Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling

by Pamela Browning

  “That’s not an excuse I’ve ever heard before,” he said, kissing her between her breasts and moving lower.

  “It’s not an excuse. It’s true,” she said as his hands moved to the cleft between her legs and parted them.

  And then he didn’t talk for a long time. A long, long time, during which he learned about every part of her body and she learned about every part of his. But even learning, even finally knowing, wasn’t enough. He wanted to touch her in every conceivable way, to drive her to heights that she had never before imagined and that he hadn’t imagined either. He only knew that there were things about this woman that he needed to know in this lifetime, and the sudden thought occurred to him that even a lifetime might not be long enough.

  Before he had time to settle that thought into a part of his mind where he could revisit it at leisure, Karma sat and urged him up with her. Her arms folded around him, pulling him closer, and he couldn’t believe it when she murmured with the utmost good humor and a twinkle in her eyes, “Now, cowboy, you’re going to teach me how to ride.” And then she slid over him, bearing down all warm and wet and ready, laughing gently when all he could do was gasp and circle his arms around her hips.

  Ride him she did, flowing into the act so naturally that it seemed as if they had been indulging in this sweet pastime forever. He drew her into a kiss of passion, tongues tangling in haste, their worlds merging with exquisite delight. He lost himself in her—no, not in her, but in the newness of being truly one with another human being, with Karma.

  Her fingernails bit savagely into his back, urging him on, and when her breath quickened, when she arched her back and cried out his name, he drove himself into her with a fury unmatched by the storm raging outside. She surrendered to him with a recklessness that was matched only by his own, and he couldn’t draw enough air into his lungs, his blood screamed in his veins, his heat threatened to ignite them both. He rose up and bore her to the floor, never letting her go, and as he pinned her beneath him, her cry of release set him free and allowed him to plunge into her with a fierceness that brought on his own climax only seconds after hers.

  He collapsed on her, his whole weight, wanting their bodies to fuse, wanting to be part of her for more than this one night. He felt her trembling beneath him, and he whispered in her ear, “Karma?”

  “Oh,” was all she said, and then again, “oh.”

  He lifted himself up so that he could see her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted.

  “Is that all you can say?” he asked tenderly.

  She swallowed and repressed a smile. “It’s better than, ‘Oh, no!”’

  “What? Are you having regrets already?” His mock seriousness didn’t produce the reaction he’d hoped for. She frowned.

  “You’re a client. You’re supposed to go out with another client on Friday night. I have really screwed up, Slade.” She pushed him off and rolled away.

  “I wouldn’t say you’ve screwed up, exactly, but—”

  “You don’t understand. You couldn’t possibly,” she said, pulling on her shirt and then her shorts. He was stunned that there were tears shining on her eyelashes.

  “I’m willing to try,” he said in total bewilderment. He reached for her, wanting nothing so much as to kiss those tears away and to enfold her in his arms.

  “Oh, Slade,” she said, breaking into sobs. “This is my one chance to succeed. Rent-a-Yenta fell into my lap, a gift from my generous Aunt Sophie and Uncle Nate. I didn’t have a—a job, and I—I needed one, and so I came to Miami Beach to be a matchmaker. And—and I’m failing at that, too!”

  She grabbed her clothes before jumping up and running into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Slade pushed himself to a sitting position and raked a trembling hand through his hair. He had just participated in the most memorable lovemaking session in his life with the most sexual and exciting woman he had ever met, and she was pushing him away. He didn’t know what to think.

  Oh, yes, he did! Gritting his teeth in determination, he yanked on his shorts and strode into the bedroom.

  Slade burst through the door to find Karma sprawled across the bed, her clothes obviously pulled on haphazardly. She had lit a candle and set it on the table beside the bed, and he saw that her face was puffy, her eyes swollen. It was clear that even though some women might be attractive when they cried, Karma was not one of them. This endeared her to him somehow. Who would want a woman who was perfect in every way? It would take too much energy to try to measure up to her.

  “Karma?”

  “Don’t talk to me right now, Slade.”

  It took all his restraint not to drag her off that bed and pull her into his arms. Instead he sat on the bed beside her and brushed the damp hair back from her hot face. “Do you wish we hadn’t made love?” he asked gently.

  She eased over on her back. Her blotchy face was beautiful to him, and her eyes, though exceedingly red of rim, spoke volumes. “If that had been making love, I wouldn’t mind so much.”

  “It felt like it to me,” he said.

  She stared. “It did?”

  He nodded. “I’m thirty-five years old, and I haven’t exactly been celibate. But Karma, I’m telling the truth when I say that it’s never been like that for me. Never. I care about you.”

  She swallowed and tentatively touched his arm. “I’m scared, that’s all.”

  “Scared of me?”

  “No. Scared of what this means. I’ve wanted to make a success of this business, and I can’t do that if I’m going to rip off my best clients for myself.”

  This disconcerted him. “How many clients have you slept with?” He realized after he said it that this was none of his business.

  She sat up. “None, except you. And I don’t intend to do it again. Oh, Slade, I’m not clear about exactly what’s going on here.”

  He leaned closer and took her hand. “Neither of us knows what has begun, but why don’t we find out?” He drew a deep breath. “Come home to Okeechobee City with me, Karma. Meet my parents. See my ranch.”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them. “You’re inviting me to meet your parents? Isn’t that a bit hasty?”

  He regarded her seriously, his eyes searching her face. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I can’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a business to run.”

  “We could go this weekend. Surely you don’t keep office hours on the weekend.”

  “You have a date with Jennifer tomorrow night. She wants you to pick her up at seven o’clock.” He was learning to recognize the stubborn set of her chin.

  “I don’t want to go out with Jennifer. I want to be with you.”

  “I promised her! You have to go!”

  “No, I don’t. I didn’t promise anything. Karma—”

  He stopped talking when she buried her face in her hands. When she lifted it again, she was steely-eyed.

  “Obviously you don’t understand how important the business is to me. If you don’t go out with Jennifer, she’ll pass the word around that Rent-a-Yenta doesn’t follow through on its promises. Who would come to a dating agency that lets its clients down? What kind of memorial would that be to my aunt Sophie?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he allowed.

  “Now that I’ve pointed out the problems, you’ll take Jennifer out. Won’t you?”

  He shook his head. “You’re invited to Okeechobee over the weekend, like I said.”

  She clenched her teeth. “I haven’t said I’d go.”

  “That makes two of us. I’m not going out with Jennifer and you’re not going to Okeechobee. But you and I are going to make love again. For sure.” He stood up and turned his back on her, striding into the kitchen to check a leak in the roof, going to the door to make sure the blanket that they’d stuffed in the hole where they’d broken the glass was still keeping most of the water out. But his mind wasn’t real
ly on those chores. He was thinking about how he could get Karma to Okeechobee.

  After a while, she came to the door of the bedroom, an afghan wrapped around her shoulders. “Slade?”

  “Yes?” He fixed her with a no-nonsense gaze like he did with one of the horses when it got out of line.

  “Maybe we could compromise.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  She walked over to where he stood and placed herself directly in front of him. “You go out with Jennifer tomorrow night, and I leave with you for Okeechobee City on Saturday morning.”

  He stared at her. “You know, you really drive a tough bargain.”

  “It’s a fair one, I think.”

  He sighed. The thought of squiring Jennifer around Miami Beach was unappealing, but perhaps she’d agree to go home early. And as a result, he’d get Karma where he wanted her—on his turf back home where she could see what he was really all about.

  “All right,” he said unenthusiastically. “I’ll go out with Jennifer. Not because I want to, you understand.”

  “I understand,” she said heavily.

  He afforded her a curt nod and watched as she walked back into the bedroom. He should have felt as if he’d won something, but he couldn’t when he felt as if he’d had to pay too high a price.

  KARMA MADE HERSELF as comfortable as she could on one side of the double bed. She’d cocooned herself in the afghan because the spread and the sheets on the bed smelled musty and felt damp. She wished that they would be rescued soon. She wished the storm hadn’t forced them to take shelter in Stiltsville.

  She wished she hadn’t made love with Slade Braddock.

  No, that wasn’t true. What she really wished was that she hadn’t fallen in love with Slade Braddock, and that was a different thing altogether.

  They were a mismatch, that’s for sure. He was a cowboy, and she was a city girl at heart. He liked small women, and she wasn’t. He wanted a wife, and she wasn’t a candidate. Their lifestyles were so different, and how would they ever reconcile those differences? Why, he ate meat. He raised beef and sold it, for Pete’s sake! He was a nice guy, and he was sexy—but it didn’t take a couple of degrees in psychology to know that he wasn’t for her.

  Feeling depressed about the whole thing, she rolled over on her other side and pillowed her head on her hands. She must have dozed because the next thing she knew, Slade was sitting on the bed beside her and offering her a cup of hot tea.

  “I thought you might be cold,” he said.

  This thoughtfulness so endeared him to her that she could only stare.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his forehead pleating into a frown.

  She pushed herself to a sitting position and accepted the cup from him. The tea tasted good, warmed her from the inside out.

  “Mind if I stay here?” he asked.

  She gestured toward the pillow on the unoccupied side of the bed. “Feel free,” she said.

  He plumped the pillow a few times and lay down beside her.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “After midnight.”

  She sighed. “A long time until morning.”

  “The storm seems to be on the wane.”

  “Any signs of boats out there?”

  “No.”

  “We might as well get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Right.”

  “You can stay here if you like.”

  “I was planning to.” He turned toward her. “I’m glad you’re going to Okeechobee with me. My folks will think you’re wonderful.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Once I find me a wife, they’re going to retire to a little house in town, enjoy life.”

  Karma pictured a gray-haired couple, the man with a paunch, the woman’s hair pulled into a bun. With her unconventional background, Karma would have little in common with such people. What would they talk about? What could they like about her?

  “I’m not the kind of wife they’d want for you.”

  “You don’t know that.” He seemed pretty sure of himself.

  “Anyway, maybe you’ll like Jennifer better. Maybe you’ll invite her to go to Okeechobee.”

  “Not a chance,” was his flat reply. “Jennifer wouldn’t know the front end of a horse from the rear, and she probably doesn’t have any interest in birds.”

  Karma greeted this statement with silence, but Slade seemed oblivious to her withdrawal, talking enthusiastically about Abner the alligator and his horse, Lightning, and something about barrels that Karma became too sleepy to follow.

  She fell asleep with her head pillowed on Slade’s broad shoulder, thinking that she had been a fool to agree to go to Okeechobee with him but oddly excited about the prospect anyway.

  MORNING. SOMEONE SNORING softly beside her.

  Snoring? Karma sat upright and edged away from the man who slept on the other half of the bed. His hair was rumpled, and his mouth hung slightly open. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, but even so, Karma still thought he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life.

  It was Friday morning. He was supposed to take Jennifer out tonight.

  Putting the thought out of her mind, she slid out from under the afghan and padded lightly to the window. Dawn was tunneling experimental fingers of light through a heavy fog. At least it wasn’t storming anymore.

  “Karma?”

  She turned to find that Slade had sat up and was stretching. “How does it look out there?”

  “Like we’re inside a wad of cotton.”

  He got up and joined her. “Well,” he said philosophically, “once the fog burns off, we’ll start seeing some boats. Rescue can’t be far away.”

  This statement was punctuated by the growl of Karma’s stomach. She blushed, embarrassed. “We don’t have any food,” she said glumly.

  “Maybe there’s another rice cake somewhere. I’ll look.”

  While Slade methodically went through the kitchen cabinets, Karma picked up the towels off the floor where they had made love last night. This morning she could hardly avoid the fact that she had acted reckless and wanton. What if she had made a fool of herself? It would have been far better, she thought with crystal clear hindsight, to let him lead the way.

  “No more rice cakes, but I found a package of peanuts.” He poured half of them into his hand and handed the rest to her.

  She sat in a chair and huddled down into the afghan. She began to eat the peanuts.

  “Karma,” Slade said, watching her as he spoke. “I really like you. A lot.”

  Fortunately her mouth was full, and she didn’t have to speak. She didn’t know what she would have said.

  “I want you to know that I’m glad we ended up in Stiltsville. I’m glad we made love last night. I’m glad—”

  She never learned what else Slade Braddock might be glad about because they heard an approaching boat motor outside. They exchanged a startled look and ran to the nearest window, where a boat was closing in through the remaining shreds of fog.

  In a matter of seconds, they had thrown open the door and were outside on the deck shouting and waving their arms at a Coast Guard cutter like two people in the latter stages of dementia. Someone on the boat hallooed back, and in a few minutes, a couple of Coast Guardsmen were climbing the makeshift ladder.

  “Looks like we’ve been rescued,” Karma said brightly, mostly because Slade was looking sad.

  He pinned her with a meaningful and way-too-serious look. “I meant what I said in there. I’m glad this happened.”

  Her heart took a little leap and started to beat faster. The truth was that she was glad, too. But she wouldn’t tell Slade. At least not yet.

  THE COAST GUARD CUTTER delivered them to the Sunchaser Marina with Toy Boat’s Toy in tow, a phrase that Karma tried to say really fast, which made Slade look more cheerful though he couldn’t say it any better than she could.

  Phifer came running over as soon as he saw them disembarking from
the Coast Guard boat, and he and Slade got into a lively discussion about the weather.

  “I’ve got to take Karma home,” Slade told Phifer, but by that time, Karma was checking her bicycle tires to see if they had enough air.

  “I don’t want a ride home,” Karma said, straightening and taking hold of the handlebars.

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m giving you a ride.”

  But Karma adamantly refused. “I need some space,” she said. “I need some time.”

  “You’ve got until tomorrow morning when we go to the ranch.”

  She groaned. “Don’t remind me.” Now that they were away from Stiltsville, going to the ranch loomed as a major ordeal.

  “You’ll love the Glades, you’ll see.”

  Karma drew a deep breath. “Don’t forget to pick Jennifer up at seven tonight.”

  “The only reason I’m going is that I promised. After what happened between you and me at the stilt house—”

  “Nothing happened, Slade.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I was there when it didn’t.”

  “Goodbye, Slade.” She started walking her bike up the dock, but she knew that he watched her as she passed the marina office. She heard Phifer say grudgingly, “At least she’s walking her bike this time, not riding it. It’s against the rules to ride a bike on the dock you know. Against the rules.” She couldn’t hear Slade’s reply.

  As Karma cycled back to the Blue Moon, she mulled over the past twenty-four hours. She felt terrible that she had made love with a client; she felt happy that it had been Slade. She felt sad that she had been given the task to scatter Aunt Sophie’s ashes; she felt happy that Slade had been with her. She felt sad that—

  Well, she didn’t feel as sad about any of it as she should. She mostly felt happy that she and Slade had been together for such a long time.

  “I don’t want to fall in love with him,” she said out loud, so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t realize that a stoop-shouldered little old lady on a bus bench heard her.

  “Well, you don’t have to fall in love with anyone if you don’t want to,” the little old lady hollered after her, and all the rest of the way to the Blue Moon, Karma made sure that she didn’t voice any of her thoughts out loud. But she wasn’t sure she’d had any choice in falling in love with Slade Braddock. It had just happened, and now she had to figure out what to do about it.