by Lynn Young
“That’s funny. My brother-in-law warned me that Pepper has set me up with someone, as well, tonight.”
Then she and Josh looked at one another with wariness.
“Are you supposed to be my date?” she asked.
“You’re not supposed to be mine, are you?” Josh said, also aghast.
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“You don’t think that your sister expects us to…”
“I think she does. Does she realize you’re gay?”
“If she doesn’t then she’s about the stupidest person on the planet of the earth,” he said grimly. Then he looked down at Anna Marie’s gray skirt and simple sweater. “As if I would choose someone whose taste in clothes leaves me in despair.”
She thought for a moment. “I could use a fashion consultant.”
Josh shuddered as he took a large swallow of his wine. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go to bed with any woman.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Tell you what, I’ll take you shopping and I’ll let you choose my clothes and we’ll remain friends only.”
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He considered her offer, and then examined her clothes with a grimace. “Well, you are in a desperate need of 911 with your wardrobe. And you don’t have the look of someone who’ll jump on a guy, at least guys like me, unannounced.”
Just then, Dallas appeared through the doorway, wearing his Navy white. Anna Marie
caught her breath. Beside her Josh gasped in wonderment.
“Good god! Who’s he?”
“He’s Cameron’s brother.”
“Oh, my Lord! Look at that body. And he’s so tall. And built! Who’s he being given to?” he said, breathless with desire.
She leaned closer to him and murmured. “Whenever he’s in town, I’m afraid he ends up with me.”
Josh turned and looked at her, and he demanded with anguish, “No! Say it isn’t so!”
He looked so crushed that Anna Marie almost felt sorry that she was sleeping with
Dallas. Hoping to ease his pain, she said, “You know, he wouldn’t be right for you, because he’s not very good relationship material. He doesn’t stick around once he sleeps with you.”
“Then he’s exactly my type,” Josh said morosely. He watched Dallas as he greeted
Cameron with eyes that were filled with hopelessness. “And there’s no chance that he could ever…”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Josh ran his eyes over Dallas’s tall form with feverish estimation, lingering lasciviously over the broad, heavily muscled shoulders, the hard, bulging chest, large hands with long elegant fingers, the flat stomach, and the long, long legs. Then his eyes zeroed in speculatively on Dallas’s crotch. He turned to Anna Marie. “Is he hung? I bet he’s hung like a horse, isn’t he?” She hesitated, not wanting to break his heart more than it already was. But he saw the answer in her eyes, and burst into tears.
“Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry,” she said.
He pushed away her hands that were trying to comfort him and got out of his chair. “No, no. I’ll get over it. Excuse me, I need to use the bathroom.”
Anna Marie stared after him with some distress as he stumbled towards the restroom.
When she turned her eyes back to Dallas, she saw that her sister had commandeered him and was hustling him to an empty seat next to Serena.
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Chapter 13
For the next two hours, Anna Marie forced down the food, although it was quite good and incomparable to any food she could have ever prepared, and struggled with small talk with guests around her. Josh had not returned and she could only guess that he had left, the combination of a freshly broken heart and then having his hopes dashed when he sees an attractive man being too much for him. From across the table, Serena was, once again, doing her best to snag Dallas’s interest. But, this time, she had quite a competition, with so many other attractive women at the table. Several were doing their best, as well, to catch his eye, running their eyes hungrily as Serena was doing over his strikingly handsome face and tall, muscled physique. Serena kept shooting at the other women silent cold warnings, but which did not in the least deter them.
Dallas gave little indication that he had any interest in any of the women. He was polite but little else, remaining aloof and impassive. He did not seem to notice Anna Marie’s presence or even care that she was there. Not once did he look up and meet her eye. She tried not to be Secret Affair 160
bothered by it, reminding herself that she always knew that despite their few heated encounters, there was little else between them.
Right after desert, she decided she had stayed long enough to be courteous. But before she went home, she used the ladies’ room. When she opened the door, she saw Dallas with his shoulder leaning against the wall in the tiny alcove, his hands in his pocket.
“Oh, hello?” she said. “Were you looking for the bathroom?”
“No. Are you going home?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Good. You can take me home.”
But before she could answer, he pulled her to him and started to kiss her.
Anna Marie pulled back. “Uh, I don’t think we should be doing this, here.”
Dallas’s answer was to lift her and anchor her against the wall by pressing his lower torso against hers, and closed his mouth over hers again. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and kissed him back as passionately as he was attacking her lips. As the kiss continued, distantly, she heard people passing by them, going to and from the bathrooms. But she didn’t care anymore. The sexiest man alive was back in town, and he was going to go home with her, despite the numerous other women, more beautiful, more
accomplished, trying to vie for his attention. It didn’t even occur to her that her sister or his brother might come across them.
It also didn’t occur to her to object when his hands gripped her white underpants and began to pull it down her legs. She could only think about the tightness that was heating up very quickly in her loins and how she was very much looking forward to assuaging that aching need soon, and then, afterwards, she knew, Dallas would rebuild that heat all over again, to ready her for another possession.
“Oh, excuse me,” said a man’s voice. There was a shocked gasp of horror. “It’s you!
With him!”
Anna Marie turned her head and struggled to focus her eyes through the heavy fog that misted over her eyes. Josh was standing a few feet from them, the look of anguish and envy on his face again. “Oh, hello, Josh, is it?” she said breathlessly. “I thought you had gone,” she added lamely. She struggled to lower her legs and push down her skirt that Dallas had bunched around Secret Affair 161
her waist, but he held her easily in place, trailing his lips down her cheek, not caring who it might be that was interrupting them.
Josh took one look at her legs wrapped around Dallas’s waist and tears came to his eyes again. He saw the white underwear that the sailor had pulled halfway down her legs. He shook his head, and said in a wounded voice as he walked away, “It’s just not fair. It’s just not fair.”
“What’s with him?” Dallas murmured.
“He wanted you to be his, tonight.”
He had already lost interest in the stranger, his body pressing into Anna Marie with growing need. “Is there a back exit out of this place?”
“Through the kitchen.”
He stepped back from her and took her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
She almost stumbled when she took a step, and pulled up her panties. “This is so
embarrassing.”
Dallas put his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “A lot of people neck in dark corners.”
“That wasn’t a dark corner but a hallway to the bathroom, where everyone saw us. And we got found out.” She stopped. “Wait. Don’t you think we should go out separately, in case Pepper or Cameron sees us?”
He pulled her back into his arm. “I don’t care,” and led her out to the kitchen.
Nevertheless, Anna Marie was relieved when they were able to slip out the back
undetected. She didn’t really know why they should keep their affair secret. They were both single and unattached. So they weren’t really hurting anyone. But, somehow, she knew that if Pepper found out, she wouldn’t understand it. Cameron would be okay with it, she knew, but her sister was another story. She didn’t know why, but she knew her sister at least that much.
This time, Dallas stayed for nearly four days, turning Anna Marie’s small condominium into a private love nest. On the first morning, she tried to go to work, but he kept tumbling her, even after she was dressed for work and keys in her hands, pulling her to the kitchen floor, pushing up her skirt and lowering her panties. She ended up calling in sick for all four days. And during that time, they did nothing but have sex, sleep, and eat.
The only person who was not convinced that Anna Marie was at home sick was Beatrice.
She knew her boss had close to one hundred sick days accumulated. That’s because in the all the Secret Affair 162
years she worked for Anna Marie, she could only count two times her boss had called in sick, and one of the times was when she had to go to the hospital for appendicitis. And her suspicions only increased when she left several messages on her answering machine but got no call back.
When Anna Marie called in sick for the third day, Beatrice knew something was up.
Thirty minutes later, she was knocking on Anna Marie’s home. “If you’re not really sick, Anna Marie, you better answer the door,” she warned loudly, knocking harder. “If you don’t answer, I’m going to call the police.” She rapped the door again.
A few seconds later, there was a sound of a bolt being turned and the door opened. Anna Marie looked harassed, quite sleepy, hastily covered by a short, thin robe.
“Bea, was all this necessary?”
Beatrice examined her with narrowed eyes and saw no traces of illness, although there was tiredness around her eyes and mouth. She looked like she had just woken up. “Are you ill?”
“No…I mean, sort of…” Anna Marie trailed off, distressed, her eyes flickering behind her.
“What’s going on? Is someone here…”
The door opened wider and Beatrice saw a very tall man with thick black hair, green
eyes, and a strikingly handsome face standing behind Anna Marie. He rose up above her like a giant. He put his arms around the small librarian and buried his face in her short, mussed up hair.
From the brief flashes of male flesh, it was obvious that he was naked behind Anna Marie.
Beatrice relaxed, immensely relieved. “Well, well. I see,” she said.
Anna Marie, trying to ignore Dallas’s roving hands and lips, introduced them. “Bea, this is my sister’s brother-in-law, Dallas Trenton. Dallas, this is my assistant, Bea.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse your friend, but I’m the one who’s been keeping her from work,” Dallas said.
Bea went back down the steps. “Well, as long as she’s being well taken care of, I’ll get myself back to the library. Nice to meet you, Mr. Trenton. And I’ll see you, Anna Marie…well, when I see.”
The door closed, and as soon as it did, Bea heard her friend’s low shriek, “Dallas!” and then heard her moan sharply and a low male growl of triumph and intent. Bea smiled as she slid into her car. Yes, she thought, Anna Marie was being well taken care of.
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A few days later, Anna Marie, while on her lunch break in downtown, ran into Cameron.
He persuaded her to stop with him at Pepper’s restaurant for coffee. When they sat down, Pepper joined them, bringing over to their table a pot of coffee and chocolate-dipped biscotti.
“Ahhh, it feels good to get off my feet for a bit,” Pepper sighed. “I’ve been on them for nearly eight hours today. And I expect to be on them for another eight. I have a big dinner tonight for the Arts Council. Which, reminds me, Cam, you’ll have to pick up Toby from his soccer practice.”
“I already arranged it with the au-pair. I hope you enjoyed the other night, Anna,”
Cameron said.
“The other night…Oh, the other night, here, at the restaurant.” Anna Marie lowered her eyes, hoping they wouldn’t see the lie in them. “Yes, I did. It was nice. And the food was great.”
“Did you have the coc-au-vin or the crispy duck over fried noodles?”
“Uh, the duck, I think.”
Pepper nodded. “I thought the crispy duck was successful. Did you think there was too much cumin in it, though?”
Anna Marie gave a wan smile. “I thought it was just right. How did everybody else like it?”
Her sister slid her gaze at her husband. “Well, that’s hard to say, since some people tend to skip out early.”
Anna Marie paled. “You mean me?”
“No, she doesn’t mean you,” Cameron said. “She means my brother. You remember
seeing him there, that night? He was only there for less than an hour and then he disappeared.”
“He left her high and dry. Just like that, not even a goodbye,” Pepper said with disgust before taking a sip of her coffee.
“He wasn’t exactly with Serena, honey. He certainly didn’t come with her, and he had no intentions of leaving with her.”
“Well, how’s he going to get to know her if he doesn’t stick around?”
Cameron rolled his eyes and explained to Anna Marie, “I keep trying to explain to your sister that I don’t think there’s any hope for Serena with my brother.” He briefly slid his eyes to the side that silently said Thank God. “Actually, I think Dallas has got a bird in the area, and that’s why he’s not much around when he’s town.”
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“A bird?” Anna Marie said cautiously.
“A woman,” Pepper said impatiently. “Cameron thinks his brother’s got a woman
somewhere that he sees whenever he’s around here.”
“Wha…Wha…What makes him say that?”
Cameron shrugged his shoulders. “When he’s here, it’s not his family he sees. That is when he’s here for more than one night. I found out from my Dad that Dallas was in town for the weekend nearly six months ago. But he didn’t see any of us, and we don’t think it had anything to do with his job. And then he disappears the other night. There’s only one other reason why he’d be in town and not be with his family. It’s got to be a bird.”
“Maybe it’s Serena,” Anna Marie offered in an effort to cover her sense of guilt.
Cameron burst out laughing but quickly suppressed it when Pepper glared at him.
“Well, it doesn’t make sense that your brother would come several thousands of miles half way around the world just for a woman,” Pepper said impatiently. “And ignoring his family like that is just rude. What woman could be that special for him?”
“Women have a powerful hold on men. You, my darling wife, should know that better
than anyone. I can bet that even enigmatic, cold-hearted Dal is capable of succumbing to the mysterious powers of a female.”
“I, for one, don’t care,” Pepper said dismissively. “I’m sick of talking about Dallas and his coming and going as he pleases. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Yes,” Anna Marie said with relief. “Let’s talk about something else.”
But Pepper wasn’t finished being irate with her brother-in-law. “He’s been awfully rude to Serena. So rude, that I’m not quite sure the whole experience hasn’t put her off men completely.”
She snapped her fingers to a passing waitress and rattled off orders, effectively ending further conversation about Dallas.
Several weeks later, Beatrice opened the door to Anna Marie’s office. “Anna, here’s the list of books that we might want to stock for the reference section next year.” She stopped when she saw Anna Mari
e’s face looking pale and her eyes wide with shock. She was holding in her hand the telephone receiver.
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“What’s wrong, honey?” When she didn’t get an answer, Beatrice shook her by the
shoulder. “Anna, wake up? Are you all right? If you don’t answer, I’m going to call the paramedics.”
Anna Marie jerked herself out of her stupor and focused her eyes on Beatrice. “I don’t know if I’m okay, Bea.”
The other woman grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Okay, that’s it, I’m calling the paramedics, right now.”
“No, no, no.” Anna Marie took back the phone and replaced it in its cradle. “I’m fine. I promise. It’s just…” She broke into laughter, and a great, luminous happiness glowed from her face. “Oh, my god, I can’t believe this. I’m pregnant.”
“What!?”
“I’m pregnant, Bea.”
“How do you know? Are you sure?”
“I went to the doctor for my annual checkup and they drew some blood. She just called and told me.”
“Pregnant? But, who…” Beatrice gasped. “The sailor!”
“Yes, it’s Dallas’s.” Anna Marie spun around in the room. “I’m having Dallas’s baby.
I’m having Dallas’s baby.”
Beatrice “But…how…I mean didn’t you guys use contraceptives?”
Some sheepishness broke through Anna Marie’s ecstatic expression. “No, not really.”
“Well, that was quite foolish.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Weren’t you worried about diseases?”
“I didn’t really think about it, actually. I guess he just didn’t strike me as someone who sleeps indiscriminately.”
The older woman gave her a look of exasperation. “Are you kidding me? He’s a sailor.
You know how they are. A girl in every port?”
“I don’t know. He just didn’t strike me as that type.”