Cinderella's Rebellion, page 13
Their gazes locked. “Replace you,” he finished.
Hope sprang to her sparkling eyes. “Could you?”
“I don’t see why not. She’d have to be blue-eyed and blonde, and be willing to follow the role absolutely.”
A soft smile curved her lips as she studied the romance cover model prince. “I think I have the perfect candidate in mind. Just perfect.”
They all piled into Cyn’s bright pink truck. Derek explained the new game plan to Dick as Cyn drove madly back to the condominium. Dick agreed, “Only if you find a babe as cute as she is.”
They found Lisa reading a romance novel by the pool, looking very wistful. She glanced up at their approach. Her blue eyes shone when she snagged a glance at the cover model prince wanna-be. Then her gaze snapped back to the cover of her book.
Lisa’s jaw descended. “Oh my God! It’s you!” She thumped the cover and stared, starry-eyed, at the cover model, who grinned back.
“Wow, you’re my favorite hero,” she breathed. “I buy all the romances that have you on the cover. I can’t believe you’re here, talking to me, little old me!”
Dick the model-prince acknowledged her praise with a little nod. “Yup, it’s me.”
Such stimulating dialogue, Derek thought happily. They’d gladly stick to the lines written for them in the book.
Lisa pulled a face. “You know I love a good story. I tell my friends I should have been born a character in a book, especially ones that have happy endings.”
Cyn and Derek exchanged amused grins. “Lisa,” Derek began. “I have a little proposition for you…”
Chapter Thirteen
Two hours later, all contracts were signed and Lisa and Dick had been zapped into the Cinderella tome. Derek returned to IsBn to make arrangements to send his minions to various books about to be published so they wouldn’t be jobless.
The minor details taken care of, Derek and Cyn stood in the enormous master suite of the castle, gazing at each other.
With fumbling eagerness, they tore each other’s clothing off. Derek took her mouth with frantic urgency, his tongue thrusting wildly inside the moist, tempting cavern. She welcomed him back, her passion tangling with his, relishing how their mouths mated in hot need.
He kissed her wildly, each touch of his mouth a burning caress upon her aching flesh. Derek encircled her tensed nipple with his lips, flicking and suckling as she gripped his dark head to her breast. Fire raced along her veins. Oh this was better than the dream, than any fairy tale. This was reality, a living fantasy of having his heavy weight pinning her to the mattress, writhing helpless against the invasion of his hot tongue flicking wetly over her nipple.
Derek lifted his head. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he leaned over her. “Brace yourself, la bella donna mia. I’m going to fuck you, hard and fast.”
He drove a knee between her thighs and mounted her. Nothing tender or gentle now, his eyes burned into hers. Derek settled between her eager, trembling thighs and positioned himself at her wet entrance. With a powerful thrust, he drove into her. She arched and moaned as he filled her, kept filling her.
Her body adjusted to his. Derek pulled away from her straining female flesh, sliding out slowly, then driving forward again. He demanded with each violent stroke, each hard drive inside her. She gave with every upward arc of her hips, each press of tensed fingers against his taut, pumping buttocks as she urged him on. Lashing them on to higher and higher heights until she could feel it just out of reach, oh, almost there.
Then he shifted, angling his thrusts against her ultra-sensitive inner tissues and the world became a loud, screaming pandemonium of noise, excruciating tension filling her and filling her.
“Do it,” he shouted hoarsely. “Come on, sweetheart, come for me, oh yes, yes, yes…”
She screamed as the tension exploded within her, shattering into thousands of shards like brittle glass.
Cyn collapsed against the mattress, boneless with relief and delirious pleasure.
He did not stop, nor relent his assault. Instead, Derek lifted her limp legs and draped her ankles over his shoulders. His breaths came in ragged pants as he drove into her, harder and harder, no mercy, none, and she felt herself flower again, the brightness gathering behind her closed lids.
They shattered together, his hoarse yell mingling with her shrill cries.
Minutes later, Cyn nestled against him, purring with happiness, drenched in exhausted pleasure. She felt him gently stroke her hair. His heart thudded a reassuring beat beneath her ear.
“Derek, we’re going to be so happy living in the real world.”
“Uh-huh. And sad. And grow old and fat and gray.”
“And I’ll love each minute of it,” she added. Cyn felt momentarily sad. “Derek, you’re giving up your kingdom for me.”
He brushed a kiss against her forehead. “My kingdom for you, a very equitable trade.”
“I think I got the best part of the bargain.” She snuggled against him.
His hand stilled in her hair. “Honey, there’s something I must do before I relinquish power and step away from IsBn forever. Alone.”
She tunneled her hands through the dark springy hairs covering his muscled chest. “You’re going back to her, aren’t you?”
Like a drum, his chest vibrated against her ear as he spoke, his deep voice a soothing cadence. “I owe it to her. She’s my creator. Now, if you’ll help me, I need to get dressed.”
Outfitted in full Highland regalia, Derek stood before Cinderella for her inspection. His clan’s plaid was fastened to the white linen shirt at the left shoulder with a gold brooch. Strapped to his back was the immense claymore, his weapon of genie power. Wool hose covered his calves and rough leather boots adorned his feet. The kilt swung gently about his bare knees. In his plaid, Derek felt a little of the proud nobility his creator had originally instilled in him.
Cinderella studied him, awe touching her expression. “Wow, you’re magnificent.”
He puffed up at her praise until she bent down and lifted up his kilt. Cyn aimed him a singularly sensual smile.
“Just as I thought. Nothing.”
Her head disappeared beneath the heavy skirt. Derek gasped, feeling her lush mouth upon him once more. With considerable effort, he pushed her away.
She emerged with a pout. “I want to play with your Highland warrior.”
“Not now,” he said in a strangled voice.
Her mouth, and his cock, drooped with disappointment.
Derek gave her a kiss filled with warm promise. “Until then, my fair maiden,” he told her softly and slowly vanished from her sight.
He knew exactly where to find his creator. She had been there, these past ten years, not budging. Always sitting there at exactly 4 p.m., her favorite time to write.
The living room was cheerful, with whitewashed walls and a window overlooking a shady banyan tree that draped its limbs over the postage stamp-sized yard. The heydays of seven-figure advances were long gone. Now she rented out the large oceanfront mansion during the busy tourist season and lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment.
Motionless, she stared in quiet desperation at the computer screen.
The PC was quite old now. She had failed to upgrade. But then again, she hadn’t written a single word since that day ten years ago after he had escaped and she had quit writing.
Derek approached very quietly, to not startle her, saddened to see thick streaks of gray in her black hair. Shadows lined her eyes.
“Maggie, do you remember me?” he asked softly.
She whirled, clearly startled. A tiny frown knit her brows together. Then a smile of recognition lit her features.
“Derek. You came back to me.”
He nodded, feeling guilty. “I know it’s my fault you haven’t written since I left. I should have stuck it out, let you tinker with me even more.”
Her expression softened. “No, you were right to leave. You were created as an honorable Scottish warrior and became, well, like a cartoon character after my publisher forced me into making all those changes. I’d leave, too.”
He sighed and nodded. “I’m sorry I abandoned you. I couldn’t take the unpredictability any longer. I lost my identity.”
His creator gave a wry smile, a ghost of her old self. “So did I. Once I thought I was an author. No longer.” She studied him with that searching look she always gave her computer while composing his character and writing his scenes.
“Where did you go?”
He parked a hip against the desk, telling her all about his adventures trying to organize the kingdom of IsBn and rope in and restrain fiction.
“All I wanted was to try to organize what was published so there was no more confusion. To keep control of all the characters. In the end I realized you can’t control what is published. It’s like trying to own what’s inside an author’s head. No one can own ideas. It’s meant to be that no one should rule the fictional land of IsBn. Except maybe, an author herself.” He traced a line on her scarred desk.
Maggie looked pleased. “It sounds like you truly did grow as a character. Far more than you had under my keyboard. I gave you motivation and goals and internal conflict, but you evolved more on your own.”
He thought of Cinderella and felt warm inside. “I had some help from a very special person.”
A familiar twinkle lit her blue eyes. “Perhaps it was best your book was never published. It was worth paying back the advance not to see that travesty in print. But I haven’t written a word since. I simply can’t write anymore.”
He crouched down by her worn wood chair.
“Yes you can. Write for yourself. You can fight them, these demons inside that taunt you.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered. “It’s been too long. I feel too beaten and defenseless.”
“Then take this. My scepter that enables me to rule over the kingdom of IsBn.”
From the leather scabbard strapped to his back, he slowly unsheathed the heavy claymore. The magical weapon he’d escaped with ten years ago, which he had turned into a scepter to rule his kingdom.
“With this you can write, let your imagination soar.”
Maggie stared at the long, heavy silver sword he reverently placed on her lap. “I can’t. I have no right to rule over IsBn.”
“Yes, you do. You always have. You and the other authors who capture the magic for millions of readers. It’s not mine to rule. It never really was.”
Maggie stroked the polished runes on the blade’s flat. A determined look came over her as she touched the keyboard.
A smile touched his mouth as he watched her staring at the screen. Then, as if by magic, her fingers began typing on the keys. The clatter of the keyboard made a soothing sound he loved. He sensed, no, he knew, it would continue. And keep going.
She had the magic again.
“Just one favor,” he told her. “I’m powerless now. Could you write me back to Cinderella?”
His creator aimed him a curious look. “Of course. Do you want me to write you a happy ending as well?”
Derek gave his typical lopsided grin, the one she’d loved designing for him. “Naw. Let’s just see how the story unfolds.”
Maggie gave an approving nod and typed away. “There,” she said with a beaming smile. “You’re on your way back to her. Good luck, Derek.”
He closed his eyes, feeling the power slowly begin to transport him back to Cinderella, where he’d be perfectly content to lose control forevermore in her arms. Through the shimmering mist, he waved.
“Goodbye Maggie,” he said softly. “Happy writing, ever after.”
The End
About the Author
Blair Valentine is an award-winning, multi-published author with a quirky sense of humor and no known shoe fetishes. She lives in Florida with her husband, two dogs, and a mouthy parrot who is a charm school dropout. Her first EC book, Cinderella’s Rebellion, won second place in the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal RWA chapter On the Far Side contest. Blair loves to hear from readers. You can email her at valentinegal45@aolcom or leave comments on her blog at http://www.blairvalentine.blogspot.com.
Blair welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at 1056 Home Ave., Akron OH 44310.
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Blair Valentine, Cinderella's Rebellion
