Chapter 5
Maria sunk into the bubble-filled sanctuary of the porcelain bathtub. The scent of cranberries settled into her skin, the implied richness massaging her senses as she let her eyes drift close. She always loved the intense flavors the Christmas season heralded, surrounding herself with cranberry, cinnamon, and pine for the entire month of December.
Smiling as her body slipped on the slick surface, she drew a soaking foot along her leg, the noticeably cooler air chilling her skin before she ducked back beneath the water.
"Hun," she called through the open bathroom door. "Think you can make me some tea?"
She added just the right amount of pleading to her voice, knowing before she spoke that he'd say yes even if she requested fresh tea leaves from the market on the corner.
"Sure babe, chamomile?"
"Earl Grey. Thank you sweetie."
Sighing, she settled back against the inflatable pillow supporting her head. The manicure she'd so perfectly preserved for this weekend peeked out of the sudsy water, the soft light catching on the deep maroon surfaces. Memories she thought were long suppressed sprung to the surface with the gesture, bringing a smile to her face as she recalled the events leading them to the life they now cherished.
"Babe?"
She waited for his mumbled response before letting her mind carry her voice along the path it traversed.
"Are you glad we did it?"
"Did what?" he mumbled distractedly.
"Did this, played him?"
"Played him? Sure, if you can call telling him our plan playing him."
"Oh come on, he didn't know the whole plan."
"Maria, you practically drew him a map of our lives. I think he got trampled."
She laughed as she reached for a soapy sponge. "Okay, so he got trampled. It's not my fault he was naïve."
"Sure babe; you picked him, remember?"
"Oh yeah," she mused thoughtfully, then giggled. "What an idiot!"
"Hey! You slept with that idiot if I remember correctly."
"Not very many times."
"Enough," came the gruff reply.
"Stop it. I'm not sleeping with him now, right? All a means to an end."
"Still, you never should have slept with him at all."
"Oh, really now?" she queried, her voice rising a full octave as she protested his implications. "And who do we have to blame that little fact on?"
"You are not pinning that whole thing on me, you had choices."
"Yeah, and a lover that pushed me into the arms of another man."
"Oh… I did not…"
"Sorry sweets!" Maria purred as she moved the sponge along her arm. "The truth stings."
She ducked as she heard a growl echo through the room. Laughing, she concentrated on painting her body in soap suds as she listened to him fight with the kettle. It was strange to think of a time when her husband was willing to risk their entire relationship on the chance of a unknown future but she had to admit she was happier with him today than she ever was in the past.
"You think he'll ever forgive us for what we did?"
"Do you want forgiveness?"
"Well… it was kind of mean that it just ended like that."
"Trust me, nothing was worse than the… what was it… oh yeah, the boys… man that stung."
Maria clasped her hand to her mouth in a valiant effort not to laugh but it was pointless. The giggles spilled out even as she ducked beneath the water to muffle them.
"I can hear the bubbles!" he shouted from the other room, only pushing her further into hysterics as she remembered the tragic accident that left her mate unable to perform.
Spitting water as she emerged from the suds, she wiped a mixture of water and tears from her eyes as she gasped. "It's just… I mean, losing your testicles?"
"I can't believe you are laughing."
"What? It's funny!"
"You are so mean!"
"But you love me," she replied sweetly. Maria smiled as she heard him grunt a response. She knew it was tough for him to relive the day he'd very nearly lost her forever, but forcing some humor into the situation was the only way she could deal with the stress of living through it.
"Besides," she said lightly. "It all worked out in the end, right? A few battle scars, but otherwise…"
"Otherwise unscathed?"
"Yeah?"
She winced at his wry laugh.
"No injuries is one thing Maria. Remembering how hard it was to win is entirely another."
"I know that," she said softly.
"I know you do, I'm just saying. That day, waiting to see if you were still with me… I knew I was supposed to have faith, but watching you with him…"
"I know baby, but it was worth it in the end, right? Who cares about the battle when you've got the victory?"
"The losing side?"
She hated it when he spoke the truth. "Why do I have to keep caring about the losing side?" she moaned.
"You don't; in fact, I think I'd rather you didn't."
She smiled at his masked insecurity.
"But I can't forget that he was part of your life."
"I can."
"No you can't, just like he could never forget me."
"He didn't know about you."
"Until you told him."
She smiled as she heard the light clinking of a metal spoon against her porcelain cup.
"At least I was honest, he deserved that much."
"Still, finding out that we knew each other before you even met him?"
Maria looked up as Michael appeared in the bathroom doorway. She shrugged as a playful smirk flitted across her face. "So, am I supposed to tell my husband about every guy I slept with in high school?"
"I thought I was the only guy you slept with in high school."
"Oh you were," she said, reaching a hand out for the tea he carried. "You just weren't the one I ended up marrying."
"Not then," Michael replied, smirking as he fingered the silver band encircling his finger.
Maria smiled as she took a sip of her tea and placed the cup beside her. She held out her hand, the matching ring on her finger shimmering from its journey through the bubbles. Slipping into his firm hold, she winked and tugged him gently toward her.
"You know, I think there's enough room in here for two."
Looking down at his bubble-covered wife, Michael couldn't imagine hearing a better proposition from her; except perhaps for the one where she'd asked him to help her divorce her first husband a year before.
"You know," he said slowly, detaching his hand from hers as he stood in the marble-coated room. Unbuttoning his shirt with painstaking patience, he grinned as he watched her slither beneath the water. "I'm not sure if you ever properly thanked me for helping you out that night."
"Oh you aren't are you?"
"No, in fact, I think you owe me a thank you of… orgasmic proportions."
"Hmm," Maria murmured. "Somehow I think that can be arranged."
Watching his shirt fall away from his muscled chest, she squirmed against the slippery surface and leaned over to rest her chin on the edge. "You remember when I called you?"
"The call that changed my fate as a confirmed bachelor?"
"The call that changed my fate as a married woman."
"Well you're still married."
"Just to the right person this time."
"Somehow I think Billy would disagree."
Michael smiled at the grimace that clouded her face.
"Somehow I think I don't give a shit about Billy."
"Relax," he said softly, tossing his shirt on the counter before working the button on his jeans. "I don't think Billy gives a shit about us anymore either, not after what you did to him."
"Stupid ass anyway, what ever made him think that I'd agree to sleep with some stranger just to give him a baby?"
"Well you did it, didn't you? Kinda makes it easy to believe."
"We were never supposed to sleep together and you know it," she teased, flicking a light spray of water towards his annoying still-clothed body.
"Right, like I ever thought you could resist your first love."
"Oh! You are so full of yourself!" she cried indignantly, smiling all the while she protested. "Just because you couldn't keep your own boys in your pants doesn't mean I would have done it with just any gu…"
Maria stopped as Michael dropped to the floor and smothered her mouth with his.
"Mmm, Michael, I…" she fought to continue her thought as his tongue danced across her teeth and she relented to allow him entry.
Moaning through his ministrations, Maria leaned out of the tub and snaked her wet hands along his bare chest. Fighting with his zipper, she realized it was a losing battle and reached up with one hand to pull on his shoulder.
"Forget the pants," she mumbled, tugging him towards her as she leaned back into the sudsy water. "They'll dry."
Michael yelped as she pulled him head-first into the bathtub, realizing he was powerless to deny her request as she used sexual leverage to lure him. Hot water instantly soaked his heavy jeans as he slid atop her body, her hands still fighting with his zipper.
He let her struggle, focusing his own attention on massaging her breasts, panting against her water-soaked skin as he felt his jeans fall to his hips.
"Found what you were looking for?" he whispered, suckling her neck as she used her hands to elicit a contented moan from his lips.
"Found it and keeping it."
Maria slipped beneath the hardened body of her spouse, arousal already rippling through her core as his tongue danced across her chest. She wordlessly begged him to continue, teasing him with her own manipulations as the fire bristled between them.
The weight of his jeans dragged him down as her persistent hands begged him to rise ever higher. He let the feel of her guide him, pushing himself up to hover over her creamy body, grunting when she reached up to slam him down atop her.
Dancing together beneath a watery blanket, they defied the laws of physics as fuses ignited and burned between the smoldering pair. Flames snaked their way towards the explosive climax in a ribbon of color as Maria closed her eyes and Michael could only watch mesmerized.
Red. Green. Silver. Gold.
A shower of sparks rained down as their love was announced in a spray of fireworks.
Michael smiled at her throaty cries as she tossed her head back and claimed him as hers. Heaving from the strain of not drowning them both, he pushed back reluctantly as her eyes blinked open to seek out his.
Catching his gaze as he moved to kiss her, the two lovers that would forever remember the night their fates melded stared at the new future sparking between them.
"You're happy?"
It was a question and Michael surprised even himself by asking it.
Orbs bright as Christmas lights twinkled back at him as she let a slow smile capture her face. "You have to ask?" she whispered, stretching out to snatch another kiss from his dripping lips.
He laughed as he let her ease every fear he'd ever held secret.
Tracing his jaw with her finger, she tilted her head as she reached out to suckle his neck.
"You think we've christened every surface in this room yet?"
"I don't know, we hit the bed the first time around, the sofa might still be a little jealous."
"Mmm, coming back here was a perfect idea," she murmured.
"I thought you'd like the irony."
"You mean celebrating the anniversary of our night in the hotel room where we were never supposed to, um… consummate?"
Michael laughed as he pushed himself back onto his heels and reached a hand out to pull her up. "We consummated a long time before that."
"Yes we did." Maria smiled into his mouth as she stole yet another light kiss, a shiver rippling through her body with the action. "And now I'm cold."
"Yes ma'am," Michael replied briskly, forcing himself to his feet against the pull of hopelessly heavy jeans. "Just let me escape these chains…"
"Ooh, chains. Maybe we should leave you in them." There was a twinkle in her eye as she knelt in the bathtub, reaching up to wrap her slim fingers around his imprisonment.
"Oh no, not again."
"But…" Maria pushed her bottom lip out as she frowned up at Michael.
He laughed as he pulled her up to his chest, holding onto the wall for support as he lowered her to the floor outside. "Clothes, warmth, tea," he commanded, shooting her a stern look as she stood naked and shivering before him.
"And here I thought you had the stamina of a bull, Mr. Guerin." The spark was back in her eyes, her challenge booming against the marble walls.
A wry groan escaped his lips as he fought to peel the soaked denim from his body, pushing her away when she approached him once more. "Maria! Get dressed, then we can…"
"Get naked again?"
"Then we can rest, you need it."
"Nonsense," she said lightly, finally grabbing a robe for herself and then selecting a towel to drape across Michael's shoulders. "Besides, I can rest later, right? In about seven months?"
Michael kicked the lingering jeans from his ankle, smiling down at his pregnant wife as he stepped out of the tub to join her. Rubbing his hands briskly along her arms, he melted when she tipped thankful eyes towards him.
"Is it too much to say I wish I'd been with you that whole time?"
"Hmm, I think you've only told me about a million times this year, maybe once more?"
"Come here," Maria purred, pulling him down to capture his lips. "I should've married you back then."
Michael poured himself into the kiss, groaning when she wriggled in his arms and he felt the pull of her charm encircle him once more. "You know? I think I'm almost glad we waited this long to be together."
"You are?" she asked softly, staring up at him with wide-eyes.
"Yeah I am." He bent back down to caress her lips once more. "Gave you more time to miss me."
"Oh!" She squealed as he spun out of her arms, tugging her behind him into the hotel room. Maria could only laugh as he pulled her down on the sofa with him, stealing her breath with his persistence.
She leaned into the embrace, enjoying every sensation of his body writhing beneath hers until emotion finally overtook her and she leaned back just slightly. Chewing her lip, she reached up to brush stray hairs from his forehead, following the gesture with her lips before settling on his eyes.
"Thank you." Her voice was little more than a breath and he wasn't sure he'd heard her until he saw the hint of tears moisten her eyes.
She watched his reaction to her unabashed expression, his face softening into the open-hearted man he reserved only for her. It still struck her every day that this life wasn't real, wasn't happening. She had run away from him after a long forgotten teen-angst argument, straight into the arms of the man that would become husband number one. When he agreed after years of silence to help her escape, she knew she would be forever indebted.
Now, admitting reservations that she knew she never needed to, her breath caught as she waited for his response, melting into his hand as he chose actions over words.
Smoothing her face with a feather-light touch, Michael assured their fate by sealing his lips to hers. There was no question between the pair that life had finally turned onto its destined path. In the hotel room where they'd rekindled their love a year before, eyes blinked closed as the lost lovers relished the grace of second chances.