Storming the Beach

 

My tired body desperately craves the comfort of relaxing into a bath of silky lavender water. Instead I turn down the bed and wait to see if my houseguest is going to need anything.

Tonight I want Chris Botti’s trumpet, as smooth and mellow as a throaty voice, playing in my tub’s audiotherapy feature. Rearranging shampoo and body wash bottles, then checking on the water temperature kills enough time waiting on Leo to settle.

I drop the day’s clothes in my walk-in, then sink into the lavender- and oatmeal-treated water, set to 102 degrees, maintained by the tub’s thermal recycling. The shell of the tub surrounds me with sound. Water pulses in rhythm, thrumming Botti’s mesmerizing rendition of Chopin’s Prelude #20 in C Minor through my body.

Over-the-top indulgence? You bet. I live in a safe, comfortable, beautiful treasure box. And I didn’t have to negotiate or compromise with a man for it, either.

From the moment Leo DePaul strode into Events this afternoon, until I left him in my guest bedroom, he’s been front and center in my awareness. Calling him by his surname is a defense mechanism, to keep him from overwhelming me. An attempt to counter the zing of electricity I get from his touch, the unwanted pull I get from his irritating dimple or voice like dark molasses.

I’m going to have to rethink the seduction thing. Leo’s a client. I don’t need him to be anything else. His arm around my shoulders was nothing more than comradery and comfort. But snuggling on the couch felt more than comfortable. That gave me a strange feeling of…belonging, something I haven’t felt since my parents died when I was a teenager.

Not good.

What about when he kissed the top of my head? There was familiarity bordering on possessiveness in that act. His whole body insulated me, his arm held me plastered to his side, head hovered over mine. Protective. Nurturing.

And, heaven help me, I didn’t stop him. I let him envelop me with his warmth and intimacy.

So not good.

Other men have tried to fit me into their ideas of a relationship. Some were aggressive about it—a couple of years ago one tried calling and texting multiple times a day, sharing too much of his past and delving into mine, even pushing me to dine with members of his family. I cut him off summarily. There was never a problem resisting men like that.

Because I don’t do relationships, no matter how aggressively pursued. In fact, the more aggressive the pursuit, the less I tolerate it. Sweet words mean little or nothing.

My hand sweeps up to dribble warm water on my shoulder, then repeats on the other side.

Sexual yearnings I understand. I trust my body’s yearnings, indulge and satisfy them. There’s nothing wrong with them, as long as they’re monitored and kept in check. But to allow yearnings to build into something else leads to pain.

I refuse to do pain.

Leo supported me through a crisis tonight. So what if he’s an attractive man? So what if he evokes emotions I thought long-buried? He’s the brother of my best friend’s fiancé. I am their wedding consultant. We’ve spent time together both professionally and socially.

So why am I spending any juice on this?

The answer to that question alarms me.

Electricity jolts through my body every time we touch. I hear his voice and my senses leap to high alert. His musk makes me want to crawl up his torso and plaster myself to his muscled chest. He sparks yearnings that shouldn’t be indulged, that go beyond just sex. Yearnings that may never be satisfied.

But by his own admission, Leonardo DePaul is a romantic. And romantic men want to wrap their women with emotion. In a relationship. Want to claim them, bend them to their will.

Until they don’t anymore.

And then, inexplicably, the only emotion left is…pain.

I take a deep breath to still my runaway thoughts. There’s no reason to panic. There’s no reason to conjure up exaggerated demonstrations of self-denial. Yes, this man oozes relationship. Yes, he likes to control people. But so far I’ve done a pretty good job of yanking control back from him, only sharing what I allow him to share. I might still be able to handle him as a sex toy. His body was built for sex, fit and strong. And a voice that could coax birds from the treetops. It would be a shame to pass him up. After years of practice, I should be able to take what I want from him and leave the rest behind.

If I stay focused on the job at hand, things will be fine. Take the man to his car tomorrow morning, drop him off, say farewell until his final tux fitting, and then get through the wedding and reception. Another week. Easy-peasy.

Easy-peasy? A cliché touted by school children. Terrific. I have the emotional IQ of a fifth-grader right now…it’s time for sleep. I don’t have to make decisions about sex tonight.

I climb out of the tub, dry off, slip into a nightgown, and bundle myself under mounds of bed covers.

Elizabeth wants to move the shop. Tonight’s incident shoves the notion higher up my list of priorities. Mr. Colgate was hurt in the incident, and I don’t want to risk the health or safety of any of my employees. Plus, as DePaul correctly deduced, Events really does need more space. It’s time to start looking. I’ll line up a few possibilities, then Elizabeth and I can decide upon one. Right after Cleo’s wedding.

A DePaul wedding.

Most nights, the sound of tides sweeping in and out below my window lulls me to sleep. Tonight, a solid chest, golden-brown eyes, and a sinful dimple grace my dreams.

 

*****

 

She’s installed a urinal in the guest bathroom?

A bathtub I’m sure I need an engineering degree to keep from scalding or drowning myself. A shower with multiple sprays, designer toiletries, sumptuous towels. And a room within the bathroom housing the toilet, a bidet, and a urinal. It’s better than a 5-star hotel suite. Only a fool would want to leave after one night.

I don’t.

But not because of the facilities.

I could have kept their owner in my arms on that puffy blue sofa the rest of the night, breathed in her floral scent, caressed the firm skin of her thighs as I tucked the fuzzy yellow throw around them. It took real effort to part with only a peck on the head. What my body wanted to do, after hours of flirting with her, followed by worrying about her, then finally clasping her softness against me, was much more intimate.

Trouble is, I haven’t figured her out yet. Most of the time, she reminds me of a female Bambi, fighting to hold her own among the males in the forest. She kept it together tonight, facing the vandalism of her shop. She’s honed the ability over the years, but it’s cost her something. In spite of exuding romance, she emits strong “keep your distance” vibes, which isolate her physically and emotionally. She’ll fight me if I push to open her up.

It’s impossible that men—countless men, probably—haven’t tried to breach the walls of her self-possession. She wrestles to keep her independence—no, her separateness. That’s when she reminds me of Joan of Arc, making her way through a world run by men, her chin tilted in defiance, her clear eyes piercing any who would keep her from her self-appointed ambitions, committed to dealing without the help of men.

Something caused Juliette to close herself off to relationships.

I plan to find out what that was. And to figure out how to turn cracked defenses into demolished defenses.

At the very least, I plan for her to call me by my given name…

 

*****

 

The purple-gray of impending daybreak makes me smile. Mornings on the beach before going in to Sophisticated Events is the main reason I bought this house.

Everything is fresh and unspoiled, worlds of promise in the adventure of another sunrise. I bounce out of bed and into jeans and a bulky sweater, grab my phone, then ride the elevator to the ground floor. I slip on my beach shoes left by the door leading out to the patio.

A sand crab, sitting at the doorway, waves a menacing claw. How it got this far from the beach is beyond me. I hop over him and pull the door closed.

Brisk air penetrates my sweater’s loose weave, urging me to quicken the pace around my lap pool built straight out from the house, pointing at the ocean. Up a set of steps over the dunes, back down the other side, lands me on the crunch of dry sand. I stop to inhale the scent of sudsy spume edging the shore. On my left, a maraschino sun squats on gray water, surrounded by indigo sky. My mind suspends chatter, my heart expands, my shoulders fall as tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying seeps away.

The surf pulls back to the sea, and I follow the hop, hop, hop of fluffy, grey-feathered stints scavenging for their breakfast in the wet sand. It’s a wonder their skinny little legs don’t freeze. Raucous squawks alert me to an early-riser out walking his dog. We nod in greeting as I churn out the mile walk up the coast, tracking the houses I pass on the way, benchmarks of how far I’ve traveled on my constitutional.

The sun rises before my eyes, its intense cherry hue changing to shades of orange and fuchsia like a tutti-frutti popsicle. An inch above the water, its top becomes familiar yellow, the sky lightening to pure pale blue.

The house that’s my mile marker signals the return home. I take out my phone to check on the day’s business and to remind Elizabeth to call Tony on Monday to schedule his final fitting.

Just as I shove the phone in my pocket, Leo comes up the beach toward me. The legs of his suit pants are rolled up, his feet bare. The sun, behind my back, highlights the raw masculinity heading my way. Leo’s olive skin soaks up the light, his hair pulled up in a man-bun on the back of his head, stray tendrils carried by the ocean breezes. His dimple makes a comely divot, his teeth starkly white in a welcoming smile.

Little birds aren’t the only things a bit skittish this morning.

A man on the shoreline, standing in his suit pants, should look incongruous. Leonardo DePaul looks solid and strong. His legs are braced wide, as though giving the Atlantic a run for its money. The sea outside my house energizes me; the man centers and softens me. The combination doesn’t just satisfy. It fulfills. And I want him.

Danger. A thousand alarms make my head buzz.

He sips something from one of my mugs as he stares at the ocean. It’s as though he’s moving in on my ocean as surely as he’s trying to move in on me. I spent too much time, when I should have been sleeping, pondering what I wanted from Leo DePaul and debating how far I’d let my fascination with him run. Gauging how close I could let him get and still control the situation and myself.

His morning scruff draws my attention. Stubble, on some men, makes them look like they need to wash their face. The dark beard shadowing DePaul’s jaw makes me think about the abrasions he’d give me. A delicious reminder, all day long, of how I got them in the first place.

“Good morning,” he greets me with his melodic baritone.

I compartmentalize my brain. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Only my feet. But the view is worth it.”

We head back down the shoreline toward the house. “Is that coffee I smell?” I ask.

His look is a little mischievous, dimple creasing his cheek. He’s like a wayward boy in a big man’s body. “Yes. I hunted around and made a pot. I hope that’s all right.”

I cock a brow at him. “Did you leave me some?”

“Yep.”

“Then you’re forgiven.”

His lips twitch. “Maybe you should taste it first. Brenda usually makes the coffee.”

“Brenda?”

“My secretary.”

We smile, and sunlight penetrates dawn’s chill.

“Do you walk every morning, Juliette?”

“I try to. Some days the weather doesn’t cooperate and I use my indoor gym; other days I’m too pressed for time to do either one.”

He tucks some hair behind my ear, and his fingers caress the side of my neck. “Your cheeks are a delightful carefree pink.” A thumb traces the flush.

His smile is intimate. The heat I feel is from more than the sun or my two-mile walk in a bulky sweater. I grit my teeth. Time to deal with things before they get out of hand. “Thank you, Mr. DePaul.”

“But?” He takes my hand.

I risk a glance at him, to find him watching me.  “I know how to deal with candor,” I say, hoping I don’t sound churlish after his compliments. “Charm is…well, it unsettles me.”

He frowns. “You’re not used to receiving compliments from men, Juliette?”

“I’m never sure what to do with them.” We climb the wooden steps over the dunes, his hand at the small of my back.

“Your thanks, with a smile, are plenty.” He steers me around my pool. The crab has scuttled off.

“But what do they mean? What’s the purpose?”

“Does there have to be a purpose?”

“There usually is some sort of ulterior motive, I think.”

“I see.” We stop on the side of the house to stick our feet under the outdoor faucet. He’s contemplative as he bends over to remove my shoes and wash away the sand from my feet before taking care of his own. My neighbors wave from their back deck. They’re unused to seeing a man with me at this hour.

Feet clean but chilled, we take the elevator up to the main floor, to the kitchen. He pours a steaming mug of fresh hot coffee for me, then tops his off. I wrap my hands around the mug and take a grateful sip. “You make a good pot of coffee, DePaul.”

His eyes narrow. “Did you just compliment me? What’s your ulterior motive?”

Leo smirks back at me when I grimace. “Cute. I wasn’t complimenting you on something personal, like the breadth of your shoulders.”

His mouth curves. “You like the breadth of my shoulders?”

My gaze is stern. He laughs.

“Okay, give me a personal compliment, Princess.”

“That’s not the way it works, DePaul.”

He winces. “Please call me Leo. From you, that would be a personal compliment.”

“And it would also indicate a deeper connection than we currently have.”

He sighs. “I’ve been out to dinner with you and spent the night at your house. That doesn’t make our connection deep enough to warrant first names?”

Maybe I’m being ridiculous. At the moment, his charms don’t seem quite as dangerous. “Leo.”

The flash of triumph in his toffee-colored eyes gives me pause to reconsider.

“Would you like some breakfast before I take you to your car, De—eh, Leo?” I shift toward the panel concealing the refrigerator.

“Actually, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like a bath first.”

“That sounds like a good idea. I always shower after my morning walks. Breakfast afterward.”

“Juliette?”

“Mm-hmm?” I answer, on my way to the elevator.

“Will you please show me how to work it?”

I pivot, my eyes as wide as my grin. “Yes, Leo, I will help you tame the high-tech beast in your bathroom.”

“Very funny.” He takes my outstretched hand.