His Four Poster Bed (Bedroom Secrets Series Book 2) (19 page)

I crept down the hall and grabbed the note off the door with my heart pounding.

I was right. It was a notice for delivery.

Someone had tried to send me boxes, not just one but four boxes. I took the notice and called them the next morning to update the apartment number. I also gave them permission to leave the boxes in my absence and notify Billie instead.

The next day at work, Billie called my cell.

“Hey, you okay if I let these delivery guys into your apartment?” She asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, sitting at my desk compiling data in preparation for a meeting with the hospital board. I heard conversation on the other side of the line.

“Actually the delivery guy says they have instructions to assemble the furniture,” she shouted over her shoulder. “It’s not that bedroom guys, it’s the other one.”

I looked up from my spreadsheet. “What furniture?”

“I don’t know, it looks like a bed you ordered and some sort of artsy tree thing?” Billie said. “Hey, watch the hardwood over there . . .” She shouted. “Where do you want the tree?” she asked me.

My heart hammered in my chest as I pushed back from my desk. “Is it silver?” I asked.

“Yes, I think it goes with those bird cages you got a while back. I thought you gave those away?” Billie said.

“I’m coming home,” I said. “Don’t let those delivery guys leave.”

“You don’t need to, I’ve got this . . . Hey guys Odessa wants you to wait.” I heard mumbling. “They have another job I’m not sure if they’ll still be here.”

“Make them wait,” I said, hanging up my phone. I grabbed my jacket and my keys. I almost ran right into Dr. Mike. “It’s an emergency, I have to go home . . .”

“I got this,” he said, giving my arm a quick squeeze. “You okay?”

“Yes, I don’t know. Thank you,” I called, as I headed towards the lobby and the parking garage.

I’d given those bird cages back to Marco months ago, and they’d been hanging on that silver tree which as far as I knew was still in his condo.

When I opened the door to my apartment I could barely breathe.

The apartment was empty and there was the silver tree standing in front of the oversized windows. Sunlight glinted off its branches and the series of bird cages that Marco had gifted me long ago.

My knees almost buckled. Seeing Marco’s gifts, I felt as though the thin scab that had formed over my wounds tore open. I opened the door to my bedroom and fell to the ground.

In the center of my room stood Marco’s four poster bed.

The four posts almost reached the ceiling. The bed was made with the same gorgeous gray bedding where we had made love countless times.

I stood up and fell onto the mattress the tears coming hard and fast.

Why was Marco’s bed here? Did he have a will? My heart hammering I sat up in his bed wiping my nose. I needed answers. There had to be a delivery invoice somewhere in the apartment or Billie wouldn’t have let them inside.

I found the paperwork on the coffee table. It was from a local moving company in the Greenwood neighborhood.

I called their office.

“I’d like some information about a delivery that was just made to my apartment?” I said, giving the woman on the call the invoice number. “Can you tell me who placed the order?”

“Let me see,” she said. I could hear typing in the background. “Well this is unusual. The order was placed some time ago, apparently these items have been in storage? I’m sorry were you expecting this delivery earlier?”

“No,” I paced back and forth my heart racing. “When was the order placed, what day.”

“Let me see . . .” More typing. “Looks like the pieces were packed up on the morning of . . .”

She rattled off a date.

The date Marco died.

“Instructions for delivery came the next day.”

“The following day.”

“Yes,” she said. “Instructions from someone, I don’t know who, there isn’t a lot of detail here. I really need to talk to the sales team about taking better notes.”

“Thank you, you’ve been very helpful,” I said, feeling dizzy. Looking at the silver tree covered with bird cages I felt as though I had woken from a dream.

There was a white envelope sitting in one of the cages. I opened the cage and pulled out the small envelope addressed to O.

Inside there was a travel itinerary to Mexico, air travel, transportation, and a reservation at a hotel called Casa Flora in the town of Sayulita.

Written at the bottom of the itinerary was a note.

Trust me. Trust us.

Today’s date was written on the card.

I couldn’t breathe. I sank to the floor remembering Marco’s final whispered words to me. I wanted to believe; I was terrified that this was some sort of grief induced fantasy. Dead men don’t write letters. Dead men don’t book flights to Mexico. I sank to the floor afraid to formulate a thought. Marco had planned this in the days and weeks after he’d died. I was either subject to one of the cruelest hoaxes ever known or Marco was alive.

Casa Flora was a series of small white cabanas with ocean front views and private patios. Cabana #3, the one that the white coated bell boy escorted me too, had a small gazebo outside it’s French doors and a private infinity pool protected by walls of climbing ivy.

I stood on the patio, arms crossed in my white sundress listening to the roar of the ocean. I pulled up one of the lounge chairs and sat down on the edge clutching my knees to my chest and tried to calm my racing heart. I hadn’t told anyone about this trip. Marco was the only person who knew what he’d whispered in my ear that night.

Trust Me. Trust Us.

I prayed I wasn’t making a mistake, that my grief hadn’t broken my heart and my mind.

Breathing in the ocean air, I reminded myself that the man I loved had sent me a plane ticket. I needed to trust him, to trust us. I needed to give him a chance to explain. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the love I felt for Marco, willing myself to stay calm and not panic.

“Odessa.”

I opened my eyes at the sound of his voice.

Marco Amador walked towards me from the beach. He wore khaki pants rolled up to avoid the ocean spray and a white linen shirt. His skin bronzed and beautiful, he smiled as he walked towards the small gate between the cabana and the ocean.

I jumped to my feet and ran down the patio stairs as he unlocked the gate. My arms were around his neck the moment the gate clicked shut.

“You’re alive,” I sobbed into his neck. “Goddamn you, Goddamn you, you’re alive.” I had never felt so many emotions at once. I was happy, angry, terrified and confused. Most of all I was filled with joy, a blinding, hot joy that poured out of my heart and filled my shaking body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he repeated the same mantra again and again, his voice low against my ear, his lips on my neck, my face, my mouth. Laughing and crying we stumbled backwards up the patio steps our hands all over each other.

“So many questions,” I murmured between kisses.

“We talk later,” he said, his voice husky. “I need you.”

“What happened?”

“Later,” he whispered. I moaned as I felt his hard cock pressing against me. I wanted answers but more than anything else, I wanted this man.

“Take me to bed,” I said, my hands fumbling with the button of his pants.

He lifted me in his arms and carried me into the Cabana through the small sitting room and a set of white French doors that led to the bedroom.

I turned to see a four poster bed in the center of the room. Translucent mosquito netting hung from the ceiling draping the bed in a gorgeous curtain.

“Nice bed,” I whispered.

“It was by request,” he said, placing me on the ground and slipping my sundress off my shoulders. It dropped to the tile floor.

He laid me down on the crisp white linens of the bed. I lay naked before him.

I reached up and unbuttoned his shirt running my fingers over the lines of his tattoo. My body ached with longing for him. I spread my legs and touched myself as he watched me.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said, his eyes glistening with tears. “I am so sorry for the pain that I’ve caused you.”

“Make love to me and then tell me everything,” I whispered, touching myself slowly. I wanted him inside me, I needed to feel his body inside mine, I needed to feel complete.

He nodded and slipped out of his clothes and kissed me softly. His lips against mine he moved down my throat, his hands running over my breasts, teasing my nipples as he worked his way down my body with his tongue.

His tongue played with my navel as his fingers moved between my thighs. He slid a finger inside me as his mouth found my wetness. He probed me with his tongue as he massaged me.

I moaned and arched my back, fingers finding the back of his head I pushed him down harder against my aching pussy. I felt the orgasm building in my core, a tightening energy growing stronger and then he pulled away and I felt his cock between my legs. He held himself above me, arms straight, his hardness suspended between my legs. He was big and throbbing and I moaned as he pressed softly between my legs, teasing my thighs apart he pushed inside my wetness.

“Now?” he asked his voice husky. I opened my eyes and stared into his.

“Now,” I reached up and grabbed him from behind pulling him inside me, gasping as he filled me up. I cried out from the pleasure of being with him, and from the pain of losing him. Our bodies rocking together, he pulled my hands above my head, his fingers intertwining with mine as he rocked in and out of me, pressing against me with just the right pressure. My legs spread wide, I wanted to pull him in deeper, to open myself up to every inch of him.

Our breathing in sync we rocked back and forth faster and harder until I couldn’t contain the orgasm.

“Now, please now,” I screamed as the orgasm rocked through my body with a rippling and aching that made me dizzy. I felt him throbbing and shaking above me and then he collapsed on top of me.

We were dripping with sweat. The heat of the day and our bodies was more than we were used to.

“Thank God for you,” he murmured kissing my forehead my lips.

“Never leave me again,” I said, grasping his hand.

That’s when his eyes opened and he squeezed my hand in return. “We need to talk.”

We sat on the patio in the early evening light wearing thin cotton robes from the hotel. Marco had made us each a Sapphire Blue drink. He’d had the bar stocked with supplies.

We pulled two lounge chairs to the edge of the infinity pool and sat side by side. On the other side of the pool was the staircase and ocean. We were on a very quiet part of the beach. No one walked here other than the occasional surfer on their way to the more popular waves closer to town.

“Tell me everything,” I said, holding Marco’s hand with one hand and taking a drink with the other.

“I am sorry I lied to you,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked my face flushing with anger. I thought seeing him would take away the feelings of betrayal but they lingered at the surface.

“When I realized that Luis knew who you were, it became clear that the only way to really escape and keep you safe was to make the world believe I was dead. Including you.”