Awakening Beauty (10 page)

Joel glanced up to meet her wide-eyed gaze.

“Is this right? Is this what people do? I didn’t know.”

“Relax. Let me take care of you. You’ll enjoy it, I promise.” And then he went to work, using all the skill in his tongue to bring her to the edge of orgasm. He lapped between her labia and inside her, then swirled around her tender bud until she moaned and writhed, gripping onto his shoulders to hold herself upright.

He brought her close several times before backing off, making her whimper, and then at last with a few well-placed strokes and nibbles, he gave her release. Aurora clung to him and he supported her with hands at her waist as she shuddered and cried out.

But now his cock ached beyond enduring. Joel rose, stripped off his jeans and lifted her onto his engorged shaft. She was so wet he entered her in an easy glide. Her body enveloped him in heat and tightness. He sighed in satisfaction.

Pressing her back against the linen cupboard, he thrust into her with unbridled urgency. Desire galloped through him like a runaway horse careening out of control. He gazed into her heavy-lidded, lust-sated eyes and filled her over and over.

The sounds of the water splashing into the tub, the slap of their naked flesh coming together, and his grunts as he pumped into her, echoed off the tiled walls. As the tension inside him reached its peak, his balls drew tight and he stroked faster. Only as he came with a loud groan of completion did he realize he’d once again completely forgotten to put on a condom, but it was too late. He was buried deep inside her, his cock pulsing as he released.

Joel collapsed against Aurora, pinning her to the cupboard door and breathing heavily. When he’d recovered, he straightened and looked into her eyes. “All right? I wasn’t too hard.”

“You were just hard enough.” She smiled mischievously.

His eyebrows shot up at the double entendre from the innocent princess who wasn’t supposed to know such things.
King’s daughter, my arse… And yet…
He kissed her and set her on the floor, letting go of her reluctantly, then crossed to the tub and turned off the water that had nearly reached the top.

Joel let out some water, added bath salts, and piled plenty of towels nearby for when they were finished. He held out his hand to Aurora. She took it and stepped into the steaming water. He moved into the large tub behind her, and they settled into the blissful warmth, steeping like a pair of tea bags. Wrapping his arms around her slippery body, he pulled her between his legs.

Aurora relaxed against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “This is heavenly. Another wonderful invention. Everyone in the world must live like royalty now.”

“Not everyone.” Joel remembered a vermin-infested apartment that was never warm enough in the winter, and sneaking showers in the boys’ locker room before the school day began because the water and electricity had been shut off at home. “It still takes money to have nice things.”

As he dipped the sponge in the water and squirted gel onto it, she looked at him over her shoulder. “You said before you weren’t always wealthy. Tell me more about your life. I want to know what you were like as a boy, what your life was like.”

He worked the soap into lather and began to wash Aurora’s arm, smoothing the sponge over her wet skin. He didn’t answer her question and she prompted him.

“Please. We’ve done the most intimate thing two people can do, and yet I realize how little I know about you. You said your mother died when you were young. You must have missed her terribly.”

Guilt shot through him as it always did when he thought about his mom. Guilt because there’d been a strong element of relief mixed with the grief and pain of her passing. He cleared his throat and concentrated on soaping Aurora’s chest and breasts. “I said she died of a brain hemorrhage, but that’s only partly true. It was caused by a drug overdose. She was a junkie.”

“What does that mean?” she asked softly.

“Sometimes people take drugs to feel good, but there are side effects that are bad for the body,” he explained briefly. “She took too much and it killed her.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Because of her habit, we were dirt poor. It was a struggle to survive, and I vowed I’d get out of the slums.” He gestured at the room around them. “I succeeded. But now it seems I’ve forgotten how to do anything except work.”

She took the sponge from his hand, plunged it into the water and turned toward him to glide it over his shoulders and chest. “You have riches, but you’ve never learned to enjoy them. I think taking a vacation to hike in the mountains was a good beginning. It led you to me.”

“Yes, it did. The best distraction from work I’ve had in a very long time.” He pushed the wet tendrils of her hair over her shoulder and gazed at her flushed breasts, streaked with soapy trails. Incredibly, his cock began to harden again. Joel leaned forward, water sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the tub, and cupped her cheek. He kissed her moist lips. “Let me wash your hair for you now.”

She dipped her head back in the water, and he shampooed her hair. He’d never performed this intimate service for a woman. He liked the feeling of her small head cradled between his hands. The mass of red locks turned as dark as mahogany as he rinsed away the lather with the shower head.

“Your turn,” Aurora announced when he was finished. She knelt behind him and took the sprayer from him to wet his hair.

Joel submitted to her ministrations, feeling an odd sense of vulnerability and surrender. It wasn’t as if he’d never had someone wash his hair at a salon prior to a haircut, but this was different—personal, lovingly intimate as she plunged her hands into his hair and massaged his skull.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, allowing the feeling of being cared for to wash over him. The thorny hedge of detachment he used to keep emotion at bay had parted to allow Aurora inside and although it alarmed him, he was too damn comfortable to worry about it.

“I must thank you again for everything you’ve done to help me,” she said, after she’d rinsed his hair clean. “If I’d awakened to find anyone but you, I don’t know if I could have survived it.” She rested her hands on his wet shoulders. “It was always meant to be you.”

Joel nodded, without hesitation this time, knowing deep inside that she spoke the truth. He’d felt it since the moment he’d found her. His left brain had tried to apply logic and make excuses for the strange sense of connection between them, but his elemental self couldn’t deny it. As for the rest of her story, he’d worry about it later, not now.

The water was growing cool by the time they’d finished washing every part of each other. They got out of the tub, wrapped up in thick towels and were headed for Joel’s bedroom when the doorbell rang.

The jarring buzz sheared through Joel’s haze of relaxation, setting his nerves jangling. He didn’t have many friends, only business acquaintances. Unless this was a delivery or someone ringing the wrong apartment, there was only one person he could think of who would drop by unannounced.

He pressed the button on the call box by the door. “Yeah?”

“Hello, darling. It’s Vee. Want to let me up?”

Chapter Eight

Aurora stared at him, stricken by this intrusion into their perfect moment. Joel looked blank, almost as if he couldn’t remember who Vee was. Or was hiding something from Aurora. A frisson of fear ran down her spine as she realized how little she knew him, despite the intimacy that seemed so natural.

Joel’s lips quirked into a one-sided smile. “It’s not a good time, Vee,” he said into the box. “I’ve just gotten back.”

And just because he was sending the other woman away, Aurora’s heart lightened again. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “I’d like to meet her. I’ll just go and dress.”

She was rewarded with the broadening of Joel’s smile.

“Tell you what, Vee, come up for a few minutes if you like. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Joel flung on a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, but at least spared her a quick kiss before he went to open the door for Vee. Aurora, dressing more slowly in Joel’s over-large clothes, felt pathetically grateful for that kiss. It was as if all her adult self-confidence, stroked and bolstered by the last couple of hours with Joel, was disintegrating around her. She did want to meet Vee and judge the woman for herself before she decided what to do. Yet now the moment was upon her, she felt like a gauche child at her first grown-up party.

Vee was more than Joel’s friend. She was his occasional lover and possible future wife. He’d known Aurora only for a couple of days, and for most of the time he’d thought her insane. Maybe he still did. She wanted to hide in the bedroom and not come out. She wanted to rush to the door and greet the other woman with Joel’s hand held possessively in her own.

She was too late. She could hear the other woman’s voice, light, quick and decisive.

“Joel! So sorry to disturb you, darling. I just couldn’t resist when I saw your lights on. I wasn’t expecting you back until next week.”

“Something came up,” Joel said.

The sound of exchanged cheek-kisses set Aurora’s teeth on edge. Was she jealous? She couldn’t remember ever feeling that particular emotion before. But then, in her old pampered life, who or what on earth had she ever had any cause to be jealous of? Whereas here and now…

As their voiced faded out of range—they must have gone into the living room—Aurora dragged Joel’s comb through her hair and glanced ruefully at her reflection in the dresser mirror. She looked a like a street urchin wearing an older brother’s ill-fitting clothes. Excerpt that her cheeks glowed with health and her eyes, despite her sudden anxiety, seemed to shine with a deeper happiness. She smiled, hugging that happiness to herself, tingling all over again as she recalled the delicious lovemaking in the bathroom and the subsequent long, wonderful soak. She’d never felt so close to anyone in her life.

She lifted her head.
He doesn’t love Vee. It’s me he’s meant to be with. I know it.
In which case, she didn’t need glamorous clothes and jewels to win him. She didn’t even need to clutch him to her in order to prove it. She was Princess Aurora, and he was her prince.

That decided, she tossed the comb back on the dresser and marched out to meet her rival.

Vee sat on the sofa opposite the living room door, talking, so Aurora had a moment to observe her before she was noticed. At first glance she was everything Aurora had feared and expected: darkly beautiful, elegant, poised. She wore a rather severe skirt with matching jacket, which she unbuttoned as she talked to reveal a silk embroidered blouse beneath. Her face matched her clothing: cold, smart, with a cynical quirk to her painted lips. It was almost a relief to be able to hate her.

Only then she laughed at something Joel said as he poured wine at the polished wood cabinet in the corner. Her expression changed to one of utter merriment. Her eyes laughed along with her lips, uninhibited delight poured out in her voice, and Aurora’s heart ached, because she couldn’t hate the woman after all.

Swallowing, she walked into the room.

Joel glanced up at once and smiled. Vee turned her head, the laughter dying on her lips. Aurora noticed other things about her now too. The severity of her clothes was relieved by a broad ribbon of silk tied around her neck and flowing down her back and shoulder. Another tied her hair behind, adding both softness and personal style to her otherwise severe beauty.

Oh yes, this was one serious rival. Aurora’s heart sank further, even as she smiled and held out her hand to the other woman.

“Ah, you must be Joel’s mysterious visitor,” Vee said, with a rather charming air of mock conspiracy. Her hand was cool but friendly, neither too eager to escape nor gripping too strongly.

“This is Aurora,” Joel said, walking toward them with a glass of wine in each hand. “Aurora, I’d like you to meet Vee Gabor.”

As their hands parted, Vee looked her up and down, though not in a disparaging kind of way. “Those clothes never looked so stylish on Joel,” she observed, with clear amusement.

Aurora forced a smile to her lips. “My own clothes are all dirty. There was a fire,” she said lamely.

“Goodness.” Wide-eyed, Vee glanced from her to Joel, accepting the glass of wine as she demanded, “Where? Were you hurt?”

“In our hotel room in Schlaushagen. And no, we’re both fine.”

By not so much as a flicker did Vee betray any unease over the implication that her almost-fiancé and Aurora had been sharing the same room. It was Aurora who felt like blushing, although at the same time, she was fiercely glad that Joel made their relationship plain from the outset.

To cover her discomfort, she hurried into speech. “Joel tells me you want to promote his entry into politics.” She sat down beside Vee and took her glass from Joel with a quick smile. The tingle of electricity that passed from this slightest brush of his fingers, helped bring her confidence back.

“We’ve talked about it,” Vee said. “I think he has so much more to offer than boring old business. And even more to gain.” She raised her glass in a toast to him, which he accepted with a mocking inclination of the head.

Aurora watched her curiously. A sheltered upbringing and a thousand years of sleep didn’t make her the strongest judge of character, but shouldn’t Vee betray just the slightest hint of jealousy or unease here? Even if she didn’t love Joel—and there was certainly an easy friendship between them containing enough affection to rile Aurora—shouldn’t she be slightly anxious as to how Aurora’s sudden appearance in Joel’s life would affect their plans?

But Vee, it seemed, was a very unusual person. Either she was spectacularly good at covering her emotions or she really was pleased to meet Aurora and had no issues over her relationship whatsoever. Did that make her cold and unfeeling or generous-hearted?

As Vee gave her a quick wink, she inclined reluctantly toward the latter.

Aurora sipped her wine. “So, how do you go about promoting a candidate for election?”

Half an hour flew by, largely with Vee answering Aurora’s insatiably curious questions. Joel, observing them from the armchair on the other side of the fireplace, said very little. If anything, Aurora thought he was relieved that she and Vee were getting on so well.