Sandra Hill

by Love Me Tender

  “Listen up, you thick-headed fool!” Ferrama snapped. “I do not want to get married.”

  Boy, did you change your tune, buster. A little afternoon delight and you’re reneging on your marriage proposal already? “Neither do I,” Cynthia concurred. It was the only time she’d ever agreed with the prince. But they had to stand united on this point.

  “You will,” Elmer said enigmatically, staring pointedly at their empty glasses. “You will.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you feel anything yet?”

  “Hell, no. Just these scratchy sheets,” P.T. griped from his side of the mile-wide bed. He knew every irregular warp and woof of the bed linens intimately, having tossed and turned for the past two hours, trying to sleep. He’d probably worn a shine on his shamrocks.

  “Used to satin, are you?”

  Used to satin, are you? he mimicked silently. The woman’s constant jabs were getting just as irritating as the damn sheets. But he knew it wasn’t his creature comforts she referred to. His bed partner—what a joke that was!—was just as worried as he about Elmer’s parting hint, and their verbal sparring had been going on incessantly ever since. “Only the bourgeoisie use satin sheets. I prefer Egyptian Pima cotton, never less than two-hundred-fifty count.”

  Every once in a while P.T. made a halfhearted effort to reinforce his prince persona. Not that he knew diddly about thread counts. He’d overheard Dick talking to Maureen on the subject one day, though, when his secretary had been about to depart for a white sale at Macy’s.

  “Well, you should be thankful we have bed linens at all.”

  “No, Cynthia, you should be thankful. To me.” In return for the sheets, he’d agreed to stop cursing Naomi nonstop—an activity he’d engaged in for over an hour, at the top of his lungs. That had been after Elmer’s ominous insinuation. By the time his stepsister had relented, he’d been almost hoarse from trying to make himself heard over the bellowing dogs down in the courtyard who, no doubt, thought he was harmonizing with them. Besides that, he’d run out of creative swear words.

  Naomi had brought the sheets around midnight. He had to admit she didn’t look half bad, when awakened from her beauty sleep—hair rumpled, wearing a bed shirt that read I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME RIVET—even despite her perpetual scowl and pistol.

  She’d also deposited some alarming news. “You can quit your bellyaching for the rest of the weekend. The only one hearing you will be the dogs,” she’d informed him as she made a great show of putting on a pair of industrial strength ear protectors—the kind highway riveters used to block out sounds.

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll start breaking a certain Elvis record collection…one vinyl at a time. Betcha Elmer rock ’n’ rolls himself up here so fast his blue suede boots leave skid marks on your parquet floors.” Gee, why hadn’t he thought of that threat earlier? Maybe he would be on his way back to Manhattan by now.

  Naomi had just smirked at him as she sashayed out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Elmer and Ruth decided to shuffle off to Buffalo…ah, Poughkeepsie. They won’t be back till Sunday night. He left a message for you, though. The wedding will be on Monday at five…God, the saints, and two hardheaded fools be willing. I assume the hardheaded fools would be you and El Sharko.” He’d heard her chuckling from down the dark hallway before she’d added, “Oh, and another thing. Elmer said to make sure and tell you, ‘Listen to the magic.’”

  “Yeah, well, if this is magic, it’s bo-o-o-ring.”

  “Thank you,” Cynthia said from the other side of the bed, jarring him back to the present. Her voice was soft with apology, and he recalled that he’d told her she should be thankful to him for getting the bed linens. But then she spoiled the effect by adding, “It’s great that you got the sheets for us, but I still think you should sleep on the floor.”

  It was about the tenth time she’d made the suggestion. He knew why she harped on the subject. “Are you afraid to sleep in the same bed with me, princess? Afraid of what you might do…in the heat of the night?”

  “Ha, ha, ha. As if! I don’t feel a thing for you…certainly not heat. Elmer must have been playing a joke on us. Ha, ha, ha.”

  Yep, she was afraid. Hell, he was afraid, too. And a tad curious. Okay, a lot curious. “I don’t feel anything for you, either,” he lied.

  P.T. wasn’t sure whether he could sleep side by side with Cynthia, all night long, without touching her, or other things. And what if he had to do it for seventeen more nights? Carramba! He was only human, after all. Even a prince had his limits.

  And where was his lofty plan for detachment? He should be aloof. Uninterested.

  “Why don’t you sleep on the floor? Wall Street traders are known for their tough hides; it shouldn’t be uncomfortable for you. Besides, I grew up with a valet sleeping on a pallet at the foot of my bed. I’m entitled to the bed.”

  “Valet, huh? I bet your right eyebrow is twitching.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Every time you fib, your right eyebrow twitches.”

  “It does not,” he asserted and put a hand up, just to check.

  She laughed, turning toward him slightly. He could just see the smile on her face by the light of the full moon filtering through the window into the darkened room. More clear were the ten glow-in-the-dark fingernails resting on top of the sheet, but he couldn’t think about that or he really would go nuts. “The twitch only happens in the midst of a lie, silly. Tell me another lie. You’ll see.”

  “Hmpfh! I can’t think of any lies.” She thinks I’m silly. Geesh! I told Dick I was burned out in the charm department. I’m pretty sure silly is not a good thing for a prince. And silly definitely doesn’t cut ice in business negotiations.

  “Say…oh, tell me I’m the most beautiful woman you’ve ever met,” she suggested.

  “Cynthia, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” he said in a deliberately low, raspy voice. Under his fingertips, his eyebrow didn’t move even a fraction. “No twitch,” he reported.

  “Well, maybe you’re just a selective twitcher,” she declared huffily, “because, believe me, I saw twitches before. Plenty of them.”

  “I can make myself twitch…in other places,” he boasted. “On command.” Peter perked up with interest, twitched, then snuggled down again when it became apparent he wouldn’t be called to duty.

  “Me, too,” she said on a wide yawn.

  Peter was definitely interested now. “Me, too? What does that mean? Me, too?” Surely she didn’t mean what he thought she did. The possibilities of all that mutual twitching could be…well, interesting.

  “It means you’ve been checkmated, Ferrama. Go to sleep.”

  An hour later, Cynthia awakened from a sound sleep and jackknifed to a sitting position. To her right, still on the far side of the bed, Ferrama did the same thing.

  “Touch me again and you’re dead meat, mister.”

  “I didn’t touch you,” the prince said with affront. “You touched me.”

  They looked at each other and the wide expanse of mattress between them. “Elmer!” they both concluded at the same time.

  “Am I still…uh, touching you?” he asked tentatively, exploring his lips with the fingertips of one hand.

  She thought for a second, then groaned. “Yes, you’re kissing me. Stop it.”

  “How?”

  “Hmpfh! Isn’t that just like a man! In the midst of a crisis, he asks how good he is.”

  He chuckled. “I meant, how do I stop?”

  “Oh.”

  There was a short silence. “Am I a good kisser?”

  “Superb. Darn it!” She let out a sigh. “Where’d you learn to do that little fluttery thing with your tongue?”

  “Gene Simmons.”

  “The musician?”

  “Yes. I met him years ago in Cannes at the film festival. You’d be surprised at what you can learn over a case of French wine. Did you know that Princess Caroline once…well, ne
ver mind.”

  She closed her eyes and arched her neck, attempting to understand the incredible pleasures stemming from her lips, where a hungry male mouth was pressed…but not really. A telepathic kiss? “Are you thinking about kissing me, and that’s why I can feel it?”

  “I’m thinking about a hell of a lot more than kissing,” he choked out. “Especially with your hand clamped around my…oh, ooh, oooh!” He ground out the last word painfully.

  “This is horrible,” she cried out with mortification, trying very hard not to think about what she was not really doing.

  “No, Cynthia, it is definitely not horrible,” he informed her in a suffocated whisper. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get back to the office is call my broker.”

  “Why?” How could he think of business at a time like this? If she was doing what she suspected, her actions went way beyond sexual harassment. “Are you going to report me to the SEC?”

  “Hell no. I want to buy stock in the company that makes that glow-in-the-dark nail polish.”

  An inordinate pleasure gushed through Cynthia at his half-baked compliment.

  After an extended period—about a minute—during which the only sounds in the room were those of their soft breathing, she asked, “Are you by any chance twitching?” She wasn’t referring to his eyebrow.

  “To beat the band.” He paused. “And you?”

  “A little,” she admitted. A lot.

  He released a long male growl of erotic agony and fell back on the bed, arms thrown over his head. Panting, he writhed from side to side.

  “What…what am I doing now?”

  “You…you don’t want to know,” he ground out, rolling over onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow.

  Yes, I do.

  His body was ramrod stiff, except for an occasional involuntary flexing of his hips. She could even hear the grinding of his teeth as he fought whatever it was she was doing to him. She felt guilty about causing him so much anguish, even though it wasn’t her fault. Not really. “Can…can I help?”

  At first she thought he hadn’t heard her. But finally he raised his head and stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his lips.

  “I thought you’d never ask, princess.”

  “Ouch!”

  Cynthia had been shimmying across the mattress so quickly, she probably had brush burns on her behind. Midway she’d run into the prince, who’d been equally enthusiastic in his rush toward her. In all the excitement…and there was a lot of it…her bruised toes had hit his shin. Even in the semidarkness, she saw bright stars.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, reaching for her. “Am I inside you already? Was I thrusting too hard? I’m not usually so lacking in savoir faire.”

  Savoir faire? Thrusting? How does a man thrust with savoir faire? She put up a halting hand to stop his embrace and squeaked out, “No! Stop!”

  Ferrama flinched at the untimeliness of her change of heart, but he didn’t push her. Instead, he dropped his extended arms and waited for an explanation.

  Cynthia tried to understand her abrupt reversal. It was the words, savoir faire. Never in her life had she heard a man talk about making love with savoir faire. But this guy was a prince. How could she have forgotten that vital fact? Plus, he was her adversary in what could be the most important business deal of her life. And he was probably an accomplice in her kidnapping, too. Was she really prepared to make the mistake of her life for a fleeting moment of pleasure?

  Maybe.

  Ferrama tilted his head inquiringly a bare few inches from her. Although he respected her command not to touch her physically, mentally he was skimming his fingertips over her with loving concern…the line of her jaw, her parted lips, the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

  She groaned.

  “Ah, querida, perhaps if you tell me what I’m doing, I can match it with real actions and slow down the pace.” He was already pulling off his shorts, probably thinking to ease himself between her widespread legs and into her—Holy cow! When did I spread my legs?—without any foreplay. Hah! Any more foreplay and I’ll set the sheets on fire. With frenzied haste, he managed to push his boxers off his legs and down the chain.

  “You’re not inside me, you dolt.” She gasped then as she got her first in-the-flesh gander at Peter. And it wasn’t Peter, the prince, she was gaping at. It was Peter, the penis. Lordy, Lordy! He does have a rather impressive…uh, royal scepter. No Peter Cottontail here.

  “I’m not?”

  “Not what?”

  “I’m not inside you?” Disappointment showed clearly in his voice and on his frowning face. He rested his head on his hand and stared at her, still not understanding. “But you cried out in pain.”

  “My broken toes hit your shin.” But it wasn’t his shin where Cynthia’s traitorous eyes kept wandering. Lordy, Lordy!

  “I’m sorry. I really am clumsy tonight. Shall I rub it for you?”

  “Rub what?”

  He regarded her with amusement, sensing the wayward direction of her imagination and her gaze. “Your injured foot.”

  Oh. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she started to say, but already he was there mentally, his wet tongue licking at the appendages, then taking them one at a time into the heat of his mouth. Closing her eyes, she saw stars again, but not from pain.

  “Can I touch you now, Cynthia?” he asked hoarsely. “Really touch you?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  He made a low growling sound of frustration, which was almost her undoing.

  “Business and pleasure should never mix.” Who was the moron who came up with that warped philosophy?

  “Is that another Irish proverb?” he grumbled.

  “No, it’s the maxim of my life.” Moron extraordinaire. She rotated her head on the pillow to give him mental access to her neck. The guy did sneak from one body part to another with incredible finesse.

  “Maldito, I hope I’m having as much fun as you appear to be.” He was watching her react to his invisible caresses.

  She forced her heavy eyelids open. “Help me here, Ferrama. If we do this, we’ll never be able to face each other in court.”

  “Court?” he said stupidly as if it was the first time she’d threatened him with a lawsuit. Or had he thought she’d dropped that notion in the heat of passion?

  “Yes, court. Did you think I’d lose my brain as well as my inhibitions when you slipped a drug in my drink?”

  “Me?” he inquired icily as he sat up and jerked his underwear back on. “You think I would use drugs to seduce you?”

  “If the shoe fits.” She shrugged, moving back to her own side of the bed.

  He slid his body to his side of the bed, as well.

  A long, angry silence ensued. Then, just before he turned on his side, facing away from her, he spoke in a tired voice. “If it was my intention to seduce you with drugs, why do I feel as if I’m the one who’s been seduced?”

  Elmer had, indeed, put a spell on them.

  P.T. recognized that unbelievable fact, even if Cynthia didn’t, when a half hour later the mental foreplay started all over again. A time-release spell? Even though Cynthia lay fuming on the other side of the bed, her wet tongue was in his ear. Despite his fury at the woman’s insult, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

  Whether it was a drug in their lemonade or fairy dust in the air or just plain woo-woo magic…the end result was the same. It was as if computer chips had been implanted in both their libidos and were being orchestrated by remote control…from heaven or from Poughkeepsie, he wasn’t sure which.

  “How you can possibly find anything humorous in this situation is beyond me,” she chided, making a slapping motion in the vicinity of her breasts. He didn’t think it was a pesky fly she was whisking away.

  “You gotta laugh when you think about it. There you are, glowering at me like I’m the prince of frogs. And the whole time you’re lapping me up with ear sex.”

&nbs
p; “Ear sex?”

  “Yep. Tongue and groove tango. Are you sure you haven’t met Gene Simmons, too? Oh, man! That wet-and-blow routine is a masterpiece.” He paused to let his words sink in, then added, “Can you do it again?”

  “You’re making that up. I’ve never done anything like that in my…remove that finger immediately!”

  He glanced over at her, then did a double take. “What are you doing…I mean, what am I doing to you…” Although she flashed him a glower of disgust, she couldn’t seem to control the undulating of her elevated hips. He had a pretty good idea where his finger was now; Peter did, too.

  After that, things got out of hand. Again. Within minutes, their passions were stimulated into a frenzy and they were moving toward each other with warp speed. Totally out of control, they practically babbled with incoherent moans.

  At the last possible moment, P.T. pulled back with horror. It was if he was having an out-of-body experience in which he could view their bodies from above. The picture was unbelievable, wildly erotic and beautiful. But not the way he wanted their first sexual encounter to be. “Call me crazy, but I can’t do this,” he choked out, drawing on reserves of chivalry he never knew he had.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  He gritted his teeth and prayed to Saint Lancelot for strength. At least he hoped Lancelot was a saint. “When we make love, Cynthia, I want it to be because we both want it. Not because Elmer or Naomi or whoever is calling the shots.”

  “It’s because you don’t really want me,” she accused.

  This was P.T.’s chance to show detachment at its ultimate best. A few shock treatments of princely disdain, followed by a dollop of charm, and he’d be able to pull the shark in like a minnow. His personal and business life could be back on track.

  It was the hardest thing P.T. had ever done when he said with cool aplomb, “You’re probably right.”

  Cynthia’s little gasp was a slice to his heart.

  Peter was probably crying.

  P.T. felt like crying himself. Lancelot notwithstanding, chivalry wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.