More Blazing Bedtime Stories: Once Upon a Mattress (3 page)

Penny had always had good instincts about people. Those
instincts told her that while this man was going to annoy her in ways she hadn’t yet begun to comprehend, he wouldn’t hurt her. The same instincts had warned her that the roughneck, Frank, was a nasty character. And he’d proved that with one disgusting grope.

This stranger was different. Not that he couldn’t be trouble, but she didn’t experience that instant shiver of awareness that said he was someone you wouldn’t want to turn your back on for fear of getting a knife between your ribs or a hand on your ass.

She could handle him. Really.

Though she felt a moment’s panic when he inched closer, keeping his voice low as he finally answered both of her questions.

“You should definitely be scared. Because if you swing at me one more time, Princess, you’re going to find out exactly how intimidating I can be.”

I
T WAS FUNNY
. Lucas had thought
finding
Princess Penelope would be the hard part when, in fact, it had been remarkably easy. Queen Verona had told him where the girl’s father had said he was taking her, and to his surprise, she’d still been here. He had picked up her trail right after he’d arrived this morning.

But he suspected locating her would be the only easy thing about this job. Getting her to come with him would be a problem.

Figuring out how to
keep
her was going to be an even bigger one.

But keep her he would. Because there was no way he was going to let her go. Not when, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Penny Mayfair, he’d wanted her with every ounce of his being.

It had finally happened. He’d looked on a woman and known he’d sooner cut off a limb than do without her.

And she was the princess he’d been hired to deliver to another man’s marriage bed.

“Oh, miss? My coffee?”

Lucas glanced past Penny at an impatient-sounding man sitting at a nearby table. Leveling one slow, steady stare at the stranger, he noted that the man swallowed and pushed his empty coffee cup away, reaching for a glass of water instead.

“Look, you’re making a scene.”

“You’re the one who kicked me,” he rebuked, amused by her temper. It brought out the fire in her beautiful eyes.

“I didn’t kick you,” she snapped. “I stomped on your foot.”

“So come with me to make amends.”

Finally, as if too frustrated to argue, Penny said, “Fine. Meet me outside in five minutes. Got it?” Apparently seeing his hesitation, she added, “I’ll be there. I promise.”

He watched her whirl away, wondering if she would keep her word. But he had no other choice. Short of dragging her out by force, there was nothing he could do but go outside and wait.

It was just as well. The air was better. Not good, but better than inside the cramped, reeking diner.

Lucas didn’t like to spend too much time on the Earth side of the world. It was too loud, too frenetic. Much too crowded with people jammed together in their cities, driving their screeching automobiles, moving much too fast. All his highly attuned senses went into overdrive whenever he crossed the border.

There were times, when doing his job, that he’d had to cross into areas far worse than this. The city of New Orleans was a torturous maze of noise, colors and odors. Like all his kind, he had a keenly developed sense of smell. So the scents, in particular, were so overwhelming he felt incapable of breathing.

While in New Orleans, he’d experienced its darkest side. He had gone into dingy, rundown hotels, had staked out seedy tourist traps. He’d followed suspects into vampire-themed bars where the other patrons had no idea the creatures of their imaginations actually existed in other realms.

At first glance, the Mayfair princess seemed more suited to one of those places than to this small country dining hall. From the purplish tinge in her short, spiked black hair, to the heavily made-up skin and darkly shadowed eyes, she looked like anything but a member of a royal family. Except, perhaps, for Snow White…
after
she’d been in that glass coffin for a while.

But those eyes. Those dazzling, purple-violet eyes proclaimed her lineage. From what the stories said, they were a trademark of the Mayfair women.

Then there was the face. Her lips were full, her chin a bit stubborn, her cheeks soft. Finely boned, delicate and almost fragile, Princess Penelope’s face would, without a doubt, be
utterly beautiful when washed clean of the layer of cosmetics and about a decade’s worth of mistrust.

But the rest. Great Rumpel’s ghost, she was nothing like he’d expected. Nothing like anyone had expected.

Spoiled, petted princesses often wore jewels. But not, as he recalled, hoops of silver dangling from the lobes of their ears, with smaller rings and studs riding all the way up each curve.

Her black clothes looked more appropriate for a crone than for a young woman on either side of the border. The only relief from the solid black came from the garish, bright-red canvas shoes that extended all the way up over her ankles.

The top and loose skirt hung baggily over her body, concealing much of her shape. But from where he’d been sitting, by the door, he’d gotten a few glimpses of her calves and thighs outlined beneath the filmy fabric. The tight, black leggings she wore beneath the skirt clung to those limbs, highlighting the slenderness, the length.

He’d seen her maneuver through the crowded room with platters of food, serving others, waiting on those far beneath her in stature. He’d heard her snap at anyone who tested her and watched her manage ten tasks at once.

He’d also seen her defend herself against an oaf who had laid hands on her without permission. That was fortunate, for Lucas had been rising from his seat, his hands clenching into fists the moment the stranger’s shifty eyes had hinted at his dark thoughts. A low, black cloud of anger had overtaken Lucas’s vision and he’d almost launched himself across the diner when the bastard had dared to touch her.

But she’d taken care of herself.

Something told him she always took care of herself.

She was also someone who could be taken at her word. Penny proved as much by showing up at the door exactly five minutes after he’d exited. She burst outside. “Okay. You’ve got my attention. Tell me what you want, and then go away.”

Lucas crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the
door to make sure she didn’t dart around him to go in, and nobody else could come out. Then he answered. “I am indeed going away. Far, far away. And so are you.”

Her mouth opened, then closed. For the first time since he’d seen her, she was entirely speechless. He sensed it didn’t happen often. This was a woman who was seldom lost for words.

She was tough. Ragged. Hard-edged. Outrageously dressed, pierced and made-up. The idea of her presiding over the genteel court of Riverdale was ludicrous. Queen Verona would
never
accept this woman as the bride for her spoiled Prince Ruprecht.

Which, actually, was a good thing. Because there was no way Lucas could deliver Penny Mayfair into another man’s hands.

Not when he was determined to make her his own.

“O
KAY,
let me get this straight,” Penny said after the stranger had finished his ridiculous explanation. “You say you represent my mother’s people? And that you have to take me back to her homeland to claim some old inheritance?”

The big, sexy man, whose glorious eyes appeared to have a hint of gold in them out here in the sunlight, nodded, unaffected by her obvious disbelief. “Exactly.”

Though her heart fluttered, Penny quickly stifled her excitement. Because things like this just didn’t happen to her. Life was
never
this easy, not in the real world. She hadn’t gone on a fruitless, two-year journey of exploration only to have some hot dude in a black leather jacket show up out of the blue to provide answers to all her questions.

“But you won’t tell me where you want to take me or what this inheritance is? Or even who, exactly, sent you to find me.”

“Correct.”

“And you think I’m going to say, ‘Okey-dokey,’ grab my stuff and blindly follow you to the ass end of nowhere.”

He cast a long glance at her, visually assessing her admittedly unusual clothes. For some reason, one corner of the sensual mouth pulled up a bit in what was probably his im
personation of a smile. “You don’t need to pack much. You should definitely come as you
really
are.”

He said it as if he didn’t mind her wardrobe, which Callie called her Witch-of-the-West look, completed by the ruby-red high-tops.

“You’re missing the point. The issue isn’t my packing.”

“It isn’t? What other issue is there?”

Oh, maybe just the little one that this total stranger thought she would instantly trust him and let him whisk her away to who-knew-where to do who-knew-what.

Well, okay, some of the who-knew-what might be good. But only if
she
decided she wanted that ‘what’.

“The issue is, you can’t show up here and expect me to follow you like a dumb sheep.”

Though following him would entail walking behind the man. And considering the way his faded jeans hugged those incredible thighs and lean hips, she honestly wouldn’t mind getting a look from—and
at
—the rear.

“I’m no shepherd,” he said, something gleaming in the depths of those eyes.

“More like the big bad wolf,” she muttered.

For some reason, he suddenly coughed, lifting his fist to his mouth as he turned his head to the side. Finally, after he’d cleared his throat, he said, “We don’t have much time, Princess. We have to go now.”

There he went with that stupid nickname again. She blew out a huffy breath, then curved her hand around one ear, tilting her head to the side. “What’s that? I think I hear something. Oh, yeah, it’s the nuthouse calling. They want you to bring back their straitjacket.”

He merely lifted a brow. The man seemed incapable of being provoked, as if, despite his dangerous looks, he really knew how to hold onto his temper. “What can I say to convince you?”

She hesitated, wanting to walk away, yet tempted—so damn tempted—to listen to what he had to say.

Part of her was dying to know more about who sent him.
Her mother’s
people?
Meaning, people who’d actually known her mother, whom Penny couldn’t even remember? People who might be able to fill in the blanks of her history—tell her why Penny had been able to find no record of her mother’s existence, not
anywhere
. Maybe explain why there was no proof of her parents’ marriage. No record of where her father had lived for a good ten years of his younger life. Why her own birth certificate hadn’t been filed until Penny had been three years old.

So many questions. No answers.

Until now?

Finally, taking a chance, she said, “All right. Here’s how you convince me. Tell me everything. Every single detail. Let me hear it and then I’ll decide if you’re crazy…or I’m
crazier
and actually believe you.”

He frowned. Instead of making him look forbidding, it just added to the whole super-hot-bad-boy thing he had going on.

“I can’t do that.”

Stabbed with disappointment, she immediately reached around him for the door handle. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”

He refused to get out of the way. “You wouldn’t understand, not right now.”

“Look, Mr…. what is your name, anyway?”

“It’s Lucas Wolf.”

An appropriately tough one. Then she rolled her eyes. No wonder he’d reacted when she’d called him the big bad wolf. What was it, the name for words that sounded like what they were? Onomatopoeia? Yeah. That fit. His name definitely fit his whole big, bad self.

Besides, she’d bet he
was
a wolf as far as females were concerned. He sure had the looks for it, if not the flirtatious charm. Not that he probably needed to rely on charm or seduction. He was all tough, overpowering, alpha man who women flocked to like…well, like sheep.

Women often chose to settle down with nice guys. That
didn’t mean they didn’t have fantasies about one last, wild fling with a dangerous, edgy man who was relentless in his pursuit. Many such females would probably have said, “When do we leave?” after hearing his proposition.

But not you
.

No. Not her. Parts of her anatomy might already be packing her bags to follow him anywhere. But above the shoulders, she was firmly grounded in reality. She’d sown her wild oats. Big-time.

She’d also followed far too many promising trails that led only to disappointment. She was done with all that. No more expectations meant no more disappointments.

“Well, Mr. Wolf, you’re wasting your time. If you won’t give me any more information, then our conversation is finished. I need to get back to work.”

“Tell me you don’t want to come with me, that you’re not dying of curiosity.”

She hesitated, then finally lied. “I’m not.”

In truth, this tall, sexy stranger probably couldn’t have said anything that would have enticed her more. Still, the fact that he
was
a stranger—a dangerous-looking one—meant she couldn’t consider going along with what he was asking. Aside from not wanting to set herself up for yet another disappointment, her instincts about people could be wrong this time. For all she knew, he could be the son of the Son of Sam.

“Hello?” a muffled voice said. Someone knocked on the glass door behind Lucas, obviously wanting to exit.

“You should let those people out. And I have to go back in.”

“No.”

He put a hand on her arm, and everything…
changed
.

Sizzling heat and pure electric energy erupted at the spot where hand met arm. More, though, there was a strange sense of recognition. As if confirming that she knew him far better than she should after such a brief acquaintance.

There’d been interest from the very start. This was something different. Something
much
bigger.

Penny sucked in a slow, uneven breath, astounded by the rush of pleasure that came with the unexpected contact. Her loose, gauzy shirt was thin enough to feel the indentation of each strong finger, though he didn’t clench them. It didn’t hurt in any way, yet she felt almost branded by the fire of his touch.

Claimed
.

As crazy as it sounded, she felt as if she was finally discovering who she really was, where she belonged. Just the pressure of his grasp, that hint of restrained power, affected her like no other touch she could remember.

It was disconcerting, unnerving. Good, but also too surprising to deal with on the spot.

Somehow, she managed to keep still, merely staring at him until he silently unhanded her, the reluctant gentleman inside winning out over the overpowering male.

Well, maybe not a gentleman. But a decent guy.

Stop it, you don’t
know
that. You can’t be sure!