HER IDEAL MAN Page 8

  "Got it." But he grinned, and she knew it wouldn't be that easy.

  Anna told an old French folk tale about a king so jealous of his wife that he locked her up in a tower and only let her go to mass, and even then only in the company of her waiting women and several burly guards. Because of his jealousy and the secrecy under which the wife was kept, tales of her beauty spread all over the land.

  "One day," Anna said, "a valiant knight came to the kingdom and heard the stories of the king's beautiful wife, and he hid himself in the church so he could see her for himself. He hid behind a curtain, and when the woman came in, he felt his heart stolen away in an instant."

  "Why aren't there ever any ugly princesses?"

  Anna shushed him. "Shhh… Do you want to hear the story or not?"

  He sobered mockingly. "I do."

  "The queen was very unhappy. She was young, after all, and longed to dance with the court, and laugh and feast, like everybody else, but she was always kept in her tower, all alone. Her ladies-in-waiting were jealous of her beauty, and so were not kind to her, and not one befriended her, but instead stayed out in the hallways all the time, flirting with the guards."

  "Are you sure the story says 'flirting'?"

  "More or less." She pinched him. "You asked for the story, now listen."

  He jumped away. "Ouch!" But he laughed. "Go ahead. The lonely queen went to the chapel…?"

  "This was a gray and gloomy day, and she felt especially lonely, so she knelt on the stones and prayed to Mary to send her a true companion to ease her days.

  "Hidden away behind his heavy curtain, the knight was moved by the queen's deep sorrow, and he vowed to find a way to answer her prayer."

  "Ah. He wasn't just a little bit swayed by her immense beauty?"

  Anna turned her lips down. "I'm getting to that part." She took a breath and sat up straighter. "Every year for the queen's birthday, the king let her out of her tower and allowed her to attend a ball in her honor. When the ball came, the knight swore he would find a way to speak to her privately and tell her she was not alone, that he would be her champion.

  "He waited in the great hall, dressed in his noblest tunic, and waited for the queen to appear. His palms were hot and his stomach was nervous and he feared that if his plan were discovered, he would be beheaded."

  "Yeow."

  "Exactly. At last, the full moon rose, and as if conjured by the light, the queen appeared on the dais, dressed in a gown of shimmering silver, her hair unbound and trailing black as the night over her back, all the way down to her knees. And the knight felt a knife through his heart, for indeed she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. No man could look upon her without feeling that faint, clear longing."

  Next to her, Tyler was shaking with laughter.

  Anna sighed. "Don't say it."

  "I won't. I'm not. But I know where they felt it." He moved away as her pinching fingers reached for his thigh. "I'll stop."

  "Anyway, it was not her beauty that snared our valiant knight. It was the deep sorrow in her sapphire eyes, and the way her ruby-red lips never smiled, even as she was toasted and music leaped around her and she danced with barons and knights from throughout the land, who had come solely for the pleasure of her smile.

  "Now, he was not a rich knight, and his turn fell late in the evening, but at last he took the beautiful queen in his arms and looked deep into her eyes. He whispered that he had heard her prayer for a companion, and he would be her champion. He revealed his plan to build a tower nearby and a tunnel under the ground to her, and when it was done, they would run away."

  She expected some light note from Tyler, but there was suddenly a faraway look in his gray eyes, and she went on. "The queen told him he should not do it, that if he were discovered, he would be killed and his head put on a spike on the town wall. But he was adamant. As long as it took, he vowed, he would devote himself to this task.

  "And he was true to his word. He fought valiantly for the king, and asked for a parcel of land nearby the castle, where he might build himself a modest home. The king agreed, and the knight set to work.

  "He knew the queen was still most desperately lonely, and sometimes he contrived to see her in the church for a moment, when all they could do was exchange a look. And each day at noon, he had learned, she sat by her tower window to eat her midday meal, so he always walked in the square where she might see him.

  "Years passed, and the knight dug his tunnel through the moonlit hours, hiding the entrance from his servants and workers each morning. Each year at her birthday feast, she seemed only more beautiful to him, for the love she carried for her faithful knight made of her beauty a luminous thing. All remarked upon it, how her skin seemed never to age, how her eyes seemed ever more blue, her hair ever more lustrous, with each passing year. Which only made the king more jealous. He had noticed her happiness, and was sure she had found some lover, and forbade her to even go to mass any longer.

  "At last the knight's tunnel reached the stone wall of the queen's tower, and it was with shaking hands that he carefully dug away the mortar holding the stones. And this task took him many weeks, the slow removal of those stones, for he had to make it appear as if they were all still in place, in the chance that someone might happen by.

  "The king had grown suspicious of our knight's devotion, for he refused to marry, even when the king offered one of his own sisters, and he ordered a watch put upon him day and night.

  "Finally, the day came when the knight had made so great a hole in the mortar and stones that he could slip through, and on the day he was to do so, he donned a fine velvet tunic and walked in the yard where the queen might see him. That night, he waited until the kingdom slept, and went through his tunnel, and at last crept up the stairs to the tower room of the queen."

  Tyler rubbed her arm. "Go on."

  "The queen was waiting, her hair unbound, her eyes shining, and she flew into the knight's arms, and he showered her face with kisses, and they fell to her richly appointed bed, where at last they could make love."

  Now his attention was close upon her, and Anna sobered, looking into his eyes. "The guard who had been told to follow the knight everywhere had followed him to the tower, too, and he crept up the stairs behind him, and saw the knight take the beautiful, lonely queen into his arms.

  "And the old guard, who had been in the king's service for many years, was touched with mercy. He left the knight and the queen alone to their love, and crept back through the tunnel to wait. Only at dawn, when they had had those long, long hours of love, did he go to the king and tell him what he had seen."

  Anna paused, letting the crackle of the fire and the sound of the wind fill her listener with the dread he must have. "The king, in a rage, stormed the tower room, and found the lovers, and thrust his sword through their hearts. But all who were present that day said the queen, seeing her husband in all his rage, only smiled, and gladly took his sword into her heart, and died in her lover's arms.

  "The king, seeing what he had done, was stricken with remorse, that his jealousy had killed his beautiful wife, and he ordered the pair to be buried together on a distant hill, and they were laid together in each other's arms. It is said that upon that hill, the grass never fades, and the roses are so plentiful and the birds sing so sweetly that many a babe has been made there."

  Tyler looked at her. "You don't tell that story to Curtis, do you?"

  "No. He likes dragons and goblins and witches. Scary stuff." She grinned. "He hasn't learned to appreciate beautiful princesses, yet."

  "I thought fairy tales were supposed to have happy endings."

  Anna shook her head. "Only in the cleaned-up versions. The originals are bloody and sexy, and a lot of them are very dark." She leaned her head back on the crook of his elbow. "They were teaching tools."

  Absently his hand moved on her thigh below the covers. "Like the old Indian legends, I guess. All those ogres and punished children."

  "Exactly. They
were told to keep children safe, or teach a wife or husband how to treat their spouse, or warn against some vanity or character flaw.

  "Why do you know so many fairy tales?"

  "I like them. I used to check collections out of the library and read them to my nieces and nephews, and after a while, I just remembered a lot of them."

  Under the covers, his hands moved more freely, over her thighs, up to her tummy, around an ankle. "That one gave me a lump in my throat."

  "I know," she said quietly.

  His hand slid under the shirt she wore and cupped her breast. An immediate jolt went through her, especially when he put his mouth close to her ear and said in a low voice, "I wonder what the knight and the queen did all night?" He pressed a kiss to her neck. "Do you think they talked?"

  Anna closed her eyes. "I don't know."

  He pushed her sideways, tossing away the quilt, and she glimpsed his beautiful long body, splendidly aroused, before he covered her with himself, tangling his thighs with hers, his hands on her face. "Or did they make love over—" he kissed her chin "—and over—" her neck "—and over?"

  She could not find her breath to answer him. His full-cut mouth opened over hers and she was lost once again, lost in the pure force of his desire as he pushed aside the shirt that covered her, and kissed her body, all of it, as if he'd been starved.

  Again he roused her slowly, fully, deeply, not so much by skill as with his devouring want of her, the pleasure he took in each taste, each brush of his mouth or his hands on any part of her—her arms and breasts and belly and thighs and throat, her mouth and eyes and wrists. And in turn, Anna touched him back, stroking the fine length of his torso, and the rounds of his arms. She explored every inch of his flesh, every sinew and swell, every sleek angle and sensual curve. She learned to tease, as he teased, by bringing him close, close, close, to his release, then ceasing, laughing as he tumbled her back and teased her in return, the ferocity of his need a wild aphrodisiac. And when at last they were both trembling with the force of that need, when their breath tore from them in ragged, burning gasps, and their skin was slick with sweat, only then did Tyler sit up and draw Anna into his lap so that they could be one.

  It made her a little shy, and she hesitated, but Tyler gripped her buttocks firmly and said, "So we can kiss," he said breathlessly. "So I can look at you." He swallowed, raising one hand to her breast. "So I can make you crazy."

  He pulled her to him, guiding her hips with his hands, holding her hard till they were joined deep. And he held her there without moving, and they kissed and he touched her, and at last, when Anna thought she would come apart, he eased his grip and looked at her, and she knew, without prompting, how to move, what to do.

  And all the world, all of time and space and the heavens, narrowed to this, to Tyler's pale eyes burning into her, his elegant face sheened with sweat, his hands on her face, and her breasts and her lower back, his body joining hers with a rocking, slow rhythm. All the world was in Tyler's eyes, all the sorrow and the love and the passion that had ever been, right there as they moved together, as he lost control no matter how he tried to keep it, right there as he gripped hard and pulled her hard against him, and pressed his face to her neck.

  And in the lightning seconds before her own rocketing response burst through her, Anna shaped her hands to the dearness of his skull, below his hair, and tightened her thighs against the sides of his lean waist and stowed it all away for the time when he would not be with her, when she would not feel him this way. And when the violence of her response claimed her, she wrapped her arms around him and forced herself not to weep, because the words she could not say were on her lips.

  Instead, she only whispered his name, over and over, and took comfort in the fierce, tender way he held her close to him and kissed her as if he knew he would miss the taste.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

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  Tyler was not sure what had awakened him at first. He had no recollection of falling asleep, only of holding Anna close in the warmth of his bed. Now he felt the silken brush of her calf against his foot, and opened his eyes.

  She slept peacefully, deeply, her black curls scattered over the pillow and her shoulder and neck. She looked so young lying there like that, her face unmarked by time or sorrow, and he loved it, even as it made him sad to know that sooner or later the marks of living would fall upon her.

  But would they ruin her? No. Those fine clear eyes would always twinkle. The skin would always be beautiful, even with a netting of wrinkles. The hair would likely go very silver, and he tried to imagine how silver hair would look with those lovely, deep black eyes.

  In the morning light, he also saw with a little shock the littering of marks upon that flesh. A reddish bruise from the fierceness of his passion on her neck, another at the top swell of her breast. Her lips were pouty and faintly swollen. Absently he touched his own mouth, wondering if his showed the same look, and he became aware of the faint sting of scratches on his back. The night flooded back to him, in visual and sensual detail.

  Wild. They had been so unbelievably wild, like two starving animals.

  Suddenly, he lifted his head, realizing what the difference was this morning. There was sunlight falling through the uncurtained windows, vivid yellow sunshine that pooled on her body in sweet yellow bars.

  And as if the sunlight carried some moral code with it, Tyler felt dread replace the drifting sense of arousal that had moved into his blood. He looked back to Anna's young, innocent face, and felt he'd been kicked.

  What had he done?

  He closed his eyes, and moved away from her quietly, so as not to disturb her, and when he stood up, the muscles along the front of his thighs protested. The remains of their picnic meal lay by the fire, along with a pile of discarded clothes and the sticky brandy glasses. Standing nude and stunned, Tyler looked at the room with the eyes of a man who had been very drunk and had indulged in shocking behavior.

  But he hadn't been drunk. He didn't even have that excuse. He'd been horny and greedy and selfish and he'd seduced a virgin he knew had a crush on him.

  Feeling sick with shame, he hid in the small bathroom, with its low-water shower. Ten gallons of hot water, period. He was sure Anna would want some of it and he stared at the pine-lined cubicle blankly, still reeling.

  Over the toilet was a mirror, and Tyler saw that his own body was as marked as Anna's. His shoulders were littered with half-moon marks made by her fingernails. At the juncture of his neck and shoulder was a deep red mark made by her mouth, and even in his disgust, Tyler felt himself respond to that memory, and what had been happening when it was made.

  Winded, he turned on the water and stepped under it. How could he have let himself go like that? Taken advantage of a sweet young woman who wore her heart on her sleeve? A woman who believed in fairy tales and lost princes?

  It was more wrong than anything he'd ever done in his life. Worse because he knew she didn't believe he meant what he'd said about it being only for one night.

  Quickly he washed and turned off the water, starting when a soft knock came at the door. "Tyler, I'm sorry to bother you, but the forest service is at the door and I need to get dressed."

  He had only a small, threadbare towel that covered about a postage-stamp corner of his body, but even as he considered the problem, another knock came at the front door. He heard Anna call out, "Just a minute!"

  Hell. They'd spent the past sixteen hours making love. It was a little late for modesty. Dripping, he held the towel over the most vulnerable part of himself and hauled open the door abruptly. "Come in."

  "Thank you," she said in a small voice, squeezing past him. She was wrapped in the quilt, her sweats and sweater in her hand. She didn't look at him.

  It was a very, very small room—if she inhaled, Tyler had to exhale. They both struggled with getting dressed at the same time, and finally Tyler gave up. Keeping the handkerchief-size towel over himself, he leaned against the
door. "You go first," he said gruffly.

  She looked at him miserably, a deep blush on her cheeks. "I'm too embarrassed with you watching me."

  And Tyler realized he'd been hoping to watch. He'd been wanting that last, forbidden look at the flesh he'd explored in such detail last night. It shamed him even more, and he straightened. "Fine," he said, dropping the towel. "You watch me, instead."

  A flare lit those dark eyes. Her chin lifted defiantly, that made-for-sex mouth tightening, but not enough to take away its appeal. Never enough. Proudly, her nostrils flaring, she dropped the quilt and stood there nude, her breasts upthrust and moving with the heat of her breathing.

  Tyler clenched his fists against the roar of need the sight gave him, trembling as she shoved her legs into the loose sweats and lifted the black sweater from where she'd dropped it. It was twisted inside out, and she seemed to take forever to turn it right side out, standing only inches away with her bare torso and squared shoulders.

  And he knew he'd be risking serious injury if he tried to reach out to her in this moment. She'd already seen rejection in his eyes, and Tyler would be insane to take it back.

  But, heaven help him, he wanted to. He felt almost faint from the raging lust in his loins. And innocent though she might have been before last night, Anna was instinctive enough to know, to punish him with the slow, patient way she took first one sleeve, then the other from the sweater's tangled inside, the way she at last lifted her arms, and her breasts lifted with her, ripe and white and tipped with aroused points until the thin, soft fabric safely covered them.

  She shot him a dark, knowing glance. "Excuse me. I'll go let them in."

  It pricked his pride and his anger. He caught her arm, not ungently, and said, "Wait for me."

  And he had the smallest sense of satisfaction in knowing she was as compelled to watch his body as he had been to watch hers. When his jeans were zipped but not buttoned, he took her arm and pulled her close. She resisted rigidly, but she was no match for him. "It's over, Anna, our one night."