Voyeur - Lacey Alexander [97]
It was just past the vegetable patch, before reaching the path that would lead to the secret garden, that Edna was caught in a shaft of light and Riley yelled, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Edna looked back only long enough to say, “I might believe that, Riley Wainscott, if you owned a gun!” Then she ran on.
Drat, Edna knew her too well.
Which meant it was woman against woman, sprinter against sprinter. Riley barreled ahead, breathless, remembering with regret that she kept meaning to join the local health club. But through pure will, she gained on Edna, closing the distance between them step by grueling, panting step—until finally she tackled the housekeeper in the tall grass in a field beyond the garden. They went down with an oomph!
A long moment later, as the two women lay panting, recovering from the impact with the earth, she heard Sloane’s voice. “Riley? Are you out here?” She looked up to see the beam of a flashlight coming toward them.
“Out past the vegetable garden!” she yelled, keeping a firm grip on Edna as she pushed to an upright position, still straddling the other woman’s body. “I’ve got her! She won’t get away from me now!”
It was only as Sloane approached, shining his light down to capture Riley and her prey, that she realized she was using every ounce of force in her body to keep an elderly woman with arthritic knees pinned to the ground.
“You’re hurting me, Riley! I have a bad back.”
Riley let out a disgusted breath, trying to cover her overzealous actions. “Well, that’s what you get for killing poor Hawthorne.”
Edna peered up at Sloane. “I don’t know what you see in her. She’s mean to old people.”
“Riley,” Sloane said in his typical dry tone, “I think if you get off her, we’ll manage to detain her until the police arrive.”
Riley let out a sigh. Oh well, at least she’d handled the spider situation like a pro.
That night, they made love in Braden’s bed, looking toward the mirrored closet doors. Neither of them called it making love, but to Laura, that’s how it felt. In the tender moments, definitely—but even in the rougher ones, too.
He lay behind her, thrusting deeply into her, each stroke delivering a barrage of pleasure. As they peered into the reflecting glass, he said, “Keep watching us, baby.” She obeyed.
She saw their bodies undulating together, witnessed his face wrenching in sweet, hot agony, and saw her own, as well. When he lifted one of her legs with his hand, parting her thighs, she saw his cock sliding smoothly into her. “Watch me fuck you. Watch how easily you take me inside.”
She was shocked at how beautiful she thought herself that way, surprised at how differently Braden had made her view sex. It occurred to her that maybe—despite having had sex with other guys, even guys she’d sincerely cared for—she’d never really, truly been intimate with anyone before Braden.
She’d loved most of all watching Braden’s face when he came—she’d never been so aware of taking a man to another plane, even if for just a few short moments.
Afterward, they lay talking, letting the ceiling fan cool their bodies after sex that had grown sweaty.
“So,” he said, “day after tomorrow?”
She sighed. She’d told him over breakfast that was when her retreat would end, when she was flying home. When she’d arrived here, she’d had no idea her writer’s retreat would turn into a sexual retreat, as well. Nodding against her pillow, she answered. “Yeah.”
He stayed silent for a moment, then softly met her gaze. “I’m gonna miss you, snowflake.”
Temptation filtered through her, the temptation to say what she was thinking. Maybe I could just stay here with you forever.
But then she remembered that he didn’t even live there—his real life, real world, was in L.A. And her real world was in Seattle. Just like Riley and Sloane’s secret garden, this was merely an escape, and this affair would be only a brief