When in Rio (21 page)

Something…something he said, or some subtle twist of his finger…I moaned as a wave of need swept over me and I pushed back into his next thrust, suddenly not knowing where I needed the pressure most, only knowing his cock and finger were filling me in ways I’d never imagined.
Open
, he’d said, open for
him
, and I felt completely open in that moment, laid bare, turned inside out. He’d managed to make me feel both wanton and cherished at the same time, valued property that existed only to serve this one wicked purpose, for
him
, and it was almost more than I could bear.

When he started thrusting his finger and cock in counter-rhythm again, deeper and harder this time, I almost screamed.

“
Please
, Sir…oh
God
…”

“
There
it is!” I didn’t need to see his smile. I could hear it. “Please
what
, little one?”

I’d had too much, my senses were overloaded and I didn’t know whether I wanted to come or for him to go on forever, and it didn’t matter because my mind was too far from where words were to say anything anyway.

“Katie, ask me for what you want,” Jack said sternly.

And after some struggle, I gasped out something containing the words “Sir”, “come” and “please” and probably also invoked several deities, and he gave me permission to come and then I did scream, because I came
forever
.

The first peak was sharp and lancing and necessary. The second, as the first subsided, rippled through me slowly and just kept going as Jack came after me with a deep groan, jerking his hips sharply against me and calling my name.

I was still shuddering when he said my name again, just a whisper, and fell against my back. After a minute he seemed to gather himself and collapsed to one side, reaching up just long enough to rip open my restraints before tumbling back down and pulling me down with him to spoon with my back against his chest.

My tremors only subsided, letting my mind clear a little, when Jack wrapped his arm over mine and his leg over my legs and hugged me so close I could hardly breathe, as if he couldn’t get me close enough.

I squeezed back, feeling as though if I squeezed hard enough against him, I might just sink in forever.

Chapter Eighteen

I gave up after the first session in the morning and decided to go for a walk instead of attempting to sit on one of the meeting-room chairs for another two hours before lunch. My butt was sore, the paddle stripe now a long, narrow, grayish-purple-rectangular bruise across the meat of both cheeks, as if Jack had calculated the precise spot that would make it hardest for me to sit. So I’d remember it longer, which I did with a smile and a blush now, although it was a rueful smile. These things always
seem
like a good idea at the time. Or they seem like a bad idea, but one you simply can’t live without.

I’d decided on artwork as a suitable memento of the trip, and set out in search of a street vendor I’d passed a few times already during the week. In addition to the usual trite watercolors, he had a few more interesting pieces—acrylics or oils of abstracted flora and fauna—that bore looking at again. And then there were souvenirs to buy for everyone back home of course, since it was one of the first trips I’d taken where I had the time to shop and could actually afford presents.

I had already picked up a few things for my dad, who was easy to buy gifts for. A lifelong rock hound, he was always happy if you brought him examples of the native stones, and the souvenir shop on Sugarloaf had proved a bonanza in that regard. But there were still others to consider, so I dipped into a few of the tourist traps for fun, selecting postcards and t-shirts for my niece and nephew, and some other fun if kitschy souvenirs for people at the office—pencils with tiny glued-on Carnival masks, miniature glittery beach-scene snow globes that said “Blame it on Rio”, that sort of thing.

Then an art vendor caught my eye, though not the vendor I’d been looking for, and I used the little Portuguese I’d learned thus far to haggle over a pair of watercolor prints for my mother. They were just scenes of the bay, but nicely rendered. I walked away feeling not too badly shafted, venturing next into a somewhat more upscale jewelry shop where a pair of unusual blue-green tourmaline earrings had been calling my name from the window display all week. They were far too expensive but I bought them anyway, wondering when I’d ever have the money to do something like that again…especially if I went back into the world of scholarship, as everybody thought I was bound to do someday soon.

Some similar but less costly earrings were added to the tab for my mother and sister—pale blue iolite for Margaret, an unusual local orange topaz for Mom. And some
ametrine
drops, their color changing from lavender to gold in mid-stone. Birthday or Christmas, they would make a good gift for
someone
I thought, as I justified the expense, knowing I would eventually break down and wear them myself. Tourmaline brought out the green in my eyes better, but I had a fondness for purple as well.

Deciding I liked the idea of bringing everyone some sort of “rock” from Rio, I found a pair of cufflinks for my brother-in-law, who occasionally wore French cuffs. And then my eye lingered over the tray of gemstones, wondering if I should get some for Jack, who frequently wore cuffs that required links. Most of the shirts he’d brought this week had French cuffs, in fact. But were presents even appropriate? They must be. He had bought me a bathing suit, after all. And a manicure and pedicure. And a massage.

The cufflinks Jack seemed to wear most at the office, and the only ones he seemed to have brought here, were understated flat squares of hematite. He wasn’t really a jewelry sort of person. But on the other hand, the sheer-white moonstone cabochons I spotted were as tasteful as it got—just an oval of translucent white, another oval etched around it, set in a not-too-large rectangle of white gold.

I rolled my eyes and said, “
Pfft
,” with just the right amount of skepticism at the price and pushed them away, indicating I would stick with the cheaper links I’d picked for Toby and the array of earrings I’d selected.

Perhaps it was because I really did plan to walk away—I wasn’t sure about the purchase anyway—that the shop owner instantly offered me a slightly better deal. I took it, again rationalizing to myself that if I changed my mind I could always just keep them and give them to Toby some other time. When he’d done something really great for Margaret and the kids. Like rescued them all from a fire or something. I mean, I wasn’t going to get cheap cufflinks for Jack, after all, but I didn’t normally spend quite that much—all right, anywhere close to that much—on my brother-in-law.

I was hopeless. I really was. I continued down the
avenida
but didn’t want to wander too far with so much merchandise, and I wasn’t finding the perfect piece of art to take home with me. So after another few shops I made my way back to the hotel, where I had all but my new earrings and the troublesome cufflinks stored securely in the hotel safe for the night. We would be leaving tomorrow afternoon anyway, to go up to Mario Coelho’s undoubtedly lavish place in the hills, but I thought it best not to tempt fate.

Back in the room I stared at the little velvet-and-silk box containing the cufflinks for a good ten minutes, as if some message might magically appear on the outside of the thing, telling me what to do. Finally, realizing I was over-thinking it, I pulled out the hotel stationary and jotted a little note for Jack to find with the box when next he came back to the room.

J—

I never really did thank you properly for the other afternoon, not to mention the bathing suit. I thought these might make a nice change from hematite…and since you wanted to remember me in the moonlight on Copacabana Beach, Brazilian moonstones were the obvious choice.

K—

And then I left the gift in the middle of the bed, hoping against hope that he would stop by the room and find it before I saw him again, and went back out to get something to eat.

* * * * *

Jack was presenting again in the afternoon, the last session of the day, and it had been assumed I would sit in. He wasn’t in the room yet when I arrived, although it was nearly time for the session to start. Professor Johnston was there, however, and snagged the seat next to me in the back row with a look of professorial censure.

“How can I be expected to learn anything from back here?” he chided.

“It’s a very small room, sir,” I pointed out, grinning. “Besides, the cool kids always sit in the back.”

“Do they, do they? I suppose that explains why I never got to know any of them. I was always up at the front. Nearsighted, you see. I suppose the cool kids all had twenty-twenty vision. I never realized that was the requirement.”

“Speaking of cool kids, Professor, how is Tom? I didn’t want to ask the other night, Lourdes seemed a little…edgy.”

He laughed aloud, pulling my attention away just as Jack entered the room carrying a stack of freshly copied handouts, plopped them on a table in the back near where we sat and headed straight for the front of the room, looking a bit distracted. He didn’t seem to have seen us.

“Edgy? She was a harridan, Katherine, and please accept my apologies to your young man. Oh don’t try to be coy,” he added, when I made an automatic gesture of denial. “You’re both adults, you seem happy enough—who am I to judge? It did take Lourdes to convince me of that, of course. Once she’d seen the error of her ways. She’s quite taken with Mr. Benedict now, incidentally.”

“The poetry,” I suggested with a knowing nod. I looked up at Jack, who’d been caught by a conference attendee with a question as he stood to the side of the projection screen, booting up his laptop and getting ready to speak. He still hadn’t seen us, I realized.

“Gets ’
em
every time,” the professor agreed amiably. “I know that’s how I managed it. Italian sonnets.
Mmm
…the memories. But you were asking about Tom. He’s quite well, actually. And he’s engaged. To a lovely young woman from Buenos Aires, whose family knows Lourdes’ family quite well. Almost a cousin, really.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I was genuinely happy. I knew how Dr. Johnston had anguished over his son’s seeming disinterest in romance. “But Lourdes, isn’t she thrilled? I mean a wedding, grandchildren?”

“No, no,” he corrected me. “She despises the girl. Natalia is her name, by the way. Lourdes thinks Thomas is a fool who is throwing his life away,” he said, in the exact manner of his wife. The brief impression was so true to life I couldn’t help but giggle, especially as it was so odd to see the dramatic gesture and tragic face on Professor Johnston’s normally placid and amiable face. “The trouble is, you see, Natalia is
exactly
like Lourdes. It’s uncanny. Not physically, really. She’s very lovely, but not the great beauty Lourdes was at that age. But the attitude, the mannerisms. Lourdes thinks the girl is horrendous of course. Natalia responds in kind, and the claws come out whenever they’re in a room together. I really wouldn’t be surprised if actual blood was spilled before the wedding. It’s in December, by the way. Would you like to come?”

“Oh, that’s perfect! I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, and I’d be honored to come. It’s just—” I couldn’t stifle my amusement at the mental image of cool, sophisticated Lourdes Johnston getting into a catfight with her youthful doppelganger.

“Laugh away, dear girl. Heaven knows I do, only please don’t let Lourdes or Thomas hear about it. I have every confidence that at some point Lourdes will go through a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and take Natalia under her wing. Perhaps if there are grandchildren. But hopefully sooner than that. Natalia seems strong, and Lourdes likes strong women. It’s why she likes you, of course. Oh, he’s starting.
Shhh
.”

And the professor gave his rapt attention to Jack, leaving me to ponder this bit of information as Jack, finally free from the early questioner, brought up the first slide and walked to the lectern…

Where he stopped as he spotted me in the back row, and stared as if he’d forgotten about everyone else in the room.

He gave a distracted “um”. His mouth turned up at one corner in a tiny half smile and then the moment passed. He greeted the audience warmly and gave his presentation just as he had the last two times, smoothly and professionally. No doubt I was the only one who’d noticed the bobble at the start. Well, and obviously Professor Johnston, who patted my hand gently as Jack started to speak, but otherwise said not a word until the lecture was over.

After the session I waited for the room to clear, picking up Jack’s spare handouts and eventually wandering over to his computer once the crowd had dissipated and he stood talking to Dr. Johnston and a few others. I held my hands over the keyboard and mimed to Jack what I hoped was the universal gesture for “should I go ahead and shut this down?” He nodded, still engaged in discussion, and I turned off the projector, unplugging the computer from everything and closing the program. Jack’s wallpaper was the same on his laptop as it had been on his desktop at work—his friend Mario’s boy and two nephews, the boys that could have been his sons, on their horses.

But of course they
aren’t
his sons, I reminded myself, shutting the computer down and closing it. Glancing over at Jack and the professor, it struck me that they looked oddly similar, both leaning forward and smiling, intent but casual at the same time. Confident, likeable men who were used to having people respect their opinions and decisions. They also looked slightly conspiratorial, which made me wonder a bit what they were plotting.

Then Jack ran a hand over the back of his neck, stretching, and there, at his wrist, was a moonstone cabochon embedded in white gold. I forgot everything else for a few seconds in the flood of relief.

Coming to myself after my momentary lapse, I looked around for his laptop case and tucked the machine neatly away in its little padded compartment, along with the spare session handouts and some other pages of handwritten notes Jack had left on the lectern. All tidy and ready to go—and I really
must not
look over at Jack and grin like a fool at his cuffs.