She stared across the prettily set table at Ted. Had she ever thought that smile handsome? It seemed impossible now; it paled in comparison to a sensuous mouth, and a pair of summer-blue eyes. Guy, what had she done? She shrank inwardly. Ted looked annoyed, his fair hair glistening like a halo beneath the sun and his grey eyes, which he could make remarkably cold when he wanted, were silted and regarding her icily.
He gave her a peeved glare. “You haven't heard a word I've said."
Shelly bit back another sigh and rested her elbows on the table. “I've got a headache."
Ted hardly heard a word she said, as his eyes followed a curvaceous redhead with the largest pair of false tits he'd ever seen. He wouldn't mind getting his hands on them, nor her curvy butt that jiggled around in her green bikini. He mentally shook himself and turned his attention back to his betrothed. “Perhaps you should lie down,” he suggested.
Shelly nodded; her thoughts far away from the handsome blonde man seated across from her. She looked at the distant palm trees, which rocked like supple dancers in the breeze blowing off the ocean. She sighed unhappily, as her gaze returned to her bacon and eggs.
"Look, honey,” Ted said, his eyes having a hard time not following the redhead, who had plunked her delicious, plump, little booty two tables down. He wondered what she would taste like, if she shaved her pussy. He hoped not, he liked to lick them best when they were hairy and musky. His cock hardened beneath his blue shorts and it took him a moment to remember what he had been saying. “If this is about what happened at the wedding, I thought that I had explained all that. Gill jumped on me. It was practically rape, honey."
Yeah, right, Shelly thought, and I'm Mother Theresa. “No, it's not, honestly.” She assured half-heartedly, her thoughts still on Guy. The smell of the bacon was making her feel nauseous, or was it the closeness of her fiancé?
Ted reached out and took her hand. “Good, I want to put that behind us and make this a holiday to remember.” Seeing the redhead had made his jetlag disappear. He was as horny as hell suddenly, aching for the sweet relief of a willing female body. He wouldn't mind taking a tumble with the redhead and Shelly, in his bed. Going down on first a blonde fanny and then a red. Shelly rarely shaved; it was a prerequisite for him giving her tongue. Problem was, Shelly would probably have a problem with that idea. Not for the first time in his life, Ted wondered why it was that women were so against sharing their men. The more hands and holes, the better, he always thought. He loved Shelly. She had always been the only woman for him, the only woman he wanted to grow old with, but men liked variety. So what was the problem with that? The women in India often shared their men.
His cock throbbed anew with urgency and he squeezed Shelly's fingers. “I've missed you terribly, darling. Maybe we could start right now. We could go to bed and play a little. I'll go down on you, just the way you like it, then you can go down on me."
The idea of sleeping with Ted suddenly repulsed Shelly, even though she knew that he was an incredibly good lover, with a stamina that never seemed to end. She stared at his hand, the well-manicured nails and the tiny golden hairs that sprouted from his knuckles, frighteningly aware that his touch invoked no warm feeling within her as it should, as it once had.
Giving in to his desire, Ted chanced a sideways glance at the redhead. She was looking at him, her tawny brows raised in a questioning gesture, her pouty, brightly painted mouth implying things best left unsaid. His cock jerked upwards. She was cheap and trashy, and he knew she'd be a willing ride.
He swallowed over parched lips and took a swig of his coffee. Then he returned his attention to Shelly's beautiful, finely boned face. “Are you all right, honey?"
There was such genuine concern in his voice. Immediately, Shelly felt ashamed for her lukewarm reaction to this man, who had been her childhood sweetheart, then partner for many years. She gave him what she hoped was a loving smile. “Yes, I just really need to lie down. I don't think the heat agrees with me."
Ted's grey eyes surveyed her, a hungry look smoldering in their depths that she knew well. “Go along, I'll just finish up breakfast and join you. Why don't you put on something sexy?"
Shelly placed her napkin to the side and stood. “My head's killing me. Let's just leave it today."
Ted shrugged and took another swig of his coffee. “Fine, it's your loss.” His face a frowning mask, he turned his attention to the redhead. So what if Shelly saw? A man needed a little light relief, especially when his dick felt like it was going to explode.
* * * *
Around the same time, Guy walked into his office, his presence preceding him like a whirlwind of fury. He was angry and put-out. Shelly, the little minx, was driving him crazy. Lila, the Moldavian secretary, pushed back her glistening black hair, pulled her glasses off the top of her head, positioned them low on her nose and said. “I'll photocopy these, Nyan."
Nyan was the Moldavian word for medicine man. Guy watched her small, plump figure skitter towards the doorway before he barked at Mark. “Did I just do that?"
"Well, it wasn't me. I've been here a whole half an hour.” Mark sniffed at his armpits. “If I smelled that bad, trust me, Lila would have left ages ago."
"Funny, very funny.” Guy pulled a chair out from behind his desk, and sat heavily in it. “I'll buy her flowers."
Mark asked mischievously. “Who? This mystery woman of yours?"
"No.” Guy scowled, his black eyebrows looking positively dangerous. “Lila, of course."
Mark looked thoughtful. “Why don't you get your mystery woman some flowers while you're at it? The dames love flowers."
Guy shuffled a perfectly straight pile of papers on his desk. “She's not interested, flowers would be a waste of time. She'd probably bash me over the head with them, or stick them up my arse."
He said it in such a serious deadpan tone, that Mark burst out laughing. “Stop it, man, you're really cracking me up."
Guy's lips twitched as he cupped his face in his hands. “It's the truth."
Mark whistled through his slightly uneven teeth. “You must be kidding me, right? Normally, women are dripping over you like flies round—"
"Shit,” Guy finished for him. “But not this one, mate, she can't stand me."
Mark stretched his thin, Levi-clad legs across his desk and folded his ankles. He was discussing his favorite topic, women. So he settled himself in for the full ride.
"Have you had her yet?"
Guy nodded rather dreamily, thinking about the bliss he had found in Shelly's arms. It had been unlike anything he had ever known before. He hadn't thought that the physical act of lovemaking could be so intense. After all, he supposed the mechanics of sex were the same for everyone. But in Shelly's arms, it had truly felt as if he had left his body behind and flown, only to find heaven on earth.
His voice was dreamlike when he spoke. “Yeah, we had a wonderful morning together."
Mark rolled his eyes. It took all his control not to pull a face. He hated seeing his friend so lovesick. “Was that wonderful, in that she ripped your clothes off and dominated you the whole time, or wonderful as in, she had a sex drive that would have exhausted ten men?"
Guys mouth quirked. “As I was saying, we had a wonderful morning together. Then, she got up, left, and went back to her fiancé."
Mark rubbed at a stain on his white St. Oliver T-shirt that looked distinctly like ketchup to Guy.
"Just forget her and move onto the next."
"I wish to God that I could,” Guy said dejectedly. “But I can't."
Mark frowned and pushed his shaggy-brown hair from his brown eyes. “Why? It's not like you to get hung up on the ladies."
"Because—” Guy looked him straight in the eye. “I think I love her, that's why."
Mark clicked his tongue. “Then you do have a problem, mate."
"Hum, hum."
Both men turned in the direction of the doorway. Sue, curvaceous and definitely put-out, was posing like a beaut
y queen in a pageant and studying them through narrowed eyes.
Great, Guy thought, that was all he needed, a woman on his case.
"Guy Pearson, you've been ignoring me.” She pouted in her Texan drawl.
Mark grinned like a pup. “Baby, I'd never ignore you. If you get bored with this loser, come along my way."
Sue cast him a flirtatious glance, then she turned back to Guy, her eyes cold and her nipples standing erect and hard, like two loaded weapons.
Guy wondered for a moment if she rubbed ice cubes across their tips every time before she met him. Looking at her barely clad figure, he thought that was unlikely, since it would probably melt. Judging by Mark's flushed cheeks; the woman was definitely hot enough to melt the Antarctic. He sighed, he should have known really, that he wasn't going to get out of it that easy.
She sauntered into the center of the room, keeping her false tits and their budding nipples trained on him. “What's been keeping you so preoccupied?"
Shooting Mark dirty looks was a huge waste of time. Guy did it anyway, but his friend didn't budge. He was too busy staring at Sue. Although dressed in a green bikini, she might as well have been wearing nothing. Fine, he'd kill him later. Facing Sue, he said. “I've had a lot of work to get through lately."
She looked around the empty little office with a skeptic air, tossed her red mane, and jiggled her tits. “You don't say."
Mark groaned and rolled his eyes. “You're going down."
In that second, Guy really wanted to punch him in the nose. Instead, he growled, “Make yourself useful and fetch me a coffee."
"Right,” Mark stood to his feet, “back in a jiffy."
Guy resisted the urge to call after him to take his time, while Sue plunked her bottom on the edge of his desk, her green thong barely covering anything. Guy waited for the heat to rise in him this half-naked woman should set off. Nothing happened. God, he had it bad. Had a certain blonde female killed his manhood permanently? He hoped not. He loved his dick; it was the only thing in life that had never let him down.
Uncrossing her long, supple legs, and then recrossing them slowly for impact, Sue scooted to the edge of the Beechwood desk and leaned in close to Guy in the small, whitewashed, air-conditioned office.
Guy stared at a huge map of the world over her shoulder. It was then that he knew something was seriously wrong with him. Where was the chick-magnet his friends so admired now? His dick was shriveled to the size of a chipolata. In fact, it was trying to jump into his scrotum. He wanted to run home to Mummy.
"What you thinking, sweet-cake?"
"Nothing.” Guy looked down at her. He couldn't tell her what he was thinking. He didn't want to hurt her feelings. He noticed that her eyes were a darker green than Shelly's. Oh God, the woman had really gotten under his skin. He willed his dick to stand to attention and do its job. It answered him by shrinking even more.
Sue looked at him curiously. “You feeling all right? Mark said you got it bad."
Guy swallowed. His dick had never been so small. “Yeah."
She stroked a red-painted nail along his cheek. “Are we still on for tonight, honey?"
Guy remembered that Shelly's nails had been short, almost as if she bit them. “What's tonight?"
Sue stuck her bottom lip out. “You promised to take me to dinner only last week. Remember?"
Guy nodded, only last week, in another lifetime. That was before Shelly had come into his life and altered it forever.
"Hey, honey, you're not going to ditch me at the last minute, are you?” Sue asked, her sexy Texan slur slightly snappish. “I've got a queue of men, just a'waitin’ to take me out. In fact, I met one today. At breakfast, hair like gold, real classy and real interested in me, too."
Guy nodded. Shelly was probably having her fun with her man, this Ted fellow, so he was damned if he wasn't going to have his too.
Sue jumped off his desk and blew him a kiss. Although tall for a woman, her five foot nine frame didn't reach to his chin. “Pick me up at seven, you know where."
Guy nodded. “Seven, it is."
Mark collided with her in the doorway, Guy watched as she leaned in close and pressed her erect nipples against his friend's chest. “Steady there, stud."
"Wow."
When she was gone, Mark handed Guy one of two plastic coffee cups he carried. “She is a whole lot of woman. Are you seeing her tonight?"
Guy nodded listlessly. “Yeah."
"You're a lucky dog."
Guy pushed his coffee cup away. “I don't feel lucky."
Mark looked at him as if he had sprouted a pair of antlers. “Are you crazy? Sue's a real stunner."
Guy supposed she was. He had certainly thought so once.
Marks brows, which were thick and sandy-colored and looked like twin caterpillars, drew together. “You really have got it bad, if Sue in that bikini didn't get you hot. Personally, I need a shower just from looking at it."
Guy laughed dejectedly. “I'm as cool as ice, buddy."
Mark shook his head and returned to his desk. “You have my sympathy, mate, you really do."
Guy returned his attention to his paperwork. It wasn't sympathy that he needed. It was Shelly.
Chapter 11
That evening, Shelly followed Ted into one of the small but exclusive, pricey Italian restaurants on the island. The smoke from the candles stung her eyes as she pushed back the thatched curtain that served as a door. Stepping through the foyer into the dim interior, her nostrils were assaulted by a mixture of mouth-watering aromas coming, she supposed, from the kitchen.
Most of the tables were full. A man played a piano softly in one corner of the room while two men playing guitars serenaded a middle-aged couple at one of the tables. The black-haired woman was blushing profusely while her man was smiling, obviously enjoying her mortification. Shelly decided that in the woman's place, she would have probably sunk under the table and tried to burrow her way through the floor—anything to escape the eyes of all in the restaurant.
A waiter led them through the main throng of people a moment later to a small back terrace with three tables. One was already inhabited with an elderly grey-haired man and his wife, while the other was free.
Shelly stared off along the beach, while Ted studied the menu. A huge full moon, almost yellow in color, quite the largest Shelly had ever seen, cast sparkling rays of silver across the dark seawater. While she sipped at her wine and Ted ordered for her, she did her damnedest to push away painful memories of skinny-dipping with Guy beneath another moonlit night. Her mood was far from happy, but she was composed. At least she had been, until she looked up and saw Guy, mouth-wateringly handsome, escort a stunning redhead onto the terrace.
It was Ted, much to Shelly's puzzlement, who looked genuinely surprised to see the pair before he caught the redhead's eye and gestured them over.
Shelly could only look on despairingly as the redhead in a tight blue dress approached, pulling an embarrassed looking Guy behind her. Good, she thought, he should be ashamed of himself. If she had a pair of nutcrackers at that moment, she would definitely use them on the more human variety. Preferably his.
When they were all seated around the table, Ted said merrily. “Suzanne, fancy meeting you again so soon,” almost as an afterthought, he added, “This is Shelly."
The redhead laughed and jiggled her tits at him. “It's Sue or Suzie, remember?"
It put Shelly's back up that they'd met before, especially given Ted's love of redheads. It was not a realization she was comfortable with. Besides, she could swear that every time the woman looked at her, her smile had bitter edges and her eyes gleamed bright with an emotion akin to envy or hatred, she wasn't sure which.
Guy looked at his feet, obviously reluctant to acknowledge the introduction, his handsome face remote and unsmiling. Automatically, Shelly straightened her shoulders, stiffening with the action. Guy was exactly as she had pictured him just a few moments earlier. Polished, sophisticated and just to
o darn attractive for his own good.
Sue patted his shoulder. “This stud here is Guy Pearson."
Shelly felt snubbed. The redhead hadn't even acknowledged Ted's introduction of her. Am I invisible or something? she wondered.
Guy took a seat opposite Shelly and held out his large hand. Shelly gave him her much smaller one for a brisk, cold shake. She couldn't take her hand away fast enough.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Shelly,” Guy said softly.
"The pleasure's all mine,” she said, coolly, knowing her eyes relayed a conflicting message.
Guy placed his napkin in his lap and looked at her, but he couldn't read her expression. She was good at hiding her feelings—all those years of nursing, he supposed as he turned his attention to the menu.
Shelly glanced over at the woman sitting on her right, wondering if that were the type Guy preferred—redheaded, with huge tits that must have had about a ton of silicon in each breast. She had dark green eyes that dominated her heart-shaped face. Her smile was cool, almost irate, except when she looked at the menfolk, then it was downright flirtatious.
Shelly ground her teeth and sipped at her wine. Guy was welcome to her. The woman had obviously seen more activity in the bedroom than Shelly had hot dinners.
Ted ordered another round of drinks for everyone, and much to Shelly's dismay asked Guy, “Have you met my wife?"
Guy turned to Shelly, his eyes accusing. “You're married!"
Ted asked defensively, “You've met?"
Shelly reached over the table and took Ted's hand. Who did Guy think he was? He had no right to question her, especially when he had brought that piece of trash to the dinner table. “Mr. Pearson gave me a diving lesson, sweetheart."
Ted's eyes widened in surprise, Shelly never had, not once in almost ten years, called him ‘sweetheart'.
Shelly smiled at Ted again, deliberately trying to irritate Guy. She said in the sweetest voice she could muster, “Sweetheart, Mr. Pearson really was very good. Perhaps you should take some lessons from him,” she batted her eyelashes. “Or better still, perhaps we could go together now. Wouldn't that be fun, darling?"
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