Code Name: Tiara by Sawyer Bennett
CHAPTER 22
Camille
Imoan in my sleep. Something feels very, very good. Warm, insistent… right between my legs.
At that sweet spot.
These are the best kind of dreams, and I envision the dark hair on Jackson’s head as I glance down my dream body. His mouth working with so much dedication, as he always does. Almost every single time we’re together, he uses his mouth to get me off. He loves oral sex, and I’ve found it’s one of my favorite things as well.
I want this dream to go on and on and on. I reach down, touch my fingers to his silky hair, and feel a grumbling groan from his mouth against my sensitive flesh. My hips jerk upward and he laughs darkly.
And then I’m coming so hard that I cry out and rotate my hips against him. Turning his face, he kisses the inside of my thigh, the lower part of my belly, and then right in the center of my chest as he moves up my body. Jackson’s lips travel up my neck, slide over my jaw, and then to my ear. “It’s time to wake up, Camille.”
I don’t want to leave the dream. I want to stay here forever because this is perfect and it’s all I’ll have after Jackson leaves.
“Come on, Princess,” he murmurs, leaning down and biting my lower lip. “Wake up.”
My eyes fly open and I see Jackson hovering over me with a smile on his face. I lift my head and look down between our bodies to see that I’m naked and he’s naked and the area between my legs is still tingling from an orgasm.
My eyes fly to his, flaring with accusation. “Did you… Did you just…?”
His teeth flash at me as he chuckles. “Didn’t think you would sleep through the entire thing. The princess even orgasms while she sleeps. Fucking amazing.”
I can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe he put his mouth between my legs while I was dead asleep. Seeing how far he could go, how much he could push my body. Apparently it is so in tune with him, it didn’t require consciousness to respond.
Jackson’s right… fucking amazing.
During that brief glance between our bodies, I didn’t fail to notice his rock-hard erection. I spread my legs, wrap them around the backs of his thighs, and try to pull him into me. I lean up and nibble along his jaw. “Now let’s see what else you can do.”
Rather than slide into me, Jackson rolls onto his side. Planting his elbow in the mattress, he props his head in his hand and looks down at me with a satisfied and slightly smug look. “Not gonna happen. That orgasm I gave you was an early birthday present.”
“But it’s not my birthday for another six days.”
“Well, your party is tonight, so happy birthday party day. I hope you like the present I gave you.”
My inclination is to laugh, but I stare at him suspiciously. This is a far cry, an absolute polar shift in attitude, from what I saw yesterday.
Yesterday was not a good day between us. It started out lovely, but then my father stole me away from Marius and summoned me to the throne room where he explained that Colette Winterbourne was behind the assassination plots.
He told me she was in custody and that she had the ability to call off the hits. But after discussing this with my father and Dmitri, I agreed that we should let the party go forward and try to lure out the assassin. There are a variety of reasons for doing this, but I’m on board because I want the world to know that nobody messes with the Winterbourne monarchy. By shutting down this wretched conspiracy in its entirety and bringing those involved to justice, we will send a very clear message to anyone else who tries.
Essentially… don’t fuck with us.
This discussion was held in the throne room with only me, my father, and Dmitri. It didn’t mean that Jackson didn’t try to gain entry. He made quite the commotion as he attempted to push past the security agents at the doors. He dropped one of them to the ground and was working on the other when Dmitri threw open the door and demanded he stop.
Jackson tried to storm the room; Dmitri tried to hold him back. His eyes went to mine over Dmitri’s shoulder, and he promised retribution if I didn’t give him a say.
I moved to Jackson and attempted to sound as regal and commanding as possible so that my father wouldn’t have any indication that we have a personal connection. “If you will give me just a few more minutes with my father and Dmitri, I will be happy to hear your concerns, Mr. Gale.”
His face flushed with fury, and I was quite confident Jackson was going to spill the beans about our relationship right then and there so that he could stay in the room. To my surprise, he merely gave me a curt nod, turned his glare to Dmitri, and then pivoted to leave.
I later found him on the veranda, standing post and staring at Marius, still at the table sipping a beer and surfing his phone. I was hesitant to approach Jackson because I’d never seen him so angry before. He looked just as angry when I walked out, so it was most definitely not the right time to talk.
I said loudly enough for the other two agents to hear, “Mr. Gale, if you don’t mind, I would like to continue my lunch with Marius. I’d appreciate you standing post.”
In other words, he’d have to wait until later to talk about this.
Jackson couldn’t do anything about it. He was not about to make a scene, but I knew I’d made him even angrier. And the longer I sat at that table with Marius, the more lines of fury deepened on his face.
Now, I was starting to dread any confrontation. So naturally, I extended my time with Marius.
Jackson was standing far enough away that he couldn’t hear our conversation and Marius regaled me with how Jackson had come out onto the veranda to await my return and glared at him the entire time.
When we had finished eating and conversed about everything under the sun, when we could not legitimately stay at that table one more minute without it looking like I was purposely avoiding Jackson, I made the suggestion that we go swimming. It was, after all, our original intention to do so.
Turned out, Jackson could get angrier. I tried to ignore him but it wasn’t working. Marius and I swam laps, treaded water in the deep end while we talked and I put off the inevitable because every time I glanced over at Jackson, he not only looked furious but he looked let down.
There came a time, though, when he was done with my game of avoidance. He strolled up to the edge of the pool down in the deep end where we were. He pulled up his well fit pants slightly so he could squat before me and said, “It’s time to get out of the fucking pool, Camille, so we can talk.”
Marius knew about my relationship with Jackson. It was the first thing I’d told him when we sat down and Dmitri had taken Jackson off somewhere—which I had later realized it was to talk about Colette Winterbourne’s capture—and he was thrilled that I was walking on the wild side.
But Marius made a choking sort of noise when Jackson told me to get out of the fucking pool because he had never heard a person talk to me like that before.
Shocked and offended on my behalf, he sputtered, “How dare you speak to—”
Jackson’s hot gaze snapped to Marius and he said, “Stay the fuck out of it or I will hurt you.”
“Jackson!” I exclaimed in fury. “You can’t—”
Jackson rose upright and said in a low, dangerous voice as he stared down at me, “Get out of the pool, Camille. Get your dress back on and follow me to your room so we can talk. This is not a request. You’ve got until the count of ten before I haul you out of that pool and carry you over my shoulder, which as I’m sure you’ll agree, will be quite the spectacle.”
I wasn’t about to test him. I scrambled out of the pool, giving an apologetic look to Marius and then assuring him it was okay. And then, doing exactly as Jackson asked, we made our way to my room.
Once in there, we went at it like cats and dogs. Like literally… Jackson was barking his dismay at me and I was hissing like a cat seething in anger. The dividing line was the birthday party and he did not want me to attend. He was completely fine if the party went on and if an assassin wanted to take a shot at my dad, so be it. But he did not want me in there.
I told him it was impossible to have a birthday party celebrating my coming-of-age to ascend to the throne and not attend.
The fight reached a boiling point when I told him that the party was a long-standing tradition, something he clearly had lack of respect for.
Jackson’s eyes flashed and then went flat. It was clear I was inferring his lack of respect extended back to the fact he chose not to stay in the navy as a career, something his family had a long-standing history of doing.
I immediately started mumbling apologies but Jackson turned on his foot and stormed out of my room, slamming the door shut behind him. I knew Jackson well. I knew he hadn’t gone anywhere and was merely standing out in the hallway with the other two agents. He took his duties seriously and was not about to leave his protective role no matter how pissed he was or if I had hurt his feelings.
I waited for almost an hour before I swung the door open and demanded he come back inside. Enough time had passed. Surely cooler heads were ready to prevail.
No such luck.
The minute he was in my room and the door closed, Jackson was railing at me again over my poor choice to agree to go forward with this part.
But no amount of arguing was going to change anything. His mind had been made up but so had mine. As much as he felt he was going to be able to change things, it wasn’t going to happen. I was going to attend this party one way or the other.
With or without him.
The best thing I could do was to just get him to shut up for a bit, and the best way to get that done was to shock him into silence.
So I started taking off my clothes and, as expected, his mouth snapped shut.
His voice was brimming with anger laced with lust. “What are you doing?”
I gave him a saccharine smile. “I’m going to climb on top of the bed and I hope you join me. Because I’m done arguing. You can either fuck me or go stand in the hallway while I take care of myself. Either way, I’m done arguing.
It was the promise of taking care of myself that changed everything. Oh, Jackson was still angry and still set on changing my mind at some point. But I knew the image of me laying on my bed with perhaps my fingers between legs or even a sex toy scrambled his brains.
Just as I intended.
That was our first argument, thus it was our first makeup sex. And it was beyond amazing.
The sex had definitely taken the edge off, and when we were done, we were able to talk to each other a little more rationally. Still the same arguments, but we each let the other talk and we each listened. We ordered dinner be sent up to my room, and we talked some more, but little by little, Jackson realized I was not going to back down.
We retired early that night, feeling a little awkward as there were still hard feelings, but Jackson ended up making love to me so slowly I almost lost my mind. I fell asleep in his arms but he didn’t sleep well that night at all. I woke up a few times because I was cold and found that rather than holding me, he was on his side of the bed staring up at the ceiling, the moonlight from the windows reflecting in his eyes.
One time I woke up and saw him standing at the balcony doors, looking out quietly. He was so beautiful, the outline of his naked body against the moonlight and I got out of bed and moved to him. I tried to hug him from behind but he murmured, “Go back to bed, Princess. You need your beauty sleep.”
It wasn’t said in a harsh way, and it wasn’t a flat-out rejection. He told me that with tenderness… he wanted me to get my rest. And so I went back to bed and I fell back asleep.
I didn’t wake back up the rest of the night. In fact, my eyes only opened after Jackson made me climax in my sleep and then bit my lip, telling me to wake up just a bit ago.
Rolling to my side, disappointed he doesn’t intend to have sex with me just now, I take him in. Head propped on his hand, he’s wearing that smug smile of satisfaction that he made me come.
I cock an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not still mad at me?”
“Oh, I’m still mad at you,” he says without a lick of anger in his voice. It’s very confusing. “But I also understand what you and your father are trying to accomplish. I get why you want to do this. And if you and I did not have a personal relationship, I wouldn’t have a single problem with this harebrained idea to lure the assassin. That being said, I know this is going to happen, so I have to put that aside for now and turn my attention to the best way to protect you.”
I reach out my fingers and trail them down the middle of his chest. Lifting my gaze to his, I say, “I trust you to keep me safe. I trust all of you to bring this assassin down. It will be fine, and then it will be over.”
“And then it will be over,” he says softly, and we both know we’re not talking about the plot at this point.
We’re talking about us.
To keep from crying, I lean into him and press my lips against his. I hold them there, just breathing him in and feeling my heart break because if this goes down tonight the way we all hope it does, he doesn’t have to stay until my actual birthday in six days. The threat will be over, and he will go home.
This could be our last time together.
Perhaps Jackson senses my sentiments because his arm snakes out to gather me closer, and he kisses me hard.
God, I’m going to miss this.
My bedroom door is thrown open so hard, it hits the table behind it, and a big, booming voice says, “Good morning, my darling girl. I have a huge surprise for you.”
Then my father strides into the room, a smile plastered on his face until his eyes lands on me and Jackson.
I shriek at the intrusion, but Jackson reacts on instinct. Before my father even notices us in the bed, Jackson has already rolled out in all his naked, hard-on glory and grabbed a gun from somewhere. He has it aimed straight at my father’s head where he holds it steady for just a moment before lowering it with a sigh.
My father’s eyes bug out as they slide back and forth between me—in bed with the sheets pulled up to my neck—and Jackson who is putting the gun on the side table.
“What in the hell is going on here?” my father bellows at the top of his lungs.
“Father,” I yell back at him, “this is my private room. You should have knocked.”
I see that my father is holding a large, black velvet box—no doubt with jewelry inside—but it’s his other hand that raises and points a shaking finger at Jackson. “You… you… you… I trusted you to protect my daughter.”
“And I have,” Jackson replies dryly and moves to a chair beside the bed where he draped his clothes last night as we undressed.
“Father!” I exclaim again, and his eyes come to me. “Turn around so I can get dressed.”
He honors my request but starts a tirade when his back is to us. As I scramble out of bed and nab my robe from a chair, he says, “This is intolerable. Mr. Gale, you are a dishonorable man, taking advantage of my daughter this way. I invite you into my home and—”
“Father … stop it,” I screech in anger, my eyes cutting to Jackson who has his pants on and is now shrugging into a T-shirt. I march around my father as I belt my robe and come toe-to-toe with him. “This was a mutual attraction we both acted upon, and I am an adult. You have no say.”
“This is my home,” he blusters.
“It’s my home too,” I snarl back.
That shuts my dad up, but he whirls on Jackson. “What did you think was going to happen? Think you were going to live happily ever after here in Bretaria? Enjoy our wealth? Maybe become a crowned prince by marrying my daughter and inheriting our ruby mines? Well, let me tell you something, you’re not worthy to walk ten paces behind her, so you can get those notions right out of your head.”
“Father,” I gasp, appalled he would cut Jackson so low. “That is unbelievably rude.”
“He will never have my blessing to marry you,” my father snaps at me. “Never.”
“I don’t want your fucking blessing,” Jackson says quietly, but his words pack a punch. I gasp at his own level of rudeness. My father turns to face him, and Jackson stands with his hands casually tucked into his pockets. “And I have no intention now or ever to ask for her hand in marriage, so you can get off your high horse, Your Majesty.”
Damn, that hurt. I know it’s true and I know the reasons why, and he’s not wrong.
But goddamn, that hurt.
He laid it out succinctly so my father can stop his blustering. I take my father by the arm and lead him toward the door. “You have nothing to worry about. This is casual, and Jackson and I have agreed to go our separate ways. We agreed to that from the beginning.”
“Of course he’d say that,” my father grouses as I open the door. “You can’t trust anything he says or does. He only wants one thing and—”
“Sex, Your Majesty,” Jackson calls out, and I cringe. “It’s sex. Not the throne.”
Grimacing, I push my father harder out the door as he curses over Jackson’s last words. They were totally unwarranted and only meant to provoke.
“Father,” I say sharply, getting his attention. “Leave this alone. I’m begging you. This is something I’m doing for myself, so let me have it. After we take care of this assassin, Jackson will be gone, and I’ll start working on finding a husband. I promise.”
That mollifies him. He deflates, and the fight goes out of his eyes.
Holding the velvet box for me to see, he says, “I’ll give this to you later.”
“Okay,” I murmur, pinching the bridge of my nose. A headache is brewing.
When my father leaves, followed by four agents, I turn back into the room and close the door. Leaning against it, I take in Jackson as he rifles through the suitcase he’d left open and on the floor on his side of the bed. He pulls out some clothes and straightens, bringing his eyes to me.
I manage an awkward smile. “That was… well, awful.”
The laugh that comes out of him isn’t one of amusement. It’s cold and flat. “It’s fine. I’m glad he reminded me of my place.”
“Jackson,” I chide, refusing to believe he’d take my father seriously.
I step toward him, but he turns away, marching into the bathroom. “I’ve got a ton of stuff to do today to get everything set for the party. Going to take a quick shower and head out.”
“But… but… who will watch me?” I ask.
“I’ll have Paul cover. You’ll be fine.” His words are dismissive as he disappears into the bathroom.
My heart is heavy as I move back to the bed, sitting on the edge. Because that was the beginning of the very end of us.