The Cinderella Rules Read online

  But one bad boy couldn’t hurt. How else was she going to know the difference when her White Knight did appear?

  Shane framed her face. She gave herself over to him when he moved her so he could take her mouth however he wanted. He skimmed his hands down her back, popped the hooks on her bra with little more than a flick of a fingertip, then continued until they slid down over her hips. She moaned, deep in her throat, and let her hips move with his when he cupped her tight against the full, hard length of him.

  And my, my, what length. Prince Charming was going to have a lot to live up to.

  The depth of the hunger he aroused in her was stunning. His kisses, his hands all over her, his body muscled and hard between her thighs, pressing up hot against her, proving just what lay in store for her . . . and yet it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Now, now, now. It was raw. Intense. Overpowering.

  He dragged his mouth from hers, leaving a trail of smeared lipstick. She didn’t care. Nor did she care when he leaned forward, his hands bracing the small of her back, so he could again admire the silk of her bra, so up close and personal that he left icy peach smears across the pale blue.

  “Who knew,” she said with a gasp. “It is your color after all.”

  He glanced up, her lipstick smeared on that mouth of his . . . and didn’t bother to wipe it off. “I’ll replace it.” He held her gaze quite directly, then proceeded to leave icy peach kisses down the center of her torso.

  She moaned, almost arching down to the floor, reveling in the explosion of sensations rocketing through her. She bucked against him as he tugged the cups of her bra aside with his teeth. He groaned and gripped her hips tighter. His voice was a bit hoarse, a bit tense as she continued to ride him. “Did I mention that I really appreciate your equestrian background?”

  “No,” she managed, then gasped as his mouth finally closed over her bared nipple. “Glad I could be of some—Jesus, don’t stop that. Ever.”

  She swore she could feel his grin against her breast. She gripped the back of the settee, mainly to keep herself from falling backward. Who knew she was so flexible?

  “We’ve got way too many clothes on and we’re way too close to an actual bed,” he said.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  He tugged at the all-but-invisible zipper that slid down the center of the back of her pants. She didn’t want to think about the state of her linen capris. They probably looked like she’d balled them up and shoved them underneath a cushion. Then jumped on the cushion a few dozen times. But Shane had slid his hands around to her thighs, then upward, with his thumbs riding right toward her—

  “There is a God,” she breathed as he pushed his thumbs higher, and closed his hot mouth over her other nipple. She jerked against him and would have gladly cut off every inch of the outrageously expensive clothing she wore. So what if her pants cost more than her entire winter, fall, and spring wardrobes back home? When there was a good—no make that life-altering—orgasm a mere brush of a fingertip away, certain things became relative.

  “We really have to stop meeting like this,” he breathed.

  “It beats the hell out of not meeting at all,” Darby said, then groaned in frustration when he stopped just shy of the goal and slid her back onto his lap.

  “Hold on.”

  “Why?” She stilled. “Did you hear something?”

  “No. I meant hold on.” He tucked her legs behind his back.

  She grabbed on as he stood up.

  “Limos are nice,” he said, dropping sexy little kisses along her neck and the curve of her shoulder. “And God knows I’m going to get a hard-on every time I pass by a dressing room from now to the end of time.” He nipped at her earlobe, tucked his hand beneath her butt and snuggled her close around his body. “But you just can’t beat a nice, huge bed.”

  “And you call yourself an adventurer? Mr. Rogue World-Traveler.” Darby circled her arms around his neck and marveled at the novelty of a man who could actually tote her around like she weighed no more than a bale of hay.

  “Exactly,” he said, then nipped the side of her neck, surprising a very uncharacteristic girlish squeal out of her, which he enjoyed to no end. “That’s how I know beds are better. Although there was this rope hammock once that—”

  She nipped his bottom lip, then pulled it into her mouth, to soothe it. It was very effective in shutting him up.

  He was kicking the door to another room shut, presumably his bedroom, though she didn’t take her eyes off of him long enough to look around. He was probably always going to be the most interesting thing in any room anyway, so why waste time?

  “What, you don’t want to hear about the hammock?” He slid her down his body, his hands unerringly sliding her pants down over her hips.

  She grabbed the front of his trousers and pulled him close. “Not unless it’s a firsthand demonstration.”

  His eyebrows raised as she flicked open the hook and tugged down his zipper. His pants slid to the floor. His shirt followed in short order. “I think something could be arranged.”

  “Later.” Then she pushed him back on his bed.

  “Much.” He grabbed the box of condoms he’d bought the night before, scattering them across the bed before he rolled her beneath him.

  She rolled him right back, straddling his thighs and pinning his wrists to the bed. “I’ve always admired a man who plans ahead,” she said, snagging a packet and tearing it open with her teeth.

  Shane lifted his eyebrows, but didn’t make any attempt to free himself. “Have I mentioned that wrestling around with tall, equestrian-trained women, top my all-time list of how to spend a summer afternoon?”

  Her lips curved. “Make a habit of this, do you?”

  His lips curved even deeper as he slowly shook his head. “But I’m going to.” A long, low sound purred out of him as she slowly rolled the slick latex down over him.

  She leaned down then, feeling bold and powerful, high on the leverage bestowed on her with nothing more than the desire she found in his eyes, in every twitch of the impressive male animal pinned between her strong thighs. She wanted to taste him, as he’d tasted her.

  His chest was smooth, tan, and hard. She reveled in his swift intake of breath as she flicked her tongue over his nipple, twitched hard herself when he groaned and thrust upward as she nipped the other one. She pressed wet, tortuous kisses up the center of his chest, licked her way along the edge of his jaw, pulled that bottom lip that was the stuff of torrid fantasies between her teeth, then dove into a kiss that gave more of herself than she’d ever given to any man.

  His wrists flexed and tightened in her grip as she took his mouth. Took it any way she wanted. Then took it again. He pushed up against the damp silk panel of her panties, pushing, prodding, seeking. She moaned deep in her throat as she pushed down on him, felt her muscles clench, felt herself climb closer, closer.

  She ended the kiss with another soft bite of his lower lip, feeling almost drunk with power when she saw how dark his eyes had gotten, his lids hooded, his peach-smeared lips puffy from her kisses. “I’ll warn you,” she told him with a sly grin, too cheeky for her own good and not giving a damn. “Starting with me might ruin you for all those other tall, equestrian women out there.”

  Without warning, he hooked her ankle, rolled her over, and managed to snap the thin strap holding her panties together, all in one smooth move. He pushed between her legs, lowered that mouth to hers, and whispered, “Oh, sweetheart, you already have,” right before he drove inside her.

  She screamed. And it wasn’t in pain. Before he could withdraw, she hooked her ankles behind him.

  He slid one arm beneath the small of her back, angled her hips up and pushed deeper. One thrust. Then another. He growled. She climbed right to the edge. He climbed with her.

  “Darby,” he said, his voice a hoarse demand.

  She opened her eyes, not quite aware of when she’d squeezed them shut. His expression, so atypically fierce
and intent, instantly changed as he smiled, all dancing eyes and charming rogue. And yet something of that ferocity remained. She was sure it was the pending orgasm talking. And yet she couldn’t look away, even if it meant losing hold on that elusive edge. “Yeah?” she managed, muscles clenching around the length of him. Damn, but he filled her up tight.

  His smile grew to a grin. “Let me ruin you, too.”

  Now it was her turn to smile, even as she arched into him and pulled him in that sweet, impossible fraction deeper. “You already have.” And she climaxed so hard it was like the Fourth of July and Christmas morning, all rolled into one.

  Like waves, the sensations rolled over her and kept rolling. She was gasping, her eyes welling at the intensity of . . . all of it. She struggled to swim up from the depths of the pleasure still pulsing through her. She finally managed to blink her eyes open, only to find Shane watching her with something like awe.

  “What?” she said, knowing she should feel self-conscious, but it was simply beyond her to care at the moment. “Did I scream too loud?”

  He just shook his head. Slowly. As he continued to stare.

  And then he moved, just a little, and she realized he was still hard inside of her when a little forgotten firework shot off. She was so sensitized, that if he so much as breathed, she was going to come again. Could a person die from overstimulation?

  He twitched again, though it was obvious he was doing his best to stay extremely still. She gasped at the little shock waves of pleasure, and decided that everyone had to die sometime. At least she’d go with a look of delirious pleasure plastered all over her face. And really, you couldn’t ask for much more than that.

  “You’re stunning,” he said quite seriously. “Do you have any idea what you look like when you come?”

  She laughed, then moaned as even that simple motion shot off another little rocket. “I generally don’t look in the mirror while I come, so, no, I can’t say that I have,” she said, realizing how hard he was fighting to keep his control. “But I’d enjoy seeing what you look like.” She shifted, willing to sacrifice death by extended multiple climax, if it meant giving him even a modicum of the same pleasure. She was selfless like that.

  But he clamped down on her with his thighs. “Don’t. Not yet.”

  “Is this some sort of test? Or a control thing?”

  He shook his head, his gaze still unwavering. “I just don’t want this specific moment to end.”

  And just like that, her heart swelled up.

  “No one has ever—” He shook his head, smiled a little, despite how tightly clamped his jaw was. He lifted a hand, stroked her face, then leaned down to give her the sweetest, most gentle kiss she’d ever received.

  Coming on the heels of such a rocking climax, it jumbled everything inside of her and she couldn’t control her reaction. Tears sprang to her eyes when he lifted his head. Tender, so tender was all she could think. And yet his body was so taut, so hard, so demanding inside her. How was a person supposed to defend her heart against something like that?

  And then he grinned. “Yep. Ruined for life. Hold on.”

  She was still absorbing that revelation as he drove inside her. And when he came two thrusts later, he did shout.

  Darby had no idea how much time passed after that. She’d either drifted off or passed out; she wasn’t quite sure. Not that it really mattered. She was still smiling when she began to regain consciousness. Shane had rolled off of her and she was half-sprawled across his chest. His heart thrummed beneath her ear in a steady thumpa, thumpa. She didn’t open her eyes.

  I just don’t want this specific moment to end.

  His words echoed through her mind, and all she could think was, Amen.

  It took a few more moments and another level or two of consciousness to realize the thumpa, thumpa wasn’t his heartbeat, but someone knocking on the door to the hallway, out in the sitting room.

  “Master Morgan? Are you in residence, sir?”

  Shane lifted his head as Darby pulled away from him. “Where are you going?” he said drowsily.

  “You’re being summoned.”

  The short rapping came again. “Master Morgan?”

  Darby grinned. “Master Morgan,” she said, mimicking the oh-so-polite tone. “I’m betting you love that.”

  She barely muffled her squeal as he suddenly yanked her across his body, then rolled them both right to the edge of the bed. “When you say it, I do.”

  She rolled her eyes, even as their bodies started to slide off the bed to the floor, in a heap of fine linen. “In your dreams.”

  He managed to shift so that he hit the floor first, tangling them both hopelessly in the sheet. “I’m thinking reality is much more fun.”

  She started to squirm. “Well, reality is about to get really embarrassing if we don’t get up and get dressed.” Where in the hell were her clothes, anyway? She freed one hand so she could shove her hair out of her eyes. It was as hopelessly tangled as the sheet. For all she knew, her clothes were all wrapped up right along with them.

  “We can hide,” Shane suggested. “Pretend we’re not here.”

  “You forget, you’re hosting this shindig. People might notice your absence. In fact, there’s someone out there who’s probably noticing mine right about now.”

  “Oh, yeah. Him.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, not wanting to think about Stefan at the moment, either. “And the other hundred guests.”

  “I don’t care about them. They’re not going home with you.”

  Darby tucked her hair behind her ear and studied him. Was he teasing . . . or could he seriously be a bit jealous? A man who could pretty much walk across the lawn and set up an hourly schedule with available women if he so desired. “He’s not going home with me,” she reminded him. “We’re staying here for the weekend, remember?”

  The rapping on the door had ceased, or maybe they simply were too caught up in one another to hear it. Shane pulled her head down to his. “Why don’t you stay right here for the weekend?” He kept her from replying by keeping her mouth busy with his own.

  When the kiss ended, she knew the sensible thing to do, the only thing to do, considering the reason she was here in the first place, was to toss out some smart-ass reply that would make him laugh, then wiggle free of his clutches before he could talk her into doing something else she had no business doing. Instead, she sighed in contentment and let her cheek drop to his chest. “Don’t tempt me.”

  And they both knew it was far too late for that.

  His hands slid under the sheet, and down her back. She’d expected him to keep going until he cupped her backside, do something obvious and try and seduce her. It might have even worked.

  Instead he wrapped his arms around her, nudged at her chin with his nose until she looked at him. “Stay.”

  One word. But so sincerely spoken, no trace of cocky savoir faire, not a hint of arrogant self-assurance, that it undid her before she could throw up any defenses.

  She kissed him, hoping it conveyed what she couldn’t say. That she’d give anything to shut the world out and just stay and play with him, until they didn’t want to play anymore. “I wish I could,” she said against the curve of his shoulder, when the kiss finally ended.

  The silence spun out a beat too long. Making her wonder if he was contemplating asking her to stay once the party and her obligation to her father and sister were over. She wondered what she’d say if he did. Suddenly Montana felt very, very far away. And it wasn’t such a bad thing.

  Then the rapping returned, only this time it was on a door somewhere behind her. The bedroom must connect to the hallway as well.

  How mortifying.

  “Give me a minute,” Shane called out, but didn’t break their gaze.

  Darby thought she’d need a whole lot more than a moment to get her act together. A week might do it.

  “I’ll go into the other room,” he told her. “You can get dressed in here while I see what
crisis only I can avert—which, when you think about the fact that I usually am the crisis, is pretty amusing,” he added, his trademark grin surfacing again.

  She grasped almost desperately at the thread he’d dangled. A path back to their easy banter, their casual acceptance of the blistering chemistry between them. Only now that they’d acted on that chemistry, she wasn’t so sure she could pretend like nothing earth-shattering had happened. Before she could make the foolish mistake of wondering if he was thinking the same thing, she gathered the sheet around her and clambered off of him. “Sorry,” she said when he sucked in his breath. “Equestrian training doesn’t exactly equal grace and charm, I’m afraid.”

  He snaked a hand out and snagged the tail end of the sheet just as she managed to stand. One tug and she was instantly naked.

  “I’m having no problems with your charms,” he said, still sprawled on the floor, dark and muscular against the snowy linen.

  Before she could give in to the urge to simply leap back on top of him, she gave him her very best over-the-shoulder-hair-toss, ignoring the fact that the snarled mess didn’t exactly do the motion justice, sent him a saucy wink, then made herself walk away, every inch the studied, perfectly modulated Glass Slipper alumna. She only hoped the door through which she was making her grand exit led to a bathroom and not a closet . . . or worse, the hallway.

  When she reached the door and flung it open with flair, giving thanks when she saw spotless, gleaming white tile, Shane clapped. Stifling the urge to laugh, she turned and executed a curtsy that would make the queen proud, and shot him a grin before closing the door between them.

  “Oh, Darmilla Beatrice,” she whispered as she leaned weakly back against it, knees suddenly shaky. “What have you gone and done?” Shane was entirely too good at . . . well, everything. She wasn’t herself around him. Or maybe, just maybe, she was exactly herself. Not Darmilla, society-born daughter of Paul Landon III. Not Darby, escaped heiress turned ranch owner. Just . . . herself. She rolled her head and caught sight of herself in the full-length cheval mirror, positioned just inside the door. Her hair was wild from his hands, her skin was flushed from the heat of his body on hers . . . in hers.