by Cj Howard
“You are paying me for it though,” she said with a tilt of her head and a small smile.
He looked away again. “I know. I just don’t think there’s any way I could ever even the score with you. You really saved me and my business. Now that my reputation is at the precipice of a better day, I’ll be able to do the refurbishments in and near the French Quarter that I’ve wanted to do and get that project going. It’s going to take some more time and a lot of work, but I feel like we at least have a chance now, and I owe that all to you. I just wish there was something I could do to really show you my gratitude. Something that isn’t just money. You have changed everything, in more ways than one.”
“I’m being paid for it. I’m not a saint, Peter.” She looked sidelong at him and leaned her head backward, closing her eyes.
He looked at her, watching her for a moment and then moved closer to her and said more softly, “You gave up any chance that you might have at real love for the next three years. If that’s not sacrifice, then I don’t know what is.” Peter was a lot of things, but he knew how much love could mean.
Emmaline’s eyes remained closed and she replied, “Not really. There’s no telling if or when I will ever meet him. He may not show up in my life till long after we’ve gotten divorced and gone our separate ways. You might not be keeping me from him at all. We won’t know till my dream guy finds me.”
Peter thought back over their conversation on their wedding night. “That was quite a list of qualifications you compiled for him. I’m not sure you’re ever going to find him. I’ve never met a real man like that.”
She laughed at him. “Maybe that’s because birds of a feather often flock together.” Her mirth sounded in her again, and she continued, “Besides, we don’t have to worry about you finding him or meeting him. I need to be the one who finds him, or be looking in case he’s trying to find me.”
Peter watched her laying there in the water, her head back and her hair wavering gently in the ripples that played with it. He looked at her mouth and thought of the kiss they had shared at their wedding. Their only real kiss, as he didn’t count the time he had planted his lips on hers in a drunken act of idiocy. He wanted very much to lean over her and kiss her again, but part of him railed against it just as much as part of him desired to do it.
“What if your perfect guy is just a little bit different than you think he will be?” he asked, finally giving voice to the thoughts that had reached their tendrils from the back of his mind and tickled the curiosity of his conscious thought.
She spread her arms slightly, moving them back and forth in the water as if they were wings that would carry her through it. His eyes moved from her lips to the swelled curve of her breasts and then he looked away from her and took a deep breath, trying to refocus his mind.
“He’ll be exactly what I think he should be or he won’t be my perfect guy. I’m not really asking for that much. He’d be a pretty decent man. That’s not out of the question. If he’s not a pretty decent man, then he doesn’t need to be with me.” She felt it was quite simple, and she genuinely didn’t think she was asking for too much. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t going to settle.
Emmaline had a point, Peter thought. It just precluded him from being anywhere near the picture.
He was quiet for a long while and then said, “Well, it’s getting late. We should go in for dinner. I’m sure they’ll have it served up for us pretty soon.” He swam back to the dock and she followed him. When they got to it, he turned for a moment to watch her swim to him, and when she reached him she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, and then she kissed his cheek.
“Thank you for taking me on this trip. I’ve never seen anything so incredible in my life as the things we’ve seen while we have been traveling. You didn’t have to do this. It’s not a real honeymoon, but you made it almost as good as one anyway. I appreciate that.” Her voice was soft in his ear and her breath caressed his skin. He slid his arms around her and pulled her to him to hug her back and as he held her there in the water, their skin touching the full length of each other’s bodies for the first time. He felt a force of desire go through him that he had never known and it stopped him completely. He did not breathe and he did not move, because he knew if he did, he would not have the will to hold his desire back, and his need for her would cause him more problems than he had ever known.
Emmaline felt his body stiffen when she pulled herself to him in the embrace, and though his arms went around her and he held her to him, he seemed to freeze where he was, half of his body pressed against hers, their arms around each other and his face turned away over her shoulder. She realized that he must feel extraordinarily awkward having her so close when they were supposed to be business associates. She had thought that after their wedding, after the powerful kiss he had shared with her when they spoke their vows that some of the walls between them had come down, but that was apparently not the case. He could not have been less receptive of her friendly affection to him and it was a sharp reminder to her that she needed to keep her distance from him, no matter how comfortable he made her feel, and no matter how amiable he had been with her.
She let go of him and backed away, putting a distance of a few feet between them, and he breathed out slowly and then turned from her and climbed out of the water onto the deck. He reached behind him to help her out, and she waved his hand away.
“That’s alright; I can get it on my own. Thanks, though,” she said, trying to right the faux pas she had obviously made with him and give him the space he clearly wanted.
Peter knew that he had gone too far with her when she wouldn’t let him help her out of the water, and he forced a light smile and replied airily, “Okay, well I will see you inside for dinner then.”
They ate their meal with only some light banter shared between the two of them, and afterward, they both retired to their separate rooms, each one of them pushing the other from their minds.
There were moments during their trip when they seemed to be able to be friends, and there were moments when the air between them was filled with awkward tension. Emmaline thought it was the growing pains of getting to know someone who had suddenly become a permanent part of her life, while Peter chalked it up to having to control his lust for her. He had never been turned down by any woman; they had always come to him in constant waves, and he had never found himself without one wanting him, and he had never had to be alone with just one that he couldn’t have. It was very frustrating for him.
There were women who flirted with him in places where they saw people as they went along their trip, but Emmaline either didn’t notice or she didn’t care, and that frustrated Peter. He knew full well that it shouldn’t bother him that she didn’t want him, and especially that she hadn’t paid any attention to the subtle flirting of other women along the way, but all of it began to wear on him tremendously. It was tiring for him to be friends with her and want her, but not be able to have her, and then to not have other women as well.
By the time their trip ended and they returned to the house, he was feeling petulant and irritable, and Emmaline ignored it and stayed in her room and in areas of the house that he did not frequent.
It was when she had embraced him in the spring pool and he had frozen stiff in her arms that she realized how opposed he was to being close to her, and after that, she made it a priority to give him space and turn a blind eye when other women were affectionate and attentive toward him while they were traveling. That one moment, and a few other awkward moments after it, had shown her quite plainly that he meant for them to have a business relationship and a friendly acquaintance, and that would be as far as their friendship would grow.
She had begun to wonder if they were going to become good friends, but then it occurred to her that the weeks leading up to her wedding were filled with social dates because they needed to convince the public that he was through with his playboy days and had settled down into a respectable life
style. She understood that she had begun to believe their public façade after all the lunches and dinners out, the movies, the live theatre shows, the concerts, the strolls through the French Quarter, and the boat rides and carriage rides; all of it had only been for show, and it was hard to compartmentalize that into a part of her life where she didn’t allow real emotion. It was difficult to remember that everything he did was part of the story they were feeding others. She had decided to keep to herself at the house and give him the space that he had shown her he needed.
In the days that followed the trip, she began to miss being around him a bit, and she decided that it was because she had no company but her own at the house, and that in order to fill that void, she would should join some social groups in the city as his wife so that she could spend her time doing good works in his name.
Emmaline was dressed in a thin summer dress one afternoon and was headed out of the door to go to a meeting with one of the groups, when Peter happened to see her in the foyer and stopped her.
“Well hello, stranger!” he smiled at her. He walked up to her and couldn’t decide how to greet her, so he settled on a light hug. “I haven’t seen you much lately. I was wondering if we could have dinner tonight,” he asked, his heart beginning to pound. He tried to keep his eyes in contact with hers, but the temptation was too strong to resist and as she glanced away for a moment, he let his eyes slide down the curves of her body. He could see the outline of her form through the light material of the dress as the sunlight from the front windows silhouetted her. It made him catch his breath and he turned and looked away from her.
Emmaline looked down to check her phone to see what time the meeting ended and when she looked back up, his head was turned and his gaze was on something else. He didn’t look back at her right away when she began to speak, and she knew that he must have only asked her about dinner to be polite. She thought she would give him an easy out so that he wouldn’t feel obligated to spend time with her.
“Oh, I wish I could. I have a meeting in the city and I’m not sure how long it will run. Please go on ahead without me. Thank you, though,” she replied with a smile.
A brush off. She had given him another brush off. He felt like it was all that she was doing since they came back from the trip. The frustration in him began to bubble to the surface and he stalked into the bar near the drawing room and poured himself a shot of whiskey. By the time he had finished his third shot, he had begun to convince himself that he was doing just fine without any affection or attention from her, and that he didn’t need it at all anyway. He called up a couple of the girlfriends that he used to see from time to time and had his limousine go pick them up and bring them to the house. By the time they got there, he was buzzing and happy on the surface and bubbling with resentment deep underneath. He decided to throw a party for the three of them. He decided he’d show her that he didn’t need her.
Amy and Tiffany showed up half an hour later and came into the drawing room in happy surprise. Amy rushed up to Peter, her long blonde wavy hair swinging around her shoulders, and she tackled him in a hug, Tiffany, her dark curls bouncing as she joined them, added to the group hug.
“It’s been so long since we saw you! I thought you forgot about us, and then you got married! Where’s your wife?” Amy asked conspiratorially.
“She’s out on the town tonight, so I thought we’d have a little party here, and you two don’t need to worry about her at all.” He walked over to the stereo and cranked the music up full blast. The girls whooped and hollered and he gave both of them a drink and tossed their coats in the corner.
Peter felt adrenaline pumping through him, and the feeling of freedom and abandon that used to arouse him so much and make him feel alive began to course through him. He grinned in pleasure as he grabbed Amy and pulled her into his arms, holding her close to him and in a flash, he planted his lips on hers and ravaged her mouth in a hungry, lustful kiss. She gasped and moaned happily and kissed him back just as voraciously.
He felt as though he was suddenly himself again and it felt so good to him. “God, baby, you don’t know how much I needed that. I feel like I’ve been on a desert island and I just got back to reality! Oh! Come here, Tiffany, show me how much you missed me.”
Tiffany grinned and looked up at him through her dark eyelashes. She moved up close to him and began to rub the front of her body against his, flirting and smiling as her hands closed over his hips and she squeezed him tight.
Peter laughed and tipped the bottle of booze in his hand back, pouring it into his mouth. Then he tipped it back over Tiffany’s mouth and poured quite a bit into her. Then he set the bottle down beside him and kissed Tiffany; he kissed her hard and long, nibbling and biting at her, and she giggled.
“Peter! Look how much I missed you!” Amy said as she began to dance for him seductively, smiling up at him and twisting her body around as she slowly unbuttoned her top.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh! I like that! That’s going to make me feel so much better.”
Tiffany grinned at him and said, “I can make you feel so much better, too, honey.” She unbuckled his pants and dropped them to the floor, then pushed him down onto the sofa and lowered her glossy red lips to his groin. His smile stretched all the way across his face as she pulled his shirt off and began to run her tongue over his growing erection.
Amy’s shirt fell to the floor and her dance became much more erotic as she smiled at them and slowly peeled off more of her clothes, stopping only to suck down large quantities of booze.
Peter watched them both, looking from one to the other as Amy danced and Tiffany moved her tongue and her mouth over his thick, solid desire. He drained the last of his bottle and set it on the table beside him, then he reached his hands down and knotted his fingers in Tiffany’s dark curls, clenching her head and drawing her face closer to his body, pushing himself further into her mouth and throat. He pumped his hips toward her face slowly, enjoying every single second of his pleasure and the magnetic attention of the girls.
Amy had gotten down to her bra and panties and came around behind the sofa he was on, tilted his head backward and leaned over his face from behind him. He let go of Tiffany’s head as she sucked hard at him and reached up behind him to pull Amy’s bra off of her. He flung it to some corner of the room and buried his face in her generous breasts, devouring her nipples as his hands clenched her swells. She grinned at him and ran her hands over his bare chest as he continued to pump his erection into Tiffany’s mouth.
He was lost in pleasure and in lust, enjoying every single nuance of it, of the two beautiful women who had come when he called them and who he knew loved to play with him, and even in the tawdry depths that he was in, Emmaline somehow wound up on the edges of his thoughts. She seemed to be watching him disapprovingly from the corners of his mind, and it began to eat away at him, until he had grown frustrated with her again, and he knew he had to try to drive her even further from his mind.
He let go of Amy and focused with laser beam intensity on Tiffany, clasping her head again, and pushing himself into her hot mouth faster and faster, until his body finally gave him what he wanted and he came hard, filling her mouth and flooding her throat. She squealed with delight and he kissed her forehead and then pulled Amy down onto the couch with him and yanked her panties from her body. He pushed her legs apart and buried his face between her thighs, covering the outside of her with his tongue, and then driving it into her, drinking her in, flicking his tongue over and around her as she moaned and cried out in pleasure.
Peter tried his best to keep Emmaline from his thoughts, thinking that the more he tasted Amy, the more he licked and sucked at her, the more he could push Emmaline from his mind, but the further he went with Tiffany and Amy, the more she came into his thoughts, until he was rock hard again and the only thing he could think of was the wife he could not take to his bed.
He could not hold himself back from his thoughts of Emmaline, from imaginings o
f her laying on the couch with him rather than Amy, pretending that it was her body that he was giving so much pleasure to, and that it was her cries that were sounding in his ears and her dark hands that were twisting desperately in his blonde hair. He closed his eyes and moved above Amy, covering her nipple with his desperately hungry mouth. Behind his closed eyes, it was Emmaline’s nipple being toyed with by his tongue and caught in his teeth. It was her fleshy dark breast in his grasp, and it was her body that he thrust his solid erection into, feeling her hot wet body close around him.
He gasped and began to move within Amy, almost believing his fantasy, feeling her legs tighten around him as he buried himself in her narrow depths. Pleasure washed over him as he pretended it was her voice calling out his name and crying out in orgasm after orgasm as he slid himself in and out of her. He held her tightly and let his emotions change from the petulant, “I’m going to show her that I don’t need her,” to “She is finally mine and I can have her and make love to her like I’ve wanted to.”
His mouth and tongue moved over her nipples and breasts, across her skin and her lips, sucking and biting, tasting and twisting as he pushed himself deeper into her, his hands grasping at her body tightly. His mental release was a huge relief for him, as he made believe he was making love; and the release of his body came much later, as he spent every second he could with his eyes closed and his mouth open on Amy, imagining she was his untouchable wife Emmaline.
He rolled on the couch with her, putting her on top of him and moving her over his groin so aggressively that he finally couldn’t hold back his orgasm any longer and in the final throes of passion, he came again, harder than he had in Tiffany’s mouth, filling Amy’s cavern with his ejaculation, as images of Emmaline coming for him filled his mind, and he cried out in ecstasy just as he heard the door slam and he looked up as his heart pounded in his chest and he tried to catch his breath.