by Jane Peden
She peeled off the loosened dress, and was left with only her stiletto sandals and a tiny wisp of a black thong. And the string of pearls he’d bought her.
Her pulse quickened when he said, “If I’d known that was all you had on under that dress we’d have left a lot sooner.”
She knelt down in front of him, slipping in between his legs, felt her breasts tingle as they brushed against the fabric of his tuxedo pants. Nerves as much as arousal had made her nipples taut, and she felt a flush spread across her entire body as his eyes focused on her breasts. She reached around him, undid his cummerbund, then unhooked his pants, slid the zipper down slowly, and took him into her hand. He was already hard. His heart and mind may be wary, but his body would betray them. She used her mouth on him and could feel his restraint, coiled like a tight cord, begin to slip.
“Oh God, Camilla.” He leaned back in the seat and she felt him shudder. She grabbed the small purse, shook out its contents on the seat, and quickly ripped open a condom and unrolled it over the length of him. His narrowed eyes were still watching her. She still couldn’t read him, didn’t know what he was thinking, but he made no move to stop her as she slipped out of her thong and slid onto his lap, straddling him. She took him inside her, thinking, Please, Sam, don’t push me away this time.
She started moving, slowly, her eyes never leaving his face. She could see the passion stirring in his eyes, and a tenderness she dared to hope might be love. Then his hands were on her, and she wasn’t in control anymore. Her seduction had turned, suddenly, and it was Sam who was setting the pace. She felt her senses spinning out of control while those clever hands, that skilled mouth, ruled her, owned her. He pulled her hands up behind his head, and she grabbed on to some sort of handle on the limo roof to try to anchor herself in the storm of sensations sweeping through her. He adjusted her slightly and his strokes became faster, more powerful as his mouth left a blazing trail on her neck, her breasts. When he began flicking his tongue over her nipples she was almost undone by the delicious torment of it. He took her still higher.
“Camilla.” His voice was softer, and there was a note of tenderness that belied the controlled frenzy of his lovemaking. “You’re mine, Camilla.” It wasn’t a demand. It was almost like…a caress.
But she didn’t have time to think about it. His teeth nipped her lightly as his hands fisted in her hair and the next fast, powerful thrust shot her over the edge. She cried out then, heard herself sobbing his name as her hands slipped loose and she collapsed against him, her body shuddering, as the pleasure stretched out like a long, high-pitched chord that intensified until it seemed to defy time. She felt him tense and let himself go, and she screamed his name again and, in that moment, would have given him anything.
He threw his head back and groaned, his hand idly stroking her back and sending shivers through her as she lay against him, utterly spent.
You’re mine, he had said. And she was, for as long as he wanted her. But what happened when he didn’t want her anymore? She’d gotten him to make love to her again. But wanting to make love to her and actually loving her were two very different things.
She knew that, at least on some level, Sam cared about her. He couldn’t have touched her with so much tenderness if he still looked at her and saw a lying, cheating opportunist. It was so clear to her now that they had a future beyond just securing JD’s place in their lives. Could he really continue to live in the same house with her, share the joys of raising their son together, and not realize she had good reasons for the difficult choices she had made? Reasons that had nothing to do with a fancy penthouse and a lavish lifestyle. Reasons that had everything to do with protecting someone she loved.
Camilla sighed, her cheek resting on his shoulder, breathing in the clean, male scent of his skin. She would do everything she could over the coming months to convince him to let go of the past and build a life with her. Because if she failed, walking away from him would be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
…
At some point Sam realized that the limo was no longer moving. He was slowly regaining his senses, and his wife was still draped over him, her naked body limp. He ran his hand lower down her back, indulged himself by stroking her tight little butt, and felt her shiver.
It was a hot night, but it was cool inside the limo and her body was coated with a thin sheen of perspiration. He grabbed his tuxedo jacket and draped it around her like a blanket, then slid both hands under and gently kneaded her bottom, enjoying the way she squirmed a bit under his hands. He was still inside her, and to his surprise, found himself going hard again already.
She arched her back and looked at him, her sleepy eyes widening as she realized he was about to take her again. He adjusted her on his lap long enough to deal with a fresh condom, then lowered her back in place. He moved slowly inside her, angling her to give her the most pleasure. He wanted her to come unraveled in his arms. He was nowhere near satisfying his appetite for her.
God, it had practically killed him, lying there in the same bed with her night after night, not allowing himself to touch her.
He’d denied himself the pleasure of her body when it became too difficult to separate the Camilla who schemed her way into a fortune from the warm and vulnerable woman she appeared to be since moving into his home. When he’d realized he was in danger of letting his guard down and opening up his heart.
Damned if there wasn’t something so appealingly innocent about her that made him want to just disregard all the evidence against her and never let her go. He felt a lessening in his resolve when she was in his arms, and it was either something to be avoided at all costs or the best thing that had ever happened to him. The real trick was to figure out which.
His wife was clutching his shoulders now, her fingers digging in as her eyes glazed over with arousal and she started moaning softly, her hips moving to match the slow tempo he’d set. He moved his hands in between them, and began lightly stroking the sensitive tips of her breasts. She was the most responsive woman he’d ever made love to, and he studied the expressions on her face, wanting to watch her this time as she went over the edge.
When she tried to quicken the pace, he slowed her, calmed her, held her in place and let the heat build between them like a slow tide, until she finally broke, cresting on waves of pleasure, clenching around him until he could no longer hold back. He dived into the darkness with her then and felt himself fall.
When his mind cleared enough to move his limbs again, Sam shifted Camilla off his lap. He lifted his jacket from around her shoulders, pulled her dress down over her head a bit awkwardly, and then zipped it up. He was much more accustomed to slipping a woman out of a fancy dress than back into one.
She murmured something and looked up at him languidly through half-closed eyes while he removed his shoes and socks, then slid the strappy sandals off Camilla’s feet. She had such pretty feet, with delicate arches, her nails polished the color of sea coral. He was surprised he’d never noticed before. He was beginning to think there might be a lot of things he hadn’t bothered to notice about Camilla. Then her sleepy eyes seemed to clear as she became aware again of her surroundings.
“Sam? What are you…?”
“Come on.” He pulled her out the car door onto the deserted beach, one hand gripping her wrist and the other holding the neck of the champagne bottle and the stems of two glasses. His jacket was tossed over his arm, and his shirt was still halfway unbuttoned, his tuxedo tie hanging loosely. He figured he looked like exactly what he was—a man who had just had mind-blowing sex in the back of a limo with the most beautiful woman at the party.
He pulled her forward and she stumbled after him, hurrying to catch up with his long stride. “Sam, I don’t have my shoes.”
“You’ll hardly need them, darling, to walk on the beach.”
The world “darling” had just slipped out, unbidden, and he found he was okay with that. This was Camilla as he liked her best. Rumpled from
sex and a little disoriented from the pleasure they’d just shared. Vulnerable and open to him in ways she wasn’t when she had her guard in place. If this was the real Camilla, then he wasn’t certain he could ever let her go.
They stopped just above the wet sand line left from the receding tide, and he noticed for the first time that there was a full moon. The Atlantic was black, the waves churning and then breaking in a rush of water and foam that swept up the beach and then just as quickly slid away. He had the sudden urge to dive into it, plunge though the pounding waves, and swim against the current until he was too exhausted to deal with his conflicted thoughts about his wife. Camilla stared into the black depths as if she had read his mind, and gave a little shudder.
“Cold?”
“No.” She looked up at him then and brushed her now-wild hair away from her face, before turning back to the waves pounding onto the shore. “It makes me feel completely out of control sometimes.”
He wasn’t sure if she was referred to the ocean or the emotions that were swirling inside her. But he was pretty sure he knew exactly how she felt.
The air was warm, and there was a slight breeze. He spread his jacket on the sand.
“You’re going to ruin your jacket.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got others.”
Camilla sat down, leaning back to look up at the stars.
He used his shirttail to smoothly pop the cork, then filled their glasses and wondered for a moment if Camilla imagined him bringing other women on midnight limo rides to the beach. She’d probably be surprised if she knew this was a first. And something he probably wouldn’t have thought of if she hadn’t orchestrated the moonlit ride and stocked the limo with champagne. He leaned over her, setting the bottle and glasses aside in the sand, and slid his hand up the inside of her thigh. She was warm and damp and she arched toward him as he stroked her.
“Sam,” her voice was soft, low, and tinged with excitement. “Again? What’s come over you?”
“You.” He stood up, pulled her to her feet, and slid the long zipper all the way down the back of her dress.
She glanced around.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way, dropping shirt and tie by his jacket. “There’s no one here but you and me.”
He watched as she let the dress fall. Her skin glistened in the moonlight. He stripped off the rest of his own clothes, kicking them to the side, and then scooped her into his arms.
“Where are we going?”
“You like old movies?” he asked, as he carried her down into the edge of the water.
“From Here to Eternity,” she said as she sank down onto the wet sand, and he slid his body over hers. Their legs entwined as the waves broke over them and he felt her heart pounding as his lips covered hers.
“I don’t think…Deborah Kerr…and Burt Lancaster…were naked,” she said, when he finally let her lips free for a moment.
“At least not while the cameras were rolling,” Sam said.
He looked down at her as the foamy water covered her breasts with the next wave and then receded again. Then he lowered his mouth to her breast and tasted the sweetness of her skin and the salty flavor left by the waves as she arched against him. He sucked harder on her nipple as the water buffeted them from side to side. Sam rolled with her, angling them a little higher on the wet sand so that her face stayed out of the water while the waves slapped their bodies. Her hands grasped his hair, his neck, her nails digging into the muscles in his back with sharp pressure points that inflamed his need for her.
She cried out his name as the next large wave broke over them and he entered her right at that moment, thrusting harder and faster with every new wave that pounded them until the pleasure was almost unbearable. He felt her go over, shuddering and gasping and clinging to his shoulders while her body convulsed under him and he emptied himself into her with the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced.
Later as they rode back in the limo, Camilla fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, wearing only his discarded shirt. They pulled into his driveway in the early hours of the morning, with the first glimmers of pink tinting the sky before dawn. Sam had no doubt her dress was ruined, and he left it in a crumpled pile in the back of the limo. But he picked up the lacy panties from the seat, smiled, and put them in his pocket. Then, with the strappy sandals and the tiny excuse for a purse dangling from his hand, he carried his sleeping wife into the house and put her to bed.
Then he poured himself a brandy and went out onto the terrace, and waited for the sun to rise. Did people really change? Or did their traits, for good or bad, remain with them through life? It was a question that came up time and again in his law practice. He wished he knew the answer.
The Camilla he’d held in his arms tonight, the Camilla whose love for her son seemed to show through her actions every day, that Camilla was someone he could so easily imagine spending the rest of his life with. Part of him wanted very much to just take a chance, forget about the divorce and the petition for full custody, and build a future with the person she was now, regardless of the things she’d done in the past.
But if he took that chance—and he was wrong—it wasn’t just his own future he was gambling with. Sam knew that, if necessary, he could survive the heartbreak of a family dismantling in bitterness and betrayal. He’d been through it all before. But the experience was not one he was willing to risk for his own son. Protecting JD’s future was the most important thing, the only thing, that really mattered.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivia walked into the courthouse beside Sam, looking much older than her fifteen years in the jacket and skirt and high heels she’d selected. He realized with a start that he was going to really miss her when she returned to school up north in the fall.
Sam, usually so decisive, was starting to second-guess his own decisions. And if he was brutally honest with himself, he had to admit that he was no longer looking forward to his marriage with Camilla ending. And he was starting to wonder if perhaps he’d been too harsh in his plan to seek full custody of JD. As an attorney, though, he knew that the time to move decisively was when the divorce papers were filed, not at some point in the future when he might regret his moment of softheartedness.
Sam put his file on the conveyer belt, said hello to the bailiffs, and walked through the metal detector, picking the file up on the other side. Olivia followed, putting her purse on the belt as Sam had instructed. He noticed she seemed to hesitate a bit, then squared her shoulders and walked through. The alarm went off.
“Miss?” The bailiff approached her. “Do you have something metal in your pockets?” He glanced down at the narrow-heeled pumps she was wearing. “Maybe it’s your shoes.”
“No,” Olivia said, glancing apologetically at Sam. “It’s me. I have some metal pins in me from surgery after a car accident.”
The bailiff nodded and went over her from head to toe with the wand, which went off at least five or six times.
What in the world had happened to her in that accident? The bailiff let her through and Sam looked at her as they rode up in the elevator. She smiled back at him, her face already telegraphing her excitement about the upcoming hearing. It made his heart ache to think how much Olivia must have suffered. He knew Camilla had cared for her sister during her recovery, but he’d had no idea how extensive that care must have been.
Sam introduced Olivia to the other lawyer and to the judge, explaining that she was still in high school, but was working in his office for the summer and was planning to be a lawyer herself. The judge told her it was excellent experience, and that she was welcome to sit in.
The hearing progressed, and Sam laid out his carefully planned argument. His opposing counsel made a persuasive case for the judge to deny Sam’s motion. When the judge ruled in Sam’s favor, he felt a surge of joy that Olivia had been there to see it. He glanced over at Olivia and saw pride shining from her eyes as she listened to the judge ann
ounce his ruling. This must be what it feels like to have your family be proud of your accomplishments, even the small ones.
Having his young sister-in-law replaying the hearing on their way out of the courthouse caught him off guard. And surprisingly, he found himself utterly charmed by it.
“…it’s like you knew exactly what he was going to say, and then, slam, when it was your turn you just toasted him.” Her eyes were shining.
“You know, I should bring you to court with me more often. You’re good for my ego.”
“Yes, you should,” she said, and laughed at him. “I’d really like to be here for one of your trials,” she said wistfully.
The next case Sam had set for trial wasn’t until the middle of September, and Olivia would have already left for school by then. He felt a twinge of guilt that he really couldn’t in good conscience urge her to stay. But Olivia was bubbling on, apparently oblivious to his momentary discomfort.
“…and it’s so cool the way you and that other lawyer battled it out in front of the judge, and then once the hearing was over, it’s like you were friends. Seriously Sam, don’t you just absolutely love what you do?”
He hadn’t thought about it lately. He’d been too busy winning cases and building his firm. But yeah, she was right. He did love what he did.
They went into a deli and ordered lunch, grabbing a table in a little courtyard.
“I love the weather here,” Olivia said, as she studied the colorful tabletop, speckled with sunlight filtered through palm leaves. “It’s just so bright and sunny all the time.”
“The heat doesn’t bother you?”
“No.” She bit into a sandwich that featured avocados, mangoes, cream cheese, and sprouts, and gave a contented sigh.
Sam shook his head and picked up his turkey club. “What did they call that thing?” he asked, gesturing toward her sandwich.
“I think the Sea Breeze? It’s yummy.”
