The Princess Bride

by Diana Palmer

  She started for her own room.

  “Tiffany.”

  His deep voice stopped her at the doorway. She turned. “Yes?”

  “Sleep with me.”

  Her heart jerked in her chest. Her eyes widened.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head as he got to his feet. “I don’t want you that way yet, honey,” he said softly, to lessen the blow of the statement. “You don’t need to be alone tonight. It’s a king-size bed, and you won’t need to worry that I’ll take advantage.”

  It was very tempting. He’d hardly touched her in almost a month. And although he didn’t know it, any fear of having him take advantage of the situation was nonexistent. She sometimes felt that she’d have given six months of her life to have him throw her down onto the nearest available surface and ravish her to the point of exhaustion. She wondered what he’d say if she admitted that. Probably it would be just one more complication he didn’t want. And there was still Carla, waiting back home.

  “All right,” she said after a minute. “If you don’t mind…”

  “Mind!” He bit off the word and turned away before she could see his strained face. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t…mind.”

  He was behaving very oddly, she mused as she showered and then put on another of her white embroidered gowns. The garment was very concealing and virginal, and there was a cotton robe that matched it, with colorful pastel embroidery on the collar and the hem, and even on the belt that secured it around her trim waist.

  When she walked into the other room and approached King’s, through the slightly open door she heard him talking on the telephone.

  “…be home tomorrow,” he was saying. “I’ll want everything ready when I get to the office. Yes, we’ll talk about that,” he added in a cold, biting tone. “No, I wouldn’t make any bets on it. You do that. And don’t foul things up this time or it will be the last mistake you make on my payroll. Is that clear?”

  He put down the receiver with an angry breath and ran a hand through his own damp hair. He was wearing an incredibly sexy black velour robe with silver trim. When he turned, Tiffany’s knees went weak at the wide swath of hair-roughened chest it bared to her hungry eyes.

  He was looking at her, too. The gown and robe should have been dampening to any man’s ardor, because she looked as virginal as he knew she was. But it inflamed him. With her face soft in the lamplight, her eyes downcast, she made him ache.

  “Which side of the bed do you want?” he asked curtly.

  “I like the left, but it doesn’t matter.”

  He waved her toward it. Trying not to notice that he was watching her obsessively, she drew off the robe and spread it across the back of a nearby chair before she turned down the covers and, tossing off her slippers, climbed under the sheet.

  He looked at her with darkening, narrowed eyes. She could see his heartbeat, it was so heavy. While she watched, his hand went to the loop that secured the belt of his robe and loosened it, catching the robe over one arm to toss it aside. He stood there, completely nude, completely aroused, and let her look.

  Her lips parted. It was a blatant, arrogant action. She didn’t know what to do or say. She couldn’t manage words. He was…exquisite. He had a body that would have made the most jaded woman swoon with pleasure. And, remembering the heated mastery of his lovemaking, her body throbbed all over. It was in her eyes, her flushed face, her shaking heartbeat.

  “Take it off,” he said in a husky soft tone. “I want to look at you.”

  She wasn’t able to think anymore. She clammered out from under the sheet and onto her knees, struggling to throw off the yards of concealing cotton. At last, she tugged it over her head and threw it onto the floor. Her body was as aroused as his. He knew the signs.

  He moved around the bed. As he came closer, he caught the rose scent of her. Forgotten was the rocky start to their honeymoon, the accusations, the sudden illness. He approached her like a predator.

  She made a helpless little sound and abruptly reached beside her to sweep both pillows off the bed and onto the floor as she surged backward, flat on the sheet, her legs parted, her arms beside her head. She trembled there, waiting, a little afraid of the overwhelming masculinity of him, but hungry and welcoming despite it.

  He came onto the bed, slowly, stealthily, as if he still expected her to bolt. One lean, powerful leg inserted itself between both of hers, his chest hovered above hers, his arms slid beside her, his fingers interlaced with her own and pinned them beside her ears.

  “It’s…pagan.” She choked.

  He understood. He nodded slowly, and still his eyes held hers, unblinking, as his leg moved against the inside of hers in a sinuous, sensual touch that echoed the predatory approach of his mouth to her parted lips.

  It was like fencing, she thought half-dazed. His body teased her, his mouth teased her, every part of him was an instrument of seduction. It was nothing like their earlier lovemaking, when he’d kissed her, touched her, even pleasured her. This was the real thing, a prowling, tenderly violent stalking of the female by the male, a controlled savagery of pleasure that enticed but never satisfied, that aroused and denied all at the same time.

  Her body shook as if with a fever and she arched, pleaded, pulled, twisted, trying to make him end it. The tension was at a level far beyond any that he’d ever subjected her to.

  He touched her very briefly and then, finally—finally!—moved down into the intimacy that she’d begged for. But even as it came, it frightened her. She stiffened, her nails digging into his muscular arms, her teeth biting at her lower lip.

  He stilled. His heart was beating furiously, but his eyes, despite their fierce need, were tender.

  “First times are always difficult,” he whispered. He held her eyes as he moved again, very gently. “Can you feel me, there?” he murmured wickedly, bending to brush his smiling lips against hers. They rested there as he moved again. “Talk to me.”

  “Talk?” She gasped as she felt him invading her. “Good…Lord…!”

  “Talk to me,” he chided, laughing as she clutched him. “This isn’t a ritual of silence. We’re learning each other in the most intimate way there is. It shouldn’t be an ordeal. Look down my body while I’m taking you. See how it looks when we fit together like puzzle pieces.”

  “I couldn’t!” she gasped.

  “Why?” He stilled and deliberately lifted himself for a few seconds. “Look, Tiffany,” he coaxed. “It isn’t frightening, or sordid, or ugly. We’re becoming lovers. It’s the most beautiful thing a man and woman can share, especially when it’s as emotional as it is physical. Look at us.”

  It was a powerful enticement, and it worked. But her shocked eyes didn’t linger. They went quickly back to his, as if to seek comfort and reassurance.

  “You’re my wife,” he whispered softly. He caught his breath as his next movement took him completely to the heart of her, and his eyes closed and he shivered.

  Seeing him vulnerable like that seemed to rob her of fear and the slight discomfort of their intimate position. One of her hands freed itself and moved hesitantly to touch his drawn face, to sift through his thick, cool black hair. His eyes opened, as if the caress startled him.

  It was incredible, to look at him and talk to him with the lights on while they fused in the most shocking way. But he didn’t seem at all shocked. In fact, he watched her the whole time. When his hips began to move lazily against hers and the shock of pleasure lifted her tight against him, and she gasped, he actually laughed.

  “For…shame!” She choked, shivering with each movement as unexpected pleasure rippled through her.

  “Why?” he taunted.

  “You laughed!”

  “You delight me,” he whispered, bending to nibble her lips as his movements lengthened and deepened. “I’ve never enjoyed it like this.”

  Which was an uncomfortable reminder that he was no novice. She started to speak, but as if he sensed what she was going to say, he
suddenly shifted and she was overwhelmed by the most staggering pleasure she’d ever felt.

  It possessed her. She couldn’t even breathe. She arched up, helpless, her mouth open, her eyes dazed, gasping with each deliberate movement of his body. She was trying to grasp something elusive and explosive, reaching toward it with every thread of her being. It was just out of her reach, almost, almost, tantalizingly close…

  “Oh…please!” she managed to say in a shuddering little cry.

  He looked somber, almost violent in that instant. He said something, but she didn’t hear him. Just as the tension abruptly snapped and she heard her own voice sobbing in unbearable pleasure, his face buried itself in her soft throat and his own body shuddered with the same sweet anguish.

  For a long time afterward, his breathing was audible, raspy and unsteady at her ear. She gasped for air, but she was still clinging to him, as if she could retain just a fragment of that extraordinary wave of pleasure that had drowned her for endless seconds.

  “It doesn’t last,” she whispered shakenly.

  “It couldn’t,” he replied heavily. “The human body can only bear so much of it without dying.”

  Her hands spread on his damp shoulders with a sort of wonder at the feel of him so deep in her body. She moved her hips and felt the pleasure ripple through her unexpectedly.

  She laughed at her discovery.

  He lifted his dark head and his eyes, sated now, searched hers. “Experimenting?”

  She nodded, and moved gently again, gasping as she found what she was searching for. But along with it came a new and unfamiliar stinging sensation and she stilled.

  He brushed back her damp hair gently. “Your body has to get used to this,” he murmured. “Right now, you need rest more than you need me.” He moved very slowly and balanced himself on his hands. “Try to relax,” he whispered. “This may be uncomfortable.”

  Which was an understatement. She closed her eyes and ground her teeth together as he lifted away from her.

  He eased over onto his back with a heavy breath and turned his head toward her. “And now you know a few things that you didn’t, before,” he mused, watching her expressions. “Want a bath or just a wet cloth?”

  The matter-of-fact question shouldn’t have shocked her, but it did. Her nudity shocked her, too, and so did his. Without the anesthetic of passion, sex was very embarrassing. She got to her feet and gathered up her gown, holding it over her front.

  “I…I think I’d like a shower,” she stammered.

  He got out of bed, completely uninhibited, and took the gown from her fingers, tossing it onto the bed. “None of that,” he taunted softly. “We’re an old married couple now. That means we can bathe together.”

  Her expression was complicated. “We can?”

  “We can.”

  He led her into the bathroom, turned on the shower jets, and plopped her in before him.

  It was an adventure to bathe with someone. She was alternately embarrassed, intrigued, amused, and scandalized by it. But she laughed with pure delight at this unexpected facet of married life. It had never occurred to her that she might take a shower with King, even in her most erotic dreams.

  Afterward, they dried each other and he carried her back to bed, placing her neatly under the covers, nude, before he joined her and turned off the lights.

  He caught her wandering hand and drew it to his hairy chest with a chuckle.

  “Stop that,” he murmured. “You’re used up. No more for you tonight, or probably tomorrow, either.”

  She knew he was right, but she was still bristling with curiosity and the newness of intimacy.

  His hand smoothed her soft hair. “We have years of this ahead of us,” he reminded her quietly. “You don’t have to rush in as if tonight was the last night we’d ever have together.”

  She lay against him without speaking. That was how it had felt, though. There was a sort of desperation in it, a furious seeking and holding. She didn’t understand her own fears, except that she was fatally uncertain of Kingman Marshall’s staying power. Carla still loomed in the background, and even if he’d found Tiffany enjoyable in bed, he was still getting used to a married status that he’d never wanted. She didn’t kid herself that it was smooth sailing from now on. In fact, the intimacy they’d just shared might prove to be more of a detriment than an advantage in the cold light of day.

  The worry slowly drifted away, though, as she lay in her husband’s warm arms and inhaled the expensive scent of his cologne. Tomorrow would come, but for tonight, she could pretend that she was a much-loved wife with a long happy marriage ahead of her. King must know that she hadn’t had time to see a doctor about any sort of birth control. But he apparently hadn’t taken care of it as he’d said he would. He’d been too hungry for her to take time to manage it himself.

  She thought of a child and her whole body warmed and flushed. He didn’t want children, but she did, desperately. If he did leave her for Carla, she’d have a small part of him that the other woman could never take from her.

  From pipe dreams to reality was a hard fall. But she woke alone the next day, with her gown tossed haphazardly on the bed with her. King was nowhere in sight, and it was one o’clock in the afternoon!

  She put on the gown and her slippers and robe and padded slowly out into the sitting room of the suite. It was empty, too. Perturbed, she went across into her own room and found some white jeans and a red-and-blue-and-white jersey to slip into. She tied her hair back in a red ribbon, slipped on her sneakers, and started to go out and look for King when she saw the envelope on the dresser.

  Her name was on the front in a familiar bold black slash. She picked up the envelope and held it, savoring for a moment the night before, because she knew inside herself that whatever was in that envelope was going to upset her.

  She drew out a piece of hotel stationery and unfolded it.

  Tiffany,

  I’ve left your passport, and money for a return ticket and anything else you need in your purse. I’ve paid the hotel bill. An emergency came up back home. I meant to tell you last night that I had to leave first thing this morning, but it slipped my mind. I managed to get the last seat on a plane to San Antonio. We’ll talk later.

  King.

  She read it twice more, folded it, and put it into the envelope. What sort of emergency was so pressing that a man had to leave his honeymoon to take care of it?

  That was when something niggled at the back of her mind, and she remembered the snatch of conversation she’d overheard before they’d gone to bed. King had said that he’d be home tomorrow—today. She drew in a harsh breath. Carla. Carla had phoned him and he’d left his wife to rush home. She’d have bet her last dollar that there was no emergency at all, unless it was that he was missing his old lover. Apparently, she thought with despair, even the heated exchange of the night before hadn’t been enough for him. And why should it? She was a novice, only a new experience for him. Carla was probably as expert as he was.

  With wounded pride stiffening her backbone, she picked up the telephone and dialed the international code and her father’s private office number.

  “Hello?” he answered after a minute.

  The sound of his voice was so dear and comforting that she hesitated a few seconds to choke back hurt tears. “Hi, Dad,” she said.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded. “King phoned me from the airport and said he was on his way into the city to sort out some union dispute at one of the branch offices. Since when do we have a union dispute?” he asked irritably.

  “I don’t know any more than you do,” she said. “He left me a note.”

  He sighed angrily. “I could have dealt with a dispute, if there had been one. I’ve been doing it longer than he has, and I’m the senior partner.”

  He didn’t have to say that. She already knew it. “I’m coming home tomorrow,” she told him. “I, uh, sort of had a bout with some aspirin and I’m feeling bad. I was
ready to leave, but there was only one seat available on the morning flight. We agreed that I’d follow tomorrow,” she lied glibly.

  It sounded fishy to Harrison, but he didn’t say a word about it. “You’re allergic to aspirin,” he said pointedly.

  “I know, but King didn’t. I had a splitting headache and he gave me some. He had to take me to the hospital, but I’m fine now, and he knows not to give me aspirin again.”

  “Damnation!” her father growled. “Doesn’t he know anything about you?”

  “Oh, he’s learning all the time,” she assured him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Dad. Can you have the car meet me at the airport? I’m not sure if King will remember me, if he’s involved in meetings.” Or with Carla, she thought. King hadn’t said anything about her coming home at all in his terse little note. She was going to be a surprise.

  There was an ominous pause. “I’ll remember you. Phone me when you get in. Take care, darling.”

  “You, too, Dad. See you.”

  He put down the receiver, got out of his chair, and made the door in two strides. He went past his secretary and down the hall to King’s office, pushed open the door on a startled Carla, and slammed it back.

  She actually gasped. “Mr….Mr. Blair, can I do something for you?”

  “You can stop trying to sabotage my daughter’s marriage, you black-eyed little pit viper,” he said with furious eyes. “First you fouled up the flowers, then you wore a dress to the ceremony that even to the most unprejudiced person in the world looked like a wedding gown. You kissed the groom as if you were the bride, and now you’ve managed to get King back here on some tom fool excuse, leaving his bride behind in Jamaica!”

  Carla’s eyes almost popped. “Mr. Blair, honestly, I never meant…”

  “You’re fired,” he said furiously.

  She managed to get to her feet and her cheeks flamed. “Mr. Blair, I’m King’s secretary,” she said through her teeth. “You can’t fire me!”

  “I own fifty-one percent of the stock,” he told her with pure contempt. “That means I can fire whom I damned well please. I said, you’re fired, and that means you’re fired.”