Temporary Mistress

by Susan Johnson

  “Change your plans.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because we fit together real well, if you recall. And according to my mother, Myrtle Carlson is gone to visit her daughter in Biwabik, so she won’t hear you scream when you come.”

  Lily was instantly wet, as though he had only to promise her sex and she was ready. “How does your mother know that?” she asked in a voice that registered sexual desire in every suppressed syllable.

  “They’re both in the church choir.”

  She groaned softly. “I forgot how everyone knows everything about everyone in a small town.”

  Her orgasmic screams that night at the Lodge were a case in point, but he thought it might be counterproductive to mention it. “Look at the bright side,” he said, rising from the bed. “We’re alone out here today. Breakfast is ready in the kitchen, and afterward”—he smiled—“we can do whatever you want.”

  It was difficult eating breakfast with the idea of doing whatever she wanted in the forefront of her thoughts. It was damned near impossible if she spent too much time recounting the inspired, really endearing whatever-you-want pleasures of their first night together. And it didn’t help whatever moderate and judicious emotions she might still retain to be gazing up close and personal at darling Billy, God’s gift to women. After a night of drinking, her senses were on high alert to everything sexual, and the most beautifully sexual man she’d ever met was sitting across the table from her.

  He’d changed sometime between the saloon last night and now, his blue striped camp shirt pressed and neat, his chino shorts without a wrinkle. She wished she’d washed her robe, she thought, suddenly aware of a chocolate stain she’d intended to swab with Stain Stick.

  “You’re not eating,” he said. “Eat.”

  She folded some of the robe skirt over the stain. “I ate a whole pint of ice cream last night and a pastry and a candy bar.”

  He grinned. “You were missing me.”

  “Was not. Tell me about Tammy,” she said, wanting to make him squirm instead. “If we had a conversation, I don’t remember.”

  “Will you eat then? I don’t want you wasting away.”

  He was either incredibly sweet or incredibly smooth, but at the moment she didn’t care because she didn’t feel like fasting or eating raw vegetables when she had a mushroom-and-bacon omelette on her plate, a basket of blueberry muffins was scenting the air, and the strawberries in the bowl to her left were arranged in a little mountain with whipped cream on top. She reached for a muffin.

  He leaned back in his chair and offered her an easygoing smile. “I took Tammy home, said thanks but no thanks, I have to get up early in the morning, and drove around for an hour or so, telling myself I wasn’t coming here. And then I came over here and you proceeded to tell me you missed me.”

  “Did not,” she said, not looking up from buttering her muffin in case he could see her embarrassment.

  “Yeah, you did. But then you also said all men were scum, so I wasn’t so sure about the signals I was getting. Although you did mention your orgasms that night at the Lodge were mind-blowing, so I thought that was probably a plus in my column.”

  She flushed red. “You’re making this up.”

  “You wish. But just when I thought things were going my way, you passed out on the kitchen table and ruined all my plans.” His smile broadened. “But I’m still hopeful.”

  “I should send you home,” she said, although the words were slightly muffled by her mouthful of muffin.

  He only smiled, picked up his latte cup and lounged back in his chair, looking immaculate—all fresh shirted and shorted—and apparently immune to hunger, while she was eating everything in sight. “Aren’t you eating?”

  “We don’t all sleep until ten.” He waved toward some dirty dishes on the counter. “I ate hours ago and then raked your beach and took your canoe down from the boathouse wall. That’s a nice old Grumman.”

  “It was my dad’s,” she said, taking note of the Lodge logo on the dishes on her counter. “You had the cook come here twice?”

  “Gracie doesn’t mind.”

  “How old is this Gracie?”

  He looked entertained. “Thirty-one. Same age as you.”

  “It’s none of my business, I’m sure,” she said.

  “True.”

  “You’re very annoying speaking in that courteous, polite, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth voice.”

  “You’re just touchy because you’re hungover,” he said pleasantly.

  She put down her fork. “What if I said we weren’t going to have sex. Would that unruffle your calm?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to say that.”

  “I could.”

  He worked hard at suppressing his grin. “Well, then I’d just have to suffer, I guess.”

  “Bloody right, you would.”

  “Or you would.”

  “You think I can’t go without sex?”

  He shrugged. “You’re hungover. You need food, sex, a couple of Cokes with lots of ice, not necessarily in that order.”

  “And you’re available.”

  “Unless you’d prefer Mr. Dockers. The Cokes are in the fridge, by the way.”

  “How do you know I don’t like Pepsi?”

  “Because you always drank Coke at the beach. And I’ve an excellent memory of you.”

  Her memories of him were more recent, but equally good—crystal clear, in fact, which was why her libido was craving sex, not in general, but very specifically with him. “Damn,” she said under her breath, thinking every woman he knew probably responded to him the same way.

  “Try the strawberries. They’re locally grown.”

  “So you can wait all day, Mr. Casual-try-the-strawberries?”

  “Not really,” he said, coming to his feet, his erection lifting the pleated front of his chino shorts.

  She flushed, took a small breath, put down her fork, and rose from her chair. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  “I’ll bring the Cokes.”

  She nodded.

  Apparently there was a limit to sexual restraint and she’d reached it. And whether she was one of hundreds in his female entourage didn’t matter right now. Right now she wanted to have sex.

  He stepped over her robe as he followed her down the hall, and when he entered her bedroom, she was lying naked on her bed, looking like every man’s dream with her legs spread wide and her arms open in welcome. “What took you so long?” she said, wiggling her fingers like a fidgety child.

  He set down the Cokes and stripped off his clothes while she watched him, restless and impatient, no longer caring about anything but consummation. His skin was bronzed, not from the sun, but everywhere, his lithe muscled body blatantly aphrodisiac, the heated look in his eyes sending a thrill through her senses. He’d discarded his shirt, his shorts, and when he slid his boxers down his legs and his erection sprang free, she felt out of control. Whimpering, she slid her feet upward, let her thighs fall open. “Please, please, please,” she whispered.

  As impatient as she, perhaps more so after waiting all night, he quickly lowered himself between her legs and then swore softly. He’d forgotten a condom.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, lifting her hips to draw him in.

  He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Yeah, it does.” Rolling back on his heels, he stretched over the side of the bed, picked up his shorts, pulled out a foil packet from his pocket, ripped it open, put on a condom, and swung back between her legs. “I hope that didn’t break your stride.” His smile was warm on her mouth.

  “Right now I could damn near come without you,” she whispered, running her palms down his spine.

  “Hold on,” he murmured, gliding in slowly, feeling her sleek flesh give way. “I’m comin’ on in …”

  She sighed, bliss beginning to color her world.

  Ignoring preliminaries and foreplay in the interests of her neediness, he buried him
self in her soft, welcoming warmth. Although his impatience matched hers after his long, frustrating night of waiting, he drove in deeper, swallowing her soft breathy cry, propelling her upward on the bed with the sheer force of his invasion. Heedless to all but carnal satisfaction, she melted around him, rose into his downward thrust, tempestuously met the sensational rhythm of his lower body, her impassioned senses peaking fast and furiously …

  The phone rang, but neither noticed.

  Serena’s voice drifted in and out of their consciousness, wordless sounds, inaudible words, background resonance to the pounding in their ears, to the heated oscillation of their bodies, to the tropical heat wave of sensation too long delayed, intensified by morning-after sensibilities—carrying them in a rush tide toward orgasm. The message went on and on while the slippery flux and flow of their rocking bodies neared the combustible sublime. Lily whimpered once, twice, as the terrifyingly single-minded orgasmic force swelled inside her, and then she cried out, a long, keening, high-pitched scream that would have gained Myrtle Carlson’s attention had she been home. Holding his breath against the convulsive frenzy, the tension in his arms swelling his biceps, he felt that first ejaculatory rush clear down to his toes, and for long, fierce, seemingly endless moments they shared the awesome, cataclysmic, mind-blowing glory.

  As their last orgasmic ripples died away, Serena’s voice finally infiltrated their consciousness.

  “… tea at my house this afternoon,” she was saying. “You know my mom’s teas.” She giggled. “See you at three …”

  Lily felt Billy’s chuckle and opened her eyes marginally, blissful lethargy weighting her lashes.

  “Your friend sure likes to talk.”

  “You didn’t seem bothered.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t notice you missing a beat.”

  “I’ve been waiting since last night.”

  “No kidding.” He kissed her gently and then glanced at the clock. “And it’s still early.”

  TEMPORARY MISTRESS

  A Bantam Book / November 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by Susan Johnson.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-57529-6

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York.

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