by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
In retaliation, he sucked on my nipple hard and I gasped as pain and pleasure entwined together. I froze as his fingers slid over my thigh, nearing my virginity, and he sensed my hesitation. His body hung above me and his fingers curled back on themselves quickly as though he’d touched a hot iron.
“We can stop, Brynn.”
“No,” I said, the word escaping my lips before I even thought to speak. My desire had taken control of me and I was no longer able to press down on the feelings that had been threatening to escape since the first time I set eyes on him. “Please, no.”
He hesitated, and I continued softly, embarrassed that the truth should be spoken out loud.
“I want you… God, Eliot, I want you so badly.”
His eyes went wide, and I thrilled again at the thought that I could surprise him in that way. He bent his head and kissed me on the shoulder, whispering in my ear.
“You’re amazing, Brynn.”
My heart and body both yearned toward the man whose breath warmed my neck, the man whose chest was crisscrossed with the tragic reminders of a love he could never bring back. I could not erase the scars or the memories, but I could help him to look forward, and we could both move on from our pasts.
Unassuming and quietly confident, Eliot sat up on the side of the bed and pushed down his pants and underwear at the same time. Turning again to a kiss on my shoulder, he let me see him naked for the first time. If there had been a mirror in front of me I’m sure my eyes would have been perfectly circular with awe and curiosity. His member stood erect, so large that I couldn’t see how it would fit into me. Without thinking, I reached out and touched it in wonder. The skin was so soft, smooth, and as my fingers stroked the tip lightly he twitched under my hand. I drew my hand back.
Eliot must have seen my expression.
“I told you, slowly,” he said. “Tell me if it hurts.”
He reached over to the bedside drawer, obscuring the light. When he turned back to me he was sheathed in a condom. His eyes filled with stormy desire and when he placed his hand on my breast my heart pounded against his palm. He kissed me on the nose, his erection grazing my hip. I felt myself twist toward him instinctively.
“I’ll take my time, Brynn, but if you want me to stop, just say the word.”
I was frightened in the best kind of way, amazed that he still wanted me now that I was naked and he could see all of me. Amazed that the two of us should be here, together, under the silken drapes of the canopy bed in a castle. The candlelight flickered as a draft whispered through the room. If he’d wanted to make me feel like a princess, he’d done an admirable job of it. Every part of this seemed like a dream.
He bent his head down again to my chest, this time sliding his hand between my thigh as he suckled my breast. I whimpered as his fingers stroked me on either side of my most sensitive area. A rush of lustful power shot through me in increasing intensity as his fingers moved closer and closer. Each lick of his tongue mirrored the strokes of his hand, and when he finally circled the hard nub of my nipple with his tongue I was ready to explode in ecstasy.
Eliot stopped his fingers withdrawing abruptly, and an agonized cry rose from my throat.
“Incredible,” he whispered. I could do nothing but watch in a paralysis of lust as he moved over me, gently sliding between my legs. His fingers found their way to my core again, this time slipping down and inside me as his lips kissed mine in soft insistent motion. The pressure, so intensely shocking, had disappeared, replaced with the slick movement of his fingers testing my depths. He looked at me, and his face was a question I could only answer one way.
“I want you, Eliot.” I moaned as Eliot shifted himself to slide inside of me. The cold air of winter had been replaced by springtime’s blushing warmth, and my entire being blossomed with heat as he gave me my new womanhood. His lips hovered inches from mine, our breaths mingling between our bodies, and he paused there, at the crux, letting my body adjust itself to the lovely invasion that sent thrills through every single nerve I had.
The first thrust of his seemed to fill me completely, but as he moved I could feel myself adjusting, stretching to accommodate his girth. A fiery pain shot through me, replaced almost instantly with a rush of pleasure as he bore his body down to accommodate my most sensitive place.
“Oh God! Eliot!” My cries caught in my throat as he worked himself deeper inside of me.
“Brynn?” He paused.
“Yes,” I said, pulling him tight against me. He couldn’t stop now. In my mind I heard the sharp strains of the Satie building into a climax. The secret part of me that I had kept hidden burst forth in a frenetic desire, and my body arched itself against his.
We found each other anew as our bodies came together in twin passion. Eliot’s hands caressed me, his lips tearing the breath from mine. He rocked faster and faster, his breath hot against my skin. I found his rhythm and matched it, my body responding despite myself. Normally I lived in my head, but right now my mind was lost in the wild rhythm of our lovemaking, every animal sensation too raw to comprehend on an intellectual level. I moaned passionately as he found an angle that sent my nerves into sharp thrills.
He thrust deeper and deeper, sending shocks of pleasure coursing through my body with each connection. Inside of me my desire rose in waves that came close to crashing down on me but stopped at the last instant, each wave building on the last in an intense agony of lust. My fingers scrabbled at his back, pulling him deeper inside of me. I wanted more, more.
Every second stretched into infinities, the flickering light dancing shadows on the walls. His lips caught mine and sucked at my bottom lip as he thrust, and I felt the wave push past the crest and over, the desire surging through my body echoed by his own.
“Brynn.” He groaned, calling my name. I could feel him pressing to his edge and it sent me over mine as he rocked into me once more.
Waves of orgasm rocked my body and I clenched my eyes shut, sparks of white passing over my vision even in the darkness as the shudders passed through me. The sparks whirled around, turning from snowflakes into burning embers as the shocks of pleasure rolled over my body and I twisted, writhing under the first man to love me, to make me love him.
He orgasmed only moments after me, his muscles stiffening above my hips as he spasmed once, again. I did not know what had happened until he moaned, his eyes rolling back in pleasure. His lips pressed against my shoulder hard as he thrust one last time, sending me into another wave of ecstasy. My knees buckled as the shivers continued through my arms and legs, and I crumpled my hands against his chest.
Eliot’s lips fluttered soft kisses on my cheek, his hands caressing me in compete possession. I gazed up into his face and smiled, tears springing unbidden to my eyes. After pressing another kiss to my lips, he rolled off to one side and rearranged himself, circling his arm around my body and bringing me close to him. My ear pressed to his chest, I could hear his heartbeat sounding quick and hard against his skin. Slowly, carefully, his long fingers stroked my hair.
“Thank you,” I said. “For bringing me here. For everything.” I tilted my head up to see his face, and his kind eyes gazed back at me.
“It’s been a pleasure,” Eliot said, his lips pressing briefly onto the tip of my nose. “Everything.”
“Even the damn cat?”
“Especially the damn cat. He can stay.”
I laughed. “I’m glad you’ve changed your mind about him.”
“I haven’t changed my mind about him. I’ve changed my mind about you.”
“Oh?” I raised my eyebrow in a question.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I was scared to risk anything with you.”
“Am I so risky?”
“Yes. But I had everything to gain from the risk.”
His heartbeat was slowing in my ear, but I still felt as though every nerve inside of me was shivering.
“What’s going to happen? After the internship ends, I mean?” We only had week
s until I had to go home, graduate, and start my life. I didn’t want it to be over.
“I don’t know, Brynn,” he said. “What would you like to do?”
“I’d like to keep studying math,” I said firmly, then laughed at myself. Out of everything, that was the first thing that leapt to mind.
“The academy has wonderful programs,” Eliot said. “Of course, with the paper you’ll be publishing soon, I’m guessing you’ll have offers from any grad school you decide to attend.”
“Paper?” My heart beat faster. It was unheard of for professors to share credit with interns.
“Of course. Did you think I was going to let you slack off in your last days here?”
I kissed his skin in response, letting my hands move freely across the raised marks on his chest. When I reached his face, he looked serious, like he had when I first saw him sitting on the bench in front of the library cafe.
“Thank you,” he said. His hands moved in small gasps along my back.
“For what?” My voice caught as his hand found the small of my back and pulled me against him.
“For helping me…to know I can live again. For helping me to find love.”
“You’re the one who found me,” I said. “Even though you didn’t know my name.”
“That’s right,” Eliot said. “I had forgotten. A temptress who runs away to hide from me. What have I gotten myself into?” He smiled.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have run.”
“I’ll just make sure to keep an eye on you.”
My gaze wandered over the room. The candlelight reflected on the windowpane, but I could almost make out the stars in the sky outside.
“I can’t believe I’m here in Hungary. Finally. After all these years.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through so much to get here. I know it’s been hard.”
“That’s the understatement of the century. But I’m here now,” I said, turning my gaze to him. “With my prince. It’s a Cinderella story after all.”
“Your life hasn’t exactly been a fairy tale.”
My hand reached out to his cheek, my fingers tracing the line of his scar. I looked deep into his eyes and saw in them the same longing for peace that was in my heart.
“Neither has yours.”
* * * *
I visited my mother’s grave again that weekend. Springtime had arrived in full force, and the trees around me blossomed with white flowers. When the wind blew, the flower petals fell like snow onto the warm ground. Sitting there, I felt like every atom in the wind moved exactly the way it should. Life would move on with or without me, and I didn’t need to change myself in order to be beautiful, or happy, or worthy of love. I already was.
Forget the castle, the crown, all of the gilded trappings of royalty that shone brightly but meant nothing. Forget the glass slipper, the horse-drawn carriage. None of that mattered now. Eliot wasn’t a prince, and I wasn’t a princess. We were just two broken people, half-mended, struggling to make sense of the world as best we could.
I once thought that happily ever after was only true in books. Now, I’m beginning to see how the future might play out if my dreams continue to pale before reality. Every sentence I could think of has already been said a hundred times over, by people whose words come out perfect and beautifully formed, where mine die on the tongue or straggle out onto the page, mangled and imperfect. But my story isn’t perfect, because I’m not perfect. Nothing is perfect except maybe in math, in the line that extends forever in both directions. Math is beautiful, I have always known that, but so is life. And I have grown to accept imperfection.
I am living my own fairytale to which nobody, not even me, knows the ending. But I can imagine my life written down, all of my past and future tragedy and triumph and yes, even romance, and the book does not always end in sorrow. For the first time in my life, I can imagine the reader turning to the end, the pages already lighter for being finished, and reading the final few words that an unknown author had scrawled across the last page:
“And they lived happily ever after.”
The End
Enjoy this sneak-preview of the upcoming sequel to Me, Cinderella!
* * * *
"And they lived happily ever after."
It's easy to write the end of a fairy tale, but it's not so easy to live it. Everybody thinks that once they close the book, the story is done. But in real life the prince and the princess aren't perfect, and loving another person until the day you die can't be wrapped up in one little sentence. Sometimes the prince turns out to have a temper. Sometimes the princess pulls back because she doesn't want to get hurt anymore. Sometimes people are more broken than you think, and not everything can be mended with a dab of glue and a few happy words to tie the whole thing off.
My mother died violently long ago in a land far, far away. Nobody wrote her story, because while fairytales sometimes start with orphans, they don't end in blood and death. Nobody ever knew what happened to her after the last pages of her life were torn out. My father told me only that they found her body in a river. He wanted to protect me, but even after he abandoned me and forgot my mother and moved on, I could not find out what had happened to her. I tried to search the Hungarian newspapers online to discover what I could, but the journalists—the people who were supposed to write stories that tell the truth—never did. All of the newspapers ended with a question—what happened?—and no answers. After a while, they stopped asking questions.
I never closed the book, though. I owe her that much, at least.
Chapter One
Walking along the east side of the Danube toward the deli, Eliot paused for a moment to look around and enjoy the city in the sunshine. He'd never really stopped to look on his way from the Academy of Science down to the river, but now he understood the charm of Budapest, at least as Brynn saw it. The trees alongside the steady current of water arched their branches over the benches set into the riverbank, and along both sides of the Danube time-worn stone edifices stretched their spires up into the blue summer sky. The old stone walls that held back the river seemed to have been carved by nature itself, and not stonebuilders at all. The green water glittered like diamonds, and white ferries glided past. One man in a kayak paddled south, his arms scooping the oars gracefully into the water as though he were pulled along not by his muscles but by his will alone.
Turning his back on the Danube, Eliot pulled open the glass door of the deli.
"Szia!" came the high-pitched greeting from over a high shelf of cheeses. Eliot could not see the deli clerk in the back of the store, but he greeted her back. His Hungarian was coming back to him quickly, although he could not shake some of the Americanisms that he had picked up during his ten-year stint in California. He picked up a package of cottage cheese, grimacing. It was good for him, sure. Brynn told him so, but he could not get accustomed to the texture of the cheese. Taking a bite of cottage cheese for him was always disappointing—he wanted it to be sweet, like a dessert.
"Do you have any spiced salami?" he called out in Hungarian to the clerk, scanning the shelves for the least offensive brand of cottage cheese. The package was pink, he remembered. "I've been itching for something unhealthy."
"You've got it!" She came around the door laughing, her grayish puffed hair tucked up into a bun. She bent over the deli to pick up the salami. "How much?"
"A half pound," Eliot said, still turned away towards the cheese shelf. "Where's the cottage cheese with the pink on it?"
"Down and to your right," the clerk called out, slicing up the salami. Eliot picked up the package, examining the label.
"And don't worry," she teased, "I won't tell the wife. The last time someone came in here for salami—"
Her words cut off as Eliot turned to face her. The clerk stood frozen with one hand outstretched, holding the neatly wrapped salami. Her eyes were locked onto Eliot's scar.
"That is," she stuttered, "the last time... it was another man wh
o wanted to sneak some salami home." She finished lamely and turned her eyes down toward the counter. Her fingers jabbed quickly at the buttons on the register.
"Eighteen hundred forints," the woman said. Her voice was flat. She did not look up at Eliot, and she did not reach her hand out for payment. Eliot placed two bills on the counter, and she took them, setting down his change in the same manner. He picked up the silver and gold coin and slipped it into his pocket.
"Thank you," he said.
"Thank you," the woman replied. "Dr. Herceg." Her eyes flickered up at him once, and then she turned away toward the back of the store. As he left the store he could hear her whispering to someone else in the back.
"...can't believe he's back in Hungary..." were all the words he heard before the door closed behind him. A gust of wind blew a newspaper page across the street, and the air felt hot against Eliot's skin. Stifling. Clutching his lunch tightly in one hand, Eliot strode back to the academy. Sweat gathered on the back of his neck at his collar and tricked down his back. He could feel the hot dampness against his scars, and it made them itch.
"Dr. Herceg!"
Eliot spun as he heard the voice, his whole body tense. But no, it was only a student.
"Hello Mark," he said, as the dark-haired young man came down the stairs, nearly tripping over himself as he did.
"I''m done writing up the first set of results," Mark said. "Everything's formatted, all the proofs are done."
"Good," Eliot said, his mind elsewhere. "That was fast. Excellent work. "
"Thank you!" Mark said. His face flushed with pleasure behind his glasses at the compliment. He was less than ten years younger than Eliot, but Eliot knew that the student admired him more than he deserved.
"I'm going home for the day," Eliot said, deciding as he spoke that it was the right thing to do. "Let's take a break."
"A break?"