Caress Part Two (Arcadia) (6 page)

The town car was waiting for us when we left the hotel.
Isaac was standing beside it with the rear door open. He gave Emma a smile and
hit me with a straight on look that spoke volumes.

The guy who ostensibly was my driver but who in reality was
a lot more had let me know on several occasions in the past week that he
thought well of Emma and expected me to do right by her. I was okay with him
doing that because there was no way that I couldn’t be.

I understood while he liked Emma; she was an impressive
dame. The word, popping into my head suddenly, made me grin. Its fifties’ vibe suited
her, especially when she was wearing nothing but a red-and-white polka dotted
apron.

Not going there. Not now at least.

I’d called for the car while she was in the ladies room. I
didn’t think she’d take advantage of the privacy there to give herself a little
relief from the off-the-charts sexual tension exploding between us, at least I
hoped not. I wanted her as hungry and on edge as I was. More so would have been
better but I didn’t think that was possible, not given how I was feeling.

Like someone had shoved a steel rod down my dick. Yeah, that
uncomfortable not to mention unsettling.

Emma had an uncanny ability to knock me off balance. I still
couldn’t believe that I’d opened up to her about my family the way that I had.
I’d never done that before with anyone.

I’d even come straight out and said that Adam would have
been my father’s heir if the two of them had ever gotten to know each other.
I’d lived with that reality for seven years and never felt any need to mention
it to anyone, until now. Until her.

What the hell was she doing to me?

At the moment, she was sitting in the backseat of the town
car, so close that all I had to do was reach out and she’d be in my arms. I
would have liked nothing better but if I touched her, my plan for the rest of
the day would go up in smoke.

I had no doubt that Miss Whittaker was horny. I could
practically smell her arousal, or at least I imagined that I could. She had to
expect that we were heading back to the apartment. But I had other ideas.

Starting with righting the balance between us. I was the
guy. Hell, by most estimates, I was a flat-out alpha male used to being in
charge.

She was a woman—which is not to say that I didn’t totally
respect her as a complete equal in every sense. Except that she was also a
novice when it came to sex, albeit one with a hell of a lot of natural talent.
Even so, no way was she getting the better of me.

Sure, I could take her back to the apartment and fuck her
senseless. I’d probably put myself in a coma doing so but that was a small
price to pay. The only problem was that she’d win—again. And that meant that
she’d go right on thinking that all there was between us with sex.

Casual, no-strings, hasta la vista sex.

The kind I’d always liked and suddenly couldn’t stand.

So instead I had other intentions.

“Where are we going?” Emma asked when the town car, instead
of turning north in the direction of the Arcadia, turned south.

 “It’s a surprise.”

“Oh, god, another one?”

There was a definite lack of enthusiasm in her tone. Still,
I refused to be discouraged.

“You’re going to love this, I promise.”

“It doesn’t involve more ice cream, does it? I mean, that
was great but I honestly can’t eat another bite.”

I thought of what was in store for her and grinned. “You’ll
change your mind.”

She looked alarmed but she didn’t say another word until we
were on the Brooklyn Bridge. Then it was her turn to surprise me.

“Did you know that Senator Prentice kept a suite at the
Plaza the whole time he was seeing Margo?” she asked suddenly.

That
was what she’d been thinking about while we were
at the hotel? I hoped to hell not.

“No, I didn’t.” I didn’t care either. Sure, I was sorry
about what had happened to the actress, a life wasted and all that. But it was
ancient history so far as I was concerned. As long as nothing about it intruded
into the present.

“I suppose that’s because it was the 1950s,” Emma went on.
“People felt compelled to be more discrete back then.”

I could have shrugged and left it at that. But what I lacked
in curiosity about the late senator, I more than made up for in wanting to
understand the tantalizing woman who had hurtled into my life. If my instincts
were right, she couldn’t possibly have as rosy a view of that bygone world as
she was suggesting.

“More hypocritical, you mean,” I said, just to see how she’d
respond. “They would have been better off being honest with each other and with
themselves.”

“Maybe they were afraid of what would happen if they did
that,” she countered.

“How so?” I asked.

“Just that the world must have seemed very fragile to them
after everything they’d been through—the Depression, World War II, the atom
bomb. Maybe they thought that if they threw out all the rules, everything would
fall apart.”

“So they hid behind them instead? That can’t have been good
for anyone.”

“No,” Emma said softly, “I don’t suppose that it was.
Deception never is.”

Rather than let her think about the giant deception that had
derailed her own life, I said, “Speaking of deceit, maybe Prentice had a woman
on the side. That could be why he kept the suite at the Plaza.”

Her eyes widened. It was clear that this idea had never
occurred to her. After everything she’d been through and her avoidance of
commitment, I liked that infidelity wasn’t on her “go to” list of options.

“Do you really think so?” she asked. “He and Margo were
supposed to be such a romantic couple. There was talk that they were going to
be married.”

I opened my mouth to say something really stupid about how
guys didn’t always keep their dicks in their pants when they should. Fortunately,
my brain engaged in the nick of time.

The last thing I wanted was her having any doubts about my
own capacity for faithfulness, especially when that absolutely would not have
been justified. Emma was the first—the only—woman I’d ever met who made me
think about porches, rocking chairs, sunsets, and all that crazy stuff.

“Then there’s probably some other explanation,” I said quickly.
“Perhaps whoever buys the apartment will get to the bottom of it.”

I didn’t really think that Yuri would try although he might
surprise me given that he had a thing for Margo Stark’s movies. Hell, with his
resources, he might even be the one to finally solve the mystery of what had
sent her into decades-long seclusion.

“Here’s a thought,” I said as a possibility popped into my
head. “Maybe Prentice really was dicking around, Margo found out, and she
killed him.”

Those gorgeous blue eyes that I could get lost in suddenly
got even bigger. “
She
did? But she spent the rest of her life mourning
him.”

“Maybe, or instead of grief perhaps what she was really
overcome by was guilt.”

The more I thought about that, the more I liked it. I wasn’t
anywhere near as interested in Margo as my sister, Caroline was, or Emma
herself for that matter. But I still didn’t like the idea of the actress being
collateral damage for whoever had killed Prentice. I’d much rather that she was
the architect of her own life even if that meant she’d made some bad choices.

Emma looked taken aback but she didn’t dismiss the idea out
of hand. Instead, I watched as she turned it over in her mind.

“For Margo to have killed Prentice,” she said, thinking out
loud, “she would have had to get out of the Arcadia that night without being
seen. There are several back entrances so that wouldn’t necessarily have been a
problem.”

“There also wouldn’t have been any security cameras,” I
pointed out. “They hadn’t been invented yet.”

She nodded. “But by the time she got downstairs, Prentice
would already have been gone. She would have had to catch up with him and
somehow get him to walk into the alley where he died.”

Even as she spoke, she was shaking her head. “On top of all
that, she would have had to bring a gun with her from the apartment. That makes
it all premeditated. I just can’t see Margo behaving in such a way.”

“Unless it was Prentice’s gun,” I said. “Caro told me
something about him planning to go after organized crime as part of his
presidential campaign. If he really did intend to do that, wouldn’t he have had
the sense to be armed?”

“He probably would have,” Emma agreed. “The gun was never
found so I suppose that it could have been his. But I still don’t believe that
Margo shot him.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because she was a warm, vibrant, lovely woman, not some
cold-blooded killer. In the heat of an argument…if they’d struggled and she somehow
got hold of the gun…that I could see…maybe. But stalking him, drawing him into
the alley? None of that fits with who she was.”

“You’re probably right,” I acknowledged. “But if Prentice
was being unfaithful to her, that could shed some light on his true character.”

“Besides the fact that it would mean he was a rat bastard?”

“Besides that. Think about it, she was a huge star, adored
by millions of the same people whose votes he needed if he was going to make it
to the White House. What better way to assure that he wouldn’t get them than to
break her heart?”

Emma looked at me in bewilderment. “But if that’s true, he
would have been sabotaging his own future.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t the future he wanted. His
father’s expectations might have been too much for him. Could be that all he
really wanted to do was take off for Paris, drink wine, and chase women.”

I must have sounded a little too entertained by that idea
because she looked at me thoughtfully. “Did you want to do that?” she asked.
“Before you took over the business?”

I liked Paris well enough even though I could barely
tolerate some Parisians. In any case, there were lots better places to be.

“Me? No way. I wanted to sail a catamaran through the
Pacific Islands, start off in French Polynesia, head west to Fiji, then drop
down to New Zealand and circumnavigate Australia before putting in to Sydney.”

Abruptly, the impact of what I’d just said hit me. What the
hell was I thinking telling her my college-boy plans for what I was going to do
after graduation? I still had the catamaran, bought the day I turned
twenty-one. I even sailed that sweet lady down to Bermuda occasionally. But I’d
yet to see Fiji or anywhere near it.

“Why haven’t you?” Emma asked softly. “That sounds like it
would be an amazing adventure.”

I was tempted to shrug the question off, give her some
bullshit answer, but the look in her eyes stopped me. She deserved better.

“It probably would have been,” I conceded. “But my dad died
two weeks after I got out of college. We’d barely had the funeral before it
became obvious that the business was under attack. I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“But you would have gone, if he’d lived?”

I thought about that. I’d been determined to make the trip,
in no small measure because I knew how much my father hated the idea. He took
it as proof of what he called my feckless nature. He even went so far as to say
that he regretted setting up my trust fund, given what I was doing with it.

Would I have gone despite all that?

“Yeah, I would have,” I said. “I admired my dad’s business
success but I didn’t want to be like him and I definitely didn’t want him being
in charge of my future. Taking off for the Pacific basically would have been my
way of telling him to give up on me.”

Which, now that I thought of it, might explain why I
suspected that Prentice could have been engaged in self-sabotage, whether he
knew it or not. I was no stranger to that myself but at least I’d been aware of
what I was doing. And I hadn’t ended up dead in an alley.

“Forget about that,” I said, determined to get us off the
subject. Not that I had much hope of success. No matter what we talked
about—Margo, Prentice, kids’ books, probably even the weather—she got me to
open up about myself.

I needed to get her to do the same. Starting with seeing how
she reacted when she found out where we were going.

“
Ohmygod!”
I moaned. “That was the best ever.”

Fetching up a sultry smile, I batted my eyelashes at Lucas. “Are
you good to go again?”

Truth be told, his legs looked a little wobbly. Mine were
the same and we both needed to catch our breath but he didn’t disappoint me.

“As many times as you want, sweetheart.”

I laughed and threw my arms around him. The warmth of his
big, hard body pressed against mine had the predictable effect. I closed my
eyes against yet another wave of the sheer, unbridled lust that he never failed
to inspire.

 “And after that,” I said, “I want a horn dog.”

Lucas tipped my chin back and looked down at me. His eyes
glowed with delight. “Corn dog, baby.”

“What did I say?”

When he told me, I blushed. Maybe Freud was right about us
revealing our subconscious desires in the ‘mistakes’ we blurt out. And maybe the
guy who thought all women feel inadequate because they don’t have a penis could
suck it.

 “A slip of the tongue, that’s all,” I said dismissively.

“Anywhere you want to slip your tongue is fine with me,
baby.”

“You did not just say that!”

His grin was so shameless that I burst out laughing

Grabbing his hand, I dragged him back toward the Cyclone,
Coney Island’s biggest and most popular roller-coaster, the wooden relic of an
earlier age that still managed to deliver spine-jangling thrills.

We’d made four trips on it so far and I still wanted more. I
couldn’t remember when I’d had this much fun, especially not fully dressed. The
moment I thought that, visions of Lucas--on the terrace, in the master bedroom,
seated across from me at breakfast—exploded in my head.

I smothered a groan and tried to ignore the urgent messages from
my wet, swollen pussy. On the one hand, I resented that he was making me wait.
On the other, I cherished the fact that he was willing to do so.

“Why did you pick this spot?” I asked as we got back on line
for the Cyclone.

Because it was after Labor Day, Coney Island wasn’t overly crowded.
Most of the people strolling along the boardwalk or lying on the beach were
probably locals. In a few more weeks, the concessions and rides would shut
down. Then the loudest sounds would be the jets going in and out of nearby JFK
Airport, and the pounding of waves completing their long journey across the
Atlantic.

I pushed aside the thought of where I’d be by then and
focused on the moment.

“I thought you’d enjoy it,” Lucas said. He had an arm around
my waist. It felt good to be snuggled against him. It felt right.

“Have you ever been here before?” he asked.

“I’m embarrassed to say that I have not.”

He sighed. “Born and raised in New York City, and never set
foot in Coney Island. How many times have I heard that? All my friends in high
school thought I was nuts to come out here.”

I thought about the reaction I would have gotten from my
classmates if I’d suggested any such thing and nodded. “Sounds like we grew up
in the same bubble.”

Lucas nodded. “Please don’t take this the wrong way but you’ve
at least learned how to live outside of it. I really admire that.”

I stared at him in surprise, uncertain what to make of that.
I rarely thought of my life over the past few years as anything other than a
struggle to cope with the consequences of my father’s crimes. But I was also
aware that if he had remained the master of the financial universe that he had
seemed, I wouldn’t be the person I had become.

Certainly, I would never have faced the struggles that I
had, never had to pinch pennies and skip meals, wear second hand clothes, and
be humbled by the simple demands of day-to-day existence.

I’d still be blithe, unaware, skimming through life on an
oversized sense of entitlement and the blind assumption that nothing would ever
change. Despite everything that I’d been through, I never wanted to be like
that again.

 “You’re not a bubble person either,” I said. “If you were,
you wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all that you have.”

When he looked at me in surprise, I went on, “You put aside
your own dreams to fulfill your responsibility to your family and to your
father’s legacy. But you didn’t stop there. You transformed what you’d been
given. You couldn’t have done that without becoming more than you were when you
began.”

He was silent long enough for me to wonder if he was
offended by what I’d said.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he drew me into his arms
and murmured, “Thank you. No one’s ever said that to me before but the truth is
that under the veneer of serving the wealthiest and most privileged, Phelps
Properties employees a hundred times the number of people that we used to. The
best part of what I do is creating jobs and seeing the impact that has on lives
and communities.”

He took a step back and looked at me wryly. “Of course,
that’s just between us. The investment community, the business media, my own
clients, none of them take kindly to that touchy-feely stuff.”

“You mean the stuff that actually matters?”

“Yeah, that,” he said.

The line moved forward. We were suddenly at the front. Lucas
took my hand. “Ready?” he asked.

I returned his grin, swept by a giddy happiness that had
nothing to do with Coney Island and everything to do with the man who had
brought me there. “Always.”

Together, we stepped onto the roller-coaster.

Ten minutes later, we stumbled back off.

“Let’s call that one done,” Lucas said as he held me up. I
was feeling a little green around the gills and he looked the same.

I nodded weakly. “Oh, yeah.”

To recover, we went for a walk along the beach. Sitting at
the edge of the wooden steps leading down to it, we took off our shoes. The
sand was still warm but grew steadily cooler toward the water’s edge.

We played tag with the waves, darting back as they stretched
up the beach, laughing whenever they caught us. Breathless and wet, we washed off
under one of the strategically placed faucets and headed back up onto the
boardwalk.

By then, it was getting on for dusk. Lights were coming on
along the midway. They transformed it from brash and gaudy to something far
more magical. Calliope music floated on the air. It was coming from the Ferris
wheel turning slowly high above the beach.

“Are you up for that?” he asked with a smile.

I grinned in turn and said, “I am if you are.”

As the two-person gondola we were in rose into the air, I
clutched Lucas’ hand unabashedly. The speed was faster than it had looked from
the ground and the effect was breathtaking. In the distance, I could see the
lit-up span of a bridge and the vast blue-water harbor. Closer in was a
bird’s-eye view of the sandy beach and beyond to a long, low spit of land
wreathed in mist.

“This is so beautiful!” I exclaimed.

Lucas cupped my chin with his free hand and turned me to
face him. The light in his eyes made me forget everything else.

“You are so beautiful,” he said gently.

Coming from another man that could have sounded like a
cliché. But it was exactly what I needed to hear from him. How did he do that?
Give me exactly what I needed when I needed it? Not just when we were having
sex but always?

When we met, I wouldn’t have guessed that he could be so
sensitive, even empathetic. I still had trouble believing that given the side
of his nature that was all hard-charging male, in bed and out. Yet I couldn’t
deny the reality either.

He made me feel cared for, even cherished, and just genuinely
liked. I hadn’t experienced any of that in so long that taken all together, it made
my senses whirl.

And not entirely in a good way. I was suddenly aware of
being suspended well over a hundred feet in the air, swaying back and forth in
a wind that felt far stronger this high up than it had on the ground. But that
was nothing compared to the even stronger sensation of hanging over an
emotional chasm, terrified that if I let go and trusted myself to Lucas, I
would start falling and never stop.

I hadn’t experienced a panic attack since those moments in
the pantry when he thought that I was an intruder. But now one threatened at
the edges of my consciousness. I couldn’t let that happen, not under these
circumstances. That would be far too dangerous for both of is, not to mention
humiliating.

But I also didn’t know how to prevent it. My chest tightened
as I began to tremble. I wanted to tell Lucas, warn him, but the words wouldn’t
come.

In the next moment, I realized that they didn’t have to. The
look of concern in his eyes gave way quickly to one of understanding.

Putting an arm around my shoulders, he said, “It’s okay,
sweetheart. Just close your eyes and let me hold you. Everything will be all
right.”

At first, I didn’t think that I could do as he said. But the
warmth of his body and the steady comfort of his strength proved irresistible.
More quickly than I would have thought possible, my pulse steadied.

In his arms, my head resting on his chest, I shut out all
the rest of the world except for Lucas. Reality narrowed down to the beat of
his heart and the silent comfort of his closeness.

As the threat of an attack eased, I opened my eyes and
looked at him.

“Better?” he asked softly.

I nodded. “I’m sorry…”

His face darkened. “Remember what I said the other night in
the screening room when you called a halt? You never have to apologize for what
you feel or who you are.”

 Something cracked deep inside me. I felt the sudden rush of
tears in my eyes at the same time that the dampness surged between my legs. I
wanted him, needed him in every possible way. I was just still so afraid to
admit it.

“Hey,” he murmured as he caught a tear on his thumb. “What’s
this?”

“Nothing,” I said, sniffing. “I just appreciate what you
did.”

He stroked my lower lip, tugging lightly. I tasted the salt
of my tears and his skin together. Softly he said, “I want to take care of you,
Emma. You should know that by now.”

Heat flared in me, burning out the last remnants of panic.
Without thinking, I sucked his thumb into my mouth and bit the pad lightly.

At once, his eyes darkened. The embrace that had been
comforting became something else altogether.

“I’d like to fuck you,” he murmured thickly. “Right here,
right now.”

I gave his thumb a lick and let it go. Carnal excitement
rippled through me as I contemplated the mental image of me on Lucas’ lap, his
magnificent erection deep inside me, as we whirled round and round with the
city laid out below us.

“Is that another item on your Top Ten Sexual Fantasy List?”
I teased even as the heat built in me.

“It is now,” he murmured and took my mouth with his.

My lips parted on a soft gasp, admitting the hard thrust of
his tongue. A wave of sheer carnal lust unfurled at my core. His taste and
breath filled me. The need that had been building for hours exploded. I clung
to him, moaning, and drove my fingers through his hair.

The motion of the wheel, rising and falling, mimicked a far
more intimate dance. If not for the metal bar holding us in place, I really
would have been tempted to throw away all caution, free that magnificent cock
and—

“Ride’s over, folks.”

Disoriented, I looked up. We were on the ground. An amused-looking
carny was smirking at us.

“Unless you want to go again?” he suggested.

“Thanks, but no,” Lucas said as the iron bar released.

He stood and held out his hand. I took it gratefully. Our
eyes met and we grinned.

“You’re a bad influence, Miss Whittaker,” he said as we
strolled back toward the boardwalk.

After the years of caution and restraint, I could hardly
contain my glee. “Am I really? I think I like the sound of that.”

He laughed and wrapped an arm around my waist, lifting me
off the ground and spinning me in a circle.

“I like it, too.” Setting me down gently, he said, “What
would you like to do now?”

Tempted though I was to suggest that we find the car and
head back to the privacy of the apartment, I said, “I believe I was promised a
corn dog.”

Lucas stared at me in disbelief for a moment before shaking
his head in amusement. With an arch of his eyebrows, he upped the ante.

“How about a foot-long hotdog instead, Nathan’s best?”

Or how about I see you and raise? “Why not both?”

“Because one of us has to exercise a little restraint,” he
said with mock sternness.

I shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I left mine back on the
Cyclone.”

We went to Nathan’s, after I thought it over and decided
that I wanted a hotdog more. Half-way through eating it, I sighed and said,
“This is delicious but if I finish it, I won’t have room for cotton candy.”

Lucas leaned closer and licked a dab of mustard from the
corner of my mouth. Straightening, his gaze locked on mine with such intensity
that I felt the rush of blood in my veins and the drumbeat of my pulse.

“I’ll buy you some on one condition,” he said

 “What’s that?”

“First, you let me feed it to you bite by bite. Then you
take my fingers in your mouth and suck them clean. You don’t stop until I give
you permission to.”

I stared at him long enough to realize that I needed to
breathe. “Forget the cotton candy,” I said hoarsely. “Let’s go home.”

Barely were the words out than he reached for his phone.