Ecstasy

by Gwynne Forster

  “It was planted ninety-nine years ago,” he said. “Would you believe it? And still blooming.” She slid her arm through his, and he gazed down at her. “It’s nearly as beautiful as you are.”

  “Meet you in the dining room in forty-five minutes,” he told her as they collected their keys from the hotel reception.

  “Okay.”

  “Can I take you at your word?” he asked her, and smiled, as though to soften it. “Don’t tell me you have the nerve to be affronted by my remark. Sweetheart, we’re down here almost to the end of Africa because you’ve skipped out on me twice. But not anymore, so don’t even try it.”

  “I said I’d meet you for dinner,” she huffed, “and I will.”

  * * *

  Jeannetta took a leisurely bubble bath, dried off and applied Trésor body lotion to her skin. She sat on the edge of the bed, filing her toenails, and decided to call Laura.

  “What’re you doing way down there, girl?” Laura asked in a pleading tone when Jeannetta told her where she was.

  “Laura, try to understand. I have to do this. If you knew what I’ve seen today, you wouldn’t scold me.”

  “I don’t care what you saw. You’re out there denying what’s happening, and I want you to come on home. You get the next plane back. You hear?”

  “I can’t promise you I’ll do that.” Jeannetta didn’t want to upset her sister, but Laura could be difficult when she didn’t get her way.

  “What about Fenwick? Have you gotten in touch with him? Have you? I gotta see that man so I can figure out what he’s got that made you lose your head. If you’re not gonna speak with him, you’d better come on back here so I can look after you. You hear?” Jeannetta hung up. She had long thought that Laura would smash her ego if she let her.

  She got out a pair of sheer stockings, a rose-colored garter belt, and matching bra and panties. “What am I doing?” she asked aloud. She sat down and thought over their relationship, all that they had experienced together. “I love him as I love my life, and this is my last chance to show him what he means to me. Maybe when he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll understand what I’ve been trying to tell him.” She slipped into a dusty-rose sleeveless sheath that ended two inches above her knee, and looked at herself in the mirror. She put on a pair of three-inch sandals, let her hair hang around her shoulders, and left the room, taking only her plastic door key.

  * * *

  Mason paced in the lobby near the front door, his hands locked behind him so that he wouldn’t look at his watch every two minutes. He had every other exit covered with the help of twenty-dollar bills so, unless she had climbed out of her sixth-floor window, she was in her room. He’d learned that she had a weak regard for time, but this bordered on...

  “Guess who.” She had approached him from behind and covered his eyes with her hands.

  “The most beautiful woman in the world,” he answered, his good humor restored.

  “Methinks you exaggerate, sir.”

  He looked down at her, drinking in her loveliness, that ephemeral something about her that drew him as ants to sugar, nails to a magnet.

  “Arguing with you usually gets me nowhere,” he said, unable to hold back the grin that he knew had spread over his face. “What do you say to your being the second most beautiful?”

  He couldn’t help laughing aloud when she tilted her head to one side and looked at him inquiringly before asking, “Who’s number one? You never told me whether you have a girl back in New York. Do you?”

  He looked toward the heavens in a gesture of feigned exasperation.

  “If you had been satisfied with being the most beautiful, that question wouldn’t arise. Let’s go out. I want to show you off.”

  * * *

  Jeannetta tried without success to gauge Mason’s mood. He vacillated between playful and serious, but his facial expression didn’t alter.

  “I hope you’re enjoying this,” he said at one point. “French food is all sauce and no substance, and that endless talk about l’amour is so much babble. Outward manifestations of it end with marriage.”

  “You know this firsthand?” she asked, needling him. He sipped the wine.

  “About the food, yes. But where that love business is concerned, I only know what I’ve observed in my French friends. Those guys can woo an alligator out of its hide, but as soon as they say those vows, they forget how to do it.”

  She couldn’t imagine that he would. “I’ll bet nobody would ever be able to say that about you.”

  “Not in this life.”

  Shivers skittered from her breast to her belly when he lowered his voice and promised her everything with just a look. She wet her lips and swallowed, and she had to clutch her middle as sparks shot from his hot gaze.

  “You sound as though you’ve got a notarized certification of it,” she dared to say.

  His look turned somber. “You like to play with fire, it seems.”

  She gazed steadily at him. “When I’m cold, Mason, really cold, I get as close to it as I can.”

  He stopped eating. “What would you say the temperature is in here right now?”

  She knew what he was asking, and she wasn’t backing down. She rubbed her bare arms. “Feels like the left side of thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit.”

  He reached in his pocket for his wallet and glanced at their waiter, who held two dessert menus.

  “What would you like for dessert?” he asked her.

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “Coffee?”

  She shook her head. He held his hand out to the waiter for the bill, never moving his gaze from her eyes. She wouldn’t have believed herself capable of such a fit of nerves, though she knew that her demeanor belied what she felt. He stood and held out his hand, and she looked at him for a long minute before placing her right hand in his. They walked the two short blocks back to their hotel. He didn’t speak, and she was glad for that, because she didn’t trust herself to say anything. He walked straight to the elevator, punched his floor, and looked at her. She said nothing, and he pushed the button that closed the door and then released her hand. The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and butterflies flitted around in her stomach while he stood there looking down at her.

  “Come with me?”

  She gave him her right hand, and he held it until they reached his room; he paused and he let her read the question in his eyes. She squeezed his hand, and he opened the door.

  * * *

  “What happened to your misgivings, Jeannetta?” He tried to control his anxiety, his fear that she’d overcome her need as she had so many time times in the past.

  She looked him in the eye and didn’t evade his question.

  “I still have them, but I...” She shook her head slowly and diverted her gaze.

  He tipped up her chin with his left forefinger.

  “You said you love me.” Fine tremors wafted through him at the new lights in her eyes and the smile that curved her sweet lips.

  “Yes. Oh, yes, I love you. But what about your misgivings?”

  “I still have them, too, but they’re no longer strong enough to keep me out of your arms. I’ve never held a woman who confessed to love me and made me believe her, and I’ve longed for that. When I met you, I knew I wanted you, but I resisted because I’m tired of casual relationships. I’m convinced now that what’s between us isn’t casual, Jeannetta, and that it won’t ever be.” He stepped toward her. “I’ve never needed anyone or anything the way I need you. Let me love you.” He didn’t want to pressure her, but he was desperate to bind them so tightly that she’d stop pushing him away. If she let him love her, the way he knew he could, she’d go back with him.

  He hadn’t known her to be so quiet, softer than flower petals, yet the answer in her eyes didn’t include submissi
veness. A bolt of sensation shot through him, hardening him, when she wet her lips, rimmed them with the tip of her tongue, and gazed up at him. He watched her swallow the damp heat of desire and run her hands from her hip bone down her thighs. Her lower lip dropped, and he had her in his arms. He covered her mouth with his and showed her with his marauding tongue what he intended to do to her. Her hips moved against him, and he stilled her with his hand firmly on her buttocks. Her groan of frustration heated him to the boiling point, and he rose firm and powerful against her belly. His senses whirled dizzily when she took over the kiss, sucking on his tongue, caressing his hips, holding his head while she took her pleasure.

  “Slow down, sweetheart. I don’t want this to get away from us.” He could have been speaking to the moon. She sucked on his bottom lip and rubbed her body against his leg. He had to set her away from him; another minute of that, and he’d be over the hill. He slipped her shoulder straps down her arms, watched her dress pool around her feet, picked her up, and carried her to his bed. She clung to him while he turned back the covers and lay her on the white sheets.

  “Trust me?”

  She nodded, and he leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on her lips. He stood close to the bed and stripped off his shirt, never taking his gaze from her desire-filled eyes and welcoming smile. He took in her scantily clad body, peeled off her garter belt, the sheer hose, and reached for her skimpy panties. When he glanced at her for permission, she lifted her hips and, a second later, his mouth watered, and he stiffened as he stared at her beautiful, thickly tufted love nest. Her hand went to his belt buckle, freed him of the pressure around his waist, and he gazed down at her and waited. When she unzipped him, he sprang free and ready into her hand, as his shorts and trousers dropped to the floor.

  He leaned over, gathered her in his arms, unhooked her bra, and buried his face between her full breasts. She shifted to give him access to her nipple, and he pulled it into his hungry mouth, and nourished himself.

  The full power of his virility loomed before her, and she wet her lips in anticipation. Hot darts danced inside her and then zoomed straight to her petals of love, and she couldn’t help spreading her legs and raising her arms to him. He seemed to hesitate, and she thought she’d die right that minute if he didn’t get inside of her.

  “Mason. Please, I need you. I need you.”

  He positioned his knee on the bed, and his gaze swept her nude body. Her hips moved upward to him of their own volition, and she felt a gush of love liquid when he groaned and tumbled into her waiting arms.

  “Not so fast, honey,” she thought she heard him say, when she fastened her lips on one of his flat pectorals. His hips moved and she caressed the little nub with her tongue while she rubbed the other one with her fingers.

  “Slow down, baby,” he crooned. “Ah, Jeannetta. Jeannetta!”

  She reached down, found him thick and ready, and stroked him lovingly. She sighed impatiently, adoring the feel of his mouth on her neck, ears, and shoulders. His lips found her nipple again. She jerked upward, because nothing had prepared her for the feel of his strong, talented fingers as he separated her secret folds and stroked her. Tremors shook her, and her heart slammed in her chest.

  “Mason, darling. I can’t stand any more.” She threw her leg across his hip, and he leaned over her.

  “This is important to me—you’re important to me. Forget everything, and let’s love each other. Look at me now. I want to see your face when I lock us together.” His rough, smoky voice sent shivers of desire through her.

  “Yes. Yes. Please.” She pulled him over her, and looked into his desire-filled, greenish-brown eyes.

  “Now!” She lifted her body to meet him and, when she felt him at her portal, she cried out.

  “Mason, please.” Oh, the wonder of it, as he slid into her depths. He was iron-hard, hot, velvety smooth, and big. He let her adjust to him and then began to move. Immediately, she felt the tension build within her as he whispered encouragement, told her that she was wonderful, all he could ever need or want. She caught his rhythm, but lost it when her body disobeyed her and went wild. Spirals of unbearable tension coiled upward from her feet to the nest of love that he masterfully stroked, and she felt herself begin to grip him rhythmically, until her spasms clutched him. He increased his pace then, and she tumbled out of control, screaming his name.

  “Mason! Oh, I love you. I love you so.” She wrapped her legs around his hips as that heaven-and-hell pleasure took control of her, and then relaxed, replete and exhausted. Restored, she gripped his thigh and held him to her as she drove for his pleasure and, in seconds, his arms tightened around her and, with a shout of joy, he splintered in her arms.

  * * *

  He let his elbow take his weight as he rested in the circle of her arms. “I ought to move over. I’m too heavy for you.” The feel of her hands on his shoulder muscles, gently stroking, gave him a sense of belonging that he couldn’t remember having had before.

  “You aren’t too heavy,” she corrected. “You aren’t too anything for me. You’re perfect for me.”

  “I hope you mean you’re happy right now.”

  “It was wonderful. I didn’t know I could feel as I did with you.”

  He raised up and looked into her face. Sated. No other word would describe her. Well, if he wanted to go for absolute truth, he could say she looked like the gal who’d just been elected campus queen. Or the cat who’d just finished off the canary. Pleased with herself. He dropped a kiss on her flaccid nipple and watched it harden. He attempted to move away from her but, even as he shifted, he reached full readiness.

  “Don’t move,” she protested. “You belong right where you are.”

  He gathered her closer. “Don’t you know what’s happening? I want you.”

  Her eyes widened, and he kissed the tip of her nose.

  “You started this. I was resting, teasing a little bit maybe, and this nipple of yours acted up and, well...what’s a man supposed to do?” She wrapped her legs around him and shifted her hips, sending waves of current all through his body.

  “A man’s supposed to do what a man’s supposed to do,” she answered and parted her lips for his kiss.

  The ride was short and sweet. They knew each other now. She opened herself to him, holding back nothing, and she gave. And gave. Whatever he asked, she gave fourfold, and then she took, drawing his inhibitions out of him until he could withhold nothing of himself. Shaken, trembling, he knew himself for the first time in his life and, in triumphant submission to her, he filled her with his essence. He collapsed upon her, strung out, glad she hadn’t asked him for his soul, because she’d taken the rest of him. He separated them, fell over on his back, and pulled her close. In seconds, she slept. He looked at her, as beautiful in the grip of orgasm as she was in a long flowing gown, and his pulse quickened. It was best that she slept; her tender loving had loosened his tongue. He flipped off the light. An unaccountable eeriness crept over him as he dozed drowsily, and the blackness of the darkened room seemed to thicken. “I don’t want to live without her, and I couldn’t bear to see her suffer. I...”

  He slept.

  * * *

  Jeannetta stretched languorously and curled into the warm man who cuddled her to him. His soft murmurings lulled her, and she nuzzled his shoulder and dozed off. Awakened by his restlessness and the low drone of his words, she sat up and gazed down at him. She felt the moisture on her right side, noticed the dampness of his body and the sheet that half covered them, and leaned over him to hear his words more clearly. His hand went out, brushing her shoulder.

  “I can’t fail. I...can’t botch this. I won’t. I can’t make a mistake with her. I can’t...I...mustn’t let my finger slip. My finger is slipping...I’ll fix it. I have to. She needs me...I can’t fail.” She patted his hand, awakening him as gently as she could. Drawing in qu
ick, heavy breaths, he turned on his right side and slept.

  * * *

  What had she been thinking? She’d made up her mind to go wherever he took her. Anywhere. The sweet, tender way in which he’d loved her, giving her what she had reached for and longed for, but never achieved—a thorough and powerful completeness—had given her a lapse in judgment, she decided. She had gone to sleep looking forward to his reaction when she told him she’d go back with him and do as he suggested. But not after what she’d just witnessed. She stole out of bed, dressed, and slipped down the hall. She wouldn’t be on his conscience; you couldn’t love a man as she loved Mason Fenwick and knowingly ruin his life. This time, she wouldn’t leave a note.

  * * *

  The Oxford Hotel sat on West Queen Street about eight blocks from the Sheraton, and one-third its size.

  “If a man asks where you took me, tell him the airport.”

  The taxi driver looked at the twenty-dollar bill and smiled.

  “Yes, mum. He won’t get it from me.”

  She checked in, amused when asked to pay for the previous night because it was seven o’clock, five hours before check-in time. The small hotel had its advantages, she decided, when she walked out on the balcony and saw that it overlooked a well-tended garden and a small waterfall that served as a bath for the birds. She called her sister.

  “I wanted you to know where I am.”

  “Why don’t you come home?”

  It was no use trying to explain. “There’s one more place I want to go, and then I’ll call it quits. If I had the opportunity, I’d go to South America and take a ride down the Amazon, but I don’t suppose I’ll get to that.”

  “Jeannetta Rollins, don’t you dare do anything like that. Have you lost your mind?”

  “Stop worrying, Laura. You’ll send your blood pressure sky-high.”

  “A Mr. Miles has called here a few times asking about you. Seems like a real nice gentleman. Who is he?”