"...together forever," she finished, reading the Braille inscription.
She caught her breath on a sob and he understood. He covered her mouth with his hand and then replaced his hand with his lips. As they kissed, a single tear weaved a path down her cheek.
"Take me to bed." Her voice was hushed, her arms outstretched. She felt herself being lifted from the tepid water and enfolded in a soft towel. With her head pillowed on a heart powered by love, she was carried to the marriage bed.
He flipped off the lamp, and she curled against his chest. In the darkness, the bedroom transformed into a shadowed, private haven with only the stars, flashing through the balcony doors, to disturb the peace. They made love again, this time slowly with sweet kisses and velvety touches, bringing each other to a climax so serene that it rivaled the gentleness of a summer breeze.
They were basking in the quiet, calm solitude when the world intruded.
"God-damn-it!" Drake swore long and hard and crude.
"Ignore it, probably wrong room. Nobody would call us on our wedding night."
"Why does this always happen to me?"
"Lack of clean living, I guess." Alexis re-settled herself on his shoulder.
"I wouldn't put it past Jessie to call. Thank God, she went back to Reno." He snatched at the hideously ornate receiver. "This better be better than damn important."
"It's me ... Johnny. I'm sorry, but..."
"What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry."
"No, no, what's wrong?"
"Drake, my little girl's sick..."
"What?"
"We had the hotel doctor check her out. She's okay, running a fever, probably too much excitement. She practically sugar-OD'd on all that punch and wedding cake."
"I'll be right there."
"The problem is Sara doesn't want to leave her and we can't take her with us, not when she's so sick..."
"But, you say she's okay."
"What is it?" Alexis asked, frowning. She raised herself to her elbows.
Drake covered the mouthpiece. "Johnny. Nothing serious."
"Sara said I shouldn't ask, not on your wedding night, but..."
"Ask."
"I need a lift. You know how my doctors feel about blown furloughs."
"I have to drive him to Fallon," Drake said to Alexis. "He can get military transport there." He waited, seeking her approval. It was their wedding night. She had a right to ask him not to go. She flung back the sheet and swung her legs to the floor.
"Want some company?" she asked.
"John, I'll be down in ten minutes. Meet me at parking area 2B."
"I hate to ask..."
"Ten minutes-2B."
"I'm sorry about this," Drake said, returning the receiver to its cradle. "But, his treatment is critical right down, a set-back..."
"Don't be ridiculous. He's my son now, too."
Drake smiled and said, "John's older than you are. No, don't get up. No reason for us both to go. Stay here and keep my side of the bed warm."
He pulled a black tee-shirt over his head, shaking his hair free. He zipped up black jeans and picked up his car keys, glancing up when she rose and walked to the foot of the bed. He went to her and took her in his arms. He studied the soft lines of her face as if to memorize each detail. He pressed her slim body to his, cherishing her.
"See you in a bit," he said. "Go back to bed; we've an early flight."
He turned to leave, and she hugged as much of him as she could, hiding her face in the solid harbor of his chest. For some reason, for some absurd reason, her heart lurched and she wanted to cry.
"I love you so much," she said. "Farewell, my love."
"Hey? What's all this? I'll be back before you miss me."
"Nothing ... nothing."
She could say no more. The tightness in her chest had won.
He estimated the time, silently cursing that his watch was broken. The ten minutes were up. Johnny would be waiting. He pulled from her embrace. "I have to go." He walked to the door with a certain strange reluctance.
There, he blew her a kiss, forgetting that she could not see.
Chapter 14
Alexis crawled under the sheet, snuggling on Drake's side of the bed, but she couldn't fall off to sleep. After fruitless minutes of tossing and turning, she gave up. She called the front desk to confirm the time, later wishing that she hadn't given into the temptation. Drake had only been gone for half an hour. It seemed like a lifetime.
She resisted the urge to pace--she would just bump into furniture and the last thing that she wanted was a bruised body in a bikini--and considered catching up on her work. Her secretary had translated the last McCord quarterly into Braille, and she could make some last minute projections.
She lugged the financial binders from her briefcase and pored over them, but the data was a jumble of meaningless nonsense. She tossed the binders aside, wondering how she could pass the time until Drake returned. Somewhere was packed an audiocassette copy of Linda Howard's latest novel, Cry No More. Could she find it? She sensed that the suite was in a state of disarray with clothing and suitcases tossed about. No, the book would have to wait until tomorrow.
What she really wanted, what she solely wanted, was Drake.
His presence, his thoughts, and his body-preferably-on hers and in hers.
She leaned back on the pillows, letting her mind drift, returning to the fantasy.
He was on top; she was under him. She liked the missionary position best for it allowed him to give her strong, sure G-strokes. With his blue eyes locked with her violet ones, he would start the rhythm, moving in and out, his thick shaft grinding hard against her swollen bud. He would vary the pace. Slow. Quick. Give her satisfaction. Greedy.
She writhed under him, urging him to give her release. He would refuse, teasing her, tormenting her, ceasing the teasing torment until she was completely still. Greedier.
He reached down, inserting three fingers then four, filling her so tightly that she thought that she would pop. The tightness would be ecstasy and she would want more. Greediest.
He held her legs together, constraining her movements, to ride her like a galloping bronco on a drawn rein. He asked her whether she liked it. She would be too engulfed in passion to reply, only answering by digging her heels in his ass until twin rosy spots appeared. As he rode her faster, flicking the rein, she chanted two words and two words only. Fuck me ... fuck me...
She blinked open her eyes, hot and bothered by the fantasy. The smell of Armani lingered on Drake's rumpled pillow, making her want him even more. She resisted the urge to recheck the time, to try to reach him at the base, refusing to pester him when all this attention should be focused on his son.
She needed to walk off the sexual energy. Feeling her way, she carved a path, shoving aside furniture and luggage. Making that path was a slow, tiring job, and she wiped the perspiration from her brow. The cool night air beckoned her.
She walked to the balcony doors, letting the light breeze be her guide. At the doorway, she paused, and the breeze bathed her face and neck. She could sense the beauty of the night. In her mind's eye, she saw the midnight sky streaked with puffy clouds, the glitter of the stars, the full moon. She could see so far ... the Canadian mountaintops scraping the constellations, the northern lights envious of their beauty.
Her imagination made the night real for her, enchanting her. She imagined that she could see and she wanted more. She left the safety of the doorway, taking a step onto the balcony. Then another step, then another. Stretching out her arms, she searched for a wall, for the security of a railing.
Her hands came in contact with something. She reached higher, and her diamond bracelet clanked against metal. She walked towards it, hugging it. She leaned out and over. She was suspended in air, only her lower body resting safely. When a rush of air whirled around her, she felt like a bird. She need only stretch out her arms and the air would lift her and she would fly.
She let
go. She outstretched her arms. Her entire body was supported solely by her feet on the lowest rung of something. She was free, not tied to the earth, not bound by human concerns, not restricted by her blindness. She waved her arms, recalling a childhood memory of a raven.
She was that raven, soaring high.
She was bewitched by her own imagination when she heard the first crunch. She thought that she was mistaken, that the sound was the soft, bristling of the wind through the Ponderosa pines. Then she heard another crunch, louder than the first.
And she knew that she was not mistaken.
The balcony was giving way under her.
Her first reaction was fear. Her second was reason. Reason told her not to struggle, that her thrashing would only increase her danger. She let go, inching closer and closer to the safety of the doorway. She heard another crunch.
Her first reaction prevailed, for in her fear, she tripped on a loose tile. The weight of her body threw her forward, away from safety. She clawed air. She clawed brick. Her fingernails chipped under the strain, drawing blood, as she tried, desperately, to pull herself up, make headway, maneuver, crawl. But what was left of the balcony was not enough to support her weight. There was another crunch, louder than the others, and the balcony disappeared.
She screamed in terror.
Her legs dangled in midair. She was supported solely by a strip of something. The balcony doorway was only inches away, but that safety, that haven, was denied her. The night air, so teasing before, now savaged her robe. The gentle breeze, so light before, now rocked her in the wind. She held on for dear life and screamed a primal scream that came from her gut, passed through her lungs, ripped from her mouth.
She felt tears stain her cheeks.
Her life passed before her, rapidly, like selected scenes on a TV screen.
She didn't want to die.
Chapter 15
Drake barely touched the brake when he drove his Jaguar into the underground parking garage at the Castle Tahoe. He waved over a liveried attendant and then took the stairs, two at a time, to the main complex. Once there, so impatient was he to resume his wedding night that he ran through the hotel lobby-much as his son had done a few short hours before-and down the garden path to the Villard Tower.
As he approached the solid, heavy door to the suite, he thought that he heard a faint cry, a crashing sound. He wasn't sure; maybe it was a back-firing car, the night and the mountain ranges playing tricks with the sound.
He fumbled with the computerized lock, swiping the magnetized card.
"Where is that footman when you need him?"
Alexis screamed in midnight air.
The card finally worked, the red light changing to green.
He pushed the heavy door open and strode in.
"Did you miss..." He never finished.
He raced to the balcony, crouching low, reaching into the dark void. He grabbed her hand, wet and sweaty from fear, but he could not hold on. Her palm, then her fingertips, slipped from his and only the belt of her robe entangled with the broken railing saved her from death below. He grabbed again, straining, snaring her bracelet, the diamonds like a beacon in the night, almost successful, when the remaining ledge cracked and fell in jagged splinters of cement and brick.
"Noooooooo!" Strange, even as death claimed her, even as he denied death, he saw minute details like the color of her one, dangling slipper, the flush of her cheeks, the sparkling tears in her eyes.
He leaned over, like a broken spring, his great weight anchored solely by the splintering balcony. One hand grasped crumbling cement. The other slapped the air.
With sure aim.
He caught her moments before she disappeared into the night.
In the safety of his embrace, she tottered to the bed, only his strong arms preventing black oblivion. When he loosened his hold, she clung to him and wept.
"Let me get you a drink," he said.
He placed the glass in her hands, feeling the cold of her fingers and the wet of her tears. Her violet eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead, and their dark vastness evoked in him the image of the dark vastness of the balcony pit.
He clamped down his impatience, the muscle throbbing at the sharp corner his mouth. He did not ask why she was on the balcony. He did not ask why she had not heeded his warning. He wanted to ask. He wanted to do more. He wanted to shout at her, to shake her until her teeth rattled, to spank her until she begged for mercy.
Instead, he counted to ten and then counted again.
"I almost died," she said later. "The balcony gave way. I tripped ... fell."
He recalled Jessie Dane's words, and his lawyer's mind sifted through the evidence. He rejected the improbable. This was not an accident. Someone was responsible for switching the suites, for sabotaging the balcony, for making sure that he was away.
He had enemies. He had crossed the rich and the powerful. But who craved revenge so much that they would strike at him, with a veiled hand, through Alexis?
The answer was chilling and simple.
Ted Peterson.
And Beth Bledsoe.
Chapter 16
Drake and Alexis postponed their honeymoon while the authorities investigated. Out of respect for Drake, the detectives at the Tahoe PD gave him free access to the case file and let him sit in on the interviews with the hotel staff. It was only a matter of time before the department issued an APB for Ted Peterson and Beth Bledsoe and brought them in for questioning.
When Peterson saw Drake stalk into the crammed interrogation room, he wet himself. Not a lot, just enough piss to dot the front of his fly and to make the officers hide smiles behind their coffee cups. Soon after that and in the face of Drake's relentless questioning, his bravado failed. He started lying, badly, losing himself in half-truths, contradictions, and prevarications. Nobody believed him, not when they found his fingerprints on the balcony doors and a hacksaw in his pick-up, not when his alibi did not hold water, not when the footman Beth had bribed, ratted on them.
Beth took the easy way out and confessed all. Confronted with her signed statement, Peterson knew that he faced twenty years unless he cooperated. So, he plea bargained out and spilled the ugly tale.
Their plan had been sinister in its simplicity. He had sneaked into the tower suite and tampered with the balcony railing, doing such a botched job that Jessie Dane had noticed the damage. Later, at the wedding reception, Beth had befriended Johnny's daughter and then had poisoned the little girl's slice of wedding cake.
Together, they had created a chain of events in which Drake was forced to leave Alexis alone. Whether they planned to push her off the balcony and got cold feet, or to merely scare her, Drake would never know. He didn't care. It was irrelevant now. Since they were both given long prison terms, they would never threaten his family again.
A year later on their anniversary, Drake and Alexis returned to the Isla de Cisne. The sun-flecked island was serenity personified, peaceful and calm, except for the rush of a faraway waterfall, except for the sound of...
"Hmmmm. That's nice. Very nice," Alexis said, her eyelids drooping closed.
"On your stomach," Drake said. He held a bottle of sunscreen in one hand and a rolled condom in the other. His head dipped low, down to her secret, honeyed place.
She was suddenly wide-awake and quivering. The white-hot heat of their love returned, as it had so many times before, as it always would. For Drake and Alexis had risked all and risking all for love is never a risk.
The End
About the Author:
Lynn Jae Marsh started reading romance novels when she was fourteen. One of her fondest memories is hopping the "T" Green Line to downtown Boston to buy an armful of Georgette Heyer paperbacks at Macy's Department Store. In 1991--when she fell in love with Macintosh computers, web design, and the Internet--her writing and epublishing was the natural result.
Lynn lives in a tiny apartment in central New Haven, Connecticut, surrounded by books and more
books and Macintosh computers and more Macintosh computers. She is a proud owner and cofounder of Lightning Strikes--a select critique community at groups.yahoo.com/group/lightning_strikes_writers/ --and is the proud publisher of Lynn Jae Marsh--OnLine (with open cyber-doors at www.lynnjaemarsh.com). Recently, she won several Romantic Times writing contests and her ezine, which enjoys acclaim from many readers, receives over 4000 hits per month.
"Romantic Days, Romantic Nights" is Lynn's first commercially published novel. She loves receiving email from her readers at [email protected].
Lynn Jae Marsh--OnLine merchandise may be purchased at www.cafeshops.com/lynnjaemarsh
We invite you to visit Liquid Silver Books
http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com
for other exciting literary erotica romances.
Waiting For You -- Glenda Diana
Weekend Games -- Chris Tanglen
Destiny's Magick -- Rae Morgan
Love Lessons -- Vanessa Hart
Portal -- Sydney Morgann
Bittersweet -- Louisa Trent
Business or Pleasure…or Both? -- Rae Morgan and Jasmine Haynes
And many, many more!!
Romantic Days, Romantic Nights Page 21
