Once Upon a Fairy tale: A Collection of 11 Fairy Tale Inspired Romances

by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney

  She listened to his footfalls on the sidewalk in the silence of the late night hour. She heard the sound of his car engine starting, of the car maneuvering out of its parking space. She strained to hold on to the fading purr of the motor as Marco drove out of her neighborhood. Out of her life.

  She’d wanted so badly to fight for him. To convince him that this time things could be different. That they could make it work.

  But she didn’t really believe it.

  A strange animal sound rose in her throat, a keening, that frightened her enough to gather herself up off the floor and try to get herself under some kind of control.

  Marco left because he’d realized what she’d known all along. That she wasn’t good enough for him. That she never was and never would be, even though she’d managed to fool him for a short time.

  Goodbye, Marco.

  As she tried to mouth the words, the awful high-pitched sound strangled her throat again and she clapped her hand over her mouth to try and contain it. Her heart squeezed and she gasped for breath, suddenly a fish out of water in this awful empty universe where Marco no longer existed for her.

  Not even in dreams. She couldn’t allow herself that indulgence any more. Not now she’d seen the harm that came from letting her idle fantasies leak over into the real world.

  As early-morning sunlight blasted through the slats in the blinds, Sandy pulled the pillow over her head. Even in the privacy of her dreams his name taunted her, his voice. It had been almost a week since she’d seen him, and each day had been hard labor in the solitary confinement of her misery.

  It was getting worse. Now she was hearing his voice in her head.

  “I realize it’s the first time a civilian contractor has been given a project of this magnitude.” You’d think if she had to be haunted by his voice that it would whisper sweet nothings. What was this babble? She must really be losing it. “We are confident that security risks can be eliminated. We understand the importance of this project in the interests of our national security—”

  What the heck?

  She peeked out from under her pillow and realized that Marco’s voice was coming not from the depths of her tortured imagination, but from the tiny speaker on her clock radio.

  She jerked upright and raised the volume.

  “We’ve agreed to have our employees investigated to ensure the safety of all data and technology related to the project….” Good thing she’d left. She probably wouldn’t have come out of an official investigation smelling like a rose, even if she wasn’t actually guilty of anything other than sheer desperation.

  “But we are confident that our technology will revolutionize the information-gathering processes of all government agencies and serve the interests of the country better than any of our competitors’.”

  Even reduced to a train of sound molecules that could travel though the wires of her radio, Marco’s voice caused Sandy’s stomach to twist into a knot. Her fingernails dug into the cotton sheets as she struggled to still her breathing. She didn’t want to miss a single word.

  “Thank you, Mr. Danieli. My guest was Marco Danieli, founder and president of Danieli Electronics, which is under consideration for one of the largest government contracts in the history of national security.” She held her breath in anticipation of Marco’s parting words. “Thank you.” As the station announced the next story, she closed her eyes and sank back into the sheets.

  Memories and dreams of Marco haunted her day and night.

  She could almost swear she’d seen his car last night when she closed the curtains before going to bed. Parked down the end of her block, in front of the fire hydrant. But this morning she knew she’d imagined it.

  Her imagination was becoming a dangerous liability. She’d better get it under control and get to work. Head out of the clouds and nose to the grindstone. That was the only way she was going to get her life back on track.

  But after work she couldn’t stop her feet from carrying her downtown toward Marco’s apartment building. It was ten blocks south of the 33rd street office where she now spent her days doing data entry and filing old medical documents. She knew he wouldn’t be there. She’d just get a little exercise, pick up a hot dog, breathe the fume-laden air. No harm in that.

  It had been dark when she last came here as Marco Danieli’s invited guest. Not as herself though, as her blue-eyed alter ego. And what a night they’d had.

  She looked up at the gray façade of the old building, its big windows mostly curtained to keep out the prying eyes of the city. Marco’s apartment was on the top floor, and she couldn’t see more than the glare of the sun on his windows from down on the street.

  Marco would be at work now, making multimillion-dollar deals that would shape the future of the country. He probably hadn’t given her a single thought since the night he left her apartment and roared off into the night.

  She closed her eyes, willing away the painful memory of his parting.

  “Sandy.” She heard his voice in her ear and squeezed her eyelids tighter. She was in the middle of the sidewalk, people striding past her in both directions.

  “Sandy.” Voices in her head. The torment of madness. She probably deserved it.

  And then a touch. Fingertips on her arm. A sudden rush of adrenaline.

  “Marco.” He stood right in front of her, his broad body blocking the light.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Was she imagining him? Was her mind so far gone that she’d conjured him, right here in broad daylight on a busy Fifth Avenue sidewalk?

  She reached out to touch him, fully expecting him to disappear. Her hand touched the stiff, white cotton of his shirt, and she snatched it back. She looked up into his face.

  Dark shadows hung around his eyes, his cheekbones looked harsher, gaunt, as if he’d lost weight. And his eyes burned with a strange, tormented intensity. Their gray depths shone like molten metal hardening to steel.

  They stood on the sidewalk together, not speaking, just staring at each other. Words choked her, wanting to spill out, but she swallowed them back.

  Hold me. Hold me. Hold me.

  The air seemed to hum with her unspoken plea.

  “Sandy, what are you doing here?” Marco’s voice sounded strained. As well it might. Stalked by a crazy woman. Hounded to his apartment by a grim apparition who wouldn’t leave him alone.

  “Walking.” Her whisper was barely audible above the roar of the traffic and the buzz of passing conversations.

  Marco raised his arm and she flinched, jerking backward. His eyes widened as he slowly placed his hand on her arm. The rich warmth of his touch soothed her, steadied her.

  “Did you think I was going to hit you? Do you think so little of me?” His fleeting expression of surprise hardened into ire. “You’ve only told me a little of your story and I can see it’s not a pretty one, but don’t include me in the gallery of villains who’ve wronged you. I never did anything to hurt you.”

  “You left.”

  “Because you told me to. You left me first, remember? Ran out on me at my family home? I came after you. Don’t know why. I must be mad.”

  His hand rested on her wrist. The warmth of his blood heated her skin as he closed his grip around it. “I am mad. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t eat; I can’t sleep.” His eyes danced back and forth, searching her face. “I’ve worked, done nothing but work, but it won’t take my mind off….”

  He paused, lips slightly parted, and Sandy’s own lips stirred, softening in a mute response. Suddenly she was aware of their two bodies suspended in time and space, surging with life, urging them to…

  “I’m sorry Marco, I…” She snatched her wrist from him and ran, ducking and darting through the agonizingly slow procession of pedestrians as she sprinted down Fifth Avenue. The wrong direction but it didn’t matter. She needed to get away. To leave Marco in peace.

  “Jesus!” His words exploded in her ear as he caught her around
the waist in a tackle that shook the breath from her lungs. “You’re going to make me chase you down a public street in broad daylight?” He closed his other arm around her, holding her fast from behind, crushing her body against his.

  “You want me to chase you, don’t you?” He squeezed her harder. “You enjoy the thrill of having me run after you. You want me to throw myself at you. That’s the fun of it for you, isn’t it?”

  “I…I…” Sandy didn’t know what to say. She only knew she didn’t want Marco to let her go.

  “You need me on my knees, begging, don’t you?”

  He released his punishing embrace and spun her around, gripping her shoulders with hard fingertips. “Well, you’re not going to get it. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I’m not playing it any more.”

  The hell he wasn’t. His chest tightened as her long lashes flicked closed for a split second, then opened to pin him with her warm gaze. Those wide eyes worked on him like neat whiskey, sapping his strength, drugging him. He wrenched his attention away from their hypnotic stare but it fell on her mouth, pink and ripe. He knew the taste of those lips, the intoxicating sweet wetness of her kiss.

  She bit her lower lip. She had nothing to say to him. No words of apology. A sudden gust of wind tossed a curl across her face, and he instinctively raised a hand to move the hair aside. She lifted her hand at the same instant and their fingertips brushed each other.

  A sting of electric energy shot up his arm and jolted his heart like a defibrillator. Suddenly, he couldn’t think of anything but the glorious softness of her body, how it had felt to hold her, to fall asleep in her arms. The sheer joy he’d known the one time he woke up in them.

  He loved this woman. He shouldn’t, but he did. Cursed to love the wrong kind of woman and doomed to have his heart ripped from his chest, but he couldn’t help it.

  He softened his grip on her shoulders, and she didn’t turn and run the way he’d half expected she would. He let his hands slide down over her back, pulling her closer. A sigh escaped him, audible, humiliating if he’d cared, as her soft chest bumped gently up against him.

  Her eyes closed and so did his as he lowered his mouth. He needed to taste her, to drink in her essence and fortify himself after days and nights of lonely suffering. He needed to hold her. He needed—

  As their lips met, a rush of sensation flooded his body. He tightened his arms around her and gave himself over to the explosive force of their kiss. He devoured her mouth with his, hungry, desperate with longing. He knew her hunger too as she squeezed him with her slim arms, tugging at his clothes, pulling him to her.

  He rubbed his face against hers, releasing her scent, filling his senses with her maddening perfume. His hands roved over her thin shirt, itching to touch the warm skin that tempted him from beneath it. God, the feel of her was the drug he’d been craving.

  A piercing wolf whistle jarred into his consciousness. His eyes kicked open, and he saw the laughing face of a bike messenger as he sped past them.

  “We’re on the street….” he managed. His grasp on reality had slipped, the blood departing his brain for other places where it was more urgently required.

  Sandy’s wide eyes revealed pupils dilated with desire. Her moist lips were still parted in a mix of shock and arousal. He realized with a jolt that he’d pulled her shirt out of her skirt and lifted it almost to her bra strap.

  Jesus, he really was a madman.

  He tugged her shirt down roughly. “We’ll go inside.” His voice was hoarse, with no trace of civility. He seized her hand and pulled her along the sidewalk back to his apartment building. He nodded and grunted to the doorman as he guided her toward the elevator. His mind was humming but not with defined thoughts. He wanted Sandy in his arms, with nothing between them.

  In the elevator he lifted a hand to stroke her hair. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. I tried to stay away.”

  “So did I. I couldn’t though.” He touched her soft cheek with his thumb. “I drove to your street last night. Parked at the end of it. I sat there all night.”

  He was losing his mind over her. Nothing she’d told him about herself made any difference. If anything, her raw upbringing made him want to protect her, to shield her from more harm. He wanted to hold her in his arms and keep her safe.

  The elevator doors opened, and Marco unlocked the door to his apartment.

  “Come in.” He waited for Sandy to enter, then followed her, admiring the sweet curve of her backside under her fitted skirt as she walked hesitantly to the center of the room.

  He shed his suit jacket. Thank God he’d left the air-conditioning on. He was burning up inside and out.

  Sandy stood awkwardly in the center of the room. She crossed her hands over her chest, the defensive posture she assumed when she felt under siege. Was he going to lay siege to her? Damn but he wanted to.

  He ripped off his tie and saw Sandy flinch. “I’m just getting comfortable. I won’t strip myself naked and jump all over you.” Or will I? He wasn’t sure what he’d do around Sandy. And for someone used to being sure of everything he did, it was more than unsettling.

  “Do you want something to drink? Water?” Her new nervousness prompted him to try and behave like a civilized man, not a horny Neanderthal who’d finally succeeded in dragging a woman back to his lair.

  She nodded. “Water would be good.”

  He held a glass under the water dispenser and listened as the cool liquid trickled into the glass. Awareness of her eyes tickled the back of his neck. She was watching him, wondering, worrying.

  Should she worry? Maybe.

  He filled the glass, then strode across the room with it. Her eyes fell to his chest where his shirt was parted and he saw the desire that darkened them. She was in deep, too. Her gaze dropped to the telltale bulge in his pants and he made no effort to conceal the evidence of his lust.

  Their craving for each other was mutual. And so was the fear.

  Fear of what? Of exposing oneself, the deepest, most craven part, the loneliness. Of opening up to another person, making yourself vulnerable. Of being turned inside out and exposed to the vultures.

  “I heard you on the radio,” she said, looking at the glass he had handed her.

  “Mmm.” He couldn’t help noticing the long, delicate fingers that held the glass. He wanted those fingers on his skin, to have them grip him, hold him, and—

  “You were talking about a new contract. With the government, national security….”

  “Yeah.” His thoughts were becoming fogged again as his eyes settled on her mouth. A small mouth, begging him to plant his lips on it.

  “It said that all your employees were being evaluated as security risks.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her lids lowered momentarily, and he recalled the brush of those satin lashes against the skin of his cheek, how they’d teased his skin as her eyes rolled back in the throes of her passion.

  “If I’d been there, I would have failed the test.”

  “Oh.” His eyes fell on her chest, which heaved suddenly. The rise and fall of her breasts made his erection swell and he gasped with the urgency of his need.

  “Marco! You’re not listening to me.”

  “What?” He struggled to focus his attention on her words, to wrench his mind from the tormenting perfection of her body.

  “Marco, I’ve been arrested, jailed. Being with me could jeopardize your contract.”

  He shook his head, trying to make sense of her words. Contract? Who could think about contracts when her slender waist beckoned him to wrap his arms around it?

  “It’s okay, Sandy. I don’t care what happened in the past. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is you’re here with me, right now. That we’re together.”

  She looked at him warily. “But if the government found out you’re spending time with…with…”

  “With you.”

  “Yes.” She looked down at the flo
or and swallowed hard. “They might not want your company to handle sensitive information.”

  “Who I love is my own business.”

  Her eyes leaped to his, wide with terror.

  Had he just said what he thought he’d said?

  “But…but…”

  “No buts. Come here.” He stepped forward and took her in his arms. She softened and warmed as he embraced her and held her against his body. His skin buzzed with electrical energy as it strained to touch hers. He lifted her shirt and wrapped his arms around the bare skin of her waist. His whole body ached with the need to hold her.

  Her thighs shuddered against his, and he opened his eyes to see her face contorted with desire. On impulse, he grabbed her off her feet and swept her into the bedroom. He laid her on the sheets of the unmade bed where he’d lain awake night after night, longing for her.

  “Lie still, relax, I want to pleasure you,” he murmured.

  Her lashes flickered and she bit her lip, acquiescing to his request. He removed her black pumps and took one of her stockinged feet in his hand. He lifted her foot and pressed his face into the delicate arch. He grazed the tender skin with his teeth and smiled as she shivered at the sensation.

  He sucked her toes through the nylon, enjoying them like tiny ripe fruits. Her feet had been one of the first objects of his fantasy. After that first intoxicating night, all he’d had left of her was her sneaker. He’d been shocked by how his mind had strayed to wonder about the foot it belonged to.

  He licked the sole of her foot and trailed his tongue along the back of her leg, painting a seam like an old-time stocking. His mouth rose to the warm crook of her knee and he pressed his face into the hollow, closing his eyes and reveling in the unique scent of every precious part of the body he loved and craved so much.

  He held her leg high in the air as he pushed her slim skirt up to her hips and licked the inside of her thigh with his flickering tongue, through the taut fabric of her silky stocking.