by Julia Kent
And for dessert: Peanut Butter Hulk Smash Cake. Grand Peanut Butter Cake (two different dishes). Peppermint sundaes with hot fudge sauce. Pistachio-toffee cream cannoli.
And it all looked like piles of sand to Lydia.
Exhaustion made her sag, the day’s trauma hitting her full force.
“I’m not hungry,” she said truthfully, beginning to shake, as if her muscles needed to exorcise the day’s horror from every fiber of her being. Lydia had the sense that every part of her connected to the rest in a slightly off-kilter way, as if every angle were a half-degree off. Someone poured wet clay into her body and let it dry.
“You need to eat, honey,” Sandy said, helping Lydia into a chair. Her mom went to the buffet table and made her a small plate with steaming coconut shrimp and some sauce, plus handed her a bottled water. “Drink this first, then eat.”
“But I—”
“Eat.”
Lydia tensed, the tone from Mom sending her back two decades. When Sandy used that tone, you obeyed.
She popped the fat shrimp in her mouth and tore half of it off with her teeth. “Happy?” she said around the hot bite.
“Yes.”
“Mmmmmmm,” Lydia groaned, her senses assaulted by the phenomenal culinary pleasure. “Caleb is upping his game.”
“Why does he get all the credit?” Grandma appeared from behind a tent pole, her boyfriend Ed in tow. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
“Why does everyone say that?” Lydia mused, eating another bite. Sandy shot her an I told you so look, which Lydia ignored.
“I guess because chopped liver is something you ignore?”
Ed laughed and kissed her grandma’s cheek. “My Madge did an outstanding job as usual.”
Grandma smiled, her face cracking into so many layers that all looked like different circles on a tree.
Except these were like love rings, measuring how well-loved she was.
“Couldn’t do it without Caleb,” Madge said.
“You don’t get to keep him,” Sandy said, her voice holding an edge. “He needs to come back here, Mom!”
“He’s a man, Sandy, not a preteen boy who doesn’t want to come home from a weekend visit with Grandma. You can’t control what he decides.”
“Mother!” Her own mom drew out the word, her tone going up at the end.
Lydia shoved an entire shrimp in her mouth and looked anywhere but at her mom and grandma.
Mike Pine limped through the crowd, people parting as he ambled through, patting his shoulder and making sympathetic faces. By the time he got to them, he looked pale, dark circles under his eyes, red scratches everywhere. He had a shiner on his right eye socket, which reminded Lydia of her own man’s wound.
And suddenly she couldn’t eat.
“Where’s Pete?” Pine asked, giving Lydia and half smile.
“He’s somewhere ’round here.” Her mother frowned. “You need to go rest.”
“I am,” Pine said, giving her a long look. “I just want to thank you and Pete for everything you’ve done.” He gave Lydia an imploring stare. “All of you.”
It took every bit of will to swallow.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry, she told herself.
Herself didn’t follow orders.
Tears gushed out of her eyes like a sudden summer squall. Childlike and fragile, she set her eyes on a giant globe of sundae, the dish clearly designed for four people to share.
Sandy noticed and waved to Madge, who brought it over.
“Peppermint hot fudge sundae?”
Mike Pine’s face split into a grin just as a very sweaty Laura appeared behind him, carrying two sleeping boys on her hips.
“My favorite,” Laura gasped.
Dylan walked over, peeling one boy off her hip, whispering, “Cyndi’s got Jilly. She wants to dance all night.”
“She can dance until bedtime, which is a generous nine o’clock.”
The group laughed.
Lydia’s mouth was full of a spoonful of heaven, her eyes darting from man to woman to man, her sniffles slowing. They were so happy.
Really happy.
Mike, Laura and Dylan had crafted a life outside the norm, yet it had the trappings of normality. Love. Accidents. Children. Money. Business. Family. Friends.
Life.
Lydia smiled and took another bite as the trio, with their boys, finished their goodbyes, disappearing into the dusk-filled woods.
And just like that, home felt more like home than ever before.
Chapter Twenty-six
Paris, France
Josie
“I can’t believe we’re here,” Alex gushed, his face tipping up to look at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
“I can’t believe you called the hospital and took an entire extra week off,” Josie said in a voice that matched his tone of wonder. He really did it. The man who lived for his work had chosen her.
“When someone offers you free plane tickets and a place to stay for a trip to Paris, you take the time off,” Alex argued, but then he grimaced. “Not that you’re not worth a week’s honeymoon.”
“I know what you mean.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed his temple. “But you’ll still pay for that comment.”
“I can’t believe I’m staring at the Eiffel Tower.”
“I can’t believe we left the hotel room and haven’t even had sex in Paris yet. What the hell is wrong with us?”
Their stomachs growled in unison.
“Basic hunger takes precedence over sex needs,” Alex replied in his doctor voice.
“Since when?”
“Since jet lag,” he said, pulling her to an adorable outdoor café with black wrought iron chairs and tables.
Ten minutes later, two croissants and two cappuccinos resting on a tray at the table, they ate their way through heaven.
“Mike, Laura and Dylan were so nice to give us these tickets!” Alex marveled. He would not shut up about this.
“The hard part was telling Darla that no, just because there was a third ticket that did not mean she got to come.”
He barked out a laugh. “She even offered to just sleep in the hallway outside our room.”
“I think she was serious!” Josie shuddered.
Alex finished his latte and picked the crumbs off his plate, one by one, licking the tip of his index finger.
“We can order another. We’re not that broke,” Josie teased.
He smiled, taking in a deep breath. “An entire week alone with you, in Paris. What will we do?” He leaned in for a kiss. Josie tasted chocolate and coffee on his lips.
“You mean other than the seven minutes a day it takes for sex? Not sure.”
He pouted. “Seven minutes! I take longer than seven minutes.”
“Really? Prove it.”
“Let’s go back to the room and—”
“Do we really need a room?”
She loved watching his face as the implication of her words sank in.
“You want to—outdoors?” Now his curiosity was piqued.
“We share that...proclivity in common.”
“And we learned it runs in the family,” he mused.
“Way to kill a mood, Dr. Perfect!” She bristled. Her Aunt Cathy’s revelation about her mother’s enjoyment of outdoor sex hadn’t exactly been an aphrodisiac.
“Sorry. How about we just go back to the room, open the windows, and pretend?”
She laughed in spite of herself and stood. “Deal.”
The walk back to the room was practically a sprint, Alex’s mouth on hers before the hotel room door was even closed, the windows already open and sheer curtains billowing in from a strong breeze. Outside, the sounds of the city filled the air, so similar to the sounds back home. While the café had been filled with people speaking French, which had made parts of Josie’s brain shut down and others ignite, now the city gave a soundtrack to their visit that Josie could process.
“You taste so good,” Alex s
aid, pulling her shirt over her head, his hands on her jeans, unbuttoning them.
“Why the rush?” she gasped, her own fingers frantic.
“I need to be in you.”
“You always need to be in me.”
“I’ve never been inside you in Paris.”
“That’s a good reason.”
She had him naked in seconds, straddling his deliciously long body on a bed that made atrocious squeaky spring noises as she moved.
“We can’t have sex on this bed.”
Alex’s eyes filled with alarm. “Why not?”
EEeeEEeeEEee
She bounced on the bed to make her point. Alex’s eyes followed along, staring at her naked breasts.
“I like that!” he said heartily.
Eyeing the window, she tiptoed to the curtains to discover they had a tiny patio, no wider than—
A body.
Crooking her finger, she implored him to come hither. At this point, he was just going to come, period. His erection was so long and hard it looked like he was going to explode. She’d never noticed before that it tipped slightly to one side, as if deferring to his navel’s view. Tucking away the detail with a deep amusement, she spiraled inward, loving that she had that image in her.
“Grab the bedcover.”
“What?” He looked at her like she was cuckoo.
He would be right.
She stood, naked, excited and trembling, pointing to the tiny patio. “Trust me.”
He laughed. “I always do,” sliding the coverlet off the bed and dragging it closer.
“See?”
“Oh,” he said in a low voice. “I do see.” He spread the cover on the patio and then she was down.
Alex’s body covered hers before she could even think, his heat so strong she didn’t need a blanket. She was wet, pulsing and ready, her clit crying out for his touch before she died from the sheer frustration of going from zero to sixty without his ministrations.
This was no long, drawn-out lovemaking session. This was the need to join, fast, hard and hot, a primal connection that came with hoarse cries and groans, with the need to bore into and be enveloped by each other.
As his fingers slid into her, his tongue sucked on hers, teeth biting her lips, then earlobes, and finally giving her nipples just enough pain, joined with his touch, to make her arch up and beg.
“Please. Please, now.” The outside air held a chill, the city sounds so much sharper here, her eyes catching the shine of sunlight that bounced off her wedding ring. Here in Europe, she’d learned, many married folks wore their rings on their right hands.
“Not yet,” he said, taking command, his words sending shock waves through her, his voice causing two distinct reactions that both took over her body. The sight of his broad, strong face tracing a trail down her body, his teeth grazing her ribs as he meandered between her legs, was as hot as the sight of a helicopter in the distance, unable to see them but buzzing like a witness to this ecstatic moment.
The thrill of his tongue on her was like being born again, his hands cupping her ass, hauling her forward with a brutal sensuality, their groans tangling like her fingers in his hair. Alex wasn’t delicate, not sensitive, and there was no gentlemanly deference as he used his tongue without mercy. This was a taking, and Josie was so, so ready to be taken.
“Oh, Alex,” she said, her voice coming out with a shaking intensity that caught up to her body within seconds, the call of a bird like a thousand cries, the push of wind against her nipples like a hurricane, the rush of her orgasm against his mouth so kinetic that the wall between his skin and her skin melted into nothing but pleasure. Josie was him and he was her, but he had her under his spell, his tongue maddening and demanding, taking and taking as it gave, forcing her into an abyss of wonder as she warmed and chilled, exploded and receded, her fingers clawing at his bare shoulders, desperate to touch him, to taste him.
To be just a tiny part of him.
And then.
His finger turned inside her, just slightly, and Josie tipped into another world.
And she screamed his name until she took her own hand, placed it between her teeth, and bit down, the pain joining the ecstasy as she rode him, Alex keeping up with her, his unspoken vow quite clear:
You are mine.
And you will know it. I will embed that knowing in every cell of you.
Limp and twitching, she began to push him away, but his grip was iron. He moaned against the soft flesh of her clit and she shivered, a new wave of increasing intensity find its way through her blood. Again? How could she—
Again.
Again indeed.
He moved up and flipped her, hands on muscle as if he trained for this very moment. Med school classes might serve to train future doctors, but anatomy and physiology took a very different patina when in the hands of a man who not only knew the name of every muscle he moved on her body, he knew how to make certain muscles spasm with divine euphoria.
The brush of the tops of his thighs against her ass made her groan, her face pointed toward the city, her view obscured by the metal latticework of the balcony’s railing. She knew what he was about to do and oh, how she ached to have him in her, but no.
Not yet.
She had a few demands of her own.
Squirming away from him, soaked to mid-thigh with her own juices, her skin scorched by orgasm and thrill, she turned, bare ass to the wind. He stood reflexively and she avoided his eyes, placing first one, then both, of his hands on the railing. Dropping to her knees, she decided it was time to give.
And take.
“No, I want to be in you—” he said, the word tapering off with a choked groan as he braced himself for her hot, wet mouth. She knew he loved this, and rarely gave him her mouth when they were outdoors, oddly shy when it came to giving oral sex yet able to have actual intercourse under the banner of dangerousness and open air.
She pulled her mouth back and blew on the tip. “Watch the Eiffel Tower while you come, Alex. Welcome to Paris.”
Jaunty and uninhibited, she stroked the root of his shaft while her mouth took him in deep, past the first strong muscle in her throat, her other hand exploring his balls, touching him with a focused energy designed to give him a new kind of satisfaction. She barely grazed his ass with one careful finger, wondering what he would do, her mouth curving up in delicious delight at the thought.
“What are you—oh, God!” he called out, his body jerking.
He came instantly, the hot surprise making her swallow, the feel of his powerful body trembling before her, before all of Paris, outdoors and under the smiling grace of the sun so vivid. She was in charge. She gave him this. She made him relax and come here to this foreign land where they could be just Alex and Josie, without expectations or responsibilities, and as she stilled her mouth against the tip of his cock, one hand still pumping, she lengthened his pleasure, for that was her job, right?
To give him more of everything good in life.
Harsh breaths punctuated the air, a chill triggering goosebumps along her naked body. He dropped, slowly, to a crouch, limp in every way, and their eyes met.
“Welcome to Paris?” he said with a laugh, dropping to sit, pulling her into his lap and wrapping the coverlet about them both. She curled into him, finding her perfect curve, nestled into his chest and heart.
“What?” She throbbed and hummed, all raw emotion and endless hope.
“That’s the best you could do in the heat of the moment? ‘Welcome to Paris’?”
“What else am I supposed to say?”
“How about ‘I love you’?”
“Clichéd.”
“Maybe I like clichéd!”
“I love you.”
“That’s better.”
“Everything’s better, Alex.”
“It will be in ten minutes.”
“What happens in ten minutes?”
He lifted his hips up just an inch.
“That? You think
it’ll only be ten minutes?” Waiting even ten minutes felt like an eternity, though. Primed and pulsing, she was more than ready to have him in her, to be reminded in flesh and push, in gasps and friction, that they weren’t just soulmates.
They were joined in every way.
He pretended to think about it. “Twenty.” His face was flush with sex, erotic and full, lips red from kissing. He smelled like her and she loved him so much for it.
“You think an awful lot of yourself.”
“I have to. I’m a doctor. God Complex and all that.” He squeezed her tight, his breath shifting to calm, even patterns. They watched the tourists below, smaller than ants, then their eyes were drawn to the tower.
She turned to him with her lips, ready for a kiss.
And he was right there to give it.
Central Massachusetts
Laura
“You’re sure you’re not upset about the honeymoon?” Mike asked her for the umpteenth time.
“Would you stop asking that?” The wedding had been fabulous, under the circumstances, but Mike had been exhausted. The day of merriment, now two days in the past, had involved the chaotic happiness of kids and in-laws, Mike’s parents and Dylan’s mom and dad, and the promise to stay in touch with Big Mike and Mary.
“This cabin sure isn’t Paris.” Mike looked around the sex den...er, cabin, with a scowl. Laura knew he was disappointed to call off their big trip to Europe, but he was a realist. Traveling with newly broken bones—especially those ribs—wasn’t a smart idea.
“It’s fine,” she repeated. “We’ll get to Paris someday. But flying with any pain is a bad idea. Plus, we want to be near our doctors if you need extra attention. And Josie and Alex were thrilled by the offer to take our places!”
“We should have given them something big like that as a present anyhow,” Dylan added, uncorking a bottle of merlot in the kitchen.
“Didn’t think about it,” Mike said, brightening. “So there’s a silver lining. At least someone will get some action while looking out on the Eiffel Tower.”
“Think of all the fun they’ll have in Paris,” Dylan said.
“Croissants. Coffee. French fine dining,” Laura said softly. “What’s for dinner?” she asked Dylan, who made a funny face.