Fantasies R Us, page 6
Jayne scanned the close quarters, not sure whether she was looking for an actual button or something else. Then she spotted it, a large red button set into the stones near where she’d entered.
All she had to do to end this thing was push that button. She stood rooted to the spot midway between the bed and the panic button. She wasn’t going to get love with a fantasy. She wasn’t even going to get long-term fantastic sex. Just two days of it, one actually considering she’d cut short her first day by running like a scared rabbit.
Story of her life. Always running away from risk, taking the safe route.
“Not this time,” Jayne declared aloud, turning her back on the panic button and facing the draped bed.
The sheer fabric slipped like liquid silver across her fingers as she drew the drape aside. The scent of roses wafted up from the coverlet. The bed was covered with flower petals the deep shade of crimson.
She stroked the cool-as-silk rose petals. She burrowed her hands in their velvet softness. She gathered up a mound of them, lifted them to her face and inhaled their spicy scent. It would be heaven to lie naked in that bed of thornless roses. Heck it would be heavenly to lie in that bed even wearing a silk nightgown…and a wonderful way to greet her prince.
That’s what she’d do. She’d arrange herself in a seductive pose upon the rose petal-strewn bed for her prince to find.
But the bed was so high she was going to need help climbing into it. There must be some sort of step one could use to climb aboard. Dropping the handful of rose petals back on the bed, she glanced about for a stepping block but saw nothing.
She was on her hands and knees, holding the bed skirt over her head and peering into the darkness under the bed for the block when she heard a deep voice behind her.
“Is there something with which I may help, my lady?”
She’d heard that voice before, had heard almost those exact words spoken to her the day she’d first visited Fantasies R Us. She eased out from under the bed, acutely aware that her derriere was high in the air. Silently she prayed she was mistaken—that this wasn’t her prince.
She sat back on her heels and found Prince Charming standing very near in his tight breeches and the flowing poet’s shirt in which she’d first seen him. But his hair was still tied back as it had been at the ball, the three scowling woman who’d followed them into the garden filled the doorway behind him.
A pompous-looking little man standing between the women the prince cleared his throat and announced, “His Royal Highness, Prince Charming.”
When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers. She’d read that somewhere, but couldn’t remember where as all rational thought had gone out of her head. But she now understood the meaning of those words.
“Your Highness,” she mumbled, scrambling to her feet.
A bemused smile stretched across his lips as he stepped close and plucked a piece of straw from her hair. So much for impressing him with the classic lines of the nightgown. She blushed madly. He motioned the little man carrying a pillow forward. The prince lifted the glass slipper from it.
“It won’t fit her,” groused the stout stepsister.
“It can’t,” sputtered the horsy one.
“May I?” The prince asked, holding the glass slipper up to her.
“Ah, er, sure.” She gathered the long skirt of the silk gown up above her ankles and lifted one foot toward him.
He knelt, caught her heel in his hand and… His touch startled her and she lost her balance and fell back against the edge of the bed. The stepsisters laughed. The stepmother looked smug. Jayne wanted to cry. This was her fantasy. Everything should be perfect.
The prince rose to his feet and smiled that heart-stopping smile of his. He put the slipper back on the pillow. That was it? She didn’t even get to try on the slipper?
He closed his hands around her waist and lifted her effortlessly onto the bed. She marveled at the gentle strength of his hands—at how their touch made her feel petite and oh-so feminine.
His thighs pressed against her knees as he leaned close and whispered into her ear, “Now, if you fall, it will be onto a soft mattress or into my arms.”
Arms, she definitely wanted to fall into his arms. His teeth glinted from that killer smile of his as though he’d read her mind and his fingers slid away from the slick fabric at her waist. At his release, she reeled and almost slid off the bed.
“Soon, my beauty,” he murmured.
Her head swam. He’d called her his beauty.
Of course he’d called her beauty. He was programmed to find her beautiful. Jayne felt the frown tug at her lips. His fingertip touched her lower lip, a feathery touch that tickled and tingled at the same time, and he shook his head.
“No frowns. Not here. Not now. Not with me.”
She looked into his eyes, read the promise in them to make her every wish come true. How could a piece of machinery gauge her expressions with such precision?
“Give in to the fantasy,” he urged. “Give in to me.”
Why not indeed. She hadn’t come here to explore the latest in cyborg technology. She’d come here for a fantasy. Drawing a mind-clearing breath, she nodded.
He sank to one knee before her, glass slipper once more in hand, and requested her foot. Focused on the promise in the eyes he kept raised to hers, she gathered up the hem of the gown and lifted her leg to him. Without breaking the hold his eyes had on hers, he supported her ankle with his hand and slid the slipper easily onto her foot.
“It fits,” announced the little man with the pillow, barely audible above the defeated wail of the stepsisters and stepmother.
“Leave us,” the prince ordered, still holding her ankle, still looking her in the eye. The little man bowed, turned, hustled the trio of sobbing women back from the doorway and shut the door behind him.
Jayne gaped at the massive wood door that effectively closed off the shrieks of the rejected women. She’d never been the chosen one before. She’d never been the source of another’s heartbreak.
The prince straightened before her, caught her chin in his fingers and tipped her face up toward his. “Do not feel bad for them, my lady. They are wicked.”
“So the story goes,” she said with a sad sigh.
“And we are meant to be together to live happily ever after, so the story also tells.”
She smiled uncertainly up at him. “You know your fairytales, huh?”
“I know this one,” he murmured, leaning close and stroking her throat with the backs of his fingers, the look in his eyes now hungry.
She stopped breathing. He kissed her lips. His fingers trailed lower, following the plunging cut of the gown, pausing on the inner curve of her breast. The tip of his tongue touched her lips. She sucked in a quick breath.
He smiled against her mouth and murmured, “It is good that you breathe, my lady. If you faint for lack of air each time I kiss you, I will not be able to do all I wish to do to you.”
With one fingertip, he traced a little circle against the skin between her breasts. A promise…from a cyborg programmed to give her pleasure.
No, she wasn’t going to think about what he was.
“Take it off,” he commanded in a low voice.
“Huh?”
“The glass slipper. Take it off. You no longer need it.”
“O-okay,” she said, relieved he hadn’t been talking about the gown. She wasn’t quite ready to surrender her naked body to a…man.
She toed the slipper off and looked up to find him staring at her foot. He smiled widely.
“You have a lovely arch, my lady. High and perfectly shaped.” He raised a lusty gaze at her. “Perhaps you might allow me to massage your foot later.
“I’d like that,” she said, her voice sounding strangely squeaky in her ears.
He closed his hands around her waist once more and lifted from the bed as effortlessly as he’d put her there.
“Dance with me,” he said.
“There’s no music,” she said, peering up at him, relishing the heat of his hands on her waist.
He smiled a seductive smile, gathered her into his arms and began to hum a waltz, the same one they’d first danced to. At first, her feet tangled in the rushes as they danced, making her feel as though she was merely tripping along with him.
He pulled her closer and murmured against her temple, “Follow my rhythm. Feel it. Give into it.”
Oh, yes, she wanted to cry out as he moved against her, thigh against thigh, chest to breast, the sway of their bodies making the silk gown slip over her skin. She wanted to give in to him and in more ways than his dance rhythm.
That carnal knowledge was enough to make her forget about the uneven rushes beneath her feet, the table that could trip her up or the stone hearth waiting for unsuspecting toes to stub against it. She could trust her prince to guide her safely around the room…and through whatever else would happen this night. After all, he was programmed for perfection.
She relaxed in his arms, gave in to the tune he hummed, gave in to his lead. Soon, she seemed to be floating around the room, the rushes unfelt beneath her naked feet, their bodies moving as one and yet not. There couldn’t be this delicious friction between them if they were moving as one.
And it was delicious, the way the muscles in his thighs bunched against hers, the heat produced by the fingers he played against her back, his chest rubbing against her breasts. Her nipples had never been so hard.
The realization made her stumble. He held her upright and laughed. It was a deep, rich sound that made the air around her vibrate against her skin. Her nipples tightened even more.
“Do not be embarrassed by the reaction of your body, my lady. It is natural and I am most pleased it reacts thus for me. See how my body reacts to you.”
She eyed his nipples through the flowing fabric of the poet shirt.
“Lower,” he said, his hand low on her back pressing her very close.
The hard lump poking into her abdomen startled her. She broke from the embrace, stumbling backwards from him.
He looked crestfallen. “I did not mean to alarm you, my lady. I believed this was what you wanted.”
Something pinched at her stomach, a need, a longing, a desire. She nodded. “It is what I want, but it startled me.”
He nodded knowingly and motioned to the little table in front of the fireplace set with cheese and grapes and wine. “Perhaps something to relax you.”
She joined him at the table. But she did not sit on one of the provided stools. She was too tense to sit, too afraid if she did, the dampness between her legs would make an obscene spot on the virginal white gown.
Besides, he didn’t sit either as he poured two glasses of wine and handed her one. She downed it all before her shaky hands could spill it.
He chuckled, refilled her goblet and raised his glass to her. “To the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“I know you have been programmed to say that, so you don’t have to…say those things.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Programmed? No one need program me to tell a woman how beautiful she is.”
“I’m not beautiful. I’m just plain Jayne.” She took a long draught of the wine, silently chastising herself for slipping back into reality versus fantasy mode, trying not to squirm under the long, slow head to toe look he gave her.
His gaze came back to her eyes. “There is nothing plain about you, Jayne.”
She bit her tongue against the inclination to argue the demerits of her body. She’d had a lifetime of practice at that, the seed sown by her own mother who’d been gloriously, glamorously beautiful.
“Beautiful,” he repeated, stroking her cheek with a bent knuckle. She flushed beneath his touch—his compliment. She wanted to believe him. And that was the problem. What good would it do her to believe in a fantasy? She started to turn away from him.
“Don’t turn away, Jayne. Let me show you how beautiful you are.”
He set down his wineglass and, taking her by the shoulders, turned her to the cheval glass she’d avoided up until now. It must have been the distortion of the dust glazing the old glass as she didn’t look half-bad in that clinging gown of pearly silk.
“See.” He fingered her curls back from her face and slowly stroked the graceful curve of her neck with the backs of his fingers. “You are a vision.”
She didn’t know about being a vision, but she actually looked like a woman who had some nice curves. She sipped at her wine as she examined herself…and the man behind her. He was the perfect half a head taller than her, with perfect chiseled features and perfect broad shoulders that framed hers. Actually, his entire body framed hers…perfectly.
“See how the cloth drapes your body,” he murmured, his mouth so close to her ear that his breath tickled her earlobe.
She snuggled back against him, this time not startled by the bulge pressing into her buttocks. He ran a hand down her side, making the slick fabric ripple against her skin, making her skin ripple against the fabric.
“It molds to you like skin, showing off your womanly hips.” His hand hesitated on her hip, his thumb tracing the point of her hip. “See how it shapes your stomach, your abdomen and your—” His fingers stroked her pubic mound and she gasped.
“My touch is pleasurable, is it not?”
She sipped again at her wine and nodded.
“May I touch you further?”
She nodded again and drank more wine, her nipples tenting the silk big as fat raisins. He caught her gaze in the mirror, holding it as he slid his hand up her abdomen, over her stomach and paused on her ribs. With the side of his thumb, he stroked the underside of her breast.
A wonderful heat spread through her. Maybe it was from the wine, but she doubted it.
He cupped her breast and murmured into her ear. “You are heavy with your need to be touched.”
She sucked in a breath.
He flicked his thumb over one knotted nipple and her hunger scorched a path clear to the apex of her legs. She all but whimpered with her need.
He smiled and kissed her ear, then her neck and the slope of her shoulder. She closed her eyes and sank back against him. He would soon fill her. She knew it. She knew it with a certainty that made her tingle from her toes to the roots of her hair.
He cupped her breasts now with both hands, covered them, stroked them and tweaked their nipples. She groaned, closed her eyes and wriggled back against the hard shaft that promised to fulfill her every desire.
His fingers brushed hers as he took the wineglass from her fingers. She didn’t know what he did with it. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that his hands came back to her, hot, hard and urging as they cupped her shoulders and stroked their slope from neck to crest. Then, in tandem, those fingers slid the thin straps of her gown from her shoulders.
Her eyes flew open and she clutched the cascading fabric to her breasts.
“Let it go, my lady,” he gently commanded against the curve of her neck.
Reluctantly, she unclenched her fingers. Soft as a breeze’s caress, the gown slipped from her body. But she closed her eyes to avoid seeing her reflection.
“Look at yourself in the mirror.”
She shook her head, crisscrossing her body with her arms. Gently, he pulled her hands away and urged her to look at herself. Tentatively, she opened her eyes. She gasped. The woman in the mirror had a narrow waist and gently flared hips and high, full breasts. She was a goddess.
“That’s not me,” she whispered.
“But it is, my lady. This is your body aroused.”
Chapter Six
Her eyes met his in the mirror, smoky with desire. He bowed his head to the curve of her neck, his eyes urging her on. His lips parted. His tongue touched her skin, hot and wet, a lightning strike that zinged through her.
She gasped. He closed his lips over the pulse of her jugular, his hot breath heating her blood.
She began to tremble and her breaths shuddered from her. She wanted to rise onto her toes, part her legs and present herself to him. He laughed against her neck, a low, vibrating rumble.
“Take your clothes off,” she said in a breathy voice she didn’t recognize.
He lifted his mouth from her neck, stepped back from her and began to tug the shirt from his pants. Just like that. She commanded and he complied. That in itself would be a fantasy come true for any women. But for her—for a woman too shy to even look a man in the eye when she spoke to one, it empowered her.
She faced him—watched him brazenly as he slowly, deliberately gathered the shirt up his thick thighs. She inhaled deeply and watched his long fingers peel the blousing fabric up past his six-pack abs, up his bronze, muscle-sculpted chest and off over his head. Her vaginal walls twitched at the sight of his magnificent body…and the mere thought of where his fingers would touch her.
Her nostrils flared and she smelled her own lust rising from the moisture between her legs. Briefly their eyes met. He reached back, tugged the tie from his hair, and gave his head a shake.
His wheat-hued mane fanned across his shoulders, his nipples puckered in the cool air and, beneath the buttoned front of his tight breeches, how he did bulge. Her vaginal walls tightened.
She licked her lips. He laughed a low, rumbling laugh. She glanced up, realizing how low she’d allowed her eyes to stray, and saw the amusement twinkling in his eyes.
She dropped her chin. He stepped close and, with two fingers, lifted her chin so she looked once more squarely at him.
“Don’t look away,” he murmured, his amusement tempered by the lusty flare of his pupils. “I want you to look at me. I enjoy you looking at me.”
With a fingertip, he traced the path of her collarbone. Her eyelids sank shut, her head lolled back and she leaned into his touch.
“Just as I enjoy looking at you,” he murmured, reminding her she was standing before him naked as the day she was born.
She snapped to attention, blushing furiously and drawing her arms across herself.
He smiled a curious smile, his hands closing on the wrists she pressed tight to her chest. “Don’t hide your beautiful body, my lady. You are too exquisite a feast for the eye.”
