Perhaps Harold ought to have tried to pick up right where they'd left off after the girls finally departed for school that morning. But he hadn't bothered to make even the feeblest attempt at flirtation, let alone lovemaking, as he knew Marian didn't have the extra time to spare – she needed to finish washing the breakfast dishes right away because she was scheduled to open the library that morning. Hiding his sense of pique – he was getting mighty tired of playing second fiddle to dirty dishes – the music professor simply kissed his wife on the cheek and headed off to the emporium. Normally, he would have whispered a heated promise in her ear as he bade her farewell, but for once he refrained, as he knew better than to make promises neither of them could keep. With the run of bad luck they'd been having lately, Harold had a hunch he would probably find out that the librarian had started her courses when he got home tonight!

But it seemed that fortune, fate, or whatever deity oversaw the affairs of men had finally taken pity on him. That night, Marian once again came to bed wearing only her gingham dressing gown. It was quite the pleasant surprise, as Harold hadn't even made the slightest attempt at seduction all evening. Yet as pleasant as it was, their lovemaking was nowhere near as passionate as that almost-Paris Saturday night. Although the librarian had not only initiated this tryst but also embraced him as warmly as she ever did, he could tell by the languid pace of her writhing that she was exhausted – rather than overwhelming desire, it was mostly likely sheer determination to make it up to him for all the botched opportunities of the past few days that spurred her onward.

This wasn't the first time since they'd returned from Paris that Marian had come to him sapped of energy, having spent the majority of it on the house and the library and the children, leaving next to nothing for him. Although Harold was not happy about being last in line once again, he not only gobbled down these crumbs, he made love to his wife as gently and sweetly as he knew how in return – and quietly, lest they wake the girls. Even though it wasn't the most exciting of embraces, it was still very nice. It was always nice, being with Marian. And that was precisely the problem. Harold was getting awfully tired of nice.

As soon as he'd entered her, Marian had buried her head in the crook of his shoulder. But when he brought her to climax – another pleasant surprise, given the leisurely tempo of their lovemaking – her head fell back into the pillow and their eyes met, and he was startled to see tears streaming down her face.

"Marian," he gasped in alarm, coming to a halt. Had he hurt her, somehow?

She tightened her arms around him and buried her head in the crook of his shoulder again. "It's nothing," she sobbed. "I just – love you. I love you so much. Please, don't stop… " And then she was writhing fiercely against him, giving him everything she had.

At that, Harold was a goner; seizing his wife by the hips, he drove into her hard and fast. Long past the point of forbearance, Marian let out one long moan after another as she clung to him. They were low moans, and mostly muffled, but after so many nights of sputtering sighs and stifled screams, they were as glorious as a seventy-piece band to him. For one brief, wonderful moment, it was almost-Paris again… and then, just as Marian was on the cusp of the most promising paroxysm of pleasure he'd coaxed from her in months, he came. Even as felt himself give out, Harold kept thrusting, hoping it would be enough to put her over the edge, too. But he knew it wasn't a battle he was going to win – Marian's moans diminished into panting exhalations as he grew soft inside her. Heaving a sigh himself, Harold finally gave up and pulled out of his wife.

But if the librarian was disappointed by her husband's lackluster finish, she didn't show it. As Harold flopped onto his back, she snuggled up against his side. Cupping her damp cheek, he was relieved to discover that she'd stopped weeping.

"Is everything all right, Marian?" Harold whispered, still concerned. Tonight wasn't the first time she'd ever cried from the sheer intensity of emotion their lovemaking aroused in her, but it had been several years since the last occasion. She hadn't sobbed at all in Paris – it was something she had done back all the way back when they were newly married.

The librarian only hesitated for a split second. "I'm fine, Harold. Just – tired."

That's your answer for everything, these days, he thought peevishly. Aloud, he gave a noncommittal, "Hmm."

But the librarian knew the music professor just as well as he knew her. Rolling over to face him, she gave him a tender kiss on the lips and said reassuringly, "A good night's sleep always works wonders for me." Her smile turned impish. "And I always sleep better after we make love."

Harold felt a rush of fierce love for his wife, as well as frustration. Even as he reveled in the wonderful sense of closeness he always experienced whenever they were physically intimate, he still somehow felt they were miles apart, as if he'd almost but not quite gotten to the core of what was nagging at Marian.

Because as much as they were both trying to pretend everything was fine, there was something she wasn't telling him. Maybe something she wasn't even telling herself. And if that turned out to be the case, he certainly wasn't going to be able to get to the bottom of it tonight – especially now that his "Iowa stubborn" wife's breathing had grown steady and deep.

But perhaps Harold was overthinking this. Marian was always a little off balance in the week before her courses were due to start. Though come to think of it, she'd been a little off balance for the past several months – and the last time she'd had her courses was right before they'd left for Paris. That was three months ago. As the music professor realized just how much time had passed, he almost bolted upright in his surprise. The librarian's cycle had always been a bit tricky to predict, but it was never that irregular.

Perhaps Marian was going through the change of life. She was nearly forty, after all. It would certainly explain her constant irritability and exhaustion, as well as her more adamant than usual disinclination to discuss her health. While it was a natural phase that all women went through, his wife still retained a Victorian hesitancy to allude to menstruation outside the vaguest of details. She'd never frankly discuss the dwindling of her ability to conceive a child.

As Harold contemplated this decline, he was struck by an intense pang of sadness. While he loved his daughters dearly and couldn't have asked for more, there was a small part of him that had always wished… and now the possibility of expanding their family even further was gone forever. And if he felt this much sorrow and sense of loss being on the periphery of things, he could only imagine how his wife felt actually going through this change. Lovemaking was no longer an untroubled source of delight and intimacy for her, but a bittersweet reminder of what they could no longer look forward to. No wonder his wife had burst into tears – and no wonder her moods had been so mercurial, lately!

Tightening his arms around the woman he'd pledged to love in sickness and in health, Harold closed his eyes and concentrated on drifting off to sleep, himself. They'd get over this little bump in the road – it was just a matter of patience and forbearance. No matter how irritable or under the weather the librarian was as she struggled to adjust to the aging of her body, he was resolved to grin and bear it. It was the least a devoted husband could do.

XXX

But his mind had other ideas. When Harold finally managed to fall asleep, he began to dream. At first, he wasn't aware he was dreaming, as the setting was so mundane – he was sitting at his desk in the emporium, doing paperwork. When there was a knock at his office door, he said, "Come in!" without preamble, as more often than not, it was Tommy seeking his advice or expertise.

But it wasn't his second-in-command who entered the room. It was Lisette Latimer. And she didn't just walk into the office, she sashayed in with a smooth, confident gait he'd never seen her adopt before. Such easy, graceful perambulation on its own would have unsettled the music professor, but it paled into insignificance next to the fact that the widow wasn't wearing one of her usual decorous and drab getups that were at least five years out of date. Instead, she sported a stunning, stylish and low-cut dress that was the most scandalous shade of crimson he'd seen since that sweltering July evening he'd spent trading rumors with Marian on her front porch over a decade ago.

"I've come to discuss Billy's progress in the band," Mrs. Latimer said in a level voice, as if strolling about in daring ensembles far more suited for late-night necking in French cabarets was a matter of course.

But even when he'd been a philandering conman, Harold made it a point of pride to never let on to a woman just how much she'd knocked him off balance, no matter how alluring she was. "What specifically about Billy's progress did you want to discuss?" he asked nonchalantly, looking at her face alone as he stood up from his chair. It felt safer, being on his feet; Mrs. Latimer was a short woman, and at his full height he towered over her.

But the crafty widow soon evened the score – as she tilted her head to regard him with a flirtatious pout, her chestnut waves escaped her chignon and cascaded artfully down her back. The music professor had to repress a shudder of delight – it had been several months since he'd seen such long, brilliant hair, and he missed the eroticism of a woman's tresses tumbling loosely around her.

Fortunately, Mrs. Latimer didn't seem to notice his disquiet. "Billy's been in the band for over three years now," she said with a toss of her head that made her curls bounce enticingly, "and he practices his trumpet for hours and hours at home. It's his dream to be a trumpet player when he grows up, but he still hasn't made first chair, even though he has the most seniority of all the other boys in the section!"

Harold swallowed. "Yes, of course," he stammered, desperate to fill the silence long enough to regain his bearings. Although he was a sweet and likeable lad, Billy Latimer had always been a Johnny One Note type of kid. Nevertheless, it was the music professor's job to cultivate a love or at least an appreciation of music in all his students, as it would enrich their lives regardless of the professions they ultimately pursued. So he encouraged boys like Billy to play with all the gusto they had. As for the boys who demonstrated truly exceptional talent – there were always one or two each generation – he recommended them for the Fred and Lucy Gallup Scholarship to study music at the University of Iowa when they turned eighteen. Naturally, this award was highly sought after by the musically inclined as a pinnacle of achievement.

But Billy would never qualify for such an accolade, not by a long shot. While Harold could easily find something to praise in nearly every boy's performance and deliver a mostly honest yet beautifully phrased compliment whenever parents fished for praise, he could not outright deny that the tone-deaf Billy Latimer would never have a promising music career ahead of him. This would have been a difficult conversation to have even if Mrs. Latimer had approached him tightly coifed and bound in the most proper and dowdy of ensembles. When her hair was down and she was dressed in a décolletage-revealing evening gown and she was looking at him with those soft, pleading brown eyes of hers, it was impossible.

"Your son doesn't have the talent to advance any further than where he already is," the music professor said frankly, almost brusquely as he averted his eyes. He supposed he could have sugarcoated this harsh truth by divulging that Billy's deficiencies were somewhat balanced by him being one of the most passionate and hardworking students he'd ever taught, but he was too irritated by the widow's flagrant attempts to disarm him with her feminine wiles – and even more irked by the fact that so far, she was succeeding!

But Harold couldn't look away for long, and his heart constricted as Mrs. Latimer's expression turned both stunned and hurt, as if he'd slapped her. "But – you've always said that everyone has music inside them, and it's just a matter of finding it!"

"I can teach a kid the rudimentary basics, but I can't give him talent he wasn't born with," Harold countered. "And the plain truth of the matter is that your son will always struggle to stay on pitch, no matter how hard he practices."

Her shoulders slumped. "Oh," she said, looking thoroughly crestfallen.

Harold sighed. He never liked crushing a kid's dreams, even when it was necessary. "Billy has found his music," he allowed, sympathy seeping into his voice. "His diligence and persistence have been a model for the rest of the band. But that's still not going to be enough to win him a Gallup Scholarship."

The music professor quickly regretted softening like that – no sooner than he had finished speaking, Mrs. Latimer's beautiful brown eyes flared with renewed joy, and she grasped his hands with hers. "He'd win that scholarship if you recommended him for it," she astutely observed. "And if he studies very hard, he could still become a music professor – just like his hero!"

Harold's heart turned over as he felt that heady and treacherous spark of desire flare up in the pit of his stomach; the pretty widow was beaming at him as if he were the sun and the moon and the stars. As uneasy as her close proximity was making him and as desperate as he was to say something, anything to get her to withdraw and leave his office before he did something he'd sorely regret, he wasn't about to sacrifice his professional principles to achieve this end. "That wouldn't be fair to the others," he maintained. "There are boys in the band who have the talent to go far."

But even as the music professor refused to yield, he knew he'd lost the argument as soon as he'd relinquished his initial aloof and inexorable façade. Not only was Mrs. Latimer going to brook no further refusals, she was now fully aware of the power she possessed to affect him. Still gazing dreamily into his eyes, the widow took a small but dangerous step closer. "What can I do to convince you to recommend my son for that scholarship, Professor Hill?" she asked in a sultry, sing-song voice.

Harold should have held his ground, but the widow's intoxicating presence overwhelmed him so completely that he took a step backward before he could warn himself not to give her so much as an inch. Despite this involuntary but costly capitulation, he struggled to persevere. "You can't," he managed to choke out.

With a gleam in her eye that indicated she knew otherwise, Mrs. Latimer took another step toward him, unfastening the front of her gown to reveal the sheer, lacy little camisole she was wearing beneath it. Because she wasn't wearing a girdle, Harold could easily see that her nipples were both rosy and taut – a sight that just begged him to go over and take her breasts in his mouth. Still, he refrained.

"I saw the way you looked at me, the day of the parade," she panted, as if she was already halfway to climax just thinking about the way their eyes had locked for one brief but heated moment. Harold gritted his teeth to keep his expression impassive as she continued, saying every single word he'd been longing to hear the moment she walked into his office, "I've been waiting for you to look at me that way ever since I first came to this town. Watching you lead the band drove me into a frenzy – all I could think about was how it would feel if you touched me absolutely everywhere with those capable hands of yours. Watching you dance at every ball and assembly was even worse – I knew from the way you moved that you'd make love to a woman as passionately as you danced with her. And I knew from that look in your eyes that you'd hold her close afterward… "

"Well, that's quite a fancy for a woman married to another man," Harold said, his mouth and throat dry. He meant for his tone to be incredulous and dismissive, but it came out so feebly that it sounded as if he were awed and intrigued, instead.

With an arch grin, Mrs. Latimer let her dress flutter to the floor and posed artfully before him in her camisole and drawers – which he couldn't help noticing were spilt-seam. As he stared hungrily at her, she reached out and gave him a coquettish little push, which was just firm enough to send him toppling backwards into his desk chair. Normally, Harold would have jumped right up, but he suddenly realized that he'd somehow been stripped down to his union suit. He'd gotten hard the moment the widow had started to remove her clothes, but now he could no longer hide it. Still, no matter what his baser inclinations were urging him to do, he had to put a stop to this seduction immediately.

However, when Mrs. Latimer knelt before him and gazed deep into his eyes with that hungry look of hers, all rational thought fled; the music professor remained frozen where he sat as she lowered her head into his lap and freed him from the constraints of his drawers with nimble fingers. "Yesterday afternoon, I came to your office – I just couldn't take trying to stay away from you anymore," she said breathlessly. "And I knew from the way you looked at me after the concert that you felt exactly the same." Her lips pursed into a dangerously fetching moue. "But you were gone for lunch. So I put my lips on your trumpet, to taste you… "

Without further preamble, she took him in her mouth. Utterly undone, Harold gripped the arms of his chair and groaned, his head lolling back. The widow was very practiced at performing this act on a man. He wondered if she'd honed her craft on Mr. Latimer, or someone else – or several someone elses, as she clearly had no compunction about seducing married men.

As the word married floated across his addled brain, Harold's rational mind suddenly intervened, cutting through the treacherous haze of desire clouding his senses. "Marian," he gasped. What on earth was he doing, allowing this situation to continue?

Mrs. Latimer immediately withdrew and gazed up at him with a hugely offended expression, as if he were the one who'd committed a grave breach of etiquette by not being sufficiently appreciative of her attentions. "And when was the last time Marian did something even half as daring as this?" she asked, her beautiful doe eyes looking shrewdly into his soul. "Paris?"

Harold's mouth fell open, and he could only gape at her. How in heaven's name did she know?

When the widow smiled sympathetically at him, the last, lingering inclination he had to fight off her bold advances shattered. "You're not the first married man who's ached for this from someone willing," she explained. "And I'm not the first woman who wanted more than her husband was willing to give." She scowled. "I was a widow long before my husband died."

Harold grinned as that long-dormant and nearly-forgotten anticipation of experiencing thrilling novelty with a beautiful stranger surged through him. All the grandiose and insincere lines he used to use on his conquests came easily to the tip of his tongue, but this gal had given him something far better: a heated fancy that could be used as a flirtatious volley.

"Well," the music professor purred conspiratorially, "you said you sneaked into my office yesterday to put your mouth on my trumpet?"

Mrs. Latimer gave him the most charming smile that still managed to be sweet even as it thoroughly lacked so much as the smallest hint of bashfulness.

"Then it's only fair that I get to taste you," Harold asserted. In one grand, sweeping motion, he scooped the alluring widow into his arms and got to his feet. Propping her on his desk, he buried his head in her lap and did just that, until her moans turned into one long, unbroken scream of ecstasy as she shuddered and came in his arms.

But Lisette Latimer still wasn't sated. "Tell me you want me," she gasped, parting her thighs even wider and kneading her fingers into his hair.

"I've wanted you since that day of the concert," Harold confessed in a rush, unable to hold back any longer.

Yanking him to his feet, the widow pushed him back into his chair. This time, she straddled his lap. But she didn't take him in immediately – instead, she writhed tantalizingly against him. Harold groaned at the feel of her warm thighs against his erection; he was so hard and she was so wet that the tip of him slipped inside her. But before he could thrust forward, she bobbed slightly upward, moving just barely but excruciatingly out of his reach, and regarded him a smoldering grin.

"Show me how much you want me," she whispered huskily. Her provocative, heavy-lidded gaze promised the most heated, scandalous and depraved lovemaking he could possibly imagine – but only if he was reckless enough to cross this final threshold between them.

Lisette Latimer really knew how to intensify a man's lust to a fever pitch right up until the very last second! Even as the apprehension that someone might walk in on them fleetingly floated across his addled brain, Harold was long past the point of resisting. All coherent thought lost in the upswell of desire he could no longer deny, the music professor crushed his mouth against the widow's as he grasped her by the hips and, with a single thrust, buried himself inside her as deeply as he could manage. As she moaned into his mouth and sagged against him, enveloping him even more completely, her hands clamped down on his arms in a vice grip, her nails harsh as talons digging into his flesh.

This rough handling only spurred Harold onward. Tightening his hold on Mrs. Latimer, he continued to kiss the breath out of her as his hands found her backside and the two of them began to move frantically back and forth…

XXX

Harold jolted awake, panicked. In one single moment of weakness, he'd ruined his marriage for good – there was no way he was going to be able to hide from Marian that he'd been with another woman. She'd never forgive him for this lapse, and why should she? After over a decade of loving devotion, how could he have done this to his dear little librarian? And just what had been worth such a ghastly betrayal? A trivial romp in the hay with a woman who would cease to be alluring or even interesting the moment he climaxed –

In the midst of his self-recriminations, Harold's senses finally caught up to him, and he suddenly realized that it had only been a dream. In his sheer relief, his gasps turned into wheezy laughter as he lay in his tangled bedclothes.

But the exhilaration of his not actually having committed adultery soon blossomed into dismay. While a man couldn't control what direction his mind decided to wander after he fell asleep, the fact that there was cause for him to have had such a dream in the first place was deeply alarming. After all, hadn't he fallen in love with Marian over the course of several dreams, so many years ago? So even if that heated tryst had all been in his mind, it still somehow felt wrong of him to have had such an explicit dream about another woman. And what's more, that dream had left the music professor maddeningly aroused, his body having no such qualms about the stimuli that provoked its treacherous appetites.

As Harold nervously glanced at Marian, he was both comforted and frustrated to see that she was still sleeping soundly, despite the all the disturbance his thrashing about must have caused. Unusually for her – at least, since they'd come home from Paris – she had drifted off without so much as throwing on her gingham dressing gown. So she was as naked as he was; the porcelain skin of her shoulders and breasts and thighs gleamed tantalizingly in the semidarkness, which made him even harder. Now thoroughly frustrated, and wanting nothing more than to forget about the widow – that siren, that succubus who had so rudely invaded his dreams – Harold seriously contemplated seducing his wife out of her slumber. But he immediately dismissed the idea as too repulsive; he couldn't use the woman he loved as an outlet for his profane lust.

But it wasn't simply a high-flying sense of nobility that made him refrain. As the music professor considered waking up his wife anyway – in his sheer desperation, he needed to do something to calm his nerves – that spiteful, traitorous voice whispered there was no point in trying. Even if Harold did make the attempt, he couldn't expect to get a tryst that was anywhere near as exciting as the one he'd just dreamed about. Although Marian remained the same warm, generous and passionate lover she'd been since their wedding night, she hadn't had the energy or the gumption to be so bold and wild with him since Paris. Tonight was no exception – she'd been thoroughly exhausted, and had already given him everything she had to give. He couldn't ask her for anything more – at least, not right now.

With a sigh, Harold disentangled himself from the sheets and withdrew to the music room. For the rest of the night, he paced back and forth, trying to get a hold of himself; trying not to think about his dream or all the things that Marian had said and done with her mouth in Paris, things she had never dared to say or do in River City. Now that they were home again, they had fallen right back into their old roles in the bedroom – he led, and she followed. But after getting a taste of what things could be like if his Victorian wife let go of her inhibitions, he was tired of leading all the time, even if the ardor of her responses to his caresses was always gratifying.

But even with everything Marian still managed to give him despite her propensity for primness, it still wasn't enough. All Lisette Latimer had done was look at him, and he'd been reduced to a hot mess. It was infuriating, especially since Harold hadn't thought of the widow once since that fateful afternoon. Over the past few days, the lovely librarian had occupied his mind and heart as wholly as she ever did, and he'd been desperate to make love to her whenever and wherever he could. After several false starts, they'd finally managed to be together and, while the music professor had to admit their tryst hadn't been everything he'd been waiting for, there was a calm but deep satisfaction in it that no dream-chimera could ever match.

Because if there was one thing that Harold had learned about love over the past twelve years, it was not just about romance, and it certainly wasn't about feeling giddy with desire all the time. It was also about supporting each other through the tough times, sharing in both the joys and the sorrows of going through life side by side as they built a home and a history together. It was not merely reveling in the fickle and capricious butterflies as they came and went, but accepting both the delight and discomfort that complete intimacy entailed. As he and Marian bared their souls to each other, the bond between them had only ever deepened; their long and honest conversations affirming that despite their differing personalities, they saw eye-to-eye about what was truly important. In the course of loving each other, they had made two beautiful children together. Her brother was like a son to him, and her plain-spoken, down-to-earth, tough-as-nails mother was like a second mother. Love was just as much a choice as it was a feeling, and it was never worth throwing away one's entire family – one's entire life – in a pique of ennui just because something new and shiny came along when things weren't running as smoothly as one would have liked.

Not that anything else had come along, really. Harold was well aware of the ephemeral and deceptive nature of dreams. The chimera-widow who'd seduced him wasn't truly Lisette Latimer, but merely a cipher for his frustrations; a shadow and a fancy, nothing more. Her appearance and behavior in his dream was a reflection of his deepest desires and wishes, rather than her true personality. But why, then, hadn't Harold dreamed of Marian seducing him in his office? The answer to this question was not so comfortable to own up to. While the music professor was secure in the knowledge that he hadn't fallen in love with Mrs. Latimer, her hungry glance flattered him in a way that his wife's sweet beam did not. Marian may have been sixteen years younger than he was, but the widow was even younger than that, barely in her mid-thirties (he estimated her to be around the same age as Jane Peabody, a woman for whom he'd only ever possessed an avuncular fondness and, despite her earlier predilection for older men, he'd sensed the assistant librarian had always felt exactly the same about him). Whereas Harold was solidly in his mid-fifties. Hardly an old and decrepit specimen to be put out to pasture, but undeniably, he was no longer in his prime. Every year, his dashing good looks faded a little more; though River City's teenaged girls still clamored for spots as baton girls, they had stopped making cow's eyes at Professor Hill. While he had graciously accepted this normal and natural turn of events, he couldn't help being tremendously flattered that there was at least one young woman out there who still mooned over him.

Harold chuckled grimly. Vanity of vanities, indeed! It was going to be his downfall, if he didn't take care. Because for all he knew, the shy and retiring Lisette Latimer may very well have been open to an affair if the opportunity presented itself, and he wasn't about to get himself into a situation that allowed him to find out whether this was a possibility. It was his duty to stay as far away from the widow as possible until this dangerous attraction faded. Not only that, he needed to distance himself a bit more from her son, as well. Harold had been making too much of a pet of Billy Latimer; not because of his mother, but because the poor, fatherless lad was so likeable, hardworking and eager to please. But as it was his policy not to display overt favoritism toward any boy (even Winthrop had not been allowed extra leeway when he was in the band), he needed to do a much better job of adhering to it!

And Harold could never let on to his wife how much another woman's glance had affected him. While it felt like a betrayal to conceal something so important from the woman he loved, there was such a thing as being too honest; this kind of confession would damage their trust and intimacy far more than enhance it, and they were already dealing with enough marital unrest at present. While Marian most likely wouldn't divorce him if she ever found out about this silly fancy of his – unless, of course, he did the unthinkable and acted on it – she might be angry enough to insist on a clandestine separation, if only to preserve their family's reputation. But the results would be equally devastating, not just for the two of them but also their daughters, who would be extremely hurt by their father's selfishness.

So as hard as it was for him to keep secrets from the librarian, Harold was resolved not to let this particular cat out of the bag. Besides, when this inconvenient and annoying attraction did eventually fade, there would be nothing to tell, so he could laugh at his own foolishness and then forget about it forever as he made wild, passionate and carefree love to Marian all night long.