Fairytale Come Alive (42 page)

He pulled her close, listened to her steady breathing and decided to stick with his decision.

* * * * *

Prentice woke when the bed bounced.

He knew what that bounce meant.

Elle woke as well.

She likely had no idea.

He rolled to his back and went up on a hand, looking toward the foot of the bed.

He felt Elle get up on her elbow.

Then he heard her gasp.

“Morning!” Sally, who was on her knees at the end of the bed holding a struggling Blackie in her arms, shouted.

“Oh my God,” Elle whispered, her body locking.

“When can we have pancakes?” Sally asked Elle, showing no reaction in the slightest that she was disturbed she’d found Prentice in Elle’s bed.

Elle emitted a strangled noise.

Prentice bit back laughter.

Instead of laughing, to Sally he muttered, “Come here, baby.”

Elle jerked in surprise at his words but Sally released Blackie without delay and crawled up Prentice’s body.

Sally had been doing this nearly every Saturday and Sunday (and other days besides) for as long as she could climb on his bed.

As Sally moved, Prentice laid back at the same time he pushed an arm under Elle’s body and curled her around so her front was pressed to his side. Then his arm locked and his fingers curved securely at her waist, holding her to him. His other arm went around his daughter as she collapsed on his chest.

“Are we going to have pancakes?” Sally asked him.

“In awhile,” Prentice answered.

Sally looked at Elle. “Can I have choco-chips in mine?”

Elle was up on an elbow, her other hand pushing against Prentice’s chest, her hips unsuccessfully resisting his hold, her horrified eyes were on Sally.

“I… erm, I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

“Blueberries?” Sally enquired, tilting her head so she could rest her cheek on Prentice’s chest but her eyes were still on Elle.

Suddenly, Elle’s body ceased its resistance and her face grew soft. For a moment, she simply gazed at Sally.

Then she replied in a tone as soft as her face, “You can have blueberries.”

It was then Sally reached out and stroked Elle’s hair. At his daughter’s touch, Elle’s eyes slowly closed and Prentice’s heart clutched at the look of longing exposed on her beautiful face.

Isabella Evangelista was the woman that everyone thought had everything.

Seeing that look, Prentice realized she had a handful of good friends.

And, as far as he could tell, not one fucking thing else.

“You have pretty hair,” Sally whispered, still stroking Elle’s hair.

Elle’s eyes opened. Her hand at Prentice’s chest lifted, her fingers caught a lock of Sally’s hair and started twisting it.

“So do you, Sally.”

Prentice felt like he’d become invisible. He didn’t mind, not even a little.

He let them have their moment then Prentice gave his daughter a squeeze and said, “Go watch telly, baby. Let Daddy and Elle sleep in awhile.”

Sally stopped stroking Elle’s hair, her head darted up to look at him and Elle’s body went solid again.

“Telly?” Sally breathed.

“Yes, telly,” Prentice replied.

“But you don’t like us watching telly,” Sally reminded him.

He pulled her up his chest so her face was closer to his. “This morning, you get an hour of telly.”

Sally lifted up with both her hands pressed in Prentice’s chest and she shouted, “Hurrah!”

Then she scrambled out of the bed, not about to miss the unusual opportunity to waste time in front of the television.

“Close the door,” Prentice called, rolling to Elle who had immediately begun struggling. Sally closed the door and Prentice shouted, “Close the other one too.”

“Okay!” Sally shouted back before he heard the other door slam.

Then his full attention diverted to Elle because now she was full on struggling.

“Elle, relax.”

Her body went still and she stared at him.

Then she breathed, “Relax?”

His face went into her neck and, with lips below her ear he replied, “Yes, relax.”

“I can’t relax!” she snapped then started struggling again. “Oh my God, I can’t believe that just happened! Sally caught us
in bed
.”

He rolled on top of her to control her thrashing, caught her flailing wrists and pinned them to the bed beside her head. His face neared hers and he touched her lips with his.

“Baby, relax. It’s okay,” he assured her.

She glared up at him.

Then, eyes wide with horror and disbelief, she declared, “It is
not
okay!”

He grinned, “Why no’?”

“She’s going to freak!”

Prentice started chuckling.

“This isn’t funny!” Elle clipped.

Prentice was still smiling when he asked, “Did Sally look upset to you?”

He watched as Elle’s horrified face became thoughtful before she replied, “Well… no.”

“She’s no’ going to freak. She’ll be fine.” His head bent and his mouth went back to her neck. “She loves you,” he said there.

And he meant it.

He figured Elle didn’t hear him or didn’t process what he said because her wrists pushed against his. He pressed her wrists deeper into the bed.

She stopped pushing but declared, “Prentice, I know how this works. Sure, she
seems
fine now. But in fifteen years when she’s standing on top of a clocktower with an automatic rifle mowing down innocent bystanders, don’t call
me
asking what went wrong.”

At the thought of his effervescent Sally picking off innocent bystanders in a murderous rampage, Prentice burst into laughter as he rolled to his back, taking Elle with him. Her hands released, Elle immediately pushed up on his chest. His arms locked around her waist, holding her captive.

She stopped pushing and glared down at him. “I need to get up. I need to make pancakes. I need to find out how to erase Sally’s memory.”

He grinned at her and said, “Sally doesn’t need her memory erased.”

She wasn’t listening.

She was looking at the headboard muttering, “I’m sure the military has something. Who do I know in the military?”

He was back to laughing when his hand slid up her spine, into her hair and he bent her head to his, maneuvering it so his mouth was at her ear.

Softly, he ordered, “Forget about mind control drugs. You have more pressing things to see to this morning.”

Her head twisted and she looked at him. “Yes? And those would be?”

His other hand caught hers and guided it between their bodies. Then he curled her fingers around his stiff cock.

Her eyes grew wide the moment before they went dazed.

There it was.

He had her.

“That,” he whispered.

“We can’t do that,” she whispered back but her hand moved, forming a tight fist, her thumb sliding over the tip.

Christ.

Magnificent.

“We can,” he groaned.

“What if the kids –?”

“They won’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“Aye.”

Her hand stroked then her thumb circled the tip.

Prentice gritted his teeth.

Her mouth went to his neck and she whispered, “We’ll be fast.”

“You go fast, baby, there’ll be consequences.”

Her head came up, her hand stroked and his body liked it so much his hips involuntarily bucked.

When her eyes met his, he demanded on a rumble, “I want your mouth to work me and I want it to work me slow.”

Her lips parted, her eyes glazed, her hand clutched his cock tightly, he growled and she breathed, “But… pancakes.”

“We have an hour.”

“But –”

His hand fisted in her hair and he forced her mouth to his.

Then he kissed her.

When he was done, his voice throaty, he ordered, “Slow.”

“Okay,” she agreed immediately.

Then her face disappeared in his neck and she used her mouth on him, going to his collarbone then down his chest. He pushed himself up so his shoulders were against the headboard as she went further down.

Then further down.

Then further.

His hands gathered her hair and pulled it back just in time to watch Elle slide his cock into her mouth.

Then he watched as Elle, in her sexy, satin and lace nightie worked him.

Slow.

It was magnificent.

* * * * *

He lost her.

And Prentice knew it was the fucking photographers.

He’d had her. She was back.

Entirely.

Then she slid away.

And, as the day progressed, she retreated more and more until he lost her.

They were late leaving the guest suite because, after Elle took care of Prentice with her mouth, Prentice took care of Elle in the shower with his fingers.

Then, considering she smelled like lilies of the valley, she looked so fucking sexy with her hair wet and he hadn’t had his cock inside her for over twenty-four hours, he took care of both of them in the bed.

She’d been collapsed on top of him, her face in his neck, her breath had slowed, her bodyweight fully relaxed and heavy on him, his cock still hard and imbedded in her wetness, when she suddenly jerked up.

She stared at him in panic and shrieked, “Pancakes!”

Then in a flurry of movement, she exited the bed and ran around the room, pulling on underwear (which was, he noted, rolling to his side and watching her, just as sexy as her nighties), then spritzing with perfume, then yanking on a t-shirt.

She was hopping around trying to get in her jeans when her eyes hit him.

“Pren, what are you doing?” she demanded to know.

“I’m enjoying the show,” he replied.

Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her jeans over her hips. “Get up.”

“In a minute.”

She zipped her jeans and buttoned them while saying, “We have to make pancakes and Jace has a soccer game we have to get to.”

She called his son “Jace”.

He liked that.

“We’ve got time.”

She grabbed her deodorant and shoved it under her t-shirt, “No we don’t. Look at the clock! Get up!”

She finished with the deodorant, slammed it onto the bureau then ran into the bathroom.

Prentice adjusted his position so he could watch her squirt something in her palm, rub it in her hair and then she yanked a comb through its length with agitated movements.

She exited the bathroom muttering, “I’m not going to have time for makeup.”

Good,
he thought, she looked far more beautiful without that veneer.

She spied him still in bed.

“Pren –”

“Come here,” he murmured.

Her face went dazed upon hearing his soft command.

Unfortunately, only for a moment.

Then her brows snapped together, she nabbed his jeans from the floor and snapped, “Get…” she threw his jeans at him and finished, “
up!
”

Then she ran from the room.

He rolled to his back, sat up and surveyed the room.

Her journals, jars and bottles were tidy on the nightstand.

However, the bed was unmade, their discarded towels from that morning and clothes from last night littered the floor and he could see from his place in the bed that she’d left the container of whatever she used on her hair uncapped and sitting on the sink beside her comb, which she also didn’t put away.

He grinned to himself and got up.

She made pancakes whilst running back and forth to the guest suite. First, to put on makeup (much to Prentice’s displeasure, however, it was light as that was, as she explained in mutterings to herself, all she had time for) then to do something with her hair (she left it long and loose but dried it) and then to add jewelry and a belt to her outfit of fitted, long sleeve t-shirt, jeans and high-heeled boots.

Then she tidied the kitchen whilst running up and down the stairs. First, to help Sally dress. Then to show Jason where his football kit was as he couldn’t find it because Elle had actually put it away, something that hadn’t occurred since Fiona died as Jason was responsible for putting away his clean clothes on the occasion that Prentice cleaned them and Jason never did. Then she had to calm Sally’s fears because Blackie had taken a tumble whilst leaping from bed to bureau. Sally was convinced the cat had to go to the “Kitty Doctor” even though Blackie seemed no worse for her fall and was racing around the house like she was being chased by something very frightening and very
fast
.