Almost Paradise

by Olivia Cunning

  “No.” Sed laughed. “You sound like you swallowed a frog. I get that he was just making a joke, but it’s still too soon. Just make sure he doesn’t send it to Jessica. It would upset her.”

  “Are you sure? It might make her feel better to laugh about it.”

  “I think she’d rather forget it ever happened.”

  “I’m sure if it hadn’t gone public, she’d remember that time with you as special.” And hot. Rebekah was feeling flushed just thinking about what the two of them had done not far from this very spot. She’d never have the guts to go through with something like that. Let some guy in a parking garage watch her have sex with her husband in the safety of their room, sure, but not go at it in a public place.

  “You think?” Sed sounded unsure and the man never sounded unsure about anything.

  “You could ask her.”

  “I’ll do that. Now keep your husband in line so I don’t have to break his neck the next time I see him.”

  Rebekah chuckled, knowing Sed’s threats against Eric would never see fruition. He’d probably whop him a good one in the head, though. “I’ll try, but it won’t be easy.”

  She handed the phone back to Eric who, after getting another chewing out from Sed, hung up and shoved the device into his pocket.

  “He never has a sense of humor where Jessica is involved,” Eric grumbled.

  “Maybe because he’s serious about her.”

  “I’m serious about you, but that didn’t suddenly turn me into a lamewad.” He wrapped his arms tightly around her, hugging her from behind. “Maybe I am lucky, after all. No one else understands me the way you do. I’m lucky we found each other.”

  “The way we found each other wasn’t lucky at all,” she murmured, a pain stabbing into her chest as she thought about her brother’s accident and how he might be permanently disabled because of it. If Dave hadn’t broken his neck in that bus accident, she wouldn’t have needed to stand in for him as soundboard operator and she probably never would have gotten close to Eric. Eric was the kind of guy that took a while to grow on a person. Her first impression of him hadn’t swept her off her feet, but once she’d seen the tender, generous heart he carefully guarded with his inappropriate jokes and pranks, she’d been a goner.

  “That’s true,” he said. “Do you want to go somewhere else? I feel kind of… I don’t know…”

  “Guilty for tainting one of Sed and Jess’s special places?”

  She felt him shrug behind her. “Not really. This place is kind of boring.”

  She wasn’t buying it. He practically had guilt seeping out his pores. She turned in his arms and pressed her ear to his chest, listening to his heart beat. “I’m never bored when I’m with you.”

  His hand cupped the back of her head, pressing her closer, and he kissed her hair.

  “I think we’d be even less bored riding the rides at the top of the Stratosphere.”

  “I’ve always wanted to ride those,” she said, leaning back to look up at him. “Everyone I know is too chicken to get on any of them and riding by myself would have been pretty lame.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  They took the monorail to the far end of the Strip and when they reached the top of the Stratosphere, which looked like a spaceship perched on the top of a tall spire, Rebekah stared down at the ground far below and thought perhaps she’d been a bit hasty in wanting to climb into an amusement ride that hung over the edge of a tall building. Saying she wanted to ride the contraption and actually standing in line to get on it were entirely different things.

  “Are you sure you want to ride this?” Rebekah asked Eric as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet like a seven-year-old. “I hear it’s pretty intense.”

  “I’m all in, but if you’re scared—”

  “I’m not,” she interrupted, her stomach a tangle of nerves and nausea.

  She played brave through the short line and while she strapped herself in, but when the ride started, she screamed like a little girl who’d woken in the night covered in poisonous spiders. The ride only lasted a minute—during which she was certain fifteen years of her life had been stolen. Unfortunately, she opened her eyes when the car was pointing straight down, and her stomach took a free fall the entire seven hundred feet of empty space between her body and the ground. Eric was whooping beside her with unparalleled glee. The man was obviously insane.

  When it was over, Rebekah climbed from the car with wobbly knees and clung to a nearby railing for stability.

  “That was awesome!” Eric shouted. “Let’s go again!”

  Just the thought of getting on again made bile rise in Rebekah’s throat. She shook her head vigorously.

  “You didn’t have fun?”

  She plastered on a brave smile. “Once was all the fun I can take.”

  “Let’s go see our ride photo,” he said, taking her hand and tugging her toward a photo booth.

  They located their photo easily. Eric had his hands in the air and wore a euphoric expression on his lean, rugged face. Rebekah looked like she’d just discovered the eighth circle of Hell.

  Eric laughed his ass off as he pointed at her terrified expression. “You were petrified.”

  “Was not!”

  He placed a comforting hand on her lower back and nudged her up against his side. “I was a little scared too,” he said in a low, soothing tone.

  She stared up at him, clinging to his comforting words. She didn’t like to think of herself as a wimp. Ever. “You were?”

  He grinned. “Not really, but if it makes you feel better—oomph!”

  He deserved that elbow to the gut. Her legs were working properly again, so she stomped off while he bought the goddamned picture of them on that death trap.

  “I’m going to hang this on the fridge,” he said when he caught up to her on the escalator, a much saner way to head down.

  “Do you really need to tease me about everything?” she snapped.

  He was so busy staring at her in shock that he stumbled over the landing when they reached the bottom.

  “I’ve never teased you about being scared of something,” he said as he trailed after her to the next down escalator. “Because I’ve never seen you afraid. You’re a rock.”

  “You have seen me scared,” she said. “Just last week when I thought my cancer had come back.”

  “That’s entirely different.” At the bottom of the escalator, he pulled her aside and out of the flow of foot traffic. “Rebekah, that was a real threat to your life. I’d never joke around about something like that. This”—he flapped the photo at her—“was just a perceived threat. If I’d thought you were in danger, of course I wouldn’t have teased you for being afraid.”

  She bit her lip and stared at his chest. Perhaps she had taken his teasing too hard, but she needed him to understand why. And after the misunderstanding that had almost torn them apart, they’d promised each other to always talk about their problems and differences.

  “Please don’t make fun of me when I’m scared,” she said. “I’ve had to be strong for so long that showing any weakness really bothers me.”

  He cupped her face and encouraged her gaze to meet his. His thumb caught a stray tear on her cheek. How mortifying. Here she was claiming to be strong and she was crying like a child.

  “Sweetheart, you don’t have to carry your entire burden anymore. I’m here to shoulder as much as you’re willing to allow. You’re my everything.”

  His face blurred beyond her suddenly watery eyes. Those were the words he’d vowed to her. Words he believed so much he’d had tattooed on his skin. Words she hadn’t quite comprehended until that moment.

  “Can we go back to our hotel room now?” she asked. “I’ve had about all the fun I can handle for one night.”

  He grinned and pecked the tip of her nose. “You know the real fun starts when we’re alone together.”

  Of course she knew that.

  Chapter Seven

  W
aiting on the curb with their luggage, Eric yawned widely, stretched his arms over his head, and then lowered them to scratch his ribs. He would have liked to stay in bed for another few hours. Rebekah had kept him up—both in an awake and in an aroused kind of way—all night. Apparently she found Vegas inspiring. After she’d sucked on his lance and he’d buried it in her treasure chest, she’d allowed him to explore her pyramids and raid the dark passage she referred to as her tomb. She didn’t let him fuck her in the ass very often, so that had been an unexpected treat. But now he was tired and wasn’t ready to climb back into the minibus to head to their next destination. He’d never understand why she was so against spending two weeks relaxing in Tahiti, but he had to admit he was having fun. Lots of exhausting, imaginative fun.

  When the valet brought the Volkswagen around, complaining that the thing didn’t want to stay started, Eric crammed their suitcases into the back. “Do you want to drive?” he asked Rebekah.

  “You know she won’t run for me.”

  “The valet managed it,” he pointed out.

  “Eventually,” he said as he accepted the tip Rebekah handed him.

  “I’d rather you drive.” Rebekah gave him a sweet smile. She knew he was weak to that smile, damn it.

  “And I’d rather nap. You wore me out last night, woman.”

  She grinned. “And I’ll be wearing you out again tonight and tomorrow night and the night after that, so you might as well get used to it.”

  He climbed behind the wheel without further argument. He did like the sound of those plans of hers.

  Under Rebekah’s navigational direction they journeyed along a stretch of highway that seemed to be heading nowhere.

  He was pretty sure they were going to the Grand Canyon—seeing as he saw directional signs for the natural wonder every twenty miles or so—but he didn’t want Rebekah to feel like she wasn’t carrying out this surprise of hers effectively. He still felt bad about upsetting her after they’d braved that scary-as-fuck amusement ride. He never wanted her to experience any hurt, and he definitely didn’t want to be the one to cause her pain. She’d forgiven him almost instantly, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a bad husband.

  She hadn’t talked to him at all since they’d found the road that would lead to their next destination. She must still be pissed, but unwilling to gripe him out while they were on their honeymoon. He glanced at her, expecting her to be fuming, but instead found that she’d fallen asleep. He grinned. It was mighty unfair that she should get to nap while he had to drive.

  “Rebekah!” he yelled, honking the horn madly.

  She jerked awake, her hands flying out to both sides to steady herself.

  “I think we’re here,” he said, nodding excitedly at a particularly ugly patch of barren wasteland complete with tumbleweeds.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” she said, one hand covering her chest. She peered out the windshield and then rolled her eyes. “You know damned well we’re going to the Grand Canyon.”

  “We are? Cool!” It was cool. He’d been there a few times before, so he knew this for a fact.

  “Have you ever been there?”

  He started to shake his head, but remembered that they’d pledged to be honest with each other. Even little white lies could damage a relationship if they became a habit. “A few times,” he said, reaching across the van to take her hand. “But never with you.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Have you ever had sex there?” She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

  “Uh… Only with a donkey.”

  Her eyes bulged. “What?”

  “The mule turned me down.”

  She slapped at him. “That’s disgusting!”

  “I’m joking. I’ve never had sex at the Grand Canyon.” When she continued to crinkle her nose at him, he added, “Or with any animal.”

  She relaxed into her seat, and he nudged her with his elbow. “But if you want to dress up like a sexy kitty cat and lick cream off my balls, I wouldn’t turn you away.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him and then pretended to lick her paw. He should have known she’d find no fault in that idea. As long as they were playing solely with each other, Rebekah was game for just about anything.

  As usual, the view of the Grand Canyon was spectacular. The view of Rebekah’s bare tits bouncing as she rode his cock in the back of the van an hour later was even more breathtaking. He’d been sure to engage the parking brake this time. They didn’t want to pull a Thelma and Louise by fucking themselves right over the edge of the Grand Canyon. In the loving afterglow of a spectacular orgasm, Rebekah squirmed out of his embrace and tossed his clothes at him.

  “We have to go or we’ll never make it in time.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Of course it was.

  The surprise turned out to be a drive through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest of Arizona. But they’d missed the last ranger-guided tour of the day. Rebekah’s disappointment was tangible.

  “Nothing is going as planned,” she grumbled as she flopped herself into the passenger seat of the Volkswagen.

  “Well, there’s the problem. Let’s forget the plan and just drive. We’ll stop to eat when we’re hungry. Find a hotel when we’re tired. Explore the area we find ourselves in or follow signs to points of interest along the way.”

  “If we just meander around the country, we might not make it to Bangor in time to catch our flight to Tahiti.”

  “So we’ll catch a connecting flight in a different city. It’s not a big deal, Reb.” He shrugged. She wasn’t the type to follow a strict schedule. She usually went with the flow. He didn’t understand why she was so unmalleable all of a sudden. Frankly, he didn’t much enjoy this side of her. Her impulsive nature was one of his favorite things about her.

  “It is a big deal. The entire reason we’re on this trip is to go to Bangor.” Her eyes widened, and she sucked her lips into her mouth.

  “Will you just tell me what’s in Bangor that’s so important?”

  The smile she plastered on her face appeared entirely fabricated. “It’s a surprise.”

  “Enough surprises,” he said, tossing his hands in the air. “Tell me. Tell me what the fuck is in Bangor or I refuse to drive another mile.”

  The smile faded from her face and she looked down at her folded hands. “If I tell you, you won’t want to go.”

  “I don’t want to go now, but I’m going, aren’t I?” He didn’t mean to shout at her, but he didn’t know how else to make her understand. “To make you happy. But you’re so stressed out that you don’t seem to be having the least bit of fun.”

  “I’m having loads of fun,” she snapped.

  “Well, I’m not.” The second the admission was out of his mouth, he wanted to tie his tongue in a knot.

  She sucked a wounded breath through her teeth. “I thought you liked my surprises. On your birthday you said you did.”

  Eric took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves and tried a subtler approach. “I loved my birthday surprises, Reb. Honestly, it was the best birthday of my life. Every gift you gave was heartfelt and thoughtful. It showed me how well you knew me. How much you loved me. It made me believe that you understood who I was and that you accepted all my quirks.”

  “I cherish them,” she said quietly.

  “But this isn’t my birthday—which should be about me—this is our honeymoon, which should be about us. Have a little faith in the strength of our relationship. You don’t have to disguise something you want as a surprise for me. Just tell me what’s in Bangor that’s so important to you.”

  She sat there beside him, her shoulders rounded, her body curled inward as if he’d kicked her in the stomach. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s wrong of me to keep this from you.”

  She lifted her head, but her gaze shifted to his forehead. What was so terrible in Bangor, Maine, that she couldn’t even look him in the eye when
she told him about it?

  “When I put our marriage license and birth certificates in the fire safe, I noticed your mother’s place of birth. So I did a little snooping online and found out that your grandparents still live there.”

  So this wasn’t about her at all. It was about him.

  “You called them?” he said, a strange mixture of curiosity and dread churning in his stomach.

  “No. I tried to get a number, but it’s unlisted. I did find their address, though.” She looked at him the way a puppy looks at