“We’re going to do both.”
She shivered at the promise in his voice, but she pushed on. “I don’t want to leave you right now.”
“I’m not going to leave you, I’m going to get in with you.” Sloane entered the bathroom, still holding her hand. His eyes took in the old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub. “Perfect.”
Elise had to remind herself to breathe. She watched as he bent and pushed the rubber stopper into place, then turned on the water and adjusted its temperature. He straightened and faced her. Even though they weren’t touching now, Elise felt as if Sloane were stroking her body. Her hand went to the top button of the bodice of her dress and froze there. She looked down at her own long fingers wrapped around the dainty mother-of-pearl button. She couldn’t move.
Sloane’s hands covered hers. He pried her fingers from the button and unfastened it himself.
“What would your mother say if she knew what we were about to do in her bathtub?” Sloane whispered in her ear.
It was the last thing in the world Elise had expected him to say. She felt a surge of laughter start at the tips of her toes and progress up her body. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t do anything except give in to it. How had he known that the same thought had crossed her mind?
“I’ve never even kissed a man in this house,” she told him when she could.
He unfastened the next button and caressed the newly revealed skin with his thumbs. He smiled at the noise she made deep in her throat. “I could never understand how you could be such a perfectly proper daughter and still have a streak of sensuality as deep as the Wehachee running through you.”
She trembled with anticipation as the third button was undone. She was grateful for Sloane’s conversation. He had sensed her fears, and his voice was soothing. He was talking to her like the old friend he was as he undressed her like the ex-lover he was. The combination was irresistible. She lowered her eyes and watched his hands as she answered him.
“Split personality. I learned to cut one off from the other, at least when I was around you. I never needed to do it any other time.”
He unbuttoned two more; now the dress was open down to her waist. His fingers brushed the soft skin of her stomach as he reached behind her under the dress and unhooked her bra. “Such a waste.” He stepped closer and his mouth nuzzled her neck. “All these years, when I allowed myself to think about you, I’d imagine you married to some lucky Miracle Springs businessman who didn’t deserve you. I pictured you having your mama over for Sunday dinner and running over here every night to be sure she’d taken her pills or tucked herself into bed properly. Then I pictured you going home to your husband and shedding your clothes and your inhibitions.” Reluctantly he abandoned her back and his hands came out of the dress to settle on the dainty linen collar. Slowly he pulled the fabric down over her shoulders, over her arms, until it was free to her waist. “I never thought of you alone. Why did you let that happen?”
“You spoiled me for anyone else.” Elise reached behind him and locked her fingers in his hair. “I tried. With Bob.”
Sloane snorted against her ear.
“I dated others. Every time a man would get close, I’d realize he wasn’t you.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t think that was a recommendation.”
“For a while I did. But when it got to the point where it was either full steam ahead or breaking away, I broke away. In my own naive fashion, I think I was being faithful to you.”
Sloane was shaken by her admission. His hands tightened, and he pulled her closer against him. “Lise, did you think I was coming back?”
She sighed, and her head dropped against his shoulder. “No. But I had this dream of coming after you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Elise wondered what there was about standing almost naked against a man that loosened her tongue so. “I almost did once.”
“What stopped you?” he asked harshly.
“Fear. I knew you were in college by then, at Goddard. I bought a ticket to fly to Boston. But when the time came for me to get on the plane, I couldn’t do it.” She pulled her hands from his hair and placed them lightly on his shoulders. “What would you have done if I’d showed up at your door?”
Sloane truly didn’t know. He shook his head in response.
“I knew it was too late for us,” she said, her hands falling to her side. “But I should have come anyway. Then I would have known. I could have got on with my life.”
Sloane reached around behind her to hook his fingers under the scrap of lace that had bound her breasts. The bra fell to the floor.
His eyes closed for a moment, but watching him, Elise knew it was not disappointment that held him in its grip. A curious strain seemed to settle over him. “You should have come.” He opened his eyes once more. Almost hesitantly he reached up and stroked one breast with his fingertips. Elise could feel her flesh tighten. “How can you still be so beautiful? And so responsive?” He shook his head.
Elise unhooked the black leather belt that held the dress at her waist and felt the fabric billow around her feet. She slid her fingers under the elastic of her half slip and pants as Sloane watched her, and pulled them down over her hips until they were lying with the dress. Bending slightly she rolled down the tops of her thigh-high stockings until they were off, too. She straightened to face him, her hair falling over her shoulders like a veil.
She knew she had changed. Years didn’t pass without changes. She had neither borne nor suckled children to mark her body with those wonderful signs of transition, but age had still left its imprint on her. Nothing was as firm or as smooth as it had once been. The straight planes of her body were softer now; she was rounder in the hips and thighs, her breasts no longer tilted perkily to the sky. She was thirty-five, not seventeen, but she was curiously undisturbed that Sloane would see her this way. She was still the same woman, even more of one than the teenage lover he remembered.
Sloane reached behind him to turn off the water, but his eyes never stopped traveling the length of her body. He drew a deep breath as she lifted her arms to twist her hair and sweep it into a thick knot on top of her head, fastening it with a barrette from the counter over the sink.
He stepped forward and settled his hands at her waist, then lifted her and turned to place her in the tub. She gasped as the water stung her skin, but she slid down into it and turned to watch him undress.
Elise had seen Sloane clad only in swimming trunks, and she had tried to ignore the response of her body to the firm skin and the broad expanse of his shoulders. But now there was no reason to ignore anything. She let her eyes drift slowly over each part of his body as it was revealed to her. Sloane was older too, and yet the changes in his body were good ones. He was broader, more padded, but the padding was muscle and firm, supple flesh. He was stronger, more solid. If possible he was more desirable. She felt a wave of heat at the realization.
“Feeling warmer?” Sloane asked, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile as if he could read the response of her body in her eyes.
Elise could feel the heat travel to her cheeks and she knew she was blushing. Thirty-five and she still blushed like a virgin under his gaze. “Not warm enough,” she said, holding out her arms to him to counteract her response.
If he was surprised by her invitation, he didn’t show it. He stepped over the edge of the tub and slid into the water behind her. Then he slipped a leg around each side of her and cradled her body between his thighs. The intimacy, the sheer luxury of being surrounded by a man, by Sloane, destroyed whatever shyness she’d felt. She was too alive with feeling, too suffused with waves of desire to feel anything else. Elise leaned back against Sloane’s chest and moaned softly as his hands settled at her breasts.
“You fit my hands so perfectly. You always did,” Sloane murmured in her ear. He cupped the warm water and drizzled it slowly over her breasts, then smiled at the small noise Elise made in response. “When I was seventeen I t
hought that was no accident. I fantasized an understanding being somewhere in the heavens who’d created us to fit together so well.”
Elise leaned more fully against him and began to stroke the tops of his legs with her palms. The hair-roughened skin against the smoothness of her hands was a homecoming. How well she remembered this feeling. How she had longed for the special freedom of exploring a man, knowing every inch of his body intimately. Even as she thought the words, she knew it was not just any man she had longed for. Only this one.
The tips of her fingers sank lower in the water to discover the sleek softness of his inner thighs. His response was immediate.
Sloane’s hands tightened on her breasts and his thumbs brushed against her nipples. Elise’s breath caught in her throat.
She felt Sloane’s lips against her shoulder. Slowly he nuzzled his way up to her ear. His teeth caught her earlobe and tugged lightly on it. Then his tongue traced the graceful whorls, dipping inside to send sparks through a body that was already on fire.
As he played with her ear, his hands slid lower, skimming the taut satin skin of her abdomen to rest at the juncture of her legs.
It was only then that Elise realized how great her need. She caught her breath and held it, fighting back the instant response to his touch. Her hunger embarrassed her, humiliated her. What would Sloane think? They’d only just begun.
She turned a little so that her side was against him and she could see his face. She felt she had to explain, to apologize. “Do you know what this is doing to me?”
Sloane nodded his head in response.
She was ashamed, ashamed that she had let her own needs build until they were driving her to rush something she’d wanted for years. “I feel like I’m coming apart inside,” she mourned.
“That’s what it’s supposed to feel like.” He bent his head and found her lips, turning her around with his hands at her waist until she was lying across him, her breasts rubbing against his chest. “Has it been that long, Lise?”
“Too long. God, much too long.”
There was no more reason to talk, to rehash a past that had cheated them both. They were starved for each other. She tried to know each inch of his body. She wanted to remember it all, to be able to pull out and cherish the sensation of his skin against her fingers, her lips, her breasts. Frantically she drove herself to make memories. If this was to be a reprieve from loneliness, let it be complete. Let it be a moment caught in time.
Sloane’s response was immediate, although he held back. “Lise, I want to be gentle,” he said finally. “If it’s been such a long time for you it might hurt …” He tried to push her away, to slow down the passion that had ignited so fully.
Elise ignored him, seeking the evidence of his desire. She’d done little to excite him directly, yet he was completely ready for her, hot and hard and more than willing. She couldn’t believe he really wanted to wait. Grasping him with her fingers she lowered herself over him, bringing him home where he belonged. Her cry was exultant. Sloane was truly hers once more.
He shut his eyes and clasped her against his chest. He could feel the shudders run through her body. He knew it would take very little to turn them into full-blown quakes. “We never had any control,” he apologized as she moved against him again.
“I don’t need control. I need you.” The ecstasy she felt was so overwhelming that it surprised even her. Her body, set free to pursue its goal of pleasure, ignored all the warning signals from her brain. It carried her along like the tumult of a rising river, and she could only go with it. Each time she moved, each time Sloane moved, she experienced such an agony of sensation that she knew she was going to explode.
Yet she didn’t. Sloane was holding back as if he were afraid his own passion would hurt her. He had promised her slow and gentle lovemaking. He seemed determined to uphold that promise no matter what it cost him.
“Don’t you want me?” she asked him finally, her words as heated as the sensations flooding her. “Have you forgotten what it’s like to want me?”
His control slipped. His fingers dug into her and he turned her slightly so that he could plunge deeper into her flesh. “I never forgot. Never.”
She gasped and felt herself spinning away from him even as he held her closer. He thrust once more and she came apart against him, crying out his name. He thrust once more and joined her.
Afterward they lay in the cooling bath, their breath mingled and slower. Elise rubbed her hand over Sloane’s chest to spread the beaded droplets of water and watch them condense. She was strangely embarrassed to meet his eyes. She had orchestrated this, rushed them to a conclusion that should have taken much longer. But she had wanted him so badly. And that need and desire had been clearly communicated.
“Let’s get out of here before you get chilled again,” Sloane said finally. He sat up straighter, bringing her with him. Elise pushed away to stand and step out of the tub. She was numb with uncertainty. Did she dress again? Did he? She turned to see if she could read an answer in his eyes. She saw in them a duplication of her own doubts.
She turned and took a bath towel off the rack on the door and began to dry herself, carefully avoiding any more direct glances at Sloane. She wanted only to maintain whatever dignity was left. She heard Sloane get out of the tub and then felt him tug the towel from her fingers. He dried her, using long, gentle strokes. Then he unpinned her hair and used the towel to blot the moisture from the long strands. When he was finished, he dried himself, then lifted her chin and forced her eyes to his.
“I don’t know what to do,” he told her. “I want to stay the night. Will you let me?”
Elise wondered if she had misread his feelings. Or perhaps she hadn’t, and he was being kind. She had certainly made her needs clear enough. They were needs most men would be glad to oblige for a night, Sloane included.
“What do you want, Sloane?”
“This night. With you,” he said, stroking the soft skin under her chin.
Elise knew a clearer statement of his intentions would never be issued. He would give her this night, even enjoy the giving, but he was warning her it was all she could expect, no matter how powerful her own needs. It was what she had known all along and what she had feared.
“Lise?”
“What about Clay?” she hedged.
“Clay’s staying at Aunt Lillian’s for the night because I have to get up early tomorrow and head to Gainesville. No one will know if I spend the night here.”
“That’s not exactly true, not with your car parked outside. The whole town will know.”
Sloane stiffened and drew away. “That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”
It would be a problem. Affairs in a small town were grist for the gossip mill. Elise could imagine the speculations of her neighbors. They would know just exactly what she had given Sloane. They would also know how little it had mattered to him when his car never appeared in front of her house again.
“I have to live here,” she countered quietly. “What people think matters to me.”
“How about what I think?”
Elise lowered her eyes. “I know what you think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The humiliation she had successfully suppressed came rising to the surface. “I threw myself at you tonight. Completely. I imagine it was flattering and scary as hell at the same time. But you don’t have to be scared, Sloane. I know what tonight was, and I know what it wasn’t. I just don’t want the whole population of Miracle Springs to know the same things.”
“What do you mean, what it was and what it wasn’t? It hasn’t had time to be anything compared to what it could be.”
“Tonight was a one-night stand. I’d rather not share that piece of news.”
“Fine.” Sloane reached for his clothes and began to dress. “In other words, now that I’ve served my purpose, I can get the hell out of your house before your neighbors begin to speculate that you’re really flesh and bloo
d.”
She wanted to protest, but Sloane was turning toward the door, one hand buttoning his shirt as he did. “I won’t be back,” he said, “even if you get all charged up again and invite me. I won’t be used to relieve your sexual discomfort. I thought we could have something different, but I was a fool. You’re no different than you ever were. You put everybody else’s needs and opinions before your own because then you don’t have to make decisions. You’re a coward, plain and simple.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly afraid that she had misjudged him. “Tell me what you mean!”
“Figure it out by yourself. I’ve got to go move my car!” Sloane slammed the bathroom door and the explosion resounded through the silent house. Elise leaned against the sink with her eyes closed and listened to the angry sound of his retreating footsteps.
CHAPTER NINE
Amy turned up the collar on her wool jacket to cover the back of her neck and pulled the front zipper a little higher. It was hard to believe that only a few weeks ago she’d been wearing shorts to school. The change in temperature that had begun the night of the Get Acquainted Dance was now firmly established. It was truly autumn. She could only be grateful she didn’t live farther north, where blizzards had already been reported.
She tucked each of her hands under the opposite arm and stomped her feet to keep warm. Kids streamed past her on their way home to seek shelter. Amy nodded her head in response to their comments, barely registering what was said.
The first wave of students had come and gone before she saw Clay in a cluster of boys walking in her direction. Yes, it was definitely Clay, deep in conversation with some of the kids in his homeroom. So deep in fact that he almost missed seeing her. Just as she was beginning to feel irritated at his lack of interest, his head lifted, and he looked directly at her and smiled.
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