Control

Because it reminded me of my childhood with my mother.

My mom had treated sex like a sport, breaking my father’s heart over and over again as she engaged in meaningless rendezvous with man after man. As a young child, I didn’t understand what was going on. I would overhear heated arguments between my parents and know that something was wrong. And there were days I would come home from school to find my mother gone, and my dad crying. Even the bouquets I made for him didn’t help to cheer him up.

As I got older I understood what caused most of their marital conflicts. In the bits I overheard, my mother always claimed the other men meant nothing to her, that for her sex didn’t mean love.

I don’t know why my father stayed with her. Much later, I began to suspect there was some emotional issue about my mother he understood that I did not. But I always felt for him, was brokenhearted for him.

I was fourteen when my father asked one day how I would feel about going with him to Texas for a long visit, just me and him. He had a sister there. I had been elated by the idea. It was a chance to get away, escape my parents’ arguments for a while.

Two days later, my mother hurriedly made me pack some things while my dad was at work. She ushered me into the cab of a Mack truck between her and some guy I didn’t know, and suddenly we were off to God only knew where.

The trucker, as it turned out, was my mother’s boyfriend. He took us to Philadelphia, where we moved into his small apartment. They fought, too, but I heard them screwing every night in the bedroom next to me.

I was devastated at the way I’d been uprooted. And knew I would never be able to forgive my mother for leaving my father behind.

I had always known that I didn’t want sex to be the first priority in any relationship of mine, no doubt because of my mother, and that’s why I’d grown wary of men my own age. Robert was older, far more mature than any of the men I had dated, and genuinely seemed to want to make an emotional connection with me first, instead of a sexual one.

It hadn’t taken me long to realize I could have emotional security with him—something I desperately wanted after my parents’ fucked-up marriage…

My bedside phone rang, startling me from my thoughts. I rolled over to my night table and plucked the cordless handset off its base. “Hello?”

“Morning, Elsie. I hope it’s not too early to call.”

“Sharon.” My spirits lifted. Her call was the distraction I needed. “No, it’s not too early. How are you?”

“So-so. I’ve been mostly up. I really have. But last night I was way down.”

“Oh, sweetie.”

“It gets to me sometimes, being in this big empty house.”

“Of course it does.”

“Maybe I need to get out and volunteer. Do something so that I’m not home alone so much.”

“You know your doctor said you’ll have to take it easy for this pregnancy. You don’t want anything to jeopardize carrying your baby to term.”

Two months ago, Sharon’s husband had been tragically killed in a plane crash on his way back from a business trip. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, Sharon had just learned she was pregnant. She’d been able to share the thrilling news with Warren over the phone, and had been looking forward to celebrating with him upon his return. Only his company’s private plane had gone down shortly after takeoff in Virginia, killing all on board, including three members of the firm’s executive team.

“I know…and I want this baby more than anything. Warren and I both did. I keep trying to look on the bright side. I’m financially set and I don’t have to travel to a job every day, which means I can take it nice and easy and make sure to carry this baby to term. I’ll be able to hire a nanny, which will be great—as much for the company as for the help. But the truth is…the truth is I keep thinking about what a wonderful father he would have been, and how much he wanted this baby. I miss him so much, Elsie. I can’t believe I’m finally pregnant and he’s not here…”

Sharon was one of my closest friends, and she sounded as if she was about to fall apart. “You want me to swing by your place on my way to work?”

“No. No, I’ll be fine. But I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind getting away this weekend. If Robert can spare you, will you go to South Carolina with me? We could drive to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. Stay from Friday to Sunday. It’s not quite bikini weather yet, but I might put one on anyway—before my stomach gets too big.” Sharon laughed, but the sound morphed into a whimper.

“Shh,” I soothed. It broke my heart what she was going through. She had mentioned being financially set, but all the money in the world couldn’t ease a loss like this. “Maybe I should stop by.”

“No…you have to go to work. I just want you to give me something to look forward to. But if you can’t because of the shop, I’ll understand.”

“I’d love to go away,” I told her. “I can get Spike to run things for a couple of days.” Spike was my righthand man at the store, and I didn’t anticipate any problems with him heading up operations for Friday and Saturday. My shop was closed on Sundays. The only issue would be Robert, and whether or not he would have a problem with me going away.

That was another thing that bothered me about my husband on occasion: as much as he had his own life and traveled a lot on his own, he didn’t like me to travel without him. He didn’t outright tell me I couldn’t go somewhere, but when I returned he would complain incessantly about how much he’d missed me, how the house hadn’t been the same without me, how there was an event in Charlotte he would have liked to have taken me to—if only I’d been home. It used to drive me crazy.

I learned to seek Robert’s approval first, and not just tell him I was planning to go somewhere with a friend. More times than not he would find some reason to object to my plans. And more times than not, I ended up staying home because I didn’t want to disappoint him.

But this weekend Sharon wasn’t the only one who could use some time away.

“If you can, that’d be great,” she said, sounding better already. “I need a change of scenery, you know?”

“Of course you do. Robert’s been in the office all week, but I’ll run it by him tonight. I know a great place in Charleston we can stay, this quaint bed-and-breakfast where he and I stayed the last time we were there.”

“I’ll wait to hear back from you.”

As I hung up, I mentally prepared myself for broaching the subject with Robert. I’d take him to the club tonight, where we would have a nice dinner and he could unwind. If I could get him to relax and be happy, then he’d be more likely to say yes to me going away.

I climbed out of bed and headed for the shower, a niggling thought bothering me.

That I was Robert’s wife, not his child—and I shouldn’t have to get his permission to take a short trip with a friend.

Chapter Five

I called Robert at lunchtime and told him I’d made reservations at the club for seven. “You’ve been working hard all week and I’ve hardly seen you. I’d love to have a nice dinner with you tonight.”

“That’s a great idea, Elsie. Thank you.”

Robert looked harried when he arrived at home, but once we were seated in The Peninsula Club’s dining room, I could see the stress begin to fade from his face.

Good. The better his mood, the more likely he would be favorable to what I was going to suggest.

Everyone knew us here, and shortly after we were seated, Robert’s usual glass of Remy Martin Louis XIII was brought over—an outrageously priced cognac considered to be one of the best in the world. There was also a glass of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir for me—much more reasonably priced by comparison. This is how we always started our order, so the staff knew there would be no complaints.

Robert took a sip of his very pricey drink, and I could almost see more of his stress dissipate. He felt comfortable here, his home away from home. Perhaps also because—unlike The Melting Pot—it was full of people he could relate to: rich older men with wives who knew their place.

Wives who didn’t want to lose, by way of a nasty divorce, the luxuries they’d become accustomed to. I saw some in the dining room who I believed should have left their marriages ages ago. Ruthie Davenport. Agnes Long. They were older, in their sixties, but it was long rumored that their husbands had had affairs with several younger women. Ruthie’s husband apparently had gotten not one, but two mistresses knocked up.

Felicity Williams was in her early thirties, and her husband was a philandering pro athlete. They’d been college sweethearts, and the word was that she wasn’t going to let some “skank-ass ho” steal her man.

There were even a couple rumors of physical abuse. But through it all, those wives had stayed.

I had always pitied the wives of such husbands. And I’d never seen Robert as a man who would abuse his wife either emotionally or physically. And yet here I was, a little fearful of asking if he would be okay if I went out of town with a dear friend for a few days.

How had our marriage gotten to this point? For the first couple of years, I never would have been afraid to ask Robert anything. He had been thoughtful and patient—at least with me. I’d heard him argue with his ex-wives on occasion, and had always thought it odd that he could be so cruel with them, yet loving with me. Once, when wife number two was dropping off their teenage daughter, she’d murmured, “Enjoy Robert while he’s nice. Because once he turns…”

She hadn’t finished her statement, but I’d dismissed her warning as a comment from a bitter ex-wife.

Now, as I looked around the busy dining room, I couldn’t help wondering if anyone there pitied me? The wait staff? The managers? The other wives? Had any of them seen something in my marriage that I had missed?

Robert smiled brightly and waved at someone across the room. He was charming and pleasant. Definitely likable. Successful.

Though I’d been having some doubts about my marriage over the last several months, I now found myself flip-flopping. Robert’s irritability, and his occasional rude behavior, such as he displayed at The Melting Pot—they had to be effects of getting older. Either emotional or physical—or both.

Approaching seventy, he could no longer ignore his mortality. And maybe there were changes in a man’s body that made him more irritable as he hit a certain age. If there was some physiological reason for Robert’s behavior, how could I hold it against him?

And there were so many happy memories from early in our marriage that I clung to.

Like the time we were in Paris, and I was in the hotel suite alone while Robert was at a business meeting. There was a knock on the door and I’d opened it to find Room Service delivering a cart with three trays on it. The waiter wheeled the cart into the room and lifted the silver lids to reveal fresh fruit slices and chocolate fondue.

I’d assumed Robert had simply sent the fruit to the room as a treat for me—but the real surprise came when he suddenly appeared in the doorway as the waiter was leaving.

Robert had ordered the fondue platter not so much for the fruit, but for me. For my body. He put the chocolate on my nipples, licked it off slowly. He put it on my ass, then ate it off with his tongue and his teeth. And he made me come—over and over—when he’d licked chocolate off my clit with tender, hot strokes…

“Cindy,” Robert was saying warmly.

At the sound of his voice, I was jerked from my memory. I glanced upward at Cindy, a waitress we knew well. He greeted her by squeezing her hand. “How are you?”

“Better now that you’re here.”

A flirtatious comment? Perhaps, but I didn’t take it seriously—and I certainly would never get mad at Robert for it. Unlike how he had treated Alexander.

Robert chuckled. He proceeded to joke with Cindy and make conversation about her studies. She was putting herself through UNC, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and one day hoped to become a lawyer.

Cindy smiled as she answered his questions—and yet I would never consider her anything other than professional. She was being nice to a customer. The same thing the waiter at the other restaurant had been doing.

Cindy or any of the waitresses here could easily have designs on some of the rich regulars at the club. And they’d be in a far better position to try and undermine a marriage than a waiter we were likely to see only once in our lives.

Forget what happened at The Melting Pot, I told myself.

But the hypocrisy bothered me—even if I could forgive Robert’s behavior.

I glanced around as he continued to chat with Cindy. And when my eyes landed on a pair of wide shoulders beneath a black blazer, my heart pounded in my chest.

The shoulders…that golden-brown skin…the shaved head.

Oh, my God. Was it him?

My pussy began to throb.

“Elsie,” Robert said urgently.

I jerked my eyes back to his. “Sorry.”

“Cindy wants to know if you’re having the steak.”

“Yes. Yes, the steak is fine.”

My eyes ventured across the dining room again. Disappointment came crashing in.

It wasn’t him. Lord, it wasn’t him.

The guest had turned, and now I could see his face. He wasn’t the man I’d been fantasizing about.

As Cindy walked away, I brought my wineglass to my lips and sipped. But the wine didn’t wash away my discontent.

I tried to push the sexy stranger out of my mind as we enjoyed our dinner. Tonight was about getting Robert to agree to my trip with Sharon.

By the end of the meal, two glasses of cognac had had their effect on Robert. His business problems forgotten, he was smiling and laughing and telling me stories about the early days of his company.

It was the perfect time for me to ask him about my trip.

“Darling.” I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “There’s something I want to talk about.”

Robert swirled the dregs of cognac in his glass. “Yes?”

“You know Sharon’s been having a hard time ever since…ever since Warren’s death.”

Sharon was one of the first women I’d met in the neighborhood after marrying Robert. A stunning, dark-skinned beauty, she could have easily passed for a high-fashion model. I’d been pleasantly surprised to find her completely down-to-earth. She was a couple years older than me, and had married Warren the month after their college graduation. Warren had gone on to start an Internet business, which he’d sold for millions and millions before the dot-com bust. He took part of that profit and began a telecommunications company, which was also a huge success.

Like Robert, Warren had been a self-made millionaire. But the difference between Sharon and Warren’s relationship and mine and Robert’s was that they’d met and fallen in love before either of them had any money. And from everything Sharon had told me, Warren always treated her as an equal in their marriage.

“Yes, of course. Such a tragedy.”

That was an understatement. The one thing that had kept them from being one hundred percent content was their inability to have a baby. Sharon had been pregnant six times, but miscarried each one. For a few years she’d gone on the Pill, giving up her dream altogether. Then they’d decided to try again. Six months after going off the Pill, she miraculously got pregnant.

And then she’d lost her husband.

“Understandably, Sharon is feeling glum. Oh, she’s putting on a brave face. She’s been incredibly strong since losing Warren.” I knew she was trying to be extra strong, not wanting anything to cause her to miscarry again. “But she could use a change of scenery. And who could blame her?”

I paused. Swallowed. Asking my husband if I could go away with a friend for a weekend shouldn’t have given me such anxiety, but it did.

“She wants to go away?” Robert asked.

“Just for the weekend,” I quickly said. “Probably drive down to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. You know. To get her out of that big, empty house.”

“And she wants you to go with her,” Robert stated.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“This weekend. Tomorrow until Sunday.”

“So you’ve already planned it,” Robert said.

“No.” I tried to sound casual. “Nothing is planned. I told her I would run it by you first, but that as far as I know we have no plans, so hopefully…”

“I think Charleston would be the best option,” Robert said. “I don’t think a pregnant woman has any business at Myrtle Beach. There are too many horny college kids there. It’s not a good scene.”

My anxiety ebbed away. I tried to mask my surprise when I met Robert’s eyes. “So, you don’t mind that I go with her?”

As Robert sipped the last of his cognac, I wondered if it had magical powers. For the price, it certainly should. And in this case, if it had put him in such a good mood that he was offering no objections, it was well worth the money.

“Why would I mind?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ve been bored all week. I’ve been working more than usual. And you’re Sharon’s closest friend here. Of course she would want to go with you.”

I felt a smile break out on my face. “Thank you, Robert. She’ll be very happy.”

“What about the shop?” he asked. “It’s not a busy weekend?”

“Not particularly. Spike can handle all orders, and Tabitha is always asking for more hours. I’m sure between her, Maxine and Olivia, the store will be appropriately staffed.”

“Sounds like it’s all set. You should stay at that wonderful bed-and-breakfast where we went the last time we were there.”

“The Barksdale House Inn. I’ll call them to see if they’ve got room.”

“Very good, then.”

My lips curled in a soft smile as I stared at Robert. This was the man I’d fallen in love with—the kind and considerate man.

My doubts about our marriage seemed to float away.

Robert had his flaws, sure.

But no one was perfect.

Chapter Six

I had always believed that I was not motivated by sex. That for me, an emotional connection was paramount, first and foremost. So I was very surprised to find myself having another hot dream about the stranger from my store later that week.

In the dream, I was sitting at the bar, looked to my right—and suddenly he was there. My body had an immediate reaction to him, as if an electric current were hitting me.

He said no words, just smiled at me, the kind of smile that oozed sensual heat. Then, abruptly, we were no longer in the bar, but in a bedroom somewhere, with only one lamp on.

He was sitting on the large bed. I was standing in front of him.

“Take your clothes off,” he said.

The words aroused me. The thought of undressing for this stranger, of fucking him, excited me beyond anything I had ever known.

So I pulled my dress over my head, revealing my nude body. I stood in front of him for a long while, his hazel eyes feasting on my nakedness and almost burning me with desire.

I’d never stood naked like this in front of a stranger before, and yet I didn’t feel self-conscious. Instead, a delicious rush coursed through my body.

“Touch your pussy,” he said.

I ran the tip of my finger over my clit, something I had never done in front of a man I didn’t know.

“Are you wet?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling an erotic charge at the admission. “Very.”

Slowly, he rose from the bed and came to me. He kissed me, deep and hot, while his hands covered my breasts. As he squeezed the soft mounds, tweaked my nipples, he moaned—a low, hot growl that made me feel a surge of feminine power beyond anything I had ever experienced.

I gripped the edges of his shirt, anxious to see him naked, as well. As his tongue tangled with mine, I pulled his shirt out of his pants and splayed my hands on his abdomen. He was all hard ripples and muscles, with the body of an Adonis.

Tearing his lips from mine, he lowered his head to my breast and drew one of my nipples into his mouth. Prickles of pleasure and pain shot through me. He suckled me hard, hungrily. This was raw, primal. About lust and need with a man whose body spoke to mine in a language all its own.

I arched my back, moaned. Stroked his cock through his pants.

As his tongue worked its wicked magic on my nipples, he cupped my pussy. I melted. Had anyone’s touch ever felt this good?

When his fingers slipped into my layers of flesh, I gripped his shoulders and threw my head back, whimpering from the exquisite pleasure. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“Yes, baby,” he whispered against my ear, and penetrated my vagina with a finger, pushed it in deep. “I love how your pussy feels.” His digit still inside of me, he went down on his haunches. “Now I want to see how you taste.”

He flicked his thumb over my clit, and then his tongue—and a shudder roared through my body. Then he spread my folds and suckled me with exquisite gentleness until I was coming and screaming.

I woke up to find my hand between my legs, my pussy throbbing and wet. I rode the wave of my orgasm from my dream state to consciousness.

After my pleasure subsided, I was satisfied but perplexed. I had just come while dreaming.

Me—someone who hadn’t had these kinds of arousing fantasies even as a teenager.

Something was changing in me. I was having sexual needs and urges I wasn’t used to.

And I was liking them.

On Friday around ten, Sharon and I left for Charleston. She wanted to drive, and that was fine, so she came by my place and picked me up in her Cadillac Escalade. Robert had once again left for the office early that morning, but before he went, he’d kissed me deeply and told me to have a good time.

I had expected him to be busy with the board, with conference calls to Germany and whatever else he needed to do in order to seal the acquisition deal. So I was surprised when my iPhone trilled before Sharon and I even made it Charleston.

“I had a break, so I thought I’d call,” he explained when I picked up. “I phoned the bed-and-breakfast. They said you hadn’t checked in yet.”

“That’s because we’re just getting into Charleston now.”

“It’s nearly three o’clock,” Robert said.

“We didn’t leave until ten, and there was must have been a wreck on I-77, because we were backed up for a good hour.”

“Oh. So how far are you?”

“Ten minutes from the B and B, I think. Maybe fifteen.”

“Call me when you get settled,” he told me.

But before I could, he called again, just as Sharon and I got to the room.

I put the phone to my ear. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Just making sure you’ve arrived.”

Or checking up on me? “We’re here.”

“Are you going to go get a bite to eat?”

“A snack, most likely. I already made reservations at Hyman’s.”

“The seafood place. Ah, very nice. For what time?”

“Six-thirty.”

“What’s the weather like?”

“Pretty nice. About seventy-one, right, Sharon?”

“Yeah, that’s what they said on the radio,” she concurred. “I might bring out that bikini yet.”

“What?” Robert asked. “What was that about a bikini?”

“It was a joke,” I told him. “We’re definitely not going swimming.” I paused. “Can I call you back? We just got up to the room, and we want to get settled—”

“No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”

Hanging up, I faced Sharon. “He wanted to make sure we arrived okay.”

She smiled and looked away. But I got the feeling there was an opinion behind the grin.

It might not have been warm enough to swim, but it was warm enough for ice cream—at least as far as Sharon was concerned. So, two hours later, after getting a manicure, we went into an ice cream shop in historic Charleston. I got a cone. Sharon got a hot fudge sundae.

We were walking down the street two minutes later when my phone rang again. I pretty much knew, before looking at the display, that it would be Robert.