by Donna Hill
He rose up slightly and glanced at her. “You won’t have me smelling like a girl will you?”
Barbara chuckled. “I’ll try not to. Actually it’s their men’s line.”
“Oh, good.” He rested his chin on his crossed arms.
Barbara stepped up to the table and for a moment stared at the muscles in his back. Her gaze trailed down to the small chocolate birthmark on the left side of his spine. She smiled, remembering. She shook off the images and began opening bottles. She poured some oil on her palms and rubbed her hands together then added more.
She started at the base of his neck, massaging the muscles there. “Relax,” she said softly, more for her benefit than his. She reached for his arms and guided them down to his sides. She worked his shoulders, his back, paying close attention to the knots of tension stored along either side of his spine.
Wil moaned both from the relief that ran through his body as from the heat of her touch. He closed his eyes while her fingers did their magic. He knew this was a professional experience. At least his mind understood that but his body said something completely different. Her fingers were sensual, waking him up, stirring him in ways that he’d held in check. As much as he wanted to think about cold showers and trucks, he couldn’t. All he could imagine was Barbara touching him. It was Barbara, the woman he’d never stopped loving.
“You can turn over now,” she said, sounding breathless.
He turned slowly. The towel caught around his hips as he did, revealing the soft hairs around his groin. Barbara’s gaze, like a magnet zeroed in on his obvious erection.
“Barb,” he whispered.
“Wil…I…”
He sat up and the towel fell away. He reached for her and she couldn’t move. His hand clasped the back of her head and pulled her toward his waiting lips.
When his lips touched hers, fireworks went off in her head. Her heart thudded at a maddening pace. His left arm slid around her waist and she melted into his embrace.
Time spun backward. She was a young girl again and Wil was her first love. He kissed her with a passion and longing that she thought she’d found again in Michael. But she hadn’t. This was it. This was it.
Wil held her tighter, afraid that if he loosened his hold on her this dream would slip away. Like a man half his age, he nimbly got up from the table, the towel now on the floor beneath his feet. He ran his hands along her back. He breathed her in, nuzzling her neck, the scent of her hair and skin like aphrodisiacs to his senses.
Barbara pressed against him, the feel of his arms around her, his strong naked body throbbing against hers, had her dizzy with desire. He groaned her name, turned her around until her back was now against the table. He bent her back until her body arched, her pelvis jutting out against his erection. His mouth slid down her neck. His fingers unbuttoned her smock and nearly tore it from her body.
All reason left her as she allowed him to undress her. The only coherent thought in her head was Wil, having him again, feeling him inside her again.
He lifted her onto the table and then climbed up, his heavy body hovering above her. He looked into her eyes. “I’ve never stopped loving you. Never,” he groaned as he raised her knees up along his waist.
She couldn’t breath, didn’t want to. She felt the hardness of him press against her, demanding entry. God, she was so wet. Her body shook as he pushed inside her, just a little, teasing. She drew in a sharp breath as the length of him slowly filled her.
“Wil,” she gasped.
His mouth covered hers, his kiss as deep as his entry into her body. They moved slowly, reacquainting themselves with each other, enjoying the reunion.
Barbara closed her eyes and held him, moving her hips against him, needing to feel every inch of him. They blended together so perfectly. If this is wrong, she thought in a haze, she didn’t want to be right.
As their desire rose so did the tempo between them. Wil rocked in out of her, his mind totally scrambled. He was one giant raw nerve. He didn’t ever want this to stop. But he knew that it would at any moment.
“Barb!” he ground out, surging against her.
She felt the muscles inside her suddenly contract and he cried out. Jolts of electricity shot through her. She buried her face in his neck as her body shook in uncontrolled release.
“Ohhh,” she whimpered, shuddering as the last of her climax ebbed out of her.
They lay entangled with each other, their breaths coming hot and fast, slowly subsiding along with the beats of their hearts.
Wil stroked the sides of her face, brushing away the damp strands of hair from her cheeks. He tenderly kissed her lips.
“It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he said.
Her breathing halted in her chest. She focused on his face.
“It was better.” He grinned down at her and she giggled like a young girl.
She caressed his back and relaxed, letting her eyes drift closed. She should feel guilty, she realized. But she didn’t. If anything, she felt gloriously alive, fulfilled and utterly satisfied.
Although so many years, so many experiences had passed between them since they last saw each other, they fit right back together like puzzle pieces. Perfect and complete. She held him tighter. But this couldn’t happen again.
“I want to keep seeing you, Barb,” he said against her neck. He rose up a bit and looked at her, waiting for a response.
“Wil…” She released her hold on him.
He eased up. She lowered her legs and sat up. Wil gave her some room. Suddenly she felt totally naked. Wil got off the table. She grabbed the sheet and pulled it up around her.
The intercom in the massage room blared.
“Ms. Allen, your next client is here.”
Barbara’s eyes flew to Wil’s. He took the hint and went to retrieve his clothing.
“Are you going to talk to me?” he asked as he began getting dressed.
“Not now. I need to get ready.” She quickly got dressed and wished she had time for a shower before her next client. She picked up her smock from the floor and her engagement ring fell out, rolled accusingly across the floor to stop at Wil’s feet.
He stared at it a moment before bending down to pick it up. He examined it. His expression went from casual to concerned. He held it in his hands.
“Yours?” He held it out to her, watching her expression.
For a moment she couldn’t move.
“Is it?”
The harsh bite of his question jarred her. She swallowed. “Yes.” She took it from his hand and shoved it back in her pocket.
“You’re married?” His voice held more pain than question.
“No.” An eternity passed. “Engaged.”
Chapter 18
Ann Marie was frozen in place. It had been more than twenty years since she’d set eyes on Terrance. Nothing about him had changed. If anything, his good looks had only ripened with age.
His presence sucked the air from the room and Ann Marie struggled to breathe.
Stephanie quickly took in the stark similarity between Raquel and the man standing next to her. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the one and only Terrance Bishop, the man Ann Marie had fled a country to get away from. Damn, damn, damn. “Do you want me to stay?” she whispered to Ann Marie.
Ann Marie slowly shook her head no.
Stephanie got up from her seat. “Good to see you again, Raquel.”
“This is my father,” she said, her voice laced with pride. She smiled up at her dad. “Dad, this is Stephanie Moore.”
Terrance stuck out his hand and focused in on Stephanie. “My pleasure, Ms. Moore.”
His accent was like music, a deep bass with wind instruments in the background.
Stephanie shook his hand, transfixed. “Nice to meet you.” She turned to Ann Marie who had yet to budge. “I, uh, guess I’ll go on upstairs.” She turned back to Terrance and Raquel, started to walk out, when Terrance’s voice stopped her.
�
�Sweetheart, why don’t you go on upstairs and let your mother and I talk for a few minutes?”
Raquel tossed a sour glance in her mother’s direction and reluctantly left with Stephanie.
Terrance turned all his charm on Ann Marie. “Still beautiful.”
“Don’t, Terrance.”
He stepped closer. “Don’t what—tell my wife that she’s beautiful? What kind of husband would that make me?” He smiled down at her and she grew hot all over. “Mind if I sit down?”
“It wouldn’t matter, I’m sure you’ll do as you damn well please.”
He chuckled. “Still fiery. I like that. I always liked that about you.”
She turned away from him as he sat down. “What do you want Terrance?”
“To see you again. I told you that.”
“Well, you’ve seen me. Now you can go.”
“That’s not all.”
She flashed him a hard look. “What does that mean?”
“A reconciliation.”
“You’re crazy. It’s done with us.”
“Never.”
The word vibrated inside her. He got up from his seat to stand directly over her. He took her hand and pulled her up from her seat. His arm snaked around her in a viselike grip. The room closed in around them. He lifted her off her feet to meet his lips. Her body shook.
“Terrance…” The word was a breath of air.
“Yes…” He lowered his head to capture her mouth.
She twisted her head away, but not before his hot mouth met hers for an instant too long.
“No,” she said with little force.
He tried once more, clamping her head in his hand. His tongue darted in her mouth and her knees gave out. He held her tighter before slowly setting her back down on her feet. She pulled away, stumbling backward. Her eyes were wild, her breath escaping in uneven puffs. She looked up at him and a smile of achievement moved languidly across his mouth. He licked his lips. “Still sweet.”
“Get out, Terrance.” Her nostrils flared as she sucked in air.
Terrance made a move toward her, but stopped. “This isn’t over between us, Mari. I’ll be back.” He turned and walked out.
Ann collapsed into the chair. She ran a trembling hand across her lips that still burned. She covered her face in her hands and wept.
“Engaged?”
The question hung in the air.
She nodded numbly.
“I see.”
“Wil, I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
“Yeah, maybe you should have.” He brushed passed her and out the door without even a backward glance.
For several moments Barbara stood in the deafening silence. Then drawing in a breath she buttoned her smock and walked out and ran right into Stephanie.
“You’ll never guess who was just here,” Stephanie sputtered.
It took a moment for Barbara to register what was being said. “What?”
Stephanie repeated her statement then looked Barbara over. “Girl if I didn’t know better I’d swear you just had a romp in the haystack.”
Barbara inwardly flinched. “Who was just here?” she asked turning the inquiry away from her and her most current dilemma. She could still feel the beat of Wil inside her.
“Terrance.”
Barbara frowned then her eyes widened. “Ann Marie’s Terrance?”
“One and the same.”
Barbara started off toward the office with Stephanie hot on her heels. Barbara knocked lightly on the door, her next client all but forgotten. When she didn’t get an answer, she turned the knob and walked in.
Ann Marie was still at the desk. Her eyes were red and she was sniffling hard.
Barbara gingerly approached. “Ann,” she said gently. “Are you all right?”
Stephanie looked around as if half expecting Terrance to jump out from behind a filing cabinet.
Ann Marie shook her head back and forth. Barbara eased over to her and pulled up a chair. “What happened?”
Ann Marie started blubbering and yammering in that accent that they couldn’t understand, barely getting the gist of it out. In a nutshell, Terrance had reappeared and shook the foundation of her world with one unwanted but soul-shattering kiss.
“Damn him to hell,” she finally spat.
Barbara and Stephanie looked at each other. With her sizzling tryst with Wil and now this thing with Terrance and Ann, she didn’t want to imagine anything more.
Barbara took Ann Marie’s hand and then Stephanie’s just as Elizabeth walked in.
“Hey, what’s going on? I swore I saw Raquel and a man who had to be her father, and Wil practically snatched my head off when I spoke to him.” She looked from one distraught face to the next.
“I think it’s time for a girls’ night,” Barbara said. “My house, tonight, nine o’clock.”
Barbara set a platter of dip surrounded by Wheat Thin crackers, celery sticks and raw baby carrots on the center of her grandmother’s table. “The honey-barbecue wings are warming in the oven,” she said taking a seat.
“Drink anyone?” Stephanie asked.
Everyone raised their empty glasses. Stephanie poured healthy doses of the frozen apple martinis that Barbara had prepared.
“Who’s going first?” Elizabeth said. “’Cause I want to know what I’ve apparently been missing.”
“Since I called this little soiree, I suppose I should,” Barbara said. She looked from one to the other. “I slept with Wil,” she blurted out before she changed her mind. Although slept wasn’t any adequate description.
The shout of “what” was anything but on key.
“You slept with Wil?” Elizabeth croaked in disbelief. “When, where?”
“Today…in the massage room.”
Stephanie jumped up. “I knew it, I knew it. I’d recognize that look anywhere,” she shouted pointing at Barbara.
Barbara looked mildly embarrassed as her interlude with Wil leaped into her head. “It’s not as simple as it sounds.”
“Well don’t just sit there, spill it,” Elizabeth demanded, a bit miffed that Stephanie knew the details before she did.
Barbara brought them all up to date about her earlier relationship with Wil, their breakup and his turning up again after all these years.
“A lot of that going ‘round,” Ann Marie murmured. “Men just turnin’ up like bad pennies.” She took a long swallow of her drink.
“Does he know about you and Michael?” Stephanie asked.
“He does now.” She told them about her engagement ring falling out of her smock pocket.
“Damn, girl,” Ann Marie blurted.
“Let’s just say it ended badly,” Barbara said.
“What are you going to do?” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
They were all silent, caught up in Barbara’s drama.
“What me gone do ‘bout Terrance?” Ann Marie asked, breaking the silence.
The trio focused their attention on Ann Marie as she spilled her episode.
“Our lives are anything but boring,” Elizabeth muttered.
“You need to come to some decision about Michael first and foremost,” Stephanie advised. “How do you feel about him?”
“It’s obvious that you still have very strong feelings for Wil,” Elizabeth said. “You’re not the kind of woman who sleeps around just for the thrill of it.”
“Wil doesn’t seem to think so,” Barbara said, her tone heavy with regret. She looked at her friends. “The last thing I wanted to ever do was hurt him again. Walking away all those years ago was enough.”
“He needs to know why,” Elizabeth said.
Ann Marie and Stephanie looked at Barbara and nodded in agreement.
Barbara slowly shook her head. “It’s probably too late. He’ll never speak to me again. And I know he’ll never come back to the spa. How am I going to explain?”
Ann Marie cocked her head to the side. “Whatcha think we got th
at computer for, chile? Look ‘im up and go to his house.”
“She’s right,” Stephanie agreed. “You have the information, use it.”
“But what about Michael?” Barbara asked.
“You need to search your heart,” Elizabeth said. “Only you know how you feel. And if you were able to sleep with Wil…” She let the rest of her telling statement hang in the air.
“Then maybe it’s not what you think it is,” Stephanie added.
Ann Marie was thoughtful for a moment. Was what she had with Sterling the real thing or a substitute once again for Terrance?
“Me have the same questions,” Ann Marie said softly.
The trio looked in her direction.
“How do you feel about Sterling?” Stephanie asked.
Ann Marie drew in a long breath before speaking. “Been dealing with that question all day.”
“And…” Elizabeth asked.
“Sterling is everything I’ve been looking for. He knows all about Terrance and he still wants to make it work. When I’m with him, nothing else matters.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there,” Elizabeth said.
Ann Marie looked at her. “But when I saw Terrance today…when he kissed me…I was twenty again.” She sighed.
“Then you have some decisions to make as well, Ann,” Barbara said.
“I know.”
“Life is supposed to get easier when you get older,” Stephanie groused. “We’re all mature women in our forties. We should be enjoying life not embroiled in relationship madness.”
“You got that right,” Barbara said. “I figured once I hit forty it would be smooth sailing. I’ll be fifty in a few months and damn if I don’t feel like I’m twenty-one.” She chuckled.
“Love is a never ending cycle,” Elizabeth said.
“As long as we can draw a breath it’s going to keep changing and evolving.”
“There’s got to come a point when all the pieces finally fall into place. I’d hate to be in my seven ties bed hopping, if you know what I mean.”
“As long as you take your tube of Bengay with you, you’ll be fine,” Barbara joked.
They all cracked up laughing.
