Cinderella's Big Sky Groom Read online

  His hand was sliding down to the small of her back, tucking her tightly into him. He…he was rubbing himself against her. Down there, she felt so warm. Like something solid held to flame and turning slowly liquid.

  Omigoodness. Nothing in her life had ever felt quite like this. She’d read more than a few lush and lovely romances, curled up in her easy chair with a nice cup of tea. And sometimes, in the juicy parts, she’d let herself imagine that those passionate love scenes were happening to her.

  But in real life? No way. Nothing had even come close. Certainly not that single quick peck on the lips she’d received at the door from one of those sweet, shy boys at Montana State.

  She had definitely been missing out.

  He kissed her harder, and his tongue delved deeper. Her legs went weak. She clutched at his broad shoulders, another moan escaping her, pressing her hips harder against him, wishing she could just melt right up into him, have her body be part of his body, softness and hardness blending together into one.

  But then he lifted his mouth from hers. She stared up at him, wide-eyed. “I…you can keep going. It’s all right, really….”

  He frowned. “Are you sure that you’re sure?”

  “I said I was, didn’t I?”

  He chuckled, the sound low and seductively rough. “You’re right. You did say you were sure. But it still seemed like a good idea to check one more time.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Okay, then. You checked. You don’t have to check again.”

  “Whatever you say, Ms. Taylor.”

  She touched his mouth. It looked so soft and warm—and also a little bit swollen from the pressure of that kiss they’d just shared. His lips moved in a wordless caress against the tips of her fingers. She felt his breath flow down her palm.

  He was tracing a slow, lazy circle at the small of her back. But then his hand strayed up. He touched her hair, capturing a curl, coiling it around his index finger.

  She gave him a smile that quivered only a little. “So. What do we do now?”

  He pulled his finger free of the curl he’d created. “We go upstairs.”

  “To…your bedroom?”

  He nodded. And then, with a swiftness that stunned her, he put one arm at her back and one beneath her knees and lifted her high into his arms.

  “Ross!” A wild laugh escaped her. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like? I’m carrying you to my bed.”

  He turned without another word and started for the great room—and the wide, rough-hewn stairs. He strode up them purposefully, holding her close against his chest.

  Halfway up, she lost one of her red shoes. The right one. It slipped off her heel. She tried to catch it on the end of her toe, but it got away from her. She heard it bouncing down behind them.

  “Oh, wait!” she cried. “My shoe…”

  “Leave it for now.”

  “But—”

  “You can get it later. It’s not going anywhere.”

  In his bedroom he set her gently on the bed, then knelt at her feet. She gazed dreamily down at his dark head as he removed her remaining shoe. “Ah,” she said. “My prince.”

  Still kneeling there, cradling her left foot in his hands, he looked up at her. “I told you. I’m no prince.”

  She laughed. The sound was very naughty. She could do that tonight—give a naughty laugh, live dangerously. After all, for tonight, she was the lady in red.

  Boldly she told him again, “You are my prince.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. But don’t get nervous. No commitment required. Remember that old TV show, Queen for a Day?”

  He lifted an eyebrow—and stroked the arch of her foot. “You’re not old enough to remember Queen for a Day.”

  She wiggled her toes at him. “There are such things as reruns, Ross.”

  He grunted. “Come on. They never reran Queen for a Day—not by the time you were growing up.”

  “Sure they did. I saw it when I was a little girl. It was a great show. Nice, middle-class housewives got to wear a crown and a fur cape with a long train. For a whole day, they were royalty. And there were prizes. Things like shopping sprees and brand-new washer/dryer combinations.”

  “And you’re trying to tell me that this is the same thing?”

  “It is. Very much the same. Only instead of a queen, you’re a prince. My prince. For a night.” She lifted her shoulders in a teasing shrug. “Sorry, I’m fresh out of washer/dryer combinations. All you get is me.”

  The news that he wouldn’t get more didn’t seem to worry him. He went right on stroking her foot, sending little heated shivers beneath her nylon stockings, little shivers that ran from her toes, along her arch, over the curve of her heel and right on up the back of her leg.

  She hitched in a pleasured breath, then whispered, “Face it. You’re the one. My Prince for a Night.”

  He raised her foot and lightly nipped her toe between his white teeth. A delicious weakness shivered through her. She had to rest back on her hands.

  His palm cupped her heel. And then traveled, warm and encompassing, up the back of her calf to the tender spot behind her knee.

  “All right.” He said the words low, like a growl, from the back of his throat. A growl that sent her senses shimmering. “I’ll be your Prince for a Night.”

  “Did I mention you don’t get the cape or the crown, either?”

  “No. But you did say the cape had fur trim—and a train, right?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “I think I can get by without that. And the crown…?”

  “A diamond tiara, if I remember correctly.”

  “Do I look like a man who’d wear a diamond tiara?”

  She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Not your style, huh?”

  “No, not my style.”

  “Well, good, then. It’s settled. You get no crown, no cape, no prizes—except me. Temporarily.”

  “Do you hear me complaining?”

  “Well, of course not. A prince never complains.”

  He didn’t reply to that. Not in words. But his hand moved on, stroking beneath the silvered cashmere of her skirt, running up her thigh, eliciting a sharp gasp from her, and then sliding over, moving down the other thigh, appearing once more at her knee.

  His head was bent again, watching what he touched. And then it came up. His eyes burned now, with a feral light.

  He rose from a crouch to his knees. And then fully to his feet.

  Still leaning back on her hands, she stared at him. He began to undress.

  First he took off that platinum watch of his and set it on the stand by the bed. Then he pulled off his sweater and tossed it toward a chair, where it landed with a soft rustling sound. Next came the shirt he wore underneath it. He unbuttoned the sleeves with quick, almost brutal efficiency, then dispensed with the buttons that ran down the front. He shrugged out of the shirt and threw it toward the chair where his sweater lay.

  He was naked from the waist up.

  Without his shirt he seemed somehow too real.

  Not her dream prince at all. But a man. A man she didn’t really know. A man who was going to do things to her that had never been done to her before.

  Lynn realized that she didn’t feel quite so naughty and free as she had a few seconds earlier.

  His chest was…so broad and powerful, patterned lightly with dark hair that lay in a midnight shadow across his pectorals, then went down in a trail over his hard belly. Her gaze wandered lower. She saw that his…interest in this activity remained acute.

  Her lips felt dry. She rubbed them together, dared to touch them with the moisture of her tongue.

  He said one word low; she couldn’t quite make it out, but it had a savage sound to it. A sound that matched the look in his eyes.

  He held out his hand, palm out. A careful, controlled movement.

  Lynn was a town girl, but she had grown up around men who worked with animals
. She’d visited a few of the local ranches, gone to stock shows and rodeos. The way Ross reached for her now reminded her of the way a good cowhand will approach a skittish horse, every move cautious and deliberate, in order not to send it whinnying and wheeling away.

  “Take my hand.” It was a command, but couched in velvet.

  Was she afraid of him right then?

  Yes. Definitely. Afraid of the male power in him. Afraid of what she was about to do with him, which could bring great pleasure.

  But which also could hurt her. Probably would hurt her, no matter how much care he exercised.

  “Take it,” he said.

  Too late to back out now, she thought, sitting up straight again, extending her arm.

  His fingers closed over hers. He pulled her slowly to her feet and then laid her hand on his chest. On that hardness, that heat. She felt the silky, slightly wiry hair, the expansion and contraction as he drew breath. And also the beating of his heart.

  The beating of his heart.

  The same as she’d felt it downstairs, when he’d kissed her, and even before that, when he’d dared her to let the woman inside her get free.

  Well, here she was. Getting free.

  She was also feeling more than a bit skittish.

  And downstairs, the clock was chiming. The sound reached them. Neither spoke until all nine chimes had rung out.

  Then he said, “We can still call a halt to this.”

  His eyes said something else altogether.

  She didn’t really know, at that moment, what he would do if she said, All right. Take me home. I’ve changed my mind.

  And she would never know anyway, what he might have done.

  Because she was not going to back out.

  She closed her eyes, shook her head. “No. I want to stay, I do.”

  Beneath her hand, his chest contracted again as he released a long breath. “Good.” He bent forward, nuzzled her mouth, then her cheek, then her temple, catching a few strands of hair between his lips and tugging on them gently.

  She let out a long, shuddery sigh, her hand fisting of its own accord against his chest.

  His naked chest.

  Naked. The word got stuck in her mind, so scary and raw.

  Naked.

  In a few minutes, more than likely, he would expect her to start undressing, too. He would actually see her without her clothes on.

  Would he like what he saw?

  Lord, she hoped so.

  After all, she was now slimmer than she used to be. Her stomach didn’t pooch out—at least, not too much. And her breasts were…okay. There was really nothing wrong with them. Was there?

  And her legs were long. That was one good thing about being tall. Long legs.

  But still. Would she be…pretty enough?

  Without her magical red dress?

  Underneath, she was wearing a plain cotton slip. And her bra and panties…they were white. Boring and ordinary, as were her drugstore panty hose. Beneath the dress, everything belonged to the woman in brown.

  Would he look at her and wonder why he’d wanted her to stay?

  “Turn around,” he whispered, his lips brushing her temple.

  “I…what?”

  “Just do it. Turn around.”

  “Oh. Oh, I don’t know….”

  “Do it. Turn around.” He took her shoulders and slowly guided her so that she faced away from him. She found herself staring at the broad expanse of his bed. His hands slid down over her arms, then under them, to rest at the curve of her hips. “Better?”

  Somehow, it was. Now, whatever he was looking at, she didn’t have to know. She felt his hands move again—to the top of the zipper, beneath her hair, at her nape.

  He smoothed her hair aside. And then he took that zipper down in an endless, nerve-flaying sizzle of sound. She felt the air against her back, and then his lips, at her nape, his breath against her skin.

  She closed her eyes, suppressed a moan as he peeled the cashmere fully open, guided it over her shoulders and down. The top of the dress dropped away and he pushed it over her hips until it fell to the floor. She stepped free of it and he bent to pick it up.

  She didn’t dare look, but she knew that he turned. She heard him, felt the loss of his body heat as he moved away from her enough to lay the dress over a chair.

  He came back. His hands were at her shoulders again, warm on her bare skin, lifting the straps of her slip and then dropping them, so they fell in twin loops down her arms.

  His lips were at her ear. “Help me, Lynn. Just a little.”

  She responded to the tender command, sliding her arms free of the straps, then pushing the slip off her hips and shimmying it down, catching it in her hand, rising to her full height again—and tossing it toward where he’d laid her dress.

  He made a sound of approval, low in his throat. And she felt his touch again, just a finger, at the base of her neck. He traced that finger downward, a slow glide along each of the bumps of her spine, pausing briefly at the back hooks of her bra. She held her breath. And then let it out as that finger continued on its way, stopping when it reached the elastic band at the top of her panty hose.

  “Pretty,” he whispered. “So soft…”

  She smiled to herself. After all, he must be talking about her. About her skin. About her body. He certainly couldn’t mean her everyday, unadorned underwear.

  His steely forearm encircled her. He applied a gentle but definite pressure. She did moan then, as her body melted backward into his.

  His hips cradled hers. He was still very much aroused. She could feel him, all along her back. She moaned again.

  And he slipped his other arm around her, moving both hands up enough to cup her breasts. She looked down, saw his hands there, so tan against the plain cotton whiteness of her bra.

  “Oh…” She sighed. “Oh, my…” She knew he could feel her hardened nipples, even through the bra. His thumbs were tracing them. “My oh my oh my…”

  He chuckled in her ear, the sound as arousing as what his hands were doing to her breasts. He nuzzled her hair, then lower, putting his mouth on the side of her throat. She felt his tongue, moist and warm, tracing a circular pattern onto the tender skin of her neck.

  Still holding her close with one encompassing arm, he used his free hand to take her bra straps down.

  Seconds later, her bra was at her waist. And those hands of his cupped her naked breasts.

  She let her head fall back against his shoulder. Her eyes drooped closed. “Tell me…I’m not doing this….”

  She felt his lips against her hair. “Sorry, Ms. Taylor. But you are doing this….”

  He slipped one hand between them and with laudable dexterity unhooked her bra. It dropped away. She didn’t even bother looking down to see where it fell.

  As a matter of fact, she was not going to open her eyes. Not for a while, anyway.

  This felt absolutely lovely. But things had moved so very far beyond dangerous. She wasn’t taking any extra chances.

  She kept her eyes closed.

  His hands were roving again. The right one glided down over her stomach—and lower. She shuddered and gave another small, hungry cry as that hand slid between her thighs.

  He was…cupping her.

  She shuddered again. She could feel her own wetness—wondered wildly if he could feel it, even through the fabric of her panties and panty hose. With that cupping hand he pulled her up even tighter to him—was it possible that she could get any closer?

  He whispered something soft in her ear. It might have been the word yes—or something else, something that wasn’t really even a word at all. His cupping hand stroked her. She thought she just might faint.

  And then at last he broke that intimate hold—to take her panties and panty hose away. He slipped slow, insistent fingers under both waistbands and then eased them down.

  She helped him. Blindly, still not daring to look, her hands meeting his hands, at her waist and then lower.
r />   The nylon clung. Their hands kept brushing, fingers almost entwining, warm and eager and a little hurried now. Together, they managed to push the fabric down over her hips at last. She handled the rest of it herself, somehow getting it all down over her knees and her ankles, yanking her feet free, kicking the wad of stocking and panties aside.

  She rose again, her eyes still shut, still with her back to him. He was waiting for her. His arms went around her, the muscles flexing, hard and so very warm. He went on caressing her, roaming her body freely now, over her breasts, down her belly—to the nest of curls below.

  He touched her. There, in her most private place. And she had nothing, no last stitch of cotton or nylon, to protect her from that touch.

  Gently he parted the curls, finding the slick, heated center of her.

  And stroking.

  Oh my oh my oh my oh my…

  Did she cry those words aloud? Or were they only in her head? She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t separate one sensation, one sound from the other. His body was her body.

  Everything was spinning magically, gloriously out of control.

  Her legs couldn’t hold her. She bent forward, found the bed to brace herself. He curved himself over her, not letting her go, his hand at the female heart of her, calling forth…

  An explosion. A pulsing burst of purest sensation.

  She did cry out then, tossing her head back. Still he stroked her, till the pulsing took all of her, rushing out along every nerve ending, spilling through her whole body in a shower of heat and light.

  She whimpered, stiffened. And went limp.

  Gently he helped her to crawl onto the bed. She lay there on her side, her eyes still shut, feeling shattered and boneless, and he wrapped himself around her, spoon fashion, his bare chest against her back, his still-clad legs cradling hers.

  Minutes passed. She didn’t know how many. But he was so tender, just as a prince should be, stroking her arm, kissing her shoulder, touching her hair.

  Finally he left her. She remained on her side, not daring to look as she felt the bed shift, felt him slide to the edge of it.

  He was taking off the rest of his clothes. She heard his boots drop, one by one. The bed moved again as he got rid of his socks. And then yet again, as he stood. There was the whisking of his belt sliding free of its loops, and then more sounds: the slide of a zipper, the rustling of cloth.