Spiral of Bliss 03 Awaken (4 page)

I tighten my grip on the phone. “What if—”

“I know, but what if you hadn’t been at the UW registrar’s office that day?” Liv asks. “The very same minute I was? What if you hadn’t decided to speak to me?”

The darkness of that thought, of what
might not have been,
lodges between us.

“What if I hadn’t had a job at Jitter Beans?” Liv continues. “What if you hadn’t come in that morning? What if someone else had been working at the counter? We might not be together now.”

“Liv…”

“Dean, how many things in the universe had to fit together for us to have
met,
let alone fallen in love?” Liv asks. “And how many of those things changed our lives forever?”

“Every one.”

“Exactly. For the better. Sometimes
what if
reminds you of
what is.
”

I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell her I want to try again because I don’t know if I do. I don’t think I could stand the fear and uncertainty again. Not when it involves Liv.

“Dean, I’m just saying I want us to think about it more,” she says gently. “Okay?”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“I know you can, professor.”

You can’t control everything, Dean.
Her voice echoes in my head again.

But I know there are still some things I can control. How I think. How well I make and follow a plan. Every facet of my research. How hard I work to get what I want.

And what I want most has everything to do with my wife.

“Now tell me something research-y and esoteric,” Liv says. “You know I love it when you use your big, academic… words.”

“Careful,” I warn her. “I’m battling all sorts of erotic longing over here.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?” My cock twitches a little at the thought that she might be ready for some hot talk.

“As much as I miss you, this separation has been great for my dreams,” Liv remarks. “I’ve had all sorts of lusty, imaginative dreams about us.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, in my last dream you were an incredibly hot gladiator—”

“A what?”

“A
gladiator
with chest armor and a loincloth, and I was… um, I think I was a vestal virgin or something, and we were in one of those temples with the columns… anyway, it was sexy.”

Since I’m not too sure where she’s going with this, I switch the topic to safer ground.

“Want to tell me what you’re wearing?” I ask.

“Oh, er… hold on a sec.” There’s a thunk as she puts the phone down.

I wait. A few minutes later, she’s back.

“Okay,” she says, “Guess what I’m wearing.”

“A T-shirt.”

“No.”

“Your white nightgown?” I ask hopefully.

“No.”

“Tank top and pajama bottoms?”

“No.”

“Please tell me it’s not your padded bathrobe.”

“Hey, you love me in that bathrobe,” Liv says. “It drives you wild with lust.”

“I love you in anything, and
you
drive me wild with lust, but trying to feel you up in that robe is like fondling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”

Her laugh warms my blood.

“I’m not wearing my robe,” she assures me.

“Then you must be naked.”

“No. I’m wearing a pair of navy blue satin panties and a push-up bra with lace around the edges.”

Lust bolts through me. My head floods with images of Liv’s curves all fitted into sexy lingerie. “Wow.”

“You should see my boobs in this thing,” Liv remarks. “They look amazing.”

“They are amazing.” I grab my dick through my boxers, picturing her full breasts pushed up into pillowy cleavage. “I’m hard just thinking about them.”

“Oh.” She lets out one of her breathy little sighs, and I can see her all stretched out in my office chair, skimming her hand over her body. She murmurs, “Remember that first time when you showed me how you could fuck my breasts?”

I groan. Raw talk from her gets me hot in less than a second.

“I remember.”

“We haven’t done that in a while,” Liv whispers.

“We will when I get back.”

“Are you near your laptop?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Hang up, then turn on your webcam.”

I end the call and grab my laptop from my desk. Sitting back on the bed, I get the software running. After a few false starts, Liv’s call comes through.

My heart crashes against my chest. Even in the small screen of my laptop, the grainy picture sends my lust skyrocketing. She’s adjusting the camera, her hair all loose around her shoulders, her cleavage…
God in heaven.

I struggle to pull in a breath.

“Can you see me?” Liv asks with a slight frown.

“Yeah.” The word comes out strangled. “Christ, Liv, you look incredible. I want to see it all.”

“Okay, hold on.” She moves away from the desk and stands. My vision fills with the sight of her full breasts pushed together, hugged by satin and lace, the curves of her hips, a pair of satin panties cupping her between the legs…

“Turn around.” I reach into my boxers and close my hand around my shaft.

Liv turns, displaying the satin stretched across her ass. My body tenses with the urge to hook my fingers into that flimsy material and pull it down slowly over those gorgeous cheeks…

“Bend over,” I tell her.

“Make sure the record button is off,” Liv says, but her voice is getting breathless as she pulls the chair closer and kneels on it.

She leans over the back of the chair. The panties stretch across her ass. I tighten my grip on my cock and stroke it, imagining shooting all over that smooth blue satin.

“Hey, wait.” Liv turns, her hair sliding over her shoulders as she peers into the camera. “I can’t see you if I’m turned around. And why are you still wearing a shirt?”

“Because I’m too busy staring at your ass. Turn around again and pull your panties down for me.”

She leans closer to the camera and gives me a mock frown that makes me want to reach through the camera and kiss her senseless.

“Okay,” she says. “But then you’re taking your shirt off. Boxers too.”

“Show me your ass, woman.”

Liv turns again and tucks her fingers into the waistband of her panties. After shooting me a wicked grin over her shoulder, she pushes them slowly down until her ass fills the screen. My blood pounds. I want to kiss and squeeze those perfect cheeks, slide my cock into the valley, then down between her legs where she can tighten her smooth thighs around my shaft…

A groan rumbles my chest. I’m as hard as a rock. I take a deep breath, trying to regain some control.

Liv twists around again and sits, the panties all tangled around her thighs. “Is your shirt still on?”

I pull my shirt off and throw it on the floor, then shove my boxers down.

“Oh.” Liv peers at the screen, her voice husky. “Very nice, professor. I so wish I could touch you. I wish I could
taste
you.”

My erection pulses at the thought of her sliding her tongue over my chest and stomach before she takes my cock into her hot mouth. I move my hand up and down my shaft, pressure boiling through me like steam.

“Now take off your bra,” I tell her.

She unhooks the front clasp, displaying her full breasts topped with hard nipples. Just the sight of them, the knowledge of how soft they are, almost makes me come. I rub my thumb over the head of my aching prick.

“Wait, I can’t see you.” Liv looks at the screen again, moving her hands up to her breasts. “Adjust your camera. You know how much I love watching you touch yourself.”

I shift the laptop. Liv draws in a breath, her lips parting.

“Oh, God, Dean,” she murmurs. “That’s so hot.”

“Move back.” I can’t take my eyes off her as she massages her breasts and plucks at her nipples.

She scoots back a little so I can see more of her, then she slides one hand down to her pussy. A visible shudder goes through her. She leans her head against the back of the chair and lets out a soft moan that goes straight to my blood.

“I want to watch you come,” she whispers, her gaze on the screen. “I wish you were here, wish I could wrap my fingers around your cock, take you in deep…”

My heart pounds. I work my hand faster, pressure flooding me. The sight of her all spread out in my office chair, one hand between her legs and the other playing with her breasts, fills me with urgency.

“Oh, Dean, I’m so… so
ready.
” Liv’s breathing intensifies. Her pale skin is flushed, her eyes filled with arousal. She bites down on her lower lip, the way she always does when she’s getting close.

I wish more than ever that I could feel her warm breath, taste her lips, push my cock into her sweet, hot pussy…

“I want to touch you again,” Liv murmurs, her chest heaving with the force of her breath. “I want you on me, in me… I want you again, Dean, it’s been too long… I’m ready for you… for
us
…”

Her throaty voice, the way she’s starting to writhe in the chair, is enough to bring me to full boil. She lets out a cry, her body trembling with vibrations. I watch her as she rides out the wave, her words fading into pants and moans.

I stroke my cock faster, and then the tightness in my groin explodes into blinding pleasure, jets of semen pooling onto my stomach. Liv leans closer to the camera to look at me, her eyes dark with lust and lingering pleasure.

“You are so damn sexy,” she whispers.

“It’s all for you.” I rub my cock until the sensations ease, not taking my eyes off my wife. I swear I can almost taste her heat, smell her arousal.

Liv pushes up from the chair and presses a kiss close to the camera. I smile and put my finger against her puckered lips, wishing I could feel them, feel her.

A stab of irritation hits me suddenly that there’s an ocean between us, that we’re on different continents, that she’s there and I’m here.

Liv moves back from the camera. Her pretty face fills the screen, all brown eyes, thick lashes, that luscious mouth.

“I love you,” she says. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Right at ten.”

We exchange goodbyes, and I go to clean up. I get dressed, organize my work for the day, and put file folders in my backpack.

Before leaving, I draw a quick picture and scan it into an email:

TO: The Queen Bee

FR: The Frog Prince

I press the send button, then pull on my jacket and head out into the dawn.

CHAPTER THREE

Olivia

y husband doesn’t just love me. He knows
how
to love me. He knows what I need and when I need it, sometimes even better than I do. He knows how to unfold all the tight, rough parts of me and smooth them out with one glide of his hand. He knows how to prove that he—and only he—understands every crevice of my soul. He knows how to remind me that I am forever safe within his heart.

And all of this has never been more apparent to me than it is now, as Dean continues wooing me under the precepts of his own version of courtly love.

I know. Could not be more dorky. And yet, after all we’ve been through, for us it is also intensely personal and beautiful.

Over the next week, Dean sends me emails at least three times a day with poems and quotes:

TO: Olivia West (aka exalted mistress)

FR: Dean West (aka lowly servant)

Miss you.

Want to kiss you.

(for the record, Mrs. West, I wrote this one myself)

He attaches Internet pictures of smiling cartoon hearts and fluffy, big-eyed animals snuggling with each other. These adorable images are often followed by notes about the archeological discovery of a post-medieval building north of the transept wall or the aboveground structural analysis of a church.

Our messages never fail to make me smile, and the warm feeling lasts all day as I run errands, take walks along the lake pathways, and work at the library, bookstore, and museum.

One morning almost three weeks after his departure, I return home for lunch, taking a few letters and bills from the mailbox. There’s a small box outside our apartment door with a printed label reading:
Mrs. Olivia West.

I go inside and open the package, which contains a slender gold ring with a ruby embedded in the band. The accompanying note instructs me to wear the ring on the little finger of my left hand with the stone turned toward my palm, symbolic of our intense, secret love.

I glance at the clock and calculate that it’s about nine p.m. in Tuscany. Picking up the phone, I dial Dean’s cell number. He answers on the second ring.

“Good one, professor,” I say.

“You like it?” He sounds pleased.

“I love it. Thank you.”

“Are you wearing it?”

“Just like you told me to.” I spread out my hand to admire the gold band. “It fits perfectly. How did you know the size of my little finger?”

“I know exactly how you fit into things and what fits into you.”

Warmth floods my chest at the faint huskiness of his voice. “Oh.”

He gives a muffled laugh. “Gotta be at a review meeting in five minutes. I’ll call you later tonight.”

“Tease.”

“Just trying to prove my adoration for my lady.”

“You proved that years ago.”

And every day since.

After we hang up, I enjoy the warm fuzzies for a few minutes before I gather the mail I’d left on the foyer table.

There’s an official-looking envelope addressed to me at the bottom of the stack. The return address is
Sinclair and Watson Law Offices,
based in Phoenix, Arizona.

My stomach tightens. Maggie Hamilton’s father is a lawyer, but he’s based in Chicago. I can’t think of any reason a lawyer in Arizona would want to contact me.

I tear open the envelope and unfold a piece of paper imprinted with the law office’s letterhead.

Dear Mrs. West,

I am writing to formally notify you of the recent death of Mrs. Elizabeth Winter and my role as the executor of her estate. You are named as a beneficiary in her will and trust. Under the terms of the document, the will and trust are now irrevocable, and we are required to distribute assets accordingly.

All debts have been paid, and you are entitled to receive the sum of fifty thousand ($50,000.00) dollars which Mrs. Winter bequeathed to you as part of the distribution of her estate…

The words blur in front of my eyes. For an instant, I can’t make sense of them, can’t process the name
Mrs. Elizabeth Winter.

I take a breath and keep reading the letter, which informs me that as soon as I supply my social security number and sign the enclosed forms, I’ll receive a check for fifty thousand dollars via certified courier.

I drop the letter onto the table. I want to think this is a scam or a bad joke. But the name
Mrs. Elizabeth Winter
is embedded in my memories.

My mother’s mother.

My grandmother, whom I saw once from a distance when I was seven years old. A woman I never spoke to, never even knew. I grab the phone and dial my aunt Stella’s number in Castleford. Stella is my father’s sister and—before Dean—my only family outside of my mother.

Trying to keep my voice from shaking, I ask her if she knows anything about Elizabeth Winter.

“A lawyer called a few weeks ago to ask if I knew your address,” Stella says. “He didn’t tell me anything except that she’d died. I had no contact with her, of course.”

“Did my mother ever talk to you about her?” I ask. “Or even mention her?”

“No. I didn’t even know your grandmother was still alive.”

Neither did I.

I thank Stella and tell her I’ll call her again soon. I start to dial Dean’s number, then stop. I need time to figure this out first. Instead, I call the lawyer’s number.

“Yes, Mrs. Winter named you as a beneficiary of her estate,” Mr. Thomas Sinclair explains. “I’m sorry to tell you that she died of cancer in January. She’d finalized her will and trust last year, after her doctors told her that her illness was no longer treatable.”

I swallow past a sudden tightness in my throat. “I’m… did she ever try to contact me?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. West. I had to track down your married name and address, though, which leads me to believe that Mrs. Winter didn’t know you were married or where you live.”

“Was Elizabeth Winter in touch with my mother? Crystal Winter?”

“I don’t know that either. I did write a letter to Crystal Winter informing her of Mrs. Winter’s death.”

“You have my mother’s address?”

“I had the letter sent to her last known address. Would you like a copy of Mrs. Winter’s will and trust? All beneficiaries are entitled to a copy.”

“No, that’s not necessary.”

“I’ll have your check processed and sent as soon as I receive the signed forms.”

I thank him and slowly put the phone down. I reread the letter. Fifty thousand dollars, from the grandmother I never knew. The woman I saw once.

My mother was twenty-four when she took me from my father. Tall and slender, she wore long skirts and costume jewelry. She had delicate features, blue eyes, pale skin, and thick, wheat-colored hair that spilled like a waterfall down her back.

When we left Indiana behind, she drove a circuitous route west, as if Los Angeles were a magnet pulling her through a maze. She drove fast, without a seatbelt, windows rolled all the way down. The wind pulled at her hair. Her round sunglasses concealed her eyes. Her mouth was pearly pink and shiny.

Until a few hours prior, we’d been living in a two-bedroom apartment with my father. He and my mother had had a huge fight—yelling, sounds of things crashing, crying. I’d hidden in my bedroom, underneath the covers.

My mother woke me when it was still dark and told me to pack my suitcase, the one with the wheels and pink flowers. She dragged her own big, black suitcase from her room. I’d packed my stuffed animals and two hairbands before she returned.

“Not those,” she snapped. “Clothes, Liv. Underwear. Hurry.”

Her car was an old Chevrolet with vinyl bench seats. She hefted our suitcases into the trunk, told me to get in the backseat, and tossed a quilt over me. Then she got in the car and started to drive.

Hours passed. We ate fast food. Listened to Madonna, Duran Duran, Neneh Cherry. I don’t remember a lot of the places I lived with my mother, but I remember the first place we stopped was a huge, two-story house at the end of tree-lined cul-de-sac.

I had no idea where we were. My mother told me to wait in the car, then she walked up the driveway to the front door and rang the bell.

The sun was high by then, burning a hole in the sky. I got to my knees and peered out the window. A tall, elegant-looking woman with sleek blond hair answered the door. She stared at my mother, then shook her head.

My mother put her hand on the door like she wanted to stop it from closing. They seemed to be arguing. My mother gestured to the car.

The woman looked toward me. I don’t know if she saw me. She shook her head again. Closed the door so hard I heard the snap from inside the car.

My mother stood there for a second, then spun on her heel and stalked back down the driveway. I could tell by her tight expression, the way she slammed the car door, that she was really mad.

“Bitch,” she muttered. The tires squealed.

I buried myself under the quilt. Madonna’s voice drifted through the car.

Feels like home.

Home.

I can’t even remember how long it took me to realize the blonde woman was my grandmother.

Dean calls at our usual time tonight. He listens as I read him the letter, the words sounding dusty and dry. There’s a knot in my chest. My brain can’t stop shuffling through old, unpleasant memories. Part of me thinks I should be ecstatic—who wouldn’t want to receive an inheritance of this magnitude?—but instead I feel numb.

“What should I do?” I ask Dean.

“Be grateful,” he suggests.

“Why do you think she put me in her will?”

“Maybe she felt guilty for not being there for you.”

“If that was it, then I wish she’d tried to find me. I didn’t even know where she lived, much less that she remembered me. I hardly remembered her.”

I stare at the letter again, the evidence that my own grandmother knew I existed and yet never contacted me. Until she left me fifty thousand dollars.

“What should I do with the money?” I ask.

“Whatever you want. It’s yours.”

“It’s ours.”