Chapter Nine
When Beth woke up the following morning, she was alone in bed. Her first thought was that she was starving.
She heard the water running in the bathroom and instantly knew where to find her husband. He was taking a shower.
Still naked under the covers, she yawned, stretched and thought about the night before and all that she and Jack had done together. She had never in a million years thought that having sex with her best friend would have been so...so powerful. So all-consuming. Frankly if she wasn’t already pregnant by now, she needed to see a doctor. Something was terribly wrong with her.
Of course, she was going to have to wait at least a couple of weeks before finding out for sure. She had her fingers crossed, though.
But in the meantime she wasn’t planning to waste a single day of being married to Jack. There weren’t any guarantees that his seed had already taken in her. Therefore, it was her purpose—if not her duty—to have sex with him at every single opportunity presented her.
Right?
Right.
And to her way of thinking, right this very moment was as good an opportunity as any.
First of all, they were alone.
Secondly, it was their honeymoon.
And, of course, Jack would know exactly why she was doing it. He had in mind to accomplish the very same mission.
Boldly throwing back the covers on the bed, she slipped her feet down to the floor and trotted quietly to the door of the bathroom. Without making a sound, she pressed her ear against it and listened to hear if Jack was indeed still in the shower. It sounded as though he was.
She turned the knob and the door opened, so she stuck her head inside. Sure enough, he was in the small shower stall at one corner of the bathroom. The whole room was steamed up from the hot water pouring down on him.
Beth slipped her entire body inside the room and tiptoed to the shower. Then, suddenly, she drew back the shower curtain. Taken by total surprise. Jack whirled around to face her. “Hey, what are you doing?” he asked when a second later she stepped right into the narrow shower stall with him.
Placing her hands on her hips, Beth gazed up at him with an exasperated look on her face. “Jack,” she said, “don’t you think it’s time you stopped asking so many questions?”
It took him a moment, but finally a grin eased across his face. “You’re damned right, it is,” he said.
Then he pulled the shower curtain closed, and Beth got her first lesson in making love to her husband in a small, damp, cramped space.
As it turned out, Jack made it into quite a memorable occasion for her. One she wasn’t likely to ever forget. Nor did she want to.
By noon that day, they both decided that they couldn’t tolerate their hunger pangs any longer and voted unanimously to go out for food. They dressed and then wandered along Decatur Street until they found a small sidewalk café that appealed to them. For the next couple of hours they sat and ate overstuffed Po-boys and drank iced tea, and watched the continuous stream of tourists that flocked by them.
They spent the remainder of the afternoon doing that same scene. They walked along the banks of the Mississippi River, bought a painting Beth liked from a gallery on Royal Street and then gave encouragement to a beginning artist who was displaying his work along Jackson Square. They spent a quiet moment inside St. Louis Cathedral, shared a Hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s Bar on St. Peter Street and then did some shopping at the Riverwalk. Beth bought herself a pair of shoes. Jack bought himself a baseball cap. On their way back to their hotel, they stopped at the Café du Monde Coffee Stand in the French Market for beignets and coffee.
Beth’s feet were hurting by the time they got back to their hotel, so Jack offered to give them a massage. In turn, she gave him the back rub he requested—in the nude, of course. It was the way he wanted it. But in the end, he turned over flat on his back in bed and gave her a thorough massage instead. Now, it seemed, just giving him a good, old-fashioned back rub was never going to be the same again.
Beth went into the bathroom for a while and when she came out she was mildly surprised to find that Jack had fallen asleep on the bed. Actually she was kind of glad that he had. She needed a rest herself. She climbed in next to him and snuggled close.
It was such a comforting thought to know that her best friend was only a whisper, a touch, away. It made everything she was doing to accomplish her dream in life seem sane, when in fact she knew that it really wasn’t. But that was the special quality about Jack...about their friendship. It made sense when nothing else in her life did.
Like this honeymoon.
It was so out of control, it was ridiculous.
Just how many times had they already made love?
She’d lost count!
Now wasn’t that plum ridiculous of someone who was always able to keep track of everything else that happened to her in life?
Well, of course, it was. Only...
Only she was with Jack, so that made it okay. And because of that one single factor, she firmly believed that she, too, was going to be okay. And when this was all over with, she would have her baby.
She was certain of it. Jack’s baby.
She knew he didn’t want her thinking that way, and she’d promised him—and herself, too—that she wouldn’t. She planned to keep that promise. She just liked to sneak that thought in every once in a while. It made her feel all warm inside.
It was no big deal, really. Nothing for either of them to worry about. She was the last person who was going to get sentimental over what they were doing together. She knew what kind of trouble that could lead to. Jack was doing her a big favor. They both knew this marriage was nothing more than a business deal between two good friends. No more. No less. It was the way she had wanted it from the very beginning, and it was still the one, single guarantee she had that their friendship was going to survive all of this.
Minutes passed. Needing something to do, Beth studied the features of Jack’s face. After all, they had been friends for so long that there were a lot of things about him she had begun to take for granted. Soon, however, she grew even more restless and pulled a feather out from the pillow beneath his head. She began to tease him awake by dragging it lightly across the bridge of his nose.
He didn’t actually come awake. He just groaned and then moved slightly to one side.
She grinned. This was going to be fun.
She caressed him with the feather again, only this time across his lips.
He twitched his mouth in response.
She got brave and straddled him. Leaning down into his face, she kissed him until he began to come awake.
All of him.
Wide-awake.
And hard.
It now looked as though they were gong to make love again. So much for tickling him awake with a feather...
Actually this kind of behavior was getting to be quite a habit for them. A habit that, sooner or later, Beth knew, they were going to have to break.
But she didn’t want to think about that right now. She just wanted to think about what a pleasurable time she and Jack were having, trying to get her pregnant. She had never dreamed it would be like this.
Of course, she had always known that he was the right man for the job. She had only to convince him of that fact.
Well, it looked as though he was now convinced.
Jack was now doing deliciously wicked things to her body, and soon Beth lost track of all rational thinking. She groaned and moaned and pleaded and begged, while Jack took her time after time and gave her exactly what she was asking for.
Eventually they had pizza delivered to their hotel suite because they both decided that they were too exhausted to go out to dinner.
But it was a blissful exhaustion and Beth couldn’t have been more satisfied with the results of her plan thus far.
And to think, tomorrow was a whole other day that she was going to get to spend with Jack in their honeymoon suite.
She couldn’t wait to find out.
Gone, it seemed, was the prudish young woman she had once been, she thought, as once again she lay in Jack’s arms and slipped off into an exhausted sleep. She couldn’t say it wasn’t a fair trade-off.
Because without a doubt, she knew that it was.
That night they slept sound and didn’t wake until the sun rose on the following morning. Because it was the last day of their honeymoon, they spent the entire time in bed making love. After all, they were on a mission to get her pregnant and, by golly, they were going to do their best to accomplish that task.
But finally, the day was coming to a close and they both knew it was time to pack up their belongings, rent a car and return home. On the two-hour drive back, they came to the conclusion that it would be more convenient for Jack to move into her place for the short duration of their marriage.
They arrived at her house just before midnight, unpacked their clothes and then made love in the shower one last time for the sake of... well... for the sake of getting her pregnant. They knew eventually it would all have to end, but that was still a couple of months down the road yet There was plenty of time left for them to enjoy each other.
They were awakened the next morning when the telephone rang next to Beth’s bed, and they both realized that they’d overslept the alarm they had set. Jumping out on each side of the bed, they made a mad scramble to get dressed for work.
Ironically they were ready to walk out of the house at the same time. In the garage, Jack suddenly trapped Beth against the front fender of her car. “I’m sorry about this morning,” he said. “I’ll try to find a way to make it up to you soon.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, smiling at him. She thought it was kind of neat, their leaving at the same time like this to go to their jobs. This was probably how it was every weekday morning for most married couples in America. The husband went off to his job. The wife went off to hers. The kids, if there were any, went off to school or daycare. She liked the comforting I’ll-have-dinner-cooked-foryou-tonight-honey kind of feeling it gave her. Jack was so handsome in his business suit. She was so proud he was her friend...her husband.
For the time being, at least, she was living her dream.
Unbidden, Beth thought of the way Jack made her feel when they were naked together in bed and her stomach quivered. His intense loving over the past couple of days had turned her completely inside out. Thanks to him, her soul was soaring somewhere in the clouds, and what was left of her down on earth felt a sense of freedom unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She felt whole, complete. And sometimes when she wasn’t being very careful, she almost felt like a woman in love.
But, of course, she wasn’t in love. Not with Jack, for heaven’s sake. But then she wasn’t supposed to be. Oh, she loved him, all right, she reminded herself. But there was a big difference in loving him her way and her being in love with him.
However, that didn’t explain the way she felt when her soul was roaring up in the clouds somewhere. That was something that had never happened to her before, and she had always thought it was something that would happen only when she fell in love. Obviously she had been wrong. Just loving Jack as her closest friend was enough to make that happen for her.
And why shouldn’t it? She and Jack were completely devoted to each other. They didn’t need to be in love. They had something better going for them. Their friendship was as solid and dependable as a rock.
Jack moved in closer, almost as if he planned to whisper something in her ear. “I didn’t do my job this morning,” he said. “But I promise it won’t happen again.”
After kissing her on the mouth, he walked to his car that had remained in her garage since their wedding day, got in and drove away.
Beth watched him go, her heart pounding in her throat. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that he had every intention of keeping his promise.
And she found that she was counting on it.
Beth’s telephone rang in her office for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. She glanced at the clock on her desk. It was five minutes until noon. She glanced at her daily appointment calendar just to be sure that her lunch hour was free. It was. She had been so busy all morning, she needed the hour-long break. She picked up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Beth, it’s Jack. Got any plans for lunch?”
“Lunch... Gosh, I’ve been so busy trying to catch up this morning, I haven’t even had time to think about lunch.”
“Good. Then meet me at home in ten minutes,” he said.
“Home? But I don’t think I have anything to fix us for lunch at home.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll pick up Chinese. Just be there, Beth. Okay?”
It was something in his tone of voice that enlightened Beth to the fact that it wasn’t only lunch he was planning for them to share. Suddenly she was breathless. “All right, then. I’ll be there.”
He hung up, and Beth didn’t waste any time gathering up her purse to leave from her office.
Less than fifteen minutes later, she arrived home. Seconds later, Jack drove up right behind her. By the time she had fumbled with the key in the back door of her house and got it opened, he had walked up and was already beginning to pull the pins from her hair. Without saying a word, he told her exactly what he had in mind.
Beth could hardly wait.
Once they were inside the house, Jack immediately dropped the bag of Chinese food on the kitchen table, turned and pinned her to the spot with his gaze.
“This is insane, Jack,” she said, breathless. “We’re supposed to be just friends.”
“I know,” he said with a gleam in his eyes that said he couldn’t have cared less about how insane this whole thing was. He wanted her.
She wanted him, too.
“I thought of you all morning long,” he said gruffly.
“You’re all I thought about, too,” she confessed. “What are we going to do, Jack? I think we’ve crossed the line.”
“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re not over the line. Not yet.”
“But how can you be so sure?” Beth asked.
Stopping short, he took a step back from her and held out his hands in a form of surrender. “Look, I could stop all of this in a moment, if I wanted to,” he said. “Couldn’t you?”
“W-well...yes, of course,” Beth stammered, taken completely off guard by his question. “If I wanted to.”
“Then, see,” he said, “we aren’t over any line yet.”
“I’m not so sure, Jack,” she said hesitantly.
“Well, I am,” he replied.
Jack had already taken off his suit coat and tossed it carelessly across the countertop. Now he was pulling off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.
Beth placed her purse down on the counter next to his suit coat and then slipped her feet out of her pumps. She had made her decision. For the moment, at least, she chose to believe him.
“Hungry?” he asked with a sexy, lopsided grin on his face as he backed her toward her bedroom.
“Starving,” she replied. Every cell in her body tingled with anticipation.
Suddenly the gleam in his eyes intensified. “Turn around,” he commanded. “I’ll unzip your dress.”
She did. The next thing she knew, her dress was lying at her feet.
He spun her around and kissed her hard on the mouth, and she found she wanted him so badly in that moment, she thought she would explode.
Somehow they made it to her bed, and he took her...quickly...hungrily. They both knew they didn’t have much time for what they were doing. All the same she had wanted it fast and furious. And, of course, Jack, as always, had been more than willing to accommodate her needs.
Afterward, having little time to linger together in bed, they got dressed, shared lunch and arrived back at their jobs without a minute to spare.
At five o’clock, Beth found herself anxious to get home again to be with Jack...to hold him...to make love with him. A part of her was wondering just where all of this was leading her—leading them—but for now she didn’t want to think about it.
In spite of her efforts to protect herself from disappointment, her world came crashing down around her when Jack returned home later that night. She saw the deep lines in his forehead and knew that something was wrong.
“I’ve got bad news,” he said. “It’s my job. Malone got demoted today, so that means I’m going to take his place and travel overseas sooner than I expected. In fact, I have to leave tomorrow, and I’ll be gone for at least two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Beth exclaimed, her heart sinking. “That’s a long time.”
“I know,” he said, pulling her into his arms the moment he saw tears in her eyes. “But I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to go.”
Beth nodded. It was his job, after all. Of course, he had to go. It was just that she didn’t want him to.
“Maybe this trip is for the best,” he said. “After all, we need to keep perspective on things. We never planned for this to go on forever, and I think we both need to remember that.”
He was right, of course. She of all people wasn’t going to disagree with him on that one.
Suddenly Jack lifted her chin so that she had to look him in the eyes. “Beth, I want you to promise me something. If you should even suspect that you’re pregnant while I’m gone, please don’t do anything to find out for sure until I get back.”
“Oh, Jack, I promise I won’t,” she said, burying her face against his chest and wishing with all her heart that she could go with him. Right now, two weeks apart seemed like an eternity to her. But she couldn’t just pick up and leave. She had her agency to consider. Still, this was such a critical time in her life. She needed him here with her.
Their lovemaking that night was fierce and passionate, urgent and greedy. It was as though they were trying to save up enough satisfaction to last them while they were apart.
Shotgun Groom Page 12
