“What do I get if I dress as Jean Harlow?” Aria whispered, her body feeling like rubber.
“Not more of the same because I’m done for.”
“Oh?” she said, wiggling under him, but it was a halfhearted motion.
“You are definitely a quick learner. Now go take a bath.”
“You’ll wash my back?”
“Maybe, but not your front. Your front gets me in trouble.”
She laughed at that.
He sat in the bathroom while she bathed and she asked him questions about his mother. He was still in a state of shock over his mother’s performance, saying that the woman he knew was quite a bit different from the high-stepper of that night. He remembered milk and cookies.
“And your father remembers begetting you,” Aria said, smiling, and she smiled broader when she thought she saw him blush.
“You want your back washed or not?”
“Sl, meester, I do,” she said in her Carmen Miranda accent.
J.T. groaned but when he washed her back he kissed her neck.
He bathed next and she washed his back. Aria put on a lilac spaghetti-strap nightgown and stood quietly outside the bathroom.
“What are you waiting for?” J.T. asked.
“I wondered which bed was to be mine tonight,” she said shyly.
He pulled her into his bed. “With me, of course.” He cuddled her to him and went to sleep right away.
“I got his attention,” she murmured.
“What, honeybunch?” J.T. muttered.
“A new name,” Aria said happily, and snuggled closer to him and went to sleep.
* * *
The next morning she woke slowly, smiling at the sunlight coming into the room. It was already growing hot but she didn’t mind. Her body felt heavenly. She moved a bit to see J.T. lying beside her. Last night had been a dream come true. No pain, no discomfort at all, just pure sensual happiness.
She eased onto her elbow to look at him. My, but he was good-looking. Wasn’t it odd how the more time they spent making love, the more handsome he became? He was much better-looking than Count Julian. In fact, right now she thought he was better-looking than any other man on earth.
How would it be, she wondered, if he opened his eyes and whispered, “I love you”? How would it feel to have a man say those words to you? Of course Count Julian had said them to her but they both knew he had only wanted her kingdom. This man didn’t want her kingdom. In fact, all he wanted from her was her body.
She smiled at that. On the island she had been a princess and he hadn’t obeyed her, hadn’t done anything she had wanted, but when she acted as a woman acts…then he did anything she desired.
She realized that she wanted to please him. She had been taught to believe that the only persons she had to please were those of higher rank than she. But here in America she had wanted to please the wives of the other officers, she had wanted to please her mother-in-law (she swallowed at that memory), and now she wondered what it would be like to please her husband.
She knew he wanted her to learn to be an American and she vowed to try even harder to
be as American as she could be. Maybe she would barbecue hamburgers for him; American men seemed to love big pieces of meat.
He stirred in his sleep, opened his eyes, and looked at her. “Good morning,” he murmured as he pulled her to him and cuddled her against his big, hairy body.
“What is that American bear the children hold?” she asked.
“A teddy bear?”