“Family castle? Are you going to be my prince if I do?”
“I’d be anything for you.”
Except a husband, I thought, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to be with him.
I didn’t have to say yes. He saw it in my eyes and asked for our check.
He was mostly silent on our way to his home. I sat close to him. I think he was afraid that if he talked too much, he might break the magic spell. I know I felt that way. It was time to put words back in a box and turn to kisses and caresses and the sweet hot breath that would slip out of his lips to mine and mine to his.
His housekeeper wasn’t in sight when we arrived, but I had the sense that we were being watched. He took my hand and led me quickly up the stairway to his round bedroom. When we entered, he lifted me and placed me gently on his bed.
“I practice safe sex,” I said.
“I do, too, only I’m beyond practice,” he countered with that impish smile.
“We’ll see,” I told him.
He surprised me by getting completely undressed first. Then he knelt beside me and slowly, like someone unwrapping a precious birthday or Christmas gift, peeled away my clothing. He had what he needed beside the bed.
During one of our more intimate conversations, Sheena had pursued my descriptions of my sexual experiences, demanding more and more detail, especially involving my own reactions. I remembered tellin
g her that it hadn’t ever yet been for me the way it was described in her novels, the way some of the passages she read to me described it. She was shocked to hear that most of the time, I didn’t even have an orgasm.
“Oh, I faked it sometimes when I knew the boy I was with might say something nasty about me. I wanted him to think he was quite the stud, even though he wasn’t.”
“I thought that was possible,” she’d said. “I just didn’t understand how or why.”
“Good lovers consider each other,” I explained. “Neither is really satisfied unless the other is, too.”
“Oh.”
I thought about that while Paul was making love to me, and I saw how much care he was taking to satisfy me first. He didn’t rush anything, not a caress, not a kiss. Each one was as perfect and meaningful as the previous one. In one of Sheena’s novels, the author had described the man making love as though he were playing a beautiful instrument. I had thought that was over the top until now. Paul strummed and touched me to bring me to one crescendo after another. We were composing a symphony. Did this extraordinary lovemaking stem from real passion or even, dare I say it, love, or was he just good at what he did?
Never had I felt so wonderfully exhausted afterward. My whole body was pleased, every part of me contented. We lay next to each other without speaking, listening to each other’s quickened breathing as it slowed. He put his head softly against my shoulder, and, still naked, we fell asleep beside each other. Before morning, we woke and made love again. It wasn’t as long as the first time, but it was just as sweet. Neither of us woke with the morning sunlight. We were too lost in the memory of each other soothing our dreams, keeping us floating in a restful repose.
When it was nearly noon, his phone rang, and we both woke, groaned at the interruption, and struggled to get up the energy and desire to rise. I turned over first while he talked. I didn’t want to listen, but I could hear from his monosyllabic answers that he was talking to someone he didn’t want to know about my presence.
“Yes,” he finished. “I’ll be there tonight. Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing you, too.”
I heard him hang up, and then I turned to him. “You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “Just take me back.”
“After breakfast, please. I’ll call down and have it ready for us.”
I hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not? I’ll take a quick shower, then.”
“So will I,” he told me, smiling. “I’ll wash your back if you wash mine.”
“All right, but don’t get too used to it,” I told him. “I don’t think it’s something you’ll experience too much.”
He nodded. “Neither do I,” he said.
I’d been half hoping he would disagree, but Mrs. Brittany’s warnings sounded true and strong.
I just had to learn how to not care after I had convinced myself that I should.
16
I didn’t see Paul for nearly a week afterward. He called once during that time to apologize for not being able to take me out on the family yacht. He described the various things he had to do. I read between the lines and understood that he was involved with his family and especially his future fiancée. Mrs. Brittany’s words continued to haunt me. To her way of thinking, he would never be able to marry me, or even want to, but he wasn’t above offering to keep me.