Pleasure Beach

by P. J. Mellor

  Numb, she stood, nailed to the floor, unable to speak, cry, beg or even scream. The patio door slid shut.

  Jack was gone. Forever.

  She should be glad. Jack McMillan was an egotistical, overbearing chauvinist with Neanderthal thought processes. When it came to the opposite sex and relationships, he was emotionally stunted.

  And he was the love of her life.

  13

  Jack leaned back in his leather desk chair and swung his stethoscope around with his index finger while he stared out his window at the top of the hospital cafeteria.

  “Dr. McMillan, why don’t you call it a day?” Sylvia, his office manager, stood in the doorway, hands on ample hips. “No offense, but you’ve been about as useful as tits on a bull this week. Why did you even come back? You aren’t scheduled for anything for more than two weeks.”

  She took a step into the office and closed the mahogany and beveled-glass door. “I know you don’t have any renters right now,” she said in a sympathetic voice. “Why don’t you go back to the beach for a while? I can handle things here.”

  “I’m getting married.” The announcement surprised him as much as Sylvia. But suddenly he knew it was true. And he’d move heaven and earth to make it happen.

  “What? When? Congratulations!” She rounded the desk and almost smothered him in her motherly hug. “Do I know her? When’s the big day?” She cuffed his shoulder. “I can’t believe you haven’t told anyone! Does Dr. Wallace know?”

  “No, Marc doesn’t know.” His new partner would probably gloat. Newlyweds seemed to love sharing their wedded bliss.

  He couldn’t wait.

  He stood so fast, several files slid to the floor. “I haven’t convinced her yet, Sylvia. Any suggestions?” He bent to help retrieve the papers.

  She shooed him away. “As if you needed my help! You just go on and get that lady to the altar! I’ll handle everything here.”

  Impulsively, he kissed her rouged cheek. “I’ll send you an announcement.”

  “You’d better. Now, get!”

  Royce closed the door of her Galleria area condo and stared at the FedEx envelope. Her contract.

  “I should be happy. Jumping for joy,” she said, tossing it onto the dining table. “Why do I feel like crying and throwing up?”

  Impatient pounding on her door drew her out of her pity party.

  With a heavy heart, she walked to the door, not bothering with the peephole. Without Jack, it didn’t matter. A serial killer would be welcome about now.

  Instead, it was Jack.

  They stood for several moments, staring at each other.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  Royce braced her arm on the door, gripping the edge. She couldn’t just let him waltz in and out of her life whenever he had an itch he wanted scratched. “Why? I thought you said all you had to say last time.”

  “Thanks, I think I will come in.” He shouldered his way past her, then turned and rescued the door from her death grip. It closed with a soft click.

  He flipped the dead bolt. “You moved without saying good-bye.”

  “I thought we’d said all there was to say the last time we saw each other.” She took a step back.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it was to track you down? The station is very closemouthed about things like that.”

  “You’ve been looking for me?” Despite herself, hope blossomed.

  He nodded and took another step toward her. “I finally had to break down and call Wendy.” He frowned. “I didn’t remember her being so opinionated.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s Wendy.”

  “I didn’t come here to discuss Wendy. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Did you accept the book deal?”

  “Why—”

  “Just answer the question, would you?” He advanced, backing her up until she felt the edge of the snack bar dig into her spine.

  She swallowed and straightened. “Yes.”

  He nodded. The confusing man even had the gall to look pleased. What did he care?

  “Good,” he said, standing so close now that she could feel his heat along the entire length of her body, smell his unique combination of male skin and mouthwatering aftershave. “It was a good offer. Too good to pass up. You’re smarter than that.”

  He reached up to drag his fingertip along her cheek. It was all she could do to bite back her groan. It seemed like years, instead of weeks, since she’d felt his touch.

  “I’ve missed you, Royce,” he whispered. “Did you miss me?”

  She could only nod and pray that, whatever game he was playing, he would never stop. No doubt about it, when it came to Jack, she had no willpower.

  He reached for something but she didn’t care. He could do anything to her, bondage, whatever. As long as he never left her again. She was desperate, shameless in her need for him.

  “I only have one suggestion for your book. It has to do with revisions. And the dedication.”

  “Huh?” He was back within touching distance and he wanted to talk about her book?

  He tilted her chin until their gazes met. “I want you to change your conclusions. At least about Test Subject One.” Feather-light, his lips brushed hers.

  “You do?”

  He nodded and kissed her again, this time a bit longer. “Uh-huh,” he said, brushing a kiss on the tip of her nose. “You see, this is one test subject who has changed. I love you, Royce St. Claire. I’m over my fear of commitment.”

  With a squeal, she threw her arms around his neck, but he stopped her exuberant kisses. “Now, about that dedication.”

  “Jack, do you really want to talk about that right now?” She squirmed against his arousal, but he pushed her away from him.

  “We need to shake on it first.” He extended his left hand.

  She frowned, confused, but if she had to shake hands with him to get him back in her life, it was a small price to pay.

  She placed her hand in his.

  He drew her closer.

  Mouth scant inches from hers, he said, “About that dedication…” His breath was hot against her lips.

  “What about it?” she whispered, all but quaking in her need.

  Something cool and hard touched her ring finger, but she refused to break eye contact.

  “I want you to dedicate it to your husband…Jack.”

  “My—?”

  “Husband.” He raised their joined hands. On hers, a diamond the size of an ice cube glittered beneath the light from her hallway. “Put me out of my misery. Don’t let it be too late,” he urged. “Tell me you love me. Say you’ll marry me.”

  She ran her free hand down over the bulge in his trousers. “Jack, why don’t we continue this where we’ll be more comfortable…in bed?”

  “Say it,” he demanded, love shining from his eyes.

  “Remember the first time we made love?” she asked, drawing circles on his chest.

  “Of course. Now say it.” Despite his words of protest, he busily unbuttoned her blouse.

  “You asked me to trust you. Repeatedly.”

  Her breath caught at the feel of his mouth on her neck. Her knees went weak.

  “Right. Say it.”

  “I love you, Jack,” she said with a sigh.

  “And?”

  She dropped to her knees. Her hands on his belt buckle, she looked up and smiled. “Trust me.”

  Four friends. No limits. Pick your man and get ready to play by Susan Lyons’s CHAMPAGNE RULES, available now from Kensington…

  “So, tell all, Suze.” Jenny leaned forward, elbows on the table, pink flamingo earrings dancing. “What’s the best sex you ever had?”

  Around their outside table at Las Margaritas restaurant, three flushed female faces grinned at Suzanne.

  It was Jenny Yuen who’d launched the topic, with her description of hot sex in her boyfriend Pete’s double Jacuzzi. “It was the best sex of my life!” s
he’d exclaimed, brown eyes flashing. “I swear, Korean men beat Chinese, hands down.”

  “Ssh,” Suzanne had said, used to the fact that Jenny’s personality was twice the size of her petite body, but wishing she didn’t always have to be quite so out there.

  She wished she’d kept quiet, though, when Jenny turned the question on her.

  “I, um…” Best sex? Suzanne barely suppressed a nervous giggle. That would have to be with her dream lover.

  Jenny rolled her eyes, turned a pink-sweatshirted back to Suzanne, and said to Rina Goldberg, “So, what’s the best sex you’ve ever had?”

  “Not with Marty, that’s for sure.” Tonight, at the Awesome Foursome’s regular Monday dinner, Rina had already told them she’d called it quits with the man she’d been seeing for the last several months. Her heart definitely didn’t seem broken.

  “The best sex,” she murmured. Looking like a gypsy with a fringed burgundy shawl over her usual black clothing, she pulled a wayward lock of curly black hair behind a multi-ringed ear as she sipped her second margarita and considered the question.

  The others waited, munching from the platter of nachos locos—laden with everything yummy and fattening you could possibly imagine—and working on their own second margaritas.

  Rina began to smile, and nodded her head firmly. “Yeah, I know exactly. The summer I turned eighteen, I went to a music school in Banff. There was this other student, Giancarlo, from Italy. He was a pianist and he had the most awesome hands.”

  The others oohed and aahed as Rina described the things Giancarlo had done with those hands, including making her come three times in a row atop the grand piano in a student rehearsal room.

  Somewhere during the recitation, a third round of margaritas got ordered for everyone but Suzanne, who had a strict two-drink limit.

  When Rina finished, Jenny turned to Ann Montgomery. “Your turn,” she said, talking around a guacamole-and-sour-cream laden chip.

  “You know I’m a conventional gal.” But Ann’s eyes were twinkling. “I’m not much into Jacuzzis or pianos. I like big, comfy beds. And a man who wears a tie.”

  “A tie? Bo-ring,” Jenny scoffed.

  “Not when there are four of them, all silk, and they’re tying you to a four-poster bed.”

  “Bondage?” Suzanne frowned. “Ann, that’s—”

  “No, no!” Ann held up a hand to stop her. “I totally consented. And they were tied really loosely. He made slow, beautiful love to me, and all I could do was respond.”

  Jenny gave a skeptical frown. “I can’t imagine you surrendering control to anyone. You’re the control freak to end all control freaks.”

  Ann stuck her tongue out, then shrugged. “Okay, I concede your point. And yes, it surprised me too.” She smoothed her short brown hair and straightened her shoulders inside the jacket of her navy suit. “I’ve never come so hard in my life. It was a little…scary.”

  As Suzanne glanced around the table, she thought how lucky she was to have found these women. They’d met last year at an introductory yoga course. The bonding began when, after the second lesson, they decided food, chat and alcohol were far better tension relievers than contorting their bodies into pretzel shapes. The four didn’t have a lot in common, but that made the conversations even more stimulating. Strong ties of friendship had formed, and now the Foursome members were deeply loyal to each other and their Monday nights.

  She stopped feeling lucky when Jenny turned to her with an evil grin. “Didn’t think we’d forget you, did you, Suze?”

  Oh God, after her friends’ sexy tales, how pitiful to have to confess that her own sex life ranged between boring and nonexistent.

  Except for her cave-sex lover.

  The thought sent a thrill of excitement coursing through her. She slugged back the last of her second margarita and took a deep breath.

  “Remember me telling you how I treated myself to a week package deal on Crete, after my second year of university?” They nodded. “Okay then…” She closed her eyes, letting the scene form.

  “It’s my last afternoon. I’m walking along a beach and this man comes toward me, and it’s like we’re both struck by lightning. Immediate chemistry.”

  She opened her eyes, and saw she had their rapt attention. “Did I mention”—she paused deliberately—“that this is a nude beach?”

  “Suzie!” Rina gasped, heedless of the salsa tumbling from her chip to the table.

  “Our Suze on a nude beach?” Jenny said.

  “We’ve established the man is nude,” Ann said. “So get to the good stuff. What does this guy look like?”

  “Tall, muscled, handsome. Absolutely perfect in, how shall I say this? Every dimension.”

  “In other words, he’s hung,” Jenny said, shoving up her sleeves and resting her pointy elbows on the table.

  “You can say that again! I’ve never seen—” Suzanne broke off, then continued in a lower voice. “Yeah, definitely hung. Anyhow, then, somehow, we’re holding hands, walking together, not even talking. Me, not talking. How weird is that?” She reached for her margarita glass and brought it to her lips, only to find it empty.

  “Go on,” Ann prompted, shrugging out of her suit jacket and leaning forward.

  “We follow a path that leads uphill, through scrubby bushes. There’s a zillion pretty little wildflowers dotting the ground.”

  “Skip the travelogue,” Jenny demanded. “Like Ann said, cut to the good stuff.”

  “I’m shooting him these sideways glances, checking him out. And he’s getting aroused.” She grinned. “What a turn-on.”

  “Oh man!” Jenny said.

  “We come across a cave. We step inside the mouth and suddenly we’re kissing. He lifts me up, I hook my legs around his waist and we make love right there, standing up.”

  “Oh, my, God!” Rina fanned herself with the fringed end of her shawl.

  “It’s fast, explosive.” And she’d had an orgasm for the first time in her life. Not just an orgasm, but a mind-shattering one.

  “Afterwards, we lie down on my beach towel and explore each other’s bodies with our hands, lips, tongues. He makes me come with his mouth and I, you know…”

  “Give him a blow job,” Jenny finished, at the same moment Ann said, “Perform fellatio.”

  Suzanne felt her cheeks grow hotter. “He stops me before he comes, then he’s inside me so hard and fast and deep, and it feels so amazing that I come again before he does.” She cleared her throat and fiddled with her margarita glass, almost wishing she’d broken her two-drink rule, even as she remembered the reason she never would.

  “Jesus, girl, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Jenny marveled, reaching for another cheese-coated chip and shoving it into the guacamole.

  Suzanne closed her eyes, remembering watching as their bodies joined, separated, joined again. “Did I mention he’s black?”

  “You mean African-American,” Ann corrected.

  “Or African-African,” Suzanne said. “Or from England. Lots of English people holiday in Greece. No accent, though. Yeah, probably American, you’re right.” Damn, doing this analysis had thrown her out of the moment, away from Crete and back to the restaurant.

  “But definitely gorgeous, eh?” Jenny said. “And hung.”

  Suzanne nodded. “Yup. He was this delicious shade of dark chocolate and he had short dreads. His face was so striking. A sexy little goatee. His eyes were chocolate too, and sparkly. Vibrant.”

  “Wow,” Rina breathed. “A chocolate man. How yummy.”

  “He was.” Even now, she could remember that taste.

  “And of course he was a fantastic lover.” Rina sighed dreamily.

  “He was a stranger, yet sex with him felt like the most intimate act I’d ever committed. For a moment I even found myself wishing our lovemaking would create a child.” Suzanne gave a shiver. “Is that insane or what? Especially given my, uh, rather traditional feelings about marriage and kids.”

  �
��Traditional!” Jenny hooted. “Try archaic. Any woman whose deepest aspiration is to marry Ward Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver…”

  APHRODISIA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  850 Third Avenue

  New York, NY 10022

  Copyright © 2006 by P.J. Mellor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Aphrodisia and the A logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 0-7582-4609-9