by Riser, Mimi
There was nothing to do but let her sleep it off and try again tomorrow. This wasn’t defeat, just delay. He still wanted to marry her – now more than ever. It wasn’t often you got a chance at a beautiful mother lode who’d never been mined. Tomorrow he’d tunnel in deep and strike gold.
Tonight he’d take a cold shower.
Sophia laid her head on his shoulder and started playing with his tie, hooking fingers over the knot and inching it downward, loosening it…
Make that a real cold shower. Real soon.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” she murmured.
No, actually, and he doubted she did either; she was in no shape to know what she was saying. Byron didn’t believe in love much at all. Love was a fairytale illusion, and he’d lost his illusions early in life.
Lust was another matter. Lust was a heat wave rising around them. Lust sizzled the air and made his voice raspy.
“Sophia, I think you need to go to bed.” Before he ravished her right here in the hallway.
“Finally! I thought you’d never ask!”
With startling strength and agility, she tightened her grip on his tie and pulled him to the door of his room.
“Where’s your key? Here?” She dug a hand into his pants’ pocket.
Groan. Did she have any idea what that pocket was next to? Through thin fabric, her fingers grazed a growing bulge. An electric charge shot through him.
“There’s something in here. My, what a big key you have.” She giggled like Little Red Riding Hood.
And she was turning him into a big bad wolf.
Byron yanked his besieged willpower up by its bootstraps.
“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.
=========
<><><>
<><>
About the author:
Mimi Riser is a best-selling, award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. Her books celebrate the upbeat and the offbeat, and “happy endings” are her specialty. She began life in the urban northeast, but now resides in the rural southwest with one husband, two dogs, and more cats than anyone wants to know about. And, yes, she believes in love at first sight. Doesn’t everyone?
http://www.mimiriser.com
ALSO BY MIMI RISER:
Novels
Eyes of the Cat
Every Jack Needs His Jil
Sherwood Charade
Space Rats and Rebels
Short Stories
The Great Race
If Wishes Were Kisses
Joy to the Worlds
The Robin Flies Again
Star Cookies & Comfort
The “Lovestruck” Series:
Marrying Mona
Seducing Sophia
Nonfiction
Texas Treats
Cooking Up Christmas
Homemade Halloween Treats
The Kitchen Witch Glossary of Cooking Herbs & Spices
The Kitchen Witch Guide to the Timeless Art of Herbal Tea
Spice Up Your Love Life! Aphrodisiacs from the Kitchen
The Naughty Girl’s Guide to Divining by the Dots
The Kitchen Witch Spring Into Summer Book
The Kitchen Witch Yuletide Book
The Kitchen Witch Halloween Book
The “Odd True Tales” Series
Anthologies
Romance: Fantasy, Food, and Fortune Telling
Breaking the Thought Barrier
Erotic Romance
Cymric’s Rose
Samantha White & The Seven Dwarves
Dungeons & Dirty Dreams
Romeo’s Revenge
Tina Takes a Tumble
Saving Sally Savoy
A Knight to Remember
Just Another Lonely Knight
In the Heat of the Knight
The Adventures of Cassie Nova
The Cowboys & The Courtesan
Wicked Comes the Beast
Playing Pirates
Pirates Do It With Passion
The Sylver & Steele Series
Paperback Anthologies
My Knightly Adventures
Return to the Burn
Can’t Fight the Feeling
Pirates & Other Wicked Pleasures
=======
<><>
<>