by Sharon Ervin
“Mr. and Mrs. Rivera, we have reserved our most popular table. You do us great honor with your presence.”
When they were alone in the car afterward, however, Savanna fumed. “I want you to work in an office job, one where your fingernails stay clean.”
“You know the plant is running better since I’ve been in the shop than it’s ever run before. Your managers assure me that is so.”
That was true. The floor managers accepted him grudgingly at first, then later proclaimed him a genius at dealing with workers’ complaints, difficult attitudes, and troublesome machinery. Gradually, they welcomed Peter’s experience, his fairness, his expertise.
“It doesn’t look right for…”
“To whom does it not look right? To Kitty? What does she know about work in your plant?”
“I want you to be more than a lowly mechanic.”
“You have no complaint of my mechanical skills in our bedroom.”
She started to smile, thinking of their antics when they were alone, then relented and did smile. He allowed a slight smirk, wordlessly parked in front of the house, and hurried to hold the door as she exited the car. Inside the house, however, he scooped her up in his arms and fairly galloped up the stairway.
When their desire was sated, Savanna tried again. “Peter, I’d like you to at least wear a coat and tie to work.”
“Would you have me strangled, sent to my grave by a necktie, caught in a conveyor, in order to save face with your dear friend Kitty?”
“No, of course not. You’d have to stay away from the machinery, of course.”
“Why is it you were willing to forgive my being a gigolo, when you thought that’s what I was, yet you cannot accept my true, God-given gifts? Your company is more successful with me working where I have a talent for working. People on the lines depend on me to come up with solutions for the problems that hamper progress. You knew I was a hands-on kind of man from our beginning.”
She thrashed, wrapping the rumpled sheets around her, and stood to pace. “But now you’re my husband.”
“Does that mean I must try to do jobs for which I have no aptitude and watch others bumble around with problems I can solve?” He sat naked on the side of the bed, making no attempt to cover himself.
She looked at him and sneered. “Put something on. You look stupid sitting there naked as a jay bird.”
“Now my nudity offends you, but not until after you have been fulfilled. Only moments ago, my nudity intrigued you.”
“Now, you’re disgusting.”
His eyes narrowed. “Now that you are satisfied, you want me to hide my body, this body that services you willingly on command?”
“This is my bedroom. I want you to leave.”
“It is also my bedroom.”
“You’re really only a guest here. This is my property, remember. You wouldn’t let me share it with you, when I offered, and now I’m glad you didn’t.”
He stood, his muscles flexing, his face hard as he moved toward her. She shuffled back, wrapping the sheet more tightly as she skittered to escape him and the dangerous light in his eyes.
He caught her, threw her unceremoniously over his shoulder like one of Angus’ bags of manure, and marched from the room.
Savanna screamed, struggling, pummeling his back with her fists as he fairly ran down the stairs, bouncing her mercilessly. She continued her tirade as he stalked through the house, across the great room, out the French doors, over the deck and paused poolside.
She seethed. “Don’t even think about it. The heater’s off. That water probably isn’t fifty degrees. I’m ordering you to put me down.”
“Ordering me? Is that what you’re doing, wife, ordering me?”
“I’m speaking as president and C.E.O. of Cavendish’s.”
He patted her sheet-clad bottom. “And a very distinguished personage you are too, Madam President.”
“Don’t call me that and…” She felt him shifting his hold on her. “Don’t you dare, you…”
Her last word gurgled as she submerged beneath the chill water.
Surfacing, bedraggled, gasping, swiping hair out of her face, snatching at bits of the water-weighted sheet, she sputtered and spewed before she screamed as loud as she could.
He bent and offered her a hand up. She turned her back. “I’m not coming out, not until you are out of my house for good.”
Setting his jaw, Peter leapt into the water, caught the nape of her neck and peeled off the wet sheet.
He looped one arm around her waist and hauled her to the steps and up. Both of them were shrouded in chill bumps, their only covering. Peter ignored her shrieks and pleas and cries for help.
Inside their quarters, Merriam and Angus heard the commotion, frowned at one another, and shrugged.
“They’re going through that difficult first year, their period of adjustment,” Merriam said, trying not to smile.
Angus nodded and gave her a furtive glance. “I hope they survive it.”
“They will.” Merriam looked dreamily at her husband. “Remember?”
“I’d rather not. I like things the way they are now. Peaceful. Don’t you?”
Merriam looked a little wistful. “I suppose.”
Instead of going back into the house, Peter carried Savanna into the cabana. A small gas stove kept the inside warm through the cool winter months. He stood her in the shower and turned on the water. After he had rinsed them both in the warm spray, he picked her up, both of them soaking, and climbed the stairs to the room he had once occupied over the garage.
Shivering but silent when she recognized their destination, Savanna grew curious. She had not been there since before Peter moved in, at the beginning of their project.
The room was clean, the bed made up with crisp linens and an old, handmade quilt. The atmosphere seemed serene.
“This is awfully sterile,” Savanna said, as Peter set her feet on the floor that had been recently scrubbed and polished.
“Yes.” He obviously took her comment as a compliment.
She shivered again, with cold or excitement. “It doesn’t seem very comfortable.”
He pointed to the love seat and the small television as he stepped to a dresser to produce two large towels. He handed one to Savanna who immediately wrapped it around her, then he handed her the second one, as well. “For your hair.”
She gave him a quivering smile. When her hair was wound turban like on top of her head, Peter sat on the bed, still naked, and opened his arms. She eased onto his lap, burying her face in his neck.
“You may evict me from your fine house, Savanna Rivera, but never from your life. I do not care about living in your house. I endure the softness there in order to have you. Threatening to deprive me of those comforts is no threat. Your belongings were never of any interest to me. I’ve told you that many times.”
He rocked her back and stretched her over the bed, slowly beginning the ritual of love her body responded to even without her consent.
He whispered, “All that I value most in life is in this room at this moment.”
On the single bed in the Spartan room, devoid of any luxury appointments, they made passionate love once, then again…and again…through the night.
When she awoke in the predawn darkness in the unfamiliar surroundings, Savanna felt soothed by the sound of her husband’s soft snoring. She shifted only the tiniest bit, but the movement roused him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep, my darling…”
He smiled, though his eyes remained closed. “Darling what?”
She giggled as she whispered, “My darling…wetback.”
His eyes opened to slits and, as he drew a deep breath, her giggling effervesced. Without either moving or opening his eyes, he grinned. “When I am sufficiently recovered, I’m going to make you pay for that.”
And he did.
THE END
AUTHOR BIO
DO YOU LOV
E ME? is Sharon Thetford Ervin’s fourteenth published novel.
A former newspaper reporter, Ervin has a degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma, is married and the mother of four grown children. She lives in McAlester OK and is a probate clerk in her husband and older son’s law office.
Ervin’s books are available in print and electronic formats from Amazon.com, libraries, and wherever quality books are sold.
She is active in Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Alpha Phi Sorority, the OU Alumni Association, the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. and the Texas Writers Guild.
Ervin can be contacted at www.sharonervin.com, on Facebook @sharonervin2, Twitter, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Dear Reader,
I wrote novels for 17 years before one sold. It became obvious no one wanted to read my books, but me. Consequently, I wrote whatever suited me. If I felt blue, I wrote dark stories; joyous, I wrote upbeat; sexy…well, you know. Angry when Husband Bill prevailed in an argument, I made the next hero a mute. Ha! (That one has turned out to be a fav among readers, both men and women.)
DO YOU LOVE ME?, my eleventh manuscript, now my fifteenth published book, was written in 2002. It had near misses. One agent delayed submissions several months insisting the manuscript had “celebrity interest.” An unidentified someone thought it would “make a movie.” One day, his/her interest waned.
Finally, at long last, here it is. My younger daughter and most gentle critic reads all my manuscripts. This has always been her favorite. I hope it will be yours, too. If it is, let me know at www.sharonervin.com or e-mail me at [email protected]. If it’s not, you might like one of my earlier books. All are available in print, as audio books, or ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, libraries, etc.
Whether you like this one, or not, I would love to hear from you.
Sharon Ervin