It was a pleasant drive, a great day, with everything casual. Michael’s marine facility was quiet since it was a Saturday and not a tourist destination, but Marianne seemed pleased to have the company, and once again she preferred to swim with Lori, as if she had made a bosom buddy for life. Brad was dismayed that the dolphin didn’t seem to like him, but he kept a sense of humor about the situation, maybe because Tina was so delighted to be with the dolphin again.
“Some women just prefer the company of women,” Brad said, shrugging, looking at Jan, who looked away.
They left Michael about five in the afternoon. It wasn’t bad in the Suburban, Brad driving, Tina between him and Sean, Brendan in the back on the left, Lori in the middle, Jan on the right. They reached Key West just when the sun was setting, one of the most spectacular views imaginable—gold, crimson, magenta, mauve… beautiful, especially from the balcony of the huge southwesterly facing suite Sean had taken to make sure that he didn’t jeopardize whatever Lori chose to tell Brendan about their relationship.
They walked on the hotel’s private beach, played in the surf and sand while the sun fell, then changed for dinner, a rustic place on the water known best to the locals where the blackened fish and conch chowder were some of the finest to be had. Later, with the kids at a movie, they strolled the streets of Old Town, discussed Hemingway and his years spent in Key West, and had what Lori considered a wonderful and refreshingly normal night.
She was still plagued by thoughts of her grandfather’s strange behavior, and she was afraid she knew what he was going to say to her. But she pushed it all back into a corner of her mind. It wasn’t time to deal with it yet. She wanted this simple time of pleasure and enjoyment with Sean, her son, and her friends.
Idly walking along, she found that Jan had come up beside her while the guys were behind them, discussing the triumphs and potential of the Panthers, the Marlins, and the Miami Dolphins. Jan linked arms with her. “Isn’t this fun? I haven’t enjoyed myself like that in years. I mean, it’s almost like we’re normal couples, real couples…”
“You and Brad are a real couple.”
“Strange, isn’t it? Me and Brad, you and Sean.”
Lori shrugged. “Why?”
“Well, in school it was you and Brad. Mr. and Miss Perfection, you know.”
“We were never perfect. We didn’t belong together. Our parents just thought we did. Other people thought we did.”
“You really feel that way?”
Lori looked at her friend. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Honest, Jan, you’ve known me forever! I don’t think things ever ended dramatically between Brad and me because there simply wasn’t really anything there. And then, of course, after Mandy’s death…”
“Everybody just went away,” Jan said with a sigh. She chewed her lip. “Well, I believe you, but I don’t think my ex-husband was so certain you shouldn’t have been together. He still thinks you’re incredible, you know.”
“Jan, it really seems that he loves you. You two were just as cute as could be on that lounge chair last night.”
Jan sniffed. “I think he was being a little proprietary because of the ratio.”
“The ratio?”
“Women—there were three. You, me, and Sue. Men—there were a bunch. Michael, Jeff Olin, your cousin Josh, Ricky, Ted, Andrew, and Sean. And the one thing that’s true here is, they are a beautiful crowd. Brad is probably the most classically good-looking—a Baywatch beachboy if I’ve seen one. Of course, he knows it. Sean is probably the sexiest, tall, those dark good looks and killer blue eyes… but, hell, I’d take Andrew in a flash—even if he is your brother. Sue always thought he was the most gorgeous thing in the world—and Ricky is a knockout with his Latin eyes. Jeff Olin is just about perfect, built like an Adonis, sexy as all hell when he flashes those pearly white teeth! Brad had good reason to stick close to me last night!” Jan said, grinning. “In fact, I think Susie is after one of our good friends.”
“My brother again?” Lori said, surprised. Andrew seemed to be in the doldrums a bit, too concerned with his future to be seriously concerned with any one woman.
“I don’t know, I have no idea. She was just talking to me while helping set out plates, saying it was great that we’re all together, that some friendships become closer than others and it’s so wonderful now because she’s so scared.”
“Interesting. It will be fun to find out just whom she’s close with!” Lori said, pleased. Sue was a good person, always a good friend, quiet, honest, kind. She’d absolutely adored Andrew back in school—she might be just what he needed. But then again, maybe it wasn’t Andrew Sue was seeing at all. She’d have to ask her brother—when he wasn’t haunting her about an alarm system. “Think you and Brad will remarry?” she asked Jan. “You two just look so right for one another. I almost feel as if I’m out with Ma and Pa Kettle—in the nicest way, of course.”
“Yeah, Ma and Pa Kettle. That’s a laugh,” Jan said.
Lori frowned. “Why, what’s wrong?”
Jan sighed, glanced at Lori. “If I tell you, you’ve got to swear, I mean swear, not to say a word to anyone. Ever.”
Lori smiled. “Jan, we are out of high school. But I swear, I swear.”
“Brad has this fantasy…” Jan murmured, looking back to see that the men were out of earshot. “Oh, Lori, what should I do? Brad wants to remarry, but only after he’s sown the very last of his wild oats.”
“Meaning?”
“He wants to live out one of his fantasies.”
“Oh?”
“He wants a threesome.”
“A threesome?”
“Oh, don’t sound so naive!”
“Sorry.”
“Lori, I’m thinking about doing it.”
“He wants a ménage a trois with you in it.”
Jan nodded. “Please don’t look at me that way! I’m not terrible.”
“I didn’t say you were!”
“It’s supposedly a big fantasy for him, having two women.”
“It could be.”
“I’m not a horrible person.”
“Jan, of course not, and quit defending yourself to me. I’m not judging anyone. Trust me, I wouldn’t dream of judging anyone. The important thing here is you, can you do this, can you live with it, and if so, is it for the right reasons?”
“Oh, Lori, what should I do?” Jan wailed.
“You’ve got to do what you think is right,” Lori told her, then sighed. “Oh, Jan, honestly, I wish I could give you real advice. It’s a decision you’ve got to make for yourself.”
“You won’t quit being my friend?”
“Of course not!”
“You don’t think it’s too sick or perverted?”
Lori laughed. “Jan, it’s what you think that matters.”
“But you will still be my friend.”
“Always.”
“Lori?”
“What?”
“Do you think that Brad loves me, really loves me?”
Lori hesitated. Brad teased, he still teased. He had a powerful personality and liked women. But she had been pleasantly surprised to see how tender he could be with Jan, and how domestically intimate the two had been at Jan’s house. There did seem to be a special bond between the two of them.
“Okay, Jan, pure honesty. I think Brad could be a jerk back in high school—but then, we were young, we were all idiots. I was surprised when you married him, not so surprised when you divorced him. But he seems to have come a long way—and yes, I think he does love you, and Tina, very much.”
The smile on Jan’s face was frightening. Maybe what Lori hadn’t realized was just how much Jan loved Brad.
Jan gave her a hug.
“I’m so glad that you’re home.”
Sean, Lori discovered, was shrewd.
Rich, she decided, could also be a good thing.
The suite he had taken had a huge parlor area, one bedroom to the left of it and two bedrooms to th
e right. They looked like three separate hotel rooms, and they could be.
But the two rooms on the left of the parlor area were connecting, she discovered. She had been surprised when Sean gave her a casual nod good night, waved to Brendan, and disappeared into his own room. She bid Brendan good night herself and closed her own door.
A few minutes later, she heard a knock and noticed the door between the two rooms. He poked his head in, grinned, then entered, wearing a black velour robe. He walked over to her door, assured himself it was locked, and came over to stand before her.
He lifted her chin, kissed her. “Any problems?”
She shook her head, opening his robe, burying her face against the crisp hair on his chest. She breathed him in. He even smelled sexy. She moved her lips lightly against his chest, feathered her fingertips along his sides, then sank slowly down against him, eager to touch, taste, drive him into a frenzy, and make love.
She nuzzled his lower abdomen.
“Shall I…?”
“Do it… oh, God.”
A guttural groan emitted from deep within his chest. His fingers were hard as they threaded in her hair. He pulled her up by the arms, found her mouth, kissed her with wet passion, and lost the robe. Her knit dress never quite made it from her body, being shoved up to her waist while her panties were ripped away.
Later, he made love to her slowly, teasing and arousing her with such an intimate and instinctive precision that she found herself climaxing just from his subtle, liquid touch, then rising to meet him again when his body joined with hers. As she lay against him, half asleep, he murmured, “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I see a lot of movies,” she teased.
“What kind of movies? Andrew’s?”
She punched him in the shoulder, laughing softly. “No, I didn’t even know what Brother was up to until recently. No, it’s just that… Sean, do a lot of men have a fantasy about sleeping with two women at once?”
He was silent for a minute, then asked her, “Why? Did you want to bring a friend?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “Oh, never mind, I was just curious. Is it really such a common fantasy?”
He shrugged after a moment. “Maybe.”
“Do you have that fantasy?”
“Are you volunteering to fulfill it?”
“No!” she said, laughing again.
“Then, what is this?”
“I just wondered—”
“You.”
“What?”
He rolled toward her, and in the shadowy moonlight that filtered into the room, she felt his eyes. “You. I lived a lot of fantasies. I did whatever the hell I wanted for years, nothing very kinky, I don’t think, but I knew a lot of people, many of them pretty interesting and freethinking. In all that time, when I lay awake at night, alone—I wondered what it would be like just to have a real chance to be with you. Good enough?”
She smiled, trembling inside and out. She touched his cheek and tried to be nonchalant.
“God, you are good,” she said lightly, but she bit into her lower lip and added, “Sean…? I love you.”
He arched a brow. “Can you really say that so quickly?”
“It’s not so quickly. I’ve thought about it myself for around fifteen years.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, and she was really afraid because it was just too good.
Sean awoke first, restless, despite the fact that she lay beside him, lovely, content, warm, everything he might have wanted.
It was very early, but he showered and dressed, slipped into the suite’s little kitchenette, made coffee, and took it out to the balcony.
He sat, watching as the sun slowly rose against the eastern horizon. Would she have loved him if he hadn’t been as successful? Yes, probably, she had come to see him when he lived in a clean little shack in the wrong neighborhood—and she had comforted him when he was in pain.
Fifteen years… in just a month or so, it would be a full fifteen years.
And amazingly, he could still remember it. He could remember being hauled away to jail, and he could remember the jail. The doper with the slash across his eye who had spotted him as a possible victim, then decided that he was a little too big for an attempted rape. The two car thieves who had offered to tackle him for the doper, and the tough-guy gang member who had decided to help him out when he had taken on the three and sustained a black eye and a broken rib.
He could remember the assistant D.A., pounding him, showing him the awful pictures over and over again. Mandy dead. Mandy decaying. He had done it, he had done it in a rage. She’d just been such a prick tease…
No, he hadn’t done it, and he’d never be coerced to say he had.
Then there had been his own court-appointed lawyer, the fresh kid who had been willing to fight but was so inexperienced! He remembered the night that he had lied to his dad, assuring him he’d be okay, then listening to his attorney telling him that if he didn’t plead to the lesser charge of manslaughter, the D.A. meant to get him on murder one and send him to the chair.
He could have died. A jury could have convicted him, and if so, he might have run out of appeals right about now and be heading for Old Sparky.
He sipped his coffee, realizing that he was in a cold sweat. He looked around. It was a great suite.
He wished he could have brought his father some place like this.
“To you, Dad,” he said quietly, raising his cup. “Thanks, wish you were here!”
Could he really live in Dade County again? he wondered.
Maybe. There had been people who had hated him. Who had condemned him.
But there had been people on his side, and maybe even people who had loved him as well. He had run away from the bad, and God, yes, he could credit himself with creating a damned good life out of it all. But maybe he had run away from the good as well.
“Hey, early bird.”
Lori was up. Wrapped in a long, slinky silk robe, hair mussed and wild, she smiled ruefully as she stepped out on the balcony with a cup of coffee and stared at the horizon. “Do you always manage on so little sleep?”
“I tend to be restless in the middle of the night.”
“Dreams?” she asked quietly. “Nightmares?”
“Memories.” He reached out a hand. She took it, sitting on his lap when he drew her to him.
“Watch the coffee.”
“I would wear scalding coffee for you any time.”
She smiled. She was dazzling. As beautiful as ever. He felt shaky suddenly, as if she couldn’t really be there now, available for him. Like so many good things in life, she might suddenly slip out of his grasp.
He didn’t want to betray too strong an emotion, so he arched a brow at her. “So who is getting into a ménage a trois?”
“What?”
“Who?” he asked again, grinning.
She smoothed back her hair. “I can’t tell you that! Someone was talking to me in confidence.”
“Brad wants Jan to do it, huh?”
Her sharp intake of breath assured him that he had nailed it on the first try.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You just did.”
“Oh, God, don’t say anything.”
“Brad and I hardly share intimate secrets,” he told her.
“But you are friends. You act like friends—”
“We’re friends. On the surface, always. Maybe a little deeper than that. Sometimes, we needed each other, like on the football field, in certain classes… but he was always a little suspicious of me, and I was always damned careful of him.”
“Why would he have been suspicious?” She was staring at him with her hazel eyes wide and troubled.
He smiled. “You,” he told her.
“Hey, Mom, Sean!” Brendan called, wandering out on the balcony. “Can we get something to eat?”
Lori tried to hop up; Sean didn’t let her. She looked at him, alarmed, then settled back in his lap. She
realized that she would just make herself look guilty if she jumped up.
“Sure. Let’s call the Jacksons and get them down for breakfast. In fact, Brendan, will you do that? I’ve got to get dressed.”
She rose slowly and started for her bedroom. Sean smiled, shrugged to Brendan, and told him he could find a room-service menu on the desk in the parlor.
The Jacksons had been awake and soon joined Sean, Lori, and Brendan on the balcony for room-service breakfast. As morning deepened and the sun continued to rise over the water, the scenery was almost as beautiful as it had been at sunset.
Breakfast was delicious, and they ate it lazily, discussing what they could do with the day while remembering that tomorrow was a school day—Brendan’s first—and people did have to work in the morning.
“Parasailing,” Tina pleaded.
“I’ll think about it,” Brad said.
“No, I don’t want her up in the air. What if something breaks or falls or—” Jan protested.
“Fishing,” Brendan suggested.
“Snorkeling, diving, water skiing,” Lori added.
“We’ll rent a boat. A little fishing, a little snorkeling, a little waterskiing,” Brad said.
Lori watched him smile at his ex-wife. She thought that he did love Jan. She hoped that he wasn’t just using her, raising her hopes. She thought about what Sean had told her, and she lowered her head, feeling a rush of fear. Every minute she was with him, she wanted him more. The relationship subtly changed each time they were together. At first it might have been mostly sexual. What the hell, she was an adult. She was allowed a relationship now and then, and he was attractive as hell and had pursued her. She liked him, wanted him, even if it wasn’t forever…
But she had loved him once before, and she was growing emotionally entangled at a terrifying rate.
She thought they were just beginning to share a feeling of commitment, a comfort in being together. Yes, sex was great. That was important. One of those things you didn’t allow yourself to realize just how much you missed while you were missing it until you had it again.