Guess Again by Nora
Santella © 2003
The
sound of a hunting horn in the hills frightened the princess. As the noise of
barking dogs came nearer, she fled inside a cave. A mighty hound bounded out of
the ravine, followed by another, and another.
In a few minutes all the huntsmen
assembled outside the cave. The handsomest of them was the king of the country.
The deep timbre of his voice could soothe and beguile the most wary of
creatures.
The
fairy woman pulled a black derringer from out of her sequined evening bag and
took aim at the intruder king.
"No,"
Lynzee howled. "No."
One,
two gunshots rang out.
The executioner seized the princess by the
hand, but she tossed the flaxen shirts over the swans that encircled them. In a
twinkling, eleven handsome princes stood by her side. But the youngest had a
swan's wing instead of one arm for the princess had not quite finished the
second sleeve of his shirt.
Blood
oozed down his white feathers. Crimson red. Human blood.
"Do svidaniya," the king said sadly.
***
"Nyet!" Lynzee cried out. "Nyet!"
Hunter
switched on the ceiling light and surveyed Lynzee's bedroom. Seeing no sign of
Yuri or any other intruder, he relaxed his grip on the .38. He should leave
right now and she'd never be the wiser, caught up as she was in some vivid
dreamscape, but the sight of Lynzee squirming between her sexy satin sheets
drew him toward the bed. He couldn't resist a closer peek; he doubted that any
red-blooded male would.
She
groaned softly and shifted onto her back. The striking contrast of her
milk-white skin against the black fabric made his breath catch with excitement.
His gaze traveled slowly from head to toe and lingered on her breasts. Not bad. Not bad at all.
"Nyet!"
He
muttered a curse as his pulse skyrocketed.
What am I thinking? If she catches me here with my tongue hanging out, I might
as well kiss my ass good-bye.
"Lynzee, wake up," he coaxed in a soothing voice. He set his
gun down on the night table. "Lynzee, you're having a bad dream."
"No!
Don't die. The blood! Stop it. Please." She spoke Russian. "There's
blood all over his chest."
The
mattress shifted when Hunter sat down beside her. Lynzee's eyelids popped open.
Traces of terror glittered in her eyes as she looked right through him. She
jerked away from his touch.
"It's
only a dream, Lynzee," Hunter repeated, but this time in Russian.
"Everything is all right. Believe me."
***
Lynzee
felt Hunter's hand brush the damp tendrils of hair off her temples. His
gentleness reached her brain better than words. Finally she focused on him when
he drew her into a comforting embrace. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she
wondered why he was in her bedroom, but his solid presence reassured her as the
shadows of illusion lingered.
"A
dream?" she murmured. "No, that was a nightmare." She shivered.
Even now it seemed all too real to her.
"You
screamed."
"Did
I?" She smiled self-consciously and backed out of his grasp. For the first
time she noticed that Hunter was shirtless. Great
pecs. She marked how the black springy hair on his chest tapered down
towards the unbuttoned waistband of his jeans. Knowing to what manly essential
the dark arrow pointed, she averted her eyes.
"Do
you remember what you dreamt?"
She
angled her head backwards and her hair cascaded down to her waist. "There
was blood. Oh, God, lots of it." Her attention shifted back to Hunter.
"The sight of blood makes me feel queasy." It suddenly dawned upon
her that they were conversing in Russian. She started to say something when
Hunter's compelling gaze robbed her of speech.
"The
sight of you in barely nothing steams my Irish blood," he said, switching
back to English. "You may be Russian inside, but you're gorgeous
outside." His gaze caressed her breasts. He looked, but did not touch.
Then he lifted his hand.
She
felt her breath catch when his fingertips traveled slowly down her neck to her
shoulder. He brushed aside one thin lilac strap of her baby-doll gown. It
tumbled loosely onto her arm. Mesmerized, she couldn't move. He swept aside the
other strap. The bodice skittered downward and lingered provocatively on the
tips of her nipples. She watched his eyes flare with passion. Her own body
tingled in response. She couldn't think to protest when he peeled the silk down
to encircle her waist.
"Now
you look as primitive as the tribal queen," he said in a voice edged with
arousal, "but far more breathtaking."
Lynzee's
pulse quickened as he eased her against him. Fleetingly her mind registered the
erotic sensation of soft flesh against hard muscle. His skin smelled of cocoa
butter soap. He gave her only a moment to enjoy his clean, male scent before
lowering his mouth to take possession of hers. His lips felt firm and
demanding. She sensed that he meant to make her desire match his. She grabbed
onto his arms for support.
"I
want to taste you, Lynzee."
When
his mouth savored hers again, her lips parted helplessly. His tongue explored
her interior, flirting, persuading, and transforming a kiss into an act of
tender conquest. Lightly his fingers moved up and down her spine. Claiming a
handful of her hair, he pulled her head back with it. Her heart hammered in her
chest as he kissed his way down her throat toward her breasts.
The man certainly understands how to tend a
fire. It was her last coherent thought.
Abruptly,
he elevated his head to impale her with a searing glance. "I must be crazy
to want a Russkie," he grumbled, desire visibly gaining ground over any
aversion. "But you want me, too. It's there in your eyes, in your body's
response to mine. Well, I'm off duty now, czarina,
and yours until dawn to command."
Duty. The word echoed in her mind. Alarm
bells tolled inside her head. She froze in his arms. Had Hunter been on the job
when she'd screamed? But he'd left her apartment hours earlier. How did he hear
her? Maybe he didn't leave the building at all. Maybe he'd holed up somewhere
inside, listening to everything that happened inside her apartment through
electronic surveillance.
"You've
been spying on me." Her temper exploded. She pushed him away. "God
help me. I almost gave myself to you. Get out, McCrary! I didn't invite you
into my home or my bed."
"Oh?
Do you think I enjoy charging to the rescue and blowing a perfectly swell
stakeout, especially for an ingrate?"
Conscious
of her vulnerable position, she scooted off the bed. Single-handedly, she
hoisted up the bodice of her skimpy gown and bunched it over her breasts.
"If you hadn't planted your stupid bugs
in the first place, you wouldn't have heard me cry out in my sleep." Even
through her haze of anger, she saw the thunderous expression settle upon
Hunter's features. He stood up and towered over her. Involuntarily, she took
one step backward.
"Yeah?
Well, had I busted in on a bedroom scenario with Yuri holding a knife against
your throat, you'd be singing a different tune entirely."
She
blanched at the mental picture he painted.
"Right
now," he added, "you'd probably be kissing my feet." The notion
diffused his snit and he chuckled.
Surely he didn't think the situation
amusing. "You wish, McCrary," she said, holding onto her flimsy
dignity.
There
was still a faint spark of humor in Hunter's eyes as his gaze swept hungrily
over her feminine curves. "Yeah, I guess I do." He turned away to
retrieve his Smith & Wesson from the night table. Heading out the bedroom
doorway, he stopped and faced her. "Hey, I made an honest mistake coming
in here. How was I to know it was only a dream? You've never talked in your
sleep before."
"Before?" She pounced on the
word, nearly choking on her fury. "Exactly how long have you been
eavesdropping on me?"
"You
don't want to know. Furthermore, I don't intend to tell you."
Lynzee
snatched the tribal queen off the chessboard and hurled it at him. He didn't
dodge fast enough. When the stone figurine struck him on the snap of his jeans,
he grunted in pain.
"You
hit the brass stud. Close, but no cigar."
She
picked up another chess piece and took aim.
"Don't
do something you'll regret, maybe not now, but possibly in the future. Neither
of us can deny that for one honest moment, you wanted me as much as I wanted
you."
Deviltry
and recklessness danced together in his eyes. His stance radiated raw machismo. Checkmated by the truth, she
gulped, lowering her upraised arm.
"Like
it or not, Lynzee, I intend to protect you through fair means or foul."
Without waiting for a response, he strolled out of the bedroom and down the
hall, acting like the lord and master of all he surveyed. She stared
appreciatively at his very nice buns, enhanced for her viewing pleasure by the
snug fit of his jeans.
When
the apartment door clicked shut, she no longer felt bespelled. The breath she
exhaled sounded suspiciously like a sigh. "Damn! Damn! Double damn!"
Anger
spent, she plopped down on her bed and noted with irony that she held the
tribal knight in the palm of her hand. Studying his stone limbs, she wondered
if there was any parallel to feet clumsily cast in clay.
