“You said you had a new plan since you completely boffed the original one, so let’s hear it.” Americo Villagrassa, the older member of the Dragonslayers, opened the meeting in his usual abruptness as soon as Abelardo closed the door of an abandoned building on the outskirts of an Aragon small town.

“Don’t start. I didn’t boff any plan. I decided against it, as I’ve told you repeatedly over the last year.” He cleaned a cinder block and settled himself on it, dropping his duffel bag on the floor by his feet. “I don’t appreciate your condescending and derogatory attitude toward me. I’m the source of the financing for this group. I deserve some respect.”

“You pay for the leaflets. Fat lot of good that’s done us,” said Marcelín Grau, who sat on an overturned milk crate, rolling a cigarette. He licked the paper and gave it a final twist, then lit it.

“That’s one prong of a many-pronged approach,” Abelardo retorted, waving his hand in the air as the smoke expanded. “We wouldn’t be able to accomplish a fraction of what we do without my funding.”

“Enough about your money,” Aguilar commanded. “The facts are what they are. You didn’t marry her, and a tail I put on her has reported that she’s been seen in Lekten with a man so wealthy, he makes you look like a bum. So rekindling the romance may be even harder now.”

“I still don’t think marrying the princess was a good plan anyway. You have to do more than marry a woman to change her thinking,” said Lauriana de la Caballería, the newest addition to the core group of six secret team members and the youngest woman in the group. “Only love does that, and she never loved him. Word is, she’s never loved anyone outside her family. And maybe not even her family. These royals are strange, cold people.”

“You’re absolutely right,” agreed Abelardo. He gazed out the dirty broken windows toward the tallest peak of the Pyrenees before turning back and continuing his thoughts. “The woman is not cold. She’s frigid. Anyway, I’ll try to seduce her mind, if not her heart. But don’t count me out of the running on the romance angle. I don’t care whose bank account is bigger. I have other ways to seduce her. Whether or not that leads to marriage is immaterial. I only need to change the way she thinks. Get her to see that the DFAM is better for the country than her royal family.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Marcelín took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out very slowly. “When it comes to the princess, I’d wager you’re literally the last man to have a chance at winning her heart.”

“He’s got a point,” said Celipa Alfarro, who had been silent until now. “She was very humiliated by your stunt, Gutiérrez. She wouldn’t eat anything for days. Even I was worried—”

“Did you kiss her better?” Abelardo sneered.

Celipa stood up abruptly, her chair falling to the floor. “Tonto del cullo—”

“Enough.” Aguilar, who had been slowly pacing the width of the large room the whole meeting, spoke up again, silencing the others automatically, as always. “What’s your plan got to do with us? We all took a huge risk coming out here to meet. Don’t tell me we risked exposure just to find out you’re going to buy flowers and sweets for the woman you jilted.”

“Of course not,” Abelardo said. “And my risk in coming here was greater than all of yours. I have a damned inspector crawling up my ass still. He was just at my house again last night.”

“Fine! You have risk, too. Not everything is a contest.  Just tell us your plan so we can move on,” Aguilar demanded.

“We need to do what the Dragonslayers exist to do. Everyone knows Princess Angelica truly loves the Aragonese people. The way to open her mind up, to convince her she needs to marry me to help her people, is to hit her where it hurts the most.”

Aguilar paused, turned, and faced him. “What do you have in mind?”

“An explosion,” Abelardo replied. “Not something like that ridiculous bomb that was put on the stairs of Lekten Parliament, but something real, Al Qaeda style—”

“No violence against the people.” Lauriana jumped up from her place. “These royals deserve no respect from us, but the people—”

“Quiet, kid,” Americo snapped at Lauriana. “You want in, you stay and listen.”

“But there will be innocent people hurt,” Lauriana insisted. “Elders, kids—”

“Minor casualties. Martyrs for a greater cause,” Aguilar said in a cold voice that silenced the young woman. “Gutiérrez, it takes money to make noise.”

“I brought the money.” Abelardo walked over to the duffel bag on the floor by the cinder blocks where he’d been sitting earlier, picked it up, and dropped it at Aguilar’s feet. Then he turned to Celipa. “And while I want the princess to watch what she is doing to her people, I don’t want her hurt. Understood?”

Celipa looked at Aguilar, who nodded and began pacing again as the other members discussed the details of the operation.

It was good that Celipa was a badass by most people’s standards.

That would mean the Castella y Aragon family would feel protected, safe, secure. That meant that when Aguilar reached inside their world and sliced it to bloody hell, they’d feel as gutted as they’d made so many other people feel.

That meant they would know just how ready, how powerful, how lethal Aguilar Castro was.

The motherfucker of a king and the bitch of princesses would know that name before this was over.

And no one, not even the whole Aragonese guard, was going to protect them when Aguilar attacked.

Ludwig had never felt so damned sexy and powerful in his life.

The way Angelica’s dark eyes had roamed over him, lighting in appreciation of his form, watching him with such an open expression of shyness and awe, made him want to give her more pleasure.

His body was taut with his desire as he bent to kiss her. He needed to plunge into her, take her hard and fast, but the innocence in her made him rein in his desires.

In the past, his partners had known what they wanted and greedily took it.

With Angelica, it was different.

She didn’t know what she wanted—needed—but she gave as much as she took, maybe more.

It had been too sweet to watch, to taste, to make her come against his face. To feel her shiver and tremble under his ministrations. To lap at her cream. To hear her moans of desire. His name on her lips.

She was so beautiful—her slender body, rounded breasts, the dark nipples budding for his attention, her parted thighs and her rosy sex—and the fact that she not for once played coy aroused him to a never before felt fevered pitch. His eyes feasted on her lithe body as he withdrew a condom from his bedside drawer and quickly put it on before eagerly returning to the delectable dessert lying on his bed.

His mouth and hands ran over her again, learning her body, the points of pleasure, and soon she was returning the caresses, her tongue entwining with his as if she couldn’t get enough of his kisses. When she was squirming under him again, her feet relentlessly pressing his ass, he poised himself above her and nudged at her entrance.

“Look at me,” he urged.

She opened her eyes, reaching out for his face, but he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he kept looking at her because right now she was the only woman in the whole universe for him. He felt her tense when he flexed his hips minutely prying her apart.

She forgot everything else, any other concern she might have. “Take me, Ludwig.”  

It was all the encouragement he needed.

By small degrees, with so much control that it surprised even himself, he pushed into her slick passage, feeling the tight muscles of her virginal channel stretching to fit him, hearing her gasp, her nails digging into his biceps, feeling her tensing and then relaxing.

He closed his eyes at the sensation of her body squeezing him and he groaned, “So tight, so wet.”

She whimpered as the painful pleasure radiated over her again as he gave a final and hard thrust, filling her completely. She blinked at him, dizzy with the assault on her body and emotions but in that moment, he was all that mattered. “And you’re so big.”

Close to coming, he let out a strained laugh. He was well experienced in the ways of sex and forced his orgasm aside along with every urge to pound into her restrained for later.

He made love to her slowly, savoring every touch. His hips pumped in an even rhythm, working into her until he was gliding in and out, and then pushing faster, harder.

“Oh, Ludwig, right there.” She writhed, fingers twisting in his hair. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he growled, as sweat beaded his forehead. He lifted his body above hers and plunged into her sweet depths in long, deep thrusts. “Come for me.”

“Ah. Sí,” she cried, her nails clawing his scalp. “More—Ah, Cristo!” Her eyes rolled in her head and her body arched. Tremors racked her as she exploded into one glorious cry, shuddering in his arms. “Ludwig!”

The way she tightened around him was almost painful and his leash on his control snapped. “Gott, I’m going to come so hard.”

He was hammering into her, his hips pistoning his cock into her pussy, his hand snatching her head up for a kiss. His sack drew up, lightning zipped through him, his release came out in long jerks, milking him for all he had.

“Angelica,” he breathed on her mouth, thrusting one last time inside her.

Weakly, he fell to the side, breathing hard, shaking. He had never held back for so long or felt such a powerful climax.

“My whole body is numb,” she purred against his skin. “Deliciously numb.”

Words beyond him, he grinned and pulled her to him.

“Was it…? Did you…?” she asked, peeking at him through her long black lashes.

How can she even ask? Ludwig rolled over to dispose the condom, hating the look of insecurity on her face, but glad she didn’t hide it from him. She’s embarrassed. Nervous earlier, and now embarrassed. He hoped he would one day meet the guy that had messed with her confidence.

The depth of his emotions took him by surprise. He pulled her back into his arms.

“You have no idea how sexy you are, Kätzchen, do you?” he asked, nuzzling her neck, his hand stroking up her back. “Hot, sexy, beautiful.”

She blushed. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I mean it.” He stroked her face and she placed a light kiss on his palm. She was such a contradiction. All sweet and shy, but also feisty as hell.

She propped herself up on her elbows, thoroughly enjoying watching as Ludwig climbed out of bed and walked naked and unashamed through the bedroom.

His muscles were taut and strong, his back angling down from broad shoulders to strong buttocks and thighs that were sheer bulk and strength.

As he disappeared in what seemed to be the bathroom, she sighed, a totally womanly moan of appreciation, and closed her eyes.

She was free.

Something she’d never been since the day she was born. Not really.

She was going to take this moment. It was hers. He was the one, the only man who made her feel like all the other women in the romance novels she loved to read. She finally felt like she was normal. She was not defective. She’d actually done it; acted like a woman in the most elemental, carnal way. And she did it right.

She felt more than heard him moving and climbing back onto the bed. She lazily opened her eyes when the heat from his body washed over her.

He gently pushed her legs open and ran a warm wet towel over her, then he pulled the coverlet over them and snuggling in behind her, he held her tight in his arms. “Sleep.”

“You aren’t what I expected,” Angelica whispered before closing her eyes, overwhelmed with her feelings, feelings she didn’t want to face or give a name. Tomorrow…well, tomorrow’s another day. For now, she was satisfied to follow his order.

When her breathing settled in a slow rhythm, Ludwig nuzzled her cheek and whispered back, “You aren’t what I expected either, princess.”