“Wh-what?”
“Anodyne. I bought it because—well, because I wanted you to finish Faskin, but also because I wanted to get to know you. I wanted you my first day here.”
“Oh, no!”
“What?”
“Oh, shit!”
“Jeez, am I hurting you? What’s wrong?”
“I’m dreaming!” she wailed. “This is all a dream, the best one I ever had. Any minute now you’re going to turn into Jessica.”
He pinched her nipple. She yelped. “Satisfied?”
“Well… that did hurt a little. Maybe it’s not a dream. God, I hope not,” she added fervently.
“Also, babe, we gotta talk… You dream about me and then I turn into Jessica?”
“Just shut up and fuck me before I wake up.”
He’d been bending down to kiss her, and laughed in her mouth. “Yes, ma’am. It’s just as well. If I have to stay still any longer, my balls will blow up.”
“You say the nicest things—ah!”
He thrust, and she pressed her heels against his back, forcing him deeper. She clutched his shoulders and shoved back at him. She could hear how wet she was. How wet he’d made her.
“Put your arms around me,” he murmured. “I want to feel as much of you as I can.”
She did, clutching his back, feeling his muscles work as he fucked her, pleasured them both. She was staring into his emerald eyes when her orgasm raced through her.
“Ahhhh, Christ!” he groaned. “Anybody tell you—when you come—all your muscles lock?”
“Well,” she said breathlessly, “it’s physiologically…”
“No, all your muscles.”
“Oh.” She giggled. “No. Nobody’s ever noticed, I guess. Plus, my vibrator’s not the chatty type.”
“Do not talk about Mr. Shaky,” he growled.
“Oh, I think Mr. Shaky might be due for early retirement.” She tightened her grip and thrust her tongue in his ear. He jerked in response, then stiffened and shuddered all over.
“I love you,” he said.
She tried to smooth his hair, but it was a lost cause; it kept springing up between her fingers. “I love you, too. But it’s still crazy.”
“Ask me if I give a fuck.”
She jabbed him. “Nice!”
He jabbed her back. Things degenerated into the first tickle fight of her adult life.
Epilogue
From People magazine.
The World’s Most Beautiful People
Issue, March 25, 2005
Exotic, stunning, and with the carriage of a queen, Dr. Thea Scrye is much more than just a pretty face. A contender for the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Foster gave hope to countless burn victims when she perfected Faskin, a phenomenal advance in artificial skin.
“She’s a genius,” Dr. Patrice Scrye-Drie, former director of the Chicago General Burn Unit, says enthusiastically. “She put me out of a job. Our whole family just loves her to death. She’s just what my brother needed. Have you talked to them? Did you see my niece? Seven months old and already talking! I have pictures. I have a lot of pictures.”
Scrye-Drie, Thea Scrye’s sister-in-law, credits her brother’s efforts with moving Faskin toward completion. “Jekell had no interest in it. But Jimmy revived the project and gave Thea everything she needed.”
Dr. James Scrye, hotshot rescuer of ailing biotech firms, gives all the credit to his wife, who in turn takes it. Interestingly, the Scrye family boasts several brilliant physicians. In an extended family totaling over thirty members, only two are not in the medical field.
Although it has wrought great good, Faskin came into being from tragedy. The Scrye twins lost their parents in a house fire when they were still children, and have been seeking an alternative to the trauma of skin grafts ever since. Both were injured in the fire that killed their parents.
When asked about his bride, Dr. Jimmy, as he insists on being called, replied, “She’s a goddess. Write that down. Two d’s. Goddess.”
Dr. Thea Scrye, who has suffered much media attention due to her extraordinary breakthrough, was not inclined to share much with People. “You have a Most Beautiful issue? For real? I thought my husband was playing a joke. How exquisitely stupid. Go to a hospital. Donate blood.”
Smitten by the wedding photo her husband gleefully faxed, this reporter complied.
MaryJanice Davidson’s Greatest Hits!
If you missed The Royal Treatment, a Brava trade paperback, run, don’t walk to the nearest bookstore.
In a world nearly identical to ours, the North won the Civil War, Ben Affleck is the sexiest man alive, Martha Stewart is a better pastry chef than insider trader, and Russia never sold Alaska to the U.S. Instead, Alaska is a rough, beautiful country ruled by a famously eccentric royal family, ostracized by the other royals, and urgently in need of a bride for the Crown Prince. In fact, anyone would do. But they have no idea what they’re in for when they offer the job to a feisty commoner—a girl who’s going to need…
THE ROYAL TREATMENT
The Princess-to-Be Primer.
Or, Things I’ve Learned Really Quick, as Compiled by Her Future Royal Highness—Yeah, whatever-Christina. That’s me.
1. Asking for cocktail sauce for your oysters will make the chef cry, then faint.
2. Telling jokes you picked up from the guys on the fishing boat doesn’t go over really well at a fancy ball.
3. Telling the obnoxious younger royals you’re going to kick them where the sun don’t shine if they don’t stop annoying you is guaranteed to make them follow you everywhere.
Under Cover Page 19
