Falling for Sir (23 page)

"I was raised Catholic," Jack replied.
"But I guess you could say I...lost my way over the years since."

"Oh yeah, your wife died. I remember."

Marianne shrank in her chair as Veronica's voice
echoed shrilly down the table, subtle as a sledgehammer.

The man beside her resumed his meal, unperturbed
- at least on the surface. "I hadn't been a regular churchgoer for several
years prior to that, but yes...I did lose my wife."

"And never married again?"

"No."

"Don't blame you. Life's much easier
without that."

Marianne paused her attempts to chisel a cheap
plastic knife into a raw potato. "I didn't think marriage ever made much
difference to you, Veronica," she muttered.

Her mother lit up another cigarette. "You
have no idea. Marriage isn't the romantic state you read about in books. Not
for more than ten minutes, anyway. It's soul destroying, deadly to spontaneity
and creativity. But look at you sitting there with your pinched lips. Think you
always know everything, little ice princess. Just like your father, so
disapproving of other people's opinions when they don't agree with yours."

 
As
Marianne made another swipe at the potato, her plastic knife snapped and the
blade flew across the table. "I don't mind where anyone finds pleasure,
unless it hurts other people. There are rules in society for a reason. We'd be
savages if we all went about doing exactly what we want with no thought for
anyone else."

"Hark at you! You never had any
responsibilities. Never cared for anyone or anything."

"Neither," she replied, pointedly,
"did you."

Ben interrupted gently, "Marianne don't
speak like that. It's Thanksgiving and we have a guest."

Veronica cackled carelessly and addressed Jack
directly. "Now you know why I've been a chain-smoker for twenty three
years. I hope she doesn't preach at
you
like this."

He gave her a pained half smile. "Only when
I deserve it."

No one at the table knew what to make of that,
including Marianne.

"I never wanted another baby, after I had
my lovely boys," Veronica added, her eyes boring into her daughter.
"Girls are so hard, so resentful of their mothers. Don't know how good
they have it these days. Of course, I grew up when women were fighting for
their rights and their independence. She's never had to fight for
anything."

"I always think it's amusing,"
Marianne observed out loud, "that those who talk loudest about rights and
independence, are really only interested in their own and haven't got time for
anyone else's."

Silence followed this remark. She felt Jack's
hand on her thigh again, gently squeezing.

"So how's out little sis doing at
work?" Mike asked, allowing a great glob of lukewarm gravy to drip over
his burned crisps of turkey.

Jack took a while to formulate his answer. She
couldn't tell whether he was struggling to chew food, or giving the question,
and her, a great deal of thought. "She's incredible," he said
finally, turning his head to look at her.

"Yeah, she is that," laughed Mike.
"Never know what she'll do next." And he winked at Marianne. When he
started whistling the Bond theme, she was forced to kick him under the table.

The snow started falling at some point during
the meal and no one noticed until the kids ran outside and came back in coated
in a fat layer of white.

"We should make a move," she
exclaimed.

At once Veronica piped up, blowing a puff of
smoke. "You can use the attic room. Take clean sheets from the closet in
my room."

Jack looked at Marianne and hurriedly agreed
with her. "I think we'd better get back, Mrs. Miller. Thank you for the
offer, but I need to be back in the city."

She was intensely grateful that he didn't drag
out the visit just to torment her.

"It's Shelton," Veronica corrected
him. "I never took my husband's name."

Marianne glared at the woman standing between
them and the door, every ounce of that old hatred coming back in a flash—the
hurt she'd witnessed taking physical shape as it crumpled her father's face a
little further whenever Veronica made a similar comment in public. "You
mean, you never took my dad's name," she said, the words bubbling out of
her on a wave of anger.

Veronica looked at her blankly and took another
drag on her cigarette. "That's what I just said."

"No, it isn't. You referred to him as your
husband." She would have said more but stopped herself, curling her tongue
against the roof of her mouth.

"Take some pie back with you," her
sister-in-law chirped, trying to ease the tension.

Marianne shook her head, but Jack, still playing
the part of honored guest, accepted a Tupperware container with two large
slices of pumpkin pie. They made their way out into the fast falling snow and
got into his car.

"You really don't like your mother too much,
do you," he observed drily, clicking his seatbelt.

"She's not my mother. She's Veronica."
Just like she wasn't a wife.

"Where are your gloves?"

She realized she'd been blowing on her fingers
to warm them up. "Oops, I left them behind."

"I'll go get them."

"No." She put her hand on his arm.
"Don't worry about it. I just want to go. The duty visit is over for
another year. Her coins just ran out in the meter."

He looked at her for a long moment, the
windscreen wipers swishing and the heater fan whirring softly. Then he said,
"Whatever happened in the past, leave it there. You've got your whole
future ahead of you—a very bright one. Don't let her, or anything, drag you
down."

Suddenly she wanted to cry. "I'm not,"
she snapped.

Jack reached across, pushed back her woolly hat
and kissed her forehead. "You miss your dad. It's tough, I know."

Marianne caught her breath. "He wasn't my
dad."

"What?"

She licked her lips where they felt dry and
cracked in the cold weather. "The man I called my dad...wasn't. It was his
brother, my Uncle Stan."

Jack kept his hands around her face, warming it.
"How do you know?"

"She told me once when she was drunk. No
one else knew. She burdened me with that information, knowing that every time
he told me he loved me and how proud he was of me, I would hear her voice
whispering the truth in my ear. I couldn't tell him. It would have broken his
heart. I was the only thing he had. So I kept that secret festering inside me
for years. We both lied to him, she and I."

Slowly his hands drifted down to find hers, but
she pulled them away, clasping her fingers in her lap.

"At his funeral she walked up to me and
said,
Well, now he knows, doesn't he
?"
She'd never told anyone else all that and unleashing it now to Jack was like
taking off a tight belt, kicking off some uncomfortable shoes and falling into
a soft chair.

He didn't speak. Didn't try any words of
sympathy. Instead he turned the car in the snow and they headed off down the
long driveway, leaving the dilapidated farmhouse in his rearview mirror.

Marianne felt a heaviness in her heart and
wondered if, with all the talk of death, he was thinking about his wife.
"I hate fucking pumpkin pie," she sputtered. "And I hate fucking
Thanksgiving."

He gave her a double take and then laughed
gently. "Me too."

How lucky that she'd left her gloves behind,
because it gave her a perfect excuse to tuck her hands under his arm and hitch
a little closer.

"But I have to say," he added,
"I'm enjoying it this year."

She wriggled her cold toes in her boots, waiting
for the hot air to thaw them out. '"How do you usually spend the
day?"

"Working."

"I've distracted you then."

"Yes," he sighed. "Very
much."

Unable to tell whether that was good or
bad—afraid it might be the latter, she stayed silent and stared at the snowy
scenery as they crawled along the unplowed road.

After a few minutes and several more turns, she
suddenly began to realize they were not going the right way. "Jack! You
missed the exit for 787."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did! Oh my god, we're going to be
stranded out here in a snow drift."

When she finally took her eyes off the snowy
road, he was smiling and smug.

Her pulse skipped. "Where are you taking
me, Marchetti?"

"You'll find out."

They came to a gate and passed through to a
large, sprawling white building with pillars and a grand double door. It was an
exclusive hotel she'd driven by in the past and gazed at with longing.
"You won't get a room," she warned.

His lips curved. "I already did."

Chapter
Fifteen

A Good
Slave is Hard to Find

Jack had Mrs. B make the reservation two days
ago. If Marianne didn't accept his offer to drive her to Vermont he'd be stuck,
of course, but he took the chance.

They had a large suite on the second floor,
overlooking a horse paddock and a pond. It was that or a golf course and, as
Mr. B had said, Marianne Miller seemed to be the sort that would appreciate a
more natural view.

"I've driven by this place before, but
never stayed," she exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Couldn't afford it."

There was a silver ice bucket on a fancy stand
and two bottles of champagne cooling.

"Two bottles? Trying to get me
smashed?"

He slipped out of his jacket. "Do I need
to?"

"No." Marianne took a running leap
onto the large bed. "Pour, Marchetti."

At first he thought she was referring to him as
"Poor, Marchetti." But then she held out a champagne flute. So he
poured. "Tonight, Ms. Miller, I'll be
your
slave."

"What can you mean?" Her eyes were two
big, dewy pools of lush green. He wanted to dive in.

"Tonight, I'll be your sub."

She licked her lips. "Submarine?" Her
brows arched.

Jack began unlacing her boots. "You know
very well what I mean, Ms. Miller."

"I think you mistake me for someone else.
Hey, that tickles!"

He tossed her boots to the floor and began
kissing his way up her black, thigh-high stockings and under her skirt. Jack
couldn't even express how much he loved that she always wore the sexiest
panties and lace-topped stockings under her prim Victorian attire. Unwrapping
her was like unwrapping a Christmas present. Other women didn't get that. They
thought they had to let it all show, or else a man was too stupid to know where
it was. But part of the pleasure was being the one who peeled away the layers.
The one who found the treasure beneath.

"Oh, I know what you're doing,
Marchetti!" She exhaled with a giggle. "You think I'm that girl—
Claudia. That's who you think I am."

With her skirt wriggled up to her hips. He moved
her panties aside with his teeth and nuzzled her soft, sweet pussy. He wanted
to make love to her for the rest of his life, to hold her and protect her and
make her smile. To make her scream when necessary. "Claudia can't hide
from her Sir," he murmured, kissing her on those pink, excitable lips.
Above him he heard her sigh happily and then she spread her thighs, making room
for him to lie on his stomach between her legs. "Enjoy your champagne,
sweetheart," he whispered, "And I'll enjoy mine."

* * * *

She lay back in the tub of bubbles and let him
bathe her with his lovely hands, as if he truly was a slave and she some Roman
empress. He was very diligent, very thorough, even washing between her toes.

Through half closed eyes she dreamily surveyed
the man kneeling beside the large oval bath. He was totally naked, his skin
gleaming slightly from the heat that had built up in the bathroom. Every lean
muscle was accentuated every hard plane and taut tendon. She couldn't imagine
him working out in a gym, but evidently he kept in shape. Yet he'd never made
any comment about her figure being plump and needing a little tone up. Instead
he worshipped her with his hands, his eyes, his lips, his cock. Every part of
him.

"You're a very good slave," she
purred, stretching in the water, holding her arms up to watch the bubbles slide
down her skin.

"Thank you, mistress," he muttered,
his hand cupping her sex, his forefinger slipping inside her to gently tease
her clit.

"Did I say you could do that, slave?"

He bowed his head. "No mistress."

"Then why are you doing it?" She let
her knees fall against the sides of the wide bath, opening herself for more
exploration, even as her voice rose querulous.