by Tamara Gill
“Relax, Lucy Gordon...” He’d placed his strong hands on either side of her neck, rubbing, kneading, drowning her in languorous heat. “I promise this will not hurt.”
Eyes closed, she’d have liked to have pointed out just how wrong about that he was.
Granted, his masterful strokes were sheer bliss, flooding her stress-wracked body with pinpricks of well-being, but as for them not hurting, he couldn’t have been more wrong. They hurt from the standpoint of her relationship with William and the fact that, if she loved him like she claimed, she wouldn’t have wanted another man’s hands on her body. Even worse, they hurt because here the prince was, for the second time that day, doing something solely for her pleasure, when she knew full well she had no intention of helping him keep his human form.
“Thank you,” she rested her hands on his, “but that’s enough.” Slipping out from between his legs, she added, “My neck feels much better.”
On her feet, she turned to the kitchen, needing a moment alone, but the prince caught her arm, drawing her back. “Where are you off to? I thought we were watching a movie.”
“Sure.” She fought a swell of irrational tears. “I, um, just need something to drink.”
“Could you fetch me an ale—please?”
Please? The high and mighty highness had actually said please?
“Sure...” she mumbled.
Just as soon as I recover from pleasant shock!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Whipping eggs the next morning, listening to music called opp-era on the kitchen music machine, his cooking tools spread before him on the hard tile counter, Wolfe decided that with the exception of the stubborn wench he currently resided with, maybe he liked this time very much indeed. In his time, kitchen toil had not been a suitable amusement for a man of his stature.
Most of his days had been spent training for battle, or tending to the many duties involved with running the castle. Little had he known kitchen work could be almost as satisfying as leading his people.
Soon enough, he would reclaim both his riches and throne. The moment Lucy Gordon declared her eternal love, he would be saved from the witch’s curse. Freeing him for the first time in over a thousand years to pursue a life of his own choosing.
He poured the eggs into a pan already simmering with butter, shortly after adding chopped ham, peppers, onion and cheese, still amazed by the apparent bounty of such ingredients. He very much wanted to go to the market where Lucy Gordon purchased his daily list of supplies, but she steadfastly refused on the grounds that he might be hurt or lost. In his time, lesser men would have her gutted for even suggesting such a thing. Yet he stayed cloistered in her home.
Why?
Was he frightened by the prospect of the greater world beyond? Of the ferocious mechanical growls of moving vehicles and flying machines? Of no longer understanding the politics and people?
Angered yet again at the circumstances that had led him to this point of such cowardice, he brought his knife down hard on the melon he planned to serve with breakfast, only to slice cleanly into his thumb.
While the sight of his own blood was not new, in this setting, not knowing where to find proper herbs or healing poultices or even wrappings, he went in search of his wench—home because she said it was Sat-ur-day. She did not toil outside of the home on this day or the next.
“Lucy Gordon!” Having wrapped his offended appendage in a blue-flowered kitchen cloth after turning off the stove, he mounted the stairs. “I have need of your assistance.”
Her bedroom door was closed and, as she had taught him all too many times with her wicked tongue, he knocked before entering. When she failed to acknowledge his presence, he tried the knob, only to find it locked.
Using his shoulder as a battering ram, he easily enough found passage through, only to be faced with yet another obstacle in the form of her closed bathroom door. It had been days since he had been in her quarters; her unmade bed was strewn with papers and clothes littered her floor.
“Lucy Gordon?” Before letting himself into the steam-filled chamber, he landed a brief rap of his knuckles against the bathroom door.
“Wolfe!” She had evidently just stepped from the rain cabinet as around her breasts strained two halves of a drying cloth that did not quite reach. For the first time since the night of making her acquaintance, he caught a glimpse of the red thatch between her shapely legs. Beneath his denim breeches, his manhood sprung to life. “Thought I told you to knock?”
“I did, but when you did not answer, I feared for your safety and let myself in.”
“I see that.” Sodden red ringlets streamed sex-ee rivers down her chest and arms.
Sex-ee—he had learned that word on a program called, Baywatch Bali—The Next Wave.
“You look fetching,” he said with a wink.
“And you look—Wolfe! Oh my God,” she rushed toward him, “you’re bleeding.”
“Yes.” The blood had seeped through the kitchen cloth. “I wonder if you might direct me to your healing herbs. Are they in the garden, or have you an assortment in your bathroom such as the men and women portrayed on the tee-vee?”
“Herbs?” Lucy asked. She unwrapped his dishtowel and felt hot and woozy just looking at his thumb. “Okay, um, you might need stitches. Um...” Hands trembling, she reached into the linen cabinet for a white hand towel, trading it for his bloodied one. “Hold that tight. Do you know about applying direct pressure?”
“If you mean pressing the halves of the wound, yes.”
“Okay, wow, um, I’m going to need to get dressed and you’ll need a shirt, and—”
“Lucy Gordon, why are you so distressed?”
“Look at you,” she screeched, clutching the two halves of her towel on her way to her closet. “You could be bleeding to death. Maybe I should call an ambulance?”
Am-bu-lance. He had seen one of those flashing conveyances on a program called Hospital Heat. The wenches in white showed more teat than the women of Baywatch, making an ambulance ride seem on the surface an attractive proposition. But then he recalled the not-so-pleasant ministrations they performed on the sick and wounded left in their care. Having his innards manipulated by a woman was not his idea of a good time!
Planting his healthy hand on her shoulder he said, “While I am touched by your apparent worry for my well-being, you must calm yourself. You have oft seen my battle scars. Do you think a mere cut thumb will bring me to my knees?” He laughed. “If nothing else, I will slice it clean off, then stop the seepage with a hot coal.”
The thought of such barbaric medical care turned Lucy’s legs to Jell-O. “You’re going to a doctor.”
“Look,” he unwrapped his wound, “it has already stopped bleeding.”
Sure enough, it had, shimmering relief through her. Dropping to the edge of her bed, she dared exhale. “Whew. I’m not sure how I’d have explained you at the hospital. You’re not even registered with the National Health Service and—”
“If I did not know better, Lucy Gordon,” he sat beside her, nudging her with his shoulder, “I would dare say you actually care what becomes of me.”
“Of course, I do.”
“Then why such reluctance to declare your eternal love?”
“You say that as if love is something I can just slip into, like a robe or sweater. We hardly know each other, Wolfe. If you think about it, aside from the fact that we temporarily live together, we might as well be strangers.”
“Strangers who do this...” He lowered his lips to hers, parting them with a crazy-sweet pressure that all at the same time managed to be urgent, yet soft. It seemed like years since they’d last kissed. Had it really only been days during which she’d focused on her students and writing her paper?
Moist heat purred between her legs, contrasting with the room’s cool air, reminding her how little she had on and how easy it would be to give in to temptation.
“I must apologize,” the prince backed away. “Twas not my intent to ravish you,
simply to inquire as to the location of your medicinal herbs.”
“Sure.” Lucy lightly shook her head to clear the sex-charged fog. Dear Lord, what the man did to her body with one simple kiss! “It was no big deal.”
So not a big deal that her heart still hadn’t stopped hammering!
To heck with his thumb, she needed CPR!
After directing him to a bathroom drawer where she kept a hodgepodge of first aid supplies, she cleaned his cut with peroxide, then squeezed on salve, topping it with a large bandage.
Eyes wide, he said, “In my time, we had no such techniques. Merely herb poultices and rags. Thank you, Lucy Gordon.”
“You’re welcome.” The heat of his stare did funny things low in her belly. Was he once again going to kiss her? The mere thought raced her pulse, leaving her a little breathless and dizzy.
Kiss me! Kiss me!
“You get dressed,” he said, crushing her ego. “Then we shall eat.”
“Sure.” Wiping her sweating palms on her towel, Lucy tried acting as if kissing him had been the last thing on her mind. “You already made breakfast?”
His handsome smile stole the last of her breath. “I am but a lowly prince, while you are a princess. You know what everyone says about them, do you not?”
“No? What?”
“While princes spend their days hard at toil, princesses spend their days lolling about on their beds, greedily consuming sweetmeats and counting gold.”
“Guilty on that first count.” She didn’t even try hiding her sheepish grin at having been caught sleeping late. “But as you can plainly see, I have no sweetmeats or gold.”
He tweaked her nose. “Two tragedies we must change.”
***
A short while later, Lucy Gordon held a strawberry to her plump lips, sucking with such enraptured pleasure that Wolfe reached beneath the wholly inadequate dining room table to adjust his blue denim breeches.
What had the woman done to him?
In choosing her to woo, had he not encountered a woman but another sorceress? For surely she must have placed him under her spell for him to constantly be fighting an engorged manhood?
“These are sooo sweet,” she said, eyes half closed. “Did you happen to read on the package where they’re—” She popped the remainder of the juicy red morsel into her mouth and chewed.
“Go on,” he said, his previous predicament all but forgotten in the sting of that one little word. Read. “You forgot the second half of your statement. The part where you call me an imbecile for not being able to read the side of a berry parcel.”
“That’s so not true.” She reached for his hand, which he drew away. “You’ve come a long way with your flashcards and sounds. The rest is just stringing the sounds and letters together.”
“Teach me now.” He took her plate with its half-eaten omelet and pile of berries. “If I learn much, I shall feed you more later.”
Her smile brought on cravings for simpler times when he had taken such gifts at face value. “Too bad my students aren’t this motivated. Your Highness, you’ve got a deal.”
***
Lucy spent the rest of the morning on Wolfe’s lessons. By that afternoon, he was reading short sentences. He’d admitted to having some rudimentary schooling back in his time, though, so she assumed his will to succeed, combined with what had to be an off-the-charts IQ, were the causes for his meteoric rise to the top of her reading class.
While she made a simple lunch of chicken noodle soup and, at his request, peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches, he cleared the table of papers, setting it with spoons, napkins and glasses of milk.
As they ate, Lucy found herself once again spilling her guts about Grumsworth, and, once again, being surprised when the prince not only listened but hung on her every word, as if her dull life was as exciting as one of his dozens of shows.
After cleaning up, the prince stood at the living room windows, staring at the late afternoon gloom.
A merry fire crackled in the hearth, its glow dancing upon the walls. Buzzy, after having stuffed his cheeks with a few peanut butter and jelly crusts, had curled himself into a ball in the cozy hamster condo at the top of his cage.
Hands in his jeans pockets, the prince sighed, turning to her where Lucy sat on the sofa grading papers—her school was one of the few remaining that required students to learn writing on paper and their e-pads. “I think I should very much like to take a walk.”
Lucy snapped her red grading pencil. Why couldn’t she teach at a school where assignments were completed solely on tablets?
“Lucy Gordon? Did you hear me?”
Staring at Lyle Orvitz Dickenson IV’s genetics report so hard that her eyes hurt, she said, “We’ve been over this. The reasons why I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave the cottage.”
“Aye...your reasons. How dangerous it may be, were I to venture off on my own—as if I were a small child not yet trusted to leave my mother’s skirts.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. It’s just that—”
“Are we back to you not wanting your insipid lover to learn of my existence? A ludicrous proposition seeing how, in but a short while, once you come to your senses and declare your eternal love, he will learn of me soon enough when I resume my rightful place in the home where he currently resides—my castle!”
Lucy tried ignoring her latest hot wave of confusion. “First, the duke isn’t even home at the moment, so why would I be trying to hide you? Second—”
“Good. Then come with me.” He held out his hand. “I shall entrust you with my safekeeping.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Gazing up at his massive form, at the stony challenge in his dark eyes, she realized the very thought of her protecting him was about as likely as Buzzy protecting her classroom’s python—currently living with her friend Bonnie who had a thing for snakes. “And anyway, it looks like it’s going to rain.”
“It already is raining.”
“There you go. Then why are you even suggesting we take a walk?”
He held out his hand. “Come with me, Lucy Gordon. Walk with me. Share the remainder of the day.”
“You, ah...” The red on Lyle’s report swirled. “Don’t have a raincoat or boots.”
Still holding out his hand, he laughed. “You think I wore a coat for rain the night we stormed Drogo’s camp? Sleet fell so hard it raised welts on my forehead and cheeks.”
“See? With weather like that, you’d have been better off at home, curled up in front of the fire.”
“Come with me. Take my hand...”
Fresh out of excuses, heart beating its own storm at the thought of sharing something so intimate with him as a walk in the rain, Lucy took a deep breath, surrendering her hand to his.
***
“Twas here, I had a close call with a wild dog.” Standing beside the pond he once called home, Wolfe resisted the all-too-familiar urge to flee, reminding himself he was no longer a loathsome frog but a man on the dawn of regaining all he had once held dear.
“Is that what happened to your toe?”
“My toe? Oh—yes, but how did you know?”
Her cheeks blazed a pretty pink blush.
“Lucy Gordon?”
“The pond’s lovely, isn’t it? The way steam’s rising from the surface and the rain sprinkles—” Grasping her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “I have seen enough of this pond to last me a thousand years more. The dank smell of mud. Chirping insects, weeds, hiding predators. It is you I wish to reflect upon. Your blush intrigues me. Makes me think you have a secret you are trying to hide.”
“Me?” Her smile reached all the way to her eyes of sky blue. If only for a moment in his head, gone was the rain making way for hot sun. “What about you? I feel like the more I’m with you, the less I know.”
“In what sense?”
“Well...” She licked her lips. “For instance, why you seem so eager to learn to read? It’s almost
as if you were driven.”
Wolfe stiffened. “Maybe I am.” By thousand-year-old guilt. But she would care not for his crisis of conscience. He doubted she would care to hear of him leading his men to slaughter but, out of loyalty to them and, out of a perverse need to have their tale finally outside of himself, he told her of the massacre in detail that roiled his stomach, making her pale eyes streak with silvery grays.
“My God.” Hand covering her mouth, she said, “I’ve read about this kind of stuff. Seen it in movies but I always thought, no way could it have been all that bad. When here it was, worse.” Even though her hand had landed only upon the damp wool of his sweater’s sleeve, the warmth of her gentle touch and sad smile spread all the way up his arm and deep into his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nay, do not be sorry for me. Be sorry for the poor souls whose deaths I carry upon my shoulders entirely because of my damnedable pride.”
Lucy was without words.
Knowing Wolfe even marginally as she did was more than enough to have acquainted her with his inflated ego, but still... Interlocking his fingers with hers, she said, “You didn’t lead those men to their deaths on purpose, Wolfe. You only did what you thought best. No one can blame you for that.”
“Aye,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I blame me for that, and have most every day for the past thousand years. Along with an assortment of so many other grievous acts that my head oft times swims with grief.”
“Maybe you should stop thinking about any of those things? Maybe a thousand years’ regrets are enough?”
He shrugged, gazing at his feet. “Did you know that at twilight on a sun-flooded summer day, this pond teems with life? Flying, chirping, jumping, croaking—no noise is more offensive than that of one of my rutting former counterparts.”
She laughed, and sensing this was his attempt at changing the subject, she released his hand to nudge his waist—she’d aimed for his ribs, but he stood too tall. “Did you ever have a special lady frog?” Imagine the research to be gleaned from hearing his perspective on everything from mating habits to hibernation!
Hands in his pockets, he shook his head. “Other frogs found me hideous in complexion. I did once have the companionship of a female turtle. Her shell had been disfigured by gypsies planning to make her into their evening’s soup. I lost count of the number of summers we shared, but in her I sensed a true friend.” Amazing! He’d been friends with a turtle. Who knew species communicated amongst themselves, let alone others? “What sorts of things did you talk about?”
