Change (2 page)

Chapter Two

S
ara was
nearly the shade she desired her skin to be. She turned over on her towel,
letting the summer sunshine warm her, and started on the other side. Her
well-endowed front side would gain the most UV rays today. Tomorrow she could
even out the backside.

“Mecenna?” called out a voice in a higher octave than
Sara preferred, and her ears perked up.

She’d become quite familiar with that high-pitched
whine. However, she was not as familiar with the name she gave herself well
over a year ago, so it took her a moment to react to it.

Sara pushed off the towel and sand, groaned inwardly,
stood, and was easily rewarded with a hasty turning of the eyes from her body.
She usually tanned while nude. It was the only reason she’d bought the
beachfront property. Belinda, her next-door neighbor, did not like this about
her.

To Belinda, Sara’s natural behavior was
unnatural,
and
this was exactly why she did it—every day, at precisely ten-thirty in the
morning, directly in front of their twin houses; twenty minutes before Belinda’s
husband came home from work and the ‘witch’ had to leave for her corporate day
job.

Regrettably, Belinda hadn’t left for work.

Sara had to hide her grimace. The wretched woman was
stalling the eventual pleasure of the day and this simply would not do. She
made her way over to the small fence separating their properties.

“Yes, Belinda?” she questioned the older woman by
nearly twenty years.

Her gaze was trapped onto the woman’s crisp business
suit, the hair pulled into a tight bun, and the lips pinched. Likely, the lips
down below…sewn completely shut. Her mind then went wandering to if Belinda
McCarlye even had any lips
down there,
or if the woman was completely
made of stone.

Belinda
was an
uptight bitch in the worst possible way. She could barely see over the property
fence, standing at four-feet-nine, but she could certainly make the skin crawl
from the distance of one hundred feet by the simple use of her high-pitched
whine. Chalkboard and fingernails came to mind every time Sara had to gain a scolding
from her darling neighbor.

Sara stood at five-feet-eight when in bare feet. She
physically towered over the mousy woman. Her tone of voice more on the
seductive, alluring, hinted with a whisper side than anything remotely close to
whining; the allure came out easy today, but her temper was rising to a certain
degree and had to be checked posthaste. She couldn’t afford to tick Belinda
off.

“What is it today, Belinda?” she asked.

“You know exactly what I am about to say to you,
Mecenna. It is the same as yesterday, the day before, and likely the same as
tomorrow.” A hasty roll of the eyes confirmed this claim.

This time, Sara allowed her temper to rise, praying to
end this, once and for all. Belinda should be off to work, so today wasn’t
going as planned. And since today was not going as planned, Sara was reduced to
wasting time until such a time her plan could be achieved.

“Then don’t say it, Belinda, because I don’t want to
hear it.” Somehow, her stern tone fell short of hitting its intended mark; more
than obvious when Belinda smiled.

How the frigid bitch was able to do get her goat so
easily was beyond the worthiness of wasted brain cells.

Mrs. McCarlye wouldn’t look directly at Sara. The age
of twenty-four, there was a price to pay for beauty. So far, Sara had yet to
fork out a dime toward any required payment plan.

She put her hands on her hips to mimic her neighbor’s
angry stance. This bunched up her youthful breasts—and pointed each right in
Belinda’s paling face.

There was nothing wrong with the human body. You came
into this world unclothed. Sara planned to leave it in this way. What you did
to cover up in between birth and death was between you and God. Besides, the
pristine beach directly in front of their homes was clothing optional. If uptight,
pinched-lips (upper and lower), mousy Belinda, did not like this, she could
always move. With any hope, during that move, she left behind her darling
husband to compensate for the loss.

Sara highly doubted
mousy
even looked at a
mirror while naked.

Mousy’s husband, Boyd McCarlye, was the exact opposite
of his all-business wife. He married for money, not love. He was fifteen years
junior to his wife and five years older than Sara. The perfect age of a man and
the perfect setup within her grasp.

It made her ill putting any thought toward there being
a sexual relationship between the two.

Belinda clicked her tongue three times, drawing back
Sara’s wavering attention. “You know I must. It seems to be a pattern with you,
Mecenna.”

Mrs.
McCarlye
had no clue
Mr.
McCarlye came onto the beach twenty-minutes after his
wife left for the ten-hour workday. Nor did she know her husband would stride
onto that beach with a smile on his face and in the buff well before Tight
Lip’s rump even hit her office chair. Pattern or not,
score one for
vindictive revenge against mousy righteousness.

Mr. McCarlye and Sara would strike up a lengthy
conversation of world politics for about five minutes, social etiquettes for
another five—okay, so length was irrelevant when combined with need—and by the
noon hour would be inside his house, screwing each other’s brains out on Mrs.
McCarlye’s bed.

“You are more than aware we would appreciate it if you
did not do this…
thing
…while we are at home,” Belinda added.

Sara raised a brow. “And what
thing
would this
be, precisely?” She wanted the woman to say the words nude bathing, along with
saying contractual words every so often. Belinda could do neither.

“This unusual behavior,” she said crisply.

A frown set deep on Sara’s face.
God! Was this
woman for real?
Nudity was not a
behavior
. It was a natural choice
of one’s inner strengths and soul. If you could pull it off, more power to you.
If not? Get the hell out of the way. Every human alive had the same parts. Some
of those parts pronounced more than others were, but who cares?

Unfortunately, Belinda did not look as though she was
done with her near-daily lecture. “My poor husband should not have to come home
to your wanton display of the female form. The man has work to do. He can only
do his work while at home, inside his studio. For me to have to ask you to
refrain from this
behavior
…every day…” A narrowed, disapproving look was
cast Sara’s way.

“As I said before, Belinda…why don’t you just stop
asking?” She wasn’t about to let this woman ruin her day, or get her goat. The
sun was shining. Life was good
.
Worst, she was horny and anticipating
that malady to elevate.

Ten seconds later, Mr. McCarlye strode out his back
door and made his way onto the beach. Even his shadow tightened her chest and
raised her heartbeat.

“Belinda, leave our poor neighbor alone.” He stood
directly behind his wife and winked at Sara.

Sara had to hide her smile. Today she felt wanton and
reckless. Today she wanted to make someone uncomfortable. Belinda was that someone.
The more Sara could sass, the more Belinda got harassed; eventually she’d leave
for work, increasing Sara’s joy.

Belinda groaned at her husband’s suggestion, severing
the possibility of a good shakedown by a nude, horny, free-thinking woman, then
glanced at her gold watch. They all knew she was fifteen minutes late for work.
She turned on her husband, glared harder, then rushed inside the house.

More than likely, Mrs. McCarlye would have a lengthy
discussion with Mr. McCarlye about staying clear of abnormal
behavior
from
their neighbor later on tonight. And, more than likely, Boyd would ease her
frozen-lips conscience, say she was the only woman he cared about…and never
looked elsewhere. All lies, but rather convincing ones when told by the
silver-tongue devil.

Both she and Boyd could hear the squeal of Belinda’s
car tires on her Mercedes as the woman took off down the street in front of
their houses. Boyd had yet to move from the fence. He and Sara gave each other
another easy smile. He then turned on his heels within the sand.

Was he leaving without saying anything to her?

A sense of panic rose in her like the floodwaters.
This would’ve been about the time he would be naked, they would start talking,
and things would progress as they always did. Any delay to routine made her
edgy.

She was about to ask him if Belinda had finally gotten
between him and her, and their daily
activity
, however Boyd turned
before the words could be said, giving her another devilish grin.

“See you inside in five. Hope you’re hungry.”

No small talk, no full-length discussions about stuff
Sara didn’t give a pile of shit about, no socially accepted behavioral lectures
while both sunbathed in the buff; nothing, other than
five minutes…and he
hoped she was hungry?

Well, she was hungry, but not necessarily for food.
Her eyes strayed to the man’s scrumptious backside as he walked toward his
patio. She liked a man’s butt to be firm. It meant he cared about his physique.

Sara waited until Boyd opened the patio door and
walked through before she headed into her own humble domicile on her side of
the fence. She did not want to seem as though she missed him, or she too eager
for his attention today.

Once inside, the place reeking of air freshener to
drench the ocean’s permeation, she tossed her towel onto her unmade bed,
grabbed a see-through pool slipover from her open closet, and slipped her pink
flip-flops on her feet, then walked over to the neighbor’s door with an easy
stride—an almost spring in her step.

Her mouth watered in anticipation. Her fingers itched
due to unnecessary wait. Her brain told her heart it would eventually catch up.

She found Boyd inside the kitchen pouring two glasses
of wine. As Sara came inside without invitation, she glided across the pristine
floor a house cleaner polished for the McCarlye’s on Wednesdays and Friday
mornings, and eased right into his arms.

“I thought she would never leave,” she said.

His sigh to her statement was felt through the full
length of her body as he kissed the top of her head.

Until Sara’s disappearance a full year ago, she’d been
a mousy brown, same as Belinda was. Now she was bleach-bottle blonde.

She’d also been Sara Rogan, daughter of a dead woman.
Now she was Mecenna Jones, a young widow. She had to tell the neighbors
something, so she made up the lost husband and lost love. It was the easiest
lie ever told, and the one that got her inside other’s lives.

The color of her eyes stayed the same, however. She’d
not gone for colored contacts to hide their natural beauty; told many times
they were an iridescent blue any man would love to willfully drown in.

Those iridescent blue pools stared up into gray orbs
so closely colored to liquid silver as his mouth descended to hers like
wildfire; quick, hot, all-consuming, Boyd’s lips molded to hers as if meant to
be there. His hands formed to the sides of her face. His thumb pads slid over
her skin, heightening the chase.

Boyd would never kiss her until they were well inside
the bedroom. And he tended to do so only
after
the sex. This was new. It
was passionate. It set her toes afire. He seemed as if not wanting to pull
back. Yet, when he did, he handed her a glass of wine, and a shameless smile to
go with it.

Boyd was a man of few words. Those he would say were
usually done with meaningful discussion. Without this quirky nature to the man,
she might not have been as attracted to him as she was. Then again, how could
she not be attracted to such a rare specimen? She thought him to be as near to
fine wine aged to perfection as any man could ever be. There was not a mar, a
scratch, or a single flaw ruining his rugged good looks. And on this side of
the street, he was the only man with any sort of intelligence.

Beach bums and actor-wannabes roamed these pristine
white sands. Sara was drawn to a man with brains. Braun helped too, but he had
to be able to hold an intelligent conversation, otherwise she’d give up and
find another more suitable to her tastes.

Lately, she wished she could just sit with Boyd on the
beach until the sun set, have him hold her all night long, and say nothing at
all. She was falling for Boyd, letting a man get into her heart.

Not good.

Today however, the potentially damaging malady
waylaid, she wanted the incredible, uncomplicated sex she always had with him—heart
be damned.

Sara took the glass of wine out of his fingers, and
let a hearty swallow of the sweet vintage slide down her throat before she set
the expensive crystal onto his counter. It was a good year for the grapes;
sweetened perfectly by sun and time; much as a lot of things were sweetened by
sun and time; nude sun-bathers included.