Love Game (10 page)

The pants, the chair, they seemed strangely foreign to her, a wrinkle in the fabric of another time, a civilized age that bowed to his savage yank of the white sheet at the foot of the bed. But it wasn’t a bed, it was the cushion of thick grass awaiting them, and the two carved posts framing her feet were saplings.

She heard the rending of thread as he sliced down. Three long strips he cut, then left the rest for waste.

“Your petticoat,
mademoiselle,
has met a terrible fate. Prepare to meet yours. Spread your legs.”

“I won’t!” His hands moved so fast, with such focused purpose, he simply batted away her kicks to his chest and made short work of securing first one foot and then the other to their binding stations. Speechless at his easy mastery, she felt the rub of wood and the whip of smooth cloth that held her fast and spread her apart.

Coming to the side of where she lay, he swayed the remaining white strip between her legs, then slowly lowered the end to tease the pink tip of her exposure. Pride demanded she not give him the satisfaction of the wail trapped in her throat; but her hips felt no pride in martyrdom and thrust up, up as far as the bindings allowed.

Laughing low, he
brushed the cloth over her belly, around each breast, then dangled it above her head.

“Let’s see, what should I do with this?” He tapped his lips with a finger. “I suppose I could wrap it around your mouth so I won’t have to listen to you scream….”

Gag her?
He was
actually considering gagging her?
What was the word, the password? Flowers. No, some kind of flower.
Wildly she cast about for the word that was buried somewhere and refusing to surface. And then she had it.
Roses.
“Roses” was on her tongue but in the space of a single gasp for air, his mouth was on hers. Kissing her madly, hungrily, and with a thoroughness that left her dazed, he finished with a lingering suckle of her chin.

He pinched it and shook his head.

“No, I don’t believe I want this covering your mouth now that I’ve assured myself any screams I hear will be music to my ears. I think there’s a better use for this…. Yes, perfect. But let’s do this quickly because the sun is setting and I wish to see my victory in your own pleasure. Pleasure that I’m certain will be all the greater if
you
can’t see.” The fabric whispered over her eyes before he lifted her head with a gentle pressure. She felt the tug of a knot and then the sifting of his fingers through her hair.

No sight. She heard the rasp of his breath, the absence of hers. She smelled the scent of his lust and the escalation of her own as her breast was sucked up into a haven of wet heat. Wet, dear God, she was wet, and well he let her know it with the startling upthrust of a single finger. And then she felt two, reaching so high she moaned.

“I have a taste for virgins,” he whispered. “Is there a chance that a virgin you might be?”

She felt like a virgin and there was no doubt that in this place and in this moment, a virgin she was.

“I am. Please, please, be gentle with me.”

“Oh, but I will. I’ll fuck you ever so gently.” With that vow, he withdrew his hand and she gasped at the feel of ribbed glass easing inside her. And then, then she felt the cool trickle of effervescence mingle with the stream of hot tears her body wept.

Awash in sensation, she was suddenly drowning in it, pulled under by the suckle of his mouth, the sipping sound she heard. He drank from her as if she were a golden chalice, her ecstasy a rare and heady nectar. And when he ceased his leisurely tasting, she screamed a cry of protest.

His breath on her face was flavored with the scent of woman and wine. “Could it be that my virgin captive is now a prisoner of her desire for me?” he whispered.

“Yes, whatever you say,
yes
.”

“Whatever I say, is it? I say…I want to hear you say ‘Fuck me.’”

“Fuck me,” she whimpered, the sound of a plea she’d never spoken before.

“How I’ve longed to hear those words from you. After all, some time has passed and my virgin captive is now my virgin bride. Remember with me now…how I spared you a ravishment on the ground, how I was so taken with your beauty and courage that I wanted your passion without the same resentment I harbored for the man whose name you bore. I won back my rightful claim. And I won your willing hand by my show of mercy to your kin. So merciful I am, your wish I now gladly grant.”

Suddenly, the blindfold was off. She blinked against the light and saw his face bearing down on hers with an awesome intensity of raw passion. Amazingly, his initial thrust was a slow glide that stretched and filled and didn’t stop until he pressed, then remained still, sheathed against her womb.

His head descended
and she tasted herself on his tongue, tasted the hint of a sparkling vintage. It was a boozy sweet kiss, one she never wanted to end.

But had it not, she never would have heard his seductive whisper of, “Baby, I never knew champagne could taste so fine.”

C
HRIS CONTINUED TO STARE
at the champagne bottle, then lifted it, kissed the rib of glass. Had it really been there where she now felt such a keen ache? And had their fantasy given way to a carnal gluttony that eased to a playful frolic, to naughty jokes and laughter? And had Greg then carried her to the sunken tub while she pretended the bottle was him and gave it a blow job to die for?

Had it really happened?
It had.

So, what was wrong with Rick? Didn’t he consider this man suitable for his widowed sister? And what was wrong with Audrey? Why couldn’t she understand that daddies weren’t the sort of lovers who made a woman beg for him in the lewdest of languages.

What was wrong with them? Rick, the protective brother with his head on straight. Audrey, the model child who had never before made such a scene as the one today and…hadn’t it been said children could always spot a phony a mile away, that they gravitated to adults who genuinely liked them?

Chris dismissed the idea. Greg was no phony and Audrey wasn’t used to being excluded. The problem wasn’t theirs; it was hers. Her needs, so long buried, were demanding attention. She was starved for it and the man who filled those needs so frightfully, deliriously well, was feeding her greed with a voracious appetite she’d never dreamed of sharing.

Reluctantly, Chris tucked the bottle under her lavender bra and white
tap pants in the suitcase. She then divided her attention between the door and the phone on the night-stand.

More than anything, she wanted to shun her responsibilities and wallow between the sheets with a man she couldn’t let her child get attached to. But the right thing to do would be to find Audrey and spend the night with her alone instead of going where she already longed to be.

Chris made it as far as the door. Her hand hovered over the knob.
How many nights alone had she already spent with Audrey?
Too many.
How many more nights alone would they share?
Too many.

And how many nights did she have with Greg?

Too damn few.

Fingers curling in, her nails bit into her palm. Give in to guilt and give up a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Or spend some extra quality time with Audrey during the days to make up for the nights she desperately needed just for herself?

Making her choice, Chris put her guilt on hold, certain she’d have to deal with it later, and picked up the receiver. The wait for his voice was an eternity.

“Can you be here an hour early?” she asked. Two hours early was better for Greg. Before she could tell him to step on the gas even as they spoke, Chris hung up.

Going to the vanity, she flicked aside the blue-and-gold tassels of a pom-pom and faced herself in the mirror.

It didn’t crack. She didn’t look away.

“Black,” she said aloud to her reflection. “Black bra, panties and hose. They match, even if you and Greg don’t.”

Turning from the mirror, Chris decided that she’d never looked better in her life.

H
E COULDN’T PUSH IN
. Even
after an hour of foreplay, he couldn’t push past whatever barriers her frantic hip jerks said weren’t there.

Rolling off, Greg looked at the ceiling while Chris stroked his chest and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“You tell me.”

She gripped his erection and pumped several times. When he didn’t respond, she let go and assumed his own back-to-the-mattress posture.

Their silence stretched out and she fumbled for her purse beside the bed. They’d gone there directly—the same bed as the night before, but not the same bed at all.

He reached over to his nightstand and found a match. Lighting her cigarette seemed the most intimate act of the evening.

“There’s nothing wrong,” she finally said, studying the smoke she sent into the tension-thick air.

“You’re full of it, Chris.” He plucked the cigarette from her lips, took a puff, then gave it back. “You were tight the first time, but ten vestal virgins combined couldn’t be tougher to work past than this,” he said with a terseness born of frustration.

He’d been so damn hungry to kiss her that he’d pulled off the road twice before they’d made it to the hotel. Even as he’d tumbled her to the bed, he’d tried to dismiss her emotional distance with every bedroom trick he knew and some he invented as he went along. Nothing.

She turned to him, head
propped on her palm. And then she said, “Audrey.”

“What about Audrey?”

“She neutered me, as you apparently noticed.”

“I take it she doesn’t approve of me.”

“If she did, I’d be worried.”

He managed not to flinch. Could a man feel like a hooker? Maybe so.
He
did.

“But it’s not you,” Chris hurriedly explained, while what had gone soft was now limp. “It’s us.”

“But after last night I thought—Ah, hell, I don’t know what I thought. Just that it was great and we were good together.”

“Better than good, Greg. Last night was incredible. It was all I could think about today until…Audrey, this afternoon, she picked up the champagne bottle.”

“Nothing left to drink, I finished it off.”

“You practically finished me off, doing it!” Relaxing, she laughed. He couldn’t laugh with her, but he relaxed some, too, and traced her lips. Her nip of his fingertip was the second most intimate act of the night. “The problem is, Audrey wants a daddy and it’s up to me to find her one.”

“And a daddy I’m not, right?”

“Of course not!” Forget being a prostitute; he felt like he’d been emasculated. “C’mon, Greg, we both know what this is.”

He’d thought he did, but somewhere along the line they’d bypassed the merely titillating and shared what felt like substance. It had nagged at him all day like a sore tooth he couldn’t quit tonguing: What had happened? When had it happened? And did whatever the hell had happened cut both ways?

“Just curious, but what exactly do you think this is?”

“What we agreed
on to begin with. ‘No expectations, nothing to lose. No limits, adults only, and regrets not allowed.’ A few more nights, that’s all we’ve got, all we can ever have. After that, I go home and pick up where I left off.”

But things have changed,
he wanted to say. A few measly nights weren’t enough to play this to its end and same time next year was too long to wait. Chris could meet someone else and there he’d be in D.C. without a chance to compete.

Sounding as casual as he could, he asked, “How would you feel about me coming to visit, or flying up to see me?”

She paled before crushing out her cigarette and immediately going for another. “I don’t think seeing each other after we say our goodbyes would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” he pressed, his guts knotting.

“I don’t want to talk about this.” She reached for the bedside light. He gripped her wrist and rolled her back. He leaned over until he was in her face. No longer pale, her cheeks were bright spots of pink.

“Know what, Chris? Every time you don’t want to confront something, you go for the lights. I want them on while you answer me.”

They were locked in a staring contest. Finally, she broke it. He wanted to grip her jaw and snap her around but instead, he caught her chin and firmly turned.

“All right,” she said, sighing. “First of all, I have an example to set, a reputation to maintain. If we see each other, we’ll sleep together—or make that, not sleep—and I can’t risk getting caught.”

“We could be discreet.” Even as he said it, the suggestion turned his stomach. Sneaking around meant there was something to hide. No, he didn’t think it cut both ways with them, after all. He could just see Chris making excuses, trying to explain him to her friends. And him? If he had her on his turf, he’d flash her on his arm like a Rolex. Hell, make her a movie marquee:
Now Showing…Man Goes from Rags to Riches and Ain’t She a Million-Dollar Doll?

“Even being discreet,
Greg, it wouldn’t work. As long as you’re in my life I won’t be able to, as you say, move on. How could I possibly go in search of The Great American Daddy if your shoes are under my bed?”

Suddenly, he wanted the lights off. Greg bummed a cigarette and lit up.

“Are you looking for someone like—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the name and “dead husband” seemed a little cruel, though a little cruel he felt. Something told him that cruelty wasn’t a qualification for The Great American Daddy. “Are you looking for a duplicate to replace the first father?”

“There could never be anyone like Mark. And even if there was, I wouldn’t want him. He’d deserve to be well loved and that’s something I’m not willing to give.”

“But don’t you think you’re cheating yourself of something that could be good by keeping that kind of distance?”

“Maybe. But it’s more important to me to survive. You lost two wives. Not to death, but divorce is the next closest thing. Surely you went through some grief—”

“No grief here, just regret for bad judgment.”

“Then surely you’ve loved
someone
enough and lost them to understand what that does to a person.”

“Not yet. But…I guess it could happen.”

“For your sake, I hope it never does. Wanting to touch someone, to ask how their day was and really care about their answer, but knowing the closest you’ll ever get is a memory—”

“So, once I’m a memory to stash away with your others—not together of course, mine in the closet, the others on their exalted altar—just what kind of a guy will you be on the prowl for?”

Direct hit, he noted
with satisfaction. There was a shocked quality to her quick intake of breath, the rapid blink of her eyes as if she couldn’t believe he would be so mean, that he would deliberately hurt her with his words.

“If you must know, there’s a man at church who happens to be the assistant principal where I teach. We’re chaperons for a school dance coming up and he’s let me know that he’d like to make it a date. I think I should pursue it.”

“I’m impressed. Go on.”

“He’s a widower with two teenage daughters. They sing in the choir and make straight A’s.”

“They sound even more interesting than him.” A heartbeat passed and she didn’t fling his own less-than-successful attempts at fatherhood at him.
Why
was he doing this? Unless he backed off, he could forget about the few nights they had left. “Sorry, guess I’m jealous. They seem like the perfect family and that gives you a lot in common.”

“He’s president of the PTA.” As if she wanted her lover’s approval of the potential husband, she rushed ahead. “And he’s very good with children. The worst discipline cases at school get handed over to him.”

Yeah, great, but how does he screw?
Husbands, of course, didn’t
screw
their wives. At least, junior-high assistant principals who chaperoned dances and shared a hymnal with straight-A daughters—shit, that’s right, they sang in the choir—didn’t screw. God, he hoped not. They did, however, make love—at least often enough to have kids—and Chris had said she wanted at least one more.
Not his, surely; but The Great American Daddy had the plumbing to get the job done.

Greg shut his eyes against the image of Chris going through the motions of conception. She wouldn’t love the man, be it this one or another, but there would be affection, mutual respect and the standard trimmings for a commitment. To make her loveless bed and lie in it, she’d need that much.

That much was more than he wanted her to have. Selfish, uh-huh. Went right nice with a mean streak. He was some stiff competition, yessir.

Stiff he was not at the moment. But he wanted to be. He wanted a raging hard-on to drive Mr. Goody Two-Shoes out of the running, make her so sore she’d still be hobbling at the stupid dance—chaperoning with her precious reputation intact.

“He sounds like a super guy for you, Chris. Say, if he’s so good with discipline cases, maybe he wouldn’t mind taking a crack at Arlene.”
And while she’s making him itch for a new job, what say the two of us slip into the nearest broom closet and get it on until the janitor turns us over for next in line after Arlene?
Strategy. There was an angle.

“From what you’ve told me about Arlene, I don’t think even Jerry could handle her.”

Jerry.
So, the jerk had a name. Easier to like him without a name, but either way, Greg didn’t like him one damn bit.

“I’m sure he’d try his best, given his track record. As for mine, it speaks for itself.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself.” After lifting the cigarette that had burned down to the butt from his lips, she brushed the ashes off his chest and kissed him where his heart thudded dully. “If it makes you feel better, you make me wish I wasn’t a mama when we’re together.”

“You mean if you
weren’t, you’d want to meet me in the locker room after the first half’s over?”

“I’d want to keep you there until the clock went into overtime. Heck, even when I think about you, I feel like a teenager with more hormones than good sense.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Lord knew, he could use one from her hallowed halls of motherhood. “So what about tomorrow night? Kid or no kid, I want to see you. I’ll cancel our reservations and the three of us can arm-wrestle each other for the last greasy french fry, if that’s what you want.”

“No,” she said abruptly. What had been limp was now closer to shriveled. “Don’t get me wrong. Audrey thinks you’re nice—she told me so.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“She’s upset because I’m neglecting her to see to myself. I need you, Greg, but the way I need you doesn’t have room for Audrey. Bringing you on the scene would only confuse her when the two of us are temporary. I wish things were different, believe me I do, but I’m not the only person I have to think about.”

What about me?
He clamped his jaw before he could ask. Surveying the surroundings, the answer was all too clear. This was it. Still, he had to push.

“Audrey seemed to like me.” Weak defense but it was the best one he had.

“She did.” Chris’s nuzzle to his chest only made him feel worse. “And I think you’re a wonderful man.”

“But you don’t want me to spend time with your child.”

Groaning, she flopped on her back. “Damn it, Greg, I don’t need this coming at me from both ends! I feel like hell after Audrey gave me what-for today and wanted to go home. Much more of you putting the screws to me and home’s where I just might go.”

He hadn’t lost her
yet and yet he was losing her already. Was it her, or was it him? Emotional introspection wasn’t his strong suit but he saw far enough: Chris could love deeply, too deeply, so she refused to even give him a chance. He’d never been able to love deeply enough, a control freak who liked to get his way and usually did. She wasn’t giving him his way and he was sulking. No wonder his marriages hadn’t worked out. No wonder Chris wouldn’t have him.

But he’d have it from her as to why not—in his face and straight from her mouth. Maybe they should end it here.

“It’s clear, perfectly clear, that I don’t fit into the big picture. But even in the short term, I’ve got some pride. You’re ashamed of me and I’ve got a problem with that.”

“Ashamed of you?” Her eyes had never looked so brown, so deep. So affronted. “Where did you ever get that idea? If I’m ashamed of anyone it’s me. You’re honest, I’m not. I’ve lied to my daughter, my family, I’ve lied to myself. I’ve lied to everyone but you—and only because you won’t let me. You’ve been a real friend to me, Greg, and I’m already dreading goodbye. All the more reason that after we’re over, we
have
to be over. Not because I’m ashamed of you—that’s ridiculous—but because I could care for you too much. And that’s the one thing I can’t afford.”

“Does this mean…”
Deep breath, just say it.
“Does it mean you could fall in love with me if you let yourself?”

She took a while to answer. “I don’t know. But it really
doesn’t matter because I can’t, I
won’t,
ever let that happen. It’s all or nothing with you, and falling for someone who makes those kinds of demands is the most self-destructive move I could make. Audrey aside, there might be a chance I could fall in love with you, and that’s the biggest reason I won’t be seeing you again once we finish what time we’ve got left.”

She could love him.
If only he hadn’t been such a loser as a parent, a husband. If only she knew how deeply, how often he wished he could rise above past failure and prove himself as a father and a man.
Let it go. You ain’t no daddy but your libido’s working again.
Chris’s confession had aroused him more than a fevered touch. She could love him—what a rush. Addictive stuff; he was already hooked.

The realization hit him with the impact of a brass-knuckled fist and all he could think was,
Ah shit, man, are you in trouble. Give her some room and get some for yourself.

“Look, if you need to spend time with your daughter tomorrow night, I can make myself scarce. I don’t like it but I understand. Whichever way you want to work it, we will.”