Enchanted Heart (17 page)

Lance started the car. “What's not to believe? Look at political campaigns. Voters don't care about issues. They look to see who's the best-looking candidate. That's why debates are so important. It's not what they say, it's how they look. In one of my undergrad classes, we looked at some historical footage of a debate between Richard Nixon and JFK. Anybody could tell that Jack Kennedy, young, sharp, handsome and smiling, was trouncing Nixon who looked pasty, uncertain.”

“Judging people by the way they look is unfair. It's discriminatory.”

Lance glanced at her before going through the light. “That may be,” he said, “but this culture, our society, is all about image. Youth and beauty over age and wisdom.”

“That is so shallow.”

He shrugged in a so-what gesture.

“You'll get old one day.”

“That day isn't now and won't be for a long time.”

“What if that car right there crashed into us? What if your looks were completely destroyed?”

“Viv, honey, that's why God made plastic surgeons.”

Shaking her head, Viv rolled her eyes. “I can't believe you're so shallow.”

“You're just mad because I'm right.”

“No,” Viv said quietly. She looked out the window. “It's just so unfair.”

He reached for her hand. “Vivienne. You are gorgeous. That's not going to change.”

Vivienne started to pull free, but something in his voice calmed her, that and the thumb that caressed her hand. She'd like to believe she'd always look the same. But Viv knew the futility in that hope. Men had it so much easier. Age increased their appeal. A little gray at the temples, a few wrinkles at the eyes, even a few pounds—for a man, those things indicated character, experience, power. For a woman, it only spelled the end.

She raised his hand and placed a kiss on his palm.

“Thanks, Lance.”

“How're your feet doing?”

Viv looked down. “To be honest, they're killing me. So if you're about to suggest clubbing, forget it.”

He chuckled. “I don't understand why you all put yourself through that torture.”

“It's simple, Lance. We put up with it, because
you
like it. Sexy shoes were made for the enjoyment of men. Besides, admitting that your feet hurt is not a part of the profile.”

“The profile?”

“The ‘be cute' profile.”

He grinned. “You'd be cute—no, beautiful—even if you weren't wearing sexy shoes. And it sounds like you could use a foot soak and massage.”

She glanced over at him. “And you're, of course, offering your services.”

“I aim to please.”

“I'll be fine.”

“I can take care of that.”

She looked at him. She took in his dark brown eyes, eyes she'd come to expect as filled with laughter, but now, held nothing but desire. For her. Her body ached for his touch, for the release she knew he could and would bring to her.

Just this once.

Maybe she'd get him out of her system if they spent a night together instead of a single, fast romp.

The rationalization rang hollow. And Viv decided to be honest, with herself and with him.

“I want to sleep with you.”

“It'll take forty minutes to get to my place from here.”

“There's a Comfort Inn over there.” Across Military Highway was the black sign.

Lance got in the left lane then turned the Jaguar into the hotel parking lot. Check-in took no time at all. And a few minutes later he closed and locked the door.

“You're not going to run out on me this time, are you?”

Viv smiled. “I don't think so. It's hard to get a cab from here. And my car's back at the store.”

She walked backward into the room while Lance advanced on her.

“I've been thinking about moving to this side of the water,” he said. “It would save a lot of driving since I spend most of my time over here.”

“South Hampton Roads has lots going for it. The beach, great restaurants and shops.”

“And you,” Lance said. He snaked an arm around her. “Come here.”

Viv willingly went into his arms. She was ready for him. For some reason, she was always ready for Lance. “One of these days, we'll do it in a real bedroom.”

“Um-hmm,” Lance said as he nibbled at her neck. “You smell good.”

“It's that Wanton perfume.”

“Order a case of it for me. I want to make sure you always wear it.”

She smiled into his kiss. “Silly man.”

He took her hand and guided it to the thick erection pressing against his slacks. “There's nothing silly about this.”

She stroked him. “No, I don't imagine there is.” Her hand wrapped around him. Lance trembled. “I love it when you do that.”

She reached for his belt buckle, unfastened it then slowly slid the zipper down its track. His hard-on thrust boldly through the navy-blue briefs he wore. The tip of her finger outlined the ridge.

“Ah, see, men do wear sexy undies,” she murmured. “Maybe Guilty Pleasures should carry a line of boxers for men.”

“If your mind is on the store, we must be doing something wrong,” he said.

Viv's soft chuckle sounded like a purr. “I don't think so,” she murmured. “You forget, the name of the shop is Guilty Pleasures. How about I demonstrate a few guilty pleasures?”

Then she showed him just how much she was concentrating on their play.

“Not so fast,” he said, his voice a low growl, as if by sheer force of will he could and would stop the fever that ripped through him.

He backed her up another step, trying to get to the bed. But it was so far away. “What the hell.”

A moment later, he pulled up her skirt and yanked down the thong she wore. Viv lifted one leg up around his waist, and with her supported in his arms, he thrust into her.

The coupling was as fast and frantic as their first time together had been. It was as if they couldn't get enough of each other, as if the treat they both so craved would be taken away if they didn't hurry.

They came together in a shout of mutual pleasure. Then, both gasping for air, heartbeats still pounding, they stood together, foreheads touching, breathing deeply.

“Damn woman, you rock my world.”

“Yeah, back at you,” Viv said.

 

 

The shower water was warm. The kind of heat that paled in comparison to what Lance and Viv generated in the rented room.

He stepped into the shower behind her. “Not quite the romantic picture, huh?”

“Romantic? Lance, this isn't about romance.” Her hands, wet and sudsy with the bar soap supplied by the hotel, roamed over his chest, then lower. “This is about feeling good.”

He caught her hands in his and opened his mouth to refute what she'd said. But Viv silenced his words with a kiss. The feel of her mouth, the press of her breasts, the heat of the V at her thighs wiped from his mind any comeback that might have been on his brain. All he wanted to do was touch Viv, be inside her.

The shower play lasted another minute or two, all Lance could take. Then, dripping wet, he led her to the bed. They fell together onto the clean, white sheets.

This go round, he was determined to take his time. He wanted to explore everything about Viv. He wanted to find out where she was ticklish, to discover hidden birthmarks, then to bury himself so deep in her heat that he'd incinerate.

 

 

Outside in the parking lot of the Comfort Inn, Julian Gerard stared at the burgundy Jaguar with the tags HEARTBT. He'd always known Viv had other men, men she slept with, but he'd never met any of them. Until tonight.

White-hot rage shot through Julian. At first, he didn't know what it was. He'd never felt strong emotion before—except when it came to Viv. They'd been friends for a long time. He'd loved her even longer than that.

Viv, and everyone else, assumed he was gay, but Julian was as straight as he could be. Sure, he'd had relationships with men in the past. If he were to wear any label it would be bisexual. But he hadn't looked at another man since he'd fallen for Viv. And now, now she flaunted another man in his face.

It would make Julian deliriously happy to see that smug grin wiped from Lance Heart Smith's face.

The painful realization was that Viv had used him—just like he'd used her to advance his business interests. It hurt because he cared for her. Julian wondered if there was a way he might be able to get back at Viv.

He eyed the car again. Maybe he could give Viv a dose of her own love 'em and leave 'em medicine.

14

Vicki bit back a frustrated sigh. She'd known, of course, that this was how it would end. He'd press to meet, and she, afraid to trust herself or him, would balk. And so, the friendship she'd come to treasure would dissolve. Vicki Jackson, who should have known better, who knew the pitfalls of online relationships, had fallen for a sig line on her monitor. And now, the Internet affair was ending.

Vicki waited for him to finish his thought. She ran a hand through her hair. It was time for a touch-up. Her roots were kind of raggedy. She'd have to call the salon and make an appointment. But before she could get on with the mundane duties of life like getting a relaxer in her hair or picking up the pieces of her heart, she had to break it off with Clay, her cyber pal. She glanced at her nails. A manicure was in order, too.

A look at the monitor showed that Clay had yet to finish his thought.

Several minutes passed and he didn't respond. Vicki pursed her lips and tried not to feel hurt. She shut down the instant messaging program and logged into her work area. It was time for some routine maintenance on a couple of the sites she ran. Now was as good a time as any to get that work done.

But Vicki's thoughts remained with Clay even as she set up archival libraries for a group of physicians who didn't seem to have a Web savvy member in their midst. Then she turned her attention to some freelance work. She'd build a Web site for a new dating service . . . and try not to think about the fact that she may have just lost her own best match.

 

 

“This time we take it slow.”

Viv smiled. “Why?”

Lance traced a hand up her long, smooth thigh. “Because I want to explore every inch of you.”

They lay on their backs across the bed. At some point, they'd managed to completely destroy a lamp. And the phone was off the hook and beeping.

“So what was that? An appetizer?”

He grinned. “You got it, baby.”

Viv rolled over and reached for the coil rope of the phone extension. She dragged it up and replaced the receiver, then pushed it out of the way. She ignored the lamp on the floor.

Somehow, their celebratory meal had turned into a sexual free-for-all in a hotel room. Viv didn't regret it though, and she wondered why she'd even bothered fighting this.

“What if I'm full, too full for the main course?”

He leaned over, encircled her in his arms and tumbled so her lush, naked body lay sprawled atop his. The feel of her skin, the womanly smell of her caused his penis to again awaken, hardening in preparation to take her again. Viv writhed on top of him, adding to the exquisite torture.

“You're acting like you're hungry,” he said, his voice that low drawl that preceded the wicked delights Viv was starting to crave much like an addict.

She lowered her head, found his neck and nibbled there. Slowly, ever so slowly, she worked her way down. But at his navel, Lance stopped her.

He rolled over so that she, not he, was on the bottom. “None of your distractions, wanton. It's my turn to play.”

A lascivious smile curled her mouth. “You think you can hang with the big dogs, huh?”

“I'll show you a big dog.”

When Lance said he wanted to explore every inch of her, he'd meant it. Literally. Holding her hands above her head, he started at her ears, licking and tasting and dipping into the hollow. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Lost in a sea of rising passion, Viv caught only fragments.

“. . . like the sunshine . . .”

“A melody of light . . .”

Was Lance a closet poet?

Before she could ask him, or even wonder at that thought again, his mouth closed over her breast. His expert tongue circled her, teasing and taunting and making her moan. He licked the area around her nipple. Then, with closed lips he tugged. Hard.

Viv cried out. She clutched her legs around his waist. Arched her back. Begged him to take her.

But Lance wasn't done with his thorough exploration. He was only just beginning. Over the next half hour, he savored every bit of her. He found places on her body that Viv, in all her experience, had not known could be stimulated to such a degree. He sampled and foraged, feasting like a man who'd gone too many days without sustenance.

Then, just when she'd finally taken all she could, he wriggled two fingers inside her. At the first touch, Viv shattered into a million pieces. She bucked and screamed and clutched at the sheets.

Lance just smiled.

He loved the feel of her. The way she orgasmed with such wild abandon. He felt his own need pushing, driving, pounding at him. He closed his eyes, hard. Trying to hold on, to hold out. There was something else he wanted to do for Viv, something while the aftershocks still rippled through her body.

His hand soothed her, running up and down the expanse of dark brown thigh.

“Lance. Oh, oh!”

When his mouth lapped at the wetness between her thighs, Viv's hips bucked off the bed. She hit him so hard, for a moment Lance thought he might pass out.

“Easy, Viv. Easy.”

“Oh. Oh. Lance!”

She grabbed his head. He licked her, greedily drinking at the fount of her femininity. And just when he felt the first swell of her orgasm, he lifted himself up and thrust into her.

 

 

Spooned together, they woke the next morning. The insistent push of Lance's erection pressed into her backside. Viv eased from the bed.

Lance murmured something unintelligible. Vivian found her clothes and quickly donned them. Then, with a final glance at Lance who slept like a man well sated, she picked up what she'd entered with and slipped from the room. At the front desk, she asked that a taxi be called.

“Hey, hold up,” the clerk hollered to the man exiting the hotel. “Here's a fare for you.”

Viv's luck had held out. A Yellow Cab had just dropped someone off. She climbed into the backseat, gave the driver her address and clutched the stuffed dragon Sirgal to her chest.

“You didn't do a very good job of guarding the gate,” she told the dragon. “You let the knight get past your defenses.”

 

 

“Damn it to hell,” Lance swore.

“Man, it sounds to me like this woman doesn't want to be with you in the light of day.”

Lance scowled at T.J., then whacked the racquetball so hard that T.J. didn't even attempt a return.

“What makes her so special? You have a stable of women at your beck and call. Remember Rochelle?”

Lance hadn't given her a moment's thought since he'd been mainlining Vivienne la Fontaine. But maybe it was time to get off that track. Viv hadn't promised she wouldn't run away from him.

“Maybe you should have left it as a business arrangement.”

“Maybe you should shut up.”

Lance won the game because T.J. recognized in his friend a barely concealed violence that seemed to border on obsession. He'd never seen Lance so ticked off before.

 

 

Lily Renaldi pointed to a speck on the large wall map in the travel agent's office. “That's where we're going,” she told Virginia.

“Is it even big enough to dock a cruise ship?”

“Actually, no,” the travel agent said. “Those who opt for the land excursions take ferries to the island. It's all quite an adventure.”

Virginia had had enough adventure in her life. Vacations were supposed to be relaxing. “I don't know about this,” she told her friend.

Lily plucked the credit card from Virginia's hands and passed it over to the travel agent, a thin woman in her forties with too-teased hair and lips outlined with a pencil four shades darker than her lipstick. “There promises to be an almost even ratio of men to women on the cruise. The women may slightly outnumber the men.”

Virginia walked away from the wall map to a display featuring a luau scene. “Hawaii is always lovely. Maybe we should go there.”

“Pay her no attention at all,” Lily said. “She's suffering from gotta-get-a-life-itis.”

“Lily.”

But Lily ignored the warning in Virginia's voice. The travel agent looked unsure. “Mrs. Heart? Is it all right for me to authorize this?”

Virginia waved a hand. “Go on. But I really don't see the point.”

The travel agency's motion detector pinged as someone walked in the front door. An older man, probably about sixty-seven, came in. His hair, more salt than pepper, was cropped short. He wore a gray suit that Virginia's well-practiced eye tagged as Saville Row. She glanced at his hands, and noted, with approval, that they, too, were well tended, clean and buffed. Here was a man who paid attention to detail.

“I'll be right with you, sir.”

“Take your time,” the man said. “It'll give me a moment to decide if I really want to do this.”

Lily beamed up at him. “Might you be inquiring about the singles cruise on the
Star of the Sea ?”

“Yes. Are you here for that, as well?”

Lily nudged Virginia. “My friend and I were just signing up. I'm Lily. This is Virginia.”

He introduced himself as Malcolm Grant. Hands and hellos were passed around. Virginia looked him over again then motioned for the travel agent.

“Where do I sign?”

 

 

Viv cursed her lack of control and her lack of sense with everything related to Lance Heart Smith. Where Lance was concerned she seemed to turn into a mass of sensation, all physical. She forgot her resolutions. She forgot her need to start over. She even forgot about using protection. Normally she had condoms in her purse.

“Dammit.”

She stalked to the small bag she'd carried last night. There, tucked behind her driver's license, a platinum MasterCard and forty dollars in cash, were three condoms.

Lance looked clean. But looks counted for not one damn thing. Some people wondered how those crazy women who went on shows like
Ricki Lake
and
Jerry Springer
couldn't know who their baby's father was. Viv knew. If you slept around enough, the names and faces and places all merged into one big anonymous penis.

She wasn't afraid of pregnancy. That was one good thing that had come out of the experience she and Vicki had had. No babies would be springing from either of their wombs—the doctors had assured her of that.

For the first time, that thought saddened her a little. Viv put the string handbag on the dresser and slid back under the sheets. She rolled to the edge of her king-size bed and curled herself around the large body pillow she'd bought on a lark. Vicki had an identical one in her bedroom down the hall. In a chair near the window, Sirgal the dragon sat sentinel.

She'd had more fun with Lance last night than she could remember having in a long, long time. And it wasn't that she'd had an unhappy life, or even that she was dissatisfied with how things were progressing with the store and with her community work.

It wasn't until she'd twirled round and round as if on a painted horse of a carousel that she realized she'd let fun disappear from her life.

If nothing else, Lance Heart Smith knew how to have a good time.

Was there anything wrong with enjoying that?

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Viv turned around. Vicki stood at the door, a rolling tray filled with bacon, fresh cantaloupe, French omelets and a small basket of croissants and strawberry jam in front of her. She pushed it into the room.

“What's all this?”

“Just a little something I whipped together. You've been up early and out late for the last few weeks. I thought today would be a good day to settle in for a leisurely breakfast.”

She presented Viv with the morning paper then poured a cup of English Breakfast. “This'll make it all right.”

Viv accepted the tea and took a fortifying sip. “You're my savior, Vick.”

Vicki assessed her sister. It wasn't like Viv to have smudges under her eyes. “Hmm, too bad I can't wave a magic wand or do a glamour spell on you. You look awful.”

Viv expelled a heavy breath. “Long night.”

“Julian?”

“Yeah, well, he showed up. Unexpectedly.”

“Basil?”

“Please.” Viv reached for one of the croissants. She picked off a bit and sampled it. It was still warm. “This is good.”

“Well, if it wasn't one of the usual, that would mean . . .”

“I was with Lance,” Viv admitted.

Vicki's eyes widened, then she glanced away, busying herself with serving Viv a plate. “I thought you weren't going to mix business with pleasure anymore.”

Viv leaned back on the pillows she'd stacked around her. “Yeah, I thought the same thing. It started as a business dinner. A celebration of closing the financing deal.”

“And then?”

“Then we went to a carnival.”