He wished this moment could last forever. The sheer, unadulterated pleasure of allowing his body to rest against hers—heart to heart, belly to belly, sex to sex—was the most intensely wonderful sensation he’d ever experienced. So intense that he felt tears well in his eyes at the wonder of what could only be described as magic.
When he lowered his mouth to hers now, her lips were already parted in welcome. Holding her gaze, he braced his elbows on either side of her head and furrowed his fingers into her wild strawberry blond hair, grasping her scalp.
Never breaking eye contact, she reached up and did the same with her fingers in his hair. The light pressure against his scalp was almost his undoing. Her gesture was clearly a signal of surrender. At the same time, she was giving notice that she would be an equal partner in this kiss…and whatever followed.
With a low growl of his own masculine surrender, he kissed her then. A savage, hungry melding of mouths and tongues and slickness, his and hers.
The kiss went on and on and on. Perhaps he feared that if he stopped, even for a breath, it would break the spell. And so he shaped and pressed and plunged and softened and nibbled and devoured. And succumbed to the most glorious kiss of his life. Which was much more than a kiss. It was a statement of something so powerful, he couldn’t begin to understand its meaning.
Meanwhile Cynthia “The Shark” Sullivan was shaping and pressing and plunging and softening and nibbling and devouring him in equal measure.
And Peter was screaming silently for attention, “Me, me, me!” But P.T. didn’t dare move, down there, or this “kiss” would end far too soon, in a highly unsatisfactory manner.
Then Cynthia did the worst possible thing. She moved, down there. A slight arching of her hips. A little wiggle, side to side. A breathy moan. And all hell broke loose.
He rolled over so that she was on top, the kiss still unbroken. His hands roamed frantically over her shoulders and back and buttocks, especially her buttocks, which he massaged through her silk panties. When she began to undulate against him and pressed her sweet tongue inside his mouth, he saw stars behind his closed eyelids and rolled them over again.
Now he moved against her, rhythmically, and his tongue was in her mouth, where she sucked on it with a matching rhythm. He wanted to take this slow, to remove her clothing, inch by inch, to lick her breasts and other places. He satisfied himself with running his hands under her camisole and testing the weight and shape of her breasts in his hands; the nipples were large and hard against his palms.
She cried into his mouth then, and tried to break their kiss. He realized that her breasts, with the wonderfully large nipples, were her sweet spot…the most erotic, sensitive zone on her body, and he smiled exultantly against her lips, refusing to allow her escape.
He began to manipulate her hardened peaks, first with circular motions of his palms, then between his thumbs and forefingers. His lower body began to thrust, involuntarily. Hard, spasmlike motions. She raised her knees to cradle his hips and spread herself wider.
He should stop now. He really should. In fact, he broke the kiss, panting. And realized immediately that it was a mistake. Watching her just spurred him on farther, and faster. Her eyes were closed. She licked her lips dreamily. Her cheeks were flushed with passion.
Without thinking he pushed her camisole upward, exposing two of the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen. They were full and tipped with engorged, rose-colored nipples. Exquisite.
“No,” she whimpered. “Don’t look at me.”
But he was done looking. With a raw growl, he took one nipple into his mouth and began to suckle. The other breast got equal attention from his flicking fingertips.
She began to scream and he put his lips over hers again, taking her long, drawn-out scream into his mouth.
Her arms flailed wildly and her legs went rigid as she arched her hips off the mattress. Her orgasm was approaching at an uncontrollable pace, he knew that, but still he resumed suckling at her breasts, mercilessly. His erection felt hard as steel as it pounded against her slickness, which he could feel even through his shorts.
When she grabbed his shoulders and dug her nails into the skin and bucked against him in short, rapid convulsions, he arched his head back so that he could watch her coming. It was a glorious manifestation of woman at her sensual, powerful best. Giving all she had to give in the most elemental, earthy way, and taking from her mate in equal measure.
He lost control himself then and surrendered to the pounding, driving instincts of his sex. Finally, finally, he arched his neck backward and roared out his supreme satisfaction.
When he came to his senses a short time later, he found himself lying flat atop Cynthia, his face resting in the curve of her neck and shoulder. Their chains were hopelessly tangled.
He raised his head slightly.
She was smiling.
He lifted a brow.
“The next time you ask a woman to marry you, you should send an emissary…you know, like you royal princes always do.”
“An emissary?” he asked cautiously.
“Yeah. A friend, maybe.”
“A friend?”
“A close friend.”
He was beginning to understand. “Like Peter?”
“A very talented fellow, that Peter,” she remarked. Her eyes were twinkling merrily.
“I taught him everything he knows.”
“I’ll bet you did.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Have I just been royally seduced?”
“Do you feel seduced?”
“That would be an understatement.”
He grinned.
“Or maybe I just seduced you.” She batted her reddish-blond lashes at him.
Was it possible? Had she turned the tables on him?
“Do you feel seduced?” she asked, tossing his question back at him.
Utterly. “I don’t know. Maybe you’d better try again. Just to make sure.”
“Good try, Prince. But the drawbridge is back up, and the battlements secured.”
“We could negotiate a truce.”
“I don’t like your method of negotiating.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, actually I do. Too much. Stop smirking. Now that I know what you’re up to, I can fight off your advances.”
“I’m not up to anything right now.”
Peter moved slightly, making a liar out of him.
Her eyes went wide. “Would you mind lifting yourself off me? Carefully.”
Hey, he had more reason to be careful than she did. And now that his brain was returning to normal, he realized the really embarrassing situation he was in. Damp shorts. Less than spectacular holding power in the sexual prowess department. No prospects of a second chance to redeem himself. Pathetic, that’s what I am. Apathetic putz of a prince!
Finally, they were both back on their respective sides of the bed, both beet red with embarrassment over the clumsy maneuvers necessitated by their enmeshed chains, their disheveled, damp clothing, and the lack of any distraction other than Elvis swivel-hipping away in Blue Hawaii. P.T. took a deep breath for courage. “So, are you gonna marry me or not?”
Cynthia began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
He was pretty sure that laughter wasn’t a positive sign.
The sight before Cynthia’s eyes was enough to boggle the mind. A real “Candid Camera” moment. If only she had a Camcorder to preserve it for posterity!
Prince Ferrama was teaching Elmer Presley how to do a combined hip swivel and knee gyration to the tune of “Jailhouse Rock.” And he was good. Really good.
To make the picture even more bizarre, Ferrama was wearing a gaudy Elvis suit. A wide belt cinched in the waist of a too-short pair of fire-engine-red bell bottoms studded with black sequins. The sides of the slacks had Velcro strips that adjusted, presumably as the King gained weight, which was convenient for P.T., with his not-so-convenient chain. Or maybe they belonged to an Elvis impersonator stripper. On t
op was a matching red, high-collared jacket with linebacker shoulder pads and a little shoulder cape. Unfortunately, he wore the jacket unbuttoned, exposing a tantalizing view of his chest hair, which continually drew her attention like a stud magnet…and not the carpentry kind.
Of course, she was in no position to sneer. She was decked out in a dress belonging to Ruth—a tank-top, one-piece, purple spandex dress worn over her short-sleeved lace camisole. If she had ever had any physical secrets, they were fully exposed now.
Elmer and his three-piece band, the Teddy Bears, whom Naomi refused to allow on the property for practice sessions, had apparently just signed on for a weekend gig at Leonard’s Lounge in Poughkeepsie. Their big break, or so Elmer hoped. But Elmer was worried that he’d get fired on the spot if he didn’t get the King’s sexy body movements perfected. Personally, Cynthia thought he had a lot more to worry about with his voice.
Ferrama, exhibiting more negotiating acumen than he’d ever displayed with her, had talked Elmer into getting them some clothes in return for a few Elvis impersonation lessons. The need for clothing had become desperate. After their encounter on the bed this afternoon, the blushing prince had plopped himself into the bathtub and washed his own ignominiously damp boxers, muttering something about having given up “dry-run sex” when he was a teenager. He’d refused her offer to dry his shorts with a blow-dryer. Instead, he’d proceeded to walk around after his bath, cursing under his breath, with the nearly transparent, wet shamrock shorts hugging his narrow hips and tight buttocks. Not that she’d noticed.
She’d also bathed. In cold water, without bubbles. The necessity for icing down her raging hormones was paramount. How could she have succumbed to the obvious moves of a devious make-out expert?
Because he is an expert, that’s why. And so damn gorgeous. And charming. Not to mention being a…sigh…prince. Geez! It appeared her dreams weren’t quite as dead as she’d thought.
“Where did you ever learn about Elvis?” Cynthia asked Ferrama when there was a break in the song. Ruth had just walked in with a tray holding a frosted pitcher of lemonade and four tall glasses. A welcome treat on this humid July evening.
“Everyone has heard of Elvis,” Elmer declared indignantly.
Cynthia chuckled. “I meant, how did a prince on the Canary Islands watch Elvis?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of satellites?” Ferrama answered, walking over to turn down the volume on the tape player. “Besides, my mother remarried when I was ten and we moved to the States…Hoboken.”
“Hoboken? New Jersey?” Somehow Cynthia just could not picture Prince Ferrama in Hoboken, New Jersey. The Prince of Hoboken, she mouthed silently.
“Is there any other Hoboken?” he chortled. “Anyhow, Elvis died when I was eleven years old. I know that because he died on my birthday, August sixteenth, and the television kept replaying old Elvis movies after that. Besides”—he took a deep breath, as if about to divulge something against his better judgment—“I’ll admit it, my mother was an Elvis fan. She had every one of his records ever made.” The expression of disgust on his face was pure royal condescension.
“Oooh, oooh, oooh,” Elmer exclaimed, practically salivating. “By any chance, do you still have the collection?”
Ferrama shrugged. “I suppose.” He turned to Ruth. “Are all those boxes still in the attic at home?”
Cynthia was getting confused. “You have a home in Hoboken, too? Besides this castle? And the palace in the Canary Islands? I suppose you have a villa on the Riviera, too. And a little hideaway in Beverly Hills. Not to mention a Manhattan penthouse. Geesh!”
“Hey, I never said I had a palace on Isla de Serpientes,” Ferrama protested. “I distinctly remember telling you that my province was in the Canary Islands, but I never said there was a palace there. Uh-uh!”
“Island of Serpents! That’s the name of your province?” This prince was sounding more and more…strange.
Ferrama’s right eyebrow twitched. Just once. But it was a definite twitch. In fact, Cynthia had noticed that every time the prince said something that appeared to stretch the truth a bit or seemed a mite devious, his eyebrow twitched. For instance, his eyebrow had practically done the rhumba when he’d asked her to marry him.
“Well, we have a bit of a reptile problem on my island,” Ferrama explained. His eyebrow did a little twitch-twitch.
Elmer groaned and put his face in his hands. She thought she heard him mutter something like, “Dumbest damn prince in the universe!”
“Yeech! Snakes!” Ruth squealed with a visible shudder.
Something still wasn’t right with this picture. “What kind of kingdom has no palace? Even Monaco, small as it is, has a palace.”
“Volcanoes,” Ferrama mumbled.
“I beg your pardon,” Cynthia sputtered.
Elmer’s eyes rolled heavenward. “Why me, God? Why me?”
“A volcano eruption wiped out the castle, and we haven’t had a chance to rebuild. Yet.” Ferrama’s eyebrow did a neat triple twitch.
“There’s a volcano on your island?” Cynthia inquired, more and more suspicious. “Oh, so that’s why you haven’t finished the renovation here. You need to pump all your extra cash back into the island’s recovery.”
“Volcanoes!” Ruth squealed, almost knocking over the glass of lemonade she was pouring. “Didja see that Tom Hanks volcano movie? I loo-oove Tom Hanks, except he’s too skinny.”
Elmer gave Ruth a little smile of appreciation, then shot Ferrama a disgusted scowl. “Volcanoes?” He threw his hands in the air. “To quote Cindy’s Grandma—”
“Oh, no!” It was Ferrama who put his face in his hands now.
“—empty bladders are loquacious.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“He means, ‘A silent mouth is musical,’” Cynthia interpreted for Elmer.
Ferrama raked the fingers of both hands through his hair with frustration. “Aaargh! Would both of you chuck the proverbs and speak in plain English?”
“Shut up,” Elmer said.
“What?”
“I’m telling you to shut up before you tie a knot with your tongue,” Elmer advised with a weary shake of his head.
“Does everyone want lemonade?” Ruth asked brightly. Elmer made a big deal out of helping her pour each of the glasses and hand them out.
“Where’s your father?” Cynthia was determined to get the missing pieces to the puzzle.
“My father went away when I was still in my mother’s womb,” Ferrama informed her stiffly as he sipped elegantly at his drink.
She, too, sipped at the sour beverage. Apparently, Ruth wasn’t any better in the kitchen than in the salon. Still, she drank it down, studying Ferrama the whole time. So, his father had died before he was born. How sad! But did that mean the monarchy was a matriarchal one? Why wasn’t he running his own country? There were still too many pieces missing in this puzzle. “Did the crown pass to you then?”
“Crown? What crown?” As Ferrama finished off his lemonade with a pinched mouth—his must have been overly tart, too—Elmer nudged him and whispered something under his breath. “Oh, that crown. Well, yes, you could say that, except that I have an uncle who’s next in line before me…uh, Fred.”
“Fred?” Cynthia, Elmer and Ruth all asked at once.
“Frederico de la Ferrama,” he said breezily. “Yep, Uncle Fred. My mother’s brother. When dear ol’ dad flew the coop, Fred became king. Good thing, too, ’cause King Fred makes a much better monarch than I ever would.” He was dabbing at his forehead with a towel; Cynthia couldn’t see if he was twitching.
Flew the coop? Now that was an odd way to refer to his father’s death. Hmmm. He was probably being flip to hide his emotions. Men were such dopes that way. But at least she had an explanation for why Ferrama was a prince, and not the king. “I suppose you’re next in line, though.”
“Could we please talk about something else? I’m bored with this subject.”
&
nbsp; “The wedding will be held on Monday, after I get back from Poughkeepsie,” Elmer informed them as he began to pack up his guitar.
“No!” she and Ferrama said at the same time.
Elmer shrugged. “It’s out of my hands. Orders from above.”
“God talked to you?” Ruth asked in an awestruck voice.
“Yep. He always does, darlin’. And he’s not too happy when he sees hanky-panky goin’ on before the blessed vows.” Elmer gave her and Ferrama a knowing glower of reproval. How could he know of their matinee? Was he a Peeping Tom? No, he and Naomi had been gone all afternoon. Hidden cameras? Nope. She’d examined every inch of the room. But somehow Elmer knew.
She and Ferrama both blushed.
“Listen up, you thick-headed fool!” Ferrama snapped. “I do not want to get married.”
Boy, did you change your tune, buster. A little afternoon delight and you’re reneging on your marriage proposal already? “Neither do I,” Cynthia concurred. It was the only time she’d ever agreed with the prince. But they had to stand united on this point.
“You will,” Elmer said enigmatically, staring pointedly at their empty glasses. “You will.”
Chapter Ten
“Do you feel anything yet?”
“Hell, no. Just these scratchy sheets,” P.T. griped from his side of the mile-wide bed. He knew every irregular warp and woof of the bed linens intimately, having tossed and turned for the past two hours, trying to sleep. He’d probably worn a shine on his shamrocks.
“Used to satin, are you?”
Used to satin, are you? he mimicked silently. The woman’s constant jabs were getting just as irritating as the damn sheets. But he knew it wasn’t his creature comforts she referred to. His bed partner—what a joke that was!—was just as worried as he about Elmer’s parting hint, and their verbal sparring had been going on incessantly ever since. “Only the bourgeoisie use satin sheets. I prefer Egyptian Pima cotton, never less than two-hundred-fifty count.”