He took a deep, grateful drag of the harsh smoke. He’d acquired the habit when he was a freaked-out, fucked-up teenager and tried to quit several times. Now that he’d wrapped his mind around the fact that he wasn’t likely to be needing his lungs in the long term anyhow, it seemed pointless to deny himself.
He struggled to remember what Sveti looked like, but after six months, the finer details were gone. He remembered obvious things: long dark hair, hazel eyes, a big smile like Sergei’s. A port wine birthmark on her neck. But when he tried to see her face, a vision of Becca got in the way. All grown up but somehow just as innocent.
He looked at his crotch, let out a mirthless laugh. Thinking about Sveti and Ivana was a great way to wilt an inconvenient boner.
Useful discovery: if she kept the walkway boards perpendicular to her naked toes, she could stay on her feet without toppling onto sharp rocks and thorny, bug-and-snake-infested foliage. This was good.
Sobering reflection: she could miss the turn-off to the A-frame, and keep going in an endless loop around the island until she croaked of exposure, or got eaten for a midnight snack. That was bad.
Becca’s imperfect solution was to hug the edge of the path and follow the edge of the boards with her toes, which compelled her to go at a slow, limping pace. She clung to her outrage, and somehow that kept her from sliding into screaming panic.
A bump on the ends of her abused toes made her howl, even while tears of gratitude popped into her eyes. The turn-off.
She groped for the handrail, and went up the stairs. Thin branches tickled and slapped, cobwebs broke across her face, winged things fluttered against her hair. She swatted them away as she felt her way across the deck and the picture window until she found the door. She turned on every light in her dash for the closest bathroom.
Forty minutes or so under a pounding stream of hot water took off the edge of the cold, but it didn’t wash away the touch of his hands, his lips. So that was a whole body orgasm. She’d read about them in romances. The sensation had scared her, it was so intense.
How pathetic. To be taken by surprise by a real orgasm at the advanced age of thirty. And worse was the way his crude remark made her feel after. Blow me. Let’s see if you’re any good.
Trust Becca to get a massive crush on an overgrown frat boy. Whose name she didn’t know and didn’t want to know.
Frantic rummaging in the closets yielded up another terry-cloth bathrobe. Becca swathed herself and wandered through Sloane’s house. The place was like the lobby of a ski resort. Big beams, flagstones, cedar paneling, huge fireplace, squishy couches upholstered in ugly plaid wool. A mirror hung on the wall. She stared at her pale face, her smudged mascara. She felt different. Her obsessive thoughts of Justin and Kaia weren’t having their usual effect.
On the contrary. The penis-chomping debacle, nasty though it had been, was simply not as interesting as what had just happened to her. God knows, Mr. Big next door beat Justin hands down when it came to doggish lewdness. The big difference being that Mr. Big’s doggish lewdness had been directed right at Becca’s own self.
And there was no doubt that his interest had been real. There was no faking an erection like that.
Wow, she’d come close to doing the deed with a complete stranger. Her face flamed, remembering his final suggestion. She’d had an image of herself, trying so hard to please, the way she’d tried to please Justin. Failing. Having him judge her, for how clumsy and clueless she was.
She saw Justin, complaining in his hospital bed, looking pale and martyred and self-righteous. Kaia, in her collar and head brace, a pitying smirk on her pretty face.
So what are you going to do? Curl up and die? Sometimes Becca wanted to smack herself.
She pried one of the long fireplace matches out of the box. Some helpful soul had already laid a fire, and it licked to life, newspaper and kindling catching flame. No moping allowed. Doing something useful was her trusted strategy for mood management, so she marched over to the cardboard boxes that sat on the table and started ripping them open.
The boxes were filled with catered foodstuffs that had been delivered to her office that day, as part of her wedding prep. Her boss and colleagues had urged her to take it all with her to Frakes Island in lieu of groceries. Nobody wanted perishables lying around in the office all week. She and Justin were supposed to have tasted the wines together, to choose what would accompany the various courses of their wedding feast. This was to have taken place on their romantic weekend getaway, this very weekend. She’d planned it all out to the last succulent detail.
Before the penis-chomping incident.
The catered food consisted of yummy dishes, mostly Italian, that could be eaten cold or popped into an oven and browned, for quick fortifying nibbles between erotic interludes in bed. Cured and roasted meats, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled and gratinéed vegetables, spring salads, cheeses, fruits, crackers and breads. Coffee beans, cream, a grinder. And here was the kicker—five eight-inch wedding cake candidates. Butter Lemon Cloud, Rum Caramel Pecan, Black Cherry Wickedness, Mocha Mousse, and her own personal favorite, Grand Marnier Triple Fudge Angel’s Fall.
No one could accuse her of not being passionate about sweets.
She toyed with the idea of setting up a Justin effigy and lobbing cakes at its head, but the truth was, she was constitutionally incapable of throwing away a delicious cake. Bringing up her sister and brother on a cocktail waitress’s pay made her loath to waste food even now, years later. She shoved the pastry boxes into the fridge with barely controlled violence.
The last box held the wedding notebook. She’d brought it along with the intention of burning it, to purge her system and make her feel better about herself. That was a lot to hope for, but a girl could try.
She leafed through the thing, marveling at her capacity for self-deception. The quilted heart cover alone, with precious cross stitching that read Becca & Justin, April 18, should have tipped her off that the relationship was doomed. Just looking at it put her in a sugar coma.
She ripped off the cover, flung it into the fire.
The carefully organized sections inside—gah. Check out the questions that had kept her up at night. Should she order personalized breath mints with names and the date printed on each one? Should she go with the individual toothpick boxes for each place setting? Was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons too “done” for the string quartet in the garden?
She ripped handfuls of pages out, threw them on the fire. They made lots of puffs and sparks and insignificant mini-whooshes before scorching and curling up like pathetic dying bugs. She did not feel any great rush of liberating, cathartic power. Surprise, surprise.
She needed Mr. Big and his clever hands for that.
Perish the thought. She would not be talked to like that. Oaf. So much for adventure. That encounter had not been super therapeutic for her self-esteem.
One more thing to burn. The padded envelope of sexy lingerie that she’d ordered off the Internet. Shameful evidence of how pathetically eager to please she’d been. Trying to lure Justin by sheer effort.
She tore it open, and stared at the pieces with hot, unfriendly eyes. The virginal cream bustier with the not-so-virginal matching thong. The demure apricot chiffon babydoll chemise, the matching panties, the crotch of which was two thick satin ribbon strips that could be nudged to either side of the labia, leaving the way clear for, well, ahem, anything. At the time, it had struck her as a sophisticated secret to share with her fiancé, just for him. Now it struck her as desperate.
Which was exactly how she’d felt, writhing in that man’s arms.
Maybe it wasn’t so great to have shocked her dormant sexual awareness into life at this inconvenient moment. She’d always thought that being sexually free, like Kaia, would give her a sense of power.
But she’d been wrong before. In fact, she was wrong a lot.
Her fist closed around the apricot chiffon confection. She drew her arm back to hurl it into the fire—and stopped.
What would Mr. Big think of her sex kitten outfit? He might be rude, but he wouldn’t be indifferent. She wondered what it would take to make that guy whimper and beg.
A lot more than she had going for her, she told herself. Don’t even go there, bubblehead. You’ll just hurt yourself.
Too late. She’d already gone. She dropped onto the nearest couch and thought about it as the fire crackled.
After all. She didn’t have to actually go near the man ever again. But all alone in the dim room in front of the fire, who could fault her for indulging in a little bit of wishful fantasy? Who would she hurt?
She slid her hand under the folds of terry cloth, and found herself—good Lord. Already wet and soft. Just squeezing her thigh muscles together sent bursts of shivering warmth into her legs, her knees, her toes. They curled up with each rush of excitement.
She was startled. Who would have thought that knees and toes would be invited to this party? Her intensely aroused body was like a brand new toy, and she couldn’t help playing with it.
The fantasy that was the strongest was anything but politically correct.
Herself, bent over, thighs spread. Clutching the wrought iron banister, bracing herself as he penetrated her from behind. That thick shaft, that big blunt knob pushing between her labia. Opening her. The powerful presence of his body behind hers, those warm hands gripping her. Thrusting and pumping. Filling her completely. Taking her.
The feeling swelled up, lifted her, hurled her off the cliff.
She was sobbing when she came back to reality, her body still wrenched amd racked by jolts of pleasure. Still in one piece. Still Becca.
She got up, bumping into the furniture without her glasses.
Damn. Her glasses. She’d forgotten all about them in her frantic hurry to get away. She’d left them by the side of the swimming pool. Along with the mostly empty bottle of wine and…oh, God.
The keys. The poolhouse key had been on the A-frame’s key ring. The keys to Jerome’s house. Oh, no, no, no.
That was terrible. She couldn’t face a week on a deserted island alone in a myopic blur. Nor could she go back to Marla and tell her she’d lost the keys to Jerome’s house. How could she justify it? Because the neighbor was rude? Because he had seen her naked when she skinny-dipped? Please. Marla already considered her a fluffy-tailed, persnickety little rabbit with a twitching pink nose. Little Miss Nervous Wreck.
God, she was sick of being condescended to. By Justin, Kaia, Marla, Mr. Big. Even her little brother and sister were guilty of it.
She gathered up every last scrap of that lingerie, and tossed it into the fire. It smoldered, smothered by the synthetic fabrics.
Tomorrow morning she would march over to retrieve her belongings. And, incidentally, take the opportunity to tell that guy exactly what she thought of him. While sober. And clothed.
Her pride depended on it. As wobbly and fragile as it was right now, it simply could not take another hit.
Chapter
5
D r. Richard Mathes levered himself up from the damp, quivering body of his mistress and paused to enjoy the view. The charmingly submissive position, her double-jointed flexibility, the satin babydoll nightie shoved seductively up over her breasts—it was perfect.
His gaze turned critical as he observed the un-dynamic way that her breasts perched upon her rib cage. The colleague he’d referred Diana to for the breast enhancement surgery had overdone it. Smaller implants would have been better. Only in this position was the defect so evident, but unfortunately, this was one of his favorites. He liked to pin her ankles down on either side of her head and pound away with bruising force. It was the best way to wind down after a long stint in the operating room.
“Amazing.” Diana licked her full lips, and wiggled as he slipped out of her body, contracting her vaginal muscles as if to trap him inside her. “I knew it would be like this today. You were amazing with Jimmie.”
Jimmie Matlock was the sixteen-year-old boy who had gotten a new heart that day in a seven-hour surgery. Diana, in addition to being as skillful as an expensive call girl and always attuned to his sexual whims and moods, was also a competent anesthesiologist.
“You’re so fearless,” she crooned. “Nerves of ice. It makes me wet. Even in the operating room.”
“You shouldn’t think about sex while we’re working,” he snapped.
Her eyes widened. So did her legs, an automatic reflex that showed off her glistening vulva. “Scold me. I love it when you’re stern.”
“I know.” He turned away with insulting indifference, and opened her armoire, searching for one of the fresh shirts she kept for him.
The next line in the script was predictable. “I’m free tonight and tomorrow,” she said. “Can I see you?”
“No,” he said lightly. “Tonight I have to go to a musical with Helen and the girls. And tomorrow I have that meeting. As you know.”
Her face tightened. She sat up. “I don’t understand why it’s necessary to meet this Zhoglo in order to conduct business with him—”
“Do not say the name,” he reproved her sharply.
She rolled her eyes. “This is my bedroom. Don’t get paranoid.”