Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  That was when he made up his mind. Longing, huh? It was more than a good start, and he would be riding in after that like the cavalry. “I really like your parents.”

  “Huh.” She appeared bemused.

  “Your parents. I liked them, and they liked me. They’re hoping you and I are more than a convenient fling. You’ve got to admit, sex between us is what some might call transporting.”

  “Aiden.”

  “Well, it is. Drink more champagne. I don’t want it to go flat.”

  She drank and wrinkled her nose, and drank some more.

  “We do things together, in bed and in the shower, and in cars—who knows what possibilities there are—but we do things most people don’t even imagine doing. And we’re so good at them. Actually, you’re the one who’s so good at them. I swear you’d probably give me a blow job if I was under the sink fixing pipes.”

  Olivia appeared aghast. She looked up at two sleek men who were leaning so close, it was a miracle they didn’t overbalance. One of them studied Olivia from head to foot, lingering at points in between, and Aiden noted the point when the guy started to get hard.

  “You can buzz off,” Olivia announced, shocking him. “Both of you.”

  Making a poor job of nonchalant smirks, the men did leave.

  Aiden scooted close to her. “We are wonderful together, you know. And we like each other. Respect each other. We’d fight to the death for each other. I’d take on wild animals for you. But most of all, I’d like to know I’ll never have to say good-bye to you because if I do, I don’t know what will happen to me.”

  The tears that rushed into Olivia’s eyes were a dratted nuisance. She straightened her shoulders. “Aiden, I’m an alien here. I have to return to England. We should give ourselves time to see if we continue to feel what we think we feel now. If we do, I’ll apply for a green card. It might take quite a while for me to get it, but when I do, I could come and get established somewhere, and we could see if we still want to be together.”

  “You want to be with me now?”

  “More than anything.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  “But we’ve been through so much. And anyway, I can’t expect to live here without a job, and I can’t work without the right papers.”

  “Looking after me will be a job. Believe me.”

  Olivia frowned at him. “Looking after you. You mean washing socks and making dinners and so on? I can’t cook, Aiden, don’t want to. I don’t mind doing laundry, but not because someone else wants me to. And I like having my own money, even though I’ve never had much of it.”

  “I’ll be happy for you to follow your career here,” Aiden said. “And that wasn’t the kind of looking after me I had in mind. I’m a pretty good cook, and I think men and women should share the load around the house—especially when children come. Of course, you haven’t exactly said you’d want to have children.”

  “Of course I would. I absolutely love children.”

  “Good. I think we’ll make great parents, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I do… you’re railroading me, or trying to.”

  “Not at all,” Aiden said. “I’m enthusiastic, that’s all.”

  “There is a lot to think about,” she told him. “And we don’t know how long it would take to get the work permit.”

  “More champagne,” he said, refilling her glass.

  She drank again. “I don’t want you to wait for me. Well, in fact I do want you to wait for me, but that wouldn’t be fair.”

  “I love you, Olivia.”

  Instantly she turned sideways in her chair. “And I love you. I get the feeling that when I breathe out, I’d never breathe in again if you weren’t there to make me want to.”

  “I rest my case.” He pulled an odd hexagonal box, covered with worn red silk, from his pocket. “I don’t have the faintest idea how you’ll feel about this. I have an appointment to… Well I’ve got an appointment for us to see someone tomorrow. Here.”

  It was a fairly large box and seemed old. Hesitantly, Olivia took it from him, watched his face and the apprehension she saw there, and opened the gold clasp carefully.

  That breath she’d mentioned jammed in her lungs, and she doubted it would ever move anywhere again.

  “Well?”

  “Good heavens. What do you expect me to say? I’ve never seen anything like it outside a jeweler’s window.”

  “I told you how my father was. He wanted to be free, but he also wanted my mother. The gifts he gave her were amazing.”

  Olivia looked down at a ring reminiscent of an Egyptian masterpiece. Or perhaps Roman. The deep color of eighteen-or twenty-two-karat gold gleamed warmly. A large, square diamond claimed the center of the ring and was flanked by what she assumed to be pale emerald-cut topaz and green tourmaline.

  Aiden took it from the box, raised her left hand and slipped the ring on the appropriate finger. “You’ve got such beautiful hands, if your fingers were short, it wouldn’t look nearly so good. The white diamond is flawless. So are the yellows and greens.”

  “Yellows and greens?” she said.

  “The colored diamonds. They call them fancies. It suits you, Olivia.”

  “I can’t take it. It’s too much.”

  “Who else should have it but my wife?”

  Her head felt strange, and she felt pins and needles in her hands. “It’s too soon.”

  “It isn’t too soon. It might have been if some of the things that have happened to us hadn’t happened, but they have. It’s starting to get late. If you leave me, I’ll follow you.”

  “You’ve got work to do,” she pointed out.

  He took another box, this one new, from another pocket and opened it. Inside was a simple man’s yellow-gold wedding ring. “I like to move things along. This is for me. Like it?”

  Now she really was in danger of crying. “It’s perfect.” Aiden hailed the waiter and had another whispering episode with him. The man nodded frequently and stood aside while Aiden led Olivia from the bar. But rather than go outside, he went to the registration desk and picked up keys for a reservation that had already been made.

  Olivia was too mortified to say a word.

  On several floors, they changed elevators for one that required a card to rise all the way to the penthouse. Aiden held the door for her to get off, then opened the only pair of double doors in sight, the only suite in sight.

  Sumptuous green-and-gold damask enveloped them, a living room furnished with French antiques, a bedroom with a vast bed draped like a Moorish tent with ribbons of green and gold caught into a coronet overhead.

  A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a busboy with the rest of the bottle of champagne. He pushed a trolley from which he unloaded a number of exquisitely wrapped boxes. Vases of roses followed.

  When they were finally alone, Olivia knelt by the bed and rested her head and arms on the counterpane.

  Aiden poured champagne, piled boxes on the bed, and arranged the roses around the room, all the time keeping an eye on Olivia. She hadn’t taken the ring off yet.

  “How did you arrange all this?” Olivia asked, her voice muffled.

  “Margy helped.”

  “A bit corny, isn’t it?”

  Aiden bent over her and said into her ear, “Women love this kind of thing. Don’t pretend they don’t. And I’m enjoying it, too.”

  He went into a bathroom large enough to accommodate a football team and ran a bath, pouring in salts that formed mountains of bubbles. A state-of-the-art stereo system occupied an alcove and he took his time selecting the smoky sound of Edith Piaf and a Ricky Martin song or two. Andrea Bocelli wasn’t ignored, or the Notting Hill soundtrack. He grinned at that. Only appropriate.

  “Who needs the bath?” Olivia asked from behind him. “You or me?”

  “I don’t really know. I just wanted to play with all this.”

  He looked at her, and his body flushed. She was naked, and so irresistible. She
went to the tub, rested her weight on one leg and leaned to scoop up bubbles. These she piled on top of her head and giggled when she caught sight of herself in a mirror. “This woman loves all the fuss,” she said.

  “The bath’s all yours if you like,” he told her.

  She sighed and studied the huge bath on its clawed feet. “I think I should be lonely in there. I play so much better with others.”

  All his resolutions to coddle her without giving his own needs a thought were showing signs of disintegrating.

  Olivia climbed into the tub, and the pale pink bubbles accentuated the whiteness of her skin. When she sat down, suds adhered to some parts of her, but not others. Her breasts appeared to be supported but not covered. When she began to wash, raising first one, then the other leg from the tub, he feared he was about to fail all his bold promises and turn into an animal.

  He stood over the bath and watched her.

  “That’s not nice,” she said. “Peeping Tom.”

  “Peeping Toms don’t peep when the subject can see them doing it. Will you marry me, Olivia?”

  She paused and squeezed her eyes shut. “Maybe. Once my official status is in order and we’ve had a chance to be together under normal circumstances.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Once we’re married, your status will be official. And we’re already together under normal circumstances.”

  “Normal? This?”

  “Absolutely. There isn’t a soul chasing us around and trying to kill us. And I’m wondering if we should live here for a few months.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Maybe not. You should take part in choosing where we settle down. We probably ought to buy a house. After all, when we have children, we’ll need the space.”

  “This is moving too fast for me.”

  “But you will marry me?”

  She frowned and turned her attention to washing herself. Aiden stripped off his clothes.

  “That’s not fair,” Olivia said. “How am I supposed to think straight?”

  “Avoid it, lover. At all costs, do not think straight. Is there room for me?”

  She widened her eyes. “It’s huge. Ridiculously huge.” Aiden sat on the edge of the tub with his feet in the water. Then he launched himself, landing like a whale and sending a tidal wave of pink-foam-decorated water all over the bathroom. “You’re impossible,” Olivia said.

  “I know. I like being impossible. Have I told you what talented feet I’ve got?”

  She immediately tried to slide farther back in the tub. Aiden slid farther forward, draped his elbows over the sides, and lifted those talented feet. Smiling angelically, he caught her nipples between two toes on each foot and pinched just enough to make her squirm helplessly. She held the edge of the tub and arched her back. He bent forward from the waist and settled a thumb on her clitoris.

  “Aiden Flynn! You are irresponsible and way too forward.”

  “I’d better stop then.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “You’ve made the towels all wet.”

  Aiden rubbed his thumb back and forth, enjoying the way she sucked air through her teeth and tried to get closer to him. He slid a forefinger inside her and found the place that brought her bottom popping up from the tub.

  She ran a foot up the inside of his right thigh and tangled her toes in his pubic hair, and she played with his tensed testicles.

  “Now who’s being forward and irresponsible.”

  “Oh, I’ll stop at once.”

  He clasped her foot and helped it explore the whole enchilada.

  Without warning, before she could form a complaint, Aiden rose over her, sending a fresh wave over the edge of the tub, and sank down until he could kiss her again and again. Each kiss only made him want to keep on kissing her.

  And while they kissed, Olivia guided him into her. He burned. The slippery movement of her breasts against his chest inflamed him more—if that were possible.

  He wrapped her close, and with his feet against the end of the tub, set up a rhythm that set them both panting and crying out. She climaxed and clung to him, her fingernails digging into his skin. Aiden was only seconds behind her, and he knew it could not be enough. He would never get enough of her.

  “You,” he whispered in her ear, “are the love I was waiting for. I didn’t know I was, but I do now.”

  She wriggled from beneath him and climbed, shivering, from the tub. She dried off, then took another dry bath sheet and held it out, gesturing for him to come to her.

  Aiden went and let her envelope and rub him down while her own towel fell to the tiled floor. She didn’t miss a millimeter of him, and when he was dry, she walked, comfortable with her nakedness, to get him a robe. She helped him into this and didn’t complain when he wrapped her inside with him, pulled her to stand on his feet, and walked with her back to the bedroom where he kept hold of her and climbed into bed.

  “Sleep?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He poked her ribs, and she cried out. “Why did you do that?”

  “You can’t sleep yet. Just a minute.” He turned the lights on and selected a rose. Kneeling beside her, he played the soft rose petals over her face, smiled when her nose wiggled, and applied the tickling strokes to every inch of her. She began to squirm and wiggle and bat at the rose.

  “Stop torturing me.”

  “I will when you stop torturing me.”

  “I’m not.”

  He parted her legs and applied rose kisses to the insides of her thighs. “What do you call it?” he asked. “When you admit you love me, that you love being with me, making love to me? You want to have my children? You don’t want to be without me? But you won’t marry me—now?”

  “I call it common sense.”

  “I call it cruelty. If you leave me, I shall go into a decline and lose my job for sure. By the time you come back, if you come back, I’ll be a shadow of my former self and past help.” Olivia pushed him to his back, giggling, and proceeded to take him into her mouth. In a very few minutes, she’d achieved her aim and he was thrashing back and forth until he let go and felt the life flow out of him.

  She stretched out on top of him and licked salt from his neck. “Aiden,” she said.

  “Mm.”

  “Do you still feel the same?”

  He grew quite still. Women. They were such a puzzle. “Feel the same how?”

  “You’ll go into a decline if I return to Britain?”

  “There isn’t any doubt. A total decline.”

  “I see.” She opened her legs and clamped his between them, making sure his penis rested against hair. “How many times do you think you could do this—in a short space of time, I mean?”

  “Is this a test?”

  “It’s a question. I’m curious.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’m quite ready to go again now, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s what I meant. I’m not ready either. So I guess that means we’re really compatible.”

  “Uh-huh.” Except he was going to have to teach her not to talk so much.

  “Would you marry me, Aiden Flynn?”

  “Huh?” He kept completely still.

  “I said, marry me. I think I’ve protested long enough. One mustn’t seem too eager about these things.”

  He clamped her face against his chest and kissed the top of her head. “You’re right, overeagerness puts you in a weak bargaining position. I know the minister at a church near my apartment. A pretty church. Good people there.”

  “Sounds nice.” Yet again the tears flowed, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about them.

  “Good. The minister has this sliding scale. The sooner the wedding, the higher the fees. Today’s Thursday. What do you say to Saturday?”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “Sure. As long as we throw in season tickets to the Mets, we’ll probably still be able to buy dog food for Boss
when he gets back.”

  “Sounds good. Personally, I don’t need food.”

  “Me either. At least until I open the window shades one day and can’t stop myself from rolling up inside them.”

  “Aiden,” Olivia said, grimacing, “that’s such an old joke.”

  They didn’t marry on Saturday. The minister was out of town, so the ceremony was a week later. Boswell had arrived back, but Olivia wouldn’t hear of his being the ring bearer.

  Mama Zanetto went to the wedding and cried, as did her daughters. Olivia rather thought the daughters cried because they considered that Aiden should have married a nice Italian girl. Mama cried, she was sure, for her son and the possibility that she’d never dance at his wedding.

  Chris was best man. Sonnie stood up for Olivia and looked beautiful in pale mauve silk. She carried a single white rose in one hand, and baby Joan in the other arm. Anna sat on the altar steps and practiced singing her ABCs.

  Conrad and Millicent FitzDurham flew over for the festivities, and Olivia’s brother, Theo, came with them. Conrad gave Olivia away. Millicent cried. To Olivia, Theo revealed his disappointment at her marrying a man who would always be beneath her. Olivia told him she thought that was often the most comfortable situation between husband and wife, although on occasion experimentation could be good for a couple.

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