by Tamara Gill
“Nothing you would find interesting.”
Was he nuts?
There was nothing about a frog-turtle conversation she wouldn’t find interesting!
“She hurt.” The light rain had stopped. Turning from her, the prince walked a short distance down the sloped bank, kneeling to pick up a stone he skipped across the pond’s glassy surface. “Her shell grew into her flesh. Only with me did she share her pain. I hurt, too, only in a much deeper place. She listened and understood.”
Amazing.
“When she died, I thought surely I would die as well, but...” In that masculine, pride-filled way of his, presumably honed to hide any true depth to his feelings, he shrugged before picking up another stone.
A frog had mourned the death of a turtle friend. Imagine what the scientific community would say to such a thing! Yet here it was. The truth standing right here before her.
It?
Guilt rose bile in her throat. In obtaining her dream frog, was she prepared to essentially kill the prince?
“Let us leave this place.” His eyes shone in the day’s fading light. “It is dangerous.”
Glancing over her left shoulder, then right, she asked, “Is something with big teeth headed our way? Can you sense predators?”
“Only those deep within.” Holding out his hand, dark eyes brimming with complexity she couldn’t begin to read, he said, “Come, Lucy Gordon, rescue me from myself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wolfe’s multilayered statement drove Lucy to be especially kind to him for the rest of the night.
While wind-driven rain drummed the windows, to help Wolfe with his reading she walked him through an agonizingly slow game of Scrabble. Slow, not because of his still limited written vocabulary, but because of his insistence on sitting side by side at the dining room table. Across from him, she could ignore his sheer breadth. But up close, dwarfed by him, yet at the same time sheltered by his latent strength, so far she’d been lucky to come up with a single word longer than ‘cat’ or ‘zoo’.
Even worse was the nagging memory of why he wanted to learn to read and her guilt for even bothering to teach him a skill he’d never again have need for.
She tried consoling herself with other memories.
Like the ones of how often she’d been played in college by guys pretending an interest in her only to suck up to her father.
Who was to say Wolfe wasn’t playing her now? Sensing that his raw sexuality wasn’t having the desired effect, he’d switched to preying on her soft heart. Being the warrior that he’d once been, no doubt he inherently recognized an enemy’s fatal weakness. Only what he couldn’t know was that the one thing that had made her weak in the past, she now depended upon to make her strong—naïveté.
For back in college, she’d been too trusting to see anyone beyond face value. If a guy said he was attracted to her, she’d been flattered—not suspicious.
At the start of her career, she’d never delved beneath the upper crust of research. When the first source she’d searched for documentation on Helena’s Dream had come up in her favor, she’d run with it, not once pausing to consider the fact that the frog she thought unique might have already been discovered.
While all of those mistakes had been costly in terms of the emotional wounds they’d inflicted, she was now older, wiser and infinitely stronger. She wouldn’t fall for the prince’s heart-wrenching verbal tricks, any more than she’d lose sight of her end goals.
Respect.
Riches.
Above all—reclaiming her father’s genuine love. Ever since the conference debacle, things hadn’t been the same between them. He was polite enough over the phone but their conversations felt driven by duty as opposed to a genuine desire on his part to hear about her life. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen him face-to-face.
“You win,” she was finally able to say about the Scrabble game—as for the more subtle game she and the prince played...
She’d declare herself victor at the next World Biological Conference.
“Thank you,” he said with a royal nod. “That was fun, even though you did most of the work.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” She slid the letters from the game board and back into the vintage Crown Royal bag she stored them in. “You’ve learned an amazing amount since just this morning.”
He beamed. “Thank you. It pleases me to know you think of me as a good scholar. In the coming days, perhaps you can teach me even more.”
“Reading?” she croaked, or about the most effective ways for frogs to catch insects? A fresh wave of guilt consumed her for the mere thought. Knowing on an intellectual level she was justified in letting Wolfe change back into a frog was one thing, but in her heart? That was a whole other story.
“Maybe we could also add mathematics to my lessons? And even more current events?” Pushing back his chair, Wolfe stood and walked to the window to moodily stare outside. “At the pond, I saw things. Changes in fashion styles and the like. I oft heard the ramblings of lovers and fishermen and small children frolicking by water’s edge, but I should like to know more.” Turning to her, stealing her breath with the intensity on his handsome face, he said, “I know not even the name of the person currently wearing my country’s crown.”
“Okay...” Lucy avoided his gaze. “We’ll start with reading the newspaper together. That way you’ll learn a little about reading and current events.”
“Yes.” Slipping his hands into his pockets, he gave her a succinct nod before curving his lips into a generous, white-toothed smile that flip-flopped her heart. “That would be good. Let us start on your first day back to work.”
“Perfect. I’ll pencil you in for Monday afternoon.”
“But Monday is hours from now. Can you teach me anything this moment?” In one of the myriad of changes she’d grown to recognize in his expressions, his smile transformed from happy to hungry. Only that hunger had nothing to do with peanut butter, unless he planned to spread it all over her—she gulped for air, imagining the scent of peanuts on his hot breath.
“Y-you want to learn something now?”
“Why are you answering my every question with a question, Lucy Gordon?”
“I’m not.” She snatched the Scrabble box from the table.
He followed her to the living room, where she knelt to slide the game onto a low cabinet shelf. When she closed the door and stood, he was there, strong hands on her shoulders, gaze locking with hers.
“You’re bothered by something. Is it my request? Do you not wish to teach me?”
She sighed.
What I don’t wish is to be so near you, having your body remind me that while you may have been a frog in the past and will be again in the future, for the moment, you are nothing but one hundred percent man.
“Perhaps you are tired? If you have no wish to teach, we could do something else? Watch a movie? Eat more popcorn you could make and then deliver to me—please.”
“Sure.” And for a moment during her short trek to the kitchen, hearing another of his demands made her once again sure in her conviction to trade him for her career... At least until she remembered he’d said, please.
***
Ruth Haweberry, binoculars still to her eyes, ducked behind a rhododendron and uttered the kind of soul-deep happy sigh the likes of which only accompanied someone else’s impending grief. “Buying those clothes for one of your Yank friends—my lily-white behind,” she said with a huff. “Lucy Gordon, you’ve taken a live-in lover. When the duke hears every juicy detail, you’ll be out on your tail. Making plenty of room for my sweet-tempered Abigail to move right in.”
“Did you say something, Mum?” Twenty-two-year-old Abigail flicked off her torch and set it in her lap, along with the movie magazine she’d just finished. Gum cracking in time to the song playing in her head, she sat in the electric car’s front seat, feet propped on the dash. Was now the right time to make her big announcement?
Abigail cringed.
When Mummy found out just how little she actually controlled of her daughter’s life, she’d throw a bloody wobbler. Until then, though, Abigail figured she might as well try to relax.
***
“You’re crazy!” Lucy shrieked Sunday afternoon, dodging behind the sofa to escape Wolfe and his feather duster.
“Ah...” he said with a wink and one of his sexy-slow grins. “Crazy for you.”
“That thing’s for cleaning, not playing.”
“Just think how much more fun it could be if teased across the tips of your teats.”
“Look,” she furiously blushed at his not-all-that-bad idea, “you don’t have to do any chores around here. I mean, I appreciate you cooking and doing dishes and laundry, but...”
Edging around the left side of the sofa, he said, “But you prefer to service yourself in the pleasure department?”
“No!” She ducked to the right but, with one step, he’d cut off her escape.
“No, you do not prefer servicing yourself? Or no, you have changed your mind on allowing me the pleasure?” The wicked spark in his dark eyes spoke volumes as to the sincerity of his question. He knew full well what she meant, only he didn’t care!
Tossing a pillow right, then darting left, she’d thought she could get a head start on him, but he must’ve summoned his old frog leaping skills, because he’d jumped her way in seconds, launching an all-new tickle attack on the strip of exposed belly between her T-shirt and jeans.
Breathless and laughing, she squirmed free again before racing upstairs.
She’d almost shut and locked her bedroom door but he launched a fresh attack. This time, tackling her to the bed, he landed on her only to slip his arms beneath her, rolling her on top of him. He still breathed hard from laughter. “Now I am yours for you to do with as you please.”
“Bonk you on your head is what I’d like to do.”
“I am not familiar with this word, bonk,” he skimmed the hair back from her eyes with his open palm, “I am assuming it is much the same as kiss?”
Despite her best efforts not to, she grinned. “Has anyone ever told you you’re incorrigible?”
Matching her grin, melting her resolve to keep her distance and cool, he said, “I know not—”
“Wait. Let me guess, you don’t know what that means, either?”
“Right. But you could teach me...” He slid his hands under her shirt and up her back, cinching her close. “I assume it is good?”
“No.” She wrestled free. “It’s bad, but then to your warped logic, probably bad is good.”
“Now I am thoroughly befuddled.” He slid her up the long, hard length of him, pressing a steamy kiss to the base of her throat. “Let’s go with the bad part of that speech...although how a wench who tastes so good could be bad for me is beyond my comprehension.” He slid more kisses perilously up the curve of her neck, where surely he’d gotten a taste of her frenzied pulse.
Talk about bad—no way could it be good for him to know the havoc he played on her senses!
She wanted to stay strong. To think about her World Biological Conference presentation. More specifically, the part at the end of her speech when she’d receive thunderous applause. Her father’s crushing hug and the duke’s proud smile. But at the moment, all she could think of was the prince, kneading his capable hands along the tender skin beneath her bra, and how now that his kisses had reached her chin, surely her mouth couldn’t be far behind?
Ahhh... The indent at the base of her chin.
Oooh... The tip of her nose.
The tip of my nose? What about my lips?
Come back! Every stupid, needy, lonely nerve ending in her mouth screamed. Even worse, he was rolling her off of him, then sitting up, leaving her beached like a big old needy whale!
“So sorry,” he said, his smile not the least bit apologetic. His long dark hair hung loose, framing his face with an innate raw sex appeal guys from her time couldn’t come close to replicating. The kind of raw sex appeal she knew far better than to ever even think of messing with. So what was she doing lying belly-up, staring at him from her cold bed?
“As you have told me many times,” he reminded, “we are not to partake of such things. How about you make pop-corn instead?”
Easing onto her elbows, Lucy shook her head. How had they gone from kissing to popcorn? Looking away, then back to him, she asked, “Are you immune to what just happened here? Because, I—”
“Wait, let me guess. You want me?”
“Not at all, I just—”
“Are sorry for not being able to keep your hands off of me?”
“You were the one kissing me!”
“Ah, but you were the one crushing yourself to me, releasing those soft mews with my every touch. I was only being amenable to your desires.”
“Grrr!” Pushing herself off the bed, she stormed past him and down the stairs.
As usual, he followed. “Where are you going?”
“To make popcorn.”
“Good. After servicing you in the bedroom, I find myself ravenous.”
***
Monday morning, Lucy slammed her curling iron to the white tile bathroom counter and scowled at her reflection. Her stupid red curls stuck out at a gazillion stupid angles. If she didn’t have to trek downstairs to find a pair of scissors, she’d have hacked off every stupid inch!
“What’s the matter?” The prince strolled through the bathroom’s open hall door to slip a pile of fresh-washed towels into the linen cupboard.
Besides the fact that you’re a better housekeeper than I’ve ever been?
“This...” She grabbed a chunk of her unco-operative hair. “Grumsworth suggested I adopt a more professional appearance. And I thought I said you don’t have to do my laundry.”
“I want to.” He closed the cupboard, then met her in front of the mirror. Curling iron in hand, he testing the weight. “This is much like the rod Desdemona taught me to use? May I?”
He’d used a curling iron on the woman whose mother turned him into a frog? Trying to politely hide her shock, she said, “Please. At this point, I doubt anything could make it worse.”
“Desdemona was a most vain creature.” He wielded the iron like a salon pro. “Oft after we made love, she insisted I repair the damage I had done to her hair, fisting it as I thrust ever deeper within her womanly folds.”
Lucy gulped.
“Seeing as she was shy about our union, she refused me to grant entrance to a servant, so she taught me to fashion her hair.” He shrugged. “I know, tis not a manly pursuit but, in exchange for the pleasure she gave, I reasoned it not too large of a price to pay.”
“What kind of hair did she have?” Eyes closed, Lucy relished the curling iron’s heat combined with his competent brush strokes.
“Long. Pale as the sand along the sea. I had never known any other woman to use such an object to bring life to her hair, but then Desdemona was unique in many ways—not just in her appearance. There...” He set the iron on the counter. “What do you think?”
She opened her eyes to a bona fide miracle.
Gone was her normal riot of curls, replaced by smooth waves, tucked just so about her forehead and cheeks. “I-I can’t believe you did this.”
“All I have done is enhance what God has already given.” He skimmed his palm down the back of her head. “You are quite lovely, Lucy Gordon.”
“No I’m not, but thanks for saying so.”
“Why do you not think of yourself as a beauty?” Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him instead of the mirror. “Surely even your insipid duke has told you of your many charms?”
“Well, yes, but he was just saying nice things. He didn’t really mean them.”
Grasping her chin, he said in his fiercest growl, “Never again will such heresy pass your lips.”
“E-excuse me?”
“Among women I am renowned for my bedroom skills, yet among men I am known for not only my prowess on the battlefield, but for always securing the loveliest of wenches. You, Lucy Gordon, with your fiery hair and eyes the shade of a clear summer sky, are the most ravishing of all.”
Swallowing hard, Lucy jerked her chin free.
Funny, but in a different time and with different words during her freshman year at Vanderbilt, Chad Bartholomew had said virtually the same thing. Right before she’d told him her father would be out of the country for the next six months. Two days after that, he’d dumped her for Gretta Larson. “I should finish getting ready.”
“Not before admitting your beauty.”
“I’m beautiful. Happy?”
He released her. “I will not be happy until when, making you writhe with such mindless womanly pleasure, you next repeat this to me and you will know it to be true.”
Promise?
***
“You will not put that on me!” Lucy cried Wednesday morning in the bathroom, clutching the halves of her robe at her throat.
The prince rolled his eyes. “I merely need see if the garment fits. I hand-washed it, but the wench on tee-vee says sometimes these delicates shrink.” As if wagging her bra was supposed to bend her to his will, he gave it a light shake.
Lately, he’d been taking his laundry duties more and more seriously. Pre-treating the stains she always managed to come home with, adding the fabric softener at just the right cycle, and now, he’d taken to hand-washing her lingerie!
“Look,” she said, “I appreciate the work you do around here. Really, I do, but I don’t see why you’re holding my bra hostage to check the size. It looks fine to me. If you’d just hand it over, I’d be happy to try it on, finish dressing, then report back later.”
