скачать книгу бесплатно
The guest had turned, and now I could see his face. He wasn’t the man I’d been fantasizing about.
As Cindy walked away, I brought my wineglass to my lips and sipped. But the wine didn’t wash away my discontent.
I tried to push the sexy stranger out of my mind as we enjoyed our dinner. Tonight was about getting Robert to agree to my trip with Sharon.
By the end of the meal, two glasses of cognac had had their effect on Robert. His business problems forgotten, he was smiling and laughing and telling me stories about the early days of his company.
It was the perfect time for me to ask him about my trip.
“Darling.” I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “There’s something I want to talk about.”
Robert swirled the dregs of cognac in his glass. “Yes?”
“You know Sharon’s been having a hard time ever since…ever since Warren’s death.”
Sharon was one of the first women I’d met in the neighborhood after marrying Robert. A stunning, dark-skinned beauty, she could have easily passed for a high-fashion model. I’d been pleasantly surprised to find her completely down-to-earth. She was a couple years older than me, and had married Warren the month after their college graduation. Warren had gone on to start an Internet business, which he’d sold for millions and millions before the dot-com bust. He took part of that profit and began a telecommunications company, which was also a huge success.
Like Robert, Warren had been a self-made millionaire. But the difference between Sharon and Warren’s relationship and mine and Robert’s was that they’d met and fallen in love before either of them had any money. And from everything Sharon had told me, Warren always treated her as an equal in their marriage.
“Yes, of course. Such a tragedy.”
That was an understatement. The one thing that had kept them from being one hundred percent content was their inability to have a baby. Sharon had been pregnant six times, but miscarried each one. For a few years she’d gone on the Pill, giving up her dream altogether. Then they’d decided to try again. Six months after going off the Pill, she miraculously got pregnant.
And then she’d lost her husband.
“Understandably, Sharon is feeling glum. Oh, she’s putting on a brave face. She’s been incredibly strong since losing Warren.” I knew she was trying to be extra strong, not wanting anything to cause her to miscarry again. “But she could use a change of scenery. And who could blame her?”
I paused. Swallowed. Asking my husband if I could go away with a friend for a weekend shouldn’t have given me such anxiety, but it did.
“She wants to go away?” Robert asked.
“Just for the weekend,” I quickly said. “Probably drive down to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. You know. To get her out of that big, empty house.”
“And she wants you to go with her,” Robert stated.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This weekend. Tomorrow until Sunday.”
“So you’ve already planned it,” Robert said.
“No.” I tried to sound casual. “Nothing is planned. I told her I would run it by you first, but that as far as I know we have no plans, so hopefully…”
“I think Charleston would be the best option,” Robert said. “I don’t think a pregnant woman has any business at Myrtle Beach. There are too many horny college kids there. It’s not a good scene.”
My anxiety ebbed away. I tried to mask my surprise when I met Robert’s eyes. “So, you don’t mind that I go with her?”
As Robert sipped the last of his cognac, I wondered if it had magical powers. For the price, it certainly should. And in this case, if it had put him in such a good mood that he was offering no objections, it was well worth the money.
“Why would I mind?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ve been bored all week. I’ve been working more than usual. And you’re Sharon’s closest friend here. Of course she would want to go with you.”
I felt a smile break out on my face. “Thank you, Robert. She’ll be very happy.”
“What about the shop?” he asked. “It’s not a busy weekend?”
“Not particularly. Spike can handle all orders, and Tabitha is always asking for more hours. I’m sure between her, Maxine and Olivia, the store will be appropriately staffed.”
“Sounds like it’s all set. You should stay at that wonderful bed-and-breakfast where we went the last time we were there.”
“The Barksdale House Inn. I’ll call them to see if they’ve got room.”
“Very good, then.”
My lips curled in a soft smile as I stared at Robert. This was the man I’d fallen in love with—the kind and considerate man.
My doubts about our marriage seemed to float away.
Robert had his flaws, sure.
But no one was perfect.
Chapter Six
I had always believed that I was not motivated by sex. That for me, an emotional connection was paramount, first and foremost. So I was very surprised to find myself having another hot dream about the stranger from my store later that week.
In the dream, I was sitting at the bar, looked to my right—and suddenly he was there. My body had an immediate reaction to him, as if an electric current were hitting me.
He said no words, just smiled at me, the kind of smile that oozed sensual heat. Then, abruptly, we were no longer in the bar, but in a bedroom somewhere, with only one lamp on.
He was sitting on the large bed. I was standing in front of him.
“Take your clothes off,” he said.
The words aroused me. The thought of undressing for this stranger, of fucking him, excited me beyond anything I had ever known.
So I pulled my dress over my head, revealing my nude body. I stood in front of him for a long while, his hazel eyes feasting on my nakedness and almost burning me with desire.
I’d never stood naked like this in front of a stranger before, and yet I didn’t feel self-conscious. Instead, a delicious rush coursed through my body.
“Touch your pussy,” he said.
I ran the tip of my finger over my clit, something I had never done in front of a man I didn’t know.
“Are you wet?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling an erotic charge at the admission. “Very.”
Slowly, he rose from the bed and came to me. He kissed me, deep and hot, while his hands covered my breasts. As he squeezed the soft mounds, tweaked my nipples, he moaned—a low, hot growl that made me feel a surge of feminine power beyond anything I had ever experienced.
I gripped the edges of his shirt, anxious to see him naked, as well. As his tongue tangled with mine, I pulled his shirt out of his pants and splayed my hands on his abdomen. He was all hard ripples and muscles, with the body of an Adonis.
Tearing his lips from mine, he lowered his head to my breast and drew one of my nipples into his mouth. Prickles of pleasure and pain shot through me. He suckled me hard, hungrily. This was raw, primal. About lust and need with a man whose body spoke to mine in a language all its own.
I arched my back, moaned. Stroked his cock through his pants.
As his tongue worked its wicked magic on my nipples, he cupped my pussy. I melted. Had anyone’s touch ever felt this good?
When his fingers slipped into my layers of flesh, I gripped his shoulders and threw my head back, whimpering from the exquisite pleasure. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
“Yes, baby,” he whispered against my ear, and penetrated my vagina with a finger, pushed it in deep. “I love how your pussy feels.” His digit still inside of me, he went down on his haunches. “Now I want to see how you taste.”
He flicked his thumb over my clit, and then his tongue—and a shudder roared through my body. Then he spread my folds and suckled me with exquisite gentleness until I was coming and screaming.
I woke up to find my hand between my legs, my pussy throbbing and wet. I rode the wave of my orgasm from my dream state to consciousness.
After my pleasure subsided, I was satisfied but perplexed. I had just come while dreaming.
Me—someone who hadn’t had these kinds of arousing fantasies even as a teenager.
Something was changing in me. I was having sexual needs and urges I wasn’t used to.
And I was liking them.
On Friday around ten, Sharon and I left for Charleston. She wanted to drive, and that was fine, so she came by my place and picked me up in her Cadillac Escalade. Robert had once again left for the office early that morning, but before he went, he’d kissed me deeply and told me to have a good time.
I had expected him to be busy with the board, with conference calls to Germany and whatever else he needed to do in order to seal the acquisition deal. So I was surprised when my iPhone trilled before Sharon and I even made it Charleston.
“I had a break, so I thought I’d call,” he explained when I picked up. “I phoned the bed-and-breakfast. They said you hadn’t checked in yet.”
“That’s because we’re just getting into Charleston now.”
“It’s nearly three o’clock,” Robert said.
“We didn’t leave until ten, and there was must have been a wreck on I-77, because we were backed up for a good hour.”
“Oh. So how far are you?”
“Ten minutes from the B and B, I think. Maybe fifteen.”
“Call me when you get settled,” he told me.
But before I could, he called again, just as Sharon and I got to the room.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Just making sure you’ve arrived.”
Or checking up on me? “We’re here.”
“Are you going to go get a bite to eat?”
“A snack, most likely. I already made reservations at Hyman’s.”
“The seafood place. Ah, very nice. For what time?”
“Six-thirty.”
“What’s the weather like?”
“Pretty nice. About seventy-one, right, Sharon?”
“Yeah, that’s what they said on the radio,” she concurred. “I might bring out that bikini yet.”
“What?” Robert asked. “What was that about a bikini?”
“It was a joke,” I told him. “We’re definitely not going swimming.” I paused. “Can I call you back? We just got up to the room, and we want to get settled—”
“No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”
Hanging up, I faced Sharon. “He wanted to make sure we arrived okay.”
She smiled and looked away. But I got the feeling there was an opinion behind the grin.
It might not have been warm enough to swim, but it was warm enough for ice cream—at least as far as Sharon was concerned. So, two hours later, after getting a manicure, we went into an ice cream shop in historic Charleston. I got a cone. Sharon got a hot fudge sundae.
We were walking down the street two minutes later when my phone rang again. I pretty much knew, before looking at the display, that it would be Robert.
I lifted my phone from my purse. Somehow, I refrained from rolling my eyes when I saw his number on the display screen. I didn’t know what had gotten into him.
“Give me a second, Sharon,” I said, stopping. “It’s Robert.”
“Again?” she asked.
I answered my phone. “Hello?”
“Where are you?”
What kind of greeting was that? “Sharon and I are taking a stroll.”
“Oh. I called the room, and you weren’t there. And then your phone went straight to voice mail. I thought you might have headed to Myrtle Beach.”
“What? Myrtle Beach is two hours away.” I wondered why Robert was calling so much. He was acting like a paranoid parent checking up on a kid who’d gone off on her own for the first time. “We were getting our nails done, so I turned my phone off.”
“Of course. Of course. Are you having a good time?”
I looked at Sharon, who was making quick work of finishing off her sundae. “Yeah, we are. So far, so good.”
