“I was interested in what you said in the Darkest Desires session,” Cassandra said.
He snapped his attention back to her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Wanting to know someone deeply during sex isn’t really dark, is it?”
“Oh, that.” He sipped his drink. Or rather finished it. “That depends on who you’re knowing.”
“For you that would be Désirée Knight, no?” she said.
“Désirée Knight, yes.”
“She doesn’t seem that dark to me,” she said.
“You haven’t seen her in action,” he said. “But enough about me. Are you having fun?”
“Now that you’ve joined me” She rested her palm on his chest. “Do you ever go in for a threesome?”
Damn. Good thing he’d finished his cocktail or he would have choked on it. “Do you mean me and two women?”
“That would be fun, but I was thinking of you and Rod and me.”
“Your husband doesn’t mind another man in your bedroom?”
“He’s very understanding. See. There he is.” She waved toward Rod, who stood in a clutch of people not far away. Rod waved back and smiled at Nate.
“Rod knows how to keep me happy, and I know how to reward him.” She took his hand and tugged. “Let’s dance.”
“Sure.” That would catch Rae’s attention for sure. He wasn’t much for dancing, but he could put his arms around a woman and move his hips.
Turned out that was pretty much all he had to do. After he set his empty glass on a table, Cassandra took over, wrapping herself around him as if she were drowning and he were a buoy. They moved together a while, and his cock took notice, stiffening a bit but not enough to cause a serious problem.
“How long are you staying at Eros’ Retreat?” she asked.
“Leaving day after tomorrow.”
“Désirée has asked to interview me for the magazine,” she said as she gazed up at him out of eyes the color of a cloudless sky.
“Has she?” Rae hadn’t shared that with him. Obviously, he wasn’t supposed to help her with anything meaningful.
“Is there anything I should say?”
“Be yourself. You’ll do fine.” Cassandra would make great copy for Rae. If only Rae would notice he was dancing hips-to-hips with Cassandra, Rae might come over and break it up.
Cassandra brought her glass to his lips so he could drink and then took a sip for herself. “These are so good. I’ve probably had too many.”
“I know I have.”
“A stud like you wouldn’t let a little alcohol slow him down.”
He had to laugh at that, although it came out more like a snort. “How do you know I’m a stud?”
“Désirée Knight wouldn’t have anything less.”
Just then, Rae’s voice came to him over the din. A shriek of laughter. He turned and found her at the Baths. One of the men had grasped her around the waist and now pulled her into the water.
He stopped dancing, so Cassandra turned to follow his gaze. “Looks like she’s having fun.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll have our own fun, won’t we?”
He gently eased Cassandra away from him. “Would you excuse me?”
Her smile crumpled. “Really?”
“Really,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
She put her free hands on her hip and huffed. Great. Two women disappointed in him. He couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get to Rae and…and do what? Never mind. He’d figure out when he got there.
He had to slither his way between moving bodies to make progress. And okay, he might have shoved a little, too. Her continuing laughter kept coming to him, even though he couldn’t see her clearly because of the crowds around him.
She was doing something with a bunch of people in the Baths. No one wore clothing in there, which meant she could be sitting on some man’s naked lap. Still, he was not going to get angry. She wasn’t Mallory. They weren’t married. They didn’t own each other.
Don’t own…don’t own…don’t own. He repeated it like a mantra as he approached. But his gut churned, anyway. They’d promised to be exclusive with each other. You didn’t break that kind of vow without reasonably expecting your lover to get upset. Maybe more than upset.
Don’t own, don’t own, don’t own.
When he finally got to the Baths, the scene was worse than he’d managed. Not only had one man pulled her into the hot water, but a bunch of men had gathered around her. They were all laughing and splashing. Just about the last “fun” you want to see your lover “enjoying.”
“What are you doing?” His voice came out louder than he’d meant, and all the action around Rae stopped. Everyone was staring at him.
She immediately scrambled to get out of the hot tub. Her dress clung to her body, outlining every curve, but her makeup was still intact. She had to know how sexy she looked, and for all he knew she’d had three or four pairs of hands on her.
“Really, Rae,” he said. “I know we’re supposed to be having fun and all, but…come on…”
Her eyes fairly glowed with anger, and she walked up to him. “I need to talk to you.”
“Fine. I’m not going anywhere.” Damned alcohol was suddenly kicking in for real. He blinked a couple of times, but the world didn’t focus very well.
“Oh, yes, you are.” She grabbed his elbow and led him away from the crowd. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Hey, it’s a party.” That also came out too loud.
“Will you lower your voice?” She got him off in an area near the exit. Private, sort of, but a few people glanced at them. Waiting to see what would happen, no doubt.
“What, exactly, is your problem?” she asked.
“You can ask that, when you were…” He gestured toward the general vicinity of the Baths. Honestly, he didn’t have a word good enough for what she’d been doing. “Were any of those men wearing swimming trunks?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask, and I didn’t cop a feel to find out.”
“Look at yourself. Your dress is plastered against you.” It was still dripping on the floor, forming an impressive puddle. “I can see the outline of your bra.”
“I’m not naked,” she said.
“You might as well be.”
“Lose the jealousy, Nate.” She stuck her nose up into his face. “We’re at a sex resort. We’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves.”
“Yeah, well there’s enjoying yourself, and then there’s Enjoying yourself with a capital E.”
A few giggles said at least two people were listening in on the conversation. Rae glanced around and then back at him.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” she whispered. “Go back to the room.”
“And miss all the fun?”
“I mean it, Nate,” she said from between clenched teeth. “Go to the room now.”
“Come with me,” he whispered back.
“I am not going to do that,” she said, enunciating every word like a death sentence. She’d clenched her hands into fists by her side. If looks really could kill, he’d be on a slab at the morgue.
Holy crap. He’d seen her rant before, but he’d never witnessed simmering anger. He was getting a double dose of it now, and even if he was a bit pixelated, he wasn’t going to create a scene in the middle of her party. Or at least more of a scene than he already had. Still, he was in the right. She’d shoved him away from her into the arms of a blond vampire and then decided to entertain a bunch of naked strangers in a hot tub.
He raised a hand to point a finger at her and then dropped it. Hopeless. “Ah, shit.”
He turned around and headed back to the room. Alone.
Chapter Twelve
Nate woke face down on the bed, not in it. When he cracked an eye open, sunlight streamed into the room through the lanai door. It didn’t hurt too much, so he opened the other eye to check out his surroundings. He was still wearing his clothes, minus his shoes, and t
he covers hadn’t been disturbed at all, which meant Rae also hadn’t slept between them. She hadn’t come back from the party? She couldn’t still be there. He patted the comforter as if he could find her hiding underneath it. Ridiculous, but where the fuck was she?
The sound of the shower gave him the answer. She was here. Thank God.
He rolled over, sat up, and rubbed his face. All those cocktails. How many had he had? Three or four before dancing with Cassandra and more with her. His head ought to be pounding, but instead, it felt as if it was stuffed with cotton balls.
Rae emerged from the bathroom wearing a terry cloth robe and set a cup of hotel room coffee on the table next to him. “We don’t have any aspirin.”
“Don’t need it.” He took a sip of the coffee. Nothing great, but she’d made it strong. “Where did you sleep last night?”
“Still full of accusations?”
“It’s a reasonable question.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look as if she smelled something bad. “On the floor by the lanai door.”
He glanced over and saw the bedding there. She had spent the night here, after all.
“I took one of the pillows from the bed and the spare blanket from the closet,” she said.
“Why?”
“You were passed out, and I didn’t care to find out what mood you’d be in if I woke you.”
“I see.”
She took a seat on the chair and crossed her legs. “Do you remember everything from last night?”
“You mean evening, right? I crashed pretty early.”
“Whatever you want to call it.”
He ran it all through his mind. Her instructions to circulate and not to hover over her. He wasn’t likely to forget that. Watching the game and the fact that had pissed her off for some reason. Then Cassandra and the dancing. Rae hadn’t noticed.
Finally, the scene in the hot tub. Surrounded by four? Six? How many men? Probably all naked. He’d busted it all up, and that had pissed her off, too. So much so that she hadn’t shouted but seethed.
Now she sat there, shaking her foot as if she had a wound-up ball of energy inside. Still angry, obviously. “You interrupted me while I was working.”
He took another sip of his coffee and set it aside. “You call that working?”
“If you’re Désirée Knight it is.”
He was getting pretty sick of Désirée Knight, but telling her that wouldn’t win him any prizes. Why hadn’t he’d just approached the shy woman in the coffee shop instead of accepting Désirée’s invitation to come here? Would he have avoided all this shit?
“Everything was going as planned until you showed up and performed your male dominance display,” she said.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Demanding to know what I was doing. Shouting,” Her foot kept wiggling. “You’re aware I’ve written several columns on the dangers of jealousy, aren’t you?”
“I should be. I read everything you write.”
“Well, then?”
He wasn’t a jealous guy normally. What had happened the night before went way beyond normal. How would she have felt if he’d been in the hot tub with a bunch of naked women? No point asking her. She’d probably insist there was nothing wrong with it. And that really roiled his gut. “I guess this whole thing didn’t work out as well as we thought it would.”
She huffed. “You don’t have to do it much longer. A few interviews, and I’m through here.”
“But you have to write the article.”
“I can write at home.” She stared at him with no particular expression on her face. For Rae, that said a lot. She was usually laughing or waving her hands around. Excited or even angry. Never this coldness. It seeped into his bones from clear across the room.
He took a breath to steady himself. “Okay.”
“In the meantime, we need to make an appearance together to show everyone nothing has gone wrong.”
Easy for her to say. A lot of things had gone wrong, and there didn’t seem to be any way to fix them. “Whatever you say.”
“Are you going to be good enough to be with people?”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” he said.
“Then how about breakfast by the pool? That’s where the biggest crowds hang out.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
She got up and went into the bathroom. No doubt to paint her face on. Nate took stock of himself. These clothes were wrinkled, but he had plenty more. He’d need a shave. Nothing out of the ordinary there. A hot shower and some better coffee would fix him up.
So this was it. A few more interviews. She’d finish with her work, and she’d finish with him. Maybe he’d been fooling himself the entire time thinking he meant something to her. She could so easily order him to cozy up to another woman. Even demand it of him. And then, she’d…crap…he still couldn’t form words for what could have been going on in the Baths.
She probably did all this stuff out of insecurity about being herself. She obviously felt she had to be Désirée with all the fixings for people to find her attractive. Total bullshit, but he couldn’t seem to convince her otherwise. He’d tried. Maybe it was a hopeless cause.
Oh, hell. His brain wasn’t functioning even at 90 percent. After his shower, he’d go search for some real coffee. Then he’d take a long walk and figure out where he went from here. One thing was obvious. He’d be walking out of her life, or she out of his. Probably for the best, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. He only had to figure out a way to make the break as painless as possible. He’d lost a wife and his company and survived. He’d survive this, too.
…
Cassandra was, indeed, a trove of juicy quotes and great pictures. Rae sat with her and her husband, Rod, at a table beside the pool. She’d expected to have breakfast here with Nate, but he’d disappeared right after his shower. Who knew where he’d gone?
“So you two have an open marriage?” Rae asked.
“I like to keep my Cassandra happy.” Rod placed his hand on his wife’s thigh. Cassandra was wearing shorts, a tube top, and high-heeled sandals. She was tanned and coiffed and obviously in her element—namely, being adored.
“Did you two go into marriage with this arrangement or arrive at it later?” Rae asked.
“Rod knew I’d always fantasized about having two men at once, so one night on my birthday, he brought me home a present.”
“A nice, young man from our country club,” Rod added. “I knew he admired my wife.”
That was love, for sure. If she ever had a marriage…unlikely…she didn’t want to run it their way. But if it worked for them, who was she to condemn it?
“May I ask you something?” Rod said.
“Of course.”
“Your column is about being single,” he said. “Why are you interested in our marriage?”
Her brain sputtered to a stop. Good question. “Well…we’re here, and you two are interesting.”
“We don’t mind. It just seemed odd,” he said.
“This is a resort for couples, so it’s a little different from what I usually write.” There, that sounded good.
“And where’s Nate?” Rod said.
Cassandra put her elbow on the table and leaned her chin onto her palm. “Yes, where is your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. We just came here together for the article.”
“I’m here,” Nate’s voice said from behind her. By the time she’d turned, he’d arrived at the table. He didn’t touch her but pulled out a chair and sat beside her.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“A walk.” He pasted a smile on his face. “The grounds are beautiful.”
He’d had enough time to circle the property two or three times.
“Am I disturbing anything?” he said.
“Not at all,” Cassandra answered in a rush.
“I don’t want to interrupt the boss when she’s working,” Nate said.
“I’m not your boss,” Rae said out of the side of her mouth.
“The woman is the boss in every relationship,” Nate chirped. “Aren’t I right, Rod?”
Rod lifted his coffee cup in a toast. “Secret to a happy marriage.”
“Nate, we’ve discussed this,” Rae said. With all the Ss in that sentence, it sounded like a hiss.
“So we did.” Nate laughed. Just as phony as his smile. “I’m just here for the week.”
“Sad,” Cassandra said.
“Isn’t it?” Nate said. “And even sadder, I have to cut the fun short.”
“You’re not leaving,” Cassandra said.
“I had a call from the office. I’m needed at work.”
Rae could only gape at him. He didn’t have an office. His former father-in-law owned his company. He was between assignments. They didn’t have much time left together, but she’d expected a little bit to try to work things out after their arguments. They shouldn’t part with bad blood between them.
Nate rose. “I’d better go pack.”
“Wait,” Rae said.
He bent and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s been great fun. We should do it again some time.”
Then he walked off, whistling of all things. What in the hell was he up to now?
She closed her pad and gathered up all her things. “We’ll continue later.”
“Of course,” Rod said. “I’m sure you’ll want to say goodbye to Nate.”
Yeah, goodbye or something like that. She didn’t wait for any more pleasantries but headed off toward their room. The landscape went by in a blur, but at least she didn’t have to wait for any elevators. Once there, she fumbled in her pocket for her room key and then let herself in.
He was, indeed, packing. He had his suitcase and duffel on the bed and was halfway between them and the dresser with some clothes in his hand. He only stopped for a second when he saw her and went back to work.
“Are you really that angry with me?” she asked.
“I was. Furious.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m sad more than anything else.” He held his arms out to his sides. “We might not have been forming a relationship, but at least, I thought we could be friends.”
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