A Novel Seduction

by Gwyn Cready

“Can do. And the book club meets at seven.”

  “And I have those questions too. But I have got to get a quick nap if I’m going to make it through the evening.”

  He watched the sway of her towel over those fantastic legs. “Always the best way to tackle jet lag.”

  In the chapter Axel had just begun, Jemmie was heading into battle and, things being what they were with Highlanders, felt the need for a quick, er, respite in his new wife’s arms. Axel had never headed into battle but felt there were very few things that couldn’t be improved with a quick respite.

  However, Jemmie wasn’t technically in her arms. Her arms were on the wall of an abandoned cottage and Jemmie’s appeared to be stuffed deep in her gown, drawing her nipples “into sweet, hard musket balls” as he stood behind her. All fine on that front—Axel could even roll with the musket ball analogy given the incipient battle—but according to the author, her gown wasn’t the only thing Jemmie was deep inside of. Even that, Axel might have been able to accept, but the author had made the point several times that Jemmie was a good ten inches taller than his wife.

  “How tall are you?” Axel asked Ellery.

  “Five six,” she said, continuing her unpacking. “Why?”

  “No reason.” Axel was six foot one. That was a seven-inch difference there. And while Axel had certainly made the same sort of approach with Ellery before, they had been fully horizontal at the time, ensuring the battlefield on which they met was, if not level, then at least contiguous.

  “Lemme ask you a question.”

  Ellery made a slightly bored “Mm?”

  “Would you be flattered or offended if someone described your nipples as ‘musket balls’?”

  The unpacking stopped. She gave him a curious look. “I’m going to have to say no one’s ever asked me that before.”

  “I’m not saying I’d describe them that way, of course.”

  She lifted a brow. “How would you describe them?”

  Oh, boy. A minefield. “Er, rubies?”

  She shook her head, the shiny strands of black moving like beaded fringe. “Clichéd.”

  “Summer berries.”

  “Minor improvement.”

  “It’s been a long time. Perhaps if you could refresh my memory.…”

  “Nice try.” She smiled, then paused, hesitant. “So at least you didn’t see anything at the bar last night.”

  He had seen her ample assets in that damned hallway, but he knew that isn’t what she meant. “Oh, no. Like the other hundred and seventy-two people there, I was definitely a beneficiary of a grant from the Ellery Sharpe ‘Incautiousness “R” Us’ Foundation.”

  She groaned.

  “Don’t worry. It was tastefully done and integral to the character.”

  “Character?”

  “Determined ingenue achieving her martini-inspired dream. Very Flashdance.”

  “You’re such a Pittsburgher.” She slipped into the bathroom to change.

  “I take that as a compliment,” he called. He felt his phone buzz with incoming e-mails and checked it. Christ, he’d forgotten Black. This was not the way to win friends and influence people. Axel was still considering his response when Ellery emerged in a black see-through blouse and purple bustier over his jeans.

  “Wow,” he said, and got up to hit the now-empty restroom himself.

  She tugged the burlap belt tighter. “I need to go shopping.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “Hey.”

  He stopped. Her face held an interrogatory look. “Yes?”

  “I have a question,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “If I was leaning against this wall here”—she leaned against the hallway wall and moved her back up and down it a little—“how hard would it be for you to, say, hold my leg up in the air?”

  He frowned. “Not hard at all.”

  “Because my yoga teacher—I do a lot of partners yoga now—says that’s a really hard move for a man.”

  “Like this?” He caught her knee and lifted until her thigh ran perpendicular to the ground.

  “Sort of. I think it’s more open.”

  “Open?”

  “You know. Pressed to the side.”

  He pushed the knee back a few inches.

  “Like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  “You won’t.”

  He pushed until her skin touched the plaster. He could smell traces of grapefruit on her hair. He wondered if he could get into her partners yoga class.

  She closed her eyes and lifted her chin toward the ceiling. Her hair fluttered in the air currents from the heating vent.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s it.”

  There was something odd about the way she’d said it. “Hang on.”

  Her lids popped open. “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re thinking about having sex.”

  “No I’m not.” She flung her leg to the ground.

  “You’re thinking about having sex with someone else,” he said, then added uncertainly, “You are thinking about having sex with someone else?” If she was thinking about having sex with him, he could happily accommodate her.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stoutly, but there was a twinkle in her eye, and when she tried to hide it, she began to giggle. “Stop looking at me.”

  He laughed too. “Yoga, is it? Partners class?”

  “I can’t help it.” She convulsed in laughter. “There was a scene in the other book.”

  “I know!” he agreed. “Mine too!”

  “On a balcony, and I mean, can you even get your thingy in when you’re standing like this?”

  “Wait, wait. Try this one.” He turned her toward the wall and lifted her hands above her head, threading his fingers in hers. “You’re a foot shorter than I am, okay? And I’m able to lift my kilt and enter you? I mean, am I as long as a broadsword? Maybe if it was articulated, you know, like one of those big buses—”

  “Stop!” she howled. “I’m going to wet my pants.”

  “Wait, there’s more. I’m lifting my kilt, I’m hammering away down there like a Scottish John Henry and I’m cross-armed across your chest, teasing your nipples into musket balls?” He brought his hands over her breasts, and suddenly he didn’t want to laugh anymore.

  She didn’t move. He could feel his heart pounding, and the scent of that damp hair was making him stupid.

  He squeezed, and the scant weight of the flesh settled into his palms. The boning of the velvet bustier through the sheer blouse entranced him as did the stiffening of the flesh beneath.

  “Take it off,” he said.

  “What?”

  “All of it.”

  He skinned the blouse off her, and her hair swung loose as it fell. Then he undid the bustier bow and loosened the laces. He wanted to see those breasts fall free, just as he had the day before.

  She pulled the velvet over her head, and he caught the soft mounds, letting the nipples graze his palms.

  She turned to kiss him, a long, needy kiss that set his balls on a slow burn. Then she held up a finger and walked into the bathroom, her long, straight back an intriguing counterpoint to the easy bounce of her breasts. He loosened his belt. This wasn’t going to take long. In a moment she emerged, naked except a pair of impossibly high stilettos.

  He was hard instantly. Those curved hips and that neat triangle of fur were stunning. She held out a condom and he took it. She turned, jutting that lush bottom toward him, and put her hands back on the wall.

  He brought his arm around her, holding both breasts, and unzipped his fly. She pressed her hips against him. The heels brought her ass right up to his lap.

  Reluctantly he released her breasts and let his hands trail down to her buttocks. Cupping them, he imagined a moment or so from now when he’d split the dark seam below
. He wondered if she’d inhale the way she used to when he entered her and whether the delicate throaty cries, so close to tears, would drive him to the edge of beautiful heartbreak.

  He caught her around the waist and brought his fingers to her crease. Her wild shiver nearly spent him, but he found her bud, warm and stiff, and plied it lightly. She twisted on his fingers, more practiced than he remembered, and the movement enflamed him with jealousy. He hated that other men had touched her, hated that she’d known their pleasure. Once he had thought what they’d had was forever, and a part of him ached for that feeling in this joining.

  But he wanted her. He was powerless to stop.

  He bit her ear, enjoying the tug of her flesh while his hand made her mewl and squirm.

  “Axel,” she whispered.

  Her skin was so warm, and the hair on her nape rubbed his cheek softly. He released his hand and her head fell forward with a pant.

  He dropped his jeans and briefs and stepped out of them.

  He tore open the condom. He didn’t want to use it, wanted to ask if he could feel her again, just as he remembered, but a careful sideways glance from her seemed to answer his unspoken question, and he unrolled the latex along his length.

  She leaned into him as he entered, and the animal in him sprung to life. He buried his hand in her hair, clutching a handful as he moved.

  She stretched like a cat, pushing to bring herself closer.

  He bent, thrusting deeply, and found that silky triangle again with his fingers. She groaned, surprised at his touch. Her cheek was against the wall now, and he could see her eyes pressed tight, the pleasure apparent in her flushed skin and open mouth.

  It took all his strength to delay his release, but he wanted to feel her tremble.

  He caught her nipple and teased it lightly. Her hips began to jerk. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  Then she convulsed and he twisted the nipple tighter, drawing her peak higher. She shuddered once, twice, and with the third he thought she might collapse, so he caught her hips and held her wiggling against him.

  Every nerve in him screamed for relief. He turned her limp body around and caught her leg. The heels helped, and he slid back inside. He tore off his shirt to feel those breasts bounce and gave her the first hammering blow. The nipples skimmed his chest, tightening his balls.

  But this wasn’t how he wanted her. He wrenched himself free, lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. In an instant he was on top of her, his tongue deep in her mouth. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, responding feverishly. Slowly he drew away and sat up, settling himself over her waist. She was breathing deeply, watching him with her temptress’s eyes.

  He palmed her breasts and brought them together, squeezing them over his length. Slowly he moved, dying in the tight, pleasuring warmth, savoring the heft in his hands. He bucked, feeling the release score his spine. When he could breathe again, he fell alongside her, groaning.

  “As always,” she said, “you consider the experts, then go them a step better.”

  He laughed, but his laughter was only half felt. Something had been missing. The ebullient young woman who had approached their lovemaking with unflagging joy was gone, replaced by a cooler, more self-contained partner. She had not gasped or cried. Perhaps he was the one who had changed. But to him every motion had felt as raw and powerful as it had when they’d first fallen in love.

  He thought of the end of that wonderful time, that call he had answered, the ring that had interrupted his packing that day. It had been unusual for him to answer: the landline had been hers, but he’d lived there long enough for some of his own calls to come through on it, and there had just been something unusual in the tone of the ring, as if the caller were urging him to lift the receiver.

  As he looked back, he must have thought it was her, calling to tell him she’d changed her mind, that he did not need to remove himself from the apartment and her life.

  But it had been a nurse from a doctor’s office, a doctor whose name he didn’t know. The nurse had asked for Ellery, and when he’d said she wasn’t home, the nurse had asked his name. He’d given it, curious, and she’d paused for a moment before saying, “Oh, yes, I see it here. You’re listed as husband and next of kin.”

  “Yes,” he’d said, feeling the hairs on his neck rising and choosing to be deliberately vague in his correction. “We live together.” He heard the shuffle of paper. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all. I was just checking her privacy options. Will you please let Miss Sharpe know the report shows the procedure was complete? She should have no more problems.”

  “The procedure.” He had tried not to make it sound like a question.

  “Yes, the D and C. Everything is clear. No remaining products of conception.”

  Products of conception? “Okay,” he said uncertainly. “You’ll be able to conceive again,” the woman said, her voice suddenly reassuring.

  “You should have no problem.”

  He’d put down the phone, head spinning, and sat, unmoving, for a quarter hour before he noticed his surroundings again. Had Ellery been pregnant? How long? Had she had an abortion? A miscarriage? Had the child been his? What part, if any, had this played in their breakup? He’d felt as if he’d taken a hard kick to the gut. Each time he’d reached for his cell phone to call her at her aunt’s, where she and Jill had escaped for the weekend, he’d stopped, uncertain he knew the woman he was calling.

  She rustled next to him on the hotel bed, pulling the sheet over them both and curling into his shoulder with a happy sigh.

  Axel gazed at the gleaming dark espresso of her hair, shot through with glints of chocolate and plum. That time seemed so long ago, though the thought of it would come back to him in an unhappy rush that took his breath away and he’d find himself pulling up those photos on his camera, scouring her face for clues. He would tell himself it didn’t matter, that what was done was done, and in a quarter hour he’d be distracted by something and the memories would retreat.

  He’d never expected to find himself here again by her side or with his arm in its usual place around her.

  “Well,” she said with a smile in her voice.

  “That about sums it up—though if I’d had to pick one word, it might have been ‘brava,’ eh?”

  She looked at him and grinned. “Thanks. You were pretty wonderful yourself.”

  He exhaled happily and pulled her closer. He had started this tired, and their liaison had rendered him deliciously numb. His lids were so heavy, he could barely hold them open, and the scent of her hair was like a pleasant sort of ether carrying him off to a distant wonderland where he didn’t have to worry about what any of it meant. Even if everything was different when he woke up again, every inch of him—every inch—would go to sleep happy now.

  She got up on an elbow, allowing a whoosh of cool air to hit him, and he opened his eyes. “Hmm?”

  “Bathroom,” she said, getting to her feet. “Back in a flash. Then let’s sleep.”

  He sat up, grabbed a tissue and disposed of his condom, trying not to imbue her determination that he wear one with anything more than the usual worry about STDs.

  In the old days he would have lit a joint, or at least a cigarette. Now he just had to count the hours from his last shot of insulin or, for a really grand time, check his blood sugar levels. There was nothing like coming down with a serious chronic illness to really shake up one’s view of life. But the diagnosis had only served to put the last nail in a lifestyle he’d already grown out of. Once, playing hard had been the reward for working hard. These days, the work was its own reward. And he found the hours after work becoming ones he wished he could fill with something more meaningful. He listened to her in the bathroom, remembering the year he had called her his.

  With the book club set for seven and a visit to London College planned before that, he knew they’d only sleep a couple hours, and he decided his blood sugar would be fine until th
en. He reached for his pants and found his phone. Then he pulled up his e-mail. Jill had replied to his Facebook message. “I can’t BELIEVE IT!” she’d written. “Please, please tell me she still has the shirt.”

  Axel grinned and wrote back, “I don’t know. It’s been pretty hard keeping any shirt on her lately. Next time you see her, ask her about dumping the yeast.” He hit SEND, then called up Black’s e-mail from before the flight and typed,

  Ellery’s research continues. She has wrapped herself around the subject and has been banging away since we arrived.

  I’m here all week, folks.

  I have probed her a little bit—it was admittedly a very quick review—but I liked what I saw. She also reviewed my stuff and found it deeply penetrating.

  He backspaced over the last line, then changed his mind and put it back in.

  “You’re e-mailing?” Ellery had emerged from the bathroom

  “Just something about an assignment,” he said vaguely.

  “Bed?” she asked, slipping between the covers.

  He quirked an inquisitive brow.

  “Sleep.” But her look suggested while sleep was it for now, the future definitely held promise.

  “Sounds heavenly.” And as he shut off the light, he wondered what, if anything, it all meant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Blue Lagoon Geothermal Springs, Iceland

  Black waved the hot steam away from the top of the water, clutched his ballooning bathing trunks and reread the last line of Mackenzie’s e-mail.

  “What?” Bettina lay half submerged in the hot, milky blue pool beside him, eyeing him like a crocodile.

  “I’m not quite sure. I have the oddest impression of having just read porn.”

  “For heaven’s sake, put that thing down. I didn’t come here to watch you fiddle with your BlackBerry. I can do that on videoconference. I still don’t understand why you chose this godforsaken place.”

  “It seemed about equidistant from London and New York, my love.”

  “The Presidential Suite at the Royal Savoy in Madeira is equidistant. Rio is equidistant. Iceland is an unattended petrol station on an ice floe. For God’s sake, the place looks like it was bombed.”