Tell Me
Flicka von Hannover
I needed him to talk to me,
and then I wished he hadn’t.
Some secrets are better left unsaid.
Flicka paced in the living room until Raphael came home late that night.
She hated it when he was out late. He hadn’t been telling her what was going on. When he came home, he swept her up in his arms and made love to her—she wasn’t complainingabout that part—but half the reason they’d been soactivewas because it was the only time they could even whisper to each other.
And she was trying to get knocked up.
But there needed to be morewhispering.
When Raphael came in the door, looking haggard with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, she turned on him. “You have to tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Nothing,” he said, walkingtoward her quickly.
“But everyone’s on edge. The big guys are barely letting me pee in peace.”
The Russian guards standing by the door didn’t flinch or look at each other. They both stared straight ahead as if they were inspecting the art on the walls. They might have been napping behind those damn sunglasses.
Raphael whisked her up in his arms as if she didn’t weigh a thing, which was certainlyfar from the truth because Sophie and Kyllikki had been delivering cookies every hour, on the hour, and the Mirabauds served far too many carbs at supper.
Alina had turned into a scampering cookie thief, making bullet-quick darts to the coffee table and then crawling under her bed, no matter how Flicka pleaded with her to not eat the cookie and come out. Suze Meier would have been distraughtat her vegetable-free eating habits.
And yet, Flicka was having a hard time denying Alina anything.
Every time the Russian guards stilled as if they were listening to something through their earpieces and then twitched toward the weapons hidden under their coats, she wondered if she should have let Alina eat all the cookies.
But Flicka had gained a few pounds from the cookies and the rich foodat the intolerable formal suppers every night. Her only exercise was sedate strolls around the park when Alina played. Previously, she had exercised as hard as she could for an hour or two or more every day to keep the haute couture designers happy with her figure.
But Raphael carried her to the bedroom as though she were a waif, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face inhis shoulder. The cinnamon of his cologne and the headiness of warm male scent puffed out of his collar.
His blond beard, which he kept short and trimmed around his jaw, was soft on her cheek.
Flicka said, “You have to tell me what’s going on.”
He slammed the door behind them, laid her on the bed, and stripped their clothes off without saying anything.
“Raphael,please!”She was holding himaround his neck as he held himself above her, his mouth and his hands all over her, stroking her skin until she couldn’t breathe nor think.
He settled between her legs, and their bodies moved together, finding their rhythm as he pressed into her. Sweat rolled down her skin as the room grew warm and musky, the scent of the sea filling their air.
Flicka clung to him, trying not to sob becauseshe was more scared every day. For those moments, she dove into his masculine scent and the warmth of his satiny skin against hers.
He pressed her hands over her head and held her left one with his so that their wedding rings clicked together as his hips rolled into hers.
She arched, seeking more of him, and he surged into her.
His breath warmed her shoulder and neck, panting, and his otherarm swelled with effort. Flicka held him, feeling the rough silk of his dark blond hair in her fingers and his skin against her palm and forearms. The scars were still there, crisscrossing his skin. She gasped, air filling her lungs, as his body ground against hers and thunder filled her veins, pounding in her body and her head, shaking her apart.
When she opened her eyes, his hand beside herhead was clenched into a fist.
He said, “Tomorrow, if a police officer or one of the Rogues comes up to you, go with them. Take Alina if you can. If not, go with them anyway. We’ll get Alina out later. Just go.”
