Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  “I want desperately to make love with you. You already know that. That’s not all I want. I want to be with you all the time. I want to be your everything. I want a future with you. I’m falling in love with you, Michael, do you understand?”

  “Susan!” Michael pulled her close and his lips crashed down on hers, starting an electric arc between them. They embraced passionately. Michael covered her face with kisses. His urgent fingers touched and teased her sensitive breasts. Her thighs.

  It was too much. She was already thinking of ways he could dispense with her panties. One of them had to be sensible, or they would make love out here in the open. She strove to break away. “They can see us at the inn,” she said, desperately, turning her head and trying to stop his hands.

  “Let me kiss you,” he demanded hoarsely. “You can’t tell me you love me and expect me to be a stone.”

  He caught her up even more possessively. He crushed her against his chest, clasping her closely as he kissed her again and again. His mouth alternately teased and possessed hers. Small nipping kisses were followed by deep penetrations. His fingers stroked the flesh of her back, but didn’t venture further.

  She gave as good as she got. She kissed him as if he was her life. She held on tightly as if he was her entire universe.

  Time slipped way from them. Finally, some birds squawked and they realized that others were walking on the path. Michael took a deep breath and released her lips reluctantly.

  “Time for a civilized dinner. We need to talk.” Yet his arms still bound her tightly, as if his body would not obey his own decision.

  She could feel his reluctance to loosen their embrace in her own skin. Michael was a human being, not merely the embodiment of a romantic fantasy. He had strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. Suddenly, joyful tears slid down her cheeks.

  As the sounds of newcomers came closer, they stood up together, still entwined, still looking deeply into each other’s eyes.

  Finally, they started walking, each with an arm around the other. The spell held.

  How strange. When she was much younger, she would have worried mightily because Michael had not said out loud that he loved her. Now she had the life experience that allowed her to see his love shining in his face. She didn’t need the words. She could sense his whole being radiating love in her direction. How utterly, utterly wonderful. This love made living worth all the agony.

  It was so crazy. She still loved Rick. Of course she did. She wasn’t in love with him anymore and they should not stay married and stay miserable. They each deserved better. With their summer hiatus, Rick had given her more than permission to have sex with some man. He had given her implicit permission to love someone else. Michael was the one.

  ***

  Later, by mutual consent, they separated to dress for dinner in the restaurant. She spent a long time in the bathroom, and when she came out, Michael whistled in admiration at her cocktail length dinner gown, blue to match her eyes. He had showered earlier and was wearing a blindingly white shirt with a dark suit, but no tie. He looked elegant.

  She pretended through dinner that they were on a first date, both heart-free. Michael played along, keeping the conversation light. As she was finishing a piece of fruit for dessert, he said, “I should tell you more about myself.”

  She made to stop him, but he insisted. “No, it’s only fair.” He leaned back, playing with his napkin.

  “In high school I was seduced by an older woman. She was a senior and I was a sophomore. She taught me about sex. Then she left for college and broke my young heart. Later, I dated a couple of nice girls and those relationships ended without any big commotion. Soon after I had finished graduate school and taken my first quant job, I met my wife.”

  His hands played with the small centerpiece, a squat crystal vase with flowers. He said nothing more, and she did nothing to prompt him to continue.

  He stood abruptly, obviously made restless by the burden of what he wanted to confide. “Let’s get out of here. Take a walk or something.”

  Within minutes, they were walking along a secluded path near the inn, bathed in the light of the rising moon. Michael continued his story. “My wife was a broker analyst. A real sharp cookie. I fell in love with her. We got married, and everything was good. We had a baby, a son. A great kid. Things were okay for a long time. Then they went sour.”

  Michael’s feet had slowed, and now he stopped. She could see from the moonlight on his face that it cost him much effort to say his next words.

  “I want to tell you the truth. Not the story everyone else believes.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said, concerned about the unhappy look on his face. She put her hand on his forearm.

  He turned to her, and with half his face now in shadow, continued, “You’ve opened yourself to me, telling me painful things. I want to be as honest with you. It means a lot to me to be real with you.”

  She made a sound of embarrassed pleasure.

  He continued grimly, “There’s no way to make this sound good. My wife developed some unsavory sexual interests. I don’t know why. She couldn’t fulfill them at home. I didn’t want to play along. So she started wandering. I don’t want to disgust you with the details. Even now, from time to time she’ll call me to come take her to the hospital after some guy she picked up beat her up badly.”

  She let out a shocked gasp.

  “Needless to say, I’ve been tested and careful since my marriage ended.”

  She put her hand on his again. “Thank you. I’ve been tested, too, since—since….” She winced away from saying the words. He undoubtedly understood.

  “Are you still afraid of me?” he persisted.

  “No, how could I be? Only, for something that is supposed to be wonderful, sex seems to have brought much pain and misery into our lives.”

  “This time, it’s different.” He said it like a promise.

  His words made her sigh with a feeling of rightness. She understood now what her body had been telling her all along. This man would overwhelm her, it was true, but he would never hurt her.

  There was still so much to talk about. They strolled on in the moonlight. She told him about the insights wrung from her time of grief. About being betrayed when she was still so fragile. She cried.

  He told her more about his miserable marriage. About pretending that everything was normal for so long. About trying to distract his son at the end of custody weekends when his ex would show up from her sick adventures sporting new bruises.

  Finally, they returned to their suite and got ready for bed. She donned a silky nightgown in the bathroom, then shyly got into the huge bed. Michael had taken a shower in the other bathroom and dressed in plaid pajama bottoms. “These are for you, my Midwestern girl. I don’t generally wear anything to bed.”

  She smiled despite her tears. “You look very dashing.”

  Michael climbed in. He rested his head on a pillow opposite hers, but angled to face her. “So, what’s it to be, my reluctant lady?” he asked, simply. “Are we sharing more than a bed tonight?”

  She made an unhappy face. “Is it ridiculous of me to want you to hold me for now?”

  “Yes.” His arms went around her, and he settled her on his bare, muscled shoulder. “We’ll have tomorrow. Tonight, let’s let the tears dry.”

  She understood. He had stripped himself bare talking about his wretched marriage. She in turn had told him so much about her relationship with Rick. Their focus had been on the unhappy past. It hadn’t left either of them in a great mood. She gratefully draped an arm over his chest, and burrowed her torso closer to him. His arms around her tightened.

  “You and I are meant to be together,” he whispered.

  She hoped that was true.

  ***

  Susan woke up hours later, surprised at how soundly she had slept. She, of course, needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It wasn’t romantic, but she didn’t have the bladder of a young gi
rl. She extricated herself from Michael’s embrace and went.

  When she came back and slid under the covers, he was still asleep. The moon had moved around as they slept, and now it poured in the semi-circular oriel windows above the shaded rectangles. She could examine him at her leisure. She hadn’t had the boldness to stare at him as much as she wanted to. His face appeared sculpted in ivory, all angles and shadows. His eyelashes were long and beautiful. His hair was too short to be mussed the way hers was. Instead, he was all pure, sharp angles. His bare chest had a sprinkling of hair and no more. His arms, even in repose, were powerfully muscled. There was no spare flesh. She could see the lines of his blood vessels. Her fingers were tempted to trace them, but she resisted. He was beautiful.

  She wanted him. How wrong was it to feel this? He was hers for the taking. If she was willing to take him, that is. He had already been so generous with her. He’d never made her feel stingy for denying him total access to her body. He’d given her any access she wanted to his own. He had ensured her sexual fulfillment more than once without demanding anything in return.

  She had burdened him with too much of the enormous pain she carried. Her life was a mess. He had accepted it all without complaint. Nothing had dimmed his desire for her except his recounting of his own past. How she wished she could be a virgin for him. How she wished with all her heart that she could come to him pure and innocent, with no regrets and no fears, but she was who she was.

  She was in bed with a man who wanted to make love to her, yet she didn’t have the courage to tell him she wanted the same thing. Even though she’d told him she loved him. She was tired of explaining and more explaining, and tired of wondering what was right and what was wrong. She wanted to meld with him in the mindless release of sexual ecstasy.

  He was the only man in the world who made her go hot instantly. Deep inside her female parts there was a reaction to this man and this man alone. She had spent her entire life not believing it was possible for her to feel this way. Yet just looking at him made her want to touch him all over, to kiss him and lick him and bite him, too. She wanted to eat him up.

  She took a shallow breath. Her hand raised in the air. She wanted to touch him, but should she?

  “Touch me,” he ground out.

  She started in surprise. Her hand went of its own accord to caress his chest. He groaned. She daringly leaned over his face. His eyes were half open, glittering in the moonlight.

  How long had he been awake, watching her drool over his body? She didn’t bother to ask. She closed in and kissed him on the lips. He turned over, capturing her body beneath his.

  “You’ve been torturing me forever. Now it ends,” he said.

  “Yes,” she sighed in acceptance. “Now.”

  He kissed her deeply. His tongue possessed her mouth, sliding against hers roughly, as one leg slid between her thighs, pushing up her nightgown.

  One hand went down to pull the nightgown over her head. She helped. She was naked beneath it, and he could see that in the moonlight.

  “You’re beautiful,” he breathed, “like alabaster.” One hand stroked her breast. It seemed to swell under his touch. The mere graze of his palm on her nipple caused her feminine core to shudder.

  “Oh, you are so, so ready, my love,” he whispered, touching her intimately and feeling her response.

  She was beyond words. Her sighs of surrender were the only sounds she could make, as he quickly rid himself of his pajama bottoms, then firmly parted her thighs and positioned himself between them.

  “Hold on, darling,” he said, between kisses. His hands were all over her, on her aching breasts, holding her hips, touching her inner thighs. Then with one push he was inside her.

  She lost herself. A haze clouded her mind. She knew the pressure of his manhood deep within her, slowly withdrawing, then surging back to possess her again. She knew she stroked him feverishly, that she arched up to receive him deeper inside. She knew that he kissed each of her breasts, saying how pretty they were. She couldn’t control herself. His pace was too slow. She needed more. She moved restlessly, wanting to take him in deeper, desperate to feel herself filled at last. She begged with her body. Michael had control of their pace, and he tortured her with his slow, deliberate strokes. In, out. He put a large hand under her buttocks, to force her body closer as he pushed in slowly, ravishing her with his control of her. Until she broke apart completely, uttering tiny cries he swallowed with his mouth.

  He didn’t let her spiral down. He was still hard within her. He continued to move in her slowly, and every nerve in her body felt raw and aching. “It’s too much,” she sobbed.

  He sucked on her nipples, shaping her breasts with his hands. Still he moved within her.

  “There’s more,” he said, as he pressed into her again. And again. Susan’s mind was crazed. Her body felt like it was part of him. She was held and possessed completely. She strained away from his power over her yet yearned toward his hardness. His rhythm built. Her body became one aching pulse that moved with his.

  Finally, she was so raw with desire that all it took was one simple stroke of his hand at her waist as he again pressed down into her. She sobbed her completion into his neck as he spilled his seed within her with a deep groan.

  Afterward, she was dazed. As their breathing finally slowed, Michael began to kiss her again.

  “You’re so perfect,” he said, dropping nibbling kisses all over her face. His hands petted her body. They were still joined intimately. His fingers stroked her pubic hair gently. Suddenly, without warning, she felt herself near orgasm again.

  The itch for him again overwhelmed her, even as he used his fingers to touch and probe her. He moved sharply within her. She shattered again.

  It seemed a long time later when she was able to speak again. “I can’t believe that was me,” she said on a sigh.

  “You’ve got a hair trigger, darling,” he smiled, kissing her neck and then biting her earlobe gently.

  “Only with you.” She shivered, and he tightened his arms around her.

  “Cold?”

  “I’m just…I’m stunned.”

  “You never knew this about yourself?” he asked, as one hand played with strands of her hair.

  “I’ve never been this way,” she said, wonder in her voice.

  “Good.” His male satisfaction was clear.

  It was true. He was the only man who evoked this response in her.

  “Your hair looks like silver in the moonlight,” he whispered, and draped a strand between them as he kissed her lips. “Silver silk. That’s what you feel like inside.” He reversed their positions, lying back and pulling her above him. The moonlight bathed her completely, while he lay below her in darkness.

  “I want to see you shine this time,” he said, shifting her hips until she took him in again. She didn’t need his urging to sink down on him and impale herself deeply. As she gasped in pleasure, he set their rhythm. Her head went back, and he palmed her breasts and squeezed her nipples gently. She held onto his arms, convulsively moving on him, and came to orgasm again.

  The night was endless. She lost count of the number of times he brought her to completion. Finally, still entwined, they both slept.

  ***

  In the early dawn, she woke up naked in Michael’s arms. She had never been an entwined kind of gal with Rick. Oh, damn. No comparisons. There should only be two people in this bed. What had she done? Yielded the moral high ground. Allowed herself to seek a purely selfish relationship. Gotten herself in a mess of trouble.

  Then he stirred, and something new in her stirred, too. She set aside her doubts and ran her hand down his side desirously. He woke up instantly, all parts of him. “Susan,” he whispered. His hand touched her face with such gentleness she could cry.

  For a second, she thought about not answering. Then she said, “Do it again.”

  A while later, they dozed, and then woke at the same moment. And smiled. He pushed a lock of her hair awa
y from her face. Her hair probably looked like a dust mop. She didn’t care. “You are a tigress,” he said, and kissed her.

  When she could breathe again, she said, “Only with you.” She climbed his chest and took possession of his lips, torturing him with long, slow kisses until he rolled her over under him and captured her mouth, plundering it ruthlessly.

  Finally, when it was fully morning, she roused from her sex-induced lethargy. Through slitted eyelids, she saw that daylight had arrived. “Good morning.” She turned to face him, although how she could without total embarrassment was a marvel to her.

  “A very good morning,” he responded in a deep voice. She could hear the smile in it. She opened her eyes more and saw the blazing joy in his face.

  She was responsible for this. She touched his morning-rough cheek with her fingertips, stroking him gently. “I never want to hurt you,” she said.

  He grasped her fingers and brought them to his lips, kissing them solemnly. Then he said, “I love you.”

  Chapter 23

  Rona had never needed to wear a bra and she wasn’t wearing one today, either. She wasn’t exactly flat-chested, but it didn’t matter. Showing her nipples didn’t bother her. She could tell that Edward noticed right away when he picked her up to take her to lunch with his daughter, Celia.

  “Won’t you be too cool in that thin blouse?”

  “No. Can you see my nipples? I’m wearing a camisole.”

  “It’s delightfully lacy,” he said, in his courtly way. “I am getting a charming view.”

  “It’s all your fault,” she retorted, smiling, “You make every part of me perk up, darling.”

  A pleased flush rose in his still-handsome face, and he held her hand tighter as he helped her into the cab.

  As at ease as she was with her sexuality, she could tell at a glance upon meeting Celia that the younger woman was not. Rona dialed it down, pushing the intellectual college professor side of her nature as much as she could. It was her only concession.

  Celia was thirty-three years old, and looked it. She was dressed expensively, but without flair, as if she had gone to a high-end but conservative boutique and picked her blouse and skirt randomly. The typical bleached blonde hair of the socialite didn’t become her, and she’d been neglectful of having her roots touched up. She wore makeup, but Rona’s expert eye could tell that Celia had chosen the wrong shade of blush, and her eye makeup was doing nothing for her, either. Worst of all was Celia’s sullen expression. It made her look prematurely middle-aged.