by Riser, Mimi
“Sophia, stop that. We can’t—”
“Of course we can.” Her hand reappeared clutching the room key like a trophy. Quickly, she unlocked the door and pushed it open, still hanging on to his tie with her other hand. A sharp tug jerked him over the threshold, and the door slammed shut. “Oh, look, a heart-shaped bed!”
In rapid order, she hauled him toward it, spun him about, and shoved against his chest. He toppled backward onto satin sheets. Sophia landed on top, straddling him.
When had he lost control of the situation?
And did he really want to get it back?
“You may seduce me now,” she said with theatrical primness.
Then promptly passed out.
Merde.
Gently, he rolled her off himself onto her back, and propped up on an elbow, staring down at her. Not Little Red Riding Hood after all, but Sleeping Beauty.
Could he wake her with a kiss?
Did he dare try?
God knew he wanted to. He’d never wanted anything so badly, so much. In all his past struggles, years of hunger and fighting for scraps, he’d never been this hungry, never felt such a blistering need. He’d wanted her at first sight, and the desire had been building like a volcano ever since. He was ready to erupt.
He just couldn’t figure why.
It wasn’t her money. Well, it had been, but only until he’d actually met her. After that, something else became the prime attraction. Beauty? No, that couldn’t be it either. He’d had gorgeous girls before – sunnyside-up and over-easy – but none so intriguing as Sophia. A bewitching enigma. A wanton angel. Sweet heat.
She did look like a fairytale princess lying there, and that might be the problem.
Blame his mother. When food was scarce and the house dark and cold because the power had been cut off again, she’d bundle him onto her lap and spin magical yarns, filling his mind and soul if she couldn’t fill his belly. She’d died of pneumonia when he was still a kid; died of poverty, really. Byron didn’t often think about her – bittersweet wasn’t his flavor – but he remembered her now and those fairytales full of brave deeds and romance. She’d given him that much at least. He may have felt hungry back then, but he’d never felt unloved while she’d lived.
Okay, okay! So he did believe in love! He believed in romance. He couldn’t escape it. His mother had named him after a famous romantic writer, for godssake. Right from the start, he’d never had a chance.
“Mmm…” Sophia stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open, and a hazy blue stare met his, then cleared, like sunlight breaking through clouds. She smiled. “Lord Byron.”
His mother’s favorite poet.
Byron’s throat constricted. Pain stabbed him in the chest, sharp but sweet, an arrow piercing his heart – Cupid must have shot it. He felt his gaze going misty tender and an answering smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“My mother would have loved you,” he whispered.
“Really?” Her eyes widened, then half closed in angelic provocation. Sultry innocence. “And what about you?”
God help him…
The pain struck sharper. Deeper. Those bedroom eyes pierced him to the core, swamped him with sweetness. Warm blue pools to jump into and drown…
Byron took the plunge.
“I, um…I think I love you, too.”
“Good.” Her voice went husky. “Then I think you’d better kiss me.”
And she passed out again.
No! Not this time.
He leaned over her and landed a kiss on her lips that would have done Prince Charming proud. Instantly reviving, she lassoed his neck with her arms, pulling him flat on top of her.
“I was just testing your resolve,” she murmured against his mouth.
Oh, he was resolved all right. He was unbridled passion on a stick. In moments, Byron turned the kiss into a steamroller resolution of lovemaking, a blazing extravaganza of epic romance. He was Mt. Vesuvius, and Sophia was “The Last Days of Pompeii.” He exploded all over her, covering her with lava-hot licks and caresses.
“Yes…oooh yes,” she moaned – Miss Melodrama, but on her the guise looked good. “Burn me…”
He was doing his best.
Clothes scattered on the floor.
Sheets tangled.
Flesh sweated, and the air steamed.
He used every trick he knew – and devised some new ones along the way. He might not be a famous poet, but he was creative. If she’d read the Kama Sutra, she probably expected a lot. He wanted to impress her.
He took her breath away.
Then he took her virginity.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Almost giving himself a rupture holding back so he wouldn’t hurt her.
“Byron, for godssake, just shove it in!”
“Sophia, I’m trying to do this romantically.”
“Screw romance! I want sex!”
She got it.
So did he.
Gasp! Fiery tremors rocked his world as Sophia squeezed him in a silken vise. How had a virgin built up that set of muscles anyway?
Oh, right, she’d been practicing with cucumbers.
He was so in trouble.
“Vatsyayana calls this hold ‘The Pair of Tongs,’” she panted out. “What do you think?”
Who could think? Byron could barely see through the smoke. Flames engulfed him.
“Vatsy what?” he rasped.
“Not what. Who. Vatsyayana wrote the Kama Sutra.” She squeezed him again. Harder. “Like it?”
“Uhhh,” he groaned.
“I’ll assume that means yes. There’s also ‘The Top,’ ‘The Swing,’ ‘The Blow of a Bull’—”
“Sophia, Vatsyayana may have written the book, but he didn’t invent the subject. I know what I’m doing, baby.” He nipped her lower lip, hoping to hush her.
“Oh! Did you know the Kama Sutra lists biting as a sensual art? Vatsyayana devoted a whole chapter to it. One on scratching, too.”
Her nails raked down his back.
His breathing went ragged.
“Byron, I’ve waited forever for this. I want to try everything!”
Tonight?
He was a dead man.
What a way to go.
With infinite care he slid out and pushed in again…and again…setting a creamy smooth rhythm. If she expected multiple encores, he’d better start pacing himself now.
“We will, baby, I promise. We have the rest of our lives to work on it.”
“We do?”
“We will if you’ll marry me,” he said, never breaking stride.
The words were out before he knew what he was saying, but once he heard them, Byron realized how excellent the idea sounded – and amazingly, money was the furthest thing from his mind.
Or maybe not so amazing.
“Was that a proposal?” Merciless as a trained torturer, Sophia put the “tongs” to him, halting the action on an inward stroke.
Byron gave a guttural grunt. “Uhh...”
“I’ll assume that means yes.”
Her fingers tangled in his hair, lifting his head to meet her eyes – smoldering blue embers.
“You do realize we hardly know each other, right? We met barely an hour ago. Even in the classics it never happens this fast,” she pointed out, challenging him, dueling with rapier reason.
She’d picked a hell of a time to go practical on him.
“It does in classic fairytales,” he parried. “In stories like Sleeping Beauty one look, one kiss is all it takes.”
“Touché.” A delicious sliver of a grin curled her lips. “Read a lot of fairytales, have you?”
“I’m living one right now,” he said on a hoarse breath. Prince Charming had never had it so good, and neither had Byron. She felt like pure magic, felt like a dream. He hoped he’d never wake up.
“Sophia, I do realize this is sudden, but I’m not a patient man. When I see what I want, I go after it.”
“And you think you want to marry me?”
“I know so.”
“This soon?”
“The sooner the better.”
And the hell with the money! There was treasure enough just in her smile. Which suddenly broadened.
“Okay, works for me!” The smile waxed wicked. “I’m not very patient either.”
Um, yeah, he’d noticed that. “It’s something we have in common.”
“Mmm” – her eyes narrowed to smoky slits – “and we’ll discover more common ground after we’re married. We’ll build it if we have to.”
“Can you think of a better way to get acquainted?”
“No.” Laughter bubbled out with the word. “I love your sense of humor.”
He hadn’t been joking, actually. But he’d take all the love he could get. Even more, he wanted to give it – all the love he’d received from his idealistic fragile mother – it all poured out of him now. He finally understood the truth of the matter, what his problem had been. To him, at too early an age, love had become synonymous with loss. To protect himself, he’d planted a barrier of thorns around his heart, just like the thorns that had guarded Sleeping Beauty’s castle. And just like the prince in that story, he’d had to battle his way through the bramble – spurred on by a prize too good to lose.
Sophia.
“I love you,” he answered her.
-------
“Likewise,” she said – but only because Take me, I’m yours! might have sounded a bit superfluous under the circumstances.
Lying under him, specifically – floating in steamy satin clouds of passion – held fast in a lovers’ embrace. She might still be a little drunk – and she’d always be a romantic – but she wasn’t a complete idiot. She knew there might be pitfalls ahead, but love could bridge any gap, leap any hurdle. Love would carry them through. Seriously, she’d never have landed herself in this position, never have fallen into bed so fast, if she hadn’t fallen in love even faster. At first sight – or at least second.
Second sight?
Yes, she’d inherited some of her grandmother’s psychic ability. Sophia’s clairvoyance wasn’t quite so clear or finely tuned as Angelica’s, but it worked well enough to let her know when she’d found the real thing. The One.
Byron.
As in Sharpe, not Lord. This Byron was better because he was all hers.
She rocked her hips against him, rekindling the action, taunting him into a horizontal tango of give and take.
-------
Byron dove into the dance, and together they set a hot tempo, building a bonfire between them, each stroke a new log for the blaze.
In a far smoky corner of his brain, it occurred to him that he’d accomplished exactly what he’d planned. He’d won Sophia’s heart – and never mind that he’d lost his own in the process. He didn’t feel anything like a loser. He felt on top of the world.
He came, he saw, he conquered.
Or rather, he saw, he conquered, he came.
Explosively.
Rocketing toward the stars – taking Sophia with him into high ecstasy – highflying everlasting love. They’d never come down.
His mother’s stories had always ended with “and they lived happily ever after”…
And they would.
* * * *
Weren’t whirlwind courtships fun!
Angelica had known from the start all she needed to do was introduce those two, and Fate and Fortune would handle the rest.
Fortune, in this case, meaning money not luck. Byron may have begun the game thinking he was playing for money. She’d known that, too – had, in fact, surreptitiously encouraged his mercenary ambitions when she’d offered him the bodyguard job. The lure of wealth had primed his pump…so to speak. But honestly, was that any worse than a brave peasant boy in a fairytale seeking to gain a kingdom by winning a princess’s hand? She chuckled. There was no rule in literature, or anywhere else, that said the hero and heroine couldn’t end up with riches and romance both.
Vastly amused and congratulating herself on a job well done, Angelica sat in the aptly named Karma Suite, gazing out the window into a star-studded night…gazing into the future. Which looked pretty damned good for the daring duo across the hall.
She’d just had the loveliest chat with Byron’s mother on the Other Side. The dear soul was so heavenly happy for her son and Sophia; she agreed they made an enchanting couple, a perfectly matched pair of reckless romantics. Two fearless fools. Neither had the commonsense God gave a cabbage. That’s why their marriage would work. Because they were both too beautifully crazy to let it fail.
Crazy in love, that was.
=========
<<<>>>
III.
Star Cookies & Comfort
(A “Stardust” Story)
Debbie Dawn Dillon limped into Star on three and a half tires and a tank full of fumes. It had been a fast, hard haul from Nashville, but having finally reached the little West Texas town, she didn’t have much farther to go – nothing in Star was very far from anything else.
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” she told her companion. “Aunt Ivy’s house is just around the corner. Think she’ll be surprised to see us?”
A long, plaintive meow answered her.
The cat must be a mind reader.
Aunt Ivy would be surprised all right. She was Debbie’s great-aunt, actually, near ninety but still going strong, and she didn’t much approve of country singer nieces who never visited and seldom called. But she was also the only family Debbie had left in Star. And it was Christmas Eve. If a girl couldn’t come home for Christmas, when could she come home?
Her sputtering car gave up the ghost as she rounded the corner, and Debbie coasted to a rocky stop in front of a weathered wood house – then sat a moment, resting her forehead on the top of the steering wheel and gathering her courage.
A tap on the passenger side window made her jump in her seat.
“Sorry, ma’am, didn’t mean to startle you,” a deep voice said. “I couldn’t help noticing your right rear tire’s flat. I’ll be happy to change it for you if you got a spare.”
Debbie heaved a sigh. “That is the spare.”
“Oh.” The man walked around the front of the car to peer in the driver’s window.
She rolled it down for a better look at him. A man about her age, with brown hair and a mild manner. Not handsome by any stretch of the word, not her type at all, but that was probably a good thing since “her type” always turned out to be all show and no substance, all fancy clothes and fancy talk full of empty promises. This man looked real at least. Looked friendly.
Looked familiar?
Her heart hitched as recognition dawned. He wore faded denims and a plaid shirt and squinted as though he needed glasses but hated to wear them. He always had, she remembered.
Tears stung Debbie’s eyes even as a tiny grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Hey, Harvey, been a long time. It’s good to see you.”
“It is?” He squinted harder, no doubt wondering how this strange blurry blonde happened to know him.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Harvey, put your glasses on so you can see me right.”
He coughed, blushed, and fished his black-rimmed specs out of his shirt pocket. A big silly smile spread over his face. “Well, I’ll be danged… Debbie Dawn! What brings you home after all these years?”
The tears suddenly flooded down Debbie’s cheeks. She and Harvey Baker had played together almost everyday as kids. They’d never had any secrets from each other back then, and it seemed somehow pointless to start now.
“Because I’m tired and broke and didn’t have anywhere else to go!” she wailed.
“Oh, heck…” Harvey’s blush deepened. He obviously couldn’t think what else to say.
Neither could Debbie. The cat covered for her by springing from the passenger seat onto her lap and yowling in her face. “You promised me there’d be food when we got here,” he se
emed to be saying.
Well, she had, of course. The poor thing was half starved, but he wore a pretty black tuxedo with white spats and had been doing his best to clean himself up during the last lap of her trip. Debbie swallowed down her sobs and stroked his head.
Then Harvey reached through the window and petted him, too. “Um…nice cat. What’s his name?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. He picked me up at a rest stop back on the highway. Just jumped in the car when I opened the door, and I didn’t have the heart to put him out. I was kinda thinking of calling him Siren. ’Cause he sounds like one.”
A soft chuckle came from behind Harvey.
“Looks more like a Bubba to me,” Wanda Baker said. For all her bulk, the old gal stepped lightly; you never knew she was there until she was. Her eyesight was worse than her son’s, but she had ears like a fox and had probably heard everything. “Harvey, bring Debbie Dawn’s bags into the house. She’s stayin’ with us.”
She was?
Debbie hesitated. “That’s real nice of you, Miz Wanda, but I figured I’d be staying with Aunt Ivy…provided she’ll let me in the door.”
Wanda chuckled again. “Oh, honey, she’ll welcome you back with open arms, and you know it. But she ain’t home. Her nephew drove in a couple days ago and carried her off to spend Christmas with him in Austin.”
Great. Thank you, Cousin Rudolph.
“Well, there’s no need to pout about it,” Wanda chided. “You’ll see her soon enough. In the meantime we got plenty of room for you, what with Cissy married and livin’ in Abilene.”
Really?
Debbie glanced at Harvey. “Your little sister is married?”
“Yeah, quite a while now.”
“And you’re…” She left the question hanging.
“Not.”
Debbie barely stifled a cheer. She wasn’t sure why that news made her so happy, but it did.
“What about you?” Harvey asked.
“Nope, me neither. Came close a few times, but it never worked out.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
No, he wasn’t. He was grinning like a fool. For some reason, that made her happy, too.
“Quit gawkin’, boy, and get the girl’s gear.” Wanda pointed to the duffle bag and Gibson guitar on the backseat, then pulled open the driver’s door and confiscated the cat. “C’mon, Bubba” – she cradled him against her broad bosom – “I got a big can of tuna all for you.” Clucking like a mother hen, she led the way to the neat white house across the street.