Time to Control (4 page)

I was dreaming, I was sure of
it.
 
Hallucinating.
 
Something in the air.
 
Or the sight of the beautiful ring.
 
Light headed.
 
I just imagined it all.
 
Of course, that didn't explain the
discomfort inside me, like something had been there that hadn't been
before.
 
Or that Eddie was still
large and in charge when I took the ring off.
 
That certainly hadn't been there when he
had slid the ring on my finger.

So yes.
 
Nothing happened.
 
I'm not married, I thought, as we left
the store and headed towards his apartment.
 
Ha!
 
Married to a guy I met three days ago?
  
Married to the handsome man
evaluating my company?
 
That's crazy
talk.

Chapter Two

We didn't make it a block before
Eddie pulled me by one arm into the doorway of a closed business, and trapped
me with his body against one of the display windows.

“What--” My question was broken off
as he captured my mouth in his, and thrust his tongue between my open
lips.
 
I put my arms around him, and
he did the same, running one hand up and down my back, the other finding all
the curves of my rear.
 
And I mean
_all_ the curves.

I moaned into his mouth, grinding
my hips against his.
 
His erection
grew bigger from the close contact.
 
Oh my goodness.
 
This was so
unlike me – I was not only making out with a hot guy, I was doing it in
public.
 

“Get a room!”
 
An old woman whacked him across the back
of the legs with her cane, and Eddie abruptly released me, turning to confront
the woman scolding him.

“It's okay,” I told him, grabbing
his arm before he could go after the woman.
 
I ran my hands through my hair, taming
it where Eddie had tousled it.
 
“You
need a minute?”
 
I looked pointedly
at his crotch.

I should have discouraged him in
the doorway, I thought as we walked, rather briskly, the rest of the way to his
apartment.
 
I definitely shouldn't
have encouraged more, and heavens, did I really rub against him like that?
 
No, this was definitely not good.

I nodded to the doorman at Eddie's
building, who greeted Eddie by name.
 
How awesome was that?
 
A real
live doorman!
 
So what if the
doorman did not notice the hand holding.
 
I certainly wasn't paying attention to how warm his hand was, and how it
completely enclosed my hand, just like his kisses enclosed my mouth--

Stop that.
 
I released his hand as we got on the
elevator, moving to the opposite side of the car and leaned against the
wall.
 
Eddie took a step towards me,
but I shook my head no.
 
I forced
myself to breathe deeply.
 
What the
hell has gotten into me?
 
He has
,
the newly found sex addict in my head said.
 

Eddie kept his hands off of me
until we were safely in his apartment.
 
I looked around in surprise at his living quarters.
 
It was smaller than I expected from
someone with his kind of wealth (the article said he was worth a cool fifty
million dollars); then again, New York prices the way they were, this may be
palatial.
 
The apartment had an open
floor plan, with the kitchen and living room separated with the back of the couch.
 
A series of floor to ceiling bookshelves
made a wall between the living room and the bedroom area, with a king sized bed
up against the other side of the open-backed shelves.

“Bathroom's in there,” Eddie
pointed to a door off of the bedroom area, and I hightailed it into the room,
desperate for some privacy.
 
I
splashed cold water on my face, wishing I could take a cold shower.
 
It apparently worked for guys; maybe it
would work on girls, too?
 
I had
never been interested enough in a date for it to get even close of the passion
level of the kiss we just had, much less the passion from the dream.

“No, it was a dream, I did not have
sex.”
 
My period wasn't due for a
couple weeks, and the light spotting would coincide with my first intimacy, but
it didn't happen, I told myself firmly.
 
It was not possible.
 
Composed, I went out to find Eddie waiting on the couch.

At least he waited for me to sit
before coming and attacking me with kisses.

“We can't do this,” I panted,
pushing him off, and scooting down the couch to lean against the arm of the
couch.
 
I drew my legs up to my
chest, and wrapped my arms around them.

“Sure we can, we're married,” he
told me, following me down the couch.
 
He peeled my unresisting arms from my legs, and separated my knees,
leaning his entire body against mine.
 

“It didn't happen.”

“Yes it did.
 
You were there, I was there.
 
The old priest was there.”

“It was our imagination.
 
You can't prove anything.”
 
I kissed him back, anyway.
 
“Hey!
 
What are you doing?”
 
I slapped his hand away from my dress.

“Proving it.
 
You have a freckle here,” he touched my
right hip.
 
“And here,” he pointed
right above the bikini line on the left side.
 
“And here.”
 
I closed my eyes as he lightly caressed
my right upper inner thigh.

“No I don't,” I lied.

“Liar.”
 
I gasped as he stroked me through the
cotton.
 
“And I know you liked
this.”

“We can't, we're not married,” I
protested.

“Then it's a good thing we're
married.”

My body tightened up at the deja
vu.
 
Eddie sighed, but gave me a
quick kiss and moved down to the other end of the couch.

“So you're saying we went to the
Middle Ages and got married?
 
Do you
really think that's possible?”

He grinned.
 
“I never said we went to the Middle
Ages.
 
Two people?
 
Hallucinating the same thing?”

“It didn't happen,” I
insisted.
 
I got up and found the
blue box, and took out the ring.
 
“See?
 
Nothing.”
 
I put it on and off, crossing mental
fingers that nothing would actually occur.

Eddie pulled me down on the couch
next to him.
 
“I put it on you,
maybe that's what needs to happen.”
 
He did so, but nothing occurred.

“You're imaging things.
 
We're not married.”
 
I left the ring on anyway.
 
“I want to go back to my hotel. I think
I'm done with seeing things for the day.”
 
I shuddered.
 
I wanted to see
New York, not the original York back in the day.

“I really think we should talk
about this.”

“I really don't want to.”
 
I matched his gaze levelly, and kept it
for a minute before closing my eyes and curling up into a ball again.
 
“Please.”

He hesitated.
 
“Will you still come to see the show
with me?
 
And dinner?”

“Not dinner,” I said firmly.
 
“Sorry, but I want more people
around.
 
I'll meet you at the
theater.
 
I promise I'll be there.”
 
Watching a Broadway production seemed
like a blast of normalcy in an abnormal day.

If I wasn't going to the theater
with Eddie for the second night in a row, I would have worn the red dress
again; no one else in New York knew me, so no one would notice the wardrobe
gaffe.
 
Eddie would notice, though,
and I certainly didn't want him ogling my breasts again.
 
After earlier today, I didn't trust him
to keep his hands off.
 
After
earlier today, I didn't think I trusted myself to push his hands off.
 
Going through the few clothes I had
brought with me, I decided on a floor length tan skirt with gold threaded
through it, and an off white sleeveless top that I normally wore a jacket
over.
 
It was cut high enough to not
allow easy viewing down, but I still felt self conscious, and ended up throwing
a flowered scarf around my neck as distraction.

As Eddie had said, the seats
weren't as good for that night's play.
 
They were halfway back in the theater, on one of the wings.
 
The view was still great, and nothing out
of the ordinary happened during the first act.
 
That changed after intermission, though.

My silk scarf kept getting caught
on the rough fabric seats, and I had removed it and laid it on my lap early in
the performance.
 
I was bored
waiting for the show to start back up again, and played with the ring, twirling
it around, moving it from one finger to another.
 
As the curtain came up and the announcer
set the scene, Eddie put his hand over mine.

“Quit fidgeting.
 
You're going to drop it.”
 
He slid the ring on my finger again,
then we were standing on a cobblestone street, surrounded by stone buildings
that were an awful lot like the real version of the set we were just in front
of.

“Well, so much for plausible
deniability.” I sighed.

“Um-hum,” Eddie said, not paying
attention to the town.
 
He was fully
fixated on what the square neck of my shirt, sans covering scarf,
 
was doing to my ample bosom.
 
He brought his head down to kiss the
exposed skin, and I arched my back at his warm breath, giving him better access.

He started fumbling for the hem of
the shirt, pushing it up above my breasts.
 
“Wait, we don't know how this works,” I moaned, yet still grabbed his
hips and thrust against them.
 

“It's clothing, it's easy.”

“No, I mean--” I released his hips
to take hold of his ears, and forced his head up and away from my breasts.
 
Distraction over, I released the ears
and put a hand on each cheek.
 

Undeterred, he continued to unhook
my bra.
 
“We're married.
 
I want in.”

“We don't know how this works,” I
repeated.
 
“I don't want to be
stripped in the middle of a crowded theater.”
 
His fingers stopped as the realization
hit him.
 
“We don't know what
happens to our modern bodies while we're ... where ever we are.”

Eddie looked longingly at the
breasts, so close to coming out of my bra at this point.
 
So much for dressing conservatively this
evening.

“I'll let you play find the freckle
later,” I promised, and took his mouth prisoner in a kiss.
 
After a minute of smooching, but before
we got too carried away, I pulled my shirt back down, reached my hands around
his neck, and removed the ring.

The person in the seat next to me
looked over as I gasped for air, suddenly not in the middle of a kiss.
 
I looked down my body, then Eddie's
– good, fully clothed.
 
Eddie
shifted in his seat to hide the enjoyment he had received from the time with
me, and placed his Playbill strategically.
 
My stomach rolled.
 
I grabbed
his right hand with my left, and curled up on his shoulder, clutching his bicep
tightly, trying to control my breathing.
 
I wanted to leave, go back to his place and talk about what just
happened, but was determined to finish the show first. He paid the money for
the show, and who knew if I could ever see
Romeo and Juliet
on Broadway
again.
 
My breathing had calmed down
by the time the show finished, but I still was flushed all over.

“How far is your apartment?
 
Can we walk?”

Eddie glanced at the cross street
as we left the theater, and nodded.
 
“It's a bit of a walk, but not too bad.
 
I'm worried about rain, though,” he
said, looking up at the dark sky.
 
I
didn't know how he could tell – I couldn't see anything past all the
light pollution.

“I won't melt.”

I regretted that statement several
blocks away from the apartment when the skies opened up.
 
Apparently the storms that had delayed
me in Dallas had finally blown through to New York, and still had plenty of
rain left in them.
 
After a block of
trying to run in the rain, I went back down to a walk, tugging at Eddie's arm
so he slowed down as well.

“I can't get more wet.”

He looked me over, and I knew what
he saw.
 
Everything.
 
Off white doesn't do much more than
white when soaked, the full skirt was dragging at the sidewalk, and my nipples
were erect through the thin linen tank.
 
The latter might have been from the look he was giving me, and not the
cold, though.
 
I felt like a drowned
rat, and was sure I didn't look much better.
 
Eddie's suit was soaked as well, and I
hoped it wasn't ruined.

I unknotted my scarf, and placed
the silk strategically to cover my my nipples.
 
I may be acting like a tramp with my
husband, but not in public, thank you very much.

The doorman waited with an open
door when we reached the building, and wisely kept his eyes off of me.
 
Eddie had been very possessive of me so
far, and I wouldn't want to cross him if I was the doorman.

Eddie handed me a pair of
sweatpants and a t-shirt, and I went into the bathroom to towel off and
change.
 
I hung my clothing over the
shower curtain to dry, trying not to be self-conscious at hanging my
unmentionables for him to see.