets fed up with their games enough not to play along—like now—they let her get away with it because she’s a filthy rich royal, and they’re just filthy rich.
Daria finishes her drink, then points at where I’m standing with a half dozen other bodyguards at the roped-off entrance to the VIP section. “Mr. Blackstone, I need a word, if you please. George,” she directs to one of the bouncers, “let Mr. Blackstone in. I need him.”
A conflicting mix of concern that something’s wrong and the desire to hear her say those words and mean them for more illicit reasons snaps me into action. The burly man named George unhooks the velvet rope, and I cross the space in a few large strides. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
She stands—amazingly enough without difficulty, considering the amount of alcohol she’s had—and arches a haughty brow. “I said I need a word with you. In private.”
Instead of taking her by the hand like I want, I use the more impersonal move of grabbing her upper arm and guiding her away from the main part of the loft that’s set up like a posh sitting room. In the back, I tuck us into the alcove for the women’s private restroom, anxious to hear what—
Daria shoves me against the wall and crushes her mouth to mine. My primal instinct roars to life and shoves all logical thoughts into the dirt. I spin us around and crowd her into the corner. My shoulders shrug up as I grip her face and thrust my tongue between her lips, ravaging her like she’s my last meal. Her moan ripples through me and makes my balls ache—
“Blackstone, you still have eyes on Raven?”
The sound of Andrew’s voice in my ear is like waking up to a bucket of cold water in the face. Wrenching away from the siren’s trap, I spin and check for anyone down the hall who might have seen me royally fucking up. Pun intended.
“Copy that, Raven’s with me,” I respond, hoping he can’t hear the pounding of my heart through the comms mic. Daria’s eyebrows raise at the mention of her codename. What felt like fractions of a second in comparison to the time I want with her, Daria and I have been out of sight for several minutes. And since she had a history of giving her security the slip before I joined her team, I can’t blame Andrew for checking in. “Restroom break. Be back shortly.”
“Shortly,” she says with a scrunched nose and reaches for my tie. “I intend to take much longer than that, bodyguard.”
Before she can pull me closer, I grab her wrist and smooth the tie back down my front. “We’re not doing anything tonight, Duchess, and we’re sure as shit not doing anything here where we’ll be front page news for every paper in the kingdom.”
It’s a thing of wonder to watch her arousal fall away and be replaced with indignation. Squaring her shoulders, she raises her chin and glares a hole right through me. “I find I’m quite tired of you toying with me, Mr. Blackstone. Either you want to fuck me, or you don’t. Which is it?”
The crude way in which she offers herself would be a turn-on if I weren’t fuming from her insinuation that my feelings for her could be so trite that I would toy with her. Making sure our bodies don’t touch, I step into her space until she’s forced to tip her head back to maintain eye contact with me.
“Make no mistake, Duchess, I’m not toying with you. I very much want to fuck you, and I swear to you that I will. But it won’t be when you’re drunk, and it won’t be when we have an audience for every deviant fucking deed I do to you.”
Satisfaction swells in my chest at her shocked gasp. No one—not even Edwin—speaks to her with this domineering tone. Her entire life, she’s held the dominant position over everyone around her. Not because she demanded it or even asked for such control, it’s simply been given to her without question from over-indulgent parents, people under her employ, and her so-called friends.
But dominance is not Daria’s truth.
She is my perfect counterpoint. I recognize it in her as easily as I know my own face—the desire to submit. Like a flower kept out of the sunlight, it’s lain dormant inside her so long she doesn’t even know it exists. But now it’s beginning to wake, to blossom and unfurl its petals under my touch, and bathe in the warmth of my commands.
“Like I said, I will fuck you. I’ll make you scream the name—my name—that you work so hard not to use. But it’ll happen on my terms, Daria. Not yours.” I watch as a shudder of excitement rolls through her body and her pupils swallow the ocean blue of her eyes. “Now, if you’re done living up to your reputation for the night, I’ll escort you to the car.”
It takes less than a second for her to shed her arousal and shrug back into her armor. Fixing a wicked grin on her face, she uses a single finger against my chest to push me away. “Oh, I’m not nearly done, bodyguard,” she says, emphasizing my position and my earlier statement. “I’m a woman with needs, and if you won’t accommodate them, I’ll find someone who will.”
I don’t have the chance to respond before she’s halfway down the hall, relegating me to my proper place as head of her security detail with every determined step. I resume my position next to Andrew and the other bodyguards behind the velvet rope and focus on keeping my muscles loose. I don’t need anyone reading into why I’m so worked up after a private “discussion” with the duchess.
For the next couple of hours, Daria subjects me to the infuriating torture of watching her act the part of her debauchery moniker to perfection. Seemingly carefree, she laughs and drinks and dances, grinding against every asshole in the loft like it’s her job. If she doesn’t end up with friction burns through her clothes, the fire I’m shooting from my eyes should do the trick.
The only silver lining on this fucked-up cloud is her consistent refusal to touch the lines of white powder on the marble coffee table. Daria might be a party girl with the alcohol tolerance of a man three times her size, but she’s always drawn the line at hard drugs. In fact, I noticed she switched to water a while ago, signaling that our night is finally coming to an end.
“Andrew, go to the car and sit tight. I’ll tell you when you can bring it around. Shouldn’t be much longer now.”
