Finding Mr. Right (13 page)

His grin displayed a tiny dimple that she hadn’t seen previously, because he was sitting down and she was standing, looking at him from an unusual angle. “We do the best we can with the little intelligence we’ve got,” he said. “Did you have something else in mind?”

“Yes, I definitely did. Are you going to wear that jacket all night? Not that I mind, ’cause you look fantastic in it. But it’s so formidable-looking that I can’t uh…play with you.”

He jerked out of the white linen jacket and tossed it across the room. “For heavens sake, don’t let a little thing like that stop you.”

How did you seduce a six-foot-five-inch jewel? “I think I’ll have a sip of that champagne,” she said.

“I’ll join you.” He splashed a small amount of champagne into a glass, handed it to her and poured his own.

“Is this all I get?” she pretended to pout, but after having spent the last three weeks looking forward to that moment, she was suddenly scared to death.

“That’s enough.” He took the glass from her hand, picked her up and sat her in his lap. “Are you nervous?” She shook her head in the only lie she’d ever told him. “Scared?” She
nodded. “Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen.”

“But I want it to happen,” she blurted out and buried her face in the curve of his neck.

“You may as well get used to me, Tyra, because I don’t see myself letting you go.”

“Same here,” she said, feeling as if her command of the language had deserted her.

He kissed her lips, and when she parted them, he moved to her cheeks, kissed her eyes, the tip of her nose and pressed his tongue to her throat. She wanted one of his mind-blowing kisses, but he ignored her mouth and kissed her bare shoulder.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

“I am,” he said, and suddenly his hand went into the top of her off-shoulder dress, released her right breast, as he bent to it and sucked the nipple into his mouth. His hand stroked the inside of her bare thigh until she thought she’d catch fire. When she rubbed her thighs together, trapping his hand and began to moan, she knew her self-control had abandoned her, and she didn’t care. His hand moved further up her thigh, and he suckled as if he’d been starved for weeks.

Heat spiraled through her veins, and an aching emptiness settled in her vagina. “Byron, honey, do something. I’m aching.” He kissed her lips, and when she parted them, he gave her his tongue and she sucked it greedily into her mouth. With one hand he pinched her nipple while his other hand inched closer to its ultimate target. She shifted in his lap and felt him bulging against her. Then he stopped his ministrations.

“Are you using a contraceptive?

She shook her head. “I haven’t needed one.”

He glanced at the table beside the chair in which they sat, saw the key lying on it, picked it up and stood with her in his arms. “I want you in my bed.” He handed her the key, and she opened the door. Seconds later, her dress lay beneath her feet
and he stood staring at her. She covered her erect breasts with her hands, but he moved them.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said in seeming awe, pulled back the bedcovers, picked her up and put her on the bed. “I’ve dreamed so many times of putting you in my bed.”

He loosened his tie, threw it over his head and got out of his shirt. Then, he kicked off his shoes, stood and slipped down his pants.

“I want to do that,” she said, when he reached for his skimpy, jockey shorts.

He stepped closer to the edge of the bed and she reached over, pulled them down, and let his hard penis spill out into her hand. She stared at it as one does when charmed by a snake. Then she bent over and kissed it.

“What does it taste like?” she asked, fascinated by the first penis she had ever touched and seen up close. Her previous sexual experience hadn’t covered that.

“I don’t know,” he said, grinning. Then he rolled her over and got into bed with her. “I asked you once if there was another man in your life. You said there isn’t. I don’t want you with any other man. You’re in this bed with me because you’re mine.” She didn’t agree with that, but right then she’d give him anything he wanted, including her silent accord. She spread her legs and shifted her body in anticipation.

“Don’t rush it, sweetheart. We’ve got all night.” He kissed her lips, her forehead and every inch of her face until she felt that her skin was alive. His teeth nibbled at her shoulder until she thought she’d scream for what she wanted.

“Byron, stop playing with me and kiss me. You know what I want.”

“What? Can’t you tell me?”

“Please. I…” His hand toyed with her belly and she undulated against it. “Please…my breasts ache.”

“What do you want me to do? Tell me, baby.”

“I want you to suck them.” He pulled the nipple of her left breast into his mouth and she let herself go, moving, undulating, begging with her hips for what she longed for. He left her breast and moved down her body, kissing her navel, the insides of her thighs, and then he stopped, teasing her. She spread her legs, as if air would cool her, and when he hooked her knees over his shoulders, she held her breath. Was he going to… He parted her folds, kissed her and then plunged his tongue into her. Her scream pierced the air while he possessed her.

“Byron! Honey, something’s happening. I feel like I want to burst. Please. I can’t stand this.”

“All right, love.” He kissed his way up her body, handed her a condom and helped her put it on him.

“Look at me, Tyra.” She stared into his eyes, nearly dumb-founded by the love she saw in them. She raised her hips for his entrance, and shrunk back from the brunt of his penetration, but slowly he eased into her. “It will be easier when you get used to me,” he said. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t care if it had hurt. It felt good. He was hers at last. He began to move within her slowly at first. “Am I in the right place. Tell me when you feel that I’m there.” Almost at once, as he let her have the onslaught of his passion, she could feel herself trying to explode.

“Oh, my lord, Byron. Something… Honey, I think I’m going to die.”

“You aren’t.” He put one hand under her hip and began to thrust rapidly, unleashing his power. “I want you to love me, Tyra. I need you to love me.”

“I do. I do love you, Byron. Oh, lord, I’m going to…” The heat seemed to swell from the soles of her feet through her trembling thighs to her sexual core. And then the pumping and squeezing began. “Do something, Byron, I’m…I want to burst.”

He moved faster still. His body trembled against hers as
her perspiration melded with his. She locked her legs around his hips and rocked to his rhythm.

“That’s right, love. Give yourself to me,” he shouted and she felt her body gripping him before he ejaculated sending them both into ecstasy and then collapsing in her arms. He placed his head on her shoulder, wrapped his arms around her and let his forearms take his weight. And when he shifted his hips, aftershocks plowed through her. He looked down at her and grinned.

“That’s like cheating, baby. I get it once, and you get it twice.” But immediately, he sobered, and his face took on a serious expression. “I don’t want you to have any doubt that I’m in love with you. I knew it when I met you. Do you think you can love me, Tyra?”

She stroked his shoulder and at the hairs on his chest, investigating his body. “I wouldn’t have left home with you yesterday morning, if I hadn’t been positive that I love you. Yes, I love you, and I’m glad that you love me.”

“This is it for me, Tyra, and there’s no going back.”

T
yra and Byron spent much of the following day in Nassau, Bahamas. She bought a dancing monkey dressed in red and black and a white, lacey accordion fan. Although she shopped along with Byron, he made his purchases discretely, and she didn’t know what he bought. Except when eating, he hardly took his hands off her, and whenever she looked at him, he was already looking at her. He smiled easily and hugged her frequently. His every move said, I love you. She’d never been so happy.

That evening, she dressed in an off-white floor-length sheath that draped over one shoulder and left the other one bare. She had practiced walking in the three-inch heel sandals and was confident that she wouldn’t fall because of them. When he tapped on her door at seven twenty-five, she opened it and gasped at him in a black tuxedo with royal blue accessories. Her hand went involuntarily to her stomach.
What was she doing with a man who looked like this?

When he kissed her cheek, she realized that he didn’t want to ruin her makeup, but she didn’t think it was the appropriate time to tell him that she didn’t wear any, only mascara on her upper lashes. She sniffed. If he was wearing YSL, she’d hit the jackpot.

“Thanks for my wonderful cologne,” he said. “It’s my favorite. I’ve been using it for years, ever since it came out. I waited till now to tell you, in case you liked the way it smells. I really love this scent. How did you happen to give it to me?”

“Just another one of my clever traits,” she said, more coyly than she’d intended. “Everything about you interests me.”

A smile flowed over his face. “Did I talk in my sleep last night?” Her eyes widened. “If I didn’t, how’d you happen to choose this dress? You wear it like a queen. I was afraid you’d wear a red one, and my accessories would clash with it. I didn’t think about that when I packed them.”

“You look great in it,” she said, “and you’d match any dress that wasn’t green.”

He tested the lock on her door, took her hand and headed for the dining room.

“We’re sitting at the captain’s table tonight,” he said, and she heard the pride in his voice. “I met him this afternoon while you were napping, and I was stunned to get a call from him about an hour ago, inviting us to dine with him. It seems that his dad and my dad were at Ohio State together. They were both on the football team, and they’re frat brothers. Dad will be delighted to know about this. The captain’s parents are on this cruise. I guess he mentioned me to his dad, and you can guess the rest.”

“What a wonderful coincidence.”

“Yeah. I used to wonder if my dad did any studying when he was at the university. He was really popular.”

“Of course he studied, or he wouldn’t be a first-rate surgeon. With his charisma, to be popular he only had to show up. Besides, he’s a very serious person.”

“That’s true. Have you ever felt as if you had the world on a string?” He hugged her to his side. “Right now, the whole world is mine, and I just started living. Ah, sweetheart, you’re so…I don’t know.”

She understood his feelings as well as his inability to articulate them, for she’d been on a high since she awakened that morning with one of his arms around her and his other pinning her to the mattress. “If you feel like I feel,” she said, “it’s unexplainable. I just don’t want anything to happen that will bring me down out of these clouds. I didn’t know I could be so happy.”

He squeezed her fingers. “This is one of those times when I’d give anything if I had my piano. I express myself best when I’m sitting at that grand.”

“You didn’t do badly last night,” she said and bit the flesh on the inside of her right jaw.

He pushed the button at the elevator that would take them to the captain’s dining room. “You make a man feel ten feet tall and bullet proof.” The minute he said it a cloud descended over his face. Who should join them at the elevator but the stranger who had shown an interest in Tyra.

Visibly annoyed, Byron spoke to the man. “Good evening. Are you going to the captain’s dinner?”

The man appeared frustrated. “Is that where this elevator leads? I thought I was going to dinner in that restaurant where we usually eat. I just followed you.”

“That elevator is in the bank to your left.”

“Thanks. Good night,” the man said as he hastily fled the elevator.

“My common sense tells me to believe him, but that was just too bloody convenient.”

“Let it go. That little man is no match for you, and you know it.”

“Well, at least he didn’t leer at you. I don’t blame him for
wanting you, only for being foolish enough to think I’ll tolerate his insolence.”

“Honey, he’s not important,” she said as the elevator arrived. “Gosh, the captain even rides an elegant elevator. Get a load of this ceiling,” she said of the twinkling stars that lit the elevator. He looked up, and that seemed to restore his former mood. With his arms wrapped around her, he kissed her seconds before the elevator came to a halt.

“Good evening, sir, madam,” a uniformed attendant said. “Right this way.”

Shortly after midnight, as she strolled with Byron to their quarters, Tyra began anticipating the night to come in Byron’s arms. She wondered if she was possessed by memories of the way he’d loved her the night before, of his hot passion and the way he’d rocked her time and time again to mindless oblivion, teasing her, possessing her and telling her without words that she belonged to him and him alone.

At her stateroom, he took the card key, opened the door and gazed down at her. She had noticed before that he took nothing for granted, and he didn’t now, but didn’t move until she said, “Aren’t you coming in?”

He smiled, splayed his hand in her back and walked in behind her. “What’s this?” She gasped. A large bouquet of red roses in a crystal bowl sat in the middle of the coffee table. A platter containing miniature sausages, dips, finger sandwiches, grapes, crackers, cheese and fresh figs rested beside the roses, and a cooler with two bottles of white Burgundy wine stood beside the table. On her dresser, she saw wine glasses, napkins and chocolates.

She stared at Byron, her face a question mark. “I didn’t want you to get hungry. It’s been almost four hours since we ate dinner.”

“But that was a seven-course banquet,” she said, as she placed her silver mesh purse, which had belonged to her
mother, on the bed. “Thank you for these beautiful roses. Truth is, I didn’t eat much dinner. The occasion, the breathtaking ambiance, all of it practically overwhelmed me.”

“It was an exceptional evening,” he said, “but I thought it was because you seemed so perfect for it.”

If he’d voiced his true feelings, he would have betrayed himself, and the time for that hadn’t come. Neither the atmosphere nor the opportunity to meet an old and dear friend of his father’s had affected him as she did. He’d been too proud to eat, proud of her and proud that he was his father’s son, so he’d only gone through the motions.

She twirled around with her arms high and her face toward the ceiling as if she were embracing the sun. “If we had some of our favorite music, it would be perfect.”

“We’ll make our own music,” he said, though it surprised him that he’d said it aloud. She walked up to him with her arms open, and like nail to magnet, he walked into them and lost himself. Hours later, exhausted, drained and as happy as a man could be, he sat up in bed, reached over and poured two glasses of wine.

“Here’s to us,” he said, and without warning something akin to fear gripped him. The feeling startled him, because he wasn’t used to it. Did he deserve such happiness? He put the glass down and gazed at the woman beside him, a woman who held within her his happiness, his hopes for a future, a home with a loving wife and children. He let out a long, harsh breath. Suppose it didn’t work out. Suppose she and Andy didn’t get along.

She inched closer to him. “What is it, Byron? What’s the matter?”

He thought for a minute. He’d loved before, but not like that, and not with more than himself at stake. “It amazes me how well you can read me,” he said. “For a minute there, I doubted that I deserved such happiness.”

She startled him when she said, “Don’t worry. You mean everything to me. I’ll never let you down. Never.” If she was a mind reader, he didn’t want to know it.

“I believe that,” he said, clinked her glass and drained his.

He felt her elbow nudge him. “What are we going to do when we’re back in the States, and you’re living with your family and I’m living with mine?”

“We can always make out in the back seat of my Cadillac, in your foyer and other places that teenagers love. I used to babysit for our neighbors, and as soon as the couple left, I’d call my girlfriend.”

“Shame on you. That was very bad.”

“Yeah. As I think of it, I was lucky.” He enclosed her in his arms turned out the light and tucked her nude body, spoon-fashion to his. “Good night baby.” She wiggled against his arousal, and he took them both on a fast ride to ecstasy.

The next evening, Sunday, after they reached the Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport, he picked up the car he’d rented and headed home. “I hope you don’t mind if I stop for a minute to see Andy. It’s been so long since I saw him, and it’s the first time we’ve ever been separated. I need to see how he is. Then, I’ll take you home.”

“Of course, I don’t mind. It’s what I expected you’d do.”

When Byron unlocked the front door, Andy barreled down the stairs at a neck-breaking speed. “Daddy! Daddy!” He launched himself into his father’s arms. “Gee Dad, you were gone so long.”

He had missed the child, and he had to control the fierce hug that he longed to give him. Kissing the boy’s cheek, he said, “You actually grew in the short time I was away. Have you been good to Aunt Jonie?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t give her any trouble, Dad, but I got real tired of grits. She loves that stuff. I like it, but not every single
morning.” He looked toward the door. “Hi, Miss Tyra.” Byron put the boy down to see if he’d go to Tyra, and to his surprise, the child walked over to her and held out his hand for a handshake. But Tyra ignored it, opened her arms, and Andy settled into them.

“I don’t know if you have one of these,” she told him, “but I saw it in Nassau, and I thought you’d like it.” She handed him the bag. He opened it and looked at the monkey dressed in red and black.

“He walks, dances and jumps,” she said.

Andy pushed the button and fell out on the floor laughing when the twenty-four-inch-high monkey bared his teeth and jumped up and down. “I’m gonna name him Nassau,” he said, hugging her. “Look, Daddy. Isn’t he cool?”

“Yes. You get acquainted with Nassau while I take Miss Tyra home. I’ll be back in a little over an hour.”

Andy kissed them goodbye in an absentminded way for only Nassau had his full attention. “Hurry up and come back, Dad. Bye, Miss Tyra, and thanks for Nassau.”

“That boy is my life,” he said to Tyra as he drove her home. “Since he was two weeks old, he’s had only me. Aunt Jonie bends over backward to avoid his thinking of her as a motherly figure, although she loves him as much as I do. But she’s a super realist. She claims that, because of her age, which is seventy, she probably won’t live until he no longer needs a mother and that he should look to a younger woman.

“She’s both right and wrong, but she tried to be a mother to me, and I suppose that was enough for her. Dad didn’t let her assume that role fully, and I guess he was wise. He always said his children were his responsibility, and he wasn’t handing it over to anybody.”

Darlene greeted them as they entered Tyra’s home, her face alight with a know-it-all expression. “Hi, you two. I thought you were having too much fun to come home.”

“Hi, Darlene,” Tyra said, hugging her sister. “We were due back this evening, and we’re here, so cut the drama.”

“Hi, Byron.” She looked at Tyra. “How was it?”

“Awful,” Byron said, moving to within inches of Darlene and towering over her. “You never saw such weather, such waves, such lousy food and so many sick people. What else can I tell you?”

“Oh,” Darlene said, clearly disappointed. “Gee. I thought you’d come back on cloud nine. Too bad. Come on in, and I’ll get you some tea. Maggie made a caramel cake that’s to die for. Want some?”

“Wrap a slice for me,” he said. “I promised Andy I’d be back in around an hour, and I try to keep my word to him.”

Darlene wrapped the cake and gave it to Byron. “See you again soon, I hope.”

“You bet.”

Tyra looked at Byron, unaware of her threatening stance. He grinned. “Don’t worry. I’d kiss you if she was sitting on my shoulder.” He wrapped his arms around her and singed her with one of the hottest kisses he’d ever given her.

“The weather couldn’t possibly have been all that bad,” Darlene said as she passed on the way to the stairs. “I sure wouldn’t mind being made that miserable.”

“Nobody said we were miserable, Darlene,” Tyra said after Byron left. “Also, it didn’t rain one drop, the food was out of sight and there was plenty of it twenty-four/seven.”

“But he said—”

“He was telling you to mind your business.”

“By the way, who’s Andy?”

“Andy is Byron’s four-year-old son. Byron has been a widower since Andy was two weeks old.”

“Hmm. Did you have a good time? Clark doesn’t like the fact that you went away with Byron, but I think it’s so romantic. And after the way he kissed you, I guess you two
are on the same page now. I can see that you love him, ’cause you don’t even look the same.”

“Honey, you love drama. If Maggie tells me that, I’ll believe it.”

“Humph. Maggie’s such a realist that she’s negative half the time. You look glamorous and radiant. You don’t have to tell me about it. I can guess. I’m almost thirty, remember?”

“You’re twenty-seven and nosey. But I did have a wonderful time, and I can’t wish more for you than a man like Byron. All right?”

“I’ll definitely buy that.”

“Maggie’s at Sunday evening church service, and she’ll eat with some of the sisters there. Let’s defrost a pizza, have a glass of wine and call it supper.”

Darlene readily agreed. “Works for me.”