Jack & Jill

laughing.
    She had never actually been there, but she’d read so much about it. She had read about everything, but experienced so little until recently. Sara the hopeless bookworm, Sara the bibliophile, Sara the cipher. Well, no more. Now she lived as almost no one had before. Sara the gimp lives!
    “Okay, then. When this is all over—and this
will
end— we’ll go to Venice, for a holiday. I promise you. The Cipriani it is.”
    “And Sunday brunch at the Danieli,” she whispered against his cheek. “Promise?”
    “Of course. Where else but the Danieli for brunch? That’s a given. As soon as this is finished.”
    “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?” she said, hugging his powerful body a little tighter.
    “Yes, I’m afraid so. But not tonight, Jilly. Not tonight, my love. So let’s not ruin this by thinking too much about tomorrow. Don’t make a wonderful weekend into a bad Monday.”
    Sam was right, of course. He was a wise man, too. He started to move again on top of her. He flowed like a fast river current over the top of her. He was such a generous and beautiful lover; he was both teacher and student; he knew how to give and take in bed. Most important, Sam knew how to bring her out of herself. God, she had needed that—forever, it seemed.
To get outside of herself. Not to be the gimp anymore. Not ever again.
She promised herself that.
    Sara pursed her lips tightly. In pleasure? In pain? She wasn’t even sure anymore. She shut her eyes, then quickly opened them.
She wanted to look.
    He held himself over her, as if he were pausing during a push-up. “So you’ve never been to the Cipriani, Monkey Face?” he asked. His cheeks weren’t even flushed. He effortlessly held himself over her. His body was so beautiful, strong and agile, rock-solid. Sara was in good shape also, but Sam was superb.
    He called her “Monkey Face,” from Hitchcock’s
Suspicion.
It wasn’t really such a great movie, but it had hit the spot for them, hit
their
spot. Ever since they’d seen it, she’d been the Joan Fontaine character, Lena. He was Johnny, who had been played by Cary Grant Johnny had called Lena “Monkey Face.”
    At the end of the film, Lena and Johnny had driven off into a sunset on an English coast, presumably to live happily ever after. The Hitchcock movie was an elegant, witty, mysterious game, just as this was.
    Their game. The most exquisite game two people had ever played together.
    Will we drive off into the sunset after all this?
Sara Rosen wondered.
Oh, I think not. I don’t suppose that we will. What will happen to us, then? Oh, what will happen to us? What will become of Jack and Jill?
    “I’ve only been to the Cipriani in my dreams,” she confessed to Sam. “Only in dreams. But, yes,
I’ve been there
many, many times.”
    “Is
this all
a dream, Monkey Face?” Sam asked. His look was serious for a moment. She couldn’t help thinking how precious every moment like this was, and how fleeting. She had secretly yearned for this all of her life, for one truly romantic experience.
    “I think it’s a dream, yes. It’s
like
a dream anyway. Please don’t wake me, though, Sam.”
    “It’s not a dream,” Sam whispered. “I love you. You are the most lovable woman I’ve ever met. You are, Sara. You’re like staying at the Cipriani every day for me. Please believe that Monkey Face. Believe in us. I do.”
    He clasped Sara from behind and pulled her closer. She savored the sweetness of his breath, the smell of his cologne, the smell of
him.
    He began to move inside her and she felt herself melting into a liquid force. She did love him—she did, she did, she did. Her hands ran all over him, touching, possessing. There had never been anything like this before in her life, nothing even close.
    She slithered up and down on his long, powerful pole, his strength, his exquisite maleness. Sara couldn’t stop herself now, and she didn’t want to. She was choking with her own passion.
    She heard her voice crying out and almost didn’t recognize herself. She was joined with him in a simple rhythm that got faster and faster as the two of them came closer to being one—
Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill!

CHAPTER
32

    THEIR FAIRY TALE ended with a quiet, almost disheartening
thud,
and Sara felt herself crashing back to earth, tumbling, being rushed along in a powerful tide. Monday morning meant a return to the dreary work world again, to real life.
    Sara Rosen had