Red Hot Obsessions (113 page)

Chapter 6
Ariane

“SO YOU DIDN’T WANT TO end it?” Ariane asked, feeling her entire universe turning upside down and tears pooling in her eyes. No, she wouldn’t cry. She was done doing that. She was never, ever, ever crying over a man again. She blinked the tears away and looked everywhere but at Patrick’s face.

Oh God! She wished she could faint. It would be so convenient. Shut out the sound, shut out the image, shut out the world, and come to very, very slowly. Slowly enough to have the time she needed to think what to do with the live grenade he had just tossed her.

But then fainting was not her style. Neither was crying, really. Nevertheless, no matter how fast she blinked, the tears she had been fighting were coming back. Within seconds they would be pouring down her face. Seeing the devastated expression on Patrick’s face when she finally raised her eyes did not help a bit. Oh no, the dam was broken. This was going to be hell. When she got started there was no stopping her. The Niagara, Victoria, and Iguazu falls all had nothing on her. She wept.

This time, when he reached for her, she did not back away but let him hold her. She burrowed her face in his shoulder and let her tears flow. What a waste, what a terrible waste. She was soaking his rainbow T-shirt while he held her tight making soothing sounds.

“Ariane, baby. Please don’t cry. Whatever you decide, it will be fine. It’s going to be all right. I promise.”

He tilted her head back and gently kissed away her tears and then down her cheeks. He chased the last tear from her lips with the tip of his tongue, and she opened her mouth to him. She could taste the salt from her tears on his lips. He kissed her gently. His kiss was as shy as a first kiss. She shivered, and he stopped to ask if she was cold.

“No, I’m overwhelmed.”

He kissed her again and said, “For now, we’ll do what we do best together. We’ll comfort each other. No promises. No strings attached. No ties. No questions. How does that sound?”

“Good.”

“Later on maybe—not tomorrow but sometime next week—we’ll talk.”

“Ok.”

“Come on. Let’s go up.”

She let him lead her up the tiny spiral staircase, take her clothes off, and put her to bed. She felt like a broken doll. He undressed and joined her in bed. She curled up in his arms and fell asleep feeling very lost and thankful he was there for her beyond just sex.

***

Ariane woke up in the middle of the night and freed herself from Patrick’s arms. He stirred but did not wake. She tiptoed to the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the light. She looked like hell. She washed her face, pressed some cold water on her eyes, and brushed her teeth.

As she went back to bed she felt a wave of tenderness for that man. He had always been so sweet to her. She nested against him, and, deep in sleep, he wrapped one arm around her again.

Questions started to collide in her head. What have I done? What should I do? She chased them away. The middle of the night was not the time for all her questions. She would revisit her situation after a good night’s sleep. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing until it fell in sync with Patrick’s. Then she fell back to sleep.

She was still lying in his arms when her alarm rang at 7:00 a.m. He was awake and looking at her. That was a first. He always rushed out at the crack of dawn to get to work. The thought registered. Work. He should have been at work already.

“Patrick, it’s seven already.”

“I know.”

“You’re not at the store.”

“I choose to play hooky today. I texted my apprentice. He knows he’s on his own this morning.”

“You’re sure that’s wise?”

“Not really.” He shrugged. “We’ll see. Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion and surprise us.”

“That would be nice.”

“I’ve always rushed out of your bed like a thief while you’re fast asleep. I thought that I should stick around this time. I figured, you know, it could be my last opportunity to see what you look like in the morning.”

His tone was the one he used to joke, but Ariane could feel the tension in his voice. He was asking her about their future together without putting her on the spot.

He rolled onto his side to face her and ran his free hand down her spine from the top of her shoulder to the small of her back and then up again. The “butterfly massage” is what she had nicknamed this caress that gave her goose bumps every single time. Ariane sighed. That was delicious. Patrick did it again, but this time his hand pushed farther down to her buttock. He paused. She understood it as a request for permission to continue. She shivered in silence and did nothing to stop him. She couldn’t resist, and she melted under his fingers. She looked at him and realized that until the night before, she had not allowed herself to admit how devastated she had been by their separation.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said very softly.

“But I never left,” he said and rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Lying on top of him, she could feel that he was ready for her.

Her heart went out to him. He was showing her he wanted her, but he was letting her decide. He was such a sweet man.

“I meant what I said last night,” he said. “I’m here to comfort you, and today there will be no promises and no questions.”

Ariane rested her head on his torso and wrestled with her dilemma.

She had not officially committed to anything with Peter, but still, if the man was true to his word, he would be turning his own life upside down to be with her. Making love with another man while waiting for Peter’s return was an undeniable betrayal. It would truly be an unacceptable behavior, at least in her book. Come to think of it, spending a night in the arms of another man was already borderline. But then again, Peter might change his mind and never move to Paris, while Patrick was there, right by her side, as always. She now realized that it was her total lack of self-confidence that had brought on this absurd misunderstanding. Would she have felt the same attraction for Peter had she not believed that Patrick had walked out on her? Probably. Would she have allowed Peter to get so close? There was no way she could answer that question.

Patrick stirred under her. A slight movement of the hips sent tiny electrical jolts throughout her body. That was all she needed to lead her to decide on an impulsive compromise. One that would be kind of fair to Patrick without being totally untrue to Peter.

She slid down the bed and kneeled between his legs. She teased his glistening tip with her tongue and then said, “This is just for you. Don’t hold back.”

She smiled to herself and thought that there was a famous American historical precedent which claimed that what she was doing was not really sex.

Chapter 7
Mary

TWO WEEKS AFTER THEIR RETURN from her birthday trip, Mary shared another taxi to JFK with her brother. She wasn’t coming along for the ride just because she wanted to wish him a
bon voyage
. She would normally have done that from his home. She was tagging along because her brother’s departure coincided with George’s arrival.

She still periodically pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming.

During her last day in Paris the two of them had awoken late from their third passionate night together and walked hand-in-hand around the city. When the time to leave had gotten close, they’d waited for Peter at the bar of the hotel. George ordered a soda for her and a beer for him, and then they sat together in silence. Mary was trying to come to terms with the fact that she was going to fly away and would probably never see him again when George said, studying the foam of his beer, “I don’t want kids. I’ve never wanted any, and I never will.”

“I can understand that. I’ve never felt the need to reproduce either.”

He had remained silent for a minute and then, looking at her, had said, “Good. Then I can be packed and moved to New York in two weeks.”

The statement had taken Mary by surprise. She’d smiled as she processed it. Had there ever been a man of so few words? Expecting her heart to burst from joy any second, she asked, “Will you move in with me?”

“Sure. Where else would I go?”

“Right.”

Riding in the taxi to the airport with her brother, Mary remembered this exchange vividly. It was probably the least romantic proposal ever, but it had worked for her. The two weeks had passed more quickly than she would have expected. They had video chatted online every single day, and as of that night, they would be living together. How incredible was that?

Somehow, Mary was very optimistic about their future. They were both old enough to know that there were no perfect relationships. There would probably be some days when she would come home moody after a hard shift or upset about some new health regulation or absurd hospital policy. She would know better than to take it out on him. There would also be nights when he would be frustrated by a lack of inspiration or upset by a negative review from someone whose opinion he respected. Since he never said anything, she would probably never know unless he felt like talking about it weeks later. Mary felt confident. It could work.

She wasn’t really sure the same would hold true for Peter and Ariane. She feared Peter’s expectations were unrealistic. Ariane had spent a decade creating her school from scratch. Mary very much doubted Ariane would be ready to close shop, tear up roots, and follow Peter to New York after a couple of months, no matter how heated their sex life would be. Because, really, aside from sex, she didn’t think they had anything in common.

She also believed their affair was doomed if Ariane decided to follow him back to the U.S. Mary knew her brother well enough to guess that the day they reached New York, Peter would go back to his old life, invest himself totally in his teaching, and leave Ariane to fend for herself. He was so self-centered that it wouldn’t even occur to him that she could possibly need help adjusting.

Kristina hadn’t trained him well in that respect. She had always catered to his every whim. Kristina thought her only mission in life was to make Peter happy. At times, Mary had found Kristina’s way of deferring to Peter’s every whim unnerving. It was sad really that cigarettes, the only things for which Kristina had ever stood her ground against Peter, turned out to be what killed her.

The only way Peter and Ariane would have a chance was if Peter took a position in Paris. Mary wondered if that was possible.

But in any case, even if it didn’t turn out the way Peter was planning, all would still be for the best. He had shaken away the ghost of Kristina, and for that, Mary would forever be thankful to Ariane.

Realizing it would be futile to voice her concerns to Peter since he always knew better, she just listened to him explain how he was going to use his time in Paris. He was going to revise one of his books, catch up on some administrative tasks that he could do online, and get to know Ariane better… “not necessarily in that order.”

She walked her brother to the check-in counter, hugged him before the Customs checkpoint, and ran to the Arrivals area to greet George, who walked out of Customs a few minutes later.

Mary identified his tall figure in the crowd and watched him scan the crowd for her. The change on his face when his eyes met hers melted her heart. He walked to her, dropped his carry-on luggage, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her up from the floor. For the first time in her life, Mary had the incredible feeling of being a tiny little thing. She was unable to say how long he held her like that, but she savored it. This was what happiness felt like.

They rode to the city and reached Mary’s place on the Eastside, a second floor walk-up in a brownstone within walking distance of the hospital where she worked. George walked though her place with her. He inspected the living room with its open kitchen, the den, and then finally the bedroom.

“You’ve made room for me,” he said, acknowledging the empty spaces she had created for him in her place. She had cleared half of the den so he would have an office and had managed to empty a respectable amount of space in her walk-in closet.

“I figured if I want you to stay a while, I’d better give you some space to settle in,” she said, coming close to him as they finished the grand tour in her bedroom.

He sat on the large bed and caught her by the belt of her jeans to pull her close to him. “The California king size?”

“That’s new too. My double bed needed to retire anyway.” She leaned on him and began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Good, what else?”

“That’s it. Oh, no.” She gave him a seductive smile. “I also stocked the fridge and traded shifts with a friend. Now I’ve only got one thing to focus on until Monday.”

“And what would that be?”

“Making sure you feel welcome.” She bent over to brush her lips against his while peeling his shirt away.

In a matter of minutes, they had flung their clothes across the room and were working on inaugurating their new bed. George scooted on his back to the center of the bed and Mary joined him. He pulled her over him, and she laughed lightly as she realized she didn’t have to be careful. No matter what position she took, he was strong enough to support her entire weight and then some. She settled onto him, letting him slide inside her one inch at a time until she was gloriously full.

Mary sighed and leaned over to take support on her arms. She felt so good that if she were going to die suddenly of a heart attack, she would want to go right then as she felt her orgasm building.

But then he stopped the slow rolls of his hips to hold in place for a minute. Panting, he asked, “What about protection?”

“I’m clear. I got tested when I got back. I’m on the pill, and there hadn’t been anyone for a long time before you. So if you’re good, I’m good.” She looked into his eyes.

His answered by kissing her and arching his hips, sending jolts of sensation through her.

Mary moaned and resumed the gentle roll of her hips and quickly shattered against him. Her head fell against his shoulder as she caught her breath. When she did, he held her tight, giving her a moment to get ready for him again. Just as she was starting to breathe normally, he placed his hands on her waist and rocked her gently to suggest the rhythm he wanted her to match against the movement of his hips.

Her breathing turned into panting gasps. She felt he was getting close, and she looked into his eyes as her inner core burst into a thousand stars. His attentive and loving gaze upon her added some magic to the feeling. He closed his eyes, shuddered after a final bucking movement, and screamed with ragged breath, “Oh, Mary.”

Mary rolled onto her side and rested her head on his shoulder. She whispered in his ear, “Welcome home, honey.”