Caress Part One (Arcadia) (7 page)

I was standing in the elevator, the private one that
connected the lobby and the tower penthouse. For some strange reason, I wasn’t
wearing any clothes--apart from a really great pair of strappy black Laboutins.

I could see myself in the bronzed mirrors that lined the
walls--breasts, ass, legs--all bare. Vaguely, I was aware that I was dreaming
which probably explained why I wasn’t alarmed.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. Instead
of being in the apartment foyer, I was on another floor. With a start, I
realized that it was where I’d lived until just a few years ago. My throat
began to tighten. I was paralyzed, unable to move.

The doors slid shut again and I felt myself moving upward,
away from where I had been. An intense feeling of relief washed over me and
more--excitement, anticipation. Right about then, I realized that I wasn’t
alone.

Lucas was leaning against the far wall of the elevator. The
jacket of his crisply tailored suit was unbuttoned, exposing the expanse of his
chest under a white linen shirt and dark blue tie. His hands were tucked into
his trouser pockets and an amused smile played over his chiseled mouth.

“Why, Miss Whittaker,” he said, surveying me, “what’s gotten
into you?”

Instinctively, I tried to cover my breasts and sex. His
smirk deepened. At the sight of it, my back stiffened. So what if he was
dressed and I wasn’t? The dark, hot fire in his eyes made me feel more powerful
than I ever had in my life.

Dropping my arms to my sides, I straightened my shoulders
and smiled at him in turn.

“I think you’re to blame, Mister Phelps.”

He frowned. “I am?”

“For this dream I’m having.” I shrugged lightly. “You’ve
gotten me all hot and bothered.”

My daring surprised me but I was also exhilarated by it. I
took a step toward him, then another until we were so close that my bare
breasts brushed his chest. The feel of cotton and silk against my nipples made
them harden almost painfully.

A steely arm wrapped around my waist. I was suddenly,
vividly aware of his erection.

“What do you want?” Lucas growled.

Oh, why the heck not? It was just a dream, wasn’t it?

I threw my head back and met his smoldering gaze. “Everything
but we can start with your cock.”

Sculpted lips parted in surprise. I resisted the urge to
press my own to them and instead slid my hands down the long line of his chest
until they reached his belt buckle. Keeping my eyes on his, I undid it and
eased down his zipper.

Slowly, still looking up at him, I sank to my knees. My
teeth nibbled my lower lip as I slipped a hand into his boxers and freed him.

What I’d felt of him on the couch really hadn’t prepared me.
I gasped softly. Long, thick, and hot, his cock hardened even further at my
touch. He was more than a little daunting.

I had a basic knowledge of male physiology, again mostly
gleaned from those books, but practical experience was another matter. Still,
my dream self was blissfully free of self-consciousness or hesitation.

I just wanted exactly what I’d told him. Everything. To
touch him, taste him, take him…

My tongue swirled around his crest. The flavor of musk,
salt, and something essentially Lucas seeped through me.

But I needed more…much, much more.

Lucas groaned and cupped my head between his hands. As I
sucked harder, his hips moved, pistoning forward, urging me to take all of him.
A heady sense of freedom swept over me. Even as I continued pleasuring him, I
slipped a hand between my thighs and stroked myself, working my clit with the
same rhythm that I flicked my tongue over his crest and shaft.

The response of my body was immediate and almost unbearably
intense. I cried out as a powerful orgasm seized me, shattering the dream.
Jolted back into reality, I found myself writhing on the bed, my hand between
my thighs, and my back arched in ecstasy.

Long moments passed before I recovered enough to grapple
with the stunning fact that I had come in my sleep, courtesy of a dream
starring the man who I was quite sure had to be snoring peacefully right below
me.

Damn him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was awake when dawn finally crept over the skyscrapers to
the east, across the greensward of Central Park and touched the windows of the
tower apartment. But then I’d been awake on and off all night Every time I
managed to drift off, I dreamed of Lucas.

When I wasn’t asleep, I was thinking about him. About us.
But there was no us. I worked for him. Full stop. I had to be out of mind to
entertain the notion of anything more for even an instant.

There was him and there was me, two separate people with
very different experiences in life and entirely separate agendas. Him, me, and
that damn couch.

How could I have let him touch me like that? I’d all but
melted in his arms! Just thinking about what had happened filled me with
embarrassment. At the same time, it made me wet all over again. And left me
with a question that I couldn’t even begin to answer.

 Who was the strange woman that I became under his hands and
mouth? So passionate and needy, languid and mindless, unlike any part of myself
that I had ever known. Or at least that I had allowed myself to admit existed.

In the quiet of the dark room, in the hush of the night,
that woman refused to be stilled. Deep in my mind, I heard her voice--eager,
assertive, challenging--daring me to surrender to her as much as to Lucas
himself.

I squirmed, trying to deny the heat between my thighs but
the sensation of him stroking me there resonated too powerfully to be ignored.
One finger, no more, and he’d brought me right to the edge of orgasm.

What would his cock really feel like? I had some idea of his
size and girth, just enough to want to know far more. I wanted to see and touch
him, to stroke his length and even take him into my mouth, taste him, run my
tongue over him and--

By dawn, I was pretty much a wreck but I was determined not
to show it. After a brisk shower and a stern mental talk with myself, I emerged
from the bedroom cautiously.

It was Sunday but that didn’t necessarily mean that Lucas
was still in the apartment. He could just as easily be at work or at the gym.
Or out with someone.

Rather than go there, I marched myself down to the kitchen.
Ignoring the pang of disappointment that I felt at finding it empty, I tackled
the coffee machine.

While it brewed, I rummaged in the refrigerator until I
found a small container of cottage cheese. I ate it leaning against the sink
and had just tossed the remains in the garbage when the doorbell rang.

Answering it, I found not one of the building employees or a
delivery person, who so far had been the only visitors to the apartment, but a
lovely young woman. She gave me a startled look that quickly turned into a
sweeping head-to-toe assessment accompanied by a look of amused interest.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting anything,” she said, sounding not
in the least repentant. “Is Lucas here?”

I shook my head while studying her in turn. She was about my
age with dark hair bobbed just above her shoulders and large gray eyes. Her
features were strong but undeniably beautiful. She wasn’t someone who would be
easy to forget.

“I’m sorry, he isn’t, Miss--?”

“Caroline Phelps. I’m his sister and you’re--?”

The resemblance struck me at once. I almost sagged in relief
even as I was suddenly consumed by curiosity about her.

 “Emma Whittaker. I work for your brother. I’m curating the
contents of this apartment to ready it for sale.” I stepped back and held the
door open invitingly.

 She came inside but only got a few feet before she stopped
and took a long look around. A low whistle escaped her. “Holy crap, this place
is every bit as incredible as I’d heard.”

Her piercing slate gaze centered on me again. “And you’re
getting to go through it bit by bit. That must be amazing.”

I couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. Her brother
could be all too intimidating, bewildering, distracting, entrancing, tempting…I
could go on and on but I stopped myself. In contrast, Caroline Phelps struck me
as surprisingly approachable. I couldn’t help thinking that she might give me
some insight into the man I was trying so hard not to think about at all.

“It is amazing,” I agreed, shaking off my inner confusion to
focus on something I could deal with. “I’ve always felt drawn to the 1950s--the
clothes, the music, the cars, it had a kind of elegance that we’ve lost.”

Caroline nodded but she looked skeptical. “Yeah, sure, but
it had another side, too. How much do you know about what was actually going on
back then?”

I thought of a world where school children were taught to
“duck and cover” from nuclear bombs, where African-Americans in much of the
country rode in the back of the bus, and where few women could aspire to
anything other than a handful of “pink collar” jobs.

“I know it wasn’t all malt shops, drive-ins, and poodle skirts.”

“No, it sure wasn’t. What about Margo Stark? Have you had a
chance to learn much about her?”

 “Just the broad strokes,” I said. “She was a glamorous
movie star involved in a love affair that ended tragically. The death of
Senator John Prentice seems to have derailed her life and drove her to become a
recluse.”

Caroline nodded. “That’s the general belief. But since
Prentice’s murder remains a mystery, it’s impossible to say for sure.” She
broke off suddenly and sniffed. “Is that coffee I smell?”

Her friendliness bemused me. I was so unused to it but she
made it feel completely natural. “Yes, it should be ready by now. Would you
like a cup?”

“I’d love it.” As we walked toward the kitchen, she asked,
“So Lucas is staying here?”

“Yes, he has the master bedroom on this floor.” I could feel
myself blushing as I added, “I’m using one of the guestrooms upstairs.”

Caroline’s eyebrows arched but mercifully, she changed the
subject. As I poured the coffee, she asked, “What’s the most interesting thing
you’ve found so far?”

Handing her a cup, I thought for a moment. Margo’s old
movies fascinated me but they were the fantasy version of her. I was more
curious about the reality.

“There’s a gallery of photographs upstairs,” I said.
“Everything from Margo’s earliest days in Hollywood to a few months before she
disappeared from public life.” On impulse, I asked, “Would you like to see
them?”

Her eyes lit up. “I sure would! Lead the way.”

With our coffee in hand, we spent a half-an-hour or so
studying the photographs. Lucas’ sister knew a surprising amount about the
period. She could put names to the faces I’d only wondered about.

Most of them were Hollywood powerbrokers—producers,
directors, and the like. But she was also able to tell me about the man who was
with Margo in photo after photo, Senator John Prentice. Tall, handsome, with
chiseled features, broad shoulders, and an air of easy confidence, he looked
like the kind of man many people would instinctively defer to.

“He was supposed to become president,” Caroline said,
studying the smiling heir to one of the country’s largest fortunes. “His father
groomed him for it from childhood. When World War II broke out, Prentice Senior
arranged what was supposed to be a cushy berth for his son with the naval
office in Washington.”

“I thought John Prentice was a war hero,” I said.  At least,
that’s what I’d read in the Wikipedia entry. “How did he manage to achieve that
from a desk in Washington?”

Caroline grinned. “There was a screw-up with his paperwork,
accidentally or on purpose, no one knows. Before Daddy could intervene, the
future Senator found himself ferrying Marines onto some hell hole island in the
Pacific. In all the chaos, Prentice ended up behind a machine gun. He mowed
down several dozen of the enemy, saved a whole bunch of Marines in addition to
his own guys, and was hailed as a hero.”

“How do you know so much about him?” I asked.

Looking a bit sheepish, she said, “I’m something of a true
crime buff. It’s a hobby, veering only occasionally toward obsession, no matter
what my brother may tell you. The Prentice case has fascinated me for years.
You can imagine how excited I was when I heard that Lucas had the listing to
this apartment.”

The penny dropped. “You think there might be a clue here
that could explain what happened to Prentice?”

“It’s a long shot,” Caroline admitted. “But after all this
time, this is the only possibility that’s left. He and Margo were an incredibly
romantic couple. There was talk that she was going to leave Hollywood just like
Grace Kelly had and marry a prince only this time he was American royalty. The
public ate it up.”

“And then?”

Caroline cocked her head to one side and looked at me
speculatively. “You really want to know?”

To my surprise, I really did. I was living in Margo’s
apartment, among her belongings. Perhaps inevitably, she was becoming real for
me. I didn’t believe in ghosts, and I certainly had no sense of one in the
tower apartment. But something of her essence still lingered and that
fascinated me.

“Yes, I do.”

In the silence of the next few moments, I could hear the
soft whoosh of traffic rising from the street far below and the distant rumple
of a jet descending to land at one of the nearby airports.

For all that the tower apartment still encompassed the
1950s, the 21st century was out there, just beyond the walls of the Arcadia.
But standing in front of the photographs of Margo and her Senator, time seemed
to roll back to another era of glamour, romance, and ultimately of death.

How had such a tragic end to a love story come about? Why
had it? A beautiful, vibrant woman had withdrawn into seclusion, seemingly
burying herself alive in the tomb of her grief. Could love really be that
powerful? Could it truly change the direction of a person’s life beyond all
recognition?