Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 by Jennifer Chance

flushing through her in waves.
    “It’s great!” she said, too loudly, then modified her tone. “It’s great. I thought you were gone already.”
    “I have two teams out already,” he said. “Depending on what they find, I’ll go—or we’ll go.” He eyed her. “Cyril contacted me again an hour ago, saying that the viewership of your videos was at a clip large enough to appear legitimate, and the more we could feed of every stop, the better, as long as we didn’t run into any problems.”
    He delivered this information neutrally, and Nicki frowned. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing, that the posts are working?”
    Stefan’s lips quirked up. “For your role as cover, I would say it’s a good thing.” He gestured to the equipment. “And for the moment, it affords us a few hours to try out all the toys Kristos sent along.”
    We? Nicki stared as Stefan slicked out of his shirt. She’d seen the man in swim trunks before, but he’d already been in the water at the time. For some reason, having him standing right in front of her, dry and half naked was kicking everything in her body up a few notches. He stopped, apparently concerned by her staring. “You didn’t think I’d let you go in alone, did you?”
    “What? No,” Nicki blurted. “I mean, thought you were gone, that one of the crewmembers would go with me.”
    He shrugged and she watched as the muscles rippled across his sun bronzed skin. She wouldn’t have expected his tan to be so deep, given his role within the royal family. She pictured him wearing tuxedos and sipping martinis, not diving off the side of boats. “You, um, dive a lot?”
    “Not diving, usually. But snorkeling, yes. It would be difficult to live someplace like Garronia and not take advantage of all the ocean had to offer.” He picked up a snorkeling mask and proffered it to her. “We won’t need the tanks, right?”
    “No—not for this first dive, and probably not at all. How deep is the water?”
    The conversation steered easily onto safer topics, and Nicki followed Stefan across the deck, inhaling and exhaling slowly and carefully as she watched his muscles stretch and work beneath his skin. Even his trousers seemed tailor-made to make her stare, the fabric stretching over the thick muscles of his legs. She’d seen the man practically naked already, but…
    “One thing,” Stefan turned to her, then waited with a smirk as she jerked her eyes up from his ass to meet his gaze. His smirk told her that he knew exactly what she’d been staring at. “Tamas, one of the men, will be going with us as well. It should appear as if it’s only the two of you down there. I should not be in any of the video feed. You should be in the water with a single subject, not surrounded by guards. And I shouldn’t be in the water at all, merely tapped for this assignment as a political representative of Garronia. You understand?”
    Nicki nodded. “I’ll keep you out of the frames, or we’ll catch it in the editing pass before I push the videos live.” Inside, however, her spirits deflated a little. Stefan’s warnings reminded her that this was not the joy ride it was being touted as. More importantly, however, she’d thought she could capture some video of the man in the water. He truly had the most amazing body, and if she could have some souvenir video clips, it’d make all of this last a little while longer.
    Oh well.
    Within minutes, they were in the water, the sudden shock of it a balm to her senses and a needed distraction for both her body and mind. As promised, Tamas proved to be a willing subject, and they spent the morning coasting over an honest-to-God sunken ship that was clearly visible through the water, shallow caves filled with brilliantly colored fish, and rock formations that glinted and burned with the reflection of the sun.
    As expected, Stefan’s swimming abilities in the open sea were every bit as graceful as when he’d been in the palace lap pool, and