Ulp. His laughter sent shivers through her as she found herself mesmerized by the absolutely gorgeous smile that accompanied it. Okay, so she’d survived a close encounter with his smile, but wasn’t so sure about her mental faculties.
This man was very destructive to rational thought processes.
“And you are?”
Right. Very bad for normal brain activity.
“Oh, I’m Lina Marwan.” She never used her complete name Lina bin Fahd al Marwan anymore.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lina,” he said as he gently set her away from him.
She had to fight the urge to press forward and reconnect. Was this what it felt like to be attracted to a man? If it was, she could now be glad she’d spent her teen years at an all-girls school. Unlike her classmates, she’d never had the opportunity to spend time with boys her own age during school breaks. Her family kept too close of tabs on her for that.
In the year and a half since she came to university, she’d hugged a couple of boys, friends she met in her secret pursuits, but they’d never affected her like Sebastian Hawk. She’d always wanted to know what it was like to kiss a boy, but only in the abstract. Now she wanted to know the very concrete reality of kissing Sebastian Hawk.
The craving was so strong, her lips twitched. Sebastian’s gray gaze was knowing—as if he could read the unfamiliar desire surging through her.
The tower clock chimed the quarter hour across the quad and Lina’s body jolted with memory.
“Shoot. I’m late. I hope I haven’t missed my chance to sign up for the kayaking trip.” She still hadn’t worked out completely how she was going to get away from her bodyguard and family for an entire weekend, but she was determined to go on this trip.
“You kayak?” Sebastian asked in a surprised tone.
“It’s one of my favorite things. Not that I get to go as often as I like.” She started walking briskly toward the University Center.
He kept pace with her. “When did you learn?”
“In high school.” There were benefits to being the female offspring to a Middle Eastern king.
Sure, at first, when she’d been sent away from all that she knew, she’d felt abandoned. But as she’d grown older, she’d realized her parents’ lack of interest in her daily life was to her benefit. They were very conservative and that attitude influenced their Americanized relatives they’d placed her with at the tender age of six.
However, she still had more freedom living with her relatives than she would ever have had at home. And she’d gotten her first taste of real freedom when she’d gone to boarding school in seventh grade. The exclusive, all-girls prep school was far from the typical American middle and high schools, but she’d been allowed to do things there she would never have been able to do when living with family. Things like kayaking.
“I see. I thought the kayaking trip was a three-day getaway.”
“It is. Are you going?” she asked, unable to stifle the hope in her gaze as her eyes remained locked with those of the tall, dark-haired hunk.
She felt the same adrenaline rush she got when competing in a race. Man, this being attracted to a guy thing was nothing like she’d expected it to be. It was almost scarily consuming. As exciting as taking a kayak out on white water. Maybe even more so.
Hawk had to bite down on an ugly four-letter word.
The diminutive princess was just full of surprises. The first had been when he’d seen his newest charge hurrying across the quad when she was supposed to be safely ensconced in the library studying with a small group of female friends. The plan had been for him to confer with her bodyguard and then arrange to “bump into” the princess on her way out of the library later.
It was a good thing he’d seen her, or he would have been just as ignorant of her true whereabouts as her hapless guard. The man needed to take a course in security from Hawk Investigations.
“I don’t kayak,” he said to her, “but I’d like to learn.” Which was a total lie. He had no desire to learn, but he had experienced canoeing. Even if it wasn’t his favorite thing, it was close enough to the other that he was confident he would make a good showing of himself on the water.
A man did what he had to for his job. And Hawk’s current assignment was sticking close to Princess Lina bin Fahd al Marwan.
Her smile was dazzling. “If we hurry, maybe we’ll both still get a chance to sign up for the trip.”
Options clicked through Hawk’s mind. One, he could prevent her from making the meeting at all. Two, he could scuttle any chances she had of going on the trip with a single phone call. Or he could follow his instincts and go on the trip with her.
Her obvious attraction to him would make it easy to arrange for her to miss the meeting, but this woman would probably find a way to sign up for the trip regardless. Lina Marwan, as she called herself, was nothing like the shy, quiet, studious, nineteen-year-old he had been led to expect.
Did anyone in the princess’s life know who she really was and how she amused herself?
The answer was no doubt in the negative, which was why he also did not want to scuttle the trip entirely.
He’d been hired as extra security during a time of increased risk for the Royal Family of Marwan. However, if his interaction had the benefit of allowing him to help her security detail enhance her overall safety—so much the better. He had to identify the ways she circumvented it in order to prevent her from doing so in the future.
Letting her make the trip while he accompanied her to ensure her safety, would give him the opportunity to see what measures she took to avoid her security detail.
He made all these determinations in the space of seconds.
“Lead the way,” he said with a smile.
She nodded, but instead of increasing her pace, she stopped, her dark brown gaze fixed on his lips.
“Lina…”
“Uh, yeah, right…go.” She made a visible effort to look away. Flipping her long black ponytail over her shoulder, she started jogging toward the University Center. “The meeting was supposed to be upstairs.”
His long strides matched her speed with little effort, but his body heated in reaction to the enticing bounce of her feminine curves. The attraction was definitely mutual, which should make his job that much easier. He wouldn’t have to pretend an interest to stay close to her. Though his original intention had been to strike up a friendship, being just slightly more than friends would be an even better “in” to the princess’s life.
However, he would only take it so far. He didn’t do long-term and for so many reasons, Lina was not a candidate for a short-term affair. Not only was she the daughter of a client and herself his assignment, but she was a princess from a part of the world that placed a lot of importance on a woman’s virginity. It wouldn’t be fair to the princess to take their association beyond friendship and mild flirting.
Although he had a sense of honor that would not allow him to use the innocent, he was not above using her attraction to him.
Lina stopped in front of an athletic-looking blond man who had been coming down the steps in front of the U.C. “Hey, Bob. Did we miss the meeting?”
“Yeah, but no biggie. All we did was pass out info sheets and take names.”
“Can we still sign up?” she asked enthusiastically.
The jock put his hand on Lina’s shoulder and squeezed, his smile practiced and more than a little flirtatious. “Anything for you, sweetie.”
Another curse fought for release