Sandra Hill

by Love Me Tender

  “Do you believe in magic?”

  “What?” she squeaked. Oh, God! Now the jerk is reading my mind, too. And, no, I do not believe in magic. No, no, no!

  He tilted his head in confusion, and she realized that the words had come from Elmer’s tape player sitting on the stand by the door. It had been the Lovin’ Spoonfuls on one of those rock ‘n’ roll classics records, not Ferrama, who had asked the disturbing question, “Do you believe in magic?”

  Whew! For a minute there I was beginning to believe in all this fairy-tale nonsense Elmer spouts.

  Meanwhile, the prince continued to stare at her. How long had he been watching her like this? In her sleep, for heaven’s sake! And why?

  “What are you doing?” she demanded indignantly.

  “Watching you snore.”

  “I do not snore.”

  “Oh, yes you do,” he said with a strange rasp in his voice.

  His wonderfully expressive eyes swept her body but kept coming back to her chest area, as if he couldn’t help himself. Once, he ran the tip of his tongue over his mouth, wetting his lips.

  She glanced down and could have died of mortification. Because her arms were still thrown over her head from stretching, her breasts were uplifted, her nipples clearly visible. Cynthia hated her breasts. Unlike the chic unisex models with flat chests and barely discernible nipples that most businesswomen emulated, Cynthia had full breasts and large nipples. Sometimes she even covered the tips with Band-Aids and wore de-enhancing bras. It wasn’t that she wanted to deny her femininity; she just didn’t want to share it with strangers.

  And the “stranger” in her bed was gaping at her feminine assets like an overeager teenager. Correction: He was probably repulsed. In his jet-set circle, real breasts with real nipples would be unfashionably common…maybe even vulgar.

  She sat up and folded her arms over her chest. Which only caused his eyes to shift to the long expanse of her bare legs.

  His Adam’s apple moved once, twice, three times, and he licked his lips again.

  She felt each sweep right down to her toes. Her oversensitive nipples were probably the size of grapes by now. Much more of this visual torture and she’d be licking his lips for him. Or one of those damn shamrocks. There were twenty-seven of them, she could attest, to her chagrin. That was one of the reasons she’d decided to take a nap. Compulsive shamrock counting had been taking its toll. Unchecked, she might have given in to the temptation to tally up the family crests, too. Or the family jewels.

  “Stop that. Stop it right now,” she insisted.

  “Stop what?” He blinked those ridiculously long lashes at her in puzzlement.

  “Ogling me.” Now that sounded dumb, even to her. But, really, was he doing it on purpose? Trying to turn her on, that is. What a ridiculous notion! As if any man would be stupid enough, or egotistical enough, to think that merely staring at a woman would make her hot and bothered. On the other hand…

  “Oh.” He turned his attention to the bedpost on her right. She thought she heard him mutter, “Peter made me do it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” he said to the bedpost. “You must not be offended by my staring at you, Cynthia. It means nothing.”

  Nothing? Looking at me means nothing? See. I was right.

  “After all, I’m in the fashion industry. I often find myself examining the female form with thoughts of how to provide better products. Fat women, thin women, short, tall, buxom, boyish. I study them all the time—in airports, along city streets, while dining in restaurants. I make mental notes to discuss with Jake at a later time. It’s the bane of my profession, I suppose.” He was still talking to the bedpost.

  Buxom? Why did he throw that word in there?

  “It’s a purely clinical observation, you see.” His lips twitched, as if he was fighting a grin or, more likely, a sneer of revulsion.

  Yeah, I see all right. I do repulse him. She sat up straighter and wrapped her arms around her upraised knees. “You can stop speaking to the bedpost. I’m decent now.”

  He looked at her and released a disbelieving snort. “Hardly.”

  She bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that our lack of attire is indecent. I spoke to Naomi about it a short time ago. I think she might relent and give us some clothing.”

  No more shamrock counting. “Thank goodness!” she said. Darn it!

  “It’s really so bourgeois of Naomi to put us in this unseemly situation,” he elaborated, pursing his lips prissily.

  She supposed princes did that a lot…pursed their lips prissily…in dealing with the less regal folk. He wasn’t nearly as blood-boilingly attractive when he pursed his lips prissily. A definite hormone douser. She considered for an insane second asking him to do it more often.

  “I mean, it’s bad enough to be confined against one’s will with a person of the opposite sex not of one’s choosing. But it is tacky beyond belief to have no apparel. Or bed linens. Do you think this mattress cover is synthetic?” He was picking at the pill balls on the striped mattress, his nostrils flaring with distaste.

  Oh, this is good. This is really good. Lip pursing and nostril flaring. Pretty soon I won’t be attracted to the royal pain-in-the-ass at all.

  But then he glanced up at her and licked his lips again.

  Well, maybe not pretty soon.

  “So, when you were talking to Naomi, did you knock some sense into her thick head?”

  “Hah! I couldn’t get that close.”

  “Well, you’ve got to do something. I can’t stay here for another eighteen days. I just can’t,” she said.

  “Neither can I. We’ve already started the road shows to the brokerage firms participating in our stock offering. Dick can handle one or two of them, but if I don’t show up soon, alarm bells are going to go off.”

  “I’m sure your sleezeball lawyer will come up with something. Besides, by the time a company files with the SEC, most of the groundwork is already done; so lighten up. Your biggest problem is not your stock offering, sweetheart. Your biggest problem is me…and my potential lawsuit.”

  “So I should sit around and do nothing?” he sniped.

  “Hell, no! I’m the one who’s got to get out of here. Even though I can’t be on the trading floor till my foot heals, I have to keep in daily contact with my clients. In this business, a broker is only as valuable as his “book,” his big accounts. At the first whiff that I’m out of touch, every trader worth his dialing finger will be hot on my accounts.”

  “Even ones in your own firm?”

  “Especially ones in my firm.” Cynthia didn’t like the look of sympathy in Ferrama’s eyes and quickly added, “Hey, the world’s a rat race everywhere these days. Stab in the back, or be stabbed in the back. I don’t imagine that it’s any different in your line of work.”

  He seemed to consider her words before speaking. “You’re probably right. Fashion is certainly competitive, and a company is only as attractive as its most recent profit-and-loss statement or last year’s fashion coup. Still, we’ve been protected somewhat by being a family enterprise.”

  “That will all change in a few weeks.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then make Naomi release us, dammit.”

  “You still think I’m in on this deal, don’t you?” As an afterthought, he added, “Dammit.”

  “Whatever!” She waved a hand with unconcern. “Somehow you…I…hell, both of us…have got to convince Naomi that it’s in her best interests to cut her losses right now. And don’t give me that bull about signing my rights away as a means to that end. It won’t happen.”

  “It wouldn’t work anyway,” he said, raking the fingers of both hands through his hair in frustration.

  He had really nice hair, Cynthia noticed. Thick and jet black. And sexy…especially when he combed it back off his face and behind his ears, highlighting the one gold loop earring and the strong neck and…geez, I’m pat
hetic.

  “Why wouldn’t it work?” she asked, forcing herself to concentrate on the problem at hand…not the hunk at hand.

  “Naomi doesn’t trust either of us. She thinks you would sign anything, then later renege.”

  “She’s right.”

  “And she thinks I’d help you escape, even if it meant jeopardizing the company’s future.”

  “Is she nuts?”

  He shrugged.

  “So what do we do? Sit here and watch Elvis videos and Cinderella cartoons while our professional futures get flushed down the Hudson?” She cast him a sweeping glare of disgust at his inability to save the day. She hoped he felt really bad about it. Some knight in shining armor this prince was turning out to be.

  “I wasn’t going to mention this, but there is one possibility…no, forget I even brought it up.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “No. You’d never agree.”

  “Try me.”

  That response brought a twitch, then a full-blown grin to his lips, which he quickly stifled. “Well, if you insist,” he said with a deep sigh of resignation. “But remember, I didn’t really want to make the suggestion.”

  “Aaargh!” she shrieked. “Suggest away.”

  He winced at the shrillness of her voice, gave her one of his overburdened princely looks of condescension, then licked his lips one last time. Holding her gaze, he said the last thing in the world she’d ever expected.

  “Will you marry me?”

  Chapter Nine

  “Marry you? Marry you?” Cynthia launched herself forward like a rocket, propelled by sheer outrage, and knocked the prince backward on his royal patoot.

  Somehow the creep must have discovered her old fantasy of a gallant prince galloping down Lake Shore Drive to rescue her from a life of abject loneliness and poverty. And his proposal was an attempt to use those long-dead dreams against her. The blue-blooded baboon!

  Even worse, her not-so-chivalrous knight was laughing his royal ass off as he attempted to thwart her pummeling fists. “Can I take that as a no?” he chortled.

  “You can take that as never, you egomaniac,” she ground out as she aimed a punch for his smiling mouth.

  He jerked his head at the last moment, and her fist landed on the mattress beside his head. But she was not above using her teeth or a well-placed knee. Every time his fingers immobilized one of her hands, she whacked him with the other.

  “Maldito! Give it up, chica. It was just a proposal.”

  “Just a proposal! How many of those suckers have you tossed out to gullible women across the world? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?”

  He tilted his head at the vehemence of her words. “None,” he said softly.

  “None?” At first, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. Then she realized it was probably all part of some plot. Seduce the Wall Street pest, make her think she’s special, toss in a phony marriage proposal, then, when she least expects it, snare her into signing away her legal rights. As if!

  With a growl, she resumed her assault. She must resemble a madwoman…a shark on the attack. But she didn’t care. No one, no one, made fun of her. Not the hoity-toity girls at St. Bridget’s Academy, where Grandma had finagled her a scholarship. Not the Harvard boys who mistook her voluptuous form and gritty Chicago language for an easy lay. Not the Andrew Dice Clays in Brooks Brothers suits on the exchange floor. Not the Prince of Fools who thought he could bamboozle her with a marriage proposal.

  Finally, Ferrama stopped fighting off her siege and went still, glancing downward with horror. He’d just noticed the blood welling from a thin red welt one of her glow-in-the-dark pink fingernails had made across his chest. Oh, geez! Did I really do that? I’m a maniac. The man has turned me into a maniac. Ferrama’s complexion was turning kind of green. Her brave knight apparently had a thing about blood. Some knight!

  His laughing eyes grew stormy then, as he regarded her with consternation. Quick as lightning, he wrapped his arms around her squirming body, which was plastered all over the top of him, and rolled over swiftly. Before Cynthia had a chance to blink, she found herself flat on her back, with the prince plastered all over the top of her.

  I will not allow myself to consider what a great plasterer he is.

  He twined his fingers with hers and pressed them firmly against the mattress, high above her head.

  I will not allow myself to consider how his chest hairs feel against my breasts.

  Then he locked his legs around hers, further arresting her movements.

  I absolutely, positively will not allow myself to consider how his bare legs feel against my bare legs.

  “If you wanted to ravish me, princess,” he said silkily, “all you had to do was ask.”

  Her only response was a low hissing sound.

  He closed his eyes, sighed, then opened them again, impaling her with a glare. “All these sounds you make are enough to drive a sane man mad. Growls, snores, hisses. Are you deliberately trying to turn me on? Consider this fair warning, sweetheart, you’d better not purr or I won’t be responsible for my actions. Chivalry goes only so far.”

  “What?” she shrieked. There he went again, making fun of her. As if growls and snores and hisses were feminine attributes to be desired! And she’d never purred in her life. And never would. Not ever. Really. “Remember one thing,” she raged. “Often the hound that was made fun of killed the deer.”

  The expression on his face changed as he stared at her, suddenly somber. With a raspy Spanish curse, he rearranged his hold on her by clasping both of her wrists in one hand, still pressed to the bed above her head. Then he moved his other hand to cup her chin, tipping her face up for better study.

  “You’re weeping,” he accused, as if she was engaged in some unpardonable act, like cheating at cards.

  “No, I’m not,” she denied, even as she felt a fat tear slip out of her brimming eyes and begin a slow slide down her cheek. Cynthia never cried, but all the events of the past few days must be affecting her nerves. She never had been able to take teasing well, fearing someone would discover how very vulnerable she was inside. Because she’d perfected a hardened veneer, few people ever suspected her deep-seated insecurities. This was the last straw, though. Having a real prince make a fake proposal to her, and then laugh…well, a woman could take only so much.

  At least, that was what Cynthia told herself.

  Using a thumb to wipe away the tear, Ferrama did an unforgivable thing. He licked the tear off his thumb with an idle flick of the tongue.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t,” he beseeched at the same time.

  “Don’t what?” she asked. Her brain felt fuzzy and disoriented at his nearness. And he was moving closer. Good thing her arms and legs were restrained! Who knew what she would do?

  “Cry,” he said tenderly.

  She felt his breath against her mouth and barely stifled a sob. Instead, a tiny hiccough escaped.

  He groaned.

  She felt the pleasure of that sound all the way to her toes and out to every goosebump on her body. Who knew goosebumps were erotic zones?

  “Those sounds you make are driving me up the wall,” he confessed with a low masculine grumble.

  His grumble was pretty sexy, too, she thought. Geesh, maybe they were both under the influence of Elmer’s fairy dust.

  He used a forefinger with infinite gentleness to wipe another tear from her face.

  Why the hell am I crying?

  “Do you always weep when men ask you to marry them?” he inquired.

  “No one’s ever asked before,” she admitted before she had a chance to bite her tongue.

  “Really?” He smiled widely at that news, though why she couldn’t imagine. “Well, no one’s ever asked me, either. Do you see me crying over it?”

  “You’re laughing at me again, aren’t you?”

  “If I don’t laugh, I’ll be doing something else.”

  “Like?” Normally Cynthia wo
uldn’t have asked such an open-ended question, but this man was having the most astonishing effect on her. Every brain cell in her head seemed to be engaged in meltdown. Her heart was racing madly. And she really, really wanted to kiss those full, sensual lips that were hovering only a tantalizingly few inches from hers.

  “Kissing.” His breath was warm against her mouth as he moved an inch closer.

  Huh? Is he reading my mind? Is he feeling sorry for me because I let a measly tear or two slip out? Is he still trying to seduce me into a settlement?

  Who cares?

  I care. This is taboo territory. If I let the prince kiss me, next I’ll let him do…well, other things. Then I’ll be lost, lost, lost.

  “No!”

  He raised his somnolent eyes in question at her fierce protest. “It would be just a kiss,” he coaxed. “A way to pass the time.”

  “Just a kiss!” she scoffed. “And what would that be pressing between my legs?” That’s it, Cynthia, go for crude. Turn him off with your bluntness.

  “Oh.” He glanced downward sheepishly. “That’s Peter. Don’t mind him. He has a mind of his own.”

  “You named your…your…?” she choked out. “Oh, good grief! As in Peter and the Twins?”

  But he never answered her. He was too busy brushing his lips across hers, real slow, as if he was savoring every infinitesimal millimeter of the journey. “You have the most delectable, erotic, hot-as-sin mouth in the world,” he murmured against her parted lips, midway through his trek.

  May the trek last forever! she thought with mind-melting pleasure.

  “I’ll try my best,” he promised huskily.

  Oh, damn, did I speak aloud? “Release my hands,” she begged.

  “Why?”

  “So I can hold on.”

  “To what?”

  “You.”

  He raised his head to look at her. His lips were slack with arousal, and he hadn’t even given her a real kiss yet.

  “Because…because when you get around to really kissing me, not just these little sissy brush strokes…well, I figure I’m going to need to hold on for dear life.”