I can only arch my hips to meet his, higher and higher, and he is grasping and clutching at me – my sides, my breasts, my waist, my arms, my hair – everything. His breathing grows more ragged. His hair falls in shivery strands around his beautiful face.
He’s raw sex himself. Intoxicating. Fiery. Passionate.
“Oh God, Liz, what you do to me,” he groans.
A sweet elation fills me as my own wave rises and crests. That I can even do this to him and with him imbues me with my own overpowering sense of awe. I rise and crest, rise and crest like a breaker along the beach, until a sweet white explosion fills me and I completely lose all my senses.
Ahhhhhhhh!
And
Ohhhhhhh
And
a deep, sweet shudder of satisfaction washes through me.
Oh God.
This is where I’m meant to be.
Sheer utter bliss.
12
I spend the next day sleeping it off in my own bedroom. My dreams are contented and filled with smoky images of Alex.
Alex.
I can stare at him – even in a dream – forever. It seems impossible that such a gorgeous and desirable man would want to make love to me . . . which he has done. Twice.
Holy amazing fuck!
In my dreams, I’m with Alex on the beach, and he is making love to me on the sands. Slowly. Languorously. Looking deep into my eyes like he’s savoring every thrust into me. He’s worshiping my body, if that’s possible . . . the temple that is me . . . and he is doing so adoringly, painstakingly, oh-so-sweetly –
“Liz,” he whispers, “I lo—”
Whatever he’s about to say is drowned out in a whirlwind that sweeps the sands onto our bodies. Or more precisely, into my bedroom.
The bundle of kinetic energy jumps onto my bed.
“Liz!” it shrieks. “You’ve got to see this.”
I blearily open my eyes to see Deanna hovering in front of me.
She pushes a newspaper page in front of me.
“Read this,” she demands.
“What is it?”
“Just wake up and read it, OK? It’s important.”
I drowsily get up from my pillow. My hair is tousled and I’m sure I look like a dog’s dinner. My eyes skim across the page, and then they widen.
The headline says:
MOLDOVIAN KING ANNOUNCES THE ENGAGEMENT OF HIS ELDEST SON, ALEXANDER, TO LADY TATIANA OF NUERNBERG TODAY.
It’s like a brick wall has just been slammed onto my face.
13
I knew it was too good to be true. Such things just don’t happen to me. I mean – look at me. I’m not exactly Ms. Redheaded Goddess. Alex and I are like chalk and cheese, or limestone and marble, or whatever metaphor you want to call it.
I don’t belong in his world and I never will.
I knew something like this would happen, and there’s an awful ache in my chest that splinters everything inside it and nothing, and it goes on and on – like a dagger twisting into my soul for the longest time. So painful that it makes me want to throw back my head and keen in anger. I’m hollow and floating and anchored and despondent and a million other things I never want to feel.
Oh, but I’ve been so foolish.
Foolish!
I was right about everything.
Right about how a man like Alex would never want me for something more than a cheap evening of tawdry sex. (Even though there was nothing tawdry in what we did last night.) I have foolishly allowed myself to feel something for this man, and now I must pay the price.
Oh yes. I acutely and deeply feel something for this man. There’s just something about him that is so magnetic and compelling that I have allowed myself to sink in deep – to believe that his beautiful shining eyes and his wonderfully parted lips (moaning my name in desire when he finally released himself into me) were more than mere lust.
Of course, he has never once mentioned the word ‘love’.
How can two people fall in love in three brief meetings? It’s impossible. At least to me.
My cellphone rings. Listlessly, I glance at the flashing name.
ALEX.
No. I’m not getting that.
At least he cares enough to call, my inner conscience tells me. But he obviously doesn’t care enough about me to tell me he was getting engaged.
Fury ripples through me again.
Damn him. Damn him to hell.
The phone rings off. And then it starts up again – that stupid ringtone I have chosen.
ALEX.
In a fit of anger, I grab it and depress the OFF button on the side. There – the phone is now officially off. If I weren’t in such a cash-challenged state, I’d hurl it against the wall.
I don’t know how long I must have lain on my bed, disheveled and miserable. Deanna has gone to art class, so there is no one to answer the door when the doorbell suddenly rings.
Persistently. Insistently.