Page 68 of Talon (Road Rebels MC 2)
No, it couldn’t be… unless he felt the same way, she did? Was that possible? She thought he probably wouldn’t even call her and here she had two voicemails from him within three days. That meant something, didn’t it? If he weren't that interested, he probably wouldn’t have called back when she didn’t call him back right?
Teagan felt the tingling moving through her stomach now turning into butterflies. It was like she wanted to run out of her own skin. She wanted to jump up and shout with the excitement she was feeling right now, but somehow, she found the restraint to stay seated. The bus trip could not possibly be short enough. She wanted to call Cort the first chance she got and talk with him. She had to explain herself and why she hadn’t called him back. Oh, he probably thought she was just messing with him and leading him on. The thought made her sick that she might have blown it again with this amazing man.
But the timing was just wrong. Surely, he would understand that. If she ever got a chance to speak with him that was. What if he didn’t want to talk with her now? Teagan took a deep breath. All she could do was try. She had his number now. If anything, she could track him down that way, right? Unless that would seem psychotic. She surely didn’t want him thinking she was some kind of a stalker.
Oh, why was this all so complicated?
When the bus dropped her off, she decided that she needed a drink to calm herself down before she called Cort. She was a nervous wreck and would have probably come off speaking a mile a minute and sounded like some crazy person. She had to maintain the air of cool the way she did the other night. Of course, she had been drinking the other night.
“Maybe that is the key,” she giggled to herself.
Teagan found a quaint little bar not far from her hotel and ordered a cocktail and a sandwich. She was suddenly starving.
The place was pretty busy for a pub during the midday of a weekday. It was filled mostly with business men and women grabbing a quick lunch and a few drinks before heading back to the office. That was definitely something you didn’t see as much of in the States. Drinking in the middle of the workday was often frowned upon. Teagan quickly wolfed down her sandwich and finished her drink. It was a delicious version of a Manhattan. It had some weird name she couldn’t pronounce, but it was very fruity, and she could hardly taste the alcohol.
But she was starting to feel it almost right away, that relaxing warm feeling, the buzz settling in. She already felt a lot calmer and ready to talk to Cort again, reverting herself back to that sultry vixen he’d first met at the bar the other night.
Teagan pulled up the phone and was about to press send to dial the number when her eyes landed on the television above the bar. Even though the bar was fairly busy it was also pretty quiet, everyone having private conversations in understated hushed tones. It was a very relaxing atmosphere.
On the television, Teagan could hear a news story developing on the television.
“The Parliament has reached a final decision on the appeals of the Prince and his desire to secede his father to the throne in the upcoming month. The Prince must choose a bride before his thirtieth birthday, just three weeks away, or he will have to forfeit the throne to his uncle. So, it would appear that some lucky lady out there is about to become a bride and queen all within the next month. Unless the Prince has other plans… According to his advisors, he is still reluctant to choose a bride, and he is fighting this decision tooth and nail. We will bring you more on this as soon as we have more news.”
Teagan laughed at the idea. That sounded like such an old fashioned and silly rule. But it was going to make some girl pretty happy to marry a bona fide prince and become Queen.
Teagan started to glance away and make her phone call, taking another deep breath to steady her shaky nerves when the image on the screen flashed over to a picture. The image was striking. It appeared in the corner of her eye and garnered her full attention immediately.
On the screen with a big smile and the words “Prince Cort Monreau” was Cort. Her Cort!
He was on the television… Prince Cort Monreau?
Teagan couldn’t breathe.
CHAPTER 12
Cort
“I’m afraid we are out of plays,” Alex Skarg said with defeat in his voice.
Cort glanced up from the book he was trying to read. His head was starting to throb with the nonstop stress and strain of dealing with the Parliament. The council was standing firm by their decision, and they had the law on their side. Changing a law was tricky, and it would certainly have taken more time than Cort had and a lot more hurdles to be deflected before any progress would be really made on this issue. He was sunk. And everyone knew it.
“Keep searching,” Cort said.
Alex sighed heavily. “My Prince, there is nothing else to be done. You will have to find a bride, and do it soon if you hope to accept the throne. There is nothing else to be done. You are trying to cram years of constitutional debate and amendment within the span of a few weeks. It can’t be done. The only ones who can make exceptions to this are the council, and they’ve made it clear that they are not budging.”
Cort threw the book across the room narrowly missing Alex’s head. It slammed into the wall and scattered across the floor. He hadn’t meant to get that close to his trusted advisor’s head, but the frustration was overwhelming. He wanted to scream and tear something up. He wanted to grab every member of the council and beat some good sense into their old heads.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “We tried.”
With that, he left the room.
Cort lay on the couch for several minutes trying to collect his thoughts. His mind was racing, and he felt like he was going to pass out with a full-blown panic attack. Why did it so often feel that the entire world was against him? His moronic uncle was going to be in charge in a few weeks unless he went against every single fiber of his own moral character and made some girl a bride. He would probably have children with her while always resenting the decision he made. Would he even be able to love the kids that were the products of a marriage of convenience? A marriage born out of nothing more than politics? He would, he knew. The children would not be to blame, but he would live out his days ruling with a woman at his side he might not even like in the long run, let alone love.
The only woman he’d ever felt truly close to was Teagan.
The thought arrived in his mind somehow cutting through the mess of chaos and confusion that surrounded his every synapse of consciousness. Teagan… A woman he’d known for only a few hours before she basically blew him off. A woman who would not answer his phone calls. Who might have even been back in America now, never to be seen by him again.
But she was the one…
Cort rubbed his eyes in anger until his vision was momentarily blurry. How could he be that in love with a woman who was almost a total stranger? The logic of it was absurd. It was like something out of a Shakespeare play, and everyone knew how tragedies played out…
“I feel like I’m living in a tragedy,” Cort muttered to himself.
It was true. He was being forced to marry someone he did not love meanwhile he was pining for a woman who he didn’t even know and really didn’t know how to get in touch with. Of course, he could find her. He had a number, and he now had her name. But what was the point? She’d made it abundantly clear that she did not feel the same way he did. He hated to think that she’d just used him, but it did feel that way. But it wasn’t like that. They were two strangers who’d met in a bar amidst several drinks and a hot, passionate lust that still made him weak in the knees and mind numb with pleasure to think about it.
Oh, if Teagan were there with him right now…
Maybe she would be interested if she knew who he really was? Or would she be angry that he’d lied to her? She would probably laugh in his face if he tracked her down and proposed marriage to her so that she could become Queen of a country she knew very little about. The whole idea was laughable.
But it was possible
…
He could imagine her sweet body on top of him right now riding up and down on his hard member, probing the inside of her deepest, wettest spot of desire. Oh, he wanted to taste her again, to feel that tightness that fit him like the tightest but softest glove, wrapping around his body as if they were designed for each other in some kind of Heavenly factory. Two parts coming together to become one strong, unit.
As he closed his eyes, the fantasy took him over completely. He could literally feel her quivering over top of him, her sweetness manipulating his organ until he was nothing but a rigid, sputtering slave spreading his hot seed as far and wide inside of her temple as he could.
Cort awoke covered in sweat just then, his whole body shaking. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. The dream was so vivid, so perfect. Tears threatened to sting his shaking eyes, and he fought them back with fiery passion. His world felt as if it were all crumbling down around him.
He knew then what he had to do. It was so obvious. He’d known all along what was going to fix everything. He just had to get out of his own way and do what was required.
Cort knew that he would not be able to rest until he had Teagan right there in his arms. She had to know how he felt about her. He had to be with her.
If it was the last thing he did he was going to talk to her.
CHAPTER 13
Teagan
Teagan splashed some water on her face. She can’t believe what she just saw. Cort was a prince… He lied to her. He’d probably lied to her about everything. Was that some sort of scam that he used to get girls into bed? It was some kind of a game he liked to play to see if he could seduce women without using the title of Prince to his advantage?
Teagan was so angry when she left the bar that she instantly deleted Cort’s number and the voicemails he’d left her. Hell, she’d almost thrown her phone on the concrete and smashed it into a million pieces.
“You bastard!” She yelled when she got back to her room. She threw the phone hard onto the bed and sat down, burying her head in her hands.
It was the worst kind of betrayal. She’d thought about Cort nonstop the past few days, and it turned out that he’d lied to her about almost everything except his name. He was probably calling her just to set up some sort of a booty call, to see if he could nail the American girl a second time. Did he really think she wouldn’t find out about him eventually? Hell, all she had to do was google him, and it pulled up hundreds of hits with his image and who he was all over. She felt so stupid. All she had to do was type his name into a search engine, and she would have found out everything about him.
But why would she do that? He was a guy she’d just met. Everything had happened so fast. She never thought she would see him again.
And she sure didn’t count on falling for him. But she had. That was the most frustrating part of it all. She knew that he’d touched something deep inside of her, something inside her soul. She really cared about him, and the hope was so strong, the hope that he might care for her as well. When she saw that he’d called her twice and she heard how urgent his voice sounded in that last message.
That’s when the thought struck her. Was Cort calling her because he needed a wife? Did he want her to become Queen just so he could be King?
Teagan sat down on the edge of the bed. Her hands were shaking as she clutched at the small flip phone in her hand. It couldn’t be… he was calling her because he wanted to meet up again. There was no way…
She was American. Was that even going to be legal here? Didn’t she have to jump through some sort of crazy hoops to become a citizen or something?
“NO!” Teagan groaned now realizing what a stupid mistake it had been to delete Cort’s info from her phone. What the hell was she thinking?
She knew why she did it. The pain and the anger of being lied to forced her hand in the heat of the moment. She’d been lied to too many times before and she wasn’t about to stand for it again.
But oh, this time it was different. But why? Stupid question. She knew why.
“Because I love him…” Teagan admitted quietly to herself, tears beginning to roll down her face.
