Free For All (Red Light, Book Four) (9 page)

“Still awake?” This time it’s Rick who asks me.

“Wouldn’t miss a second of this,” I reassure him, my throat scratchy from shouting my pleasure.

“Me either.” His fingers travel a circuit down my spine, over my ass then up my side. Each time he skims over my ribs, I smile.

“Ticklish?”

“A little.” I chew on my lip.

“Spit it out, Sarah.” He diverts from his path to trace the spot I worried.

“My clients may pay me for sex, but love is really a free-for-all.” I sigh. “They could have anything they wanted with a true partner.”

“If they’re lucky enough to find the person they can make it work with.”

When I flex my knuckles, he massages my fingers.

“Right.” I take a deep breath. “Am I enabling them? Keeping them from looking for the mate who is their perfect complement? Am I harming the people I want to help?”

“I don’t see it that way.” He smiles down at me. “Sometimes you’re teaching them what they need to move on.”

“I guess that’s true.” I nod, rubbing my cheek on his chest.

“What’s this really about, baby?” He’s quiet when he coaxes me to respond.

“I’ve been thinking… Maybe I should quit.” I scrunch my eyes closed. “With the house paid off and your job plus my savings, we’ll be okay.”

“Financially? Sure. More than all right. But what would you do?” He sits up, bundling me into his lap until he can stare directly into my eyes, which are less than three inches away. “This has never been about money for you. You love your job.”

“I love you more.” I shake my head. “And as much as it’s true that I like to care for my clients, I also know I could be someone’s crutch. I know because I hid through my window myself. I might have stayed there the rest of my life if I hadn’t met you. You forced me to come out.”

“Why is that, Sarah?” He must hold his breath as his chest stops moving.

“I used to think people who visited my window were the only ones who would accept me for who I am and what I want.” It’s time I told him the whole truth. “I’ve always had this drive. This need to touch and be touched. To connect with other people. It’s so much more than sex…”

“I know that.”

I can see his faith right there in front of me. He understands. It’s a miracle. One I’m not willing to sacrifice by leaving him in the dark. “My family couldn’t accept me.”

His arms tighten around my waist and shoulders when I feel like I might shatter. Still he doesn’t interrupt, as if he knows once I begin sharing, I won’t be able to stop. He’s asked me for this so often he must have thought I’d never be able to admit my secrets. Tonight I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll lose him.

And that I can’t live with.

“I tried to explain what happened the first time. When I shared myself with a client. Though to be honest, he didn’t have to pay me. I could tell what he needed and I gave it to him. Freely. Not because I loved him or because he coerced me. Because I knew I could help ease his loneliness.” I ungrit my teeth to allow a huge breath to feed my narration. “I still remember the rush. How it filled me with joy when I opened myself to a man who needed me the first time. I was seventeen. And I knew right away what I wanted to do for a living.”

“You have a gift.” Rick stares at me, awe flooding his gaze. “I could tell the moment I spoke to you. Maybe even from the way you moved in the window before I had the guts to knock. As one of those men who needed you, I could tell you understood. So many of the women in the district don’t. They do it for cash. Or power. But you… You were always special.”

“Thanks. My family didn’t believe that. They were very religious. They told me to atone, to pray for God to forgive my mistake. It probably didn’t help that the man I serviced was our minister. I’m sure they thought we were both going straight to hell and dragging them into the flames with us by association.”

Rick drops his forehead forward. It meets mine, lending me his strength.

“It wasn’t some kind of slip-up. I didn’t believe it could be wrong to experience what I had. To help someone else while bringing us both pleasure seemed more like healing that hurting.”

“So why would you even suggest quitting now?” Rick rubs my back. “I love you, Sarah. All of you. Unconditionally. You don’t have to sacrifice this for me.”

“I guess I just didn’t realize before tonight that there were other ways to achieve the same goal.” I burrow closer to his warmth. “This was a whole new level. Being a part of us and a part of them. Two couples who can take each other somewhere almost spiritual.”

“You can have both, baby.” His breath puffs against my neck. “I’ll support you no matter what you decide, but I don’t think you should give up your dreams. I’ll never abandon you or force you to choose between me and your work like your family did. Please believe me.”

A concern that’s been nagging at my heart for weeks bursts free of the place I’d locked it up. “You haven’t visited any of the other windows since Christmas. We talked about it. You didn’t trust me like you’re asking me to trust you. Why?”

“I already have everything I want in you, Sarah. I thought about it. Hell, I even tried with Mari once.” He clears his throat before smiling soft and slow. “It just didn’t work. I appreciate the freedom you granted me, but I’ve come to realize that’s not what I required at all. It was fear that made me insist on it before. I’m sure now. Positive. You’re everything. Sharing like tonight—I’ll want to do this again. A lot.”

“I could get on board with that.” I squirm when I think of the possibilities.

“Without you, the world is all oatmeal.”

“What does that mean?” I tilt my head.

“Bland, something that would give me sustenance yet never be appetizing. I’m more of a bacon and eggs kind of guy.” He licks his lips.

“What if you get bored with me?” I hate the tremble in my voice.

“How can I when you’re willing to evolve? Everything we do together is another adventure. I want you by my side. Forever. Exactly as you are.”

“I hope for that too.” No, more like I obsess about it. I wish life offered guarantees.

“Then maybe this is the perfect time after all.” He rises, depositing me on the mountain of pillows. The flickering candlelight gleams off his sculpted chest as he crosses to the row of pretty cut-crystal bottles containing the massage oil the masseuses had applied to us earlier. “I sort of chickened out before. Twice really. Yesterday in the tent. Then tonight I planned to have those guys pamper you before giving you this.”

“What?” I push up on straight-locked elbows to peer at the small bottle he hands me.

Something tinkles against the side of the container when my hands shake. “Rick, there’s a ring in there.”

“Sure is.” He takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry, that’s not really oil, it’s colored water. I wouldn’t risk hurting Hazel’s diamond even though the crew promised it’d be fine. Well, your diamond now. If you’ll accept it.”

He drops to one knee on the royal purple silk covering the plush lounging mat. I scramble upright only to have my knees fold again, leaving me with my ass on my heels. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like, Sarah?” He scrubs one hand through his hair. “I had a whole speech prepared. I practiced it on Adelbert. Damn that was awkward. And useless since it all flew out of my brain. Shit, I’m not good at things like this.”

I gawk while he rambles.

“Are you serious?” Finally I interrupt though he hasn’t asked me a question yet.

“Absolutely. Sarah, I love you. I always will. Please do me the honor of sharing this crazy life, wherever it takes us. Marry me?”

I stare, my jaw hanging open.

“For Christ’s sake. Say something. Yes? No? Go to hell? Anything. Is it that hard to imagine being my wife?”

“Your—”

“Oh shit.” He starts to rise. I slap my hand on his thigh and dig in until he resigns himself to staying put.

“Sorry. Sorry.” My brain is whirling faster than the spokes on our bikes when we race downhill. “You said you never wanted to get married. Your parents…”

“Are not us.”

I toss away the stop from the bottle and dip my index finger into the water until I can fish out the gorgeous antique ring.

“There will come a day when we’re separated, no matter how much we do to avoid it. I’m committed to making sure that happens as far in the future as possible. Like a hundred years from now. And even then I pray you know it would never be my choice to leave your side. I love you, Sarah.”

A single tear trickles down my cheek. I can’t answer him.

“You still have doubts?” I hate the frown creasing his handsome face.

“No. It’s not that.” I shake my head. I refuse to lie to us both. “I mean, I guess it’s hard to believe you’re real. That no one will take this away from me.”

“I’ll keep proving it to you, Sarah.” He sighs as he climbs to his feet, tugging me with him. “Every day until you’re confident.”

I should reassure him. I mumble against his hand when he places his fingers over my lips.

“You don’t have to say anything else. It’s okay. I’m a patient man when I have a goal in sight.” He steals a fierce kiss. “You were meant to be mine. As much as I am yours. Someday I won’t have to tell you. You’ll know it as deeply as I do.”

I hear his reassurance loud and clear. It’s the last shove I need.

“Rick?” I take a huge, shuddering breath and prepare to leap. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” He squints at me.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.” I fling myself into his open arms. “I promise I’ll be the best wife you can imagine. If you’ll have me, I’ll give you everything. All I am. I already have.”

“Thank God.” He lays the kiss of a lifetime on my lips before he bundles me in his arms and races from the room. His fingers clutch my ribs and knees as he bounds up the stairs to the main level, which has almost completely cleared out as groups have wandered to the play areas or gone home for the night.

I still haven’t caught my breath by the time I spy Ludger sitting at the bar, shooting the shit with Kelli and someone with a riot of unnaturally red curly hair. The world bobs around me.

“She said yes!” Rick shouts to the bodyguard and his other friend before spinning us in circles.

“This calls for shots,” a familiar voice shouts. I try to place it. It can’t be. My weaving vision almost makes it look like my best friend Mari is chilling out with Rick’s pals. “I get to be the Maid of Dishonor, right?”

“Mari?”

“Who the hell else?” She might have had one or two drinks already gauging by the level of sarcasm spilling from her. “I mean if it weren’t for me, you never would have wooed Rick’s bottomless stomach.”

“How?”

“I thought you might like to celebrate if things went well.” Rick sets me on the floor. He scrubs fresh tears from my face. “Or at least you’d have a ride home if you kicked me to the curb.”

“You thought Mari would be my designated driver?”

“I guess you could have taken a cab together.” He smothers a chuckle when Mari levels a death-ray glare at him. “Yeah, should have thought that one through. But I was practicing my positive thinking.”

“Works every time.” Mari nods sagely, if a little out of control.

Kelli plunks a mostly empty bottle of Patron on the bar. “A toast. To Rick and Sarah, may you always be hot and your love be hotter.”

We pass the bottle around, each of us taking a swig. The burn spreads through my chest, warming every corner of my soul.

“Perfect.” Kelli gestures with her chin. “Now put some fucking clothes on, would you? Nobody wants to see you wearing just those sappy grins.”

Rick and I face each other and laugh. The universe consists solely of him. Naked or not, I hadn’t noticed. My soul is bared to him permanently.

“True love stories never have endings.” ~Richard Bach

Rick and I stroll through streets teeming with music, clusters of friends heading out for the evening and clouds of sweet-smelling smoke that waft from inside Amsterdam’s infamous coffeehouses. No more than a kilometer away, someone is mopping the floor of the Anne Frank museum. They’ll clean behind the attic bookcase for the drove of visitors who will flood the once-secret space again tomorrow.

Live and let live. It should be the official motto of our home city, though the silly t-shirts and postcards with the triple X’s make for more commercial souvenirs. I glance at a shop window and the corkscrew in the shape of a little red man with the X’s running in a line down his stomach like buttons on a gingerbread man. I squint at the oddity. Huh. They should market it as a cockscrew, really, based on the clever placement of the opening device.

I thank the universe again for landing me in the one city I truly belong. How much luckier can a woman get?

Rick grips my hand a little too tight. I don’t mind the bite of his ring digging into my pinky and middle finger. I love knowing I’m his. And he’s mine. I study the sparkle of rainbows falling like glitter from my engagement ring. They dance across the damp ground as the first illuminated windows of the red-light district pop into view.

“Are you okay?” Rick slows his pace. Could he be as hesitant as me to say good-bye? Even for a few short hours.