The Lost Prince (12 page)

When Luanne turned off the shower, the beleaguered pipes reverberated through the trailer adjusting to new pressure. The bathroom was across the tiny hallway opposite his door. She’d need to use the hallway to get to her mom’s room at the end of the trailer. He convinced himself to stay put—no midnight trips for water, snacks, or to walk the dog they didn’t own. Her footsteps padded into her mother’s room. He imagined her wet, wrapped in a towel; an alien force had taken control of his mind; he couldn’t stop thinking about her with that overly stimulated brain of his.

Why did she suddenly take an interest in me after ignoring me the first day?
Luanne was selfish and self-indulgent—not the type to seek out friends unless it improved her status. There was nothing in it for her to make nice with Daniel. Was she really that impressed by the drawings? It nagged at Daniel, but his little brain, aided by his ego, bullied the big brain into acceptance.

Daniel put away his sketch pad and turned off the light. His head hit the pillow but sleep eluded him—he was too revved up. The whole room reminded him of Luanne. It smelled like her. He grabbed a wad of Kleenex from the nightstand and reached down beneath the covers—the teenaged boy’s Ambien since before recorded history. He tried to think of Katie Millar, except somehow, she kept morphing into Luanne.
So much for loyalty,
he thought. He succumbed to his mind’s insistence for Luanne and finished off quickly. With his vitality dispelled, Daniel drifted toward slumber.
This can’t go on,
he thought as his mind settled down. The morning would bring a clean slate. Luanne will have lost interest by then—girls like that always did.

Daniel awoke to a sharp chill nipping at his nose, cheeks, and shoulders. The clock said only forty minutes had passed since he dozed off. The room had dropped in temperature and he could see his breath. He pulled the thin timeworn sheets up to his nose and folded into the fetal position to preserve body heat. There was a knock at his door—Daniel realized another knock had preceded this one while he slept, and it was why he’d awakened. The door creaked open.

“Danny?” Luanne whispered. Her breath misted against the weak light in the hallway. Daniel couldn’t understand the point of her whispering. They were the only ones in the house, and she clearly intended to wake him. Wouldn’t normal volume make more sense? Luanne tiptoed into the room wrapped under a large comforter. Upon reaching the bed, she took it off and threw it over his blankets—in that second he glimpsed an extra-large Brooks & Dunn T-shirt that draped over her like a short dress before she crawled underneath the combined covers, pushing him to the far edge of the mattress.

“What the heck are you doing?” he asked. Panic, confusion, and even a bit of elation vied for control.

“Mama forgot to pay the propane man,” Luanne said. “She’s a scatterbrain. Scoot over.”

“Scoot? It’s a twin mattress.”

“Move over!” she insisted. “It’s thirty degrees. We’ll be warmer this way. Mama and I do it all the time.”

Daniel straightened out from his fetal position to make room. “Do I look like your mother?” he asked.

“Ain’t you ever been campin’?”

“What if Beverly comes home?”

Luanne giggled. “No room for her here.” She lay on her side facing the door, and away from him.

“Seriously,” he said.

The thought of Beverly catching her little girl in bed with him gave Daniel stomach knots.
That’s how Luanne gets rid of me,
Daniel thought.
Mom comes back in the morning, it freaks her out, Luanne gets her bed back.
Now it made sense. He had no car, Colby was gone, and they were in the middle of nowhere. He’d be lucky to get the kitchen floor.

“She’ll thank you for not lettin’ me freeze to death because she was too scatterbrained to pay the propane,” Luanne said, as though reading his thoughts.

Daniel doubted it, but it
really
was cold. The windows had crap insulation—no better than being in a school bus with furniture.

She took a healthy helping of mattress, forcing him to the far edge. He turned on his side facing the window and away from her and instinctively bent into a fetal pose, which turned them into two butting bookends and made less room in the bed.

“Turn—the—other—way,” she said, like scolding a puppy that just didn’t get it. Daniel flipped over so that they were facing the same direction. She squeezed against him to spoon.

“We could have spooned the other way, too,” Daniel pointed out.

“Then I’d be on the outside,” she said. “The girl goes on the inside. Don’t you know nothin’, Danny Hauer?” It was also the warmer position. Daniel swore he could sense her smiling, even with no view of her face. As he tried to settle in, Daniel didn’t know what to do with his arms; one was bent and pressed between him and her back—the other kept wanting to go back or forward from his side, but neither was comfortable. He held his arm in the air until it started to ache, trying to decide.

“What are you doin’?” she asked impatiently.

“Can’t figure out—uh, my arms…”

“Put it around me, dummy. Least you can do for kickin’ me out of my bed is keep me warm. Jeez Louise, ain’t you ever bunked with a cousin when you was little? Gone campin’?”

Daniel was fairly certain cousins north of the Mason–Dixon over the age of ten would get smacked for bunking like this.

She pulled his lower arm through the space under her neck. Then guided his upper arm over the curve of her waist. His hand settled naturally on her stomach. When she was entirely in his embrace, she closed the space between them tight.
This seal would impress NASA,
he thought.

Daniel was acutely aware that but for the T-shirt, she was essentially naked. The hem had ridden up with her fidgeting and her bare bottom was now pressed against his crotch, separated only by the slender margin of his Fruit of the Looms. Things stirred below.

Luanne wrapped her ice-cold feet around Daniel’s shins. The shock spazzed him out, and he thrust against her tighter.

“Sorry,” she said, giggling. “That feels sooooo good
,
though. You’re hot as a teapot.”

Her hair was still damp from the shower and smelled of strawberries. She smelled clean and fruity overall—he wanted to take a bite out of …

Stop that!
he thought to himself. Daniel was in deep. Perhaps Luanne does this with all her friends—and more power to them—but his loins, despite his conscious wishes, approached DEFCON 1 in a subversive act of rebellion.
She’s going to tell her mom and Colby I’m a perv,
he thought, panicking.

He lay as still as he could, hoping she’d fall asleep, and more importantly, to keep a bad situation from escalating. But her scent and her heat overrode his effort to calm down. He couldn’t get the image of her posing naked out of his mind—he tried everything—imagining the Orioles’ starting lineup; intricate stacking designs for cereal boxes; and in an act of utter desperation, he even tried to imagine old people, like William Shatner and Joan Rivers, completely naked … but nothing worked—her clean scent corrupted his resistance. His heart pounded like he’d just run a sprint.

Luanne absorbed Daniel’s body heat like a thirsty succubus. It was getting hot under the covers. She hadn’t moved for a while; he prayed that she’d fallen asleep. Daniel wouldn’t get any sleep tonight—there was no way for him to
take care of business
a second time.

Luanne gyrated her butt against Daniel. “Well at least you ain’t a gay,” she mumbled into her pillow.

“Sorry,” he said. Beverly was going to KILL him.

He waited for the eviction. And waited … they lay, unmoving.

“That thing ain’t goin’ anywhere, is it?” Luanne said.

“Uh…”

She reached back, searching for his briefs, and took the problem in hand.

Whoa!
he thought. It was the first time someone had done that.

Daniel’s resolve waned before her tender strokes. Luanne’s logic, if it could be called that, baffled him: Her presence kept him up, which in turn kept her up, so for both their sakes she was going to take him down. He’d have said something … if it didn’t feel so amazing.

Luanne’s stomach was hot to the touch. Daniel didn’t remember how his hand got under her shirt, or her raising an objection. He moved it upward; her nipples were as erect as he was.

Luanne probably expected this solution to be a quick fix. It would have been, had Daniel not already taken care of business earlier.

“Sure can hang in there,” she said, puzzled, but also a bit impressed.

“Sorry.” It was the only word left in Daniel’s vocabulary.

“Elastic’s scratchin’ my wrist,” she complained.

Daniel kicked his briefs down to alleviate her suffering.

Another minute passed, and she whispered, “Damn!”

Was he already screwing up? Daniel was in uncharted waters— as lost as Columbus four weeks into the voyage. He seldom understood girls when fully clothed and in command of his faculties.

“You’re makin’ me hot,” she said.

Luanne shifted her leg to position him in closer. She steered him to between her legs. Daniel gulped. She was very wet down there, and he realized he was on the cusp of a special moment. There was no rational part of Daniel’s mind left—only instinct. Gently he pushed, expecting her to stop him. Luanne’s only protest was an inviting moan. The heat she radiated couldn’t compete with the warmth inside her. Luanne and Daniel exchanged their body heat—like a symbiotic transference as primeval as the first mitosis. He pushed deeper until he thought her body would swallow him whole.

“Yes!” she moaned.

Daniel never imagined it would feel this fantastic—why would people ever do drugs or race sports cars? This was all man and woman had been created for. It was too hot now; he kicked the comforters back and they continued.

“I’m only doin’ this so we can get to sleep,” she panted playfully.

Luanne could make any excuse she wanted; she could no more control him now than she could a runaway train. She was his and he was hers. They continued for a timeless stretch until Luanne grasped his hands and pressed them harder into her bosom—a teacher, guiding her student through the most important lesson of his life. Luanne’s cries grew louder until she arched her back and shuddered.

Daniel thought the whole trailer park could hear them.

“Don’t stop!” she cried.

Pressure built inside him—like a wave on its cusp, he held her so strongly they became one. She cried out a second time, a long feral sound as they exploded simultaneously, his body a crescendo of pleasure.

They stayed spooned, shaking, as waves of heat emanated from them. Even now, Daniel refused to grow soft. He kissed her on the nape of her neck and on her cheek.

“Dang! What’s it take to put you down?” she said, breathing heavy. Despite the complaint, she squeezed herself around him, locking him in. “Cody’s usually done in two and snorin’ at three.”

Daniel pulled her T-shirt off all the way. It excited him to feel her completely naked against him. He situated himself on her missionary style. She wrapped her calves over his legs.

“Let’s find out,” he said.

She ran her fingers through his hair and down his back.

He kissed her passionately. This time he didn’t go gently. Luanne uttered a sharp, “Oh,” and bit his lower lip. She grabbed the back of him with her hands and pulled him into her. Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this excited about life—been this happy. He believed that in his dotage, despite whatever else he might accomplish, this night would still rank at the top of the list of best things that had ever happened to him.

Somewhere in the recesses of Daniel’s long-abandoned rational brain, a tiny molecule cried out for attention.
Who’s Cody
? it asked. Luanne kissed him. That voice, drowned out by more pressing matters, faded into the background.

CHAPTER 9

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

1

Danel.
Cat turned the name around in her head. Before today, the prince was a concept—an abstract—a storybook character Snow White awaited to save her from a witch’s curse. Now he was real—flesh and blood with parents who loved him and a guardian in the form of Catherine’s husband sworn to protect him come hell or high water.

They were a block from the clerk’s office waiting for Gloria Hauer to finish work. Lelani paced the sidewalk; Seth snored softly across the backseat. Callum sat pensively in the driver’s seat, one arm on the rest, the other wrist hanging over the steering wheel ready to move. His breath came out in soft white puffs; the cold didn’t bother him. Cat was adept at reading the subtle changes in her husband’s moods—but you’d have to be blind deaf and dumb to miss how sullen and tightly wound he’d become these past few days. Two worlds rested on his shoulders, and the fates of his families were stuck between them. It was too much for any man. Cat turned up the SUV’s heater and sipped her mochachino.

He was
still
the person she married and loved—still the father of her baby, even if he answered to “my lord” these days. He had whipped Bòid Géard around skillfully in Dumont’s basement. His movements had been pure poetry, cutting the air silently, like the sword weighed next to nothing in his hand. She thought of him jabbing that thing into men in a fight, hacking out bits of their flesh—their blood running all over his arm with bits of bone and intestine splattered on him. This was her gentle giant: a man who, after a decade in the NYPD, had never drawn his gun in anger, never killed anyone. Brianna’s father was the kindest most truthful man she’d ever met—and lurking underneath, perhaps all along, a
butcher
. Cat felt nauseous—a sudden burp of hot foulness made its way up her chest. She cracked the window to get at some of that country air.

Cat placed her hand on Callum’s arm. The muscles were tight as steel coils, but at her touch, the tension abated. A good sign that even with all that’d happened, he still welcomed her caress. He took her hand gently and laced their fingers together.