The Princess and the Pea

by Victoria Alexander

  He splayed one hand across her back, the other cradling her neck, and she stared up at him, wanting all that he wanted and more, much, much more. Surely the need revealed in her eyes mirrored his own?

  “And do you know, my love, how I long to rip your clothes away and let my eyes ravage your innocent charms?” Her hands were trapped between his chest and hers and his blood seemed to throb beneath her fingers. “And do you know how I ache to join my body with yours and make you mine for all eternity?”

  “I know. Lord, Jared, I know.” A cry caught in her throat and desire pulsed through her.

  He smiled in a wry manner and pushed her gently away with obvious reluctance. “But you are to be my wife and, as much as it pains me to resist, it shall have to wait until we are duly wed.”

  “What?” She widened her eyes and struggled to catch her breath. “Why?”

  “Why?” He stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “Yes, Jared.” She fought the urge wrought by frustration to stamp her foot. “Why?”

  “I just explained—” He glared as if his passion had suddenly turned to anger. “Do you have any idea that this is exactly what I had planned all along?”

  “What are you talking about?” Outrage simmered within her. A confession was the last thing she wanted at this moment.

  “I thought if I seduced you, you would have to marry me.”

  “Well then, why on earth didn’t you?”

  His eyes widened with obvious annoyance. “You want to be seduced?”

  “Yes, if it was by you,” she snapped.

  “Perhaps this will change your mind.” He clenched his jaw as if he still debated whether to force the admission from his lips or hold it back. “I also believed that if I could seduce you, I would not have to teach you to drive. I intended to avoid that chore as long as possible.”

  “No!” She clapped a hand to her cheek in a sarcastic imitation of surprise. “Why, I never would have guessed.”

  He stared for a long moment. Then a smile played at the corners of his lips. “You knew?”

  She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Jared, I would have to be a complete idiot not to.”

  “And you’re not angry?” Caution shaded his tone.

  The knowledge that she had, more or less, already taught herself to drive flickered through the back of her mind, and she shrugged. “Perhaps I will be at some point, but not now. Although if we are confessing all, I too have something to disclose. I suspect it would be best to start this marriage with as few secrets as possible between us.”

  He laughed, his mood now light, and she realized he must have been quite concerned at her reaction to his divulgence. “What kind of secrets can you possibly have to confess?”

  “I’m not quite certain how to say this.” She clasped her hands together and gazed upward, searching for the right words. “Do you remember Marybeth Anderson?”

  “Anderson?” A thoughtful frown furrowed his forehead. “I can’t say that I do.”

  “She’s a friend of mine, from Chicago. You met her several months before we arrived.”

  His expression cleared. “Of course. The one who would have gone to fat. Well on her way to two chins, I believe.”

  “Jared!”

  “Sorry.” He cast her a sheepish smile. “Mother’s opinion, not mine.”

  She snorted disparagingly. “Now there’s another surprise.”

  “If I recall, I quite liked her,” Jared murmured.

  “You broke her heart.” Cece tossed the accusation like a weapon.

  “Did I?” Genuine remorse crossed his face. “I had no idea. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Well, of course you didn’t,” she said quickly. “I can see that now. But at the time I didn’t know you at all. My plan would have worked quite nicely if I hadn’t fallen in love with you.” She heaved a sigh of regret. “It was such an interesting idea.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Cece, for the rest of our lives together, that phrase will strike terror into the very depths of my soul.”

  “What phrase?” she said with genuine curiosity.

  “‘An interesting idea,’” he said wryly.

  “Yes, well…” She waved his comment aside as if it had no meaning. The dear man would no doubt get used to her “interesting ideas” sooner or later.

  “Just what was this ‘interesting idea’?” The expression on his face indicated that he was not at all convinced he wanted to know the answer.

  “If I remember correctly…” She drew the words out, stalling for both time and inspiration, in hopes of her idea sounding somewhat less ridiculous than she now realized it was. It had, however, seemed so clever at the time. She pulled a steadying breath, then pushed the words out in a long, quick rush. “I was to meet the notorious Earl of Graystone and engage his affections—”

  “You were to entrap the Earl of—or rather—me?” Jared raised a disbelieving brow. “To what purpose? Marriage?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Jared.” She threw him a condescending smile. “First of all, I don’t believe the term entrap is quite accurate. And secondly, the plan was merely to break your heart. I had no intention of marrying you.”

  “Bloody decent of you.” Sarcasm dripped off his words.

  She ignored him. “The purpose of this venture was to point out to a sanctimonious, stuffy, British snob—”

  “That would be me,” he said pointedly.

  She continued without pause, “—that Americans are just as good as the English, if not better. That the standards of my country are as high or higher than yours.”

  “You came all the way to En gland to prove some convoluted, patriotic point?” Amazement shone in his eyes.

  “Well,” she hedged, “there was another purpose.”

  “Oh?”

  “My, yes.” Goodness, this was far more difficult to explain than she’d thought. With every word the entire proposal seemed to grow more and more preposterous. She squared her shoulders. “It’s entirely likely that one of the reasons I was intrigued by you in the first place was because of your dreams.”

  “The automobile?” he said carefully. She nodded. “Go on.”

  “I have—or rather, I had—a dream as well.” She hesitated, hoping to gauge the reaction on his face but his expression revealed nothing. She plunged ahead. “I wanted to travel the world, see all there is to see. I wanted to have adventures and experiences. And I wanted to write about them. I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. Like Nellie Bly.”

  He studied her silently. Long moments ticked by. What was he thinking? Was he annoyed? Angry? Did this change anything between them? Did it change everything?

  “What do you want now?” he asked, his tone quite and intense.

  “What do I want?” She stared and considered him thoughtfully. This was perhaps the most important question of her life. Honestly, didn’t he know the answer by now? She threw his own words back at him.

  “I want to build a motorcar company and see an automobile in front of every manor house and cottage in En gland.”

  Relief shone in his eyes, the beginnings of a smile touching his lips.

  “I want to be the Countess of Graystone. Not because of any desire for a silly title,” she said quickly, “but because the Earl of Graystone is not nearly as stuffy and sanctimonious as I had originally believed—”

  “Thank you.” He grinned. “I think.”

  “And because whether he’s an earl who needs to marry for money—which I still do not approve of, mind you—” she slanted him a pointed glance, “or an inventor without a penny to his name, I cannot envision my life without him.

  “And that’s not all I want.” She advanced toward him with a purposeful step.

  “What else do you want?” His brows drew together and he gazed at her with suspicion.

  “I want you, Jared Grayson.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Now. This minute.”

  “Cece.” His tone rang hard and taut with restraint. “Don�
�t tempt me this way. I refuse to seduce the woman who will be my wife. The woman I love.”

  “Very well.” She gazed up at him. Regret mingled with desire in his eyes. Did the man really have a will of iron, or was the disreputable rake lingering just beneath the surface?

  With a long, deliberate movement, she ran her tongue across her lips. The night sky of his eyes darkened at the sight. “What if the woman you love seduces you?”

  He glared, as if to give her one last chance to escape. “You know nothing of seduction.”

  “Teach me, Jared.” Exhilarating anticipation deepened her voice. Delicious apprehension roughened her tone. “Teach me…to drive.”

  Jared’s gaze widened slightly, and in his eyes she saw the last traces of control swept away by a tide of passion. His lips crushed hers with an urgency that called to the very depths of her being. She opened her mouth beneath his and welcomed his tongue with her own. Her hands tunneled through his hair and she pulled him tighter, driven by a hunger she’d never known, never suspected. A hunger greeted and embraced with mindless jubilation.

  She tasted of summer nights and promises kept and the richness of creation itself, and he could not slake the thirst she stoked within his body and his soul. He jerked his lips from hers and ran his mouth along her jaw to sample the sweet flavor of her flesh. Her head fell back, urging his lips down her neck, smooth and silken and scorching beneath his tongue. She moaned and clenched his shoulders with an instinctive grip, fingernails digging into flesh, causing prickles of pain and plea sure.

  He swept her into his arms and she clung to him, her hands and lips exploring in a frantic search for fulfillment. He stepped around the motorcar and strode toward a corner of the stables, where the same canvas that patched the wall lay in a heap upon long-forgotten hay. They tumbled onto the makeshift bedding with an urgent disregard for comfort and a frenzied need for each other.

  Her lips claimed his and they seemed to breathe as one. She found the buttons of his shirt and swiftly opened it to her inquisitive hands, her fingers running through the coarse mat of hair covering broad, hard muscles, and he shuddered beneath her touch.

  His hands roamed over the bodice of her blouse, fumbling with the sentinel buttons guarding her secrets from his demanding desire. In the back of his mind he noted that he would have to forbid buttons on her blouses when they were married.

  “Bloody buttons,” he muttered.

  “Jared,” she murmured against his ear in a voice rasping with need, “tear them off.”

  He pulled back and stared. “Tear off your buttons?”

  She lay beneath him, her chest heaving, her eyes dark with newfound passion, her lips parted slightly. “Tear the silly things off.”

  All hesitation dissolved with the searing urgency in her voice. He grasped both sides of her blouse and ripped. Satin-covered buttons flew, and she strained toward the freedom of his touch. Roughly, he yanked the ribbons of her camisole and pushed the delicate fabric aside to reveal her breasts to his eager gaze. He quirked an eyebrow.

  “No corset?”

  She bit her bottom lip and blushed, a deep pink that suffused her skin from the curve of her cheek to the rosy tips of her already pebbled breasts. He cupped first one and then the other, his mouth following his hands. She gasped at the first flick of his tongue. He took a succulent offering into his mouth and she moaned, her hands clutching his head. He lavished attention on one breast and then the other, until she whimpered at his touch and quivered beneath his lips.

  Pure plea sure surged through her. She had never imagined, never dreamed, never dared to hope of sensations like this. His tongue trailed between her breasts and drifted lower, ever lower, to the waistband of her skirt. Desire scorched her skin, and his touch only served to fan the flames. Each moment brought a new intensity, a greater excitement, and still it was not enough. It was as if a spring wound inside her tighter and tighter and she wondered how any mere mortal could survive such exquisite joy.

  With a deft touch he unfastened the closure of her skirt, sliding it, and all she wore beneath, down the curve of her hip to tangle at her feet. She lay beneath him clad only in the wisp of a camisole that barely clung to her shoulders. He pulled her close and ran his hand up the long length of her leg to her hip. Her hands roamed across his back and her fingernails clawed at the fabric of his shirt. In one swift movement, he sat up, tore off the restrictive garment and tossed it unheeded into the shadows.

  She melted back into his embrace. His naked flesh pressed against her sensitive breasts, and she gasped at the shocking heat of his skin against hers. She twined her fingers in the silken hair at the base of his neck, pressing her lips to his, molding her body to him. His manhood pushed against her through the rough fabric of his trousers. Lost to sense and sensibility, she could only revel in the hard, strong feel of it.

  His hand explored the curve of her waist, the flat of her stomach and downward, ever downward, in a relentless torture of aching desire and spiraling excitement. His fingers reached the soft curls between her thighs and hesitated. She arched against him, urging him on. Surely she would go mad if he did not continue. Surely she would go mad if he did.

  He found the soft folds that guarded the key to her passion and she cried out at his unexpected touch. She was wet with wanting him and he fought the urge to tear away his remaining clothing and claim her for now and always. She quivered beneath his touch and he struggled for control. She had never been with a man and he could not take her with the hard, driving force he wanted, he needed.

  She was fire and flood and as eager as he, and he did not know how long he could hold back. He drew a steadying breath and touched her with sure, gentle caresses, and she shuddered without thought or reason. He found the bud of her desire and stroked until she thrashed blindly and moaned with mindless abandon.

  “Jared…” She cried softly. “Please.”

  “Cece, my love.” His voice was hoarse with frustration and restraint. “You are untouched and I—”

  “Jared! I know full well what we are about here.” Her eyes widened and she glared, the madness of unfulfilled passion in her eyes. “I am a modern woman and…I read!”

  He needed no more encouragement. Swiftly he shed his trousers and for a moment towered over her, the glow of the lantern silhouetting him in the shadows of the stables. He was a god. He was a man. And she wanted nothing more than to know him as a woman knows a man.

  He lowered himself over her and settled between her legs. His manhood throbbed between them and fear flickered for the barest moment and was swept aside by the plea sure that washed through her. Slowly he pushed against her, driving himself into her, filling her body, filling her soul.

  He was immersed in flame, slick, tight and glorious. He moved with a prolonged, precise stroke until he hit the barrier of her maidenhood. He groaned and nipped the lobe of her ear. “I fear this will hurt.”

  Her hands gripped his shoulders. “Anything achieved too easily…” she gasped the words, “…is valued too lightly.”

  He nodded and thrust into her, plunging past the proof of her virginity and into heaven on earth.

  She cried out at the pain, sharp and piercing. Her body throbbed around him and it was not at all what she expected, what she wanted. He moved within her, slowly at first, and she bit her lip to stifle the cry that rose within her. But he continued with long, even strokes that abruptly vanquished the pain and kindled sensations like those he’d provoked before. Instinctively she moved with him, matching his thrusts to hers, arching upward to greet him, each stroke more exquisite than the last.

  With a joy born of the oblivion of sheer bliss, he plunged into her again and again, his passion fueled by an urgent ache for this woman, only this woman. She writhed beneath him and his exhilaration grew with the sure knowledge that her plea sure equaled his own.

  She no longer knew her name, her country, anything but the delicious wickedness that pulsed through her blood, her body, her soul. Tensio
n built within her with every stroke, every thrust, and she knew she would surely die from the sweet flame of ecstacy.

  It was as if they were one being, no longer separate and distinct but joined in a ritual as old as time, as new as tomorrow. Together they spiraled upward higher and higher until each wondered if they glimpsed a promise of paradise or heaven itself. Finally, with one powerful thrust, he drove into her until it seemed he reached a forgotten or forbidden secret and she exploded in waves of quaking elation so intense, her body jerked with the strength of it. She screamed softly and he tensed and shuddered, and together they collapsed, drained of passion.

  Fueled by love.

  She rolled over, propped her chin in her hand and gazed at him. He returned her stare with a satisfied smile and a look of contentment in his eyes.

  “You are an excellent teacher,” she said with a soft laugh.

  Idly, she trailed her fingers across his chest, over the rough mat of hair, across hard, strong muscles, to lightly flick a nipple with her thumb. He gasped and grasped her hand.

  His eyes were again the color of midnight, the color of passion. He growled, and the sound sent shivers of renewed desire through her blood. “If you do not desist at once, I shall have no recourse but to take you in my arms and teach you a lesson you shall not soon forget.”

  “A driving lesson?” Her voice accepted his challenge and invited it.

  He grinned. “A driving lesson.”

  “Why, Jared…” She reached forward to brush her lips across his. “What an interesting idea.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Where are we going anyway?” Emily panted in a vain effort to keep up with her older sister.

  “To the stables.” Cece strode two long steps ahead, setting a brisk pace. “I wish to drive Jared’s motorcar, and I might need some assistance.”

  “Drive his motorcar?” Emily’s question hung in the air behind her, and she ignored the blatant curiosity in her sister’s voice. “I thought he—”

  “Never mind that now,” Cece said firmly. “Just stop your dawdling.”