“Will you check on him later?”
Brando caught my eye. “You’re going to let Mitch go inside but you won’t go inside your own house?”
I looked down at my hands. “I—I can’t, Brando. If I go inside, I won’t be able to come out. I’ll never be able to leave. This is as far as I can go. When the time is right, I’ll never have to leave again.”
He nodded, his eyes hard on the front door. Then he grinned. “My old bed isn’t the same though.”
“I kind of like it.” I smiled. “It’s smaller. Less wiggle room. It feels dangerous. Like we might get caught.”
He smirked. “Even if Maggie Beautiful were to catch us, all I’d get is a slap to the head. Not even that now, since we’re married.”
I whipped toward him. “You were caught? In your room?”
“Yeah,” he said, not one to lie. “We had just started to kiss. I never brought women home.”
I remembered the day I had first met Maggie Beautiful. She was shocked to see me. She had mentioned that Brando never brought girls, orwomen, home.
“How did the woman come to be in your room then?”
“She was selling makeup at the door.”
The imagery made me feel physical ill. I was nothing if not jealous. We both let silence come in between us then, listening to the chorus of frogs and musical bugs that come out during the night.
Every so often a breeze would pass and I’d lift my hair to catch it. Finally, I wrapped the thick strands around my head in a bun, using a pencil Mitch had in the glove compartment to secure it.
A car’s lights shone down the long driveway before Maggie Beautiful got out, stumbling and laughing. A man stepped out of the driver’s seat, laughing after her.
“Maggie Beautiful,” Brando called.
She stopped for a moment, waved, and then told the man that they would go to her place instead. Brando answered the questioning look on my face with a shrug. The silence seemed to grow thicker after that, and I leaned forward, messing with the radio.
A slow song started to play. I beat out the rhythm with my fingers against the dash for a moment before getting more comfortable.
The heat felt like another layer of clothing, and so did the humidity, but more like wet clothes right out of the washer. Even thin clothes. I loosened the side tie blouse, draping it over the open window. Then I released myself from the tank underneath, reveling in the feel of another slight breeze against my naked breasts, while I unbuckled my ankle strap heels. The jeans would have to stay.
I looked at Brando.For now.
His eyes were so dangerous that they became wicked in the light of the moon. Getting to my knees, I wedged myself between him and the steering wheel, straddling his hips. Encouraging him to lift his arms, I removed his black t-shirt. Soon his skin and mine would rise up against us, forcing us to surrender to the insatiable hunger.
But for now…
I slid my tongue back and forth against his collarbone, tasting his sweat, the Mediterranean deep beneath, almost with an echo of lemon. His skin was smooth and hot. If there was ever a man I desired to lick, it was Brando Fausti, over every inch of his broad frame. Even being married to him didn’t stop the fantasy.
I backed up a bit, our eyes meeting, and licked my lips.
He moved the pencil from my hair, watching as it fell over my shoulders in dark waves. It was long enough to fall below my waist. He picked up my hair and allowed another cool breeze to touch my neck, then let it cascade around me, just to do the same thing again.
His fingertips glided back and forth against my back, barely touching me, but the calloused fingers caused enough contrast to make me close my eyes to the pleasure. His fingertips roved over my shoulders, gliding above my breasts, making circles, coming close to my hardened nipples but not close enough.
Please don’t ever stop touching me…
“You have my word,” he whispered.
Had those words left my mouth? Apparently so.
Our eyes connected again, and sentimentality had me in her embrace. Being here with him brought back a mishmash of good and bad memories. Not that his look had cooled, but it communicated a different need.
"Violet tried to warn me about you,” I said, my thoughts reflected in my words. “That first night, the night you met me by the train tracks. When that guy knocked me over."
