Blazing Bedtime Anthology

by Leslie Kelly

  She swallowed. “You refer to sexual stimulation?”

  He lifted a hand, scraping his thumb across her lip. “Yes.”

  Her voice shook as she replied, “’Tis the truth, I have not found much pleasure in that.”

  “Then somebody’s been doing it wrong.”

  Bristling, she said, “I do nothing unless I can do it well.”

  Smiling gently, Rafe leaned closer and whispered, “I didn’t mean you, sweetheart.”

  He didn’t say anything more. Instead, he simply acted, covering her mouth in another of those confusing kisses. This one started hot and deep, fast, hungry. His warm tongue explored her mouth again; she suddenly desired to reciprocate. She tasted back, enjoying the intrinsic push and pull, give and take, that seemed to come naturally between them.

  Unable to resist, she leaned into him, again noting the hardness of his chest and arms. And, now that she was attuned to it, she acknowledged how hard the rest of him was.

  His manhood, pressing into her groin, was thick and solid; it felt hot even through his clothing. A hitchy cry got stuck in the back of her throat. She felt helpless against the urge to press harder against him, wondering at the strange sensations.

  Feelings swept over her, feelings she’d never experienced before—not even at her bacchanalia when she’d tasted the fruits of the body and firmly rejected them.

  This kissing, it was a powerful thing.

  When he at last drew his mouth away from hers, she wanted to follow him and continue it. But Rafe kept his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place. “When’s the last time you were kissed like that?”

  “I’ve never been kissed like that.”

  She saw the muscles in his throat work as he asked, “Are you telling me you’re a… Olivia, have you ever been with a man?”

  The idea brought a laugh to her mouth. “Of course. I’ve been with many men. I’ve just not been kissed in such a way.”

  Some of the sparkle had left his eyes, and he nodded as he backed up. Olivia got the feeling she’d disappointed him, though she’d only been answering his question.

  “Okay,” he said, turning to walk toward his sleeping chamber. “Well, get some sleep. We’ll find your prince tomorrow.”

  “Rafe Cabot?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Thank you again for your kindness.”

  “You’re welcome, Olivia. Sleep well.” Then he disappeared behind that screen.

  Remaining in the larger chamber, she slowly took off her belt, unsheathing the small knife at her hip.

  Moving in silence, she slipped out of her clothing, down to bare skin, as always. She did it by rote, however; all her attention remained on that screen. It was effective at providing privacy—but only until he turned on a light within. Because the moment he did, the man was displayed most remarkably, his every move underscored, made larger, more…distracting.

  She should have called out, warned him somehow. But her tongue had grown thick in her mouth and she felt incapable of making a sound.

  Rafe began to remove his clothes, lifting the shirt away from his powerful body and tossing it down. Her fingers started that funny tingling again, as she thought about how that bare, golden skin would look, feel, taste.

  But he wasn’t finished. His hand moved to his middle. Olivia gulped as she watched him unfasten his denims and push them past those lean hips, kicking them away. Whatever he’d had on beneath went, too. Because when he turned slightly, and she saw his entire silhouette, she knew he was utterly, gloriously naked.

  And still erect. Utterly, gloriously erect.

  “Goddess give me strength,” she whispered, wondering why she couldn’t stop staring. Why her mouth went dry and her limbs felt weak as she saw that undeniably thick ridge of manly flesh rising from between his powerful legs. Why, she actually gasped, her hips jerking reflexively as she watched him reach down and encircle that shaft with one hand, bracing himself against his bedpost with the other.

  Did he mean to…to…

  “Mercy!” she yelped, forgetting to keep her voice down.

  He froze, as if he’d heard her and realized at last that his actions might not be as private as he’d thought. His hand dropped; he moved to the lamp and extinguished it. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, then realized the word had barely squeaked out of her tight throat. “I mean, I’m fine. Sleep well.”

  “You, too.”

  She heard him climb into his bed, unable to see a thing now through the dark screen. But that didn’t stop the pictures in her mind, didn’t prevent her imagination from visualizing what he was right now doing beneath its covers.

  She’d seen the male sex before, had allowed herself to be penetrated by it. And she hadn’t much cared about what she’d be missing if she gave up ever experiencing that again.

  For many years, she hadn’t missed it, not once.

  Now? Something was happening to her. Her breath began to come in shallow gasps and she couldn’t stop those tiny, helpless thrusts of her hips. The area between her thighs began to throb and she had never been as aware of her own empty core—and how much she wanted it filled—as in that single moment. She even slid her hands down her naked body, sensitive to every brush of skin on skin, wondering how his strong, rough fingers would feel instead of her own.

  She’d never felt this way. Not once in her life. And she didn’t know what to do about that.

  Nothing. You’ll do nothing except sleep, Captain.

  Yes, sleep. She’d awaken tomorrow and these strange feelings would be gone. He would be merely a man, no different than any other, and she would focus on the job she had come here to do.

  She wished she could do that job without his help. Considering the strange reactions he brought forth in her, she suspected it would be a good idea to get away from him.

  But she needed him. He seemed certain he could assist in her search, and he knew the city far more than she ever could. She had already wasted several days and the clock was ticking as the coronation day fast approached.

  Like it or not, she needed his assistance. So tomorrow, she would let the stranger help her find the prince. Then she would return to Elatyria. Never to see him again. Never to feel like this again.

  Which was a good thing. A very good one. Even though, as sleep finally started to overtake her, she felt a brief, fleeting moment of loss.

  What, she wondered, would happen if she did give in to her curiosity, her surprising want, and just took the man?

  It was a shocking idea.

  And one that inspired a long, wicked night of equally shocking dreams.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE WARRIOR PRINCESS slept naked.

  That shouldn’t have surprised him. Rafe slept that way, too. But rising from his bed, pulling on some jeans and heading for the kitchen to make coffee, and then noticing his sexy houseguest had not a stitch on, wasn’t the most relaxing way to start a day.

  One of the most pleasurable, certainly. But not relaxing.

  She was, without a doubt, the most perfectly shaped female he had ever seen. That black leather getup she’d worn last night hadn’t covered a lot, and he’d known she had some major curves. But he hadn’t anticipated how inviting the slopes of her breasts were, or the way her dark, pert nipples would look when covered by nothing but a few strands of long, blond hair.

  Frozen in shock at first, he quickly pulled himself together, spun around and headed back toward his bed. But it hadn’t been soon enough; he’d gotten an eyeful. Two eyes full. And the images weren’t going to leave his brain for a long time. Not just of the lush curves of her breasts, but of the slim waist, the flared hips, the incredibly long legs, lean and sculpted with muscle.

  Turned on her side the way she was, with her legs bent, the top one slightly forward, he hadn’t been tortured with a glimpse of what he suspected would be a gorgeous tuft of curls between her thighs. But his imagination was still doing a damn fine job o
f pretending he had.

  He couldn’t go back out there, not yet. Not when his hard-on, the one he’d been forced to go to sleep with last night, had returned with a vengeance.

  Moving around his room, he slammed a few drawers, trying to make noise. But he heard nothing from his houseguest. Finally, he decided to try to distract himself and make use of the time he had. Grabbing his laptop, he sat on the bed and got online.

  He should have started by looking for this Rupie guy, but something about her story made him curious to learn more about Olivia Vanderbrook. So he began to search the Internet for things like her name, as well as Prince Ruprecht and Elatyria, glad she’d treated him like a kid and spelled them out.

  He found nothing. Not a mention anywhere of her, or this supposedly AWOL prince, or his mother, or even his country.

  “Okay, so what are you up to,” he mused, glancing at the privacy screen, seeing no movement on the other side. Frankly, he was surprised the woman was still sleeping. He had expected she’d be up at dawn, ordering him to get a move on. Of course, if she had really been sleeping at some campsite, she could just be comfortable for the first time in a while.

  A campsite. In the city of San Francisco. Riiiiight.

  This couldn’t be real. There had to be another explanation.

  She could be some kind of in-character private detective, trying to track down this Rupie guy for a jealous boyfriend.

  Or maybe she was from some the-joke’s-on-you TV show. Though, to be honest, he doubted she’d be lying in the next room, naked—oh, God, that body—if she’d planted a camera in his place.

  That left crazy. Just his luck.

  “Mmm.”

  He heard a noise from the next room. Pausing, Rafe waited to see if she was getting up. The sound came again, soft, like a sigh. Then, again, nothing but silence.

  “Come on, lady, don’t make me walk out there and wake you up,” he muttered.

  He got no response, and decided to give her a few more minutes while he checked out the other part of her story: her missing prince.

  Finding him proved a whole lot easier. Within a few minutes of searching, he found a small article on a Web site devoted to the San Francisco club scene. In it was a mention of a hot new amateur, going by the name of Prince Rupie, who appeared at a popular gay bar every Sunday during open-mic night.

  “Gotcha, Your Majesty,” he whispered.

  The timing couldn’t be better. Today was Sunday. They’d go to the bar tonight, find the guy, and he could determine once and for all who the naked woman sleeping on his sofa really was.

  He suddenly heard another noise coming from the other room. This time there was no mistaking it for a sigh.

  “Yes!” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

  Rafe pushed his laptop away and rose, approaching the screen. Peering around it, he saw her lying on the couch, still asleep, but now flat on her back. One leg was bent, upraised, and she looked like an artist’s model posing for a tasteful nude.

  The pose wasn’t sexual. But it was incredibly sensual.

  But then the woman began to move one hand. Sliding it down her body in a long, slow caress, she touched her breast, then her flat stomach. Farther.

  And things got sexual in a hurry.

  When her hand reached her hip, and dipped lower until her fingers disappeared on the inside of that upraised thigh, he flinched so hard he knocked the damn screen over. Though he tried to grab it, the thing fell, clattering to the floor.

  Naked warrior woman leapt up off the couch, her hair flying, her fists curling, everything else jiggling in all the right places. “Halt!”

  “It’s okay,” he insisted, throwing a hand over his eyes, even though the image of her had already been burned onto his retinas. “Sorry I startled you, I knocked over the screen.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  She didn’t make any further sound, he heard no brush of fabric that said she was yanking anything on. Still, he waited a minute, figuring she would at least grab the blanket or a sheet.

  When he lowered his hand, he saw she hadn’t. She had instead crossed to the front of the loft, staring out the window. The bright morning sent buckets full of sunshine cascading over her pale hair and her warm, golden body and all he could do for a minute was stare.

  Olivia Vanderbrook looked as though she’d been made to wear nothing but sunlight. Such a perfect creation should never be covered, not even by hot, sexy black leather. If there had been a Garden of Eden, surely this woman’s twin had once resided in it.

  Twins. Back to business, remember where yours is residing!

  He cleared his throat, stared up at his ceiling—it really was nice—then down at his floor, which could use some touching up. Anywhere but at her. “I guess we should get busy trying to find your prince.”

  “Yes. I can’t believe I slept so long,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him, completely at ease with her nakedness.

  Okay, he could be cool about this, too. After all, his ass wasn’t uncovered, and she was definitely easy to look at. Like a perfect work of art, impersonal, untouchable.

  Problem was, he wanted to touch. A lot.

  But he wouldn’t. Not until he knew she wasn’t fresh-from-the-Planters-jar nuts. For a minute last night, after he’d kissed her, he’d also feared he needed to stay away from her because she was sexually innocent. Her kisses—the first so stiff, the second clumsy but passionate—hinted that she hadn’t had much experience.

  She’d killed that worry. I’ve been with many men.

  Yeah, and he’d been with many women over the years. Still, it wasn’t something he wanted to think about, not when he’d set eyes on her across a crowded club and decided she was his.

  So much for that. His woman was standing ten feet away, gloriously naked, and he could only think about how much he wished she’d put some damn clothes on.

  “I actually checked online,” he told her, “looking for your friend Ruprecht.”

  “He isn’t my friend, he’s my future king.”

  “Well, your future king sings at a gay bar on Sunday nights. We should be able to go over there this evening and find him.”

  “Excellent!” she said, finally leaving the window and heading back toward the sofa.

  Rafe couldn’t help it, he took a step back, not willing to stand there and let her get too close. If she came within inches, he’d be helpless not to touch. If she actually touched him, he’d have her back on that couch before she could say “I’m on top.”

  Which she probably would.

  Which was just fine with him.

  Distance. He took another step back.

  She came within a few feet, and that was close enough to catch the warm, womanly scent of her body. Rafe held his breath, feeling his heart pound in his chest, and his cock throb against the seam of his jeans. He’d been a walking erection since the minute he’d spotted her last night. It didn’t matter how much distance he put between them, he still wanted the woman like a poker player wanted a royal flush.

  Unable to help himself, he asked, “What were you dreaming about right before you woke up?”

  Her green eyes widened, and she sucked in a quick breath of her own. She might be totally comfortable walking around without a stitch on, but when it came to baring her thoughts, the woman was more circumspect.

  “Olivia?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said, her voice soft. She reached for her clothes, pulling on a simple pair of black underwear made of some soft, gauzy fabric.

  “Are you sure?” he prodded.

  Hesitating for a moment, she reached for her halter top and donned it, as well. She didn’t rush—it was as if she didn’t realize he was standing here trying not to drool on the floor at the sight of her. “All right,” she finally admitted, “I was dreaming about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I watched you last night, before you went to sleep. I couldn’t help but see you moving behind the screen.”


  Oh, hell. “Then you saw what you did to me,” he said, his words coming out in a throaty, hungry whisper.

  “I did that?”

  He nodded, wondering how this brazen woman could seem so innocent.

  “I felt it when we kissed, of course,” she said, “but I didn’t realize it would, um, stay.”

  He shrugged, knowing if she glanced down she’d realize it was still staying. “Exactly how long has it been since you’ve been up close and personal with that part of a guy?”

  She didn’t have to think about it. “Over eight years.”

  Rafe grabbed the back of the couch. The woman hadn’t had sex in eight years? “Are you joking?”

  “No. I haven’t been penetrated by a man since the week of my twentieth birthday.”

  Been penetrated by. Not made love with. Not even had sex with. There was something seriously wrong with this picture.

  “Okay,” he said, remembering what she’d said last night about having many men, “you were twenty when you stopped. How old were you when you started?”

  “Twenty.”

  Rafe simply stared at her.

  “It was during my bacchanalia, my first and my last. All young women wishing to enter the Amazonian Royal Guard must have knowledge of that which they are choosing to give up.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Looking down as she fastened her low-slung belt, she explained. “I mean, sexual contact. An Amazon is not permitted to give up future relations with a man until she has experienced them, preferably more than once. Hence the bacchanalia.”

  Rafe gaped. “Are you saying you had an orgy?”

  “What’s an orgy?”

  “It’s a party where a bunch of people have random sex, with no feelings, no emotions. Just intercourse.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding relieved as she tucked a tiny knife into her belt. “Then yes, that sounds about right.”

  He didn’t grab the couch this time, he actually sat on the back of it as he mumbled, “I got dinner at Olive Garden for my twentieth birthday. You got an orgy.”