Read an Excerpt
Prologue
"Mommy!" The cry came from upstairs but could be heard all over the large Tudor home. "Mommy, I'm in beh-ed!"
"All right, darling, I'll be right there," called out Katherine. She dried her hands on the kitchen towel and started toward the stairs. On the way, she stopped in the doorway to the study to give a quick, loving glance at her husband, who was leaning back in his chair, feet resting comfortably on the end of the big wooden desk, leafing through a magazine.
"Am I interrupting work?" He turned with a flash of smile and held up what he had been reading. "A fishing magazine. I might have known," she said with a chuckle.
"Of course. But even if I had been working, you're an interruption I always welcome." He slid his feet to the floor. "Now that you're here, grouper and trout take a definite back seat. Come here." He tossed the magazine on the desk and held out his arms, folding them around her as she settled onto his lap.
"I'm so honored," she murmured. "I know that few people can displace grouper and trout in the heart of Cole Gallagher Henry Winston, III." She leaned against him and his hand automatically slipped under her sweater to massage her breasts, causing her to sigh. He bent his head, taking her lips in a soft kiss that gradually gained strength as it always did when he felt her response. As they kissed he grew hard against her thigh, and she squirmed just a little to encourage him. With a gentle moan he turned her slightly to have better access to her lips and to adjust her on his lap.
"No fish could ever take your place in my heart. Not even the largest bass," he whispered with a sigh, against her lips. She laughed out loud. "Now look. You'vebroken the moment." He laughed too, and pulled her closer to him.
"Mom-mee!"
She smiled into his eyes. "The little princess is calling. I'd better go, but I'll see you in a while. Don't get too carried away with your fish. I have plans for you." She kissed the tip of his nose and gingerly pushed her way off his lap.
"Hmmm. I can't wait." He got one last rub of her buttocks as she moved away, and then took a deep breath to bring his heartbeat back to normal and squirmed a little himself, before picking up his magazine again. Now however, his mind strayed toward his beautiful wife and what she might have in store, rather than staying focused on how to fashion a lure guaranteed to bring results. His wife, he thought with a grin, had just done that.
Katherine walked into her daughter's bedroom with a warm smile for the little girl. "And who do I find here?" she asked. "Is it a rock star, a fashion model or an award winning actress?"
"Oh, mommy, you know who I am," the girl, said with a giggle. For just a moment Katherine's breath caught and her heart overflowed with love for this four-year-old person. She and Cole had made this child, had conceived her in love, trust and respect, but it still seemed incomprehensible that she was as beautiful as she was, as sweet and wonderful as she was. Katherine could so clearly see Cole's eyes and her mouth reflected in their daughter's face, but there was more there that was a combination of them both, and therefore all Alyssa's. Katherine had to remind herself that probably all parents felt their children were perfect and wonderful, but with their little Alyssa, she knew it was true beyond any doubt.
"Yes, I know who you are, my little love. You are queen of my heart, princess of my mind, ruler..."
"...of all I hold dear." Alyssa finished the oft heard phrase in triumph. She had bouncy curls of brown hair that hung down to her chin, gleaming blue eyes and a pert nose. Her mouth was most often formed around a smile.
"You're getting too smart for me, Munchkin. What story would you like to hear?" Katherine settled her daughter under the covers, and positioned herself at the head of the bed next to Alyssa's pillow, so that the child could see the pictures in the book and also be in place to fall asleep.
"Cinderella!"
"Okay, Cinderella it is." Katherine reached for the book from the stack of those on the bedside table and opened it to the first page. "Once upon a..."
"No, mommy. You've got to start with the title."
With a small smile Katherine turned to the title page and started over. "Cinderella." She flipped back to the story. "Once upon a time..."
Minutes later, long before the clock had struck midnight and the glass slipper had been lost, Alyssa was sleeping. Katherine stood and moved her slightly, so that she was in the center of the bed. She smoothed Alyssa's hair from her face and kissed her forehead, making sure that her stuffed bunny was firmly secured in her arm and that she was warmly covered. As Katherine turned, she saw Cole leaning against the doorjamb, watching her with a tender expression.
"You know that I think you're the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth, but when I see you with Alyssa, it's almost too much. You two are the most important things in my life." Katherine turned out the bedside lamp and walked into Cole's arms, stretching into him as he stroked her back and nuzzled her hair.
"As the two of you are to me," Katherine responded. "Let's go downstairs." With Cole's arm wrapped around her shoulders they made their way to the living room.
Cole had started a fire and the room was warm and softly lighted by the flames; crackling of the burning logs and popping as sap hit the heat of the fire were the only sounds.
Cole poured glasses of wine and they rested, Katherine against his chest in the circle of his arm, Cole leaning against the rounded arm of the sofa. They sat peacefully for several moments, staring into the fire. With his hand over her shoulder, Cole caressed Katherine's breast; she rested her hand on his leg, with her elbow covering and lightly putting pressure on the bulge in his pants.
"Are you going to tell me a bedtime story now?" asked Cole.
"Would you like one?" He kissed the top of her head and nodded. "Okay, do you like Cinderella, too?"
"Sure. The adult version, however. I didn't mind the children's version when I was a child, although I always thought the prince was too much of a sissy. I thought she should find a good warrior to marry."
"You would, you blood-thirsty man."
"Now, I think the prince would be looking for a bit more in a wife than simple beauty and strange taste in shoes." He looked at Katherine's platform shoes. "Although unusual taste in footwear isn't always a negative."
"Thank you," she said smartly.
He chuckled. "So make sure that Cindy has all the requisites to be the wife of a prince."
"And what might that entail, do you think?" Katherine sat up and turned so that she could see her husband.
"Make her like you." Katherine gave her husband an appreciative look. "Definitely she has to be a sexy number. The dress is okay, but it's what's under it that counts. She has to know things. Even if she's hot in bed, you can't spend all your time in bed, right? And she should be a good cook."
"Good cook? And why is that m'lord? Hasn't the prince cooks aplenty?"
"Sure, but when they're finished having sex late at night after the little princess is asleep, who will get up to fix him something to eat if not his wife?" Cole looked at his wife through his long, thick lashes, with just a hint of a smile. "She has to know her way around the castle kitchen. That's a must. You wouldn't suggest waking the kitchen staff for a ham sandwich, would you?"
"Are you hinting that you'd like a ham sandwich?" Katherine rubbed her index finger across Cole's lips.
"I might be hinting that I want sex," he said in a low voice, after nibbling on her finger. "And then nourishment might be welcome while you weave your tale."
Katherine put her glass on the end table where Cole had already set his. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply. Katherine always felt weak when Cole explored her mouth with his tongue, and when her tongue joined in the fun by touching his, she felt a corresponding excitement from Cole.
They broke apart so that he could unzip and remove his slacks and Katherine could do the same. Then Cole sat up straight and Katherine straddled him. As they resumed kissing she unbuttoned his shirt, rubbing her palms through the hair on his chest and roughly across his nipples. His hard penis rose against her stomach, starting the heat swirling in her belly, and building the need, the wanting for Cole that never ceased to amaze her in its intensity.
Cole rested his hands on her hips as she played with his nipples, and then slowly moved his hands up under her sweater, inch by inch, caressing her smooth skin with his fingertips as well as his palms. When he reached the bottom of her bra, he finished pulling the sweater over her head. He unhooked her bra but Katherine cupped her hands over her breasts, preventing it from dropping.
She looked flirtatiously at Cole, whose eyes, in the light from the fire, blazed with desire. He leaned forward suddenly and nipped at her neck, then supported her as she arched her back, allowing him to plant tiny kisses down her shoulder and along the curve of her breast.
When he stopped and sat back, looking at her, Katherine brought her bra away from her body and dropped it to the floor. Now Cole gazed with hunger at her breasts, full and rose-tipped. "So beautiful," he murmured. He took a breast in his mouth and suckled her, licking the nipple with his tongue until it stood in a peak, lush, hard, sensitive. He lavished the same attention on her other breast, eliciting a moan from her.
While Cole suckled Katherine, she wrapped her hand around his hard shaft, rubbing the tip with her thumb and squeezing it lightly. Within minutes they were at the point of no return, as Katherine rose to her knees and moved forward over Cole, guiding him into her.
"Oh, yes," he whispered, as she sank over him. She hummed agreement, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her forehead on his shoulder. Cole initiated the change from satisfaction, contentment of just being joined, to the motion that would take them beyond the physical world, into that "little death," as the French termed it so perfectly all those years ago. His hips rocked slowly at first, as Katherine rose and fell over him, in union.
They each knew their rhythm and were wholly attuned to each other's bodies after years of giving pleasure. She rotated her hips against him as she sank and was rewarded by being pulled tighter against him. He rubbed his hand across her butt and was granted a nibble on his earlobe and the tip of her tongue in his ear.
As they increased their speed and their breathing became erratic, Cole held her so tightly her breasts were crushed against him. The intensified friction helped push her over the edge of awareness, where every part of the body feels yet doesn't feel, and where the center does nothing but feel. Cole cupped the cheeks of her butt and pulled her against him, hard, as he came.
For minutes they sat there, crushed against each other, loving the closeness and the oneness that always came from their unions. Then Cole ran his hands up her back and aside her breasts and helped her sit up. He smiled at her, taking her head between his big hands, and kissed her gently.
"Would you like something to eat now?" she asked, after he kissed her again and then looked at her expectantly.
"It has been two whole hours since dinner. Maybe a snack would be in order. I'll go up and get our robes."
Katherine scraped her nipples along his chest as she rose off of him, making him hiss in pleasure. When he leaned forward to run his hands from her waist to her breasts, she simply smiled and said, "Snack, remember?" and then laughed at the look of conflict in his eyes. "We'll see what we can do after the snack," she murmured. With a quick kiss, she strolled into the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, Katherine and Cole were sprawled on the floor, in warm terry cloth robes and slippers. Between them were plates of fruit, crackers, cheese, rolled ham and more wine. They chatted easily about this and that, taking nibbles of food and feeding each other small bites, enjoying the companionship that comes during the night when lovers share their thoughts and desires.
Soon, Cole stoked the fire as Katherine rearranged the plates and the wine glasses. She stretched her long legs out and Cole lay perpendicular to her, his head in her lap. He turned his head slightly, to breathe in the musky scent at the juncture of her thighs, and his arousal was immediately apparent. He positioned his right arm so that his hand could slip between the folds of her robe's shawl collar and lightly trace the curve of her breast.
Katherine closed her eyes, loving his touch. Then she looked down into his face, a face that was so very familiar, yet one which she never tired of seeing. She stroked his hair and smiled at him.
"Ready for your story?"
"Yes, tell me a story." His hand never stopped brushing her, but his eyes were clear as he stared up into her face and settled himself.
"Once upon a time..."
"Wait a minute. How long ago? Once upon a time, when?"
"Once upon a time, just six short years ago..." he smiled, "...there was a large business. Actually, it was a publishing house for a magazine, and it was located in a big city in the south. There worked at this publishing house, a very plain girl..."
"Hold on a minute. A plain girl? I don't care for that. It was a very beautiful girl, who simply didn't know how to make her beauty shine through." Cole pulled himself up to kiss her breast. The kiss landed only in the vicinity of her nipple, but that didn't matter because through the thick robe Katherine couldn't really feel it anyway. The thought behind the kiss, the intent of the kisser, was clear, and she smiled brilliantly at her husband as he settled back in her lap.
"Thank you, my angel, but who's telling this story?"
"You are, but I just want to make sure you get all of the little details correct. Proceed." Katherine laughed at the imperious command, ruffling Cole's hair.
"You win. But no more interruptions or we won't get to bed tonight, and you know what you'll be missing then." She laughed again, at the look of horror on his face.
"Quiet as a mouse, that's me," he said, and made a zipping motion across his lips.
She took a few moments to gaze at him, her eyes communicating the love she felt.
"As I was saying..."
