Wife Is A 4-Letter Word (12 page)

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Authors: Stephanie Bond

BOOK: Wife Is A 4-Letter Word
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The bulb popped, then went dark with a sizzling sound.
She stood in the dark for several seconds, then said, “I need to be really, really sure. Would you mind sending another sign?”
“Pam?” Alan knocked lightly on the door. “Who are you talking to?”
“Uh, no one,” she yelled. “The light went out.”
His chuckle reverberated through the door. “I'll get the Elvis candles you bought.”
Pam looked heavenward. “I gave it my best shot.”
He was back within a few seconds, wearing trunks and bearing matches. She placed “Love Me Tender” candles around the room strategically, growing increasingly alarmed at the romantic atmosphere they were creating. She lowered herself into the hot water just as Alan reappeared with a bottle. “Ta-dah!”
“Champagne?”
He uncorked the bottle, spilling foam on the pink tile. “Since I didn't get a drop at the wedding reception, I gave Twiggy fifty bucks to find a bottle of my favorite. Happy Valentine's Day.” Alan handed her a full glass, then stepped into the water, only to jump back out. “Good Lord, Pam! Are you cooking shrimp in there?”
Already light-headed at the sight of the candlelight dancing on his sleek, muscled chest, she sipped the champagne and giggled as the bubbles went up her nose. “Ease in, Alan, you'll get used to it.”
He tried again, gasping and wincing, sending her into fits of laughter as he squatted into the water inch by inch. “It's a good thing I don't like kids,” he muttered as he settled in up to his armpits. “Because my sperm have been parboiled.”
“Is that what the ‘P' stands for?”
“Cute, real cute.”
“Is it ‘Parker'?”
“No.”
“Preston?”
“No.”
“Palmer?”
“No! Enough already. Either turn on the cold water or the egg timer because I'll be done in a few minutes.”
Pam turned on the cold water to let it drip. “What's the big deal about your middle name?” She started as his leg brushed against hers beneath the water.
“It's private,” he said with a smile. His leg brushed hers again, and she nearly groaned with the desire that welled within her. “Don't you have something private, something you don't share with everyone?”
She manufactured a laugh. “Private? You forget who you're talking to. My life has been public property in Savannah since I was sixteen. Don't tell me you haven't heard the stories.”
“I have,” he admitted, raking his gaze over her. “But I'm not sure how many of the stories are true and how many of them are pure fantasy on the part of the men who told them.”
Her neck felt rubbery, so she laid her head back and looked at him through slitted eyelids. “Alan, have
you
ever fantasized about me?”
His eyes widened and he cleared his throat, then drained his champagne glass. Pam's skin tingled in anticipation.
“I've always thought you were beautiful, Pam,” he said finally, moving lower in the water and settling his leg against the length of hers. “But I've never fantasized about you.”
She pressed her lips together in disappointment He wasn't attracted to her, after all. The sexual current she'd felt between them had been a figment of her teenage imagination, dating back to the time when she'd dreamed that Alan P. Parish would notice her, ask her out, take her to his fine home—
“Until this week,” he added quietly.
Pam lifted her head.
“I know what you think of me, Pam—that I'm an automaton, a computer geek—”
“A tight-ass,” she added with a smile.
He smirked. “Thanks.” Then he moved closer, and set her glass aside with his. He floated inches over her in the water before lowering himself against her, setting the warm water into motion. “But I'm not a machine, Pam.”
His face was only inches from hers, and she felt his breath fan her cheek. The water lapped around them, warming her skin, then falling away to leave her covered with goose bumps. Her nipples hardened. His proximity crowded her senses and she had never felt so close to losing control. “Are you sure? Because I—I can certainly feel your hard drive.”
“I want you.”
Pam closed her eyes, trying to recall any shred of relief she had felt the morning after their near lapse on the beach, any rationalization that she shouldn't be feeling like this. But now his hands on her obliterated all doubts, negated all concerns, neutralized all complications. And her hands moved of their own volition to the nape of her neck to loosen the ties of her bikini top. She allowed the water to float the material away from her breasts, and Alan crushed her against him, claiming her mouth in a plundering kiss.
Pam raised her body to meet his and he clasped her urgently, squeezing her hips against his, whispering her name into her throat. After a thorough exploration of her mouth, he set aside his fogged glasses and drew back to view her breasts.
“You are magnificent.” The sheer wonder in his voice sent waves of desire flooding her limbs. He dragged her breath from her lungs by pulling a puckered nipple into his mouth.
“Oh, Alan.” She pushed her fingers through his hair and arched into him, urging him to take as much of her into his mouth as possible. His erection strained against her thigh, and she ran her hands down his neck, over his muscled back, and under the waistband of his trunks.
Their moans echoed off the walls of the small room and Pam had never felt so aroused. The combination of the heated water, the candlelight and the man were incredibly erotic. Every nerve ending, every muscle, every sense burned and throbbed with raw desire and she raked her hands over his body. His name emerged from her throat over and over, as if some part of her suspected their time together was short and she wanted to experience as much of him as possible.
He devoured her, drawing on her breasts one at a time, rolling her sensitized nipples between his finger and thumb. His hands skated over her body, assuming the rhythm of the water until their movements became so frenzied, the now-lukewarm water splashed over the edges and onto the tile.
Alan felt his body growing more engorged, yearning for release. The feelings she had unleashed in him were so staggering, he prayed he could maintain control long enough to please her. “Let's go to bed,” he said thickly against her neck and she moaned her agreement.
He drew back and tried to stand, fell, and succeeded in dunking them both before they gained their footing. Pam stopped long enough to grab a towel for her sopping hair. The sight of her standing bare-breasted was enough to make him grit his teeth.
“We'd better hurry,” he said, tugging on her hand.
They slipped and slid across the tiled floor, laughing and cursing until they crossed the threshold of the bedroom. They tumbled onto the bed, launching a small tidal wave. Alan kicked off his trunks and rolled down her bikini bottoms, groaning when he uncovered the nest of wet blond curls between her firm, tanned thighs. He raised himself above her, pushing her wet hair back from her face. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely. “I need to make love to you now—are you protected?”
She nodded, her blue eyes luminous, her luscious upside-down mouth soft and swollen. With utmost restraint, he lowered himself, rubbing his straining shaft against her. Oh so carefully, he probed her wetness, then sank inside her slowly, capturing her mouth with his and absorbing her gasps as their bodies melded.
Heaven. She felt like pure heaven around him, pulsing, kneading, drawing his life fluid to the surface much too quickly. He slowed and clenched his teeth, wanting their lovemaking to last, postponing the moment she would pull away from him. For now he wanted to be inside her, wrapped around her, smelling her, tasting her. When he found a slow rhythm, she began to pant beneath him, clawing as his back. He was so stunned at the level of her response, he was momentarily distracted from his own building release and concentrated on making her climax powerful.
He laved her earlobe and whispered erotic words he'd never uttered before, phrases loosened from his tongue by the fantasy woman writhing beneath him. He moved with her, responding to every moan and gasp with more intense probing until her cries escalated and she climaxed around him, her contracting muscles finally breaking his restraint and unleashing the most intense orgasm he'd ever experienced. They rode out the vestiges of their explosive pleasure, slowing to a languid grind. At last they stilled, but the water mattress bumped them against each other, eliciting gasps as their tender flesh met.
He gingerly lifted himself from her and rolled to spoon her against him, half to hold her close for a while longer, half to avoid facing her until he had time to sort out a few things for himself. The regrets, the remorse, the self-recrimination had not yet set in, and for the time being, he simply wanted to enjoy the intimacy of lying with this wonderful creature, however fleeting the time might be.
Alan sighed and closed his eyes, pushing his nose into her damp hair, inhaling her scent. He couldn't remember feeling more content, but he blamed his thoughts of spending the rest of his nights like this on the fog of sleep that ebbed over him. His dreams were restless, fraught with stress-packed, nerve-shattering days of living with Pamela Kaminski.
10
W
HEN PAM'S EYES popped open, the first light of dawn had found its way between the heavy opaque curtains over the window and sliding glass door. Despite the sunny warmth, a cold blanket of dread descended over her. She craned her neck slowly toward the mirrored ceiling, muttering words of denial until she was faced with the naked truth.
“Uh...my...God,” she murmured, groaning at the tangle of bare tanned arms and legs they presented. They'd
done
it—the deed, the wild thing, the horizontal bop—they'd had sex. She and Alan. Her and her best friend's ex. Panic ballooned in her chest and she pushed herself up, frantically whispering, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Alan stirred and rolled to his back, displaying a pup-tent erection beneath the thin sheet. She averted her eyes, cursed the erotic scenes that kept replaying in her head and began to extricate herself from his grasp as gently as possible.
“Hey,” he mumbled in complaint, pulling her against him.
She punched his arm. “Let me go,” she protested, scrambling to get out of the rolling bed.
“You really should work on that morning disposition,” he muttered with a yawn.
She bent and scooped a towel from the floor, which she wrapped around herself. Astounded at his nonchalance, she bounced a pillow off his face. “Get up! Can't you see we're in big trouble here?”
He blinked and sat up, shaking his head as if to clear it, then swung his feet to the floor. “Excuse me?”
“Alan, we had sex last night.”
“I was there—or don't you remember?” he asked wryly, standing for a full-body stretch.
That was the problem—she remembered his mindblowing participation all too well. Pam glanced down at his raging morning erection, then expelled an explosive sigh. “Put a towel on that rack, would you?”
She tossed him a pillowcase they had somehow managed to work free during their lovemaking, then jammed her hands on her hips. “
What
are we going to do now?”
Holding the crumpled cloth over his privates, Alan scrubbed his hand over his face, then ventured, “Go to Walt Disney World?”
“That's not even remotely funny,” she snapped.
“Could I have a few seconds to wake up? And maybe relieve myself?”
It had meant nothing to him, she realized with a jolt. And why should it? He wasn't the one who would have to face Jo on a regular basis when they returned home. In fact, from a man's point of view, sleeping with the best friend of the woman who had ditched him at the altar was probably the most perfect revenge he could exact. Hurt stabbed her deep, and she felt like a fool for not seeing the situation so clearly last night. Pam swept her hand toward the bathroom. “Be my guest,” she said with as much indifference as she could muster.
When he had closed the door, she strode to the closet, yanked out her large canvas beach bag and started stuffing her personal articles inside. Most of the clothes she could leave here, she decided—since Alan had bought them, he could dispose of them however he wished.
Not relishing another plane ride so soon after their turbulent experience a few days ago, she decided that the bus sounded like the best alternative home—even if it took two days, which she presumed it would. Today was Thursday, so she'd still be back in Savannah by late Friday, or Saturday at the latest. Which would give her plenty of time to decide what—or if—she was going to tell Jo.
She jammed her Elvis paraphernalia into the bag and practiced her speech. “Gee, Jo, you were finished with him and he was just so darned sexy. No, I promise we weren't sleeping together behind your back while you and Alan were an item.”
“Pam.”
Alan's voice sounded behind her, jangling her already clanging nerves so badly she dropped the bag, and her towel with it. Yanking the towel back in place, she wheeled to find Alan leaning on the doorjamb.
“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.
She retrieved the bag and continued rooting through the tiny closet. “What does it look like I'm doing? I'm packing.”
“To go home? Why?”
She turned and leveled her gaze on him.
He did, at least, have the grace to blush. “I mean, I can guess why, but I don't think this is the best way to handle what just happened, do you?”
“You have a better plan?”
Alan shrugged. “Try not to blow it out of proportion. I was lonely, you were lonely. We had a romantic evening—everyone treated us as a couple. We drank half a bottle of wine, then topped it off with good champagne.” He looked contrite. “I owe you an apology—I feel guilty as hell for dragging you down here, and now...”
“Now look at the fine mess we've made,” she finished for him, ending with a sigh. “There's no need to apologize, Alan. You didn't exactly hold a gun to my head.”
He pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Sleeping together wasn't particularly smart, considering the touchy circumstances, but we're adults and surely we can exercise enough control to make sure it doesn't happen again.”
“Oh, it can
never
happen again,” she said emphatically.
“Agreed,” he said, walking to stop an arm's length away from her. “Since we have that settled, now you can stay.”
“It's not settled, Alan,” she said, dropping her gaze. “What am I going to tell Jo?”
“
We
,” he said firmly, “aren't going to tell Jo anything. She's married, Pam. She doesn't care about my sex life—or yours. And even if she did, it's none of her business.”
“But how will I face her?”
“As if nothing happened,” he said simply, affirming her earlier suspicion that their lovemaking had shaken her far more than it had affected him.
“But I can't lie to her, Alan. She's my best friend.”
He lifted his hands. “Fine—if we get home and Jo asks you, ‘Pam, did you and Alan sleep together?,' you can say, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, Jo, we did.”'
“It would never occur to Jo to ask,” Pam said with a wry smile.
“My point exactly,” he said. “But you might arouse her curiosity if you went scurrying home early.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “So put down your bag and I promise to stay out of your way until Saturday. Hopefully we can still go home as friends.”
He made it sound so simple—they had made a mistake, and they wouldn't do it again. Period. That was Alan—Mr. Practical. She lifted a corner of her mouth. Maybe that's what the ‘P' stood for. Even though he obviously wasn't wrestling with the same troubling issues their lovemaking had unearthed in her psyche, perhaps he was right. Maybe they needed a couple of days to get back on a casual footing. Although she would never look at Alan in quite the same way, it would be a shame to lose his friendship because she simply couldn't cope with their lapse.
“I'll stay,” she said lightly. “And of course we'll go home as friends.” She dropped the bag and gave him her brightest smile. “I'll go shopping today, and do some sight-seeing.”
“And I'll find something to do,” he said. “And if you're out late—”
“—or if you're out late...”
“—we'll see each other...”
“—tomorrow,” she finished.
He nodded. “Fine.”
She nodded. “Fine.”
“Do you want to shower first?”
“Sure,” she said, and walked past him. The pink-tiled room did not seem nearly so electric this morning, although the vestiges of their interlude were scattered throughout: her bikini top, the burnt-down candles, the half-empty bottle of champagne. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and squashed the mushrooming regret when it threatened to overwhelm her.
“By the way,” Alan said behind her.
She whirled to see him squinting at her from the open doorway, just as something crunched under her foot.
“Have you seen my glasses?”
Pam looked down, picked up her foot, then winced and nodded.
 
ALAN PUSHED his glasses higher on his nose, frowning when he encountered the bulky piece of masking tape that held the broken bridge of his frames together. He sank lower in the upholstered seat of the nearly empty movie theater and smirked at the corny previews. With a sigh he glanced at the vacant seat next to him and imagined Pam sitting there, munching popcorn and giggling like a teenager.
It was funny how much his perception of her had changed in the last few days. She was still the sexy bombshell who made him a little nervous, but now...now he had glimpsed the warm, funny, smart woman who lurked beneath the showy facade. Sure, her showy side inflamed his baser needs, but it was her squeal of laughter when they'd ridden the Wave Runner and her shining face when he'd filled the moat of her sand castle that stayed with him every waking minute.
The ear-numbing, teeth-jarring, bone-melting, mind-blowing sex was simply a bonus.
He smiled a slow, lazy grin. The sex was a big, fat cherry on top of a sundae more delectable than any he could have imagined as a kid. Which presented an interesting paradox, he noted as the main feature bounced onto the screen. If Pamela Kaminski was such a catch, what was keeping him from pursuing her with gusto?
He imagined Pam counting off the reasons on her brightly colored fingernails. “Because my friendship with your ex-fiancée means more to me than any relationship we could ever have, Alan. Because I have dozens of men waiting for my return, Alan. And most important, because you're not the kind of guy I'd settle for, Alan.”
The flick started, a splashy good-guys bad-guys film with several gorgeous women and just enough one-liners to make it amusing. But his mind wandered from the movie plot to Pamela so often, he lost track of which double agent crossed which federal bureau so when the movie credits rolled, he wasn't quite sure what had happened or who had gotten the girl. But he had the sinking feeling it wouldn't be him.
He sat through another matinee he couldn't follow, at the end of which he had to admit that for the first time in his thirty-odd years, he was completely consumed with, distracted by and besotted over a woman. A woman who was beyond his reach.
When he walked outside, he squinted into the light, even though dusk was already falling. Oh well, he thought as he joined the mingling crowd on the sidewalk, things would be different when they got back to Savannah. He would return to his demanding job running his consulting business, and she would return to the frantic pace of real-estate sales, along with her bottomless pool of boyfriends. They would probably see each other occasionally at charity functions. He would wave and she would smile, and no one would ever know they had made passionate love in a gaudy room in Fort Myers on Valentine's Day.
. Determined to stay away from the beachfront area to avoid running into Robin, Alan strolled along the retail district, browsing in music and electronics stores. He wandered by a jewelry-store window and stopped when he spotted a gold sand-castle pendant. He desperately wanted to give Pam something to remember him by, and the pendant seemed to call him. He walked inside and left fifteen minutes later with the pendant and a matching gold chain. He wasn't sure when or if he'd give it to her, but for now, buying the pendant seemed like the right thing to do.
He bought a couple of CD's by local artists, then stopped at a sports bar and ordered a sandwich and a beer. The ponytailed bartender who served him found a Georgia State basketball game on one of the many TV screens and made small talk while he washed glass mugs.
The barkeep wore a tight T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off to show his many tattoos to their best advantage. Alan tried not to stare, but he must have failed because the guy quirked a bushy eyebrow and asked, “You ever had a tat too?”
Alan shook his head and pointed to one on the man's arm, squinting. “Is that an ad?”
“Yep—best tattoo parlor in town is just down the street. I get a discount for wearing the ad.”
“Human billboards,” Alan acknowledged with a tip of his bottle. “Now
there's
an untapped industry.” He figured. he must be getting a buzz because the idea of someone selling their skin to advertisers, inch by inch, actually sounded plausible. In which case, Pam's body would be worth a fortune, he noted dryly, wondering how much her cleavage would command on the open market
Location, location, location.
The bartender leaned on the bar and asked, “Hey, man, are you busy later tonight?”
Alan frowned and deepened his voice. “You're barking up the wrong tree, fella.”
“Huh?” The bartender pulled back. then scoffed. “Nah, man, my girlfriend's swinging by and bringing a friend with her. You like redheads?”
“Sure, but—”

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