“Shh.” He motioned for her to come closer. When she stood a foot away, Jeremy said with quiet rage, “Why’d you leave me with this thing on my leg?”
Stunned, Agatha stammered. “I… I was trying to hide you from Moe. To keep you alive. Don’t you remember?”
“I was trapped like an animal. Worse than an animal.”
Agatha heard the anguish in his voice and shrunk back. “I thought it might help you,” she faltered, “get clean.” Tears sprang to her eyes but she held them in. She added quietly, “I… I love you. I wanted to help.”
Jeremy’s hateful gaze sliced into her soul.
“Where—” Agatha’s voice cracked from the backlog of tears in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. “Where are you going?”
Jeremy heaved several deep breaths.
Agatha touched his arm. When he didn’t flinch or move away, she inched closer. She hadn’t had her Jeremy, the real Jeremy in years. Though he smelled of vomit and sweat, she wrapped her arms around his skeletal frame and squeezed.
“Oh Jeremy. How could we let things get this bad?” She cried into his neck.
She thought she might crush him if she weren’t careful. Jeremy shifted his weight then his arms wrapped around her shoulders. The hug started loose and grew stronger with emotion. “I’m sorry,” he said and began sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”
“Agatha, oh Agatha,” Moe’s voice traveled across the yard.
“Oh no,” Agatha whispered. “Everything’s fine. I’ll be right there.” She called to Moe. Her voice sounded cartoonish in her attempt to sound cheery.
“What’s he doing in your house?” Jeremy’s signature coldness had returned, but it was too late, Agatha knew he cared.
“Do you have any money?” Agatha asked.
“Oh.” Jeremy reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of rolled bills. He held them toward her.
Agatha stared. “What’s that?”
“Money I found in your shoe.”
Agatha’s heart skittered, not because Jeremy had stolen her money, but because he was giving it back.
“Keep it. You need the money. Don’t use it for drugs though, okay?”
Jeremy said nothing.
“What’s going on?” Moe called.
“Stay clean, please?” Agatha patted Jeremy’s chest. “I better go.”
Standing on tiptoes, she pecked him on the cheek. “I love you.” She fled before Moe, who waited at her back door, walked over.
“Is everything okay?” Moe asked as she drew near.
She hurried past him into the house. “Fine, fine.” Wanting to clean the tears off her face and repair the damage crying had done to her makeup before Moe noticed, she added, “Dinner is waiting on the dining room table. I need to freshen up.”
“I am hungry.”
Agatha went into the bathroom and closed the door.
“You got Hot Diggitys,” Moe exclaimed.
His obvious excitement made her smile.
“Agatha, you are a woman of mystery,” Moe called out.
Agatha washed her face and reapplied her makeup. She was giddy over seeing Jeremy clean and the fact Moe hadn’t seemed to notice. Opening the bathroom door, she called out, “Take the food in the bedroom or you won’t get my next surprise!”
When she heard him chuckle then the sound of his footfalls moving toward the bedroom, she sighed with relief.
“Hurry up woman!” Moe called.
Chapter 13
Agatha laid snuggly in the crook of Moe’s arm with her head resting on his chest. Acting like love-struck teenagers, they’d made love three times that evening, and she was exhausted. With one eye open, she traced the outline of his chest hair with her index finger. When she let her finger follow the thick line of hair heading south, Moe protested, “That tickles.”
“Sorry.” Agatha’s hand came to rest on Moe’s abdomen.
“I could get used to this,” Moe said.
Agatha tilted her face toward his as he looked at the ceiling. “Oh yeah?”
“Not the tying up part. Why’d you leave me lying there so long anyway?”
“I was busy.” Agatha yawned. She’d gone to her lawyer, her hairdresser, and Hot Diggitys. What had consumed most of her time were the spa services. A massage turned into an exfoliating body scrub, which turned into waxing. She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten a Brazilian wax. She’d blushed to her toes when the aesthetician had described it, but had gotten one anyway.
“Your skin feels like satin, and your hair smells like heaven.”
Agatha smiled. “Surprised?”
“I’ve been surprised many times today.”
The two fell silent. Agatha thought about whether they could actually merge their two worlds. She envisioned them together and smiled.
“Why are you smiling?” Moe asked.
“How’d you know I was smiling?”
“I can feel your cheek pushing into my chest.”
Agatha laughed. “Everyone in my life is going to think I’ve gone crazy.”
“Why?” Moe asked.
“The fact you had my son beaten to within an inch of his death should rule you out as a potential suitor.”
Moe’s muscles grew taut, and Agatha realized her blunder. They’d been skirting the Jeremy topic. Moe hadn’t inquired about him, and she hadn’t offered. “I had no choice, you realize,” Moe said.
“That’s not how I see things.”
Moe sighed then kissed her forehead. “I suppose there were other options, but before I met you, I had no reason to change.”
Unsure if they were still playing a game, and whether she should take his words at face value, Agatha said nothing.
“So where is Jeremy going anyway?” he asked.
Agatha stiffened. “Excuse me?”
“You were talking to him. Forget it, I don’t want you to think I’m still after him.”
****
Helen had nervous energy. Riding in Ben’s car anticipating sex was familiar, but new. Sex. Yay. She refused to calculate the years that had passed. Ben turned onto Carnival’s main street. He drove by two motels, and Helen sensed he wanted something classy, but in a town dedicated to cruise ships, there weren’t many choices.
A Holiday Inn came into view, and Helen swallowed. Hard. In her thirty-five years, she’d never stayed in a hotel room with a man. Not even Kenny. For their three-day honeymoon, they’d gone camping. But this wasn’t any man, it was Ben. Her first love; her first everything.
Ben pulled into the parking lot. “Do you want to come in or wait in the car?”
Helen sunk low in her seat, embarrassed the clerk would know what they were up to. Aware she was acting eighteen, rather than thirty-five, she forced herself to move. “I’ll come in.”
Ben checked them in while Helen feigned interest in the tourist brochures.
On the ride up in the elevator, Ben reached for her hand. The contact was comforting and helped calm Helen’s unease. He unlocked the door, and he held it open.
Helen’s stomach flip-flopped as she stepped across the threshold. The room was big enough that her kitchen and living room could fit inside. In one corner, by a set of windows, was a Jacuzzi.
“This is very nice,” Helen said.
“I got the honeymoon suite.” Ben treated her to one of his megawatt smiles, and Helen’s stomach lurched.
“Want some champagne?” Ben asked.
“Champagne? Fancy.” Tipsy from the wine, she said, “Maybe later.”
Unsure how to act, Helen moved to the bed and sat primly on the corner. How should she act on her pent-up desire now that she’d gotten the green light from Theo?
“Are you okay?” Ben sat next to her.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I’m…” She blew out a breath. “I don’t do this—normally.”
Ben’s gentle smile reassured her. Again, he took hold of her hand. “What’s going through your beautiful head?”
&
nbsp; Helen shook her head and chuckled, she was determined to stow her insecurities in a drawer in her mind. Her gaze dropped to their clasped hands. Would she even remember what to do? Would Ben inwardly laugh at her naiveté?
Ben tucked her hair behind her ear. “How have you kept the men away?”
It seemed as if he’d read her mind. “Wasn’t easy. A baseball bat and some bug spray,” Helen joked. “What about you?”
“I don’t like men, so it’s been easy.”
Helen pursed her lips. “When was the last time you had sex?”
Ben took two breaths before answering, “About a month ago.”
Helen nodded, surprised by the sting. “What about the woman you were with? Aren’t you cheating on her?”
“No.”
“So you had, what, a one-night stand? Is she married?”
Ben frowned. “No and no. We have a working relationship. An understanding.”
“A working relationship? What does that mean?”
“We work together. I’m single; she’s single. We have sex maybe once a month, for the physical release. To fill a need.”
Helen’s stomach churned. Her own needs were never part of the equation. Why did she care what Ben did in his free time anyway? “Does she know that?”
“Yes.”
“So you have a number of women you call up—”
“Why are you asking these questions?”
Why indeed? Helen thought for a few minutes. “I guess I want to know what this”—she gestured around the room—“means to you.”
“I’m not the boy you dated in high school.”
“I wasn’t say thing that…” Her voice trailed off. “Sex isn’t casual to me. I don’t want to be a notch on your lipstick case.”
Ben’s jaw clenched causing a neck muscle to bulge. “That’s not how I think of you. I’ve never serious, long-term relationships because I could never be honest with anyone. I had a son and a whole other identity I couldn’t admit to.”
Ben squeezed Helen’s hand. She didn’t return the gesture. “I became a workaholic because it’s mind-numbing. There are a few women who are also workaholics for their own reasons. With them… business is the best description. With you, everything is different. I’m not hiding in the shadows. You know me. The good, the bad, and the ugly.” Ben cupped her chin and turned her face toward him. “I adore you whether or not we follow through with our plans tonight.”
His bittersweet words tugged at her heart. “But you’ll be leaving soon and…” She sighed. Why couldn’t she enjoy sex for sex like Ben and his workaholic women?
He pressed her hand to his heart. “You own a part of this and always will.”
His chest was warm, strong, and inviting.
Ben went on. “I can’t make promises about the future, but I don’t want us to end once I go back to Chicago.”
“Part-time lovers?”
“Better than not lovers at all in my humble opinion.”
He was right, so why hesitate?
“Helen, whether it’s me or someone else, you deserve companionship. To be honest, I hate the idea of another man touching you, and believe me I’ve noticed all the men sniffing around Hot Diggitys.”
“Sniffing?”
“Men are dogs, they sniff, but that doesn’t change my point. You should fulfill your needs.”
To give Theo a stable home, she’d given up men. But Theo was grown, and there was no logical reason to deprive herself further. “You talk too much. Kiss me.”
Helen wrapped her arms around Ben’s neck and stretched up for a kiss. After their conversation, she expected the kiss to be awkward; instead an instant, deep longing settled in her groin, and she found herself writhing, trying to scratch the itch. Without breaking the kiss, Ben pulled her onto his lap. He tugged at her shirt, his fingertips grazing her skin.
Ben broke off the kiss and asked, “Can I undress you?”
Wearing the T-shirt and jeans she’d worn while working on the roof, Helen felt grimy. Not the moment she’d envisioned for her next first time. “I need a shower.”
“Then I’ll undress you in the bathroom.” Ben grinned.
“Um…”
He stood, captured her hand in his, and led her toward the bathroom. Helen gaped at the shower as Ben dimmed the lights. Made of marble, the shower was wider and longer than her shower at home, plus there were two showerheads. She caught their reflection in a mirror that ran floor to ceiling taking up an entire wall. In the scant light, they looked like two silhouettes moving in the moonlight.
Fascinated, Helen watched Ben reach for her ponytail. He pulled the band binding it off, and her cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Ben moved behind her, so he wasn’t blocking her reflection.
He caught her eye in the mirror. “You are lovely,” he whispered and tugged the bottom of her T-shirt up. Helen lifted her arms, and he pulled the T-shirt over her head exposing her white belly and a thick white, grandmother bra. Ben wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her shoulder then looked at her in the mirror and smiled.
“I’m not sure I know what to do,” Helen said.
Ben smiled. “That’s easy, you relax and enjoy.” Ben unclasped her bra. It fell forward onto her shoulders, and he slid it down her arms and onto to the floor. He walked his fingertips back up her arms.
Using one finger from each hand, Ben drew shrinking concentric circles around each breast. Each circle got smaller as he got closer to her nipples. Helen appreciated the sight of Ben’s tanned hands against her light skin, and the slight scratch of his fingertips as they moved closer to her areola. Goosebumps rose on her skin as her desire grew.
Ben kissed the side of her neck, and Helen tilted her head back. A quiet moan escaped her mouth, surprising her. When Ben’s fingertips grazed her nipples, a jolt of energy shot straight to her groin. He gently squeezed the peaks of her breasts sending vibrations across her body. Helen slid her arms back and, grasping his butt, pulled him closer until his erection pressed into the small of her back.
Ben cupped her breasts before gliding his hands down across her belly. He let his fingertips rest at the top of her jeans. “Would you look at you,” he whispered in her ear. Helen opened her eyes as Ben tossed some of her dark hair over one shoulder. Her locks fell over one breast then spread, revealing her taut nipple. “You could be a pinup girl.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.” Ben unbuttoned her jeans then unzipped them. He hooked his thumbs inside the waist of her pants and dragged them down her legs. Had she really worn the waist-high, white, cotton panties with the overstretched elastic?
Ben lifted one of her feet, and Helen leaned into him for support as he pulled her shoe off, her sock off, then tugged her pant leg over her foot. He did the same on the other side leaving her wearing the worn, granny panties. Embarrassed by her underwear, she began pulling them off herself.
“No. No. I get to do it. Undressing you is like opening a present.”
Their gazes met in the mirror. The longing in his eyes, told her he hadn’t noticed the panties at all. Ben took his time working her panties down and off her legs revealing her dark triangle of curly hair. The trend was to clear-cut or at least groom the forest, but without a serious relationship in her life, Helen never took the time.
“If I keep looking at you, we’ll never shower,” Ben said.
He pulled his shirt off. He’d kicked his shoes off, and had his pants unbuttoned, and pushed down before Helen said, “Wait, I get to undress you.”
“Oops.” Ben grinned and pulled up his jeans. Tugging at the pockets, Helen lowered them. Unlike Ben’s sensual removal of her underwear, she was clumsy pulling his boxers over his erection and taking them off.
“Oh man. We’ll never get in the shower.” Ben dragged his attention away from her and started one spigot then the other.
“I can start my own water.”
“No. No.” He shooed her away. After adjusting the temperature on bot
h showerheads, Ben said, “Hop on in.”
The water temperature was perfect. Helen tilted her head back and let the water soak her hair and run down her skin while Ben had taken his place across from her under the other showerhead.
Helen’s gaze traveled Ben’s body to his thick, rigid cock. Her knees went weak, and she heard the sound of her own heavy breathing. Shocked by the force of her lust, she turned and grabbed at a miniature bottle of shampoo, knocking it to the floor.
“Allow me.” Ben picked up the shampoo, and instead of giving it to her, he poured some in his own hand and stepped closer. He held his hands toward her hair. “May I?”
No one other than a hairdresser had ever washed her hair. “I guess.”
“Turn around.” With her back to him, Ben worked the shampoo through her hair to her scalp. He took a step closer and took turns stroking then crunching her locks before weaving his fingers back through to her scalp. His fingers were strong, seductive.
“I think this is the most thorough hair washing I’ve ever had,” Helen cooed.
“Turn for me.”
Rotating, Helen faced him.
Gently lifting handfuls of her hair, Ben held them under the water.
“You have such thick hair.” His tone was appreciative.
A smile curved Helen’s lips, and Ben’s gaze settled on her face.
“Don’t move an inch,” Ben said, lathering a bar of soap between his hands until foam dripped to the shower floor.
“Turn around again.”
“Bossy,” Helen jested as she pivoted so that her back was to him. Ben’s soapy hands glided over her shoulders and down her arms. When his hands retreated, Helen glanced over her shoulder. He was rubbing bar soap between his palms. His warm, slick hands glided down her back to the curve of her rear.
His hands continued their exploration as he slid them across her belly. He stepped closer and the tip of his erection touched her back. His slippery hands caressed her breasts, stomach, and thighs. Helen reached up and back. She found his cheek. A day’s worth of beard growth made it rough. Ben closed the space between them pressing his body against hers.
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