Seduced by Moonlight (26 page)

Harry was impressed with his new wife. Impressed and falling deeper in love with her every minute he spent in her presence.

Back in their suite, he washed her back, lifted her from the tub, dried her off then carried her to the bed, where he gave her a massage with warm scented oil.

While she was in the tub he had taken a quick shower in the other bathroom and ordered them meals from room service. He didn't want to go anywhere tonight. He was going to pamper his woman.

Now, Cherisse gave a satisfied sigh and turned over to gaze up at him. Her body glistened from the oil he'd used, and she was so relaxed from the massage that she could do nothing but smile. “That wasn't so bad.”

“What wasn't so bad?” asked Harry. He was wearing one of the hotel's robes and he looked very handsome in it.

“Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.”

“I told you that you would be a natural,” he said, running his hand along her shapely thigh. “Now, what do you say we have something to eat and then go to bed? You have a long day tomorrow on the slopes.”

Cherisse nudged his robe open with her foot. “What do you say you make love to me before we eat? Your hands on my body left me wanting to feel more of you.”

Harry stood up and doffed the robe, revealing his already semi-erect penis. He had been hoping she was in the mood, although he wouldn't have suggested it because she'd had a rough day on the slopes.

He stretched the length of his body over hers. Cherisse opened her legs and welcomed him into her arms. Warm brown bodies pressed closer, chest to breasts, groin to groin, mouth to mouth.

Cherisse felt so full, completely happy. She realized that in Harry she had the passion that had at first been in her relationship with Charlie plus the bonus of a reliable man who adored her as in her relationship with Neil. She had the best of both worlds and didn't know how she'd gotten so lucky.

Harry entered her and his thrusts were powerful, purposeful, it seemed. When his seed spilled into her she felt warm and satisfied. This moment felt perfect. She came, and her vaginal walls convulsed around his still-hard penis.

Harry trembled. Her name was on his lips as he whispered again and again, “Cheri, my sweet Cheri.”

Cherisse merely smiled. He lay his head on her chest and they held each other until they both came down from the most wonderful high they had yet shared.

 

In the morning they were on a slope designed for intermediate skiers. Harry had to warn her about avoiding other skiers as this area was more populated. The beginning area had not been so busy because most of the skiers who came to this premier resort were either intermediate skiers or experts.

Today, Cherisse was wearing blue. Yesterday she'd been in bright yellow. She looked up at Harry after he had told her to watch out for other skiers and said, “You don't think I wore this color for my health, do you? I wore it so that I would be seen a mile away by anyone else who happened to be in my path. If they can't see me, then they are truly snow-blind.”

Harry did think she resembled the Michelin man in that getup. He was all seriousness now, though, because what she'd learned yesterday would be child's play compared to what she had to learn today.

Yesterday the cross-country techniques were easy to learn—they had required endurance, which she had plenty of. Today would require skill and balance which Harry thought she might be lacking in.

He was slightly worried.

Cherisse smiled up at him. “Get on with it, Harry.”

“All right, then,” said Harry. “You have to know a few basic things in order to ski downhill without hurting yourself. You've already learned how to stop, that's the most important thing. Next you'll learn how more effectively to change the direction in which you're skiing. You do this by learning how to shift your weight. Forward, backward, to the side, when to shift it to one leg or the other. After a time it comes as naturally as breathing, that's why you see Danielle going downhill with such abandon. She's done it so often that it's second nature to her.”

Cherisse was nodding. She understood. She was glad she was learning more about what her baby girl was so in love with. Now, she could empathize with her, know how she's feeling when she's competing.

Harry saw how intently Cherisse was listening to him and felt a surge of pride swell his chest. She was really getting it.

An hour later, after intense instruction on the proper form for schussing and traversing down the slopes, Harry took her to the top of the hill.

Cherisse once again felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she was determined to take the slopes today and she wasn't going to forget everything Harry had taught her today like she had in a panic yesterday.

Therefore she regarded her course with steely determination and pushed off. Harry followed two lengths behind her, observing her form, which was surprisingly good for a beginner.

She began picking up speed, in true schuss form, but then she felt the need to slow down a bit and Harry watched her tilt the lower part of her body toward the slope so that her skis would get a better grip on the snow. She slowed a bit, gained more control and toward the bottom of the slope began to gradually go into the snowplow. Then she came to a complete stop without incident.

Harry schussed to a stop beside her and whooped. “I knew Danielle didn't get all her talent from her dad. Her mom's got mad skills!”

Cherisse laughed, thrilled with her performance. She wanted to go again and they did, two more times, but after that Harry told her she'd done quite enough for one day and Zurich had so much more to offer than skiing. Tonight, he was taking her out on the town. For that, she required time to get all dolled up.

But first they went shopping in an exclusive dress shop. Harry sat down in a spindly antique chair he feared might not be able to hold his bulk while Cherisse modeled designer dresses for him.

The proprietor of the shop, a sharp-nosed blonde with too-red lipstick and a permanent grimace on her pinched face, treated them like royalty. Cherisse didn't know why the woman looked as if she smelled something bad, but her service was definitely among the finest she had ever gotten. A speed demon, the woman fetched shoes and dresses at a breakneck pace and offered suggestions here and there. “With your coloring,” she said when Cherisse picked up a white dress, “you can pull off the richer shades, something in a deep red or a deep purple.” She had a German accent and when she said something it came out sounding like
zumzing
.

Cherisse and Harry finally decided on a strapless deep purple sheath that displayed her breasts to perfection and cinched her waist, flaring out at the hips. It was a creation that reminded Cherisse of those tailored dresses fifties stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford wore in movies. She knew just how she was going to style her hair, in a French twist. Harry told her that since the dress was strapless, she required something fabulous to keep her lovely shoulders warm, and told the proprietor he wanted to see his wife in the sable in the window.

To which Cherisse immediately protested, “Harry, you've already spent a fortune on this beautiful dress. Besides, I don't want to wear dead animal carcasses on my body.”

“Darling,” said Harry, “you're married to a very rich man, and those animals took their own lives.”

“Yes,” said the proprietor, “they all committed suicide.”

But Cherisse was adamant. “Don't you have something warm but that doesn't have the blood of dead animals on it?”

So it was decided that she would wear a lovely floor-length black wool parka with a hood. It was sufficiently elegant and warm enough for the cold winds off the Alps.

Harry resigned himself to the fact that his wife wasn't a fur-wearing woman.

He would have to find other ways to spoil her.

 

They went to a five-star restaurant near the river Limmat and afterward went to a jazz club. The city had nightclubs to please every taste and budget. The club they chose turned out to be in the seedier range and they wound up laughing about it in the cab on the way back to the resort. “Imagine,” Cherisse said, cozying up to Harry in the back of the cab, “if I had walked in there in my sable. We might not have gotten out alive.”

“The way those hard-looking dudes at the table across from ours were looking at you, I feared for my life and your virtue. They couldn't keep their eyes off you.”

“I don't see why not,” said Cherisse. “I've noticed a few other black women since we've been here.”

“Yes, a few,
few
being the operative word. They're not used to the beauty of our Nubian queens.”

“It's true,” said the cabdriver in perfect English. “You're a lucky man.”

Cherisse had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from guffawing. She had assumed that the driver did not understand English very well, he'd had such a thick accent when they'd hired him. Perhaps he affected that accent to please gullible tourists who came to Zurich for the full effect of being in a Swiss town.

“I am,” said Harry to the driver, “the luckiest of men. Thank you.”

In their suite, Harry slowly undressed her as he gazed into her eyes. “So, Mrs. Payne, are you enjoying yourself so far?”

Cherisse smiled indulgently. That beauty mark next to her luscious mouth beckoned him and he kissed her there before she could reply. His mouth was still there when she said, “Harry, I've never had such a good…” She didn't get to finish because he'd found her warm breath wafting up his nostrils too much of a temptation and covered her mouth with his in a searing kiss.

God, she was sweet and he was a sugar addict. He couldn't get enough of her.

Cherisse's body sang with his touch. Each kiss was like a lifeline. She wondered how she had managed to exist for thirty-seven years without him. Why had it taken her so long to find him?

Harry's hands cupped her buttocks, drawing her closer to his hard body. Cherisse sighed into his mouth. Her ripening female center craved his touch, wanted it so badly that she was in pain.

Good Lord, had she turned into a raving sex maniac in the space of two months with Harry? Had she locked away these desires all for the express purpose of unleashing them on one man? It would seem so because, suddenly, she was insatiable.

Twisting her head to the side, she broke off the kiss and pleaded, “Harry, now, I can't wait any longer.”

Harry ripped off her silky white bikinis, picked her up and tossed her butt-first onto the bed. Then he had to get out of his slacks, but didn't fare well because he ripped the seat of them in his haste. He rid himself of his boxers and tossed them behind him. Where they landed, he didn't know.

All he cared about at this moment was melding his body with Cherisse's, and her eagerness only fueled his passion. He was so hard with need by the time he placed his penis at the opening of her sex that any touch was exquisite pain.

Harry paused. If he entered her right now, he knew he would hurt her. His need was so urgent, so frantic. So he slowed down. He bent and licked her nipples, stayed a while, then moved downward to her flat stomach and licked around her belly button.

Moving farther down, his tongue licked her clitoris and he felt her writhe with pleasure.

He could tell by how erect her clitoris was that she was more than ready for him. She was begging him to take her. He raised his head and positioned his penis at her vagina once more. Upon entering her, he felt her come just that quickly. And while she bucked against him he took his pleasure, took it for all that it was worth. She answered his passion with her own, never the shy retiring miss, she loved it. Loved it, and that fact was gratifying to him, to know that he was pleasing her, made her melt beneath him, made her yearn for his touch. That she needed him as much as he needed her.

He came with a growl deep in his throat.

Collapsing onto his side next to her, he said, “You're insatiable.”

Cherisse laughed softly because that's exactly what she'd been thinking a minute ago.

Kissing his mouth, she said, “Yes, so get your rest because you're on again in a few hours.”

H
arry and Cherisse spent an idyllic ten days in Zurich, but like all good things their honeymoon had to come to an end. They returned to Denver on January 11th and went straight to the Patterson house from the airport.

It was six o'clock in the evening. Danielle and Jo met them at the door and it seemed to Harry that they hadn't seen each other in years. There were so many hugs and happy tears.

Charlie wasn't there, a fact that he appreciated. He didn't think seeing another man returning from a honeymoon with his ex-wife would be something Charlie could stomach. He knew he wouldn't have been able to take it if Charlie had been on a romantic holiday with Cherisse for ten days.

Danielle exclaimed, “How was Switzerland?”

“It was gorgeous,” said Cherisse. She wore a smart black pantsuit with comfortable pumps and she glowed in the presence of her daughter and mother. “We've got pictures that need to be developed.”

“Ma, it's a digital camera,” Danielle said, smiling. She always had to explain any sort of electronic device to her mother. “We can look at them on the computer.”

Cherisse reached into her shoulder bag and handed the camera to Danielle. “Here it is, then.” She looked around. “Is your dad here?”

“Nah, he moved out while you were gone,” said Danielle. “And guess what? He's dating Gracie Lopez.”

Cherisse smiled. She liked Gracie. Gracie wasn't aware of it, but Cherisse had known that she had had a crush on Charlie when they were in school. “That's great,” she said. “Gracie's a good woman. She's just who Charlie needs in his life.”

“I couldn't agree more,” said Jo. Then, turning to Harry, she said, “Are you hungry, baby?”

“Starving,” said Harry.

She took him by the arm, leaving Danielle and Cherisse in the foyer.

“Danielle,” Cherisse said excitedly in her mother and Harry's absence, “Harry gave me ski lessons.”

Danielle screamed and hugged her mother again. For years she'd been trying to get her mother interested in the sport. “Don't you just love it?”

“I do,” said Cherisse.

Danielle let go of her mother and looked into her eyes. “And married life? How is that?”

“I highly recommend it,” said Cherisse.

Danielle beamed. “I knew hooking you up with Daddy Harry was a good idea.”

“Daddy Harry?” asked Cherisse.

“That's what I'm calling him this week. I may decide on something else next week,” said her daughter.

Cherisse laughed, put her arm about her daughter's waist and they went to join Harry and her mother in the kitchen.

 

Harry protested mightily when the next day, Monday, January 12, Cherisse had to go into work. They had spent the night in the Denver house. Harry wanted to go check on things at the resort. However, as he explained to Cherisse, he was taking the full month of January off to be with her. Besides, he had a general manager who handled things in his absence. He didn't need to be at the resort 24/7.

Cherisse didn't spend much time vindicating her actions. She simply told him over breakfast that, “I'm a nurse, Harry. I have an obligation to my patients. I've agreed to give them six weeks' notice and that's what I'm going to do. After that, I'm all yours.”

“So, I can just like it or lump it?” he asked, brows drawn together in a frown.

“You don't have to like it, Harry,” Cherisse said sweetly. “But I'm still going to do it whether you like it or not.” She rose and kissed his forehead. “Have a nice day, sweetie.”

Harry blew air between his lips and simmered for a good half hour after she had left him high and dry. Then he stopped pouting and got on with his day. He had to make some compromises. That's what marriage was about. He would phone her later and tell her he was sorry for acting like a big baby.

At work, Cherisse was met with applause when she stepped off the elevator onto the pediatrics floor. The gang was all there: Gerald, Sonia, Katy and other nurses and nurses' aides who were not always on their shift.

When she reached the nurses' station, Sonia grabbed her and hugged her. “How was the honeymoon, you lucky, lucky girl?”

“Everything I imagined and more,” Cherisse said. “It was a long plane ride but once we got to Zurich traveling became more enjoyable. I really liked the trains.”

“How romantic,” Katy said. “I love trains.”

“I do, too, now,” said Cherisse. “It was the first time I'd ever been on a train.” Her Granddaddy Patterson, the Pullman porter, would be aghast.

She got down to business after that and asked, “Who's been filling in for me since I've been gone?”

“David Pedersen,” said Gerald.

“David?” cried Cherisse.

“I know it's hard to believe,” said Sonia, “but he came down here, went through the charts, advised us on schedules, congratulated us on jobs well done and left in about an hour or so every single day while you were gone. I tell you, we didn't know whether we were going or coming, wondering when he was going to lower the boom. All that niceness coming from him gave me chills, girl!”

Cherisse laughed delightedly. David was keeping his word and trying not to be such a tight-ass. She wondered if he had gotten his wife to come back to him. He had not come to the wedding. She assumed he hadn't had any success.

“He can change, he's human,” she said.

“Mark my words,” Sonia said, “he's going to change all right, into a worse monster than he already is.”

Cherisse sighed. She wanted to ask Sonia if David had spoken to her about taking the head nurse position. But she couldn't because she hadn't even told Sonia she'd suggested her to David. Now with Sonia expecting, she didn't even know if she wanted the added responsibility.

So she didn't say anything about it.

“I'd better get to work,” she said and everyone else, taking their cues from her, went back to what they'd been doing before her arrival.

Cherisse went to her office to put her coat and shoulder bag in the closet. Afterward she returned to the nurses' station and began perusing the charts. She would go over the schedule after lunch.

While studying the charts she learned that while she had been gone three patients had been released. A couple had been upgraded from critical care to the general population. And four new patients had been admitted. One little boy was HIV positive.

He'd been admitted with respiratory failure but was holding on.

Cherisse made a note on his chart to pay him a visit. By the time she'd gone through the charts, she'd added ten other patients she wanted to personally check up on.

Getting up from her swivel chair, she realized that while she'd been engrossed with the charts all of the other nurses had left. She stepped out from behind the circular counter and headed down to the HIV-positive boy's room.

He was sleeping peacefully when she entered. She walked over and observed his monitors, making sure they were operating at maximum proficiency. Satisfied that they were, she watched him breathe for a few minutes. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, his heartbeat, as seen in his skinny little neck, strong.

She said a silent prayer for him, and left.

She hated to see any child suffer, but the ones who only suffered for a short time due to the fact that they had a malady that was curable didn't bother her nearly as much as those who were not going to get better. On these children's behalf she railed against God in his sky. Asked Him why? Why must the children suffer? In her opinion she never got an answer. It just made her love them more. Love them because they needed all the love they could get.

She went on to visit the other ten children on her list, walking in cheerful in spite of the depressing emotions she was feeling at the moment. Some of them were awake and smiled at her. Others were in too much pain to smile and she did what she could to comfort them.

When she had visited each child and determined that they were all receiving the best possible care, she went to her office to work on next week's schedule. As she was working there came a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she called.

David Pedersen strode in, looking much more rested than he had the last time she'd seen him. His crisp scrubs fit him well, and his white lab coat didn't have a spot on it. He was sharp in appearance and in demeanor.

“You're back,” he said and sat down in the chair directly in front of her desk.

Cherisse eyed him suspiciously. He looked like the old David, the arrogant, unforgiving David who was not lamenting the loss of his wife. “Indeed, as promised, I have returned to serve out my sentence of six weeks since you were kind enough to grant me a ten-day leave.”

He smiled. “Still with the caustic tongue, I see. I was hoping marriage would have mellowed you.”

“Speaking of marriage, how is yours?” Cherisse asked. Her brows arched questioningly.

“She came back to me,” David stated simply. “And we couldn't be happier. Threat of divorce is a surprisingly effective salve for a failing marriage.”

“Then you agree that you could have been a better husband?”

“A better husband, better father, better human being, Mrs. Payne,” David said. He got up. “I just wanted to welcome you back and tell you that I've spoken with the board and they've agreed to give Sonia Lopez a try. I'm going to tell her now.”

Cherisse was out of her chair and hugging him before she could weigh the pros and cons of her actions.

David laughed as he set her away from him. “Now, now, Mrs. Payne, anyone coming in here would think you have a thing for me. I'm a married man!”

“So sorry, Dr. Pedersen,” Cherisse said, laughing softly.

David actually winked at her. “And I would appreciate it if you wouldn't tell the others I've softened. I like having them fear me. I don't get invited to all those endless birthday parties they're always throwing throughout the place. Any excuse to have cake.” With that, he left.

Cherisse sat back down.

She phoned Harry at lunch and found out that he was in Vail. “I'll be back before you get home,” he told her. “I'll cook for you and rub your feet.”

“This doesn't sound like the same Harry I left this morning,” Cherisse said.

“That Harry was a horse's ass,” said Harry with a chuckle. “This Harry knows you were right. It's your career and you mean to end it on a positive note. You have integrity. I admire that in you.”

“Thank you,” Cherisse said. She then went on to tell him about her day so far. Harry asked her if the little boy with HIV had family or if he were alone in the world.

“His chart shows that he has family,” she told him.

“Good,” said Harry. “I would hate for him to be alone.”

 

By the time February 26 rolled around, Cherisse's official last day at work, Harry had gotten a good taste of what it was like to be married to a nurse. He'd listened to her days, held her at night and comforted her when the little boy with HIV died in his sleep. She'd cried herself to sleep that night, and he'd lain awake watching her face in repose.

He didn't understand why she'd put herself through such agony, because that's what her job was in his opinion—sheer agony. He wouldn't have lasted a month, let alone eight years.

The next morning when he'd asked her why she had stayed for so long, she had answered rather glibly, “Somebody's gotta do it.” But one look in her eyes told him she was not nearly as detached as she pretended to be. He saw pain in her aspect, pain and a kind of helplessness that clutched at his heart.

But that morning, she had had to go to work and he hadn't had the time to pursue it.

At work on her last day, everyone gathered in the employee lounge to give her a send-off. David was there in spite of his dislike of such gatherings. And he ate cake alongside the rest of them.

Sonia got up and made a short speech. She was definitely showing by then, her smock unable to hide her baby bump. But she had accepted David's offer of the head nurse job after he had promised her a sufficiently long maternity leave.

“I'm a little biased,” she said, “because Cheri has been my BFF, best friend forever, since we were in second grade. You all know her history, she married her childhood sweetheart and moved to Philadelphia but wound up coming back home. I was the one who told her she should try nursing. I had been a practical nurse for years. Then she came home, got into nursing school, became an RN then had the nerve to go for her master's degree, leaving me in the dust. So, jealous heifer that I am, I went back and got my bachelor's degree. A few years later she goaded me into going for my master's. So, thank you, you interfering busybody. Because of you I've nearly got my master's degree and that crazy man over there—” she pointed to David “—has offered me your job, which I took in a moment of madness. I'll never be able to replace you, but I'll do my best.”