The Anti-Cinderella

by Tawdra Kandle

  “Yeah, it’s in the back of your truck.” I twisted the hem of my T-shirt between my fingers. “Some of the reporters followed me all the way here. I think they’re planning to wait for me to leave the garden.”

  One side of Ed’s mouth twisted a little. “Guess they’ll be waiting a while, then. We should probably get moving if you’re going to get to Boston on time for your flight. My truck is dependable, but she doesn’t exactly fly down the highway.”

  I extended my hand. “Lead the way.”

  I rarely used the path that led from campus to the college gardens, since I was almost always coming from home when I worked on the plots. But Ed seemed to know where he was going. We were both silent until we emerged from the wooded area onto the black top.

  “I don’t see anyone.” He peered around. “The coast is clear.”

  “Yeah, they’re not supposed to come onto campus, but it’s not like there’s an armed guard watching out for them to sneak in. Better safe than sorry.”

  Ed opened the passenger door for me before he climbed in on his side and started up the engine. I knew I was probably being ridiculous, but I scrunched down in the seat and curled up in as tight a ball as I could, hiding my face in my arms as he drove slowly through the college and exited at the far end, away from the gardens.

  “Do you really think they’re going to try to follow you all the way to Boston?” Ed sounded skeptical. “Why do they even care? I mean, I know you explained to me, and I’ve seen the pictures now. But I still don’t get it.”

  “Well, they’re just—” I stopped abruptly. “Wait a minute. You saw pictures? Which ones? Where?”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, ah, I had to tell my girlfriend what we were doing today. She won’t say anything to anyone, don’t worry, but I couldn’t just drive two hours to Boston with another woman without letting her know what was going on.”

  I nodded. “Sure. I understand that.”

  “Well, so, I told her, and she already knew about you and the prince. She showed me stuff from the internet.”

  “Ohhhh.” I buried my face in my hands. “This is mortifying.”

  “Why?” The truck picked up speed as we left the small town behind us and hit the mostly empty backroads. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Even the pictures with the two of you outside—you didn’t know some idiot with a camera and a bucket truck would be spying on you. I wouldn’t want anyone snapping pics in my backyard. Sometimes, my girlfriend and I go swimming down at the pond near our house, and, ah, we don’t always wear swim suits.”

  Ewww. I didn’t need to know this. “I appreciate your understanding, Ed. And yes, you’re right. We didn’t have any idea there were photographers nearby, but what I’m learning is that when you’re dating a prince, you have to assume someone is watching at all times. That’s why I came up with this idea for getting to Boston. I know you probably think I’m being dramatic about it, but if flying down to Florida from a different airport gets the press off my back for even a little while—well, it will be worth it.”

  “If you say so.” He cast me a sideways glance. “This prince—he’s a good guy? He’s not one of these rich men who doesn’t know his head from his ass?”

  “He’s a very good guy,” I assured Ed. “The best. And he loves to talk about plants and growing food sustainably—you’d like him. If he wasn’t absolutely amazing, I wouldn’t go to this much trouble to see him.” I was quiet for a few seconds. “The prince part—the part of him that’s famous—that’s the part I put up with because at his heart, he’s so much more than that. He’s sweet and funny and kind and really smart—and he treats me like a princess, even when I’m just me. Just Kyra.”

  Ed gave a little cough. “I know I’ve only known you since we both started this graduate program, but I happen to think just Kyra is a pretty great girl. So he’s got to be something special to deserve you.”

  I sniffed, moved by Ed’s unexpected sentiment. “Well, I think you’re amazing, too, Ed. I didn’t know you had a girlfriend. Is she anyone I know?”

  He smiled broadly and shook his head. “Nah, I doubt it. She’s not at the college. Her name is Jessie. We’ve been together since we were in high school, and she’s a waitress in town. But we’re the real deal. We’re getting married next year, after I finish my master’s degree.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’d like to meet her some time.”

  He nodded. “Maybe when you get back, some time.”

  The drive to Boston was blessedly uneventful. Every now and then, I got brave and checked my phone to see if there was anything about Nicky or me, but nothing popped up.

  Just before we reached the airport, a text message notification buzzed, and with trepidation, I swiped to see what it was.

  A beach picture filled the screen, the empty stretch of sand and sun-dappled ocean waves making me smile.

  Paradise awaits. The only thing missing is you. Get here soon.

  “That must be him, huh?” Ed smirked. “The look in your eye . . . that’s the real thing, all right.”

  “He’s already in Florida, waiting for me.”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s good that we’re here.” Ed eased the truck to the curb in front of the departing flights sign for my airline. He shifted into neutral. “I’ll just jump out and get your bag.”

  I laid my hand on his arm. “No, stay here. It’ll be faster if I can just get it and head right to check in. I’m hoping to get to the gate before anyone realizes I’m here.” I leaned over to give my friend an impulsive if slightly awkward hug. “Thanks so much, Ed. I couldn’t have done this without you. I really appreciate it. Oh—” I fumbled in the pocket of my jeans. “I have gas money for you right here.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He held up his hand. “It was my pleasure. I’m glad I could help.”

  I hesitated. I knew Ed had to be barely scraping by as a grad student at Grant. “But, Ed . . .”

  “Tell you what.” He patted my arm. “When we finish our project next year and get the highest grade in our class, you can take Jessie and me to dinner to celebrate, okay?”

  I smiled. “It’s a deal. I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Now get going before that policeman comes down here and rattles my cage for stopping too long.”

  I hopped out of the truck and reached into the bed to retrieve my bag. Keeping my head down, I hustled into the airport, more eager than ever to reach Florida—and Nicky.

  “I’M PRETTY SURE THIS IS heaven.”

  With a smile, I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at Nicky, who was stretched out beside me in the hot bubbling water of the Jacuzzi. Droplets of water clung to the olive burnished skin of his chest and shoulders, and I had to fight the temptation to lick them away.

  I’d been here at the beach for all of three hours. Miraculously, I’d managed to keep a low profile and evade the press, thanks to Ed’s help and the efficiency of the car service I’d arranged to pick me up at the airport in Daytona.

  Nicky had greeted me with a searing kiss, a bone-crushing hug and food that he’d had delivered. As we’d eaten, the sun had sunk low in the sky, sending pink and golden rays over the protected patio.

  Since it had been too late for the beach, Nicky had suggested that a soak in the hot tub would be perfect after we’d both spent a long time traveling down here. I’d hesitated only a fraction of a second; the wine I’d consumed with dinner had lowered my inhibitions enough that I wasn’t going to let bathing suit anxiety stop me from relaxing with Nicky.

  “Ah, Ky . . .” Nicky had cleared his throat. “I put your bag—and the packages you’d had sent to your grandparents’ house—upstairs in my room. If that’s not okay . . .”

  I’d closed the distance between us, wrapping my arms around him and pressing my body close to his. “It’s okay, Nicky. It’s very much okay.”

  His answering smile had been huge and beautiful.

  To my relief, the bathing suit I’d ordered had fit m
e perfectly, and whether it was wine goggles or simply the fact that I was feeling positive about myself, I thought it looked pretty damn good.

  Now, as I regarded the tempting specimen of masculinity next to me, I gave a small sigh. “It does feel like heaven. Is it the hot water, the wine or the extreme privacy, do you think?”

  Nicky reached beneath the water and found my hand, twining our fingers together. “None of the above. It’s you, Ky. You being here with me . . . that’s what makes it heaven. You make it perfect.”

  I let my eyes drift closed again and maneuvered myself a little closer to him. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. When I’m with you, Nicky . . . everything else fades away. It all becomes background noise, and all I see—all I know—is you.”

  He tugged me closer, grasping my knees and swinging them over his hard, muscled thighs. “All I want is you. It’s crazy, you know? But when I’m back at home, with everything that’s familiar and part of my life, it doesn’t make sense anymore. I only feel peaceful and whole when we’re together.”

  His arms wrapped around me until my breasts were crushed into his chest and my face was close to his. His blue eyes bore deep into me, searching for some answer that he must have found there. His gaze blazed with heat, and his lowered his mouth to cover mine.

  “I love you, Kyra. I want to show you how much.”

  And then his lips consumed me, his tongue delving into my mouth, finding mine and parrying with it in an enticing dance. My arms twined behind his neck, anchoring me to him, holding us together nearly as close as we could be.

  One of his hands wandered down to cover my breast, with only the soaked cloth of my bathing suit separating us. I arched my back and twisted until I could move one leg to his side, effectively straddling his body, lining up my aching center with the hard ridge of his desire. When I ground into him, Nicky groaned and brought his other hand down to grip my ass.

  “Show me, Nicky.” I breathed the words against his lips. “Show me how much. Show me everything. I want to feel all of you—over me and against me and inside me.”

  As though he’d only been waiting for my permission, Nicky stood up, water streaming from both of our bodies. Wheeling around, he lifted me to the side of the Jacuzzi and stood between my knees. He framed my face in his hands and kissed me as my hands gripped his back.

  His fingers dropped to curl around the cup of my bikini top, and his fingers found the rosy tip of my nipple, pinching lightly. I moaned into his mouth, pressing myself against his hand.

  “Need to taste you.” He groped around to my back and unhooked the bathing suit top. “I want to see all of you, Ky. I want to touch you everywhere with my tongue and kiss every inch of your skin.”

  I wriggled my arms to shake loose of the bikini top straps. “Start here.”

  I didn’t need to tell him twice. Nicky cupped one breast in his hand and drew the turgid point into his mouth, sucking hard until I gasped and writhed. He moved his lips to the other side and slid his fingers down lower, until they teased the waistband of my bathing suit bottoms.

  “You’re so beautiful, Kyra.” He kissed the center of my chest and down my torso, making me shiver when his tongue teased my stomach. Pausing at my navel, he blew softly and moved even lower.

  “Nicky.” I heard the naked and raw desire in my own voice.

  “Lay back, Ky.” He rose up over me and managed to find a towel to lay on the wood behind me. “Lay back and let me make you feel good.”

  I lowered myself onto my elbows, my eyes never leaving Nicky as he hooked his hands into the sides of my bikini and eased them down my legs. The tips of his fingers drew tantalizing lines on my inner thighs, teasing higher and higher until I couldn’t stand it another minute. Moaning, I dropped my head back between my shoulder blades.

  “Be patient, sweetheart.” I heard strained laughter in Nicky’s murmured voice. “Good things come to those who wait.”

  “I’m hoping come is the operative word here.” I shifted, trying to force his touch to where I needed it so badly.

  “Mmmmmmm. Remember what I told you. I want to touch you everywhere with my tongue . . .” He dipped his head down between my legs. “And that’s what I intend to do.”

  His mouth covered my core, and sensation assaulted me from every direction. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the onslaught of pleasure, until all I could do was call out his name, over and over, as he brought me to the pinnacle of pleasure and plunged with me over the edge.

  I was still trying to recover my breath, trying to keep from spinning out of control into sweet oblivion, when he stood up over me.

  “Ky, you are incredible.” He feathered soft kisses on my throat. “Let me take you upstairs and love you.”

  I managed a smile. “I thought that was what you just did.”

  “Oh, darling, that was only the beginning. I have plans . . . plans for us. Let me show you.”

  The only thing I could do was nod. It was apparently enough, because without waiting another moment, Nicky scooped me into his arms and carried me into the house.

  The bedroom Nicky had chosen for us to share was the same one he’d occupied when he’d visited his grandmother here as a child and teenager. Perched on the end of the bed, wrapped in an enormous thick towel, I gazed around, smiling reminiscently.

  “When we were little, we played in here on rainy days. Do you remember?” I twisted to see Nicky, where he stood drying off with his own towel.

  “I do. We built entire cities with Legos, and we had epic games of Parcheesi.”

  “And then, one summer, Honey and your grandmother said I couldn’t go into your bedroom and you couldn’t come into mine. We had to stay out on the beach or by the pools or in the living room downstairs. I didn’t get it back then.”

  Nicky approached me, his eyes fastened on me, dropping his towel as he came near. “I did. It was the year I was fourteen and you were twelve. You were still mostly a little girl, but I’d gotten tall that year, and my voice had begun to change. I wasn’t looking at girls the same way. My grandmother told me that it was no longer proper for us to be alone in our bedrooms together.”

  “The next year . . . I noticed how broad your chest had become.” I turned and laid my palms flat against that same chest, which was even wider now. “I wanted you to notice me more. I wanted you to see me like a girl, not just a kid you always played with.”

  “And I didn’t want to do that, because it was too much. When I pretended you were just Ky, the same kid, I was all right. But when I found myself looking at your ass in a bathing suit or the way you tucked your hair back behind your ear . . . then I knew I was in trouble.”

  “Still, nothing changed that year.” I ran my hands down Nicky’s arms, thrilling at their strength and hardness and at the way his jaw tightened at my touch.

  “Not that year,” he agreed. “But the next summer . . . you had grown up even more. You were filling out a bathing suit . . . and I couldn’t look at you too closely without embarrassing myself.” His fingers wandered down to nudge my towel out of the way until it dropped behind me onto the mattress. With exquisite tenderness, he bent to kiss the top of one breast.

  “And all I knew was that you made my heart pound . . . that I wanted you to really see me, and if you didn’t kiss me, I was probably going to die.” I combed my fingers through his hair. “Do you know that ten years later, I still feel that same way.”

  “Don’t die, Ky.” He slid his hand around my neck, forcing me to look up at him, and lowered his mouth to mine. “All you ever have to do is ask. Kissing you is one of my favorite things to do in all the world.”

  “Mmmmmm.” I swiped my tongue over his bottom lip, sucking it into my mouth. “Just one of them?”

  “Yes. Just one of them, but it leads to my other favorite things.” He eased me back onto the bed and then straightening, he took off his swim trunks, robbing me of every last breath at the sight of him. “At least, I hope it does. I hope it
leads there.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of it.” I stretched my hand to curl my fingers about his length. “Look at you, Nicky. You’re . . . incredible. Every inch of your body is perfect.”

  His cheeks flushed, and his lips parted as his breath came more quickly. “Hardly perfect.”

  “Perfect for me,” I insisted. “You’re better than any dream I ever had. And you even surpass the fantasies I had for a solid six months after you kissed me the first time.”

  “You fantasized about me?” He smiled and reached down to touch my cheek with one finger. “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, I was only fourteen, so they were pretty tame, as fantasies go. Mostly, they involved you kissing me more and taking off your shirt. I wasn’t to a place yet where I could deal with anything below the waist. But I wondered what it would be like to touch your chest . . . to feel you pressed against me. And I’m telling you, now that I know, that it’s even hotter than I dreamed.”

  “Hmmmm.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath as my fingers explored him. “Will you think less of me if I admit my dreams about you were decidedly less innocent?”

  I laughed softly. “Back then, or more recently?”

  “Both. When we were teenagers, I used to daydream about being with you in the ocean and untying your bathing suit top. I’d gone to a school where the boys spent a great deal of time talking about girls and boasting about things they’d seen and done—most of them made-up stories, I think—so I had a good template for what I wanted to do with you. I thought you’d wrap your legs around my waist and then . . . well, you can figure out what we did.”

  “In the ocean, Nicky . . .” I shook my head, but I couldn’t fight the grin that crept over my face. “Just so you know, having sex in the ocean is not one of my fantasies. I had a friend in college who thought that would be romantic, and she ended up with a raging, horrible infection—in a place no one wants that kind of thing. No, thank you.”

  “Duly noted. No nookie in the sea.” He leaned over me, nibbling down my neck. “But then, we don’t need the ocean, do we? We have a perfectly good bed right here.”