Awakening Beauty (8 page)

But she couldn’t see them here in this weird new world. She couldn’t imagine them in this hotel room accepting Joel’s easy, informal kindness. She certainly couldn’t imagine their reaction to his lowly birth, his disrespectful manners and his managing ways. They’d never meet him, never know anything about him, and although that thought brought a lump to her throat, it seemed to keep the actual grief at bay, as if she’d left her parents in another country while she got on with her own life.

She tried to imagine their shock at finding her in this bed wearing nothing but her wispy chemise and shorts with Joel asleep in some undergarment only a foot away from her. But this was a new life, a new Aurora, and she could do things she never would have considered before.

Part of her wanted to laugh with joy at the sense of freedom that surged through her. The other part listened to Joel’s deep, even breathing and wanted to turn over to watch him sleep. Unable to resist, she finally did so, remembering to sigh as she resettled on the pillow. Just in case her movement woke him, she’d pretend to be asleep.

But his breathing continued without pause or hitch. He lay with his back to her, his arm flung out of the quilt to reveal the broad line of his naked shoulders and back. There was no detail to be seen in the dark. But a chink of light from the street broke through the heavy curtains to shine near his edge of the bed. Slowly, she raised herself on one elbow and looked over his shoulder at his sleeping face.

She’d been right. The light did illuminate his features, smooth and contented in sleep, seeming much younger and more vulnerable than in his wakeful state. She felt an urge to touch his face, the fine creases around his eyes, his full, still lips… She remembered how they’d felt on hers. Her heart beat faster and louder.

There was magic in a kiss. She’d always been taught that and she believed it. The kiss of this man was meant to awaken her, she was sure. And if the “fairytale” Joel had told her was at least partially true, then the spell of her guardian fairies must have been so strong that his very presence had done the job. He wasn’t a prince. But in this world, neither was she a princess, and she found she didn’t much care. Not when she could gaze on the sleeping face of this strong, handsome man and imagine his arms around her and his mouth on hers once more.

He stirred, turning with a hint of restlessness. In fright, Aurora, whipped back on her other side and pretended to sleep. She might be the “new” Aurora with the power to do as she wished, but she was also the old Aurora who was shy and nervous about all this.

Joel grunted and then breathed normally again, long and deep. Aurora let out a sigh of relief. But he was closer now. She could feel his warm breath tickling her nape, making the tiny hairs there stand up in awareness. At first, she was frightened to move, and then, slowly, she realized she liked his breath on her neck; she liked his nearness, the warmth radiating from his body to hers. Sharing a bed was not so bad. Except that it made her wonder what would happen if he came any closer, if he touched her…

He wouldn’t. He’d said so, and she had the feeling he regarded her as more of a precocious child than a woman capable of adult feelings. Her body heated. Adult sensations. Joel’s kisses on her mouth, on her breasts, Joel’s clever, knowing hands all over her body, fanning the flame she could feel burning here between her legs.

She let her mind go, fantasizing about more of those kisses, imagining his hand caressing her thigh, sliding inward to stroke the little nub of delight. Would he bring her to full pleasure that way? Oh yes, certainly in this fantasy. She wanted his cock too, but since she had no idea how that would feel, she’d stick with his hand.

At her shoulder, Joel stirred again, as if he was too hot or uncomfortable. His breath pushed out, ruffling her hair, and without warning he shifted against her. Shocked, she expected him to jump away again immediately, but instead, he let out a grunt of apparent satisfaction and hooked one arm over her.

Aurora was afraid to breathe, especially when his thighs curved against hers, fitting his whole body around her shape.

When one got over the shock, she decided after several moments, it was really quite a nice, enveloping hug. She couldn’t even take offense since he was obviously asleep and unaware whom he was cuddling. Or even that he
was
cuddling. Well, she would take the comfort and the oddly sweet, stolen excitement of his touch. It was real, physical, and so much better than fantasy.

She smiled into the pillow and closed her eyes. And since his hand lay so close, she wrapped her fingers around his. Now she could sleep.

She’d almost drifted off when he moved closer, pressing against her. Her eyes sprang open. Shocked all over again, she felt the hardness of his erection pushing against her bottom, insinuating itself between her cheeks. His hand slid free of her fingers and down inside the quilt, finding the curve of her waist and hip and thigh. The warm breath on her neck hitched as his hand caressed and tangled in her chemise, drawing it up until he found skin to stroke instead. He gave a faint, inarticulate murmur of satisfaction.

Paralyzed by sensation, by the idea that her fantasy was beginning in reality, Aurora didn’t even try to stop him. She didn’t want to. She loved the feel of his hand on her thigh, moving up over her hip. It burned where it touched and spread tingles through her whole body. He moved against her back with lazy sensuality, rubbing his erect cock against the soft flesh of her bottom through her loose jogging shorts and his. Her whole body burning now, she wondered what
that
, his cock would feel like, skin to skin. His thigh moved on hers, at once smooth and rough with its short, coarse hairs, and she loved that too.

But he was asleep. This wasn’t fair to him. It seemed to Aurora that she had never wanted anything more in her life than this man’s caresses right now, but he’d already made it plain he didn’t want to involve himself with her. After all, there was the unspeakable Vee woman who wanted to marry him and get him elected as president.

She found it hard to care about that as his fingers caressed the flesh of her waist and stomach, slowly pushing the waistband of the shorts ever lower. She wore nothing beneath them. He stroked the tingles into a thousand tiny fires that all seemed to meet between her legs, and despite all the moisture pooling there so rapidly, none of it quenched the flame.

When his hand swept upward beneath the camisole and over her breast, she gasped. It felt so good cupping and exploring, her one anxiety was that he’d stop. Instead, his fingertips rubbed over her nipple and pinched. Aurora moaned, then bit her lip because she didn’t want to waken him. Or no, she
did
want to waken him and ensure he knew he was making love to
her
. Was he awake? Impossible to tell. His breath was loud and ragged in her ear. His roaming hand left her breast to sweep down her stomach, gliding over her navel and down between her parted legs. The shorts were halfway off her hips now, and Aurora quickly pushed them all the way down her legs, baring herself to him. Unhindered, his fingers slid through her folds and unerringly found her slick, swollen nub.

She cried out at his touch, but her voice was lost in his groan. Abruptly, he rose up on his elbow, pinning her thigh under his and looming over her. Before she could even make out if his eyes were open, his mouth took hers, and she was lost in fire and need and wonder.

Instead of his fingers, it was his cock, somehow freed from his shorts, that probed her pussy now. His hands were busy at her breast and hips. He released her mouth, only to drag his lips downward over her neck and breast, and fasten to her nipple like a starving man.

The sensation of his suckling, as unexpected as it was intense, drowned the last of her doubts in a surge of profound lust that she couldn’t fight. Reaching her arms around his neck, she thrust upward from pure instinct, helping him to find his way to her pulsing entrance. Like a reflex, he thrust back and she gasped at the feel of his cock inside her, stretching her. It didn’t hurt, precisely, but the discomfort did dampen her desire, if only for an instant. The moment he moved again, pushing farther inside her with a groan of pleasure, she ignored the discomfort in her desperation to feel more of
that
.

His mouth returned to hers, kissing her thoroughly, his tongue pushing in rhythm with his cock, tangling and stroking with hers while his lips caressed and sucked. In bewildered wonder, Aurora hung on, moving with his increasingly wild thrusts until she lost all control in the intensity of sensation. The burning pleasure gathered at her core until she thought she would explode. She dug her nails into his shoulders, his back, silently pleading, though for what she didn’t understand, and then the pleasure seemed to burst, like a wave on the rocks, deluging her with a surge of ecstasy so fierce that she wondered if she were dying.

“Oh yes, sweetheart,” Joel whispered against her shaking lips, still thrusting slowly, almost lazily inside her. “Let it go. Let it all go.”

His eyes were open, staring into hers with clouded intensity. He looked almost ferociously triumphant. Mutely, she lifted her lips again, and he took them as the fire began to die slowly back.

Which was odd, because she could still smell it.

“I’m still burning,” she whispered. “I can smell the smoke.”

He smiled and rolled onto his back with her on top of him. “You’re a funny little thing. You can’t possibly smell smoke in this kind of fire.”

He broke off, his nose twitching. And suddenly Aurora could hear the fire too, crackling flames outside her body.

Joel sprang off her. Flames licked around the television set, stretching out toward the bed. Aurora began to choke on the smoke.

Joel grabbed a large, red cylinder from the wall and ran with it toward the fire. Aurora, unsure why, lunged after him, and without warning was flung back on the bed. She could see only flames, and at the fire’s core, a furious face that swooped at her, snarling words that made no sense.

“My time has nearly come. You will not stand in the way of my plans again. I’ll have what I need from you at last.”

“Valborga,” she whispered.

Abruptly the flames and the fiery face were both gone. Joel stepped through the smoke, naked and magnificent and, as noisy hell broke loose all around her, took her in his arms.

Chapter Seven

For an instant, Joel thought she was dead.

The fire extinguished, he strode toward the bed, where she lay wide-eyed and still as death. Something clawed at his stomach. It might have been fear, or fury; he didn’t pause to analyze it. Instinct propelled him onto the bed to seize her in his arms. She let out a gasp that almost felled him with relief. He barely noticed that the smoke alarm had belatedly gone off.

“I saw her,” Aurora whispered. “I saw Valborga. She sent the fire.”

“No, Aurora, it was only an accidental fire. Probably a short circuit in a wire or something.” But again he recalled the lashing vines that had seemed determined to stop them leaving the castle and wasn’t so certain. The TV had been off. There was nothing that would’ve sparked an electrical fire.

Fuck, could any of Aurora’s fantasy actually be true? Was he actually going to believe in this entire story of enchantment and evil fairies? Was there really some pissed off paranormal being trying to hurt Aurora? If so, he had to be ready for another attack.

But no, that was nuts, insane, impossible.

“It was her,” Aurora uttered. “I know it. She is still after me. Why does she hate me so? Even as a child, I used to shrivel when she looked at me with a smile on her lips and such fury in her eyes…”

Joel continued to cradle her in his arms for another moment, then urged her to rise from the bed. “Come on. The alarm system has gone off and they’ll be evacuating the hotel. We should dress.”

Joel jerked on clothes and shoes, while Aurora did the same, then he ushered her from the room. In the hallway, other guests were coming out of their rooms and chattering nervously about the possibility of a fire. Everyone went downstairs and waited outside in the pre-dawn gray, huddled in robes and slippers or dressed in clothing, depending on whether they’d taken the alarm very seriously.

Joel found the night manager and explained that the fire appeared to center in the TV in his room, which suggested an electrical short. He hoped the firefighters would find some perfectly pedestrian explanation for the blaze. The truck arrived, sirens blaring so loudly Aurora covered her ears and trembled in Joel’s embrace.

It didn’t take the crew long to check out the hotel and give the all-clear so the guests could return to their rooms. The manager offered Joel and Aurora another room for the remainder of the night, but he refused. It was nearly morning and he was ready to pack and leave this burg behind before something else happened.

“I’m taking you home to Gwyn City with me,” he told Aurora. “Then we’ll figure out what comes next.”

“Yes, Joel,” she replied, seemingly in shock or else lost in thought as she followed him back to the room.

She’d been withdrawn ever since the fire. If she wasn’t traumatized by the blaze, she probably was by what had happened just before it. They hadn’t yet discussed the night time groping that had turned into full scale sex. Joel didn’t want to talk about it now so he concentrated on packing their smoke-infused clothing. He just wanted to get on the road. Luckily, Aurora wasn’t clamoring for a discussion either. Hell, maybe it was best to put the night behind them and never mention what had happened at all.

Except the thing wasn’t going to go away. Sex stood between them now like an invisible hedge. Sex with a virgin, who he’d promised would be safe sharing a bed with him. Sex that he hadn’t even had the pleasure of finishing. Despite the disturbance of the fire and its aftermath, a low pulse of desire still throbbed in his groin. Even now he wanted her.

Joel glanced at Aurora, carefully folding the last of her purchases and returning them to the shopping bag. “Are you ready? You can catch some more sleep in the taxi if you’re tired, but I really want to leave this place.”