was trying to accomplish.”
“Openness,” Anne answered.
Caroline smiled. She didn’t want to correct her but there was more to it than that. Any big house with large rooms provided a sense of space. This house was about freedom.
“We’ll get out of your way,” Serena told her.
“I did want to freshen up a little. I must be a mess.”
“Oh, no. Not at all,” Anne crooned. “Maybe just your lipstick. You look a little pale. We’ll leave you to it.”
Yeah, Caroline thought. She and Anne weren’t going to be buddies.
It was shame, too. For the most part, Caroline was a loner, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to make friends in her new life. And there was the fact that Steven and Dominic seemed genuinely close. She’d watched them for a while during the party. Dominic asking Steven work-related questions and Steven firing back with sports news. Eventually Dominic had relented and Caroline learned her husband had an interest in baseball. Pals as well as partners. She doubted Dominic had many friends and she wasn’t going to let Anne get in the way of that, despite her feelings.
She was tired, that was all. She would have Anne and Steven over for dinner and give it another try. Sometimes first impressions could be misleading. She made her way to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. Deliberately, she added a little blush but left her lips untouched.
Hours later after everyone had left, Dominic opted for a hot shower to unwind. When he came out of the bathroom to find his bed empty he was surprised.
It was late. After midnight. In the past few weeks, he’d learned that his wife liked to go to bed early.
He considered it his first compromise. He preferred to work to one or two in the morning, but if he wanted to make love to her he was going to have do that first, sleep for a while, then work.
And he definitely wanted to make love to his wife.
Just thinking about her made him hard despite having had her that morning. And three times the night before. He might have been worried that he’d driven her out of his bed with his sex drive if it hadn’t been for the way she welcomed him each time.
In his life he’d never known such pleasure. Or escape.
But tonight he was going to play it differently. He planned to kiss her on the cheek and roll over like a good husband. She was obviously tired from the stress of the past two weeks. Anne’s party certainly hadn’t helped things. He was going to shelve his desire and show her his unselfish side.
Only his wife wasn’t there to receive his noble gesture. And where was Munch? That was the trick. The two had become inseparable. Find the dog and he’d find his wife.
And he did.
Munch stood on the side of the pool while Caroline drifted up and down in a lazy sort of backstroke.
“Hi. I was too wound up to sleep so I thought I’d have a swim.”
She wore a simple black suit, but seeing the way it clung to her breasts made the muscle in Dominic’s cheek twitch. His wife had fabulous breasts.
“I’ll leave you alone.” There. That had been noble.
“Why don’t you come in?”
He wondered if he hadn’t mistaken the blatant invitation. “You’re exhausted.”
“I just said I couldn’t sleep. I need to relax.” She drifted over to the side of the pool directly below him. Her hand reached out and caressed his calf, and the loose shorts he’d put on to search the house for her no longer concealed his erection.
He stepped back and pushed the shorts off, then dove over her in a perfect arc. By the time he came up for air, she had removed her suit and tossed it on the side of the pool. Munch gave a warning bark as the wet suit hit a little too close for comfort and she trotted off.
In seconds he had her pinned against the side of the pool. In his arms she felt silky and wet. In another second he was pushing inside her. Here she was silky, wet and hot. He was discovering that he needed this connection like he needed air. The idea scared the crap out of him, but for now he ignored it so he could concentrate on how good it felt. He lowered his forehead to hers and sighed. Her legs locked around his hips and he had to forcibly stop himself from thrusting or it would be over too fast.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have…” He was at a loss.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said and placed her lips on the side his neck. “Not about this.”
“What is this?” He wondered if she would even understand what he was asking.
Then she grasped his face in her hands and met his gaze. Her eyes were so beautiful. So filled with gentleness. She smiled and he felt a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt since long before his mother died.
Startled by it, he began moving inside her, letting his body take over, working out whatever he was feeling with a good hard screw. He pressed his hips high and hard against that sweet spot between her legs, hoping she was with him because he knew he was going to come and he didn’t want to try and stop it. He heard a gasp and felt her tighten around his shaft. Without another thought he let himself go, his body a mass of sensation.
When he came back into his head, her arms were wrapped around his neck and she hummed a little in his ear.
“This was nice.”
“Hmm.” He thought about how much energy it was going to take to get them out of the pool. He had the irrational thought of letting Munch pull them out with a towel.
“So,” she said softly. “Tell me about you and Anne.”
His hold tightened around her body. He hadn’t seen that coming. He should have.
His wife was no dummy.
Chapter 5
Dominic stared at the ceiling. After three weeks of marriage, he knew where every faint crack in the plaster was. Every heavy stroke of paint. Even in the darkness with only moonlight filtering through the glass, he could still make out the tiny little imperfections.
She was sleeping on his arm. Her mouth slightly open so that he could feel the warm breaths of air on his shoulder.
It was driving him insane.
He glanced down at her and realized he’d studied her as equally intensely as he had the ceiling these past few weeks. He knew about the dark freckle behind her right ear. He saw the faint wrinkle that ran across her forehead barely visible when she was at rest.
So serene. So at ease with him. So trusting.
Or maybe not so trusting.
He considered the question she’d asked about Anne three weeks ago.
He’d avoided answering by kissing her. He’d kissed her long enough and slow enough until they were burning up. He’d managed to get her out of the pool and back up to his room—their room—where he’d made love to her again. Exhausted, she’d fallen asleep before he had a chance to separate their bodies.
There had been no more questions about Anne.
He wasn’t even sure what he would have said had she pressed the issue. There had been an incident. A year ago at a Halloween party Anne had thrown. He’d told her he didn’t involve himself with married women and that had been the end of it. As far as he knew Steven never found out. And it seemed at least to him that whatever problems they might have had were behind them.
Anne and Steven were happy.
Dominic shifted in the bed. He wouldn’t have thought he had any idea what a happy marriage looked like. But he imagined that he and Caroline looked happy. Why shouldn’t they? He felt happy