by Mel Blue
Seraphina looked askance at her but didn’t comment on her actions.
“Welcome back to New Orleans. You look pissed, but you don’t have that ‘I need a good fuck’ look you were sporting the last time I saw you, so there’s that.”
Karen plopped dejectedly into the chair in front of Seraphina’ s desk. “Hey,” she said. Then she studied the face of this enigmatic woman who was her sister’s friend, and she hoped was now hers. “Oh, well. I could say the same thing about you.”
Seraphina flushed. “My job this weekend is to get other people laid, not me.”
“Well, maybe anger gives one that impression or something. Anybody piss you off recently?”
“No comment. If there was going to be trouble for any couple this weekend, my money wouldn’t be on you and Paul. That poor guy is besotted.”
“Besotted enough to be seen leaving the premises with a tall brunette?”
“Describe said tall brunette.”
“Lips like Angelina Jolie’s, wearing a purple sweater and blue Jeans.”
“Oh, that’s Dee Dee, Paul’s T.A. I vet everyone who enters the premises during these weekends. She had a message for him from Harvard.”
“Harvard?”
“Yeah, looks like while you’ve been trying to get closer to Paul, he’s been trying to get closer to you. The two of you need to talk.”
“What are you saying? I was coming here because Tulane would be good for my career, not particularly to get close to Paul.”
“As Harvard would be for his. You would only be an hour away from him if you came here, but he’d be six hours away if you stayed there and he took the Harvard track. Just tell him you’ve got your job already.”
“I’m not going to have him make his decision based on mine.”
“I’m not saying either of you should do that, but he deserves to know.”
“Why? Because we’re hooking up this weekend?”
Seraphina grinned. “I knew you’d done something already. I can tell by how the tightness around your eyes and mouth has relaxed. You look happy.”
Karen grinned. “Paul did just put it on me spectacularly. The rumors about his prowess were not exaggerated.”
“That’s good.” Seraphina went around her desk and gave Karen an awkward side hug. “Don’t worry about Dee Dee. She was just delivering him a message. Now, go. He’s probably on his way back upstairs and wondering where you are.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get rid of me. What are you up to, Seraphina?”
“Just trying to put out multiple fires before the mixer begins,” she said. “And maybe starting one of my own.”
“What?”
“Uh, forget I said that,” Seraphina grinned solicitously then put her hands on Karen’s shoulders and guided her toward the door.
Karen pulled away and scurried back to the wastebasket. “Oh, let me just get this stuff the concierge packed up for me.” She held the bag aloft as if it explained everything. “Lube. His and hers. In a variety of flavors.”
“I could send you more,” Seraphina said.
“I know, but there’s no sense in being wasteful.” Karen said as she exited the office.
CHAPTER FOUR
This was a first for Karen. She hadn’t spent the night with a man since her marriage to Greg ended. It was strange entering a room with Paul as the other occupant. He was neat but not metrosexually so. His clothing wasn’t strewn around the room, but his laptop was open on the desk, and a haphazard stack of files accompanied it. His jacket was draped over the back of the chair. Water was running in the bathroom.
She had taken a walk in the garden to clear her head after leaving Seraphina’ s office. The crisp, cool air had in divesting herself of all traces of the green-eyed monster. She had to remind herself that Paul was not hers. He was just on loan to her, and as much as their coupling a few hours earlier had put her on the same page with him regarding their compatibility, he had a big decision to make career-wise. She didn’t want her already-made career decision to affect his at all.
As he emerged from the bathroom, his eyes lit up when he saw her. He changed course immediately and met her at the door.
“Hey,” he said, like they hadn’t just seen each other less than an hour before. He took her into his arms, and once she’d wound her arms around his waist, he cupped her cheeks and kissed her soundly. It felt like she was being welcomed home, and she returned the bright smile when they separated. “Come, sit and talk to me a few minutes,” he said.
“Okay.” He took her hand and led her to the comfortable chairs near the French doors leading onto the balcony.
He gestured toward the small bag she held. “Been to the gift shop?”
“No, actually these were freebies from the concierge.” Her cheeks warmed despite the intimacies they’d shared, and she hoped he wouldn’t question her more about it. She preferred to surprise him with it later.
Paul surprised her first and pulled her down into his lap. She set the bag on the table next to them as he plundered her mouth with kisses that had her flat chest tingling and her sex pulsating like they hadn’t just taken care of business a little while before.
“I thought we were going to talk,” she whispered against his lips when he let her come up for air.
“I think this is an excellent form of communication.”
“Yes it is, but we’ll be late for the mixer if we let the current form of communication continue. And as much as I’d like to, I think my body needs a bit of a reprieve for a few hours.”
“You’re right,” he said and ran a hand roughly through his hair. “Honestly, I’m not usually such a horn dog. I have no idea what’s come over me.”
She smiled. “Just keep it in reserve until later.”
“Okay. I’ve got some news. I have a job opportunity at Harvard in the spring. It was only supposed to be for the summer, but it got moved up.”
“That’s fantastic. Are you going to take it?”
“Well, it would put me six hours from you, rather than sixteen.”
Karen slid off his lap and began to pace. “Wait a minute. What was your original reason for considering this position?”
“Having one of the oldest ivy leagues on my CV, of course. But Karen, you have to admit, this would solve the whole distance problem.”
“But what if I’m going to be at Tulane in the spring?”
“Then, I’d just stay at LSU.”
That sealed it. She really didn’t want to tell him about the solid job offer she had from Tulane and be the reason he gave up an opportunity to teach at Harvard. How could they begin a relationship with him having to make that much of a sacrifice for her?
She stopped and glared at him. “No, you can’t do that, Paul.”
“Why not?” He stood and took both her hands then brought one to his lips.
“Because no true academic would give up this opportunity for a piece of tail.”
Paul’s blue eyes hardened, and anger rolled off him like a gathering storm. “I beg to differ with you, professor. I don’t know if delayed gratification heightened it exponentially or what, but you don’t get the kind of connection we just shared with just anyone. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve wanted you since we first met in Baltimore, and we both know why it couldn’t happen then. We should seize this opportunity to see where it takes us, don’t you think?”
He stared at her with a sincerity that was heartbreaking. But as much as Karen wanted to selfishly claim him as her own, she didn’t want him to regret a rash decision that affected his career, based on a sexual liaison. A sickening weight settled in the pit of her stomach, and she knew she had to keep her news under wraps until he’d made his decision.
She wished she’d never put her name in the hat for the Tulane job. It was just day one of their fantasy weekend, and already there were complications she hadn’t expected. But there was another night and two whole days before they parted. Surely,
she’d be able figure out a way to convince him that if they were going to make a real go of a relationship, there could be no regret.
“I think we should get ready for the mixer. Like you said earlier, this is our weekend of not thinking. We can save the hard decisions for later.” Her answer seemed to placate him. For the moment.
***
Karen sat at a table for two closest to the piano and listened to Paul play and sing his jazz repertoire for the mixer crowd. He seemed to coax a response out of the keyboard in the same way he’d played her earlier. She couldn’t wait to be the willing instrument for those skilled fingers again.
She shouldn’t have been surprised he was as good a musician as he was a historian. If there had been any question before as to whether they would be compatible and could conceivably try at a relationship beyond the weekend, it was answered while she watched him at the piano. Yet she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Tulane.
It felt as if every song he sang was for them, even though there was a ballroom full of people, mingling, drinking, talking, and more importantly, engaging in various forms of PDA that didn’t involve just kissing. She kept her eyes averted from the most demonstrative of the couples.
Karen marveled over the friendly, cool glances Paul gave to a few fawning women, versus the sexy, hot ones he bestowed upon her. Even with a missing limb, he had an insouciant swagger, a confidence in everything he did well. All the above and more made him the most compelling impossibility for a suitor there could possibly be. It frightened Karen, and she’d never been afraid of a man before. While she’d rebuffed plenty in recent years for personal reasons, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to rebuff Paul Beaudelaire so easily.
***
“Where are we going?” Karen asked with a laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed as much as she had with Paul. For a man with a missing limb, he’d always been surprisingly agile, and she had to scramble to keep up with him, even though he was holding her hand.
He stopped when they came to a couple of ornate French Doors leading out into one of the gardens and held the door for her. “After you, mademoiselle,” he said.
“Technically, it’s still madame. If only I could go back to my unmarried state.”
“You’ll always be a mademoiselle to me,” he said and stole a kiss from lips begging to be joined with his. He put his arm around her waist and drew her close to his side as they moved toward the giant bubble in the middle of the grounds behind the hotel. It housed the pool, and it was covered in winter, just as she’d remembered from past visits. They walked by a few couples and heard a few others engaged in activities best left only to the imagination. This was the Den of Sin in full swing, and Karen hoped Paul wasn’t expecting them to join in the open-air revelry.
When they got to the entrance, she said, “Isn’t this locked after midnight?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out keys. “Yes, but it’s accessible if you’re related to the owner.”
As someone who’d also been the object of curious scrutiny, he had to know she wouldn’t hang around a pool, unless it was fairly deserted, and she wore a full bathing suit with an immovable prosthesis. This was, hands-down, one of the sweetest gestures he could make for her.
He locked the door behind them as she looked around then settled on a cluster of chaises near the hot tub end of the pool. Paul adjusted the thermostat on the portable heating system, and warm, balmy air wafted over them. Rather than occupy a vacant chaise of his own, he slid onto the oversized lounge with Karen and tucked her into his side.
They made out like a couple of teenagers until the air over the pool rose to a comfortable level. They stripped out of their clothing and got cozy in the hot tub. Of course, Karen stubbornly kept on her lace cami. Now she knew why he’d changed his prosthesis before they’d left the room. Apparently he had one designed for water activities.
“Ever made love in a hot tub, professor?” he asked.
“It’s been so long ago, I can’t recall the experience,” she said. “Refresh my memory?”
Paul had a devilish glint in his eyes. He leaned forward and brushed his firm lips against hers in a gentle tease. It stoked an ardor that made her nerve endings sizzle. Finally, his tongue found its way inside her eager mouth. The sensations he wrought in her by just his kiss, caused her entire body to shiver with need.
Karen moaned when she tasted him. It was a mixture of scotch, his drink of choice, and all him. He urged her back against the rim of the hot tub, which was cushiony, as if it had been designed for aquatic sexual activity. Migrating from her lips to her throat, he sucked in the skin at her pulse point. It made her buck uncontrollably against his hard body.
Paul’s lips and tongue left trails of heat that converged in her groin, where he skillfully used the water and her moisture to glide over her apex. The relentless pulsing, in sync with the wild beating of her heart, was building so quickly toward orgasm she didn’t know how long she would be able to refrain from letting go.
He kissed her greedily as his fingers continued their magic between her legs, which trembled so hard, she was glad they were in water. She would have collapsed otherwise. Paul kissed her hard, and pulled her tongue almost completely into his mouth. Her world crumbled.
“Oh, yes!” Karen’s moan broke their kiss as her head fell back against the cushion, and she closed her eyes.
Before she could recover from the deluge of sensation rocking her body, Paul spread her knees apart and entered her in one smooth, swift motion.
Karen couldn’t quite figure out what to do with her arms, her muscles were so tight, but as the orgasm coursed through her, and Paul’s thrusts became more rhythmic, she gripped his shoulders and held on. She focused on the feel of his spectacular erection ebbing and flowing, moving deeper and harder with each thrust, building her again toward an inevitable release. She clenched her inner muscles and Paul groaned.
“Please,” he begged. “My stamina is already tenuous with you, you’re so tight.”
“It’s just so good,” Karen wailed.
She threw her arms around his neck and held on as he hooked an arm behind her knee and angled her body so they could make a deeper connection. Karen clutched at his back urging him even closer as he pumped faster and harder into her. The warm water, together with her own wetness proved to work in tandem to make this the most stress- and pain-free coupling she’d experienced in quite some time. Paul littered her neck and face with kisses that punctuated her skin with varied sensation. In turn, each strident thrust from Paul’s pelvis into hers, wound her tighter and tighter toward a second, more powerful orgasm.
The roll of their hips together while Paul sucked at the pulse-point on her neck, proved to be too much. Karen’s next orgasm leveled her like a steamroller, and she would’ve slipped down into the warm water had Paul’s strong arms not been holding her against the wall so securely. Somehow she found enough energy to squeeze around his thick erection to coax an orgasm from him, after which they both might have slipped under water.
Karen wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rained soft kisses onto his face as their muscles relaxed and normalized.
She expelled a contented sigh and rested her head on his shoulder. “I could stay right here, forever.”
Paul chuckled. “But then our muscles would atrophy.”
Karen laughed. “Shrivel up like prunes.”
“The management would have a hell of a time explaining to its patrons why the crazy couple refuses to get out of the hot tub.”
Karen laughed. “Yeah, the breastless woman and legless man.”
Paul roared. “You have a wicked sense of humor, professor.”
“As do you professor.”
“That hasn’t always been the case,” he said. “I know you think I’ve always handled the loss of my leg with grace and aplomb. You should have seen me at the medical facility in Landstuhl. Better yet, just six months before we met at Hopkins.”
Karen didn’t even try to conceal her astonishment. “How did you finally accept what happened?”
“Another military amputee in group therapy who’d accomplished so much in his life after losing his limb, always liked to say, ‘The sum of our parts is not what defines us.’”
“That is powerful.”
“Yeah it is.”
Karen ran her hands over his muscled chest. “Was the body building a way of compensating for what you’d lost?”
“Actually, I began doing it to build up my strength. It took me longer than most to learn to walk again using my prosthetic. I was a mess. I’d lain around and gotten soft after my long hospital stay, but physical therapy was a beast. I realized I needed to strengthen my core if I was going to get mobile and remain that way. Make no mistake. Going through that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m thankful I found the will and stamina to do it.”
“As am I, professor.” She squeezed the top of his biceps.
“So, has my story sufficiently inspired you enough to take this off?” he gestured toward her cami.
She sucked in air through her teeth. “Not even.”
“You are a stubborn woman, Karen Freeman. You’ve seen my stump in all its gory beauty. When are you going to trust me with your scars?”
“When you prove to me you can make beignets that taste better than Café du Monde’s.”
“Tomorrow morning. My place. That top is as good as off,” he said with a sensual promise that had her quaking with fear. Or was it lust?
CHAPTER FIVE
At his place in Baton Rouge on a quiet cul-de-sac near LSU’s campus, Paul made them omelets the next morning. The eggs were filled with red and green bell peppers and onions, all softened by a mixture of Gruyére cheese and mostly egg whites. There was a comfort in the way he moved around the kitchen that told her he wasn’t just cooking to impress. This was a common occurrence. He was certainly more skilled and confident than she was in the kitchen. She watched in awe as he tossed the omelet into the air and caught it again in the pan like an expert.