Sandra Hill (20 page)

She looked as if she’d like to bolt through the open window. Or upchuck.

He was betting on the former, and his legendary charm. With deliberate slowness, he unbuttoned his garish jacket and shrugged it off, dropping it to the floor.

She licked her lips, watching.

So far, so good
. The buzz in his head intensified. Holding her eyes, he undid the clasp on his belt and let it slip from his fingers. Unfortunately, it clunked to the floor…not the best mood enhancer.

She blinked, putting a hand over her heart. And she licked her lips again. Apparently she’d missed the clunk.

Slow down, slow down, slow down
, he cautioned himself. A losing battle.

Maybe I should reconsider this whole marriage business. Maybe some guidelines are needed before we go any farther. Maybe Cynthia and I should sit down and talk
.

Yeah, right!

With trembling fingers, he fumbled with the Velcro fastening on his stripper slacks and let
them pool at his feet. There was something to be said for stripper slacks, he thought with utter irrelevance. He wore only his shamrock shorts now. But only for a second. He shucked those, too.

She made a soft, mewling moan.

Only then did he crook his finger at her again.

She raised her chin, about to balk, and flashed him one of those “as-if!” looks she did so well. But then she seemed to reconsider. With mischievous eyes dancing, she gathered her gold gown in two fists, thigh high, and began to bunch the filmy fabric so the hem rose inch by inch. She stopped at the knee.
No, no, no!
Then she took one step toward him. Only one.
Yes, yes, yes!

Heart hammering, he matched her one step. But it was a big one.

Her lips turned up slightly in a Mona Lisa smile of mystery. While inching her gown up to mid-thigh, she took another hip-swaying step toward him.

P.T. loved her legs, all five hundred miles of them. He really did. And he was seeing a whole lot of them right now. More than anything, he wanted to lunge at her. But he was a prince. Princes didn’t behave in such an uncouth manner. They had a reputation to uphold.
Hell!
With monumental restraint, he took only one more step. But his stride was so wide it probably resembled a split.

Was that a giggle he heard from her? No,
sharks didn’t giggle. He’d forgotten to crook his finger this time.

And still the hem was rising. In the background, Elvis was working himself into a feverish pitch, something about “temperature’s rising.” As Cynthia’s hem rose, so did Elvis’s voice, and P.T.’s body heat. Fever, to be sure.

Enough was enough! With a hiss of pure male frustration, he closed the distance between them, taking the teasing witch into his tight embrace. He had no idea what those disjointed words were that he was murmuring against her mouth, into the sweet shell of her ear, along the curve of her shoulder. He was pretty sure, though, that the soft purring sounds she was making indicated pleasure. That and her squirming body, which was helping to accommodate his overeager hands as they clutched the sleekness of her gown from the back, shoving it higher and higher. With a triumphant cry, he maneuvered it over her head. It flew over his shoulders and landed with a whoosh.

For a long moment he did nothing but savor the delicious sensation of her naked body pressed against his naked body. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he nudged her closer.

She raised her arms and burrowed her fingers in his hair.

He put one hand on the small of her back, the other on her nape, under her luxuriant hair. She was a tall woman—at least five-foot-eight—and their body heights conformed to each other well.
Very well. His erection pressed against her lower belly, its tip nudging the curls at her vee.

Myriad emotions swirled over and through him, like a sensory mist. There was bone-melting arousal, of course, but equally potent was the humbling need he had to not only make love to this woman, but to love her. She was his now
…his
, and he didn’t care if the marriage was valid or not.

There was no doubt that soon he would give her pleasure and receive pleasure in return, but his heart unfurled with a desire to keep her at his side, to protect her, to cherish her, to fulfill her dreams, to give her children, to share her secrets, and his, and maybe even cry with her some day, if necessary. In effect, he wanted to slay all her dragons, to be her knight and live happily ever after in whatever magic castle she chose. Even on the Upper West Side.

With that whimsical thought, he put his hands on her forearms and stepped back a pace to get his first good look at his mate. His senses reeled. “Gorgeous,” he sighed.

“No, I’m not,” she started to demur.

He put a fingertip to her lips. “Yes, you are. You’re gorgeous and you’re mine.”

“I’m not—”

“Shhh. You’re mine,” he repeated.

She stood still, arms at her sides, as he examined her from blushing cheeks to blushing breasts to blushing belly to blushing thighs, even to blushing toes. He brushed the backs of his
fingers over her nipples, which were large as berries, and hard.

She bowed her back and keened, a low, wanton plea.

He cupped the mounds from underneath and lifted so the points stabbed his palms.

She whimpered.

He placed a hand on the slight swell of her stomach.

The muscles lurched against his skin.

He considered touching her elsewhere but bridled the impulse. For now.

Raising his eyes back to her face, he saw that her lips were parted and she was breathing erratically. He skimmed the pad of his thumb over her mouth, and she nipped at him.

She put her hands on his forearms then, forcing his hands to his sides. And she began her own visual exploration.

“You’re the one who’s gorgeous,” she said in a breathy whisper. “And you’re mine.”

More than you know, honey. More than you know
. He felt her eyes, like a caress, as they moved from his face to his flat nipples, which he wished she would touch.

She did.

His penis hardened and lengthened with just that passing of fingernails over sensitive nubs.

He groaned.

She did it again.

“Cynthia,” he warned.

She chuckled with satisfaction. And moved
lower. Using the knuckles of one hand, she traced the path of his chest hairs, over his abs, his navel and
—oh, my God!—
along the rock-hard length of him.

His mind went blank then and a buzzing roar erupted in his ears. With a triumphant howl that could be described only as a battle cry, he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her high against his body. To the pounding rhythm of Elvis belting out “I want you, I need you, I love you,” he walked her to the bed. He was only dimly aware of her nipples rubbing his, her stomach flush against his, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her legs around his hips, her cleft aligned with his shaft.

He tossed her onto the bed and followed her down. In one fluid motion, he nudged her legs apart and entered her hot wetness, to the hilt. He penetrated so deep…to the heart of her…and then swelled even more. A perfect fit. A perfect, perfect, perfect fit.

He didn’t move. He couldn’t.

“Wait!” he heard through the haze of his overpowering excitement.

Wait? Oh, no! Please, God, no nonconsummation spells now
. He braced himself on extended arms and raised his head slightly to peer down at her. “Cynthia, you couldn’t possibly expect me to stop now. Chivalry goes only so far.”

She giggled, an incongruous girlish reaction whose ripples could be felt all along the length
of him. “Your watch is caught in my hair. That’s all I meant.”

“Oh.” Within seconds the strand was free, and he was braced on his arms again, staring down at her.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she said softly.

“Good. Because I can’t.”

Her lips parted with a slight smile as she widened her thighs and drew her knees closer to her chest.

And, unbelievably, he thickened and elongated even more, stretching and filling her molten folds.

Her eyes went huge with wonder.

He would have given himself a pat on the back for being so wonderful if he weren’t paralyzed with arousal. In some remote, idiot portion of his head, brain-shocked by bliss, he tucked away a good name for a new shoe, “Ecstasy.”

He groaned and lowered his open mouth over hers, murmuring against her lips. “I’m…out…of…control…here…babe.”

“Good,” she breathed, nibbling his bottom lip.

He felt himself pulse inside her.

And she pulsed back.

He gritted his teeth and arched his neck to withstand the sheer ecstasy.

Raising her bottom off the bed, she rolled her hips from side to side, once, twice, in encouragement.

What little self-control he still maintained shattered then. “This won’t be sweet and gentle,”
he warned, moving them higher on the mattress and guiding her hands upward to grasp the head rails of the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She was panting as heavily as he was.

“Jack-hammer sex,” he elaborated, wanting to be sure she understood, “isn’t the way a man should take the woman he loves for the first time.”

She blinked several times against the misting in her eyes. “Any way you want me, love. I’m yours.”

With a guttural male growl of exultant surrender, he pulled out of her, then slammed back in.

Fierce shudders rocked her, and she screamed her pleasure.

Long,
excruciatingly long
strokes soon shortened as he rode her hard, barely aware of her convulsing around him in repeated orgasms while he palmed her bottom, elevating her higher, or laved a deliciously pebbled nipple, or placed a hand between their slickness, strumming her to wailing heights of urgency.

“I love you, love you, love you,” he shouted thickly as he surged into her one last time, shooting his essence clear to her womb as her body pumped him with continuous, nonstop spasms.

Only dimly was he aware, as blood drained from his head and he sensed himself drifting into instant sleep, or a coma, that it was the best
damn lovemaking he’d ever experienced. He smiled to himself, thinking that shark sex had to be the world’s best-kept secret.

Or maybe love made all the difference.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Your prince has come.”

Cynthia must have drifted off. She heard the soft words through a vapor of floating sensations…satiation, drowsiness, amazement and, most of all, a new, gently unfurling love, so intense it took her breath away.

She opened her eyes to find her husband braced on one elbow staring down at her. “Boy, did my prince come!” she murmured sleepily.

He tweaked her playfully on the chin. “That’s not what I meant. Your prince has come to take you away from your mundane world to a land of fantasy, where all your dreams come true.”

Fantasy? Dreams? I have no dreams
, she
thought in a panic. But what she said was, “Who says my world’s mundane?”

“Anything will seem mundane after tonight, my princess,” he boasted with silky promise.

“You’re not short on ego are you, Lancelot?”

“Just call me Lance.” He grinned. “Seriously, a knight must be ever confident if he is to go about storming castles.”

“How many castles were you planning on storming?”

“Just one,” he drawled, placing his fingertips against the pulse in her throat and lowering his lips toward hers. Before he sealed the kiss, he said thickly, “I give you fair warning, my lady, it’s going to take a long time.”

“A slow assault?” she managed to get out as she tunneled her fingers through his thick hair, pulling him closer.

“
Very
slow.”

“Woe is me.”

He smiled against her parted mouth. “Woe is we.”

“The spell might fade away any minute,” she reminded him.

“Then you’ll be back to thinking me a toad.”

“You’re a toad, regardless.”

He nipped her bottom lip. “You better like toads, then, because we’re going to take advantage of every minute of this honeymoon while the mood lasts.”

“The slow assault?”

“The
very
slow assault.”

The prince was true to his promise. This time his lovemaking was a prolonged, muted arousal. If their first coming together had resembled the eye of a hurricane, now they were caught in a summer storm…slow building but equally powerful in its force.

“Love Me Tender” wasn’t just a song title; it became her lover’s credo.

Kisses. At first there were only kisses. Endless, drugging kisses that went on and on. Supremely, agonizingly tender. A woman’s dream come true.

Her mouth. “Can you taste how much I want you?” he murmured mid-kiss.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
.

Her ears. “Can you hear me panting for you?”

I thought it was me
.

Her arching throat. “I can feel your heartbeat racing, love. Slow down. Slow down.”

How does one slow a runaway train? Or an out-of-control fantasy?

Her palms and wrists, the insides of her elbows. “So soft! You’re so damned soft.”

Oh, my! Who knew? Who knew?

Her breasts—oh, Lord, her breasts! How he kissed her taut nipples! But only the lightest skimming of warm lips over turgid flesh. And the delicate undersides. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

I…can’t…stand…much…more…of…this
. She wanted him to linger there. She told
him so, “Please,” and gripped his head, trying to hold him in place. To no avail.

“Too soon,
mí corazón
, too soon.” Ignoring her breasts, which swelled and ached unbearably for kneading fingers and deep suckling, he resumed his tantalizing trail of kisses. He had his own map and his own driving agenda.

Her stomach got his attention next. A warm kiss brushing over the sensitive palette, with only the flicker of a tongue inside her navel. Her muscles clenched and unclenched in response. Couldn’t he see that her defenses were falling brick by erogenous brick? Surely it was time to cross the moat.

When he kissed her inner thighs, she parted for him. But he bypassed that intimate invitation. Instead, he traced his lips down one leg, over her toes, then up the other leg, rasping barely coherent words of appreciation the entire time.

Then…oh, then…he nudged her legs wide with his knees and kissed her
there
. He settled his lips over that secret part of her and shifted his kiss from side to side. Once, twice, that’s all. But it was like hot oil poured over crumbling battlements. More fuel on already ignited embers.

To her dismay, the rogue knight retreated and sat back on his heels. He watched her expectantly.

Suddenly, without warning, she came. A fluttery orgasm of progressively more intense
spasms accompanied by involuntary short jerks of her hips.

And still she mewled for more, reaching out her arms for him.

He shook his head with a soft smile and commenced the second phase of his assault. Touching. Wonderfully expert, torturous touching.

“Your hands are magic,” she said.

“No, love, I just bring out the magic in you.”

He explored her face with fingertips so light that the downy hairs on her skin rose to meet them, like sensory magnets. Her eyelids, the outline of her mouth, the fine bones of her cheek and jaw. And all along he whispered low, velvety words of wonder, punctuated by the refrain, “And you are mine.”

When he grazed her collarbone and the vulnerable curve of her neck with the knuckles of one hand, she felt something long buried inside her break free. How could such a nonsexual caress create such erotic havoc? This was sex at its best, and yet it was so much more than mere sex. It was a celebration of all that was good between a man and a woman.

Through a glaze of excitement, she watched her husband…her lover…her prince…as he bent over her. His ebony hair took on gilded shades of brilliance from the many candles Ruth had lit around the room. The tiny gold loop earring glittered in his right ear. Flickering flames created enticing planes of light and shadow on the dark skin of his lean body.

And you are mine
, she thought, mimicking the poignant vow he’d been repeating to her in an endless litany.

When he came to her breasts this time, he stayed. For a long time.

With loving care, he pleasured and worshiped her there. As if sensing her oversensitivity, his hands and mouth, even his teeth, were gentle to the point of agony. No matter if he was pushing her breasts high from underneath, or teasing the mounds with feathery fingertips, or kissing the hard, hard nipples, always his tongue came back to lave the tips with wetness. When he took a nipple into his mouth, deeply, aureole and all, his suckling had a gentle, soul-reaching rhythm.

And the phrases he used to pay homage to her femininity were wickedly outrageous, enough to make a fair maiden blush. Good thing she wasn’t a maiden, she thought irrelevantly at one stage, though the candle glow on her ivory skin did turn her fair…fairer and more beautiful than she’d ever been before.

Not surprisingly, she came again.

And, not surprisingly, he would not come to her.

“It’s too much,” she whimpered, reaching out for him. “Too much.”

“It’s not enough,
querida
,” he said. “Not nearly enough.” All this, despite the fact that his breathing was erratic, his hands trembled with restraint and his erection stood out with rampant need.

Parting her curls with one deft hand, he stroked her slickness, then entered her depths with one, two, three long fingers, pumping her to yet another climax. He had to hold the other hand flat against her breastbone to keep her from bolting up off the bed.

To her frustration, he moved on to her legs, the backs of her knees, her toes, the soles of her feet. She’d never dreamed a lover’s hands could be so hot and tender at the same time. She’d never dreamed there were so many erogenous zones on a woman’s body. She’d never dreamed she could love a man as much as she loved him. She’d never dreamed, period…at least, not for a very long time.

Then, when she thought he would at last join with her, he rolled over onto his back and guided her hands to him, urging her to explore his body in like fashion.

“This power you exert over me…it frightens me,” she confessed.

“Ah, sweetheart, the only power I have is what you give me.”

With hushed words and sighs and gasps, he showed her all the ways she could pleasure and torture him, as well. And, without words, he showed her how her surrendering to his masterful seduction had rendered her the conqueror.

When at last she’d touched and admired and kissed and, yes, even bitten, almost every part of him, she circled his hard, ridged maleness with both hands.

Releasing a roar of capitulation at her unrelenting persuasion, he lifted her by the waist and eased her down onto the steely length and breadth of him.

For an instant, neither of them could breathe, or move, as she pulsed around him.

And then, still imbedded in her, he rolled her over onto her back, braced himself on extended arms and, with neck thrown back in corded torment, he stroked and stroked and stroked her, in and out, flooding her body with a neverending flow of love and rising urgency. Finally, through the blinding light of her own shattering explosion, she heard herself scream and him cry out, hurtling them both into a new place where wild passion and pure love mingled and became one.

It was a slice out of time. One of those special gifts the gods sometimes deign to grant humans. No matter what else happened, she would cherish this miracle forever.

“I love you, Cynthia,” he murmured against her damp neck.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

And somewhere from her memory came an old reminder of her Grandma’s, “What the winds of God bring, the rains of God can wash away.”

Surely God would not be so cruel.

For the first time in many, many years, Cynthia said a little prayer. And added in an undertone, “Take a hike, Grandma.”

She thought she heard a distant voice croon, “Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you…” followed by the tinkle of laughter. She wondered for one insane moment if it was an answer to her prayer, accompanied by Grandma’s mirthful reaction to her advice. But, no, it was probably Elmer playing one of his records in the distant reaches of the castle and Ruth laughing at one of his miserable riddles.

Or was it?

Her husband raised his head to gaze at her with what could only be described as adoration.

God, I can’t believe this gorgeous man is really my husband. I mean, he’s not really my husband in the legal sense, of course, but still the thought makes me humble
.

“What’s that song you’re singing?” he asked drowsily.
Song? He’d heard the song, too?

“Nothing,” she replied with a smile.

Cynthia realized then that she’d never lost her dreams, not totally. She’d just been waiting for her prince to come.

Unfortunately, the honeymoon didn’t last long.

At ten o’clock the next morning, P.T. half-reclined in the sybaritically long and deep antique tub, taking a bubble bath with his new wife, who half-reclined at the opposite end.

He’d picked her up and carried her into the bathroom a short time earlier when it became apparent she was going to play that universal
female morning-after game. Analysis and Second Thoughts.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” she’d moaned.

Yeah, right
.

“It was a mistake.”

Not in my book
.

“Don’t look at me. I’m naked.”

Trust me, babe, I’ve seen all your secrets
.

“Did you seduce me?”

His answer was a grin, which prompted her to punch him in the stomach—his cue to take a break.

The water was deliberately hot to ease muscles aching from a long night of deliciously energetic lovemaking. Now that she’d lost her shyness once again
—thank you, God!—
they were feeding each other strawberries dipped in champagne, which a surprisingly considerate Naomi must have left after the wedding ceremony.

He stretched out his legs, ignoring the creaking of his abused knees, and poked his big toe against one of Cynthia’s sweet spots. She had lots of them, he’d discovered through their endless wedding night. He anticipated the chore of locating more.
Chore? Ah, a man’s work is never done
.

Cynthia arched a brow at him and stretched out one of her own long legs, tweaking him in one of his own sweet spots. His favorite, actually.

Peter perked up.

That was when all hell broke loose.

“The Mafia’s coming! The Mafia’s coming!” Naomi shrieked, running into the bedroom. She stopped dead in her construction worker boots and let out a squeal of embarrassment at viewing them in the tub through the open bathroom door.

“Go away,” he ordered.

A beet-red Cynthia sunk deeper into the bubbles.

Naomi turned her back on them but didn’t budge. “Get out of the tub, P.T., and forget about your damn libido for once.”

“I’m going to kill you, Naomi, I swear I am.”

“You’ll have to stand in line, big boy. The Mafia has first dibs.”

The Mafia?

He and Cynthia exchanged a puzzled frown and rose as one, like two dolphins, sloshing water over the side. Unfortunately, they had only little hand towels with which to dry themselves.

Ever practical, Cynthia stomped proudly into the bedroom, a buck-naked goddess. She trailed a stream of water in her wake right in front of Naomi, whose gasp could be heard all the way into the bathroom.

“You’d better be careful you don’t stain that Oriental carpet,” Naomi griped to her back. “It’s worth—”

He spat out a really foul expletive that shut his stepsister up…for the moment, at least.

Angrily, Cynthia pulled the top sheet off the
rumpled bed, quickly dried herself with it, then stomped back to the bathroom to hand the damp linen to him. He started to suggest that she go back and get a dry pillowcase or two, got one glimpse of her clenched jaw and changed his mind.

Fifteen minutes later he was dressed in the red Elvis suit with black sequins and Cynthia was wearing the purple spandex bimbo dress while Naomi fumbled to unlock their chains. They were finally going to escape the castle, but not in any way he’d ever imagined.