Love in Fantasy (Skeleton Key) (11 page)

I turn around and catch Pippa’s sable eyes on my ass, and her face pinkens with a pretty blush. Eventually, I’m going to discover how far down it goes.

I’d stopped by to spend some time with her and found her reading in the library, so I dropped down next to her, dragged her into my side, and poured over some business contracts. I could see her debating whether to fight me, then seemed to accept the inevitable and relaxed in my hold.

Wilhelm is getting antsy, but I’m not quite sure what to do. Pippa’s sister, Jenna, is the oldest of the available sisters now. She lives here at the castle, and I’d hoped to catch her when she came home from work. However, she recently opened The Fairest Cupcake, a bakery situated in the town square of a little village not far from here. Considering what it took to get my own business off the ground in Rêves, I should have expected her to be in the same rabbit hole I’d recently climbed out of.

Dessert suddenly sounded like a fantastic idea. “Let’s go and get some of your sister’s cupcakes, baby,” I suggest and hold my hand out to help her up. Pippa is an absolute sucker for sweets and she, more than anyone, has helped Jenna to get her store running. She licks her lips in anticipation, and I stifle a groan, envious of her tongue. Pippa is more delicious than anything I’ve ever tasted.

She takes my proffered hand, and I pull her to her feet, suppressing the instinct to throw her over my shoulder and run away with her. I’m pleasantly surprised when she continues to hold my hand, allowing me to guide her out to my car, and get her seated and belted in. I get into the car and lace my fingers with hers, resting our hands on my thigh.

The drive to The Fairest Cupcake doesn’t take long, and when we walk inside, we see her behind the counter, serving a line of customers. Like all of the rest, Jenna is obviously Pippa’s sister, but she’s also drastically different. Her eyes are a dark, emerald green, and her hair is almost black, like Pippa’s, but she wears it in a short style, the curls ending just below her ears. Her skin is much paler, and I’ve rarely seen her without her blood-red lipstick.

The line dies down and she notices us, rushing over to hug us both. “I tried something new today, you guys are going to be my guinea pigs,” she announces, dragging us to a different table than the one we’d settled at. She goes back behind the counter and gets into the glass display case by the register. There are two cupcakes on the plate she’s holding when she returns, both covered in a red glaze to make the cake look like a shiny apple, there is even a chocolate “stem” sticking out of the top. Pippa’s musical laugh brings a smile to my face, and I wait, content to watch her as she bites into the confection. Her eyes roll and she moans, forcing me to concentrate on the cupcake instead of her, attempting to get my dick to settle back down.

“Jenna, it’s amazing,” Pippa mumbles around a mouth full of the tasty treat. “I’m having a foodgasm over here.” I frown, irrationally pissed that something,
anything
, besides me is giving her any kind of orgasmic pleasure. Jenna claps and bounces excitedly, turning to me. I bite into the apple-flavored dessert, and Pippa is right, it’s incredible. Even though I know it’s cake, I could swear my mouth filled with apple juice. I nod at her, too busy devouring my cupcake to form words. Jenna laughs and does a fist pump in the air.

The bell over the door rings and Jenna’s face immediately flushes. Glancing over, I see a blond-haired man entering, his eyes straying instantly to Jenna.
Well, well, isn’t this interesting
? Wilhelm begins his little cha-cha cha in my pocket, and I peek at Pippa to see if she’s paying attention. Her head is swiveling back and forth between Jenna and the man, who seemed to be locked into a stare down. I covertly remove Wilhelm from the pocket of my pants and slide it into her apron, hoping she is too distracted to notice the added weight until later.

It seems like an eternity until these two break their connection and, without a word, Jenna heads back to the front of the store, then disappearing into the back. The man’s face falls and he walks dejectedly to the register and puts in his order. He finally leaves, and we aren’t far behind, not having seen Jenna since she scurried into the back of the bakery.

I went to bed and spent another night fantasizing about Pippa, counting the hours until all even sisters are paired off.

Meanwhile. . .

Jenna’s Fantasy

“Y
ou can go home, sleepy head,” Jenna tells her bus boy. He is one of seven brothers she rotates through for odd jobs in the bakery. Today was crazy busy, and she can plainly see he is dead on his feet.

“Okay, thanks, boss,” he calls as he trudges out the door. She would be worried about him leaving, being so tired, but the boys live in a rented house that’s only a two-minute walk away.

Wiping down the last of her appliances, Jenna steps back and admires her kitchen. She’d admit to having a little help from her parents to get started, but she’d worked her hind end off to do as much on her own as possible. And, she was damn proud. She spies her apron in a heap on one of the counters and goes over to shake it out and hang it up. One of the front pockets seems to have something in it and she sticks two fingers in to lift it out. It looks like a very strange key. It must belong to a customer but, how did it get into her pocket? She studies it absentmindedly while she moseys to her office, intent on putting it in the lost and found. Opening the door, she walks inside and after a few more steps, she runs right into a solid wall. “Motherfucker!” she grunts, putting a hand to her head and feeling a bump already forming. Looking around, she forgets all about her head. She’s in a foyer—a great, big, ornate, room—and it wasn’t a wall she’d walked into, it was a tall set of gold, double doors. Freaked, she rushes to return to the door she came through but, it’s a solid wall with gold swirled and cream paper.

It’s then she remembers the skeleton key, particularly because it’s vibrating in her hand and . . . um, glowing? Looking at the door once more, Jenna sees a small carving above the lock; a replica of the item in her hand. Without any other options in sight, she timidly inserts the key into the designated slot and rotates it until she hears a click.

Both doors fly open, banging against the walls on either side, making her flinch. The scene before her has her jaw dropping to the ground and forgetting all about the key. It’s a bakery. Her bakery. Well, sort of. It’s likely what her bakery would look like if it were being depicted in a fairytale. The setup is the same, with a counter and glass case up front, and tables and chairs throughout. Except, the tables are crudely carved, there is no register, the boy at the counter counts out coins from a bag, and the room it bathed in dim light from lanterns scattered about.

Everyone is dressed in clothes that remind her of the sixteenth century and when she peeks down at her own clothes, they are a similar style. A sweeping, white skirt, a deep blue, boned top with a deep V down the center of her skirt, and blue puffed sleeved attached at her shoulders.
How hard did I hit my head
? It’s incredibly busy and fast inspection of the room reveals all seven of the young brothers are working. One of them is at the register and he seems to notice her all of the sudden. He waves her back and, of their own volition, her feet start making the journey over.

“Jenna, I’m so glad you’re here. The delivery of apples just arrived and it’s not our usual supplier. I was afraid to accept it without consulting you.”

“I’ll check it out,” I murmur dazedly and walk to the exit in the back that lets out into an alley. A horse and cart stand, seemingly unattended, and on the side board is a logo; a large apple and the words
Magic Wishing Apples
.

An older woman with long, grey hair, a large nose, and a cigarette between her lips, slinks from around the corner, startling Jenna. She scowls in irritation. “Where is Ted?” she snaps. “And, please don’t smoke here. We deal with food, for crying out loud.”

The woman shrugs and drops it to the ground, crushing it under her boot. Jenna holds in a biting remark figuring it isn’t worth the effort. She’d call Ted, oh wait—no phones. Um, she’d send him a message, and find out who the hell this is and make sure she is never sent to The Fairest Cupcake again.

“Ted’s out sick, asked me to make the drop today.” She grins and it doesn’t do her looks any favors, especially the yellowing teeth. “Besides, these are the best apples you’ll ever get. Wait till you taste one, dearie.”

This was definitely getting weirder by the minute and there was something familiar about it all. Either way, she needed the inventory, and if Ted had sent the woman, Jenna trusted his judgment enough to accept the delivery. Once the boys have the fruit all unloaded, the woman hauls herself up onto the horse and with one last, very odd, look, she drives the cart off into the night.

Shaking it off, Jenna returns to the front of the store and stops short when she sees an incredibly handsome, blond man ordering at the counter. As though there were a magnetic force between them, his head flips in her direction, and they stare at each other. Heat engulfs her body as his dark, almost grey, eyes survey her. Damn, he’s sexy. His bottom lip is slightly bigger than the top, and she would love nothing more than to bite it. However, in the three months that he has been a daily customer, she’s never worked up the courage to approach him. Every day he doesn’t make a move, she is more and more convinced he doesn’t feel the same level of attraction and talks herself out of acting on it.

She almost faints when, for the first time, he walks in her direction. Her heart beats so hard, she is sure he can hear it. The heat she feels inside is burning her skin, making it clear to her that she is blushing from head to toe.

He doesn’t stop until he is directly in front of her, closing the gap between them, ignoring the rules of personal space. Not that she minds. In fact, in her opinion, he’s still not close enough. “Jenna.” She shivers at the gritty sound of his voice. She hadn’t thought he could get any sexier.
Wrong
. “I’m Hunter.”
Double wrong.

“Hi,” she squeaks out in a higher voice than normal. She clears her throat and tries again. “Hi, um, nice to meet you.”

He cocks his head to the side, observing her with a small smile. “Would you, I mean, could we talk somewhere in private?”

Jenna nods dumbly and leads the way to her office, but halts at the closed door. The last time she stepped through this door, it took her to this place, and she wasn’t about to leave when she and Hunter are finally moving forward. She could open it and simply not step through, right? Would Hunter find that weird? She sighs and slowly cracks the door. It leads to her office. She blows out a breath of relief and goes inside. Here, too, everything is similar and yet, different in style and age.

With no warning, she finds herself being whirled around and molded to Hunter’s hard body. Her breasts press against his defined chest and her nipples harden, her hands landing on his muscular biceps, very aware of what her proximity is doing to him by the bulge digging into her stomach. He wasn’t overly bulky and his build didn’t seem gym grown; she wonders what he does for a living, assuming whatever it is attributes to his fantastic body. His grey eyes were like molten silver as he drank in the sight of her, lingering hungrily on her lips.

“I’ve waited far too long to taste you,” he growls before covering her mouth with his own. Jenna, in complete agreement, throws herself into the kiss with gusto. When his head rears back and he looks at her, his gaze is somewhat unreadable, she wonders if she came on too strong.
There goes the blushing again,
she groans to herself. Her worries are set aside when he flashes a big smile and dives back in, devouring her mouth, his hands finding her butt cheeks and lifting her against him. He tears his lips away only long enough to spot a chair and swiftly walks to it. He sits and lifts Jenna’s skirt so it bunches around her waist, making a noise of frustration at the amount of fabric between them.
This time period doesn’t seem very conducive to quickies
. Spreading her legs, he settles her on his lap so she is straddling him. He is big
everywhere,
and she can feel his rock hard cock against her pussy, making her squirm. He grips her hips to keep her still. “Don’t move like that, sweetheart, or I won’t be able to control myself,” he says with a groan.

“Why . . . now?” she asks, panting, her heart racing, and her body electrified like live wires.

“I don’t know,” he claims. “I’ve wanted you for so long and today I finally gathered the courage to go after you.” His hands slowly travel from her hips, up her torso, to cup her full breasts. “Now, I know I won’t ever let you go.” He dips a finger inside her low neckline and brushes it over a stiff nipple. She gasps and wiggles again, rubbing herself against him, seeking relief. He growls and flexes his hands on her breasts before tugging her fairly inflexible top until they pop out, the rigid neckline holding them up and together. Hunter’s eyes flare and he buries his face between them for a second before wrapping his hips around one peak.