The Sleeping Beauty’s Tale

Grace D’Otare

If you think you know the story of Sleeping Beauty, you’ve never heard Maeve and Devlin’s version….

Hale didn’t realize that his wife, Polly, burned with the same passionate cravings he felt…until he sees her aroused by feverish, erotic dreams while locked in an endless sleep. Now he’s even more determined to save Polly and get a second chance to discover her unspoken desires. Will a magical hot spring cure her…or is making her sensual dreams reality the key to awakening this sleeping beauty?

Contents

Begin Reading

“Still sleeping,” Maeve mumbled.

Devlin said nothing. She felt his hum, basso profundo, in the acoustic curve of her neck. It reverberated all the way to her feet.

She kicked at the cloud of comforter surrounding them. “Tickle.”

Devlin exhaled audibly.

“That, too!” Maeve cocked her shoulders toward her ears for protection.

The flat of his hand crept around her ribs. He pulled her against his body, skin-to-skin, ten degrees warmer and the rock-solid opposite of the pillows, mattress and covers cocooning them against the winter morning. Not exactly what she’d call spooning, though. Dev was too angular. The man was more of a fork. Or knife.

“One more hour, Dev.” She slit one eye open to confirm her suspicions. “Not even morning, you madman.”

He didn’t reply. Didn’t move. Didn’t soothe or sigh.

He just held on.

That’s what roused her.

Nightmare. He got them now and then. Vivid, bloody awful things. Unconscious musings on worst-case scenarios portrayed across his mind’s eye in full sensory detail. Sight. Sound. Smell. Every negative possibility his conscious mind would never tolerate. He’d described bits of them to her occasionally after spiking awake, wide-eyed, skin flushed to a deep red and more than usually ready for action.

Forget flight. Fight or fuck—that was Devlin’s autonomic response.

Despite their complementary position, he’d cocked his hips away from her. The space created a draft across her bottom. He was holding back. The dream had left him too raw to close that final inch.

She snuggled backward, connecting them.

“Christ,” he hissed. “Your ass is like ice.”

“Helps bring down swelling.”

He huffed a sound of relief as he pushed against her, pillowing the thick heat of his cock against the cool of her cheeks. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”

“How odd.” Maeve didn’t wait long before prompting, “Dev?”

“Shhh.”

“Tell me about it?”

He didn’t answer. Against her back, Maeve could feel the rise and fall of his chest. His breath lulled her like waves against the sand.

Time settled around them, soft as their bed.

“I’ve a story I could tell.” His voice ran rough over words. He sounded like he’d been shouting. “That do?”

The cold skimming her skin’s surface settled in her veins.

She gave his hand a squeeze to distract from her shudder.

“Lovely.”

The well water ran to icy. Enough to make a man shudder before it even touched a body. Hale stripped off his shirt and dumped a fresh bucketful over his head.

He’d crammed half a week’s chores into one infernally long day. Every muscle ached. He’d cleaned stables. Repaired fencing. Stacked wood.

So much to do. He’d been too long away.

His breath steamed the air as he scrubbed with the soap cake and rag that Polly had installed by the pump for these occasions. He was in the peak of health. Strong. Capable.

Helpless.

He rinsed with another half bucket of icy water. Slicked the hair off his face. Hale could smell the hot supper the old woman must have organized.

Hard work. A pump bath. A good meal. A soft bed to lie down with his wife.

A week ago, he’d have counted himself a wealthy man, a lucky man.

“That you, sir?” But tonight, it wasn’t his wife calling him in for supper. “Mr. Hale?”

“I’m coming,” he answered.

His stomach clenched as he passed the kitchen hearth. There was a soup simmering and the faint aroma of yeasted bread, cooling on the sideboard. The comfort of it, the normalcy, made him want to rush back outside into the night.

“We’re back here, Mr. Hale, in the bedroom.”

It wasn’t the dark and dreary scene he’d expected. There was firewood on the hearth. The bedclothes had been changed and smoothed. The floor was swept. A posy of autumn leaves and berries were stuffed in a cup. Nan, the only surgeon within a week’s ride, sat in his wife’s rocking chair, hands busy with a needle and thread.

“No one heals in a muddle,” she explained, then nodded at the bedside table. “Look on the tray there. Took me nearly an hour to remove it all.”

The monster was large enough Hale could pinch it between two fingers—a thorn, two inches long and black as pitch.

“Wicked thing, to be sure,” the woman said.

“She looks…better.”

His wife lay on the bed, lightly tucked beneath the quilt. Eyes closed. No sign of pain in her expression.

Polly.

She might have been merely sleeping.

Her dark hair was loosely braided, a hair ribbon tied around the end. Her shift was clean, the fine linen one she rarely wore. Too much fuss, his practical wife would say. I can’t pop ’round to the barn for French laundry soap, you know.

In the candlelight, her skin was milky white, her cheeks faintly pink. Her chapped lips had been treated with ointment. Hale saw the pot on the nightstand. A blend of beeswax and sweet butter, he guessed. It smelled like lemon balm. Her mouth glistened, plump and soft, as if she’d been kissed. As if she’d been kissing him.

Hale settled on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb her. One of her hands lay tucked beneath the bedcovers. He lifted the other to his mouth. Her palm was cool and he pressed it to his cheek, instinctively. Warming Polly was one of his regular duties.

What would he do without her?

Beneath the quilted counterpane, Polly’s other hand began to move restlessly, rounding over her hip, then sliding up across the flat plane of her stomach, her ribs, until it came to rest over her heart. Her lips parted and she inhaled a tiny sigh.

“Polly? Are you hurting?”

Her fingers began to move beneath the blanket. At first, Hale thought she sought to ease an itch, but her steady motion was too deliberate. His mouth went dry, as he watched her thumb the soft weight of her breast. She turned her head toward the pillow, toward the breast being teased by her own hand. The temperature of his skin rose as his body readied to assist.

“The fever makes her restless,” Nan commented.

“I see that.”

Under the bedclothes, Polly’s hand began to travel again. Her chin tilted, exposing the smooth skin of her neck above the flounce of her nightgown. He wanted to press his lips there. He wanted to feel the curling of her spine under his hands when he warmed her throat with his mouth.

When she’d reached as far down the center of her body as she could, Hale felt the fluttering shift of her fingers beneath the blanket.

Understanding put every ounce of his blood in motion.

His wife was aroused. With old Mrs. Nan sitting across the room.

Her breath ruffled in the wake of her body’s rhythm. “Hale.”

Was it better, or worse, knowing his wife dreamt of him? Wanted him. Here. Now. When there was nothing he could do but pretend otherwise.

He adjusted his seat. Sliding closer to her body, he shielded his wife’s busy hand from view, while making room for the spreading length and girth of his own sudden congestion. Thank the Lord the light was dim, and the old woman’s eyes weren’t what they used to be. A man had his limits.

“She’s touching herself?” Maeve clarified curiously. “With the old nurse in the room?”

“Delirious with fever. Can’t help herself.”

“Ahh. He must be quite an amazing lover.”

“And if you’d let me finish the story—”

“I beg your pardon,” she said, rocking her own hips rather sweetly. “Please?”

“Please,” his Polly called softly.

Hale felt himself fully harden so fast his back teeth ached. He cupped her palm to his lips, inhaled the scent of her skin. That kiss led to a touch of his tongue, which led to a nip of his teeth. Biting the plump curve at the base of her thumb made her fingertips dance against his cheek.

This wasn’t how their reunion should be. He’d been gone nearly a month, trading, checking traps. He’d returned to find her asleep in the middle of the day, feverish. The only outward sign of illness had been a tender redness on the sole of her foot. He’d ridden for Nan that afternoon.

The abstinence created by their time apart always snarled him. Made him surly. And strangely tired, as if life wore him down more easily. He’d decided that Polly was a nourishment. Her company, of course, but also her skin, the sweep of her hair, her buried heat. When he hadn’t wet his mouth with hers, used her until they both dripped with exhaustion, when he hadn’t disappeared into the soft darkness of their bed, of her body, he simply wasn’t himself.

She knew it, too. She was always waiting when he returned. Always welcoming.

Still, he never knew she burned the same. His cock throbbed to the beat of his heart. She touched herself and called for him. He must have nourished something in her, as well.

Hale had to clear his throat to form the words. “Has she taken any broth?”

“Not since morning.”

Polly’s head twisted against the pillow, disturbing the blankets that covered her. The sheer white cloth of her gown revealed the shadowed curves of her breasts. The darker rose of her nipples had tightened to stiffness. The keen memory of that little pebble against his tongue sent a rush of liquid to his mouth.

“Hale?” his wife whispered.

“I’m here. Can you hear me, Poll? Open your eyes.”

“I don’t think she can, dear. It’s fever talking now.”

Hale touched the back of his hand to her forehead and then, her cheek. “She’s so…hot.”

“Poison’s spread.” The squeak of the rocking chair stopped. “Be a while before we know.”

“Know?”

Impossible. He wouldn’t hear it.

“No! What else can we do? Anything. Everything. Tell me.”

“We’re an ocean and some odd miles from the nearest Papist miracle well, Mr. Hale. Short of that, you need to prepare yourself.”

He would need more than a miracle well to survive without Polly. From that thought, an idea bubbled. A miracle well.

“The spring.”

Nan shook her sad slowly. “If the poison takes her, she won’t last the week, much less until the—”

“The hot spring. Up north of the lake. Where the Abenaki take their sick.”

The woman’s embroidery hoop clacked against the pine floor. “You’re not serious.”

“Can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.” He stood, already ordering his mind to what they would need. “It’s a hot spring. I’ve seen it heal men with wounds far worse.”

“She’s weak to be moving.” The woman’s index finger tapped restlessly against the rocker’s arm, marking time on her objections.

“I’ll take the small cart. She can lie flat. We’ll be there before the moon fully rises.”

“You’ll have to submerge the whole leg, the longer the better. And keep her warm.”

“I can do that.”

“It may not help. You understand?”

Hale refused to speak to that thought. “I’m going to rig the cart and make a palette.”

The night was clear and cold. Hale forced their passage along a path meant to be traveled on foot. The cart shuddered over rocks and squeaked as it squeezed between trees.

Polly never made a sound.

Her silence drove him faster. And gave him time to think. He relived each moment at her bedside a hundred times, inhaling icy air, exhaling heat.

What pleasure haunted her dreams? Was it a memory? A type of touch? Or was it some unspoken secret? Something she’d hidden, the way she’d masked her need for him after their separations.

They had always pleased each other. Shared satisfactions. Hers. His. And back again. He thought he knew everything about his pretty Polly. Exactly what she liked—when and how he liked it.

She must heal. She couldn’t leave him now, this way.

Lonely. Wondering…

The moon was high in the sky when they arrived at the entrance to the hot spring.

The side of the mountain appeared to have split under its own weight. Shifting rock created an opening, a slice of darkness that triangled deep into the hillside.

Striking a flint, Hale entered the cave.

The entrance was narrow. He had to crouch to enter. The low ceiling trapped the damp air off the spring, but farther inside, the rock angled high to reveal a sheltered pond. Fresh, warm air circulated.

Hale dropped his haversack in relief. He could make her comfortable, make her heal here.

Two holes had been hammered through the ceiling, one of them large enough to allow a glimmer of moonlit sky. Under the smaller hole, a fire had been laid with a tightly wrapped bundle of leaves for kindling. Sage, he recognized by the scent, sumac by the tasseled berry, both native healing herbs. The last to come had laid the fire for the next.

He would do the same when he took his Polly home. Well and whole.

He lit the fire and the walls of the cavern glittered to life. Mineral deposits from the moist, warm air had salted the walls with crystal nuggets. Light danced between the shiny surfaces. Where the water lapped the stone, the rock gleamed.

She would think it beautiful when she woke.

Look at that. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?

No.

You’re not looking at the sunset, Hale.

No.

You’re looking at me.

Yes.

Gently as he could, he lifted Polly from the flat of the cart, still wrapped in her pallet of blankets. Her head lolled into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Her hair caught on the rough edge of his jaw, tugging his skin. There’d been no time to shave.

He ducked through the opening and carried her into the cave of the hot spring.

“You squeaked the last time I carried you over a threshold.”

Hale laid his wife on the level rock beside the fire.

“Do you remember that day?” he continued.

He unwrapped the blankets, layer by layer.

“My palms were sweating in the church. I was embarrassed to take your hand.”

The sleeves of her nightgown were cuffed in knotted bows. It took a full minute to undo each one.

“Your dress had petals stuck to it. After we rode in the carriage? I don’t think I ever told you.” Hale glanced at her and smiled. “All across the seat. Red flower petals. I could not stop looking at them. It occurred to me, that I could just reach out and brush them away. You were my wife. I was allowed to touch my wife’s bottom.”

With careful fingers, he tugged loose the string that closed the neck on her shift.

“More than allowed…I was expected to touch my wife’s bottom. After we’d finished choking down our breakfast and cake and coffee fortified with a little Dutch courage, I would most certainly be touching my new wife’s bottom.

“It was a very distracting thought.” Hale raised the hem of her nightgown, easing it beneath her hips one side at a time. He paused to admire the creamy curves of thigh turning to hip and the shadows that made every shape more interesting. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

Hale? Are you coming?

What? No!

No? But…Hale, darling? Are you…blushing?

Gown off, Polly curled onto her side. Hale thought she looked like a wood nymph. A creature capable of magic. Bewitching. It might not be safe even to watch her sleep. He could be risking…

Her lips parted for a sigh.

“I’m here, pretty Polly.”

He stood and shucked his jacket, boots, shirt and, finally, pants.

He knelt beside her. Traced her boundary with his hand—throat, shoulder, breast, waist. Her skin pebbled with awareness. He felt the change of texture beneath his fingers.

“Is this the touch you dreamed of?”

He cupped her bottom in his palm, soothing that ripple of arousal, then squeezing hard. She pushed back into his hand. He loved the tension of her taut, muscled flesh. Somehow, he could never quite hold on tight enough.

Hale, is this customary?

Customary?

Well..normal?

I’ve no idea. Shall we survey the congregation after Sunday meeting?

Perhaps…not. Mmmmm, again?

Again would be—

Customary?

Exceptional.

He stepped back. Tested the water, stepped into the pond. It was warmer than he expected and slippery with natural salts. He eased his body off the ledge, plunging into water above his hips. Normally, a bath would cool his blood, lessen the pulsing awareness of his eager cock. The pond did the opposite. Soaking in hot, slick liquid made him burn. He felt thick, longer, as if that lusting root inside had spiraled down the back of his thighs to the bottoms of his feet. As if his entire body recognized the pond as a welcoming woman. He could not stop himself from clenching the cheeks of his ass, rocking forward until he stood poised on the balls of his feet.

But there was nothing, nothing to counter the pressure building under his skin, only a gentle, buoyant support.

Polly needed the water. Polly needed to heal.

Grabbing the hem of the blankets where she lay, he dragged her to him.

Her body glided over the flat rock, as smoothly as if she rested upon a flying carpet. Safe at the pond’s rim, he took her wounded foot in hand and kissed the red star-shaped mark where the thorn had punctured her sole.

“There you are.”

He lowered her foot in the water, then eased her other leg into the warmth.

“Let the spring work its magic.”

Polly moaned.

Perhaps the angle of her bent knees felt uncomfortable? If she were closer to the edge, her legs could stretch out in the water.

Hale slid his one hand up the back of her thigh, his fingertips tingling with the urge to explore the creases where thigh turned to cheek and cheeks came together.

He pulled her deeper into the water. Supported by his hands, her legs floated just below the surface.

Polly licked her lips.

Hale watched, fascinated. In all the months that they’d been married, he couldn’t think of a time when he’d had the opportunity to allow his gaze to luxuriate in her nude body. He’d watched her in sleep, always wrapped in blankets or nightclothes. He’d seen flashes of her, of course. But they’d both been in motion, her reaching for him, him reaching for her. Her eyes open and knowing.

Here, he could study every part of her, slowly—the dimples, the freckles, the endless stretch of creamy skin, the curl of hair at the crutch. She didn’t squirm. Cover herself. Never turned away.

He absorbed the vision she made, admired the undulating length of her. Let each moment, each image, drip into his memory until he was full to brimming with her portrait.

“Look at you. Why haven’t I ever looked at you like this? What a foolish husband you have. In the future, I will insist on nakedness while you sweep the floor at night.” Hale smiled at the thought. “Or on baking day, while you knead the bread. Leaning over the kitchen table. That would be something to see. Even better, climbing the ladder to fetch sugar from the attic. Five steps up and five steps down. The variety of perspectives. Of course, you’ll have to get used to the sight of your husband’s cock at full mast. Because the sight of you—”

Polly’s hands began to clench the blanket. She tipped her chin toward him. The plane of her belly hollowed. Her body was reacting to his words.

He could arouse her with words?

Another thing he never knew about his wife.

Hale pulled her toward him. They touched, hip-to-thigh, in the pool. Her center of gravity dropped and water swirled up to the bottom edges of her breasts. She arched her back as if she were yearning for his touch.

His penis jumped at the thought, hardening another notch toward readiness. Hale could imagine exactly how it would feel to stand and embrace her, marrying the softness of her stomach to the stiffness of his prick. He knew exactly how he’d fit against her, from balls to crown, the hollow of her navel teasing friction from his tip.

If he stepped between her legs, thrust hard, once, twice, the way he had a hundred, a thousand times before, the tension would end. He had a premonition, there were things he would lose. Things he would never see, if he rushed ahead now.

“Polly, do you remember the first time we lay together outside? The sun was shining.”

Take off your clothes, sweet.

Ha. You take off yours…Hale? You aren’t really—

Why not? There’s no one for miles.

What if someone comes?

There. Your turn.

I don’t think so!

Do it, Poll. One button. That’s it.

Turn around. Turn around, and I’ll do the rest.

All right. There…Are you done?

No.

Now?

No!

Polly? What…Come back here, you naughty girl! When I get my hands on you…

His hands wouldn’t stop. He tightened his hold, kneading the muscles of her bottom, supporting the center of her body as she floated on the water.

“I wanted to look at you that day. I wanted to see you in the sunlight, every inch of you. Not that I didn’t enjoy chasing you.” He kissed the top of her ear. “And catching you.”

Hale needed only one hand to support her lower body as it drifted in the bubbling undercurrent of the pond. With his free hand, he drew loops and orbits across her damp skin, circling her breasts until the nipples tightened. The riding callus on his thumb left a faint red trail where it abraded her skin. Deliberately, he flicked it back and forth over the peaks.

Polly inhaled sharply. Her arms appeared relaxed at her side but she shifted restlessly.

“You like that, don’t you?”

One breast, then the other, he stroked and teased her with his fingers. He paused to observe her reactions—the flush of her skin, the hitch in her breath, the fluttering of her eyelids.

Her mouth seemed rosier, darker in color. He loved the change of color. It meant her lips would feel warmer, fuller. It made him want to kiss her. And it made him think of the deeper red, even warmer lips that waited for him. He’d always thought his kisses ripened her mouth to that shade. Perhaps there was more to it? Perhaps her own desire was the secret.

Leaning over, he brushed the bud of one breast with lips and chin, then filled his mouth with as much of her as he could. The sound of her moan flashed like liquid lightning through his blood.

Indulgence consumed him. He switched sides, devoured her other breast, still hungry for more. Hungry to return the favor. To feed her. Fill her. Her mouth, her cunt. He needed to reach down between her legs and stuff his fingers in the soft, wet swell….

Water swirled around his hand.

Hale realized, with a blurry shake of his head, Polly wasn’t moaning anymore.

He lifted his head. She looked as though she were waiting. He turned back to her right breast and tasted her again.

Her gasp rang like a bell of welcome.

Curiosity changed his focus. “I’ll be damned. Matched set, but they don’t feel the same inside, do they?” He licked her right side. She rose to meet his tongue. “You like this one better.”

That was a boost to the appetite! Knowing what she liked made him all the more eager to give it. Sheltering her left breast in his palm, he made a feast of its sensitive twin. He sucked hard enough to see the bloom of red beneath the skin, then licked the pain away. He nipped a mouthful of flesh, enjoying the resistance under his teeth, and then nuzzled with his chin. He tested every sensation he could devise, studying her response.

She gasped, twisted in his grasp, flexed her feet until she was long and taut as the rein on a panicking horse. Then he stroked her throat, between her breasts, down to the sharp jut of hipbone just beneath the water’s surface.

“Shhh. That’s it. Easy, sweet. There’s no hurry. No hurry at all.” He cooed until she settled into edgy readiness.

Polly was a delicious mystery he’d hardly begun to unravel.

“What other secrets do you have inside, my pretty Polly?” He let his hand settle over the curls between her legs. “I want to know them all. I want to see everything. Will you show me?”

Her legs parted. In response to his hand or his question, Hale could not say. But he was glad all the same.

“Beautiful.”

He cupped her flesh, the same way he sometimes touched himself—for comfort or to resettle the mechanics of his position. With the heel of his hand firmly against her pelvis bone, he wiggled his middle finger to tease a path in. One, two, three fingers slid between and then curled inside.

She was wet everywhere.

Why did that make it so hard to think? For a moment all he could do was inhale, sliding his fingers, in, in, in.

Polly began to move with him. Bumping her pelvis against his hand, pressing harder, making waves that sloshed above his elbow. He stopped thrusting and began to coddle the hidden folds over bone.

“Open up, Polly. Look at me.”

Hale kissed her closed eyes and wondered if he were nothing but a dream to her. He felt a creeping desperation, as if time were running out.

He stepped between her legs and knelt on the shelf of smooth rock.

“This is what I want to see, Polly. See and kiss and taste.”

He raised her bottom with his hands and backed her against the edge of the pool. Fully supported, her legs floated easily over his shoulders, resting lightly.

“This is a view a man should have more often.”

He spread the folds of skin, combing back her hair with his fingers. She was more colors than he imagined, pink as her tongue when she licked her lips and the same deep red as his stiffened cock. Like calling to like.

Staring into her, he took a backhand grip around his shaft and pulled, fingers bumping over the ridge, rough following smooth. Barely a start on all he wanted, but enough to inspire another surge of girth.

“Look what you do to me, Poll. Open your eyes, sweet.”

She did not.

Hale looked down at her instead. He let his fingers play over the tiny silk swelling that she rubbed for her pleasure. His thigh, his palm, his cock had all been put to good use here at one time or another. Rubbing lightly with his fingertip, he felt the bead inside begin to bloom.

“Shall I kiss it? Will you open your eyes for me if I kiss you there?”

He nuzzled, pushing against her with his nose, his chin, his cheekbone. Turning his face, he scraped his whiskered cheek across the white insides of her thighs. The strap of tendon jumped, her skin blushed. He did it again, on the other side, and smiled as she twitched.

She was a feast. Sweet skin. Salty wet. Spicy musk. And that twitch, the power he had to make her jump—that was meat. Satisfying. Filling. A nourishment he could not survive without.

Leaning closer, he licked her. Carefully. Learning her. He curled his tongue in a come-hither hook, then soft and wide, then he flicked her with the stiffened tip. Her skin seemed softer than the inside of her mouth. Tender. Smooth as butter, melting under his tongue. He kept his hands on her, resting one beneath the cheeks of her ass, the other brushing lightly across her stomach. He noticed every ripple of nerve, every flex of muscle.

Nothing existed but her tension, feeling it climb, drinking it down. Her legs stiffened. She pushed her thighs down on his shoulders arching into his mouth, against his lips. Under his tongue, he felt the flutter of that second heartbeat, throbbing, right there. There. There.

Her legs slid off his shoulders into the water.

Hale raised his head. “What?”

“Hale,” she whispered again. She was smiling.

“Yes, Poll? Did that help? How do you feel?”

The curve of her mouth was his only answer.

More. She needed more.

He did, too. He scooped her off the blanket and lowered her into the pool. Wading deeper gave them buoyancy. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she tucked her face into his shoulder. She seemed boneless, weightless, as if she were floating away from him.

There was no friction between their bodies, no resistance. Slippery warm water cushioned each brush of their bodies. Polly wrapped her legs around his waist. Hale swayed from foot to foot, moving the water, stroked by the resultant current. His fingers searched for the end of her spine.

There. There it was.

She slid down over him.

They fit. The same as every other time. Different from every other time.

She was hotter than the water. She was the pressure he’d been craving. She was so wet everywhere, there was no resistance. Only welcome. Her tight grip spurred relief so intense it bowed his spine. His hands flexed instinctively. He felt her bones beneath the skin, beneath the muscle. He felt the rest as well, the heartbeat that connected him to the world.

“Polly…” He tethered her with his body—cock, arms, hands.

He couldn’t feel her, separate from him, without moving. He lifted, rocked. She curled, dropped.

“Do you…feel that?”

The water moved with them, rippling and tugging, touching everything, connecting their bodies, connecting their movements. In her. In the water. In the world.

In. In. In.

It flashed through him, another kind of wave, drowning his senses. The pulses ran together in one long plateau of feeling so good it hurt. He opened his mouth but couldn’t scream. Polly’s fingers were tight in his hair. Her mouth near his ear. He didn’t want that to change.

He didn’t want it to ever change.

She bent back sharply, following him across the threshold. Warm water rushed between them, covering his chest. His tongue may have felt her pulses more strongly, but his cock magnified every tremor until his entire body shivered from it.

He gathered her to him. They floated in a cave outside of time.

Exhaustion followed the calm.

Together, they drifted to the edge of the pool. Hale carried her out. He lay down beside his wife on their palette of blankets and closed his eyes. When he finally woke, he didn’t know if it was day or night. The fire was a shrouded glow.

He was cold.

Polly would be cold.

He sat up, looking for clothes and wood to throw on the fire.

He turned to check on Polly. Her eyes were closed.

Hale knew immediately, she wasn’t sleeping.

She was gone, and he would never be warm again….

“What? No!” Maeve turned her face into her pillow to wipe her eyes on the bedsheet. There was no hiding the sniff. “You can’t be serious.”

“Yes. She died. ‘The end.’” He kissed the back of her neck and resettled a heavy hand across her body, as if he were as calm and satisfied as any dreamer. But Maeve felt his heart pounding so hard it echoed in the space between her clavicles.

Fight or fuck. He was ready.

Maybe she could organize a serving of each.

“That’s not how the story ends.”

Devlin threw his thigh over her, locking her tightly to him. He felt larger and hotter than usual. Everywhere. His voice had an edge to it. “What do you mean ‘that’s not how it ends’? It’s my story. I’ll end it as I like.”

She snuggled, resisting the stiffness of his hold on her. “I don’t think you like that ending at all.”

“No?”

“I think you want something else to happen.”

“Such as?”

“See if you can figure it out.” She carried his hand to her face and, using it like a handkerchief, dried the last of the tears on her cheeks. “When I tell you how the story really ends…”

When Hale finally woke, he didn’t know if it was day or night. The fire was a shrouded glow.

But he was warm.

His wife was draped over him, radiating heat.

“There you are,” Polly whispered. “I’ve missed you.” Her eyes were wide open, clear and bright, full of life.

Somewhere in their swim, her braid had unraveled. He pushed her hair back behind her ear to better see her face. “Polly?” He could hardly believe what he was seeing. “How do you feel?”

She smiled. “I feel wonderful.” She glanced around at their cave of wonders. “Where are we? I hope it isn’t far from home. We have to come back. Often.”

He laughed. Before he could sit up, Polly threw herself on top of him in a full chest hug.

“What exactly—” he rushed the rest of the question “—do you remember?”

“Everything you do, I’d imagine.” She appeared to be assessing his rested and ready cock. “If we get in the water, will it happen again?”

“It will happen again. Even if we don’t.” He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could, his chin pressed against the top of her head. Not having to look her in the eyes made the words easier to say. “We have no time to waste, Polly. There will never be enough time for you and me.”

Polly lifted her knee and straddled his body. “I was hoping you’d say that!” She hitched up her hips, notched him at the warm entrance to her body and insisted he come inside. “Shall I show you what I’ve learned about how to wake someone you love?”

“Educate me, my dear.”

Devlin turned away. He put his hands behind his head, elbows bent at sharp angle to force her back from him. “You think that’s how it ends? He fucks her back to life?”

Maeve let the crudity hang in the air a moment. They both knew the reason for it.

“Which story do you want to believe?” she asked, rising to her knees. “The one where fucking doesn’t matter? Or the one where it does?”

With his hands busy in his tough-guy pose, Maeve had unusual access to some of her favorite parts. She tapped her finger in a scold on his chest. “He loved her back to life.” Then, she traced her own loops and orbits down his body. “Fucking is only part of it. A good part. A necessary part. But it’s hardly simple mechanics.”

“I never said it was simple.”

Her cool fingers took hold of him where he felt most neglected. She stroked him, a slow, dragging embrace that let her fingers bump across the sensitive ridge.

“Like this?” she asked, taking her cue from his story.

He closed his eyes, but couldn’t hide the smile. “So you were listening.”

“I listened to everything you said—and everything you didn’t.”

Stroking downward, she uncurled one fingertip between his legs and massaged little spirals where the hidden root of his erection pulled tight. She made a target, a focus, a white-hot glow that drove away all darkness. Devlin groaned. It was even better than the morning sun that had begun to fill the room.

“It was just a dream. I’m not going anywhere, silly devil. Not for a long time. And neither are you.”

She lifted her knee, straddling him. Her hand organized their introduction and she thrust him inside with the full weight of her regard. He gasped.

“Look at me, Dev. Open your eyes…. Yes.”

She leaned down and kissed him. Slowly.

And he lived.

If you liked this story, look for these other Maeve and Devlin stories from Spice Briefs, available now wherever ebooks are sold!

By Grace D’Otare:

The Queen’s Tale

The Pirate’s Tale

The Tale of the Dancing Girl

By Destiny D’Otare:

Knightley’s Tale

Hungry for more? Spice Briefs to suit every taste are available now at www.spicebriefs.com, including these recent titles:

Her Fantasy by Saskia Walker

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Glorious Enslavement by Anya Richards

For something a little longer, visit www.spice-books.com or stop by your local bookstore for stories that will ignite your senses!

Think you’d like to write a Spice Brief? Submissions are always welcome at spicebriefs@harlequin.ca

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7224-2

The Sleeping Beauty’s Tale

Copyright © 2011 by Splendide Mendax, Inc.

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