Here’s a clip from material I won’t be using in Lilyland. Enjoy!

 

And now there was Charlie. He had swept her away to his mountain top palace and treated her like a princess. Maybe there was a pea under her mattress to see if she really was one. It would be next to impossible to not fall in love with him. A guy from Indiana. Not any more. She was pretty sure it wasn’t his job or status or house that she was attracted to. It was the man. His candor with her. The fact that he had said he would call her next week and today was next week and he had called. The way he called her Lily Mayfield, like he had done the first time he had spoken to her at the fund raiser. The way he smiled at her and seemed impressed by her, like she was stooping to spend time with him.

Weightless and free, she twirled around in the water and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” For now, she decided to be just Lily, alive, newly wealthy, thin and living in Scottsdale, if only temporarily. She laughed out loud.

When she got out of the water, she stripped her suit off outside, showered inside and went out again to dry off in the cool air, a towel wrapped lightly around her. She stood straight, enjoying the feel of the breeze in her hair and on her shoulders. Another place she could not believe she was at.

With a start Lily woke up about an hour later, disoriented; not unusual. On the way to the suite’s sitting area, she noticed she had left the left the door to the patio open a bit and went to close it. But stopped when she saw Charlie in the pool. 

His easy strokes propelled his slim body through the water noiselessly, effortlessly. She stood behind the window covering, entranced. After a few minutes he swam to the wall closest to the building, and with an easy, practiced motion, used his arms to lift his body out of the pool and sit on the side for a second, shaking the water out of his hair. When he stood, the low light revealed enough of him to see he was nude. A hand went slowly to her mouth as if to cover the small unconscious smile that appeared. God, he is gorgeous. She had always tried not to make a person’s appearance more important than the person and she was glad she had met him with clothes on first. But still, it would be difficult to not remember seeing him like this the next time she laid eyes on him.

Light bounced off his tight back muscles as they worked. He tossed the towel on a nearby chair and turned toward her door, looking in her direction for several seconds before entering another door. The outside went dark.

The images burned themselves into her mind. She awoke later in the night from a dream that he was making love to her. She twisted and groaned in the bed, disappointed and unsatisfied. Evidently, princesses, even pretend ones, woke up horny from sex dreams. Holy cats. Why did I have to see him like that?