The Talented Mr. Maxwell

by Julia Harlow

  So she was in the hospital waiting area when Blanche rushed in. Feelings of both relief and annoyance flooded her. She’d told Blanche not to come until Grant was in a private room, but she was so happy to see her that tears welled in her eyes.

  “How is he, pumpkin?” Blanche enfolded Dorrie in her arms.

  Breathing in her comfort, Dorrie answered without pulling away. “He’s better. They may move him to a private room if he continues to improve.”

  “That’s wonderful news.” Blanche pulled back enough to kiss Dorrie’s cheek. “Why don’t we go to the hospital cafeteria? Knowing you, you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.” She studied her granddaughter’s face. “And you’re so pale. How are you ever going to take care of that man if you make yourself sick worrying about him?”

  “He almost died. I could’ve lost him forever,” Dorrie whispered, her soft voice catching on a sob.

  Hugging her close, Blanche kissed her cheek. “Now see here. Grant survived, and the two of you will get through this. He needs you now more than ever. So let’s get a bite to eat, and maybe he’ll be in a room by then, sweetie pie.”

  As they walked toward the bank of elevators to head for the cafeteria, she handed Dorrie a small bag. “Oh, and I brought you a little care package: comb, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few other personal items. I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up a bit here since you refuse to go home even for an hour.”

  When they returned to the information desk half an hour later, Grant had been moved to a private room. Now that the news of the assault was out, his reps had gotten involved and insisted on round-the-clock protection. Dorrie had wanted to broach this herself and was relieved it had already been arranged. Whoever did this was still out there and may come to New York Presbyterian to try again. An involuntary shudder coursed through her body at the thought.

  Rays of afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of the large room. Grant was sitting up in the hospital bed and broke into a smile when Blanche and Dorrie came through the door. Although his head rested back on the pillows, he had a little more color in his face. Along with two days of dark stubble.

  When Dorrie quickly moved to the bedside, he held a hand out to her. She was pleased to see the tubes had been removed from his nose and overall much less equipment was attached to him. A very good sign. She clasped his hand and kissed the back of it before leaning in to gently kiss his mouth.

  “So nice of you to come, Blanche.” Grant motioned for her to take a seat near the bed.

  “Dorrie and I just had tuna salad sandwiches in the cafeteria, and they were quite good.” Blanche met Grant’s eyes; a silent message passed between them.

  “Happy to hear it. Wish I could have a tuna salad sandwich instead of this liquid diet they have me on.” He glared at the IV tube.

  After about twenty minutes, a wound care nurse came in to change his dressing, and Blanche took her leave, promising to return soon.

  While the nurse was working on him, the room phone rang, and Grant nodded toward it for Dorrie to answer. As she picked up the receiver, he added, “I don’t want to talk to anyone but you.” It was Jillian at Entertainment Arts. Apparently, they’d just found out, and with a shaky voice, she asked about Grant’s condition.

  Before answering, Dorrie covered the receiver with her palm and told Grant who was calling. “What should I tell her?”

  He winced as the nurse blotted his wound with gauze. “It’s okay. You can trust Jillian. Just tell her what we know so far.”

  When the phone rang again, Grant told Dorrie to contact the front desk with a short list of names to put through to his room. His parents, Dorrie, Stefan, Simone, and Jillian were the only names on it. And Blanche. She had just finished calling the front desk with the list when someone knocked softly on the door.

  The uniformed officer stationed at the door told her someone was here to see her. Apparently, Cody Carlson and Carly Ann were waiting at the front desk. After letting Grant know, she headed downstairs to meet them.

  The moment Carly saw her she rushed up and grabbed her hands. “How is he? Is he going to be okay?”

  Dorrie briefly told them about his condition.

  Cody put his arm over Dorrie’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “How’re you holding up? Can we get you anything?”

  She couldn’t help but notice his use of “we” and wondered if Cody and Carly Ann had hit it off. Before she could ask, Carly Ann hugged her close.

  “I’m so sorry for the way I’ve acted, Dorrie. I’ve been such a bitch to you. Please accept my apology. I’m happy for you and Grant. The whole time we were together it was like his heart was somewhere else. And now I know where.

  “I want . . . you and I . . . to be close. Do you think that’s possible?”

  Hugging her back, Dorrie smiled and said, “Yes, definitely. It would be wonderful to have you in my life, again.”

  Chapter 26

  The movers lifted the sofa again, hefting it to yet another wall. Grant frowned, rubbing his thumb along his jaw. He’d have to tip them extra, for sure. Or buy them dinner.

  They’d been maneuvering the new sofa he and Dorrie had finally decided on all over the living room. The London morning had been sunny, but now a steady drizzle fell, and the day had turned foggy and gray.

  “What about this, Dorrie?” He called to the kitchen where she was tidying up the lunch dishes. When she leaned in the doorway, she cocked her head, considering.

  “I like it there. Balances out the fireplace.”

  “Okay then. That’s it, gents.” Both movers smiled gratefully at Dorrie.

  After they left with big tips in their pockets, Grant and Dorrie plunked down on their new sofa.

  ~*~

  “Do you really like it?” Grant asked.

  “I like you.” She grinned over at him, knowing this would make him crazy. Then she sighed. “Yes, of course I like it. I love it. We spent hours and hours wringing our hands about it. Let’s light the fire, have a glass of wine, and enjoy our new living room.”

  After Grant lit the fire and she brought in a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, they both gazed around the room, relishing the crackling logs and orangey-red licks of firelight. The tumbled oak herringbone patterned floors, shutters at the windows, and windowpane-checked upholstered pieces had been Grant’s choices. Her influence showed in the brass lamps, cashmere throws on the chairs, potted green plants, and decorations for the fireplace mantle, among them an antique leather box bracketed by two glass hurricane lamps with pillar candles. They had yet to add artwork for the walls, but the room finally looked homey and lived in.

  Draping his arm over her shoulders, he pulled her body against his. “Want to christen it?” His whispered words sent her eyebrows straight up.

  “Here?”

  “Do you have any idea how sexy you are? Besides, we missed at least three weeks while I was recovering.” He began nuzzling her neck, but she abruptly pulled back.

  She shuddered, wrapping her fingers around his neck to hold him close. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. If anything ever happened to you . . .”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I promise. It was all that damn Carly’s fault. If she had only told me who he was that night he approached us outside her hotel, I’d have had a warning. But never mind. That Wright son of a bitch is going to be in prison until he’s an old man.”

  She climbed on his lap and held his face in her hands, meeting his deep blue eyes. “In those hours before I knew you were going to be all right, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world without you in it.” She rested her forehead against his, breathing in his scent.

  “You’ll never have to. You’re stuck with me.” He trailed his hands down her back and cupped her bottom, pulling her down on his erection. The instant he made contact with that most sensitive part of her, she sucked in a breath. He flexed his hips and she gasped. Lowering her mouth to his, she lost herself in their kiss, sucking his ton
gue and running the tip of her tongue across his bottom lip.

  His chest heaved. Her fingers made quick work of his shirt buttons and pushed it off his shoulders. The white T-shirt was over his head and tossed behind the sofa within a second. Dorrie pulled back and surveyed him. When she’d located the puckered red scar several inches under his armpit, she leaned over kissed it tenderly. She felt his big body tremble.

  Moving along his chest, she found his hard little nipples and circled the tip of her tongue around each one then ran her tongue down his abdomen. Short work was made of the button and zipper on his jeans, and when she closed her hand around his throbbing cock, it jerked in response.

  Grant’s hand clasped hers. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Now get naked.” His voice was hoarse with need. He helped her with her cotton sweater, and with a quick flick, her bra was unclasped and off. When his wet mouth sucked her nipples, she ground herself into his hardness, and he groaned deep in his throat.

  He worked his jeans and briefs down just enough while she wiggled out of hers. “You. On top. Now.”

  When she lowered herself down onto his huge, thick penis, he closed his eyes. “Oh Christ, Dorrie. You feel so hot and tight and wet for me. Hold still for a second or this is going to be over way too fast.”

  Rising slowly up on her knees, she pulled almost all the way off and then sank down again. His face had an expression of pure sensuality: an expression part ecstasy and part urge to chase his release.

  He grasped the full rounds of her bottom and took over, thrusting up into her balls-deep and then dragging his cock out touching every single highly sensitive nerve she had before thrusting back in. This time she was the one who groaned. Their bodies moved together in a desperate race, sweat slicking their chests as they writhed together.

  When their explosive climaxes came, both thought their hearts would burst through their chests. Dorrie clenched him, milking out every last drop from his big cock and then collapsed on him, sucking in air with her head heavy on his shoulder.

  Grant’s head sank back into the sofa cushion while he dragged in deep breaths as fast as he could. “God, Dorrie, what you do to me. Will it always be like this?” He slid his hands up and down the silky skin of her back.

  “Don’t know. But I sure hope so.” She wiggled a little on top of him. He was still inside her, still semi-hard. A smile played across his mouth.

  “Wanna go again?”

  “I would, but I can barely move as it is. My arms and legs feel like wet noodles.”

  He threw his head back and laughed deep in his chest. “Here, let me rub some life back into them.” His hands massaged her thighs and calves and then moved up to her arms, carefully flexing his big hands into the flesh of her upper arms. “Better?”

  “A little. Can we just sleep here?”

  “We could. But it’s only four o’clock. Besides, what about the wedding plans? Didn’t we say we’d finalize the details this afternoon?”

  “Right now I’d settle for just the two of us in front of a justice of the peace.”

  “You say that now, but I want us to have a wedding we’ll both treasure and remember forever. I want it to signify our deep love and the unique bond we have, to celebrate the complete union of bodies, minds, and souls.”

  Dorrie pulled back, her heart bursting with love for this man. Her man. “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

  Epilogue

  The early May afternoon was unusually warm with temperatures in the mid-seventies. Bees buzzed among the beds where lemon-yellow, hot-pink, and deep-violet flowers bloomed while sunrays shined down between the London row houses.

  A young male voice broke through the tranquility. “Dad! C’mere! Look at this!” Four-and-a-half-year-old Grayson Wesley Charles Maxwell knelt on the squishy grass near a flowerbed, his head bent low and dirt-smudged index finger pointing at a black beetle.

  He was the image of his father, a miniature version with thick dark hair and blazing blue eyes. Just like his father, his gaze was breathtaking.

  His dad, with two-year-old Isabel cradled in his arms and one of his thumbs in her mouth, strode over and squatted down. “Well, what do we have here, Gray?”

  “A beetle. Isn’t it cool, Dad? Look at its shiny back!”

  Both doting parents encouraged all things science and nature related, as well as language and reading enhancement.

  Isabel, unhappy that her father’s attention had been diverted, furrowed her little brow and pulled his thumb from her pink rosebud mouth long enough to squeal, “Dada, me, no Gway!”

  Dorrie chuckled and rose from where she’d been lounging on the flagstone patio. “Here, let me take her.” She lifted her up and breathed in the heavenly scent of their daughter’s golden curls, patting a pudgy thigh. Grant gazed up at her and winked with an expression of pure bliss on his GQ-perfect face.

  Dorrie sighed with pleasure at this last sweet moment of just-the-four-of-them serenity before Carly Ann and Cody arrived with their little boy, Tommy. Blanche would be here soon, too, along with several neighbors, including Grant’s architect, one of his closest friends, for the Saturday afternoon get-together.

  Memories of Carly Ann and Cody’s wedding made her smile. She had been touched when Carly Ann asked her to be her matron of honor. The wedding had been a huge elaborate affair in Dallas; most of the Stallions team and staff were there as well as Blanche, Grant, Dorrie, and a few friends and colleagues of Carly Ann’s from Palm Beach.

  By contrast, Grant and Dorrie had a fairly low-key wedding to reflect their wishes. They’d been married in Grant’s hometown not far from London with only close family and friends.

  “Mom! Cody and Tommy are here!” Grayson’s excited yelp penetrated her reverie. Time to get it in gear. Just as she stepped into the kitchen, Grant came to her and tenderly placed his big hand on her abdomen, practically covering her from hip to hip.

  “Are we going to tell them?”

  Dorrie shook her head. “Let’s hold off a bit. It’s just two and a half months.” He kissed her gently on the lips. They shared one last look of pure joy before all their guests arrived.

  Thank you for reading The Talented Mr. Maxwell. Here’s an excerpt from Julia Harlow’s first book, Closed Set.

  Christopher

  I sweep my arm out across the crisp sheet searching for Cassandra as morning light trickles into her bedroom. She’s not there. I turn on my side and hear water running in the shower. I pull her pillow to my front and her scent wafts up to my nose, setting off the most pleasurable sensation. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply thinking about our love making last night.

  The bathroom door handle clicks open and Cassandra comes out with only a white towel wrapped around her body. I sit up enough to assure a good view and prop my head against the pillow.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” I say, watching as she opens a drawer and pulls out pieces of lingerie.

  “Good morning, beautiful, yourself,” she smiles. She’s saying something else as she takes off the towel, but I’m dizzy with lust and no longer listening, already tenting the sheet.

  “Christopher, did you hear me? Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Would you come here a sec?”

  “Christopher, you know I need to get to work.” She has that adorable little frown on her face and one hand on her hip. That arouses me even more.

  “Please, Cassie. You haven’t even kissed me good morning.” She won’t say no to that, at least I hope she won’t.

  Yes! Here she comes, so fucking sweet, leaning over to kiss me and I grab her, yanking her down on the bed. “Christopher!” she squeals and squirms to get away. Not going to happen.

  “I promise, I’ll be quick,” I say softly into her ear, my hands all over her freshly showered and gloriously naked body. God, she feels so fucking good. “Please, I won’t see you all day,” I whine.

  “How quick?”

  “Really quick. Let me show you,” I chuckle.

  “And
what about me?” She smiles and wiggles her front against me.

  Jesus. This woman.

  “I’ll do it whatever way you want, baby,” I say, rolling her under me...

  ~~~

  “You’re going to make me late, you irresistible sex God,” she pants, disentangling our legs and slipping out of bed.

  My eyes are glued to her as she dresses after making a quick trip to the bathroom. “You seem very comfortable with your body,” I remark.

  “Dancers pretty much have to be. We’re always traipsing around backstage and in dressing rooms in various states of undress, or completely naked.”

  “Keep talking like that and see what happens.” Sitting up with my hands behind my head, my eyes follow her every move. She shimmies into lacy pink panties and a matching bra.

  “You certainly have a wide variety of enticing under garments. Is it a fetish?”

  “Not exactly. In college, my fellow dancers and I would try to outdo each other with sexy lingerie. Just a casual competition, really. I may not have been the top dancer in the corps, but I was pretty darn proficient at shopping for frilly panties and bras.”

  “And to think that I am the beneficiary of all that scholastic effort. Sometimes I can’t believe my luck. Do you have a favorite designer?” I may be going shopping later.

  “I love anything by Chantelle. Their lingerie is very well made, comfortable against my skin and over-the-top sexy. All very important qualities.”

  She sashays over and plants a light kiss on my mouth. “Gotta go, Sweetness. There’s coffee and delicious whole grain bread for toast with a nice raspberry jam. Help yourself then lock up when you leave, slug-abed.”

  While the bread toasts, I scroll through my messages. Cassie’s bold Italian roast is so tasty I have a second cup and call Pamela.

  “Where can I purchase Chantelle lingerie?”

  “Would you like me to go for you, Christopher? I know you detest shopping.”

  “Nope. I want to go.”