ELEVEN
The prince knelt beside her and awakened her with a kiss. And the enchantment was broken.
Finn
I emerge from sleep, but only barely.
Faint orange light dances through the shadows, as if I’m underwater, at the bottom of an ocean. I feel sluggish but also warm and cocooned and I don’t want to wake up, because it will end this. I don’t even know what this is, only that it’s fleeting.
Managing to crack one eye open, I check that the baby is asleep.
Then I close my eyes and focus on my other senses.
A sweet feminine smell manages to somehow be sleepy and sexy at the same time. How long has it been since I’ve had a woman beside me? So long, too long since I felt the cushiony softness against his own hardness, and fuck, I’m rock hard.
I don’t feel worried though, not this time. Just relieved.
Relieved to feel like a man again, a man fully alive, one who gets morning wood and uses it with the soft, sleepy woman next to him. She makes little snuffling noises of almost-awake as I shift her in my arms, as I position my body above hers.
And then—thank you, Jesus—she pulls me down closer, harder, touching me everywhere. I push my knee between hers in question; she parts hers in answer.
I hitch between her legs, so damned comfortable I could spend forever, just there, the aching ridge of my cock against the heat of her sex, my body cradled within hers. She moans, surprise cutting that sound short when I bend my head and put my lips to her neck. So soft, so sweet. She bucks against me, jerkily, as if she can’t help it, as if I dragged her half-willing into the madness I’m living in, where everything was heat and sex and the blessed feel of skin on skin, and I don’t have to think, didn’t have to mourn or pretend.
Only this, only lips beneath mine, and hips beneath mine, and soft, plush skin in my hands to mold and to caress. I find her nipple through silky fabric, rubbing it gently with my thumb. It hardens, and a deep sense of possession forms inside me.
Mine. This body is mine. This woman is mine.
I might go crazy with needing to be inside her, but something holds me back. Some sense that it would break the spell, that maybe she would turn to ash in my hands if I dare to push for more or even look, and so I hold myself suspended in torment, savoring every second.
But I can’t hold out, not with her little pants against my neck or her not-so-gentle hands scrabbling at my back. I rock against her, incensed and senseless. She shuddered beneath me in a small, early climax and it’s too much. Too fucking sexy to bear.
I freeze that way, suspended on ice, my body rigid with denial.
“Jessica?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
I need her to do more than take me, to accept this. I need her to want it as badly as I do. Because I won’t accept only one night with her. Not if I’m going to be inside her.
Her eyes opened wide, as if I surprised her.
As if maybe she’d been in a dream all this time, while I touched her, while she orgasms, her pussy warm and wet through our clothes, my dick aching to be inside.
She pushed at me, and I let her up.
Her hair was tangled on one side and sticking up on the other. Her shirt clung to her body in the wrong places, wrinkled from sleep and my hands. She was glorious.
Blue eyes blazed with anger and arousal. “What are you doing to me?”
I used to be good with women, smooth enough I could find a new one every night at the bar. And now here I am, trying to convince a woman who had just orgasmed against my cock to let me do it again. Not only once. Forever. Again and again.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Very smooth, Locke. I’m sure she’ll swoon with that kind of smooth talking.
The anger fades from her expression, leaving only sadness. “No. Of course not.”
Realization is a cold ball in my stomach, and I pull away from her. I sit on the edge of the cot, unwilling to leave her until I’m sure she’s okay. Not that I’m much help. “You’re saying that because you think you owe me. Because you think I’m asking for payment.”
Doubt flickers in her eyes. “It’s not… you.”
I can’t help the sardonic, humorless laugh that escapes me. “It’s not me, it’s you? I’m the one who came two seconds away from fucking you while you slept.”
She touches my arm, and it’s all I can do not to flinch away. “It’s just that’s how men have been for me. Always demanding something. And I’ve never wanted it.”
Then I can’t help it. Her words hit me like a blow. I recoil, physically, standing so that I can get some space from her and the terrible truth of this. Of course she’s terrified of men. She has the mark of the Luski mafia on her finger. I don’t know what they did to her, but I know they love violence. She would have seen her share of it, would have experienced it at the hands of terrible men.
Men like me, apparently. And I’ve never wanted it.
“Fuck,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Until now,” she says, kneeling on the cot, looking more like a sex goddess than she has any right to look in a jail cell. “You made me want it. I thought you could feel it.”
Her cheeks flush as if she’s embarrassed to even talk about her orgasm. As if she’s embarrassed that she even had one. Oh fuck. “Was that your first?”
She looks away, ashamed. “You know I’ve had sex before. I have Ky.”
I take two long steps back to her, tilting her chin up so that I can see those beautiful blue eyes. There’s so much pain inside them, it almost hurts to look, but I can’t stop. “Your first climax. Was that your first time?”
“Yes,” she whispers, eyes wide, unblinking.
Jesus.
My high walls, my careful distance melt to nothing, leaving me exposed. Every desire and every hope. If she can twist me up this much in one night, I can’t imagine what prolonged exposure might do. I would self-combust.
Or have sex with her, which seemed possibly worse and so much better all at once.
“Stay,” I say roughly, my voice gravel against concrete.
Her blue eyes flash with worry. With longing. “What about Ky?”
Did he think he would want her without her child? “He can live in my house. It’s big and empty. And there’s a room in particular that would look great painted blue.”
She sucks in a breath. “You don’t know how much I want that. How much I want to have a regular life. How much I want you. But I can’t stop running.”
Because she experienced more pain and subjugation than any woman should have to. Which meant I should leave her alone. Not send her on her way with only that shitty car. I should give her money and safe passage so that she could start a new life—free from the hard cocks and hungry eyes of men who would want her, men like me.
I should really let her go.
“I’ll keep you safe here,” I say instead.
She opens her mouth to tell me about the dangers. And I would hear them. Then I would fucking vanquish every last one of them. But first I need to do something. I’ve needed to do it since I first saw her sleepy blue eyes and beautiful face staring up from her car window.
I kiss her, a light brush, my lips against hers.
Like a question, asking her to stay with the words I haven’t yet spoken aloud. She’s wound up so tight, full of worry and fear, and I want to make her feel safe, to caress her body until she turns into a puddle of need and incoherent begging.
She makes me crazy, and once upon a time I sought that out, wanting to feel wild and on edge. Not for a long time, though. These past years had been about isolation. About driving down dark country roads alone. And all along, I was looking for her.
Without even knowing it, looking for her.
Her lips are swollen, her skin flushed. She’s so incredibly sensual that it makes my body ache. At least it would if I could look away from her eyes. They blaze as bright and as blue as a new day, full of hope. She’s radiant like this.
“Morning,” she murmurs.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I say, leaning in for another kiss.
* * *
THANK YOU for reading Bedtime Story, the sexy modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty. I hope you loved Finn and Jessica as well as sweet little Ky!
You can meet Jessica and Ky where they were first introduced in the Masterpiece duet, starting with USA Today bestseller , which is available now. A trailer park princess. The son of a criminal king. We don’t belong together, but I’m caught in a twisted game…
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