Monster Among the Roses

The next morning, I woke early, eager to see Isobel. I made myself lie there for a good half hour until it was the usual time I got up. Then I pulled on my jogging clothes, stuffed another outfit into my backpack, tucked my new mirror into the front pocket, and checked on my mom who was still sleeping peacefully, before I hurried out the door. It took me about ten minutes to reach my truck, when it typically took about fifteen. And then I made it to Porter Hall in about half the time I usually spent driving.

The gate opened a minute later, letting me in, and I pulled around the back to my parking spot.

Isobel hadn’t made it out to the lake by the time I jogged up to our starting spot. I paced and stretched, impatient for her to show. When I finally heard the crunch of gravel as she approached, my body clanged with awareness.

“Hey,” she called, her voice full of pleasure when she caught sight of me already here. “You’re early today—mmph!”

I cut her off with a kiss, tugging her into my arms and plastering her body to mine.

“Are you sure you want to run today?” I asked breathlessly when we came up for air. “I can think of another way to exercise.”

Her eyes flared with heat before she bit her lip. “What did you have in mind?”

“Sex in the pool house shower,” I said, nipping my way down her throat as I confessed something I wanted to do every time I stepped into that shower: her. “Then in the bed. Then in the hot tub. Not necessarily in that order.”

She shivered in my arms and ran her fingers through my hair. “I think you’re successfully tempting me.”

I grinned against the swell of her breast. “We have a full hour before I need to clock in.” Then I bit her nipple right through her jogging shirt and sports bra. “Just think of all the ways I could make you come in a full hour.”

She gasped before taking my hand and tugging me back up the trail toward the pool house. “Okay. I’m sold.”

We were both laughing—okay, fine, giggling—by the time we reached the rock cave.

As soon as we were closed inside, Isobel ripped her running shirt up over her head, and I was quick to follow, peeling off mine. We watched each other giddily, racing to see who could get naked first.

Isobel won, whooping over her triumph as she called, “Hot tub first,” and raced over to dive into the bubbling warm water. I hurried in after her, tugging her onto my lap as soon as we were both submerged. She turned to face me, straddling me so she could wrap her legs around my waist. We kissed, and my chest slipped against her slick breasts, warm water spilling between us with each shift of our bodies.

She worked her hips until she was pressing her entrance right against my cock. Hard and throbbing, I tried to push my way inside but the damn water worked against us. Plus, I realized I had no protection, even though I’d seen some in a drawer in the bathroom once. That was too far away, so I reached between us and messaged her clit, kissing her shoulder as the heat and vibration of the water brought her to an orgasm.

Her fingernails bit into my arm as she came apart. I gasped with her, my body on fire. The sounds she made, the expression on her face, the way she trembled against me, it was the biggest high. I felt powerful and pleased as she started to settle and relax against me.

“That was so hot,” I said into her scarred ear, before kissing it. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

She looked up at me. “Did you say something? I don’t hear as well from that ear.”

My lips parted. I’d never known that. I knew she couldn’t use her hand quite as well on the left side, but I’d never known about the hearing. I leaned in and kissed her gently.

“I said I love you,” I told her.

Her face softened. “I love you, too.”

“Let’s continue this in the bedroom. I want to be on a bed the next time I’m inside you.”

I stroked Isobel’s hair as she rested her head on my shoulder and breathed evenly. She was completely limp and relaxed and yet I somehow knew she was still awake.

“Have I told you I could live here?” I asked, abandoning her hair to run my fingers down the side of her arm. “I could so totally live in this pool house for the rest of my life.”

Her chuckle vibrated through my chest. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned it once or twice before.”

I turned onto my side to face her, our noses only inches apart. “I want to live here with you.” That was a new part of my declaration: the addition of her.

It made her cheeks radiate with pleasure. “Really?”

I started to grin over the daydream until something in her expression made me pause. I’d just been spouting wishes aloud, but the way she brightened had me wondering if she thought I’d just suggested we actually move in together. Freezing, I stared in her eyes, not sure what to say.

Living with her in this pool house would be an absolute dream come true. There was no denying that. But I couldn’t see how it could become a true possibility. First of all, it wasn’t my place to be inviting her to live with me here, and even if her father did allow us the opportunity, it would be a step down for Isobel and too big of a step up for me. I wasn’t sure I could handle being so far below her financially and socially. Which made me wonder how our relationship was going to continue at all. She might not have a problem with me being poor, but I couldn’t say I cared for being the destitute one, the one who couldn’t pull his weight. What if she began to resent me for dragging her down or started thinking I was some kind of gold digger? Not too long ago, I had thought my pride was dead, but it turned out, I did have some, and being so far beneath her didn’t sit well with me.

Then, there was my mother to think of. I couldn’t just leave her, even though I knew she’d financially be okay now.

As I looked into Isobel’s hopeful blue eyes, I had a moment where everything between us seemed absolutely impossible. Our future felt doomed. It sent a flurry of panic through me. I didn’t want to lose her. The world felt better when I was with her. We’d become a team, doing most of my handyman tasks around the house together. And I loved finally being able to touch her, and kiss her, and— But shit. I couldn’t picture a life between us, not where we could get married, have babies, and live happily ever after.

It scared me. It was only a split second of fear; I’m sure I would’ve gotten over it in the next breath, and been fine again. But Isobel saw it in my eyes. She saw my hesitation, and she knew I hadn’t been seriously suggesting we move in together.

The problem was I also knew she thought it was because I didn’t want to live with her. When she sat up and reached for her shirt to cover her chest, I sat up with her, another form of panic flooding me. I wanted to say something, reassure her, convince her I loved her with everything I had and wanted to be with her more than I’d ever wanted to be with anyone. But if I voiced any of my reservations, I feared she’d see them as excuses instead of reasons, and she’d think I wasn’t being honest about my feelings. What if she thought my issues and concerns were unsubstantial, and she tried to brush them off as no big deal? They were a big deal to me. I could suddenly picture this huge argument between us where she told me I was being an idiot—even though I already knew I was—and me denying it, and her wanting to throttle me, and me feeling more insecure, and all of it splitting us apart.

Except by remaining silent now, I think she assumed I didn’t care enough about her.

“Isobel…” I tried, reaching out to touch her back.

She stiffened against my hand. It broke my heart, but I didn’t give up. I scooted in behind her and wrapped my arms around her from the back before setting my chin on her shoulder.

“I don’t know how to show you how much you mean to me,” I admitted. I didn’t know how to fix this.

She turned her cheek toward me. “What?”

Realizing I was on her scarred side, I transferred my chin to her other shoulder, then kissed her cheek. “What’re we going to do today?” I asked as if nothing were wrong. “It’s almost eight.” Time to become the Porter Hall handyman.

She turned around to face me, and for a moment, I feared I’d see hurt in her eyes, but instead she grinned. “I think it’s about time I gave you the grand tour.”

Chuckling, I shook my head. “I think I’ve just about seen everything by now, haven’t I?”

Blue eyes glittered as if amused by my ignorance. “Ah, but you’ve never heard about all the history behind everything you’ve seen.”

I perked to attention. “History?”

Her smile said just you wait. “Yeah. Like the chandelier in the entry. Were you aware it came from Germany, where the Gestapo had taken it from a hotel in France during World War II?”

My mouth dropped open. “No freaking way,” I breathed. “I’ve changed lightbulbs in that thing.” I swear my fingers started to tingle, realizing I’d touched something Nazis had touched. My archeologist-loving heart began to beat a little faster.

Isobel watched me as if she knew exactly what I was experiencing. “Every piece in this house holds some kind of historical significance. Dad doesn’t usually buy anything unless there’s some kind of meaning or story behind it.”

No wonder why I’d always liked Henry. “It’s like a museum,” I uttered, flabbergasted.

With a laugh, Isobel began to pull her clothes on. “Pretty much. Dad allows school bus loads of children to come in every fall and spring to take a tour. It’s one of his charitable contributions to the community, along with giving out a high-risk loan to one worthy candidate each year.”

I met her gaze, and the look in her eyes told me something. Something I hadn’t considered before. “He knew he’d never see that money from my mother again, didn’t he?” I guessed.

She shrugged. “He rarely gets reimbursed from any of them, so he writes them off as donations.”

I shook my head. “But…he helped her out again, paid off the rest of her debt and…” I stopped talking when Isobel began to shake her head.

“Last year, he helped your mom out. This year, I think you were the candidate he chose to help.”

My mouth fell open. I started to shake my head, except I really couldn’t deny it. It made sense. Except…why? Why would he help me? I wasn’t—

“He was going to help someone anyway,” Isobel murmured, answering my unspoken question. “I guess he saw something in you he thought needed it most.”

I gulped, not sure how to deal with this honor but also growing more determined than ever to prove myself worthy of it. “Wow,” was all I could manage to murmur.

Fully dressed, Isobel approached me and took my hand before going up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Come on. Let me show you everything.”

Half an hour later, I was even more staggered by Porter Hall than when I’d initially laid eyes on the place. Turned out, the cherub statue that had nearly impaled me that first day had once sat in a garden in Rome. And the fountain in the foyer had belonged in a spa house in ancient Bath, England.

I soaked in every word Isobel said as she showed me around, telling me who’d painted which portrait and from which exotic location they’d purchased each rug. Even the crown molding in one room had been removed from the home of some Russian monarch.

“And this,” she said, leading me into a new room where the only centerpiece seemed to be a rickety, ancient school desk-looking thing covered in peeling green paint, “…is Henry David Thoreau’s writing table. He’s Dad’s favorite philosopher. So he was excited to purchase it from the Pratchett Museum to keep them from going out of business when they had some trouble with funding. He only paid eight thousand for it.”

I shook my head as I gave a low whistle. “That is so crazy. I can’t believe one dinky, ugly little table could be worth so much. Looks as if a stiff breeze could blow it to pieces.”

“Meh. It’s sturdier than it looks.” She grabbed it by both sides and gave it a healthy shake. When my eyes bulged from my head and I swear my heart tried to pound its way out of my chest over her rough treatment, she laughed. “Oh my God. The look on your face when I did that was priceless.”

“Yeah,” I wheezed from winded lungs. “About as priceless as the table you just tried to shake apart.” Turning away from her, I wandered around, studying the pictures on the wall, most of them photographs of Henry David Thoreau or facts about him.

“God, this place is amazing,” I murmured, running my finger over a framed biography. “All the history, the stories, the different cultures. When I first came here, I thought all this gaudy shit was just a rich-people thing. But to learn the meaning behind each item…” I shook my head in awe as I gazed in wonder toward Isobel.

She wrinkled her nose. “A rich-people thing?”

I swallowed. Shit. I hadn’t meant to insult her.

“Yeah, you know…” I shrugged, only to realize, nah, she really didn’t know. Flushing, I sent her a wince. “It’s hard to describe the jealousy and declining self-worth a guy like me feels when he enters a house this…” I spread my arms to encompass the room, not sure how to properly define it. “This grand.”

Seemingly unoffended by my try at explaining myself, Isobel faced me seriously, before she leaned against Thoreau’s desk. “If you could decide between being poor but beautiful and popular and loved by everyone, or rich beyond your wildest imagination but so hideously disfigured to the point no one wanted anything to do with you, which would you choose?”

I stepped toward her and set my hand on her waist before murmuring, “We make ourselves rich by making our wants few.”

Her lips parted as if that was the most profound thing she’d ever heard. And it might’ve been, since it had originally come from the lips of Henry David Thoreau. Which was why I couldn’t continue to take credit for it.

I pointed past her toward the wall with my free hand. “At least that’s what Thoreau says.” She glanced back to find the quote printed and framed above the desk.

“Oh.” Scowling, she whirled back to poke me in the gut. “You cheated. That’s a cheater’s answer.”

I laughed and leaned in to kiss her temple. “Then I’d choose whatever option brings me back to you each day. Rich or poor, I don’t care. I just want you.”

The breath rushed from her lungs. Lifting her fingers, she drew a piece of my hair between her fingers and gently brushed it out of my face, whispering, “I like that choice. Even if it’s a cheesy line you just came up with.”

“I like you. And it wasn’t just a line.” Setting my other hand on her waist so I could grip her and pick her up, I scooted her further onto the desk until she was sitting on it fully and I was nudging my hips between her thighs. “Is it bad that I want to take you right here on Thoreau’s table?”

“No, but that might be a little more of a workout than it could survive.”

I sent her a wolfish grin. “Hell yes, it would.”

She laughed and gave my chest a little nudge to get me to back up. “I know a better place we could go.”

“Oh yeah?” I backed away, letting her hop off the table and take my hand before she led me to a closed door. Opening it, she stepped inside, bringing me with her. But I barely cleared the entrance before I halted abruptly, my mouth falling open…again, for probably the twentieth time today.

“Holy shit. Is this…?” I turned to raise my eyebrows at Isobel.

She nodded. “A recreation of van Gogh’s bedroom? Yes, it is.”

“Wow.” I reverently stepped deeper into the room, gaping at the red blanket and white pillows and high footboard on the bed to match the one in the famous van Gogh painting of his bedroom. The chairs, side table, and the window looked exactly as they should. I swear, even the vases on the table and clothes hanging from hooks on the wall were spot-on. The color of the walls, floors, and doors had me shaking my head in awe. It was as if I’d just stepped into the painting itself.

I wandered deeper into the room, pausing in front of one of the van Gogh art prints on the wall, where I let out a low, impressed whistle. “I wonder how much all this cost,” I said without thinking.

Isobel hooked her arm through mine and rested her chin on my shoulder as she pointed to the picture. “Much less than this painting right here alone, I imagine. After Dad won this thing in an auction, he had the entire room designed this way to hang it here.”

“Wait.” I jerked an instinctive step back. “You mean…” Now I was pointing at the framed picture in front of us. “That’s an original van Gogh?”

Isobel’s blue eyes danced with mischief as she grinned. “Yep. One of the less popular ones, of course. It’s called Iron Mill in The Hague, but it still cost nearly half a million, I believe.”

“Half a mill…” I took another step in reverse. “I’ve been working in a house with an original van Gogh painting in it, and I had no idea? Holy shit, I just breathed on it.”

I’d just breathed on something Vincent van Gogh had breathed on.

Isobel laughed. “You’re so cute.”

I was so out of my depth, that’s what I was. If I’d worried I was below her status before, now I was convinced of it. I touched her cheek, my fingers resting against soft, warm flesh, and I wondered how I was ever going to be able to keep such a prize. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve her. It couldn’t last. I was more certain of that than I was of my next breath. Being with Isobel could only be fleeting.

I should’ve backed away from her then and embraced my doomed fate. But she was standing here now, smiling at me, accepting me. So, from the words of Richard Bach, via Black Crimson’s graffiti art:

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.

I decided to enjoy this beautiful moment while it lasted. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, tender at first until I became hungry and seeking. She wrapped her arms around my neck and arched against me. I backed her toward the bed and toppled her onto the mattress.

Eyes wide, she clutched my shoulders and blinked up at me. “But you’re still on the clock.”

Since I was the only one in the room who actually cared about that, I knew I was pleasing her when I growled, “Fuck that. I need to be inside you. Now.”

Pleasure bloomed on her features. Lips spreading into a grin, she tugged at my clothes, her hands on the zipper of my jeans. I began to unbutton her blouse but didn’t have nearly enough skin revealed when the muffled voice of Kit startled us.

“Shaw! Shaw, where are you?”

It sounded as if he was in the next room over with Thoreau’s desk, so Isobel and I jerked upright and immediately started buttoning and zipping everything back into place.

“Mom needs some help in the kitchen,” the kid hollered. “Shaw?”

Isobel and I climbed off the bed, still breathing hard. Since we were as respectable as we were going to get, I called back, “In here.”

The door flew open, and Kit bounded inside. “Mom sent me to get you. She needs help with the dishwasher.” But he’d already forgotten about me, his gaze on Isobel. “Oh! Hi, Miss Isobel. Whatcha doing in here? Whose room is this?”

As she explained to him who Vincent van Gogh was, her gaze met mine over his head.

Tomorrow, I mouthed. We were so going to finish what we’d started in here on our date night.

Her cheeks brightened and eyes warmed with agreement, but she turned back to Kit, giving him all her attention.

Even though I was uncomfortable as hell with my arousal refusing to die a quick death, I whistled as I made my way toward the kitchen.

Saturday couldn’t come soon enough.