Three Rivers (32 page)

At one point during lunch, while she was talking to him, he picked up her hand and kissed it. He said nothing, just picked it up and kissed it.

Isabel suddenly began to feel nervous because she was becoming aroused. She kept talking a great deal, but it was all a great cover-up. She found him more handsome and more quiet than before, and was almost painfully attracted to him.

Alexis knew this as he sat there listening to her, interested in everything that she was telling him. But he was more intrigued by his desire for her, not just sexually, but for her herself. Every word that she said, everything that she did was lovely to him; the way she touched her napkin, played with her fork, silly things that he had not noticed before.

She longed to say, “I love you, let’s go to bed,” because that was the way she felt, but she was not sure enough of him.

They were the last two people in the huge dining room, with half a dozen waiters hovering. Over their second cup of coffee, hardly touched by either one of them, she asked how long he was going to be in London.

“I have told the plane to stand by for departure on Saturday
night or Sunday morning, depending on what happens here,” he replied.

Isabel’s heart sank. He was here on some sort of business and would be leaving her again. She hoped that she covered up her disappointment well.

He offered her another cup of coffee because theirs were cold; she said yes, trying to prolong the lunch.

Alexis looked around the dining room and said, “They want to close the dining room. It is unfair to keep them. Come upstairs to the suite. We will have coffee there.”

He helped her from the chair, and his hand brushed against her hip. His very touch thrilled her. In the elevator going up, he saw through the white silk jersey that her nipples had grown hard and pointed. The fact that she still reacted to him pleased him. As they walked from the elevator along the corridor, he watched her and saw that she had nothing on under the dress. She was naked for him. Oh, yes, he was pleased, and oh, yes, he wanted her and would have her. There would be no coffee.

He knocked at the door and Gamal let them in. Isabel was relieved that he was there. It gave her a chance to pull herself together — she had been trembling like a young girl — while he and Alexis spoke. Gamal disappeared through a door, and Alexis took the coat from over her arm and put it on a chair.

He pulled her to him and ran his hands over her as he kissed her. She opened her mouth and felt his tongue pierce her. Her nerves melted and she almost collapsed in his arms as his hands roamed over her. She could not help herself: She murmured with the pleasure of his kisses.

He stroked her hair. “Oh, I missed you,” was all that he said.

Isabel was joyful. The way he said it told her all she wanted to know.

He unzipped the back of her dress and slowly drew it forward, down over her arms and breasts, her hips and stomach, and let it drop to the floor. She started to undress him, and he helped her. They stood there naked. He pulled the coat off the chair and threw it on the carpet and slowly pulled her down with him and laid her on her back over the sable.

Her breasts looked bigger to him, heavier, more round, more full. He kissed the under part of them, then sucked
hard on her nipples. He rolled her on her side facing him.

She held his penis in her hands and it felt wonderful to her. She could not hold back, but kept telling him how wonderful he was, how marvelous he made her feel. She slipped one leg underneath him and the other over him and took him inside of her.

That was all that he needed. When he felt that wetness touch the head of his cock — with one stroke, very swiftly and with a great deal of strength — he pulled her forward and rammed her onto him.

He fucked her on the side like that. Oh, God, she was wet and warm; how he had missed her! As tight as she was around him, her juices kept him moving in and out of her with a silky wet ease. She cried out, and he could actually feel the rush of her come every time she cried, which excited him beyond measure. He moved fast and hard; called out her name loudly as he poured forth into her. Then he held her in his arms.

They were all limp and wet, but still he had desire for her. He helped her up off her coat and half carried her to the bed. They collapsed on it, and lying in the middle of the huge bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, dozed off together.

Before she dropped off into a deep sleep, she whispered in his ear, “I love you.” He lazily stroked her hair until he fell asleep.

Her last thoughts before sleep took over completely were of his tenderness towards her. He was filled as much with tenderness as he was with lust. He could do anything to her by way of lust, because of that very tenderness.

She was lying asleep on her side when she felt it. His tongue licking her anus and then his finger spreading his saliva along the crack of her ass. She raised a knee and tucked her foot behind her ankle, which raised part of her buttocks, and still in a half sleep, she felt him begin to penetrate her. Her heart was pounding from anticipation, for he was a big man, and she knew the pain would be sharp. He grabbed around for her breasts and kissed her on the back of her neck as he drove into her.

She called out as he penetrated deeply and then relaxed as he fucked her slowly. She quivered from the thrill of him.

“I love you like this,” he told her. He had a steady,
deep, rhythmic stroke and never stopped playing with her clitoris. He kept it up until she was insane with orgasm. She begged him to do everything he wanted with her, she was his slave.

When he withdrew there was cum running out of everywhere. They smelled of pure unadulterated sex and they reveled in it. They lay like that and he went to sleep again.

Alexis was still fast asleep when Isabel woke up. She slipped out from under his arm and very quietly found her way to the bathroom through the now-dark bedroom. It must be night, she realized, as she quietly closed the bathroom door and turned on the light.

Isabel had slept and been full of him. She ran the bath as quietly as she could, then stepped into it. The water felt wonderful. She had tied a towel around her hair, and she lay back and dozed in the bath.

When she awoke, he was standing in the door. She had no idea how long he had been there.

From the cupboard he took a terrycloth robe and put it on, then held a bath sheet out to her. He dried her off, even between her toes. She asked him to please bring her clothes from the drawing room, so that she could dress.

While he was tying his tie, he saw her pull out from the pocket of her sable coat the Cameron compact that he had given her. He pulled her close and they kissed tenderly.

In the sitting room she sat down on the sofa, staring into the open fire. He rang through on the telephone to Gamal and told him something in Arabic. When he hung up, he told her he had ordered something for them to eat and drink.

Alexis called Isabel over to the desk where he was sitting. He stood up and put his arm around her. “Have you thought about me this week?” he quietly asked.

“Yes, I have.”

“And have you seen all your men?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And are you happier being with me?”

“I am more ecstatic with you than I have ever been in my life,” Isabel said adamantly.

“Would you like to stay with me?” he asked.

“Yes, Alexis, very much. I cannot imagine what my life would be without you.”

“I would like you to stay with me.” He was close to tears now, and seeing that, Isabel was too.

Opening the desk drawer, he said, “Isabel, I have brought you a present from Paris. I hope you will accept it with all my love.”

“Oh, Alexis,” she exclaimed. “How can I? You are so generous to me.”

He kissed her, smiled and said, “Darling, this is not the time to say no. If you take the present, you will give me everything.”

There were two boxes. She opened one and could not believe it. He lifted the ring out of the box and slipped it on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Will you marry me as soon as possible?” he asked. “Make me happy and say yes. I would like to be able to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Yes, as soon as possible,” Isabel whispered. “I love you very much, Alexis.”

Overcome with emotion and their new love for one another, they clung together and kissed.

It was Alexis who came out of it first; he was wonderfully gay and happy and said, “Darling, you forgot this.” He opened the box and this time slipped another ring on the fourth finger of her right hand. She was dazzled.

Isabel threw her arms around his waist and pulled him close to her, saying, “I want to make the rest of my life half of yours.”

He could see the passion in her eyes when she said it, right down to her soul. That same old magnetic sexual attraction sprang up between them. She unzipped her dress herself this time and they both walked back into the bedroom. He undressed and took her to bed for the second time that day.

Later, when Isabel moved her hands over his face, he started to laugh. She asked him why.

“Well, darling, I have never made love to a lady with nothing on but a twenty-two-carat, cushion-cut diamond on one finger, and a wedding band of square-cut diamonds on the other,” he managed.

Isabel raised both her hands close to her face, looked at the jewels and roared with laughter as well. She grabbed him by the neck and kissed him, saying, “Did I ever tell you that I have always liked big diamonds?”

“I see,” he teased. “You are marrying me for your jewels!” They kissed and laughed.

There was a knock at the door. Alexis rolled off her, reached down and picked his shirt up off the floor, handing it to her. When she had a few buttons done up, he told Gamal that he could come in.

The servant entered the room, wheeling a table up to Alexis’s side of the bed. There was an enormous bowl of Beluga caviar set in crushed ice, a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon and assorted plates of trimmings for the caviar and toast.

Gamal opened the champagne and poured out two glasses. Alexis sent Gamal for another glass. When he returned they told him they were to be married. Gamal was very happy for Alexis and Isabel. He had served Alexis since they were both small boys; he adored and only wanted joy for him. He said something in Arabic to Alexis, and Isabel could see at once that the master had been deeply touched by his servant.

They piled their plates up high with caviar and drank champagne, toasting to their life together. Dressed again, they ordered a sumptuous dinner to be served in the drawing room.

It was half past eleven when they finished dinner, and they were both now wide-awake and very excited about the reality rather than the prospect that in a few days they would be creating a life together.

They decided that Gamal, Alexander, Endo, Alexis’s mother and Isabel’s mother and sister were the only people that would be told about the wedding. Neither one of them wanted a drama made out of their happiness. It was much too personal. Because of Alexis’s position, the wedding had to be either totally secret or a mammoth celebration; too many people would be offended otherwise. Rather than upset anyone, they decided to swear the few people who would be told to secrecy. Alexander would be the only witness at the wedding.

“Isabel, you know what the Cairenes are like,” Alexis mused. “They will be killing us with kindness and good wishes if they get the least idea that we are being married, so the question is where? We can be married on the Nile somewhere between Memphis and Cairo, and then sail up the Nile to Abu Simbel, stopping along the way to see
some of the Upper Egyptian villages. Would you like that?”

“Alexis, that would be wonderful,” Isabel agreed. “I honestly must tell you that I feel our marriage should be ours alone. Let’s not have any hoopla at all. That is a gorgeous plan. Oh, I would like that very much. It’s wonderful!”

After dinner they went for a walk. As Isabel was putting on her coat, she said, “Alexis, you have never even been to my house.”

“That’s true. Well, why don’t I come and spend the night there with you?”

“That would be wonderful.”

He called Gamal and told him that he was going to spend the night at Isabel’s, and to bring his things over in the morning, very early, as there was much to do. Turning to Isabel, he said, “Darling, I will give you Gamal to help Endo in getting your things together. Between the two of them I think they can get you packed, and we can fly off early Sunday morning.”

“It’s awfully rushed, Alexis, but I don’t care.” She laughed. “To tell the truth, I am so excited that the longer I have to get ready, the worse it will be.”

“Never mind. I will take care of the details,” he soothed. “You just sit back and be happy.”

They left Claridges and walked up Brook Street, arm in arm. Along Bond Street they checked out all the windows and at one point they were standing in front of Wildenstein’s looking at an early Braque painting. They stood, his arm around her shoulder and her arm around his waist. There was a streetlight behind them and they could see it and the reflection of Bond Street in the plate-glass window. They both saw themselves at the same time, turned and looked at each other, then back to the window again, looking at their happiness reflected back at them.

They walked on up towards Old Bond Street, and as they did, Alexis told her again how happy she had made him.

Once they arrived home at Hill Street, Alexis was wide-awake. He was enchanted by Isabel’s home and life-style. He wanted to see and know everything. Isabel was delighted to offer him this little bit more of herself that he did not know.

Endo was awake and in the kitchen. He had been
called by Gamal and told that they were going to spend the night there. He remained where he was, but left the light on and the kitchen door open so that Isabel would know that he was available if needed.

After Alexis got over the initial greeting of Winston, Rita and Arthur, he was taken immediately into the kitchen to meet Endo and Desert Horse, Red Moon and Honey Lamb. The barking and jumping up and down of the dogs and the chasing around of the cats amused him very much, and when he at last was able to say a few words to Endo, he liked him immediately.