“God. Did you know that?”
She nodded. “Yes. He’d made it very clear that he was not looking to replace her in his heart. Only his bed.”
He flinched. “Oh.”
“He was a handsome man with a lot of money, and I, I am ashamed to say, was a shallow girl who thought that would make it all okay. And it was, for a time. I had free access to the bank accounts. Clothes. Travel. Whatever I wanted. His second wife had full custody of his children, two little girls who, according to his irritatingly old-fashioned dictates, would not inherit his company or any assets beyond what he’d already put aside for them in trust. I didn’t have to play at motherhood before I was ready.” She paused in her memories. “I had everything I could have wanted, but I was bored. Dissatisfied. Lonely, Eric. I was so desperately lonely. He traveled often. Worked long hours. When he was at home, he rarely had time to ‘entertain’ me, as he put it. So, I decided to have a child. I thought, well, at least I’d have something to occupy my time. I was nineteen.”
“This is…” He shook his head and leaned to put his arms on his knees. His head bent briefly before he looked up at her. “I have to say, it’s hard to imagine all of this going on, Madeline. None of this sounds like you.”
“Oh, it was me. Then. I do realize it sounds like a story out of the 1890’s, not the 1990’s. The funny thing was, I was raised and educated in America and Britain. My parents had met in England, where my father was going to university. They were not old-fashioned. I fancied myself a feminist, if you can imagine that.”
“I have no problem imagining you as a strong woman who considers herself completely equal to any man,” he said.
Madeline straddled him on the couch to take his face in her hands once more. “Do you know how lovely it is that you did not say ‘superior’?”
He tipped his head back to offer his mouth. “You’ve never made me feel like you think you’re better than me, just because you’re on top.”
She kissed him, drawing at his tongue with her lips until he slipped it into her mouth. She bit lightly, loving the way he gasped. His hands tightened on her hips. His cock pressed her as she ground herself against his lap.
She’d meant to tell him more of her story, but heat had risen suddenly between them, and she no longer wanted to deny it. She rocked her hips. The kiss deepened. She bit his tongue again, harder this time, and was rewarded with a groan.
“I want you,” she told him. “Here. Now. Fuck me.”
She thought he might hesitate or at least be surprised, but Eric moved quickly to unbuckle his belt. Unzipped. They worked together, moving in perfect unison to get his trousers around his thighs and her panties to the side. He was inside her immediately with a single thrust, so deep it was her turn to gasp.
“Yes,” she said, repeating the word over and over as he fucked deep into her.
His hands gripped her waist. Their tongues tangled. She ran her hand through his hair, then anchored her fingers in its dark thickness. She pulled. His mouth opened, and she sucked his tongue. Bit it again. Harder this time, hard enough to make him cry out, muffled into the demanding embrace of her mouth.
She didn’t have to tell him to move a hand between them, to use his thumb on her clit. He found the sweet spot with unerring precision, rubbing in time to his thrusts so that she was on the edge in mere minutes. Then she was over it. Shaking, she cried out. Her body moved, and she was helpless to stop herself from riding him harder, harder, as she kissed him. Pain, sparkling like a far-off star, rushed through her as she cut her lip on his teeth. It didn’t matter. She could not, would not stop until the pleasure had eased. His cock felt impossibly hard inside her.
Eric came with a stifled cry and thrust a few more times before going still. His head fell back on the couch. His eyes closed, mouth open, he gulped at the air. Slowly, the tightness of his grip on her hip lessened, and he moved his hand from between them.
She buried her face in his shoulder, her lips pressed to his skin. She closed her own eyes, drifting in the aftermath of ecstasy. Her knees clutched his sides. His softening cock stayed inside her, and she didn’t want to shift even though this position was going to cause her calves and thighs to cramp soon. She didn’t want to lose him from her body.
Not just yet.
Fifteen
The fucking on the couch had left them both so spent they’d fallen asleep for a few minutes before Eric had roused himself. He’d carefully woken his lady — that was how he’d been thinking of her without admitting it for the past few weeks, but at last it felt as though he had the right to. It occurred to him that he should apologize for calling her “Ma’am” without permission, but he hadn’t wanted to bring it up just then. Madeline’s sleepy, adorable smile had rewarded him as he shifted them both off the couch and invited her upstairs to his bed.
He hadn’t been sure she would agree. They’d always been at her house, before. In her bed. Part of him had been expecting her to decline in favor of leaving, so he’d been thrilled when she’d stripped naked and slipped into his bed, where she promptly curled up and reached behind her to urge him to spoon her. Thank God he’d had the foresight to put on fresh sheets. Now, with the fresh scent of her hair in his face and the glorious warm curves of her body pressing his, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so content.
Eric kissed the back of her neck. His hand had fallen naturally to the curve of her naked hip. Madeline had bent her knees to press her perfect toes against his feet. Her breathing, steady and slow, soothed him. He woke with a start to find the bed empty next to him. He sat, the covers a tangle around his feet, panicked.
Madeline turned from the window, where she was outlined in silver moonlight. “Shhh, sweetheart. I’m still here.”
She crossed to the bed and climbed in beside him. Her hand went flat to his chest, over his fast-beating heart. She leaned to kiss him gently.
“I wouldn’t ever just leave without waking you,” she told him.
“Good.” He wrapped his arms around her and settled them both on the pillows. He brushed his lips over her temple.
She nestled against him. “Eric.”
“Yes,” he said after a pause.
Madeline twisted to look up at him. “Do you believe in fate?”
“No. Not really.”
“No? You work in an emergency room. You never think, if only this person had turned left instead of right, they wouldn’t be here now?” She trailed her fingertips over his chest to rest her hand on his belly.
Warmth at her touch spread through him. His cock, previously sated, began to stir. “Do you mean if I think that people deserve what happens to them?”
“Not exactly. I mean…” she sighed and shook her head. She toyed with the hairs of his lower belly, sending more tendrils of arousal through him. “I believe the choices you make lead you down one path or another. Everything you choose affects what happens. We are here now because of choices I made years ago. Same with you. If we hadn’t made those choices, we would not have been able to make this one here. Now. Together.”
He arched a little beneath her wandering hand. “Well, whatever choices you made to get you here right now, I’m glad you did.”
Madeline made a small, soft sound. Eric twisted to look down at her. She tipped her face toward him. “Kiss.”
He did, but also asked, “aren’t you?”
“Glad I’m here with you? Happy I made the choices I did?”
“Yes,” he said and wondered at once if he wanted to hear the answer.
“I am very happy to be here with you, right now. Like this. Yes. About my previous choices, I can’t say that I’m happy with them. No. At the time I felt as though I had no choice. I felt out of control. I felt lost and desperate, and what I chose then brought me a lot of pain, over and over again. I did not learn my lesson the first time through, or even the second. Or, I am ashamed to admit, the third. Fourth. That I ended up here with you, in this moment, is a blessing, but to be honest,
I doubt my ability to make good choices.”
“You do think this is going to turn out to be a bad choice.” He understood that. He’d felt it, knowing that falling for someone who’d made it clear she was not ready to be serious could only lead him to pain.
“I don’t know.”
They were both silent for a bit.
“I’m willing to make it,” she said finally.
He sat up against the headboard. So did Madeline. Her expression was tight. Serious. She took both his hands and linked their fingers together. She lifted each of his to her lips and kissed his knuckles.
“I’m willing to do this with you, Eric. To see what happens. Where we go, what we do.”
Her hitching breath and the bright gleam of tears in her gaze countered her smile. Frowning, Eric brushed her hair off her face and cupped the back of her neck. He wanted to kiss her, but waited, wanting to get everything clear between them first.
“We’re going to do this. Together. Me and you. Making choices. Good ones,” Eric added firmly. “I want to be a good choice for you. I’m going to be good to you. I promise. You never know what might happen, right? But we’re going to see if we can make this work. Together.”
A shining tear slipped over her cheek and into her lips. She swiped at it with her tongue and smiled. “Yes. All of that.”
The taste of salt faded quickly in their kiss, replaced by the delicious flavor that was all hers. Their foreheads pressed together. She’d closed her eyes, and her lashes shaded her cheeks in dusky shadows, but she smiled.
I love you.
The words were right there, ready to be said, but Eric did not say them. He knew he had the tendency to jump into things too fast, and he wasn’t going to screw this up by pushing it too hard, too soon. For now it was enough that they’d agreed on this ownership. He’d yearned for it for as long as he could remember, but since meeting Madeline he had specifically wanted it, needed it, craved it from her. He wasn’t about to do anything to mess it up now.
He kissed her mouth. She sighed, parting her lips for him. He moved his tongue over the delicate flesh of her throat, earning another sigh. Lower, over her collarbones. He lingered on the tattoo there, that short phrase.
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.
She arched when his teeth pressed the words. He was going to make her forget them, and whoever it had been who’d hurt her so much that she’d felt the need to permanently ink that ode to pain upon her skin. Eric kissed the perfection of her breasts, brushing his lips over her nipples but not sucking at them, because she’d always winced when he did. He paid attention to that.
Madeline shuddered, but said nothing as he moved his lips and tongue over her belly. He nibbled at the curve of her hip. She parted her legs for him, an invitation he was happy to accept. Eric settled himself between her thighs and pressed his face into her glory. He breathed in her scent. His cock had been half-hard but thickened more as her heat wafted over his face. The softness of her pubic curls tickled his nose as his lips found the sweet cleft of her pussy. He didn’t lick or kiss right away, content to simply enjoy this moment, but the idea of tasting her excited him so much that he couldn’t hold out for long.
His tongue and lips found her clit. He moved lower to swipe her open, delving inside to taste her. Her hips lifted, pushing her pussy against his mouth, and he slid one hand beneath her ass while the other moved to slip a finger inside her.
“Oh!”
Eric loved that soft cry. Eager to earn another, he licked and stroked. The persistent hum of his phone buzzed from the nightstand, sudden enough to startle them both. There could only be one reason his phone rang at this time of night. He slipped away from Madeline to answer it.
“Yes,” he barked into the phone. “What’s going on?”
“I have to go.” Eric’s fingers had curled around his phone hard enough to turn the knuckles white. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave.”
Madeline nodded, already getting out of his bed to look for her clothes. She didn’t need to ask him if he were all right — so clearly, he wasn’t. She gathered her panties and pulled them on, then her dress without bothering to put on her bra. Her heart thudded uncomfortably, pressing her pulse into her ears with a steady thumping noise.
“I’ll call you a car,” he said without looking at her, his fingers busy typing texts.
“You don’t have to do that. I can use my phone to call.” She waited for him to look at her, and when he didn’t, her chin lifted. “Eric. What’s happening? Can I help?”
“I have to go, Madeline. Sorry.”
Her instinct was to grab him. To force him into stillness, at least for the moment or so of comfort she could give him. Whatever was going on, she wanted to help him through it, but nothing about the way he was acting seemed like he wanted that from her.
She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away abruptly as he spent his attention on his phone.
This was it, then, she thought. Here’s what happened when you decided to see what might become of something you weren’t sure was ever going to be anything important. She’d let him come, had let him fuck her, and now the first time a problem arose, he wasn’t even going to tell her what was happening. She’d have been more understanding if the change in his behavior and attitude hadn’t been so blatant.
If she hadn’t already started believing they had a chance at something wonderful.
“I’ll walk you down,” he said, still with his attention on everything but her.
Madeline had gathered her clothes. Now, she gathered her dignity and her pride. She shook her head.
“No, thank you, it’s fine. I’ll show myself out.”
If he’d come after her, she would have turned around, but the only thing she heard as she opened the front door and went through it was the sound of Eric speaking urgently on the telephone, sharing his crisis with someone other than her.
Sixteen
Harriett didn’t die.
She’d gone into cardiac arrest, and they suspected another stroke, but she had stabilized and was now resting in what nobody had been able to confirm, but which Eric was sure was a coma. They wouldn’t know for a little while. She might die without ever waking, or she could open her eyes at any time.
There wasn’t anything he could do for her, and with the arrival of her children, Eric no longer felt welcome or comfortable there. The trip had been a whirlwind, there and back, but he’d managed to get a seat on the last flight back to Dayton. He wouldn’t have to call off from work.
He would have to face Madeline.
God, he’d been such an idiot. He’d moved on autopilot, responding to the call and the texts, without giving Madeline a second thought. He’d practically shoved her out of his apartment, so wrapped up in the emergency he hadn’t been able to think of anything but what might happen in Pennsylvania while he was figuring out how to get out of Dayton.
The call from the nursing home had come in at the worst time, but that didn’t excuse the way Eric had responded to it. He’d always prided himself on keeping a cool head in a crisis — he couldn’t do his job without that ability. Yet the idea that this might be it, that Harriett might be dying and he was too far away to help her, save her, too far even to simply be there…it had knocked him off his feet.
So what had he done? Exactly the thing Madeline had warned him she could not tolerate. They’d had sex, and almost immediately after, he’d dismissed her. He wouldn’t blame her for being angry, but there was something more going on than that.
Guilt had shredded through him like razor blades through paper. Harriett was dying, and what was he doing? Fucking another woman. Putting it that way, making it that crude, did nothing to make him feel better. Admitting that it had been so much more than sex was even worse. It didn’t matter that he and Harriett had ended their relationship in a way that did not prevent him from moving on to something new. It didn’t matter that Harriett herself, he knew in his heart, wo
uld be overjoyed to learn he’d found a woman who seemed as though she could become a real, true partner. Nothing could change the fact that living his life and getting laid was all fine and good, but finding Madeline…finding a new mistress, even one who did not allow him to call her Ma’am…that was what had sent him into such a tailspin.
It felt like the worst sort of betrayal.
Halfway to his apartment from the Dayton airport, Eric’s phone rang with a call from Madeline. His heart thudded. Guilt filled him. He thumbed the screen to send the call to voicemail. He would call her back, of course. When he wasn’t driving. When he was a little calmer. When, when, when.
When a text notification popped up, interrupting his reading, Eric swiped to read it.
Please call me.
Ignoring her was rude, and Madeline deserved much better than that from him. Even if they weren’t going to see each other anymore, which could be the case after the way he’d behaved. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to reply right now. Seeing Harriet in that hospital bed was never easy, but today it had been especially difficult because of Karen. She’d pushed his buttons until he’d responded with anger and vitriol that would have disappointed Harriet, and that shamed him.
Madeline did not text him again. She wouldn’t, he thought. She’d reached out to him twice already and been ignored. She’d made it clear she was not the sort of woman to chase or beg, and she shouldn’t have to.
A run would make him feel better. Maybe. If nothing else, pushing his body to exhaustion might quiet the non-stop rattle of thoughts constantly tumbling around in his brain.
He would run.
Run.
Run.
It had taken Madeline a few years to gain an appreciation for red wine, and it had only come about after she’d left him. Before then, she’d been a pink or white sort of girl, preferring the sweet and crisp tastes of chilled wine rather than the red’s earthier and more savory flavors. Only in the aftermath of their love, when she’d been left standing in a terrain so scorched not even ashes remained, had she become able to tolerate the heaviness of red wine.