Some Like Them Rich Page 6

  I could hardly stand it. Don’s palms made wide circles on my breasts as he thrust inside me. I sat on his thighs, my legs spread and hanging on either side of his. Curling my legs around his, like braided dough I sat while his rock-hard penis jackhammered into me. Calling his name was like saying hallelujah. “Yes!” I whispered, then shouted, “Yes!” Again and again, I repeated it, each time in rhythm with his thrusts. I wanted more. I wanted him like I’ve never wanted a man.

  Don made love like no one else. I couldn’t remain reserved with him, couldn’t hold on to any decorum. I let go. With Don it was to the rafters, let the games begin, shout, stomp, make some noise, let the church say amen.

  A-men.

  Chapter 6

  There wasn’t much that could be called a lonely beach on the Vineyard. With the influx of tourists in the last ten years, the beaches were full unless it was extremely early in the morning. Even darkness didn’t afford the sand and surf a rest. Bonfires and beach parties competed with the Vineyard’s nightlife of cafés, concerts, and house parties. Morning was the part of the day that I liked—later than daybreak, but before most of the sun worshipers were up. It was my practice to jog along the beach every morning, but I’d only added this stretch of sand to my routine since Amber had come to the island. The hotel was equipped with a weight room, two swimming pools, and an aerobics theater, but I preferred the beach. I liked the sand under my feet, the salt air on my face and my body. I liked the smell of the ocean and the sound of the gulls overhead as they cawed and dipped their beaks in the clean water for breakfast.

  And after our encounter … Encounter? I couldn’t call it that. Searching my mind, I tried to find the word to describe what had happened between Amber and me. It took a few seconds, but I knew there was none. Nothing could describe what had happened between us. It was an experience like no other. And it defied both definition and description.

  There was a verse I’d read long ago, one I couldn’t quote. It had something to do with the creation of fire. That was as close as I could come to describing the phenomenal sensation that had taken us as close to heaven on earth as God ever intended.

  And then I saw her.

  I nearly stumbled, my ankle turning in the soft grains underfoot. Amber Nash sat on a beach chair ahead of me, her long legs extended in the warm sand. A lone figure amid the white sand, dark water, and golden horizon. Her one-piece swimming suit was in her signature red. I hadn’t seen her here before, although I ran this way in the hope of finding her peering through a window or having coffee on the porch.

  It had been two days and two nights since she was with me, and I hadn’t heard a word from her. Sure enough of myself not to think I hadn’t satisfied her, I wondered if I’d done or said something to keep her away.

  I had been busy at the hotel. Groups were checking in and out all the time, and the past two days had demanded an unusual amount of personal attention on my part for guests who thought their needs were the most important in the world. Luckily they had all been satisfied. Yet I missed seeing the brown-skinned woman in the red shoes. I was quite fond of those shoes. I expected to see Amber or her two friends dancing or playing one of the many outdoor sports the Vineyard provided to the cast of summer thunder that burst onto the island for three months every year. But she’d been absent, at least from my view. She’d imprinted herself on my mind and body, which even now hardened in anticipation of a repeat performance.

  It was a feeling I liked; just looking at her aroused me. Some men looked in magazines, others watched late-night adult movies, and still others had anatomically correct plastic toys. Me, I preferred the real deal.

  And it got no realer than Amberlina Nash. I knew that from firsthand experience.

  She hadn’t seen me yet, sensed my presence. I slowed to a walk. She had her head down. As I got closer, I could see she was writing something. Journals, trip diaries, and postcards were common for the Vineyard’s guests, but Amber’s concentration denoted something more than what I expected of a tourist. I wondered if she was trying to put our experience into words.

  “Good morning,” I said as I reached her. She turned with a jerk as if my voice surprised her. Her face quickly transformed from concern to a smile and then to something else. “I see you’re an early riser,” I said.

  “You, too.”

  She looked me up and down, sweeping her eyes from my head to my toes. I wanted to turn, find a position that didn’t so clearly show her how much she affected me. I dropped to my knees and sat back on my legs.

  “This is my favorite time of the day,” I said, unable to think of anything else. I waited a moment before speaking. “I missed seeing you.” My voice was low and soft with just the right amount of sexual persuasion in it.

  “Don,” she began. “I know we spent the night together.” She paused. I knew what was coming. It was evident in her tone when she said my name. My heart constricted and my throat tightened. Why? I wondered.

  “It was phenomenal,” she went on, yet her face showed no animation and I could hear the caution in her voice.

  “But,” I supplied.

  “But I want to be up front with you. I don’t think we should continue to see each other.”

  I hesitated a moment, incapable of speech. Scenes like this were played out on silver screens in darkened theaters. Not in real life. The night we’d spent together was more than phenomenal, it was indescribable. How could she turn away from such an all-consuming, fire-producing, life-changing experience? It was totally incomprehensible.

  My shoulders dropped. If that’s the way she felt, I couldn’t make her change her mind. All I could do was get away from the situation with as much dignity as my legs would allow.

  “All right,” I said, finding my voice and amazed that it was even. I felt as if she’d punched me squarely in the stomach. Our night together was beyond comprehension. “Before I go, I deserve to know why. What is it about me you don’t like?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing?” My voice was so low, I could hardly hear it myself. I looked at the ground a moment before bringing my gaze back at Amber. The light was growing stronger and I saw the brightness highlighting her eyes. They were a soft brown, but I knew they could turn a deep, dark, rich chocolate when she was naked and in the throes of rapture.

  She was shaking her head.

  “Then why the hell …”

  “I’m looking for someone,” she interrupted. “Someone like a man?” I nearly choked on the word.

  “So to speak.”

  “Someone like a husband?”

  “So to speak,” she repeated.

  “What does that mean? Are you saying you’re married?”

  “No.”

  I got it. “You’re not married, but you’re looking for a husband?” Again she nodded.

  “Is it a particular husband you’re searching for or will any husband do?” I was angry and not quite understanding why. I had no intention of pursuing this woman. Sure, I was attracted to her. What red-blooded male over sixteen wouldn’t be? She was beautiful, but I’d seen plenty of beautiful women. To be so flatly denied future encounters like the previous one was an unexpected blow.

  Many women had walked through my life. When the association proved too restricting, I’d been the one ending it before it became a relationship. None of those women could hold a sexual candle to the knowledge, power, and command of the act Amberlina Nash had shown me.

  Heat flashed through me with the power of an island-producing eruption.

  “I am very particular about who will do,” she said. “And it has to be someone with a net worth greater than a hotel manager earns.”

  Her words were like bullets. Money. She was a gold digger. I hadn’t seen it in her character. It was the last thing I expected.

  “I see,” I said, not really seeing at all. Standing up, my body no longer in any danger of telegraphing its need to join with hers, I straightened my shoulders, showing her the pride I fe
lt in what I did. “I am the manager.”

  I was the manager, but my father owned the property. Just as I owned the gingerbread-laden, double-porch Victorian Amber rented. I’d studied architecture in college, but found my interest lay in the hotel business. Not the giant well-run hotels—I excelled in the small sick establishments where I could root out the issues, fix them, and bring the glory back to where it was when the building was planned.

  I couldn’t tell her that, and if she was shallow enough to want to marry for money, I wanted nothing to do with her. There were plenty of other women in the world. Why should I waste my time on her? Then I remembered the fire analogy. I saw us naked, drenched in the sweet smell of sex, our bodies rolling around on sheets as behavior so basic and so earthy took us to the edge of time.

  “I apologize if the other night led you to believe—”

  I raised my hand, stopping her. A replay of that night had already formed in my head. I didn’t want a play-by-play from her or for her to put any tarnish on the images in my mind. And I didn’t want to hear any apologies. That night had been one of the few times in my life I could say something mind-shattering had happened. And if I had to go to my grave never experiencing it again, I wanted to keep the memory of it untarnished.

  “Why don’t we just agree to disagree?” she asked.

  I heard the dismissive element of her tone. It was time for me to go. Unlike her, I had a schedule to maintain. “Enjoy yourself,” I said, then remembering my place as she had given it to me, I continued. “If you have a free moment, drop by the hotel. The food is excellent and many of the hotel’s extras are available to the public.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said, neither smiling nor frowning.

  I nodded and continued my jog. The air was warm and warming by the minute, but I felt a slight chill from the cold fire she’d turned on me. The sand no longer felt good under my feet. My legs were as heavy as tree trunks, and I felt as if I was jogging through molasses. I wanted to run, sprint, shoot around the island like a rocket, getting as far away from Amber Nash as the eighty-seven square miles of the Vineyard would allow.

  But I didn’t. I maintained my leisurely pace. She could have been watching me. I was sure she was. I could feel her eyes keeping cadence with the pounding of my feet. But I refused to glance over my shoulder and confirm it.

  Another time, I might have taken her words as a challenge, pursued her, forced her to prove her words, shown her that I could make her change her mind. But I knew the risks. I had an agenda of my own and she didn’t fit into it. At this point in the summer, I needed to keep my eye on the prize.

  And as much as my body ached for Amber Nash, as much as I felt like grabbing her and kissing her into submission, she was not the prize.

  * * *

  I followed Don’s movements as he jogged away from me. My fingers gripped the tablet in my trembling hands with a G-force to rival astronauts in training. Don made me tremble. He scared me. I couldn’t believe the night we had together actually happened. But I knew it did. Not only did I act like someone I didn’t know, but the reward of our joining was undeniable.

  Yet he wasn’t the one. I wasn’t here for him.

  What a waste, I thought. He was exactly what I was looking for. Well, almost. He had a great body. I knew the feel of it, the touch of his hard muscles, the way I could make him weak and wanting. Our time in his bed defied words. He’d found a part of me previously unknown and unleashed. And like a devil, he’d turned the key in the lock and it bounded free. Who was that woman sitting on his lap, making love as if the world’s end was only seconds away?

  I shook away the thoughts. In no way was a hotel manager in the running for my affections. Dragging my eyes away from his figure, I went to my writing. The Vineyard seemed to have a strange effect on me. It wasn’t just Don and our incredible night together. In the back of my mind I’d told myself someday I would write a novel. I liked the idea of having written a novel, but not the actual act of writing one word at a time. I wrote greeting cards. I thought in short phrases, rhymes, sentiments, not in lengthy passages that required story arcs and character development. Yet the moment I found this quiet beach, the urge to write felt like it was what I was supposed to do. Today I came with a pen and a notebook. Five pages were already filled before Don Randall interrupted me.

  I looked down the beach. He was still jogging, but he’d turned and was heading back toward me. A twinge of excitement pinged inside me. I wondered if there was a way we could be friends. Quickly I rejected the idea. I could not be friends with a man who turned my body to molten lava. He loomed larger as he came closer and closer. I wanted to turn back to my notebook, but I found myself staring at him, watching as his feet punched into the sand. Time seemed to slow down and I followed the flexing and relaxing of his leg muscles as he raised and lowered them in the regular cadence of the jog. I couldn’t help my thoughts from turning back to the way I’d ridden him in the kitchen chair, the way his arm muscles had held me, his hands skimming over my skin and squeezing at the right time. The way his body fit so well with mine as if the two of us had been molded from the same piece of clay.

  I shook my head, forcing myself to brush thoughts of him aside. I tried to go back to my writing, but my concentration was blown. I felt like a fraud, a female heel who’d treated a man as if he was little more than a fly. We’d spent the most incredible night of my life together and I’d banished it as if it was no more than an annoyance, while what it had been was a live-wire attached directly to my erogenous zones. And I wanted it again. I wanted it for life. This is what all the love novels talked about. I’d read my share of them, but I never believed that kind of lovemaking was possible. If it was, there would be no need to write it in novels. So it must be something that was unique, a plane of existence that was unknown to most people. Don and I had found it, created it, shared it. But it was one night in a lifetime of nights, I told myself. I wasn’t going to let it sway me from my goal.

  I told myself I would smile at him as he went by, but I would not invite him to engage in any further conversation. I didn’t write anything before looking up again to gauge his progress. He wasn’t there. Sitting forward in the chair, I whipped my head about in all directions. I checked the water. I stood up, hooding my eyes with my hand, scanning every bit of land, but I was alone. Nothing stretched before me but sand and sea. Disappointment the size of the island wedged inside me.

  It was just as well, I told myself. He’s not in the league I was interested in anyway. But he’d destroyed my writing time.

  And my morning.

  Possibly my life.

  Collecting my beach chair and writing book, I returned to the house. Jack and Lila had stumbled out of bed in search of coffee when I walked in the kitchen.

  “Well, look who finally found her way home,” Lila said, her eyes opening wide when she saw me.

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t been any farther than the beach for the last two days.”

  “You haven’t been here. You came in, sometime in the early morning hours yesterday. Then you changed clothes and left before breakfast. What did that guy do to you?”

  “What guy?” I asked.

  “The one you spent the two nights with,” Jack joined in, each word dripping with sarcasm.

  “You think I spent the night with Don Randall?” I protested.

  “Let’s analyze the situation.” Jack took a seat and a sip of her coffee before speaking. She faced me fully. On her fingers she ticked off her terms. “First you dance with the guy looking like the stars are hung in his eyes. Then you leave a perfectly good party early for no apparent reason. When we get back here, there is no you and no sign that you’ve even been here. Then you sneak in the house, still wearing your cocktail dress, just before sunrise. I’d say all the evidence points to spending the night or nights with the hotel manager.” Her smile was of the Cheshire cat variety.

  I knew they were teasing me, but I didn’t li
ke being on that side of the banter.

  Protesting to Jack and Lila would do no good. No one believed me. Not even me. I spent most of the first night in Don’s arms, but I returned to the house before daybreak. Both Lila and Jack were asleep. At least I thought they were. I didn’t check their bedrooms, but I saw Jack’s purse on the kitchen counter when I went to get a bottle of water and the shoes Lila had been wearing were lying next to the front door as if she’d stepped across the threshold and out of them at the same time.

  I knew Jack and Lila would question me about Don, so I got away from the house before they were up and about. I kept my distance, but this morning I’d encountered Don on the beach.

  “I guess you were here before the sun was fully up in the sky,” Lila said.

  I can’t say. I’m a heavy sleeper.

  Unlike Jack, I thought, who’d wake up at any noise, strange or familiar.

  “I told you guys, he’s not in the league where I’m casting my net.”

  “I don’t think he knows that.”

  “He knows,” I whispered, but neither one of them heard me.

  Chapter 7

  “Well, let me tell you about my date.” Lila smiled, taking the attention from me and doing her usual “it’s all about me” routine. I was happy to relinquish the floor and have the subject changed.

  “Can you do it over breakfast?” Jack asked. “I’m hungry. And I hear the food at the hotel is good.” Jack cast her eyes at me. I refused to react, at least on the outside. “Why don’t we go there and eat?” Jack continued.

  The last place I wanted to go was the hotel. “Count me out,” I said.

  “We’d have to get dressed,” Lila said at the same time.

  “That would be a must,” Jack answered as sarcastically as she could.

  “Who told you the food was good?” I asked.

  “The manager,” Jack answered, looking at me as if she was playing Cupid.