“But, Jack, why didn’t you have them all removed at once? Why are the ones in the front hall still there?”
He looked pained. “Because those are actually bolted to the floor, believe it or not. And we’re waiting for the new marble to come in before removing them.” He pulled out one of the chairs for her and she sat at the table. He sat opposite her.
Moments later a man in dark slacks and a guayabera shirt appeared with a chilled bottle of white wine in a silver ice bucket, along with two glasses. He poured for both of them and then went back inside.
“Jack, I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you.” Marly took a sip of her wine, drinking in the view, too. The ocean breeze blew over her skin like a caress, carrying reality away. She could almost hear her father, though, telling her not to be impressed. That most family fortunes had been built on the backs of the poor and repressed—people like them.
“Why not?” he asked. He smiled at her and she wanted to fall into his warm, open expression, wrap it around her like a blanket. She resisted, feeling guilty.
“Because we live such different lives. I wake up in an apartment each morning. You wake up in the governor’s mansion. I cut people’s hair. You cut people’s taxes. I veto mullets. You veto legislation.”
Jack laughed. “What I love about you is your fresh perspective on things.” He settled lazily back in his chair, his hair lifting off his forehead in the wind. He looked carefree, privileged and faintly decadent. He also looked sexy as hell.
Marly raised her glass to her lips and tried not to notice that aspect of him, but it was more or less impossible. Jack’s shirt was open at the neck, and she could see a few dark curly hairs beckoning her closer. She shut her eyes, trying not to remember just how spectacular that chest was, or how she’d been tempted more than once to sweep her fingers through those hairs and sample their texture and the heat of his skin beneath.
When she opened them, Jack was smiling at her. “This date,” he said, “is finally going the way I want it to.”
She supposed he was referring to the awkwardness in the limo, but she wasn’t sure. “How, exactly, is that?”
He was saved from having to answer by the appearance of the silent man in the guayabera shirt, who brought them each a delicate plate of hors d’oeuvres.
Jack said, “Thank you, Tomas,” while Marly gazed at the perfect aperitifs on her plate. They looked too pretty to eat. Really, how could she spoil the presentation by touching it?
“You must have slaved in the kitchen for days,” she said in a dry voice. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” Jack assured her, and it was the first time anyone had ever told her that and meant it. Wouldn’t it be easy to entertain with panache if you had a chef and a full staff of household help? She’d throw parties all the time.
Again, it served to underline the differences between them, and Marly wondered what the hell she was doing here. She didn’t belong in this world. She’d enjoy it for tonight, but after that she needed to go reclaim reality.
“Please eat,” Jack urged her. She picked up a mushroom cap and bit into the divine. Stuffed with an exotic blend of cheeses and delicate spices, it melted on her tongue. Her expression must have conveyed her opinion, because he nodded as if she’d complimented the food out loud.
“Tomas is a magician,” he said. “He makes my life worth living.”
She had to agree, as she slowly sampled everything on her plate and sipped her wine.
“Now this—” Jack spread his hands wide “—is my idea of the perfect evening.”
It was. She pushed away her guilt and discomfort. Just this one perfect evening, this fantasy…Marly nodded.
She’d given herself up to bliss when a thunderous noise destroyed everything. It came from the right, where three teenagers on Jet Skis erupted from the canal between Jack’s house and the house next door.
The buildings were by no means on top of each other, and they were screened by rows of trees and hedges—not to mention stucco walls—but nothing could drown the noise. The kids churned up the water, doing figure eights and circles, racing each other and playing chicken.
Jack jumped up from the table and yelled something at them, but of course they couldn’t hear. He stalked back to the table and yanked a cell phone from his pocket. Marly heard him yell the words “Rocket” and “call up the damn parents,” but the mood of their dinner was ruined, to say the least.
The kids began to emit war whoops on top of it all, and ignored him when he tried waving his arms to get their attention.
“Don’t they know who lives next door to them?” she asked.
Jack looked sheepish. “Unfortunately not,” he admitted. “I bought the house through a trust and I didn’t put the word out, since I was trying to guard my privacy. So for all they know, I’m just some cranky businessman out to ruin their good time, the little jerks.”
“We could go inside,” she suggested.
“There’s no furniture in there.” He looked genuinely upset that their romantic evening had been spoiled.
She got up and tugged at his hand. “Come on, Jack. Let’s get out of here. This ritzy stuff isn’t really me, anyway. Tell you what—let’s get back in the limo, order a pizza and go eat it on the beach somewhere.”
“Order a pizza?” He looked scandalized. “Do you know what Tomas will do to me?”
“He’ll get over it, won’t he? Tell him to invite his own friends over to eat and inhale Jet Ski fumes.”
Jack laughed in spite of himself. He hesitated. “Fine. But we’re taking the wine with us.”
They startled Mike in the foyer. He’d obviously planned on a long, solitary evening of…scrapbooking? Marly and Jack exchanged glances at the neat rows of photographs arranged to maximum advantage on colorful decorative sheets of acid-free paper.
They’d caught him with a pair of pink edging scissors in his hand, adding the final touches to a page featuring his daughter and her Tinkerbell Halloween costume.
Mike scrambled to his feet. “Sorry, sir—I, uh, thought you’d be a while, so I, um…”
“What is all this stuff?” Jack looked perplexed. “Never mind. Just give me the car keys. We’re going to order a pizza from the limo.”
It was Mike’s turn to look pole-axed. But he dug into his pocket and handed over the keys. “I’ll be right there, sir.”
“Take your time.”
Marly and Jack left the house and he unlocked the limo door for her, aiming an evil eye in the direction of the still audible Jet Skis. “Little pissants.”
“Don’t growl, Jack.” She slid into the backseat of the limo with a laugh and then froze at the expression on his face. She looked down and saw that her sarong had separated at the side, leaving her leg completely exposed from the upper thigh on down.
She extended a hand to fix it, but he caught it in his own. “Please,” he said. “Don’t do that.”
He held up a finger. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” And he opened the driver’s side door, jammed the keys in the ignition and started the car. Then he got in beside her and hit the lock button.
Marly’s breathing quickened. “Jack—”
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” he promised. Then he extended a finger and touched it to the exposed skin just under the knot of her sarong.
“I don’t want you to—” But she stopped midsentence because it was a lie. The finger he trailed down her thigh left something like a burn in its wake. He caressed her calf with his palm and then stroked the back of her knee.
“You ever made love in a limousine?” he asked her softly, his voice husky and pouring over her nerves like whiskey over ice. She melted under it.
“No,” she whispered.
“Would you like to?”
Yes. “I’m…not sure.”
Jack moved from sitting beside her to the opposite seat, so they sat knee to knee. He took a sip from the glass of wine he still held,
and then set it down.
She felt odd, sitting there with one leg completely covered and the other completely exposed. She also didn’t know what exactly he could see under her sarong from that angle. She pressed her knees together.
Jack bent forward, his blue eyes burning into hers. She met him halfway, their mouths searing each other and their tongues mating in a sensual, private dance. She stole his breath and he stole hers, until they broke apart, both gasping for air.
“Marly.” He ran a hand over his face. “We should take this slow.” He traced her lips with his finger while outside their little cocoon, they felt Mike get into the front seat and heard his door close.
“I’m sure he’s wondering where the hell we want to go,” Jack said. “Any preferences?”
She shook her head.
“You want to order that pizza?”
“Not at the moment.” She smiled.
“I think we’re on the same page.” Jack pressed a button and spoke to Mike. “I think we just want to drive. Anywhere. For a while.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sorry about your scrapbooking,” Marly added.
Embarrassed laughter. “My wife makes me do it. She says she’s no good.”
Jack let go of the button and returned to his exploration of Marly’s mouth. “I’m no good, either.”
“Yeah, I think that’s what I like about you,” she said, nipping his finger. What am I doing? I’m about to go down a path that may lead straight to hell…not to mention to the Republican party. To her, the party of the rich and deceitful and the painful past.
But she didn’t care. She sank back into the leather seat and let Jack Hammersmith, forty-fourth governor of Florida, run his hands up and down her bare leg, stopping only a quarter of an inch shy of decency. She let him slip off her sandal, massage her naked foot, and drizzle it with champagne. Then she let him suck it off her silver-painted toes, an indescribable sensation that she’d never experienced before.
He reached for her other leg, but she took his hand and laced his fingers with hers. Then, with her free one she unbuttoned his shirt down to the navel and explored the terrain of that warm, broad chest.
His breathing quickened and his eyelids dropped to half-mast. She ran her thumb over a taut nipple, lightly abraded it, and he caught his lip between his teeth. She let go of his hand and tugged his shirt free of his waist-band. He looked beyond sexy as he sat there, knees apart and shirt wide open. Republican, Democrat or alien life form, she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man.
He apparently felt the same way toward her, since he shrugged out of his shirt entirely and then hauled her onto his lap. He whipped off her silk tank, exposing a sheer, lacy black bra embroidered with silver thread. Jack groaned at the sight and cupped her breasts in his hands. “You are so beautiful.” Then he touched his tongue, through the lingerie, to one pink nipple.
At the sensation, Marly whimpered and let her head fall back, pushing herself farther into Jack’s hot mouth. It seemed to excite him, since he yanked the bra straps off her shoulders and down her arms, pushing the whole thing to her waist.
He turned her so that she straddled him and then devoured her breasts, tonguing and sucking her nipples, abrading them with his teeth and thumbs until she felt entirely liquid, her only points of consciousness under his mouth and the ache of longing between her thighs. She was beyond wet for him, half crazed with desire.
Jack’s erection pushed at her, rubbed her through his pants, but when she reached for it he lifted her and set her back on her own seat across from him. She made a sound of protest, but he ignored her and dropped to his knees in front of her, spreading her own knees apart and pushing her sarong to one side.
He kissed and licked his way up her inner thighs while she almost orgasmed just due to anticipation of what he was about to do. The engine of the limo roared under them as the car picked up speed.
“Are you wet for me?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” she managed to say.
“Are you hot?”
She nodded.
“Almost over the edge?”
She could feel his breath at the core of her and could no longer speak. She dug her hands into his shoulders, instead. Then, inexplicably, he pulled away. The next thing she felt was the icy champagne bottle between her legs, right where his hot breath had been a moment before.
He pressed it against her panties and Marly froze on the edge of climax.
9
JACK GAVE HIS BEST diabolical laugh as she shrieked and twisted to get away. He removed the bottle, set it back in the ice bucket and captured Marly’s wrists before she could plant a fist in his eye.
Then he put his face back between her thighs and touched his tongue to her through her silver-embroidered, black lace panties. They were damp with her need, and that excited him almost as much as the way she was twisting to avoid him at the moment. She was annoyed, outraged and didn’t want to succumb again.
But as he slid his tongue along the rough lace he could also feel soft, warm, feminine flesh, and it quivered under the sensual assault.
The scent of her drove him wild, made him want to rip off everything she wore and throw her down on the seat, plunging in and out of her until he was half dead. But first he wanted, in a very primitive way, to master her and to make her need him.
She was already making soft, feminine noises of helpless pleasure and no longer trying to avoid his mouth. So he released her wrists and pulled her panties aside with a finger, sliding under them, licking and teasing and sucking.
She began to raise her hips toward him and rock in an unconscious rhythm of desire. Jack considered the awkward alternative for half a second, rejected it and then ripped her panties in half in one easy motion.
He now had unfettered access to her and he gave her all he had, plunging his tongue into her with abandon and exquisite torture until she came apart, thrashing against his mouth. Jack loved the sight.
He wanted to take her right then, ride the aftershocks of her orgasm, but he restrained himself and watched her return slowly to consciousness. Her eyes flew open, met his and then closed with an expression of utter mortification. Jack wiped his mouth and chin on his shirt and then kissed her, both to dissipate her embarrassment and to show her that far from disgusting him, she’d turned him on.
Still without speaking, he guided her hand to his cock, which was so hard it was painful. She unzipped his pants and took him into her hands while he tried not to slobber with pleasure. Tried not to just grab her and jam himself inside her without any grace or regard for what she wanted.
But Marly sat in his lap and rubbed herself on him, back and forth until he thought he’d die. “Condom?” she whispered.
He pulled his wallet from his pants and dug out a packet. She took it from him and rolled it on.
Then she rose over him and sank down in one fluid motion, tilting his world on its axis.
Erotic lightning streaked through him as she engulfed his cock, a hot, wet, feminine fist—and then began to move on him, up and down, stroking and caressing every inch.
Jack would have liked to remain in control. But she ripped it from him and he could do nothing but drive himself into her with relentless need, gripping her bottom and trying to brace her.
She started to make wild, keening cries that tore at his bid for loss of consciousness. “I’m hurting you,” he said against her hair.
“No,” she gasped. “Stop and I will rip your head off.”
Even through a fog of cresting lust, Jack understood that to be encouragement, and when she locked her ankles around the small of his back and actually kicked her heels into his kidneys, he pumped into her fast and furious until he exploded inside her.
“Jack, Jack, don’t stop,” she begged. And though his eyes were crossed and he was pretty sure his climax had blown his cock right off, he obliged with what had to be the mangled stump—until she arched her back, ground wildly against him and then went limp i
n his arms.
He slowly registered that they were half naked in the back of the limo and looked quite ridiculous. Marly’s bra was still around her waist and he had his shoes, socks and pants on.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Her hair billowed around her shoulders, her face was flushed and her lips swollen. She personified the best kind of sin.
Jack dropped a kiss on her nose as she climbed carefully off him. He did away with the condom and wrapped it in a napkin before disposing of it.
Marly started to pull her bra up and back into place, but he shook his head at her. “Give me that,” he said, and used the special one-handed, strap-zapper technique he’d perfected in college. If a guy didn’t know how to get a bra undone one-handed, he just had no finesse.
“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing.
He untied his shoes, ditched them and his socks. He unbuckled his belt and slipped out of his pants and boxers.
“I think we should finish the champagne while riding around butt-naked in the limo. You ever ridden around butt-naked in a limo?”
“No. I’ve never even been in a limo except for the one that took us to my grandmother’s graveside from the funeral home.”
Jack pursed his mouth. “Well, there’s a cheery memory. Let’s improve your outlook on limos, shall we?”
“I think we already have. I’d never had a screaming orgasm in a limo until today, either.”
“First time for everything,” said Jack, pouring two fresh glasses of champagne.
“Yeah,” she said, giving him and the champagne bottle a filthy look.
“What?” he asked, blue eyes full of innocence.
“That was a dirty, dirty trick.”
“But I made up for it, didn’t I?”
“I’m thinking that only a Republican would pull something like that on a woman.”
Jack started laughing. “Why do you say that?”
“Get ’em all hot and bothered, then apply the deep freeze in the name of morality.”
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t do anything in the name of morality. I did it in the name of hot, sweaty sex.”
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