Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (12 page)

     "Why are you sad?" he asked again.

     
Because my husband has been cheating on me.
God, what sort of fool did that make her? For five years it had been going on and Sissy had not had a clue.

     "I'm sorry you're sad," the handsome stranger said softly.

     He had a hypnotic voice. And eyes so blue you could swim in them. Sissy couldn't speak, couldn't breathe.

     "A beautiful lady shouldn't be crying."

     She handed him the damp handkerchief. Fingertips touched. The only men Sissy had ever touched were relatives or close friends. She wondered where the stranger had come from. Had he materialized from the stars and moon and the pond?

     "I'm Alistair," he said, holding out his hand.

     To her amazement, Sissy delivered her own into his, clasping his hand as if it were a life preserver. She tried to say her name but the jolt she felt from his touch did something to her throat.

     He smelled good.

     "Do you want to talk about it?"

     "I've...lost someone," she said.

     "Ah." He nodded, knowingly, as if she had spoken a thousand words. "I sympathize." And a new look came into his eyes, one of pain and sadness and Sissy thought: He has lost someone, too.

     She saw his eyes in the moonlight and they reminded her of a boy she had known in high school, before Ed, when she was a virgin. He had been a good kisser, that boy. She looked at this man's lips, wondering if he was a good kisser. Impulsively, she lifted up on tip-toe and touched her mouth to his. He didn't flinch or frown or draw back or look surprised. He gave her a secretive smile, bent his head and kissed her right back.

     "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm married and I should never drink wine."

     He placed a fingertip to her lips. "This is no place for apologies," he said softly. "You're supposed to be happy here."

     "Is that why you're here?" She couldn't believe she was asking such a personal question of this stranger. But she suddenly wanted to know.

     "I'm here because," he began, leaving the sentence unfinished and full of mystery. He looked out over the pond into the night darkness as if searching for ghosts.

     "I'm sorry," she said again.

     He brought his eyes back to hers. "You keep apologizing."

     "No, this time it was for you. I'm sorry for your loss."

     "You're amazing," he said.

     "I am?"

     "You came here sad, and now you're worried about a stranger's unhappiness. That's a rare quality." He gave her a long look. "I came looking for happiness."

     "Have you found it?"

     "At this moment, I think so."

     His voice caressed her ears, insinuated itself into her brain, and made its warm way down to her insides where she felt a little engine start to heat up. Sissy's heart pounded. She hadn't felt this way since her first dates with Ed.

     Alistair in his elegant navy blazer made her think of yachts and oceans and freedom. Oh to sail away...

     She lifted her face again and he brought his mouth down on hers. She snaked her arms around him, and he pulled her to him. The embrace grew tight, the kiss intimate. In that instant, Sissy Whitboro could have done anything with this stranger. The feel of him against her made the pain go away. The sudden desire within her drove out the anger and made her forget the terrible things she had found by accident. She had felt like such a fool on the phone, insisting that her husband was a member of the racquet club. But this man didn't make her feel like a fool, he had said she was amazing.

     He ran his hands over her back, she drove her fingers through his hair. He was hard and she suddenly wanted to reach down for him. She wanted to lie beneath the stars and open herself to him. She had never been with
another man. It felt delicious and sexy and wonderful, and her head was filled with wine.

     He drew back for a moment, looking at her with sea-colored eyes, a question in them. "Yes," she whispered, feeling so warm she wondered if summer had suddenly come to the desert.

     Taking her hand, he led her from the bridge and through the trees where they came upon a tiny clearing, completely private, with a carpet of cool grass. The heat built in Sissy. It occurred to her she was out of control, but a hunger deeper than common sense had taken over. When Alistair laid her on the grass, she pulled him down onto her. She kissed him as if she were starving. His hands found her bare skin and caressed, teased.
New
hands. Another man's hands. And the feeling of them drove her mad.

     She opened his shirt, he unbuttoned her blouse. He lifted her skirt and she unzipped his pants. They did not get all the way undressed, which made the act all the more erotic for Sissy—as if their bodies met only at the crucial points, all else being superfluous. His penis felt strange in her hand, but good too. And when she felt him explore inside her, it too felt strange, but exciting beyond belief. In that moment she wanted nothing more in the world than to feel him inside her, filling her, and smothering her mouth with his electric kisses.

     She guided him into her and held tight as he moved with a steady rhythm. Her eyes shut against the moon and stars, trees and wind, so that she went deep inside herself to that delicious spot where Alistair was stoking a fire so hot she thought she would burst into flame.

     The orgasm caught her by surprise. Her eyes flew open, she looked at him, his eyes watching her, and she said, "Yes yes yes," holding tighter as the delicious wave began to grow. Oh my God, she thought as the pleasure crested and broke and a sound that could not have come from Mrs. Sissy Whitboro exploded from her throat.

     When the paroxysms subsided, Sissy was aware of the grass, the breeze, her exposed breasts, her parted legs. And Alistair smiling at her in a gentle, mysterious way. And then reality hit. My God, she thought in shock.
What have I done?

A
RE YOU SAYING
, D
R.
K
APLAN, THAT HUMANS ARE BY
nature promiscuous?"

     Ophelia tried to hide her irritation. She had been invited on the TV talk show to discuss her book,
not
her theories on human mating practices. "Well, John," she said, "archaeological evidence shows that our cave dwelling ancestors did not live in male-female pair bonds but in separate male-female groups. But this has nothing to do with my—"

     "So there was a lot of sneaking back and forth between these groups?" he said, interrupting her yet again. "Those caves must have been pretty cozy!"

     Laughter from the studio audience. Ophelia kept herself in check. She had already come out onto the stage in a mild stew, having watched the host's opening monologue from a monitor in the famous Blue Room. "Tonight's guest, Dr. Ophelia Kaplan," he had said, "who has single-handedly turned Americans into Neanderthals."

     The audience, getting the inside joke, had loved it and Ophelia had wanted to march out and drive straight home. But Ophelia never backed
down from a fight. Now she wished she had as she tried to clarify her theory to this cocky talk show host. "Prior to twenty thousand years ago, John, humans did not know that the male had anything to do with procreation. Birth was strictly the purview of females. Sexual intercourse was simply another bodily impulse and it was gratified randomly."

     He turned to the audience. "Sounds like things haven't changed much in twenty thousand years."

     More laughter, at the expense of Dr. Ophelia Kaplan who took her theories and scholarship very seriously. Why he was doing this to her she had no idea, since they were supposed to be discussing her book, not her controversial theories on human pair-bonding. But when the next guest came out, she realized what was going on, realized with burning cheeks that she had been duped, and worse, realized that she should have seen it coming.

     But her mind was on other things.

     The other guest was the thirty-something salsa singer who had just dumped husband number four and was already running around Hollywood with a new boyfriend (the fraternity brat famous for romantic comedy leads). The singer was known for her notorious entourage—she never traveled anywhere with less than eighty hangers-on. Ophelia had observed the phenomenon first hand in the Blue Room, where one make-up specialist had taken care of just the singer's eyebrows while another had applied the famous fox fur eyelashes.

     After the applause for the singer-actress died down, the host leaned toward her and said, "Magdalena, I assume you've been following the show so far. What do
you
think of Dr. Kaplan's theory that it's in our genes to have sex with as many partners as we can."

     "Well, John, I don't know about Dr. Kaplan, but I prefer to have sex
outside
my jeans."

     After the laughter died down, the host said, "Speaking of jeans. Dr. Kaplan, I read somewhere that you don't believe in shoes. Is that right?"

     "I was referring to high heels. They are unnatural. We evolved with a flat-footed gait. We force our bodies into contortions that were not meant to be."

     "How about bras," he said, eyes going to the salsa singer's cleavage. "Are we meant to wear bras?"

     "
You
might consider it," she said, making reference to the host's obesity.

     "Where are you going?" David asked one hour later as Ophelia angrily threw clothes and toiletries into a suitcase. "Look, the show wasn't that bad. Everyone knows how John Simon twists everything around. I mean, this isn't like you, Ophelia."

     She turned to him and he was shocked to see how white-faced she was. "That isn't it. It wasn't the show."

     "Then what?"

     
It was the fact that I didn't see it coming. The attack on my theories. Twisting everything around.
Ophelia was usually sharper than that. "Nothing. Never mind." She clicked the suitcase shut.

     David put his hand on her arm. "Ophelia," he said gently. "I know you. Something's bothering you. It has been for a couple of weeks. I didn't want to pry. I've just been waiting for you to come to me about it."

     She looked into David's dark eyes and recalled the day she had seduced him. "This is something I have to sort out myself."

     "By going away? Ophelia, I've never known you to run from anything in your life. What about your classes, the lectures you have lined up, the awards banquet?"

     "I've canceled them. I need to get away to think." And to make a life and death decision.

     "That contest prize?" he said, meaning the FedEx envelope that had arrived three weeks prior. The whole thing sounded suspicious to David. What sort of exclusive resort lets people in for free?

     Three weeks ago Ophelia had tossed the FedEx envelope aside, saying she didn't have time. Now, all of a sudden, she wanted to go. David took her by the shoulders and drew her away from the bed. "No," she said, understanding his intention and trying to wrench free. But he imprisoned her mouth with an insistent kiss. She pushed him back. "I'm angry, David. This is no way to make love."

     "It's the
only
way." He pulled her hard against him, smothering her mouth with his, and she responded with sudden, equal ardor. Roughly he tugged at her clothes, sending a button flying. Ophelia tore at his shirt, fingernails raking his bare chest, anger fueling her desire. David sucked the
breath out of her as she ripped the shirt from his back.

     Her blouse slipped from her shoulders, David drew down a bra strap, yanked the lacy cup to free a breast, then resumed sucking down there.

     Ophelia drove her hand into his trousers and took a firm hold of him. He moaned. David had the loveliest cock she had ever met. He had once joked that that was what she loved about him. It was partly true. She loved the taste, feel, shape and size of it, and by great good fortune, David came attached to it.

     Ophelia dropped to her knees and feasted on him. But when she sensed he was about to climax, she drew back and brought him down to the carpet, pulling him on top of her as she spread her legs. David thrust hard. Ophelia cried out, clamping her legs around his thighs.

     Considerately, he let her come first, enjoying the look of ecstasy on her face, eyelids fluttering, head pushed back, an animal sound coming from her throat. And then he allowed himself release, exploding as she clasped him tightly inside her.

     Ophelia dozed off, she always did after sex. When she woke, she found the two of them in bed, naked, David asleep at her side. Quietly, so as not to disturb him, she slipped out, showered, dressed, finished packing her suitcase and, grabbing her laptop, left.

     "What do you mean I missed the flight?"

     "I'm sorry, Dr. Kaplan," the pretty desk clerk at The Grove's private air terminal said. The place was quiet and deserted. "There are no more flights tonight. The aircraft will stay at the resort and return in the morning. I can make room for you on that—"

     "Then I'll drive. Just give me the directions."