At the growl of his voice, my body electrified.
“I have a pretty good idea what happens next,” I answered. I didn’t say more, because Vern was standing right there, but I had a feeling it involved my sexy platform shoes and every single room of the house.
We stepped out of the car and walked toward the tall, brushed-metal door. The house was built in the sixties, but like many of the older ladies in L.A., she’s had some work done over the years. Vern trotted ahead and unlocked the door for us.
Something red on the front steps caught my eye—terra cotta flower pots, filled with red geraniums.
“Those are new.” I pointed to the red flowers, which were exactly like the ones I kept back in Beaverdale, at the old house I shared with my cousin.
He picked up one of the pots. “They aren’t new. I had Vern ship them down here with the rest of your things. I wanted you to feel at home in your new house.”
I held my hand over my mouth, too overcome with emotion to speak for a moment.
He asked, “Have I swept you off your feet?”
“The flowers are—”
I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, because Dalton reached down and literally swept me off my feet. This was no simple task, because I am a woman of heavenly curves, but Dalton is stacked with muscles, and they’re not just for the camera. He uses those muscles to move his body and do wild, wild things to me.
With me cradled in his arms, he stepped over the threshold and into our house. High overhead, the industrial ceiling fans (which really are industrial, because they’re from actual airplanes) were gently turning, swirling the air around. His indoor plants had grown since I’d been there last, and he joked about fighting his way through a jungle as we made our way into the living room.
Vern closed the door and disappeared, off to his private quarters.
It was just me and Dalton, in his living room, and he was still holding me in his arms, because I was his. Completely his.
“You can set me down any time,” I said.
“Promise you won’t run away?”
I laughed. “Where would I go?”
He set me down, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. He wasn’t wrong about my tendency to freak out and run away from him. But now that we were married, everything felt different.
“It’s been a long day,” I said. “I’ll go take a shower, if I can find the bathroom.”
He pulled his shirt off over his head in one smooth motion, then ran his hands over his washboard stomach. I sucked in my breath, because the sight of his million-dollar chest still took me by surprise. He’d fallen off the no-carbs wagon and enjoyed cake at our wedding, but it sure wasn’t showing.
“Do you think you can find your way to the pool?” he asked. “It’s that big blue thing at the back of the house.”
“If you’re there, that’s more than enough motivation.”
He chuckled. “Motivation. That’s funny.”
3
I looked around the master bedroom. Vern had set up my closet a few days earlier, and he’d done a much better job than I would have.
I pulled out a two-piece swimsuit, in a periwinkle blue that complemented my pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Dalton probably expected me to go out there naked, but I felt more comfortable with a bit of fabric keeping everything where it ought to be.
There were a bunch of new clothes in the closet, purchased by Vern on my behalf. I felt like a princess.
Looking at my closet, the shock of my incredible new situation hit me, and so I took a moment to squeal and jump around like a little girl. Once I’d calmed myself, I selected a pretty pool-side wrap. The sun had already set outside, but my outfit needed a pair of sunglasses, so I put on a pair, skillfully purchased by Vern.
“That butler deserves a raise,” I said to myself.
I walked out to the back yard, where I barely glanced at Dalton in the pool before my eyes went to the view. Los Angeles lay before us, stretching out across the valley. I turned and looked over my shoulder, back at the house. During one of the renovations, they’d replaced all the back walls with windows, so from the back, the house looked like a cliff made of glass.
Dalton whistled. “Hey, sexy stranger. You’d better get off my property. You’re trespassing. My wife is meeting me here any minute, and she’s got a really bad temper. She’ll spray you down with a garden hose, or punch you some new freckles, whatever that means.”
I pulled off the sunglasses. “Very funny.”
He splashed around in the pool. “My wife swears she’s going to behave herself in L.A., but I don’t think she can control herself.”
“When I say ‘very funny,’ I mean you’re not that funny.”
“Get into this pool before I drag you in.”
“Sounds like a threat. What else are you going to do, once you get your hands on me?”
“I’m going to make you bark like those sea lions we saw in San Francisco.”
“That will never happen.”
He made a barking sea lion sound. “Aroop, aroop.”
“It’s more like this: Urp, urp, urp.”
“You are so damn sexy. Get in this pool.”
I let the robe slip off, and stepped down into the water to join Dalton. The water temperature was perfect.
He handed me a glass of sparkling champagne, in a disposable plastic cup. He explained that Vern had him trained to keep breakable glass away from the pool.
“Aren’t you the responsible one,” I commented.
He suddenly lunged out, grabbed me, and pulled me up against him. “How dare you,” he said in mock horror, and then he tipped his glass into my cle**age.
I squealed as some of the bubbly liquid tricked down between my br**sts. The remainder formed a triangle-shaped pool in my cle**age. Dalton dove in face-first and noisily slurped away at the champagne.
I nearly collapsed from laughing so hard, but then he stopped slurping champagne and was kissing me sensuously, his lips moving up and down my chest and neck as he clutched my body to his.
The fire of my lust started up deep inside, and Miss Kitty got very interested in everything he was doing. I tossed back my own glass of champagne and then sighed with pleasure as he refilled my cle**age and went in for another heavenly drink.
We were standing in water that came to the bottom of my br**sts. After his second drink, we started moving. He kept one hand on my lower back as he guided us deeper into the pool, until the water line reached the bottom of my chin, and the tops of his shoulders.