Could a kiss be considered a mistake?
Could a kiss be the door to a road you shouldn't have walked on?
I could pretend, I found myself weak.
On a full moonlit night, I should have stayed within my room rather. The Florida heat made me feel all weird inside and out.
Albert had dragged me there. I didn't want to be there. Neil and Eliza were opening their new hotel in Miami. The Royal Palm hotel. They were pulling all the stops on the opening night. Albert had been one of the main financiers for their business endeavour. Neil had proved to be a rather astute businessman. Not to mention ruthless... Have I mentioned also shady? I wouldn't have known, honestly. Those were the rumours. I really had not seen either Neil or Eliza since that sorry attempt to force me to marry Neil.
I lived at Pony's Home for a long time, helping with the running of the orphanage, till I moved to the small town closest to Pony's, to work with Dr. Martin. After breaking up with Terry, all I did was work. I buried everything inside, I had not time for feelings, nor relationships with any other man. I knew however, as a woman in her youth, certain needs of a physical kind were prevalent, I couldn't deny they weren't there, but I kept ignoring them to my detriment.
Albert asked me to come to the opening of the hotel. To keep him company he said. I went. And the only reason I did was because it was always so difficult to find time to see Albert. He was always away on business trips.
What they didn't say to me however was that Terry with Susanna were also in town. We didn't meet. I only happen to see him from afar, the night of the opening of the hotel. While all the high society of Miami, and other Hollywood celebrities brought especially for the opening were having their time of their lives, Terry quietly passed through the hotel's doors with Susanna, apparently seeking to find a quiet restaurant to spend dinner time. They were there because of his troupe tour. I had no idea, we would both be there on the same day. I thought I had managed to put him behind me, but just that glance of him and it was as if fate kicked me down, and stomped all over me while I lay on the floor, all the old wounds opened in a matter of minutes.
The party passed without me even noticing.
I spent most time in mindless chats but my mind were abducted. It was as if an automaton had taken my place. With a blank face that smiled on cue, mechanically, a fake smile. The party had been a success. I wouldn't know. Albert asked me if I was ok. I lied. I told him to go to sleep. I'd follow soon, I said. He had booked for me the room next to his. He had booked the top suites. I'd spent the night, wake up the next day, get our family photo taken, and be on my way home.
In the late of the night, I was drinking my sorrows alone at the bar of the hotel.
That's when I saw Neil...
I have to say, and I cannot blame the multiple margaritas I had consumed, my spiteful cousin, the torturer of my childhood had turned out to be a very attractive man.
Especially the Florida weather seemed to suit him exceptionally well. His hazel eyes shone on his tanned face who had gained all the manly angles, the strong jaw, his full lips with that evil smile. His brown hair, cut short had these blond streaks from the sun and the sea. He was tall, athletic body. He must had been exercised. He cut a mean figure inside the made to measure expensive navy blue suit.
"Of all the people I'd expect to find staring at the bottom of their glass at 1am in the morning at my hotel's bar..." I heard his deep voice.
That too had turned out to be... it felt like a tomcat purring.
Damn that heat! I thought.
"I'm sorry to ruin the end of your night, Neil. I wondered how you and Eliza hadn't added me in the undesirables list for the party tonight."
He smiled to me, but I couldn't tell whether the smile was because I had guessed right or whether he hadn't expected a reply from me.
"You undesirable?! I cannot answer for my dear sis, but for me? The only undesirable in the room, must have been me, Candy. You avoided me the whole night like the plague."
I turned and fixed my eyes in his. It was my turn to pay him with an undecipherable smile.
He glanced at my empty margarita glass.
"Two margaritas." He asked at the bartender.
I opened my mouth to protest but he stopped me.
"For old time's sake... please?" He asked, but he hadn't expected an answer. Already Neil had decided for the both of us.
"Live a little Candy." He told me when he handed me the margarita.
I took it the glass from his hand while noticing his long fingers, immaculately manicured.
His last words kept ringing while I kept his eyes into mine.
Live a little...
Whether he meant it as an advice or as insult, it was hard for me to decide. But that was Neil, a true enigma.
I smiled. I had already too many a margaritas in me to be able to analyse what he meant.
And in the end? Why the heck no?
One more drink, wouldn't harm...
For a little while, we said nothing to each other. Sipped our drinks in silence. It was surreal to think where I was and with whom.
I should have got up and gone to my room.
I should but I hadn't...
The good thing out of this, was that I had stopped bringing Terry's image in my mind.
Instead, I became preoccupied feeling more and more uneasy with this silence between me and Neil. Here we were, being adults, not kids any more. Yet I found myself regressing to the time when he had been the bully, and I the girl who had to watch out for him and his tricks.
Not to mention, the time when he had started seeing me of something more than just a target to torment... the forced marriage attempt...
Let's say, things between me and him had been complicated.
"So how's life?" He asked.
I heard the flip of his zippo. The burning of the cigarette tip.
I laughed. He angered me. His fake interest. The thin veiled attempt to appear civil when all he wanted was to find something in my life to start insulting me.
I was hanging by a thread not to throw the margarita to his face, and leave.
"As if you're interested to know..." I turned and said to him, very abrupt.
Neil did not respond right away.
He took a long drag from his cigarette and from the forced way he crushed it on the ashtray, I realised, my respond had affected him.
"Well, have it your way, Candy. Want to bite my head off, be my guest." He said and stood up.
Shot me an angry look. I swear his eyes burned a mark on me.
"Nice to see you again." He said and left me.
I heard the sound of his steps behind me, his expensive perfume lingering in the air.
Something musky and primal. I turned.
"I am sorry, Neil." I said.
I didn't think I've said it loud enough, but it was enough for him to stop distancing himself further. He just stood there. I don't know why but my heart started beating fast when he turned and fixed his eyes on me. He hesitated to close the distance again. As if he weighed the options in his mind. In the end, his lips curled into a smile. He narrowed his gaze.
Bloody hell, this man was seriously smoking hot.
Where did Neil, the brat had gone?!
He came back. And somehow, that sudden "adult" thought in my mind, made me feel exposed. Naked even. I shuddered when he gave me his hand for a handshake. I felt his fingers wrap around my hand when I did return the gesture.
"Friends then?" He asked, blinking slowly those long eyelashes of his.
Innocently... not!
My panic knowing what was inside my mind, came out like an awkward giggle. My cheeks felt burning.
"Friends." I replied once I managed to talk.
"That's better." He commended.
I decided to take my guard down.
It was obvious, Neil wasn't there to get me, nor to torment me...
as least not in the way I was used up till that moment...
We chatted like old friends for a while.
Told him of my life with Dr. Martin's clinic, the orphanage. I actually took not more than ten minutes to fill him in on how I lived my life. Here I was a twenty something year old woman, living the life of a monk.
Whereas he... well I never expected anything less than a life of glamour and glitch for Neil and Elisa. But there was a change on Neil. He listened to me, with interest. He laughed at my jokes. His eyes were warm.
Ten minutes on, all the tension had melted away, like the ice on our drinks.
I congratulated him on the opening of the hotel. He received my thanks without any obvious bravado, although I could tell it had been a big deal for him to achieve something of his own. Elisa was just tagging along for the perks but the real work, it was his doing. I refrained of prodding him on the rumours about his shady connections... It wasn't my place in any case.
The time was nearing two in the morning. We had been the only two people who had remained still at the bar. Our margaritas had long finished. We had talked and laughed like no other time before. And it was amazing to think what time does between two people.
How it changes them.
Neil, while still sitting on the bar stool had fixed his eyes to the floor. On a silent moment, he lifted his head only half way. Strands of honey coloured brown hair fell on his forehead, and I saw his hazel eyes peering through.
That intensity inside them, the one that caused me to shudder first time round, was there again.
Like a smoke, the relaxed feeling disappeared.
He bit his bottom lip as if he was going to suggest something, I could tell he had experience of suggesting many times before, but not to me.
Definitely not to me.
"I hope I don't sound inappropriately forward but...I do have a bottle of the most magnificent bourbon in my room...care for a nightcap?", he asked me.
He looked at me. A stare he wasn't afraid to remove any time soon, for he expected a response. I could tell, he hoped for a certain response. Naively I thought about our newfound connectedness.
Me and Neil, friends...
A bit more than that...
I heard a tiny voice inside my head.
I tried to ignore it. It was ridiculous.
I don't fancy Neil.
His boyish good looks were radiant. They were content and relaxed.
"Wouldn't mind for one." I replied with eyes that smiled.
Come on, after such a night... I didn't want to look as the one who was afraid of our past.
"Ok then!" He said with such enthusiasm, I thought he would jump from that stool and hug me!
The two of us made it to the lift. An Art Deco piece of art it was, with gold interiors and mirrors on all sides, a carpet so plush, you thought you had walked on clouds. The bell boy welcomed us inside.
Top suite, Neil said to him. Turned back to me.
"You know, I think you should stay to Florida a few days. The sun seems to suit you Candy. You look radiant." He said quietly.
"Oh come on, Neil." I replied. "You don't need to flatter me, to get in my good books. We already had a great night."
It was true. I never considered myself one of those glamorous, perfect women who looked like angels or something. Like work of arts.
"Let me disagree... you just haven't had someone to let you know of the obvious every day..."
I gasped.
Neil's comment had been audacious, forward, rude even.
It brought Terry in my mind. Not knowing exactly why, but it did. Little bells started going in my alcohol infused head. But I ignored them.
"Which is..." I asked and bit my lip.
What the heck did I ask Neil that for?!
"Tell me you are joking..." He whispered. "Stare at yourself in the mirror, Candy."
Another wave of goosebumps crawled up my spine. The way the whole sentence came out of his mouth, it felt as if he had already undressed me, there and then.
I didn't follow his suggestion. Instead I looked at the blinking numbers of the floors on the lift door, choosing not to respond.
So the doors opened. The bell boy wished us good night.
"Welcome to my humble abode..." Neil said and opened the door of his suite wide.
I gave him a smile.
Little did I know what would take place once Neil had closed that door behind us. Entranced, I walked in further, taking in the luxury but mostly, that amazing view of night time Miami that spread in front of us from those floor to ceiling windows, inside the living room of his suite.
He switched on a couple of soft lights on. I saw my reflection on the window looking outside.
"It is amazing..." I commented to Neil and turned to see him. He came closer while he relaxed the knot on his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.
My eyes fell on his neck, his Adam's apple. I imagined myself kissing him there. My throat felt dry like the sand of the desert. I really couldn't explain what was happening to me.
"The view..." I quickly turned back to face the blinking lights of the city.
"I know... I love the view too." He said while I could see his reflection on the big window.
Looking not at the view of the city. The view he referred was completely different...
I wondered if he could hear my heart beat. I could. It banged on my chest like a hammer.
"Let us pour those whiskeys." He said, breaking the moment.
One single drum of whiskey Candy... In and out...
The tiny voice said inside my head. This time, I had to say, I agreed with it.
I heard Neil pouring the whiskey into the glasses while I kept looking out the window.
I was on edge. Feeling like a live wire, buzzing with electricity. It only needed a spark. And I...
What the heck was I
-doing there?-
He came close. My skin erupted in goosebumps. Butterflies, a whole cloud of them invaded my insides. They twisted and turned.
"Are you cold?" He asked me.
"A little." I replied.
I wasn't wearing much, I have to say. Had borrowed a dress from Annie at the last minute. A pale blue knee-length loose dress in chiffon layers with intricate embroidery that covered the breast area. It felt like I wore next to nothing, with just a sheer slip on the inside and my nude stockings. I didn't even wear a brassiere. Didn't need one. Annie envied me for my perfect champagne glass size breasts, she had told me. Very fashionable. Just like my attire.
Perfect for the humid warm Florida weather.
Not so perfect for a 2am night cap in a room of a gorgeous man I came to realise I knew him only as a weird boy.
Neil had been weird. He had!
Despite the pleasure he took from the bullying, sometimes his eyes looked at me differently than his sister. Elisa had always been the mastermind of most of the wrongdoings I had to suffer from both of them. But, deep down I knew; if Neil was alone, away from the Devil, he wasn't bad.
"Here." He said and gave me the jacket he had just taken off. Put it over my shoulders.
It smelled of him. This heady perfume of his. Musk, leather and tobacco. I felt his body warmth on my bare skin.
How would it be if I was inside his arms?
He gave me the bourbon glass.
"Thanks." I said back to him with a weak smile.
I took a sip from the bourbon, wetted my lips with it, felt the heat on them. Neil's stare was on me. I turned and our eyes locked.
"I'm sorry, I just..." He said all of a sudden. "I never expected this night to end like this... with you here." He added.
I knew Neil tried to explain. In fact, he made it worse. So much worse, tears shimmered inside my eyes.
I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to have those intense feelings, those thoughts for Neil. Not for him, or any other man.
No one else, apart from-
I had only one true love in my life, one man.
Terry.
I had carried a torch for him for so long. So long... I-
I knew we would never be anything. I had suppressed everything my heart and my body should feel. I buried myself at Pony's. Behind empty smiles and work. The charitable Candy, the caring Candy, the smiling Candy.
All that was needed was a day or two away from home, and my body was rebelling against me, awakened by Neil...
No,
NO,
NO!
I blinked. Thick, fat tears rolled down my cheeks.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be." I whispered. Left the glass on the table and hurried to leave the room. Turned the door handle, opened the door.
Neil had already reached me. Put his hand on the door and closed it.
"So, that's it then?!" He asked me with his hand still on the door.
"Neil, let me go." I asked him. More tears were running down my cheeks.
A deep furrow had formed between his dark brows. He took his hand from the door.
"Go." He said, with pressed lips. "Go... cry your eyes out for Grandchester."
"Go, get drunk at the hotel bar, waiting for him, just to catch a glimpse."
I looked at him! Blinked a couple of times to clear my sight.
"Don't you think I realised why you stayed at the bar?" He continued.
To hear the truth from someone like Neil, shocked me down to the marrow in my bones. Robbed the words from my mouth.
"It's my hotel, Candy. Grandchester has booked here." He said to me.
Like a knife plunged in my belly, it felt when he spoke about Terry. The way he said his surname. Like an insult.
Grandchester...
He smiled. I was certain by now, he took pleasure seeing me like that.
"You want to know what else?" He said slowly.
"While we were laughing and flirted with each other, you missed him. Yes, Candy... He passed by the lobby, with Susanna. He saw us... together."
The air left from my lungs. Terry had seen us!
All of what I felt that night turned into an unstoppable wrecking ball of anger. Swung inside me, demolishing past and present. Blinded with tears, I stormed towards Neil, fell on his chest.
I kept denying what I had just heard, while punching him with furry, without stopping.
He grabbed my hands. "It is over, Candy." He said slowly. "You already know it, love. I just happened to be the one to spell it out for you."
We stood while looking at each other. There was a strange light inside his eyes. A fire behind them. He let my hands free and I left them fall down, feeling empty. What could I say to him to deny the undeniable?
He passed his hand from my waist and brought me closer. Felt his taut body on mine, the heat.
"You always had eyes only for Grandchester. But not tonight... And if I took advantage of monopolising your interest, among other things, well... sue me." He confessed to my face, not letting go.
"I am mad for you. I was and I am for a long time now, Candy."
I listened to him with a barely-there breath. The anger had left me, everything had left me, apart from this hazel stare of his that was sucking me in, not letting go.
Blame it on the heat, blame it on the alcohol, blame it on the emotional distress, there could be a million and one reasons why I said what I said at that moment, but I said it. And I am to hold responsible for what happened afterwards.
"Kiss me..." I whispered.
Neil didn't move. After all, even to myself, it was as if the voice belonged to someone else. Like an out of body experience.
"I wanted you to kiss me for quite some time now, Neil."
While he remained quiet, he obliged to my wish. He came closer. "I don't know if I can stop to a kiss, Candy..." His voice came out hoarse.
I looked at him. The man he had become, the passion behind him. The desire inside him, for me...
only for me...
"It's ok." I whispered, wanting to talk about it no more.
His lips touched mine. They hovered and hesitated. He held my face between his hands and I wrapped mine behind his neck. The butterflies inside me, turned into a hurricane. I responded under the pressure of his lips on mine. I knew, I felt he held back. Perhaps he couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it!
And yet, at that moment in time, it was the only thing I wanted.
Was it wrong?
I wasn't going to analyse it.
I let my lips open under his slow but steady exploration. Our bodies were glued to each other. His tongue entered my mouth, this time more confident, more demanding, and I could tell there was no way back. For either of us.
I tasted him just as much as he tasted me and I wanted more. He deepened his kiss. It turned possessive. He had the back of my head on his left hand, his fingers were inside my hair. I felt his other hand move down my back, over my behind. He pulled my dress up and I felt his touch over my knickers. Stroked the curve of my buttock, pressed his hand on it, and I imagined his fingerprints left on my skin.
It turned me on like nothing I had imagined. I left a groan inside his mouth.
"My God, what are you doing to me..." I heard him whisper.
I tried to feel his back under my fingers. How the muscles tensed and moved when I touched him. I knew I excited him as much as he did with me.
I pulled his shirt out his trousers.
His mouth left mine. He started leaving a trail of kisses down my neck. We moved inside the room, without breaking contact. He pushed me on the window. I felt grateful to feel the coolness of the glass on my back.
Our breaths were heavy, short and audible in the room. His mouth stopped between my collarbones. I felt his tongue on the hollow between them. Tracing the length of my collarbones.
His hands felt my body and everything was turning mad. Suddenly the clothes became an obstacle we had to remove. Hurried moves. Desperate. Pulling the zipper of my dress down. I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, while he kept kissing my neck.
He let the dress fall in a heap on the floor. The sheer slip remained to cover my nakedness. My face was on fire. I was melting between my legs. He looked at me with eyes those of a man mad with desire. Wanting to eat me alive. Possess me completely. My knees trembled, when he pulled the slip over my head. And I heard the gasp that left his lips.
He pulled me on him and turned me to face the window. Make me see our reflection on it, facing the city of Miami. In the darkness, between the blinking lights I could see me, naked with just wearing knickers and my stockings, still on my high heeled pumps.
"Look at you, love." He whispered behind me. I saw his hand travelling down my belly. His fingers pushed inside my knickers.
"See what you look like, when you are loved completely, without limits."
His hand was between my legs. Expertly opening the folds of my womanhood. I thought I was going to faint when he started stroking me slowly, teasing my clitoris, making my body taut like a bow he could warm up, to bend it to his will.
"How sexy you look when I pleasure you."
I looked at the reflection of my face. My stare was lost. There was nothing in the world at that moment than just me and him, and our reflections at the window.
His fingers slid up and down. He pushed a finger inside me. Stroking me.
"How alive you look."
I rocked my hips slowly forwards and backwards, following the move of his hand. Feeling his erection rubbing between my buttocks.
"Neil... release me please." I begged him. Couldn't hold standing any longer.
He turned me to him. "Tonight, it is just you and me, Candy. No one else."
He lifted me up on his arms and he kissed me.
I was his...
He took me to the bed. Took his shirt off, his trousers. He had the body of a Roman god. Lean with all the muscles defined under his tanned smooth skin. I saw his erection on the soft light. I shuddered. My breath was short and quick. He came over me, between my legs and pushed himself in.
"Hold me." He asked me. I put my arms around his neck. He breathed heavy.
I felt him entering me slowly. "You are so tight... God..."
He pushed even further, deeper. We rocked slowly. Everything was sucked in a vortex of pleasure, desire. Nothing mattered, nothing.
He groaned. His body rubbed on mine. He took my nipples in his mouth. Teased them with his teeth. Making them hard. Our groans became louder, hoarser, more urgent. He grabbed my buttocks, pushed himself all in and I yelled with pleasure. His rocking quickened, we were verging to the edge, hovering over the abyss.
"Neil..." I whispered his name.
"You're mine, Candy." He said.
We spoke no more. Our senses took hold. The pleasure that needed fulfilled. We came together, holding each other, breaths and sweat and all our juices flowing on that one night of unbridled passion between us.
He fell next to me, the sweat trickling down on both our bodies.
The morning found me inside Neil's arms. He looked beautiful and serene while he slept. He made love to me twice more that night.
Was it a mistake to let that happen?
I don't know...
What I knew though was that we would never be a couple.
I didn't belong to his world and he didn't belong to mine...
As much as I found myself attracted to him and him?
I already knew how Neil felt about me.
I got up with careful moves, not wanting to wake him up. I got dressed very quickly. There was a notepad on the bedside table.
"I will cherish that night between us, Neil. Love, Candy."
I saw him at the family photograph. We behaved nervous around each other. Albert wanted me to stand between him and Neil. Elisa was dripping poison with her stare. Neil didn't say anything.
I chose to stand with Dorothy and the guys from the Lakewood mansion. My dear friends...
I didn't see Terry after that again.
Neither have I seen Neil.
I'm still living at Pony's.