Sophie Oak: Once Upon a Time in Bliss

“Hello, I’m Pam. This is my daughter Callie.” Pam was a pretty woman in her early fifties, he would guess. She didn’t have the gorgeous girl’s problem with clothes. She’d shed her coat and stood wearing nothing but her boots.

Callie smiled at him, her glasses steaming just a little. She took them off but had nothing to wipe them on because she was also wearing what her momma had given her. “Sorry. There are some drawbacks to the lifestyle, especially this time of year. My glasses rarely fog over in the summertime.”

Bishop tried to keep his eyes on her face. It was increasingly hard with all the boobs and stuff on display.

“I’ve got it.” Gorgeous Girl plucked the glasses from Callie’s hand and quickly wiped them down using the hem of her sweater. She passed them back and looked around the room. “Should I take off my clothes?”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Bishop felt his heart rate accelerate at the very thought. It was a bit alarming. He was ice cold. He didn’t run hot, but she was making him warm all over. He was damn happy he had his clothes on. He was getting a woody right here. It proved just how perverse he was that the erection was for the girl who didn’t have her clothes off.

“Nell, dear, don’t worry about your clothing. We have much bigger things to worry about.” Moira. It was the last name unaccounted for. She looked rather regal in her turtleneck sweater and tailored slacks. She turned to Bill. “Our cabin was broken into. I’m afraid my past has caught up to my daughter and me. I should never have stayed on this plane. I should have kept moving. I can’t remember if time is faster here or slower. I think it’s both sometimes.”

And so the older lady was insane. Good to know. Bill took in all types.

Nell flushed. “Mother, please. Let me handle this. We agreed you would let me handle this. And you’re being perfectly impolite. We haven’t even been introduced to the guest, yet.” She finally turned those big brown eyes on him. She was half a foot shorter than him. Standing over her gave him the oddest feeling of protectiveness. “I apologize for my mother. She’s a bit odd and not very interested in the social niceties. I’m Eleanor Finn, but everyone calls me Nell. I live down in the valley with my mother Moira Finn. It’s so very nice to meet you.”

So polite. She held out her hand. Social niceties. He didn’t have much use for them either, but he was good at them. He took her hand in his, a little spark lighting up his skin. Static electricity. “I’m Professor Henry Flanders.”

Her eyes held his for the barest of moments before she found a place on his chest to stare at. Nice. Submissive. Perhaps not everywhere, but she would be in bed, and that was all he really cared about. Bill might like the whole nude thing, but Bishop had games he liked to play, too. And he really was thinking about playing them with Nell Finn.

Yes, he’d needed a distraction for a few days, and she would do quite nicely.

Nell Finn looked up at the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Destiny . She’d wondered about the word, thought at times that it was a silly thing to believe in, but here he was standing right in front of her.

She’d even felt a spark of lightning when he’d touched her for the first time. All the fairy tales her mother had told her were true. There really was one person out there for her. Of course because her mother was slightly insane, she’d claimed that the one person out there was likely on another plane of existence and trapped by an evil relative, but hey, here he was and she couldn’t quite breathe.

Henry Flanders. It was a perfectly lovely name.

Why couldn’t he have met her at a better time? Maybe destiny was a cruel goddess. Or maybe she could still save this little meeting. Her mother hadn’t talked too much yet. If she could get Henry out of the room, maybe it would take him a few days to figure out her mom was crazy and thought that faeries were real and god, please don’t let her go into her spiel about corporate vampires. Yes, Henry had to leave because she really did have a problem, and Bill was the best person to deal with it.

She turned to Bill, forcing her attention away from Henry’s well-made chest. He was still dressed, and it was likely a good thing. She was well used to the men of Mountain and Valley and their chosen belief system. She would honor it as she honored all people’s philosophical beliefs, but it would have been difficult to not stare at the handsome professor, and staring at a nudist’s privates was really quite rude.

“Bill, could we please schedule a time to talk to you about our security problem?” They could go and have lunch in the cafeteria. Mountain and Valley always had a good vegan choice. She could settle her mother down and then come back this afternoon when Henry was off doing activities or relaxing, and then what? How would she see him again? Her mind went in a hundred different directions. She had no idea how to pursue a man. She’d spent her college years learning how to protest. If Henry was a corporation violating EPA standards, she would totally know what to do with him.

Bill sat back down behind his massive, very important-looking desk. Nell loved the desk but worried a little about just how many trees had died to create it. Still. As long as it was well crafted and not some throwaway furniture, it was the kind of desk that could last several generations, thereby making the loss of the trees worthwhile. Someday she would find a desk like that.

She wondered if Henry had a desk like that.

“Nell, dear, if this is a security problem that has your mom upset, why don’t we talk this out now? I have nothing better to do than help out Pam’s friends,” Bill said.

“It’s okay. I don’t want to bother you when you’re talking to your guest.” The last thing she wanted was for hot Henry to hear her tale of woe. She didn’t have a lot of experience with men. She’d really only had a couple of boyfriends, and they’d all been run off either by her dedication to causes or her mother’s firm belief in a reality that didn’t exist. She was pretty sure that most men also preferred women who weren’t high maintenance. They liked independent women who knew their own minds and solved their own problems.

“It’s not a problem.” Henry stood, offering her his chair. Everyone else had found a place. “Please, sit.”

She didn’t want a seat simply because she was female. “Oh, no. You were here first. I’m perfectly healthy. I can stand.”

His eyes narrowed. “Sit down, Nell.”

She found herself settling into the chair. Something about his voice told her it was better to not argue. Why had she done that? She loved arguing. She was quite good at arguing. She’d taken whole semesters of it. Arguing 101. She’d been given an A+ and told she was the most annoying woman the professor had ever met. In her world, it was a compliment. “If you insist, but you should know that I don’t think women are any different from men, so there’s no need for the whole gentlemanly act.”

“It isn’t an act,” Henry replied. “And we’ll discuss just how different men and women are at a later date.”

He’d whispered the words her way, leaning over the chair she’d just sat down in. She’d been able to feel the warmth of his breath. It shimmered along her skin.

Wow. Nelson Milford, her debate team boyfriend, had never once made her heart pound like that. And what the heck had just happened to her nipples?

“Go on, Moira,” Callie said in an encouraging voice. Callie had been the first friend Nell had made when she’d followed her mother to Bliss after she’d graduated from college. The minute she’d walked into town, she’d known this was her home. “Tell Bill what you told us.”