Free More Blazing Bedtime Stories: Once Upon a Mattress by Julie Leto, Leslie Kelly Page A

you’re a time traveler? From the past?”
    His eyes narrowing, he held back an instinctive growl. The woman was a pain in the ass. But damn, how he liked her.
    “Do you want to hear this or not?”
    She waved an expansive hand. “Oh, by all means! I’m truly fascinated, hanging on every word.”
    She couldn’t have sounded more disbelieving if he’d told her he needed her to help calm a raging dragon hungry for a virgin princess. Not that Lucas necessarily believed that legend. He had always suspected the whole thing had been made up by some horny guy trying to get a princess to give it up. And though Penny was indeed a princess, he doubted she satisfied the other requirement.
    That didn’t thrill him, since he considered her his. Yet not being her first didn’t enrage him either. He certainly couldn’tclaim inexperience. Only a hypocrite would blame her for being what she was—a passionate young woman—up until now.
    Only one thing truly mattered. That he would be the last man ever to possess her.
    “Hello? Taking a break to think up the rest of your tall tale?”
    He blew out a harsh, frustrated breath, wondering how this woman had already worked his brain into a knot of confusing thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is that your world and mine co-exist, that they’re simply separated by a few degrees of reality.”
    She snorted. “Yeah, well, I think you’re separated from reality by about a hundred and eighty degrees, my friend.”
    Turning away from her, he grabbed the tequila bottle from the counter. He lifted it to his mouth and drained half of its contents into the back of his throat.
    Not much better than water. But it had given him a second to keep himself from throwing the woman over his shoulder and kidnapping her in order to prove that what he said was true.
    Calmed, he turned to face her again. “Neither Elatyria or Riverdale exist on any map in your world. Those who move back and forth between the lands don’t speak of their travels for fear of being thought mad.”
    She mumbled something under her breath. Seeing his clenching jaw, though, she didn’t repeat herself.
    “But they do exist. Your own father lived at least ten years of his life over there.” Lucas had done research on the family before he’d come here to track her down.
    For the first time, the disbelief was replaced—briefly—by a hint of wonder. “Ten years?” She glanced past him, mumbling something under her breath. “He was missing for ten years….”
    Sensing an opening, he pressed on. “You don’t remember, but you’ve been there, too.”
    “What?”
    “Your father never told you a thing about your childhood? The two of you lived in Riverdale until you were almost three.”
    She plopped onto a chair. “ Lived there? Me and my father?”
    “And your mother, of course. Where do you think they met?”
    She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking about it. Finally, she admitted, “He always said they met at NYU.”
    He tilted his head in confusion.
    “New York Univ—Look, it doesn’t matter. I went there. It wasn’t true. There was no record that either of my parents studied there.”
    “Not surprising. I don’t imagine there are any official documents about your mother in this world at all.”
    Her mouth dropped open in confirmation, but she just as quickly jerked it closed. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
    “It’s one more piece to the puzzle you’ve always wondered about, though, isn’t it?” he asked, his tone reasonable, unthreatening.
    She wasn’t in the mood to be reasoned with. She shook her head, as if shaking off a hint of doubt. “You do know I’m on the verge of calling someone to take you to one of those places with rubber-walled cells, right?”
    For all her protestations, Princess Penelope’s eyes could not lie. They betrayed her. Right now, they swam not with disdain and disbelief, but with wonder. She was considering his story. Opening her mind. Perhaps because