Hidden Paradise

chapter NINE



Mac opened one of the doors and bowed. He straightened and laughed. “It’s becoming second nature.”

“Inviting women to your bedchamber?”

“That’s first nature. I meant bowing.” He patted her shoulder. “Relax, Lou. Want a drink?”

She considered. She envied him his ease, his grace, as he slipped off his coat. A drink might help, but one thing was for sure—if she was going to go through with this, she wanted to be fully aware. Desire prickled in her breasts and belly but manifested outwardly as a keen nervousness. Thankfully he seemed only mildly amused and not offended by her sharpness.

Without waiting for a reply, he twisted a cork from an already opened bottle and poured two glasses of wine. He handed one to her and reached for a small framed picture of a child with unruly dark hair and a mischievous, gap-toothed smile, showing it to her without a word.

“Your daughter?” she asked.

“Yes. That’s Rosie. She’s five.” He beamed with pride.

“She’s cute.”

He replaced the picture on the dresser. Lou watched as he shifted gears again, switching from proud father to seducer, clinking his glass against hers. “Sit down,” he said. “You’re doing your nervous hover.”

“I do not do a ‘nervous hover.’ What do you mean by that anyway?”

He sprawled on the bed on one elbow, glass in that hand, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “You know what I mean. Make yourself comfortable.”

She sat down on the bed. Nervous hover, indeed. She took a sip of wine. “Why did your marriages break up?”

He paused in unbuttoning. “This doesn’t really put me in the mood, Lou, but since you asked… Number one, we were both very young, still students. We grew up and found we’d grown away from each other. Number two, Jennifer, Rosie’s mom, got pregnant and I insisted we get married for practical reasons—she’s based in London, I’m mostly in the States. Jennifer and I get on real well, but then she fell in love with someone else. So we divorced. All very friendly. Her new husband’s a nice enough guy but I’m still Rosie’s dad.”

Waistcoat unbuttoned, he shrugged it from his shoulders and removed the neckcloth that he’d loosened earlier that evening. Lou found herself transfixed by the curl of dark hair that appeared in the placket of his shirt. He kicked off his leather pumps.

“You want to take your gown off?”

She shook her head.

“What’s on your mind, Lou?”

“I can’t believe I’ve spent almost all the time I’ve been here deciding whether or not to have sex with you.” She curled her fingers into his. “It’ll be my first time since…”

“It’s okay. I’ll be gentle.” He grinned. “I’ll be whatever you want.”

She leaned forward and kissed him. “You’re sweet, Mac Salazar.”

He stared at her in mock horror. “You sure know how to wreck a guy’s ego, Lou. This morning you tell me my sexual services were ‘very nice.’ You extract a confession about my ex-wives. Now you tell me I’m ‘sweet.’ You want a f*ck or not? Because I can feel my balls shrinking by the minute.”

She glanced at the fall of his breeches where, contrary to his claim, no shrinkage at all seemed to be taking place. “I think you’ll manage.”

“We could always do each other’s toenails or something,” he grumbled, but with a hint of a smile. “So…you want to tell me about him?”

“Okay.” This was familiar ground for her. She felt she’d done nothing but tell the story, in tears, in disbelief, in anger, for almost a year now, in pieces as it unfolded. “His name was Julian. We were together for five years. Together in the sense that we both had jobs in different states and we spent a lot of the time on the phone, online, grabbing weekends together, spending vacations together, trying to get jobs nearer to each other. Then he got a tenure position and bought the ranch. So I moved in to write my dissertation. We got married.

“We put in a garden, started the summer jobs, cutting firewood for the next winter. We rode, hiked. It was fun. We talked about having kids, planning a real future.”

She paused, remembering those days, the two of them making up for lost time, making the necessary forays out to look after the animals, then back to bed for hours and hours. Sheets wrinkled and sticky, dirty plates and mugs sliding onto the floor, the phone ignored, computers shut down.

She gave Mac the short version, the simple statement that he had died in a car crash in the fall. Nothing about the phone call, the terrifying request that she come to the hospital immediately. The long night of waiting, holding Julian’s inert hand in a room of blinking lights and the rhythmic hiss of the respirator. The meetings with the hospital staff, calling his parents, his sister, making the hardest decision of her life—when to turn off the respirator—and Julian making a journey so different from the two-hour drive home. He’d traveled beyond them all.

She’d come home alone to the ranch. Outside, the garden they’d planted together withered and died.

Now the hand of the living man curled into hers. “We’d been married just a few months.

“The boys—Peter and Chris—came over for the funeral even though they were going crazy with the renovations here. We scattered his ashes on the land, the same place we got married. I love him. I miss him. I want to tell him things all the time and then I remember he’s not here anymore.”

Mac raised a thumb to swipe a tear away from her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No need to apologize.”

“I’m tired of crying. Tired of grieving. Tired of feeling like I’m only half-alive and drifting. He’s gone, and I came to Paradise, hoping I might find him here again. He loved the idea of what Chris and Peter were doing with the house. And although I feel better here than I did at home, Julian isn’t here. He’s gone. I’m having difficulty letting go.”

“And that’s where I come in?” He poured himself another glass of wine. She raised her own to her lips and sipped.

“You said you don’t f*ck drunk women. But do you f*ck women yearning after dead men?”

“You have good reasons for being sad,” he said to her surprise. “You’re probably feeling all the right sort of things, but I don’t want to push if you’re not ready. Change your mind if you want, Lou. I’m still fine with it.”

“I haven’t put you off?” She stole another glance at the bulge in his breeches, still in evidence.

“I’m a guy,” he said. “It’s biology.”

“Oh, if it’s biology,” she said, “who am I to argue with mother nature?”

“Yeah.” He took her glass and placed it on the bedside table with his. “Time for you to stop being straitlaced.” He tugged at the strings at the back of her gown.

So her tears hadn’t put him off. Well, of course he’d seen her cry before—and she wasn’t about to recite the list of other things he’d seen her do—and she helped him unlace her corset. “What about you?” she said.

“I’m doing just fine,” he said, dispensing with his clothes with a rapidity that would have made Viv curse, and pulled the bedcovers back.

“Not undressing.” She paused as he pulled her shift over her head. “I mean, what about you? You told me about your marriages, but where are you now?”

“Look, honey, I’ve only got one thing on my mind at the moment. I can’t multitask under these conditions, but I’ll tell you one thing—I want an emotional connection with a woman. I don’t want to be some sort of screwing monster even if I come across as some sort of Lothario. And you…”

She waited.

“I’d love to see you in real stockings.”

“Spoken like a true guy,” she said.

He laid her on the bed, arranging her, looking her over with heated intent. He bent to take her garters in his teeth and pulled them untied, one leg and then the other. With brisk efficiency, he unrolled her stockings and tossed them aside, kneeling between her spread legs, his cock dark and hard. He placed his forefinger between her breasts and ran it down her torso, her belly. “I’m normally pretty good at foreplay,” he said, “but I think I’m going to last about two minutes, tops. Okay with you if we worry about finesse and all that good stuff after?”

“Sure.”

He reached into the bedside drawer for a condom, rolled it on with swift assurance, and his tongue entered her mouth a split second before he penetrated her, spreading her thighs wide.

“Mac—” She tore her mouth from his, panicked by his weight and immediacy, the sense of being filled, stretched, invaded.

He crooned something sweet and sexy and soothing that turned her panic into excitement. When he lowered his mouth to her breast, she cried out in surprise and pleasure—not an orgasm, not even close, but a sort of relief that all was well between them. His body was rough and smooth mixed, his jaw a fierce scrape, his chest springy with curly hair, his hip silky and hard beneath her hand.

“That’s right,” he said. “Let it go.”

She squirmed beneath him, surprised at how this unfamiliar man created familiarity with his smooth, careful thrusts. When he bent his head to lick her breast, she pushed him away, afraid of being overwhelmed. I’m being f*cked. I’m f*cking. It’s different but it’s the same.

“Okay?”

“Yes.” She wanted to tell him to get on with it, to forget about being considerate and tender, because that would be too much, an invitation into a territory of intimacy for which she was ill-prepared. But when his breathing halted and became harsh, his body tense, a brief sense of disappointment that it was about to end, so soon, flashed through her mind.

He dropped his head to her shoulder, sucking in a breath. “Okay?” he said.

“I’m good.”

He grunted and rolled off her, collapsing on the bed beside her, his chest rising and falling. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Two minutes? More like twenty seconds. Sorry, Lou. Couldn’t last any longer.” His body shone with a faint sheen of sweat. “It’s not usually a problem for me.”

She poked him with her elbow. “Stop being such a guy. It’s not a competitive sport.”

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and poured a glass of water from the carafe on the bedside cabinet, offering it to her and then draining it when she shook her head. Muttering something about the condom, he left for the bathroom. She lay on the bed, eyes closed, and listened to the toilet flush, the sound of running water and the pad of his bare feet on the floor as he approached the bed again.

“That couldn’t have done much for you,” he said.

“I didn’t come, if that’s what you mean.” Now her whole body tingled and pricked with expectation, as though dormant nerves had awoken. She knew he stood at the foot of the bed, observing her. Was he looking at her spread thighs, at the dampened hair and the plumped, slick lips of her sex? At her breasts, the nipples erect, and the dampness on her skin?

The bed shifted as he moved onto it, but still at the foot. Her skin hummed with anticipation.

“Open your eyes.”

She did. He stood with one knee on the bed, positioned between her feet. His cock stirred and lengthened at her gaze.

She raised one knee, oh so casually. His gaze was riveted between her legs, his cock lifting and darkening. As though unaware of his action—although, she suspected he was not—he palmed himself. The bed dipped as he lowered himself to her, his breath hot on her inner thighs.

“Nice,” he said, and dropped an oddly chaste kiss on her mound. But there was nothing chaste about what followed, as his tongue delved and licked and tantalized in a luscious, leisurely exploration.

“Please, please,” she gasped.

He stopped, his face innocent. “Am I doing something wrong?”

She grabbed his head and returned him to his proper place. “Just keep going. Like that.”

And then she didn’t need to issue any more orders and he didn’t need to tease because she was there, crying out and arching against him and then falling to earth once more, drowsy and replete.

“Oh,” she said. “So nice. Thank you, Mac.”

“You have such lovely manners. I like that about you.” He rolled his head onto her thigh. “I guess that was okay.”

“Mmm.” She pushed his head off and raised herself on one elbow to appreciate him sprawled on the bed, his cock dark and erect against his belly. “Don’t move.” She reached for the bedside drawer and found a condom.

He propped his head on one hand. “What do you have in mind, Lou?”

“This.” She unrolled the condom and eased it over his penis. He raised a hand to help her. “Sorry, I’m out of practice.”

He pulled her head to his, his tongue searching hers. She could taste her own scent on him, his urgency, his desire. This time she was the one who kissed, who directed and explored, while slowly lowering herself onto him. He became impatient and jerked his hips up.

“Stop that!” she said with mock ferocity. She tasted his neck, his collarbone, the fragrant roughness of his chest hair, and swirled her tongue around one nipple and then the other.

He shifted beneath her. “You’re killing me, Lou.”

“I haven’t even started.” She returned to his nipple, this time using her teeth, but very gently, moved to the hollow above his collarbone and bit a little harder to show what she could indeed do if she felt like it, and settled fully upon his cock.

He sighed, and took her breasts in both hands, his skin dark against hers, and chafed her nipples with his thumbs. “I guess you’re calling the shots this time.”

“Mmm.” She slid, loving the fullness within her, the sight of him stretched beneath her at her mercy. “I nearly always come like this. Lots of times. And I want lots of orgasms from you, so you’d better start reciting baseball scores or whatever it is you do to hold out.”

“Poetry,” he said, teeth gritted as she moved.

“How effete.”

“Nothing effete about this, honey.” This twitched inside her, a delightful reminder, although she was in no danger of ignoring his presence.

She moved slowly and carefully, seeking the path to her own pleasure, made all the sweeter by the sight and sounds of Mac, who strove to remain still or respond to her prompts—he did well and he’d do better. She pushed away the thought that maybe she wouldn’t have the opportunity to teach him or learn from him after this night; she must concentrate on the moment, because life was uncertain.

Pleasure flooded her, took her over, ebbed and returned and returned.

“Is four enough?”

She blinked and looked down at Mac. “Oh, hi.”

“Yeah, I’m here, too.” But he smiled. “You look like you’re dreaming when you come. Innocent.”

“You watched me?”

“Sure. I loved it. How about I f*ck you now?”

But he was turning her, rolling her over, still joined. He loomed over her, considering, and then withdrew. “Hands and knees, honey. I’m going to take you fast and hard and recite poetry all the way through.”

She scrambled to get onto her hands and knees and he took his time, stroking her bottom, running an inquisitive finger down her crack. He leaned into her and fondled her breasts, his cock rubbing her vulva. “I want to make you get noisy. Maybe it’s the dressing up. You come in a genteel way. I want to make you scream.”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

He laughed and plunged into her, big and hard, and she reached to clutch his butt, telling him to wait.

He slowed. “Okay for you?”

She caught her breath. “Can you go a bit slower? It’s nice but I’d like to be able to walk tomorrow.”

“Sure. Sorry, I forgot you’re out of practice.”

He was quite gentlemanly at first and then she became accustomed to his strength and the power of his thrusts and welcomed his roughness—he slapped her butt a few times, which sent delicious shivers through her. His breathing became labored.

“Want to make you come first,” he muttered, and reached for her *oris, rocking her hard and the ascent became urgent, painful for a moment, and then she cried out, and he shuddered with her, against her.

They dropped to the sheets still joined, both of them out of breath.

He laughed and withdrew. “Shit, Lou, you’ve wrecked me. Stay here. I’ll escort you back to your room if you really want, though I might have to crawl.”

She stretched beneath him, breathing in his smell, and flexed her legs and arms, slightly sore, very relaxed, very content. “I don’t want to move.”

“Me, neither.”

“But I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

They peeled themselves from each other and Lou made her way to the bathroom, as small and primitive as the one in her room. Her legs, she noted, were slightly shaky, and the reflection in the mirror revealed her breasts reddened from Mac’s attentions, her hair disordered, lips swollen. As she finished washing her hands Mac ambled into the bathroom, scratching his chest.

“Hey,” he said, “want to take a shower?”

They both regarded the small plastic shower stall.

“It’s rather small,” Lou said.

“So much the better.” He leered. “I could prop you up in the corner, and…”

She shook her head, rubbing toothpaste onto her teeth. “Tempting, but I’m tired.”

He put his arms around her. “That’s okay. And anyway, I want to keep your smell on me for as long as possible. I want to curl up with you and let our smell ferment.”

Hand in hand, they returned to the bed and straightened out the wrinkled and disordered sheets, working together as smoothly as a long-married couple. A thought she found disturbing. He offered her a shirt to sleep in, which she declined, not wanting the coarseness of the fabric against her sensitized skin—or so she told herself, luxuriating in the coarse and soft and smooth textures of Mac’s body. He gathered her in his arms, curling his big body around hers and making her feel fragile and protected. His closeness made excitement stir, as did his genitals brushing against her buttocks, tightening. He made a small sound of approval and his hand brushed against her breast, a question, an invitation.

The sex she could have summoned up, imagined—maybe—but this intimacy made her uneasy. She resented his comfort, his relaxation into sleep. Why was it so damned easy for him?

“What’s wrong?” he mumbled. “Thought I’d got you good and relaxed.”

“Not sure.”

His hand touched her breast, lingered, fingertips at her nipple. “I’ll do this,” he said. “And you…you do this.” He directed her hand between her legs. Both hands at her breasts, he teased, slow and sexy. His leg dropped over hers, parting hers so she sprawled open, her hand at her *. His fingertips pulled and caressed and he murmured sleepy encouragement to her to get herself off. Wasn’t it the best way to invite sleep? She didn’t think she would come again that night; she never thought she’d masturbate in the arms of this man she barely knew, but she did, reaching a fast and joyful climax, and falling into oblivion.