Allure of the Vixen by C. C. Morian Page B

better or worse? That you
aren’t the only one?”
    Now my ego clashed with my guilt. “Better, I think.”
    “See? That wasn’t so hard. It’s the first step in
acceptance.”
    I stood up abruptly. “I’m not sure I’m anywhere near
acceptance.”
    She moved close to me, very much in my space. Our
space; I’m not sure I’d ever have my own space with her, even now. “Maybe one
of the reasons I didn’t come right out and make it clear I was married was that
I was afraid you’d react like this.”
    “Damn right.”
    Joanne reached up and put her arms around me and
placed her head on my chest. “I just wanted you so much. I didn’t want to take
the chance of not getting you. I was wrong, I see that now. The truth would be
important to you, I should have known that from the beginning. Can you forgive
me?”
    I didn’t embrace her, I just stood, aloof. But I
didn’t push her away.
    “I thought I was going to be the one asking your
forgiveness.”
    She let me go and stepped away, the flash back in
her eye. “I haven’t forgotten that. You can be a hard man.”
    “It’s who I am. You asked me not to judge your
husband. Don’t judge me.”
    “It’s not a judgment. I didn’t say it was bad. Just
that you can be hard.”
    I shrugged. “Are we done here?”
    Joanne’s mouth quivered, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve
made your point. And I apologized. I was selfish. What more do you want?”
    She had a way with me, that was sure. She said she
was sorry, but at the same time, she was apologizing for being selfish in
wanting me. Making me feel desired, making it the excuse for her
untruthfulness. Making it hard to not forgive. How could you not forgive
someone who’s sin was in wanting you so much?
    I couldn’t decide if she was the most
straightforward woman I had ever met or the most devious.
    She was certainly the most desirable.
    “I need some time to think about it,” I said.
    “Don’t take too long.”
    “Or what? You’ll move on to another lover?”
    Joanne stood up on her toes, her lips dragging
across mine. “Not yet. We’re not done, you and I. And I want you.”
    Her lips parted, her taste forcing me to remember,
as if I could forget.
    I managed to hold back for an instant, less to prove
to her that I could, and more to prove to myself. Then I kissed her back.
    I could feel her smiling right through the kiss.
    I managed to escape from Joanne’s clutches that
morning. After she left I took a long cold shower. I hated cold showers, but I
needed one to cool down my ardor, and also shock my senses clear. Joanne had a
way of twisting me around. I had gone from wanting to scream at her, to
ignoring her, to listening to her, to making her coffee, to kissing her.
    If I had let her stay another ten minutes I’d be
fucking her. I knew it, and so did she.
    To her credit Joanne left without complaint, without
me even having to usher her out the door. I had asked for more time to think
about it, and she was going to give it to me.
    Now I just had to figure out what I wanted.
    I wanted her , of course. If anything, she was
more alluring than ever. I wanted to fuck her, but more than that, I wanted to
have all of her. I wanted to be the total lover she claimed she could never
find. One who would totally satisfy her.
    And she knew that too.
    Had Joanne played all her other lovers this way?
Letting them have so much, yet denying them one thing, one thing they really
wanted, the need growing the more she denied it to them. Letting them fuck her,
but not lick her. Letting them lick her, but not be taken by her in her mouth.
Letting her do whatever she let each one do, but in every case, denying them
something else. Dangling this unreachable goal in front of their noses, that of
the perfect lover. Her denial of his existence, yet every man’s desire. Wanting
what they couldn’t have, because Joanne had already decided that no such lover
existed.
    And Peter, her husband. In some ways he had nothing,
he