Chapter Nine
Caroline awoke to the muffled sound of a waterfall.
Having slept in a number of contrasting beds in the past few months, she needed to regain full consciousness to accurately pinpoint her location. The hospital? The rehab center? Her own room, sadly gone forever? The pretty suite at Ten Buck?
No.
The luxurious hotel room in downtown Austin. And the sound of water rushing came from Ben’s shower.
Smiling with complete and utter satisfaction, she stretched both arms over her head as sinuously as a cat. There was the good feeling of long-dormant muscles pushed to discomfort by hard use, and the slight reminiscent soreness of an interior having been filled and overflowed beyond capacity.
“Wow,” she murmured. “Wow.”
They had coupled that first time, she and Ben, for what seemed to be hours, into a state past exhaustion. He had arranged her acquiescent limbs into a number of interesting positions, and introduced her to pleasure beyond meaning with every one of them. Following his lead, she had tried to return the favor with as much panache and energy as he had given her. Put your hand here, and cup, her besotted brain instructed. Put your mouth there, to sip and swirl and suckle.
Once he had finally finished with her, they had fallen apart to drift into weary slumber. Sometime after midnight, she had been aroused by the poking and prodding of what felt like a telephone pole against her backside, and shifted position to accommodate. Then, again, just as early dawn light was stealing into the room, he had piled on top of her limp, overworked body to take her again, with very little foreplay but a great deal of enthusiasm and passion.
“Wow,” she murmured again, smiling that same smug smile.
Still. As wonderful, as exhilarating as was that whole night of musk and lust, Caroline had the sense that clinical, textbook knowledge had been involved in their coming together more than any actual feeling. Mere physical enjoyment and release. Then, even as that awareness flashed through her tired brain, there came with it a “So what?” moment.
This was what she had bargained for, after all: a mail order bride facing bankruptcy and penury due to a mountain of medical expenses, all now paid for, thanks to this arrangement. She would be living a life many others would envy, surrounded by comfort and ease. And now, as so ably proven by the Ten Buck master, absolute top-notch sex into the bargain, probably as often as could be arranged. What more could she possibly want?
Lovemaking? The actual, honest making of love?
“Hey, honey pot.” Emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, Ben, bronze skin still beaded with moisture all the way down to the towel that encircled his waist, wandered toward her with the grin of a satyr. “Time to rise and shine. Otherwise, be prepared to accept the consequences.”
Settled face down and front, with her head resting on both crossed arms, she returned his grin with a lascivious one of her own. “Indeed. And just what might that be?”
The mattress gave way, just a little, under his weight. So, with the movement, did his towel. Her eyes widened at the truly awesome erection deliberately presented for her view.
“What d’ you think?” he asked huskily. “Ready for another go-round?”
“Ben. Seriously?”
“Naw. I rode you pretty hard last night. Better give this ole boy a rest. However,” he reached out to lightly slap her sheeted rump, “we do have things to do today. Got a museum tour scheduled, and lunch at a real nice restaurant, and an afternoon movie. How does that sound?”
“It sounds,” she told him gravely, and with appreciation, “as if you’re spoiling me. But I’ll enjoy every minute of it. Turn around, please.”
“Huh?”
“Please turn your back. I want to go take a shower.”
A rollicking gale of laughter, larger than life. “Darlin’, I’ve seen—and touched, and tasted—just about every square inch of that body you’re hiding. You’re trying to pull that same ole modesty thing on me that you used earlier?”
“For as long as possible,” she said with dignity. “Now turn around, or I’ll never get out of bed.”
“Well, that would be a real shame, because then I’d have to diddle you again. And then we’d argue some more. However,” still chuckling, he obliged with her request, “I bend to your will. Make it snappy, Hootchie Mama; I’m ready for breakfast.”
“You can’t have it both ways, you know,” Caroline complained, as she disappeared into her bathroom. “I can’t be a tramp and a puritan, all at once.”
“Different strokes, different moods,” he called back. “I’ll take what I can get, either one.”
Once dressed and on their way an hour later to the hotel dining salon, Caroline congratulated her husband on his magnificent restraint.
“Restraint?” Quirking a brow, he politely seated her at their small private table in a windowed corner of the room, then joined her opposite.
“Yes. Since yesterday morning, you’ve actually let our wedding, and the celebration and so on, take precedence over that everlasting corporation of yours. No phone messages, no faxes, no texts, no emails.”
Frowning a little now—with displeasure?—he picked up the heavy menu and began to leaf through its pages. “Don’t play wife with me already, Carrie.”
Stunned, Caroline could only stare at this man to whom she had just willingly handed over her body, if not her soul. Only to be so casually dismissed. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry to disillusion you, but—those few times I was out of your sight at the reception? Work. Last night, while you were getting undressed? Work. This morning, while you were in the shower? Work. Regardless of my private doings, that everlasting corporation, as you called it, goes on; and I have to go on with it.”
“I see.” Lips tightened with disappointment and displeasure, she opened her napkin. “Coffee, please,” she insructed the hovering waiter. “Lots of it.”
“Same here. Look, Carrie.” Earnest in his desire to emphasize a point, whether or not it caused hurt, he leaned toward her, handsome as all get-out in Sunday attire. “I expect you to find plenty to do around the ranch, taking care of Sophie and managing the household. Because you sure can’t plan on using me to stay busy and fill up your life.”
“I hadn’t thought any such—”
“That won’t make either of us happy. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and that’ll be what works. When I need you for some social function, or I want you in bed, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, rest assured that I’m not some moonstruck calf about to trail around behind you, ready to make your every whim come true.”
At his cool tone, at his insulting and insensitive words, color rose in her frozen cheeks, and a suspicious moisture beaded her lashes. More, as always when circumstances spun out beyond her control, her spine stiffened into Vermont marble.
Damn. And he had actually seemed human this morning, too, dressed in a casual polo shirt that brought out the blue of his eyes and pinned the dimples into play.
Which only rendered true the old saying that appearances can be deceiving.
Bastard.
“I am all too aware of that.”
“Well, good. Then we understand each other. You keep the personal stuff operating smoothly, Marilou can keep the office stuff operating smoothly, and I’ll be able to support all of us.”
“At Ten Buck.”
“Yup. Dunno where else I’d be.”
You utter fool, Caroline wanted to snap at him. That corporation runs you; you don’t run the corporation.
“Now then, what’re you having to eat?” Adroitly, man-like, he changed the subject. ‘I’m not a big fan of fancy dishes like this stuff with Hollandaise sauce or whatever. Just give me fried eggs, some big chunks of steak, and a bucket of hash browns.”
Dumped over his finely shaped head, possibly.
Swallowing her irritation for the time being, Caroline merely smiled her tight smile as she made a mental note of this conversation. One day. One day. She wasn’t sure what might happen one day, but she surely hoped to be around when it did.
Ben’s cell made its insistent, intrusive sound that seemed more growl than ring tone. With an apologetic glance across the table, he turned slightly sideways to answer.
Caroline was just beginning to realize what superb acting skills she had acquired. The man couldn’t even perceive that she was fuming like a hot teakettle, and ready to blow.
The rest of their honeymoon weekend passed by without incident. Without any kind of incident. In other words, a tad boring. A two-hour jaunt through the Museum of Sixteenth Century Art. Ho-hum. Even Ben, who had suggested the visit, seemed less than interested. Of course, why would he notice priceless paintings in baroque gilt frames, when his boon companion, that pesky little phone, kept him so entertained by contact with the outside world?
Was he buying and selling cattle futures? Arranging mega-deals and mergers? Changing the shape of the entire world?
Caroline began to wonder if stomping someone’s cell to death might be considered a punishable offense.
Lunch at some delightfully expensive restaurant, whose name she could not recall, was a quiet affair. In between courses, while Ben answered occasional calls and made more, Caroline contented herself with staring out the window, memorizing the vintage years detailed on the wine list, and chatting up the waiter. Next time she’d be foresighted enough to bring along a paperback.
All the while craving a soyburger from some fast-food place. Was that sacrilege, in cow country?
At least, seated in the darkened theatre for a showing of the most recent action movie, the phone needed to be silenced. She’d forgotten the “Vibrate” feature. Since he had chosen an aisle recliner, Ben was able to slip out to the lobby whenever necessary, leaving Caroline all on her own. To watch some flick in which she had had no interest in seeing, anyway. Another lesson learned.
Their return to the Ten Buck, cushioned by the limo’s plush surroundings, was made in almost total silence.
Uncertainly, unhappily, Caroline was afraid this was setting a pattern for the rest of her married life.
It was a depressing prospect.