by Nan Ryan
His mouth covering hers, he nudged her slender legs apart and agilely moved between. He lay very still atop her for a moment, his weight supported on his stiffened arms, his mouth fused with hers. Their lips finally separated. Blackie raised his dark head.
He spoke her name and Lucy gazed into his dark, flashing eyes as he thrust swiftly into her. Her hands clutching his hard biceps, she winced at the sharp, stabbing pain and bit her lip to keep from moaning. Her eyes closed, she fought back the tears.
“Baby, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she heard Blackie whisper and his mouth pressed soothing kisses to her closed eyes, her feverish cheeks, her trembling lips. “Try to relax. The pain will soon pass, I promise. Don’t be afraid, sweetheart.”
Lucy was not frightened. For this shining hour, for these glorious moments, she was complete, as happy and as fulfilled as it was possible to be on this earth.
It was pure heaven to lie here in the arms of this magnificent man whom she loved more than her own life. There was nothing she would have changed. It was perfection, all of it. Even the pain was beautiful because with it, she became his. She belonged to him, now and forever. And in her heart of hearts, he would always belong to her.
So Lucy laid in the arms of Blackie LaDuke, learning, loving, living. This, she knew, was life—real life—and she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Soon the pain gave way to pleasure, and pleasure turned to sheer ecstasy. Blackie took her with deep, slow thrusts and Lucy’s pelvis lifted and lowered to match his languid driving rhythm.
It was good for Lucy.
It was fantastic for Blackie.
They moved together in slow, graceful splendor as if they’d been made for each other. Moonlight silvering them and the bed on which they made love, they undulated sensuously, their damp bodies slipping and sliding together until the sweet, sexual joy Blackie found in Lucy propelled him into the fast, frenzied rhythm that led toward blinding release.
Lucy’s eyes widened with wonder when her orgasm began. Her nails dug into the smooth skin of Blackie’s back, as the bliss spiraled steadily upward until wave after frightening wave of nearly unbearable ecstasy buffeted her. When the feeling became so incredibly enjoyable it actually hurt, there was a long, fierce explosion of heat that caused her to cry out and call Blackie’s name in delirium.
It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
Blackie let himself go then, driving savagely into her with deep, fast thrusts until his own release came on the heels of hers. He groaned as if in great pain and the tendons in his neck stood out in bold relief while his spasming body spurted hot, thick, semen deep inside Lucy.
Panting, breathing hard, Lucy let herself fall back onto the pillows. Blackie collapsed against her.
“You alright, baby?” Blackie murmured, his perspiration slick face buried in her damp curly hair.
“Wonderful,” Lucy whispered, wrapping her arms around him to hold him close, to keep him on her and in her for as long as she possibly could.
Silence came then, and peace.
The sweetest kind of peace known to humans.
But sooner than either could have imagined, the total peace gave way to gentle stirrings of new desire. Affectionate touches changed to arousing caresses. Quick brushes of the lips turned to long, drugging kisses of passion. Hands and mouths became insistent. Naked flesh responded to sensual stroking and lusty licking.
They made love again.
This time Lucy was seated astride the reclining Blackie. It was even better than before. Her hands clasping his rib cage, unbound hair whipping wildly about her head, she quickly caught his rhythm, moved to meet his deep, driving thrusts with slow, erotic rolls of her hips.
They looked into each other’s eyes while they made love. The pleasure was incredible, awesome. Lucy gazed steadily into Blackie’s fiery, night-black eyes while her breasts swayed and danced and she gyrated her bare bottom. Grinding and bucking against him, she felt him expand and throb within her.
It was pure heaven.
So pleasurable she wished she could stretch it out, make it last, but she was such a novice she had no idea how to go about it.
His mind as well as his body totally in tune with hers, Blackie murmured hoarsely, “Just slow it down a little, baby. Easy, sweetheart…easy…yes, yes…that’s better…that’s it…” He took his hands from her hips, folded them beneath his head, and let her learn how to love him languidly.
Lucy learned fast.
Encouraged by Blackie and guided by her own innate sexuality, Lucy eagerly experimented, playing at this new delightful game, bent on discovering how to best prolong and increase their pleasure. She made love with total abandon, watching Blackie’s handsome face for response, asking questions, taking instructions.
And when finally it came, their climax was so awesome, so draining, it left them both fully satiated. Tired and happy, Lucy fell asleep in Blackie’s arms almost immediately.
She slept serenely while the bright moonlight slowly inched away, leaving their entwined naked bodies in darkness as the moon went down and the dawn approached.
Blackie never closed his eyes.
Shortly before daybreak he slowly, carefully, untangled himself from Lucy, moving her slender arms from around him, sliding her bent knee off his belly. She shivered slightly in her sleep, sighed softly, turned over onto her stomach.
And slept on.
Blackie eased across the mattress and slipped from the bed. Silently he went into the black marble bath, quietly closed the door, and stepped into the shower. Out after only five minutes he hurriedly dressed. He skipped the morning shave.
Back in the bedroom he eyed the stacked luggage, ready to be taken downstairs. One suitcase remained open for last minute items. Blackie glanced around. His discarded suit trousers were on the floor beside the bed. He picked them up and frowned, wondering where he’d left the matching jacket. He went into the drawing room, turned about in a circle, and spotted it. His shoes sticking out of the pockets, the jacket lay on the floor. Sheepish, recalling how he’d thrown it against the wall last night, he went to retrieve it.
A dainty, lace-trimmed, blue satin garter fell out of a jacket pocket. Blackie bent and picked up the garter, held it for a second in the palm of his hand, staring at it. Then he exhaled, shoved it into his trouser pocket, and rushed back into the bedroom.
Blackie stuffed the wrinkled clothes into the open suitcase, closed the valise, and looked around to see if there was anything he had forgotten.
He saw only Lucy.
He moved silently to the bed and looked at her. She slept peacefully, her bare body relaxed and half turned toward him, her features soft and sweet in repose, like those of an innocent child. Blackie went down on one knee beside the bed and leaned closer. He stared at her, memorizing each line, each plane and angle of her pretty face. Then soundlessly, he rose and walked away.
Blackie never considered waking her to say goodbye. He hated goodbyes. He never said goodbye. Never had. He’d learned that little trick when he was just a child and had been shipped off to boarding school. If you didn’t say goodbye, it didn’t hurt so bad.
The first gray light of dawn began spilling in through the open balcony doors. Blackie knew he’d better hurry if he was going to make his train. He picked up the heavy, black suitcases and headed for the door. He eased it open, carried the luggage through, set them down, and turned back to close the bedroom door.
His hand shook slightly on the gold knob and a muscle spasmed in his beard-stubbled cheek.
Blackie pulled the door shut, lifted the luggage, crossed the spacious parlor, and stepped out into the hall. He walked down the silent corridor whistling softly.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Boardwalk was deserted. The white wicker rolling chairs were parked in neat rows out of the way. Awnings on the Boardwalk stalls were pulled down and tightly fastened. The booths were empty. Closed for the winter.
It was a resort out of
season.
A pervasive gloom had settled over the place. There was no sun. The sky was a bleak, gun-metal gray. Low lying clouds looked like rain. A strong wind whipped in off the dark, restless ocean. White capped breakers crashed loudly on the desolate Jersey Shore.
Summer was over. Blackie was gone. And Lucy was thirty years old.
Sand blew into Lucy’s face as she strolled aimlessly down the abandoned Boardwalk. She told herself that the irritating grains of sand were responsible for her stinging eyes. Blinking back the tears she refused to let herself shed, Lucy walked almost a mile on that dismal Tuesday morning.
Heading in a southerly direction on the long wooden promenade, she considered going down to the beach. Down to where she and Blackie had drunk champagne and kissed in the magical moonlight.
She decided against it.
Lucy paused, ventured over to the Boardwalk’s waist high steel railing. She rested her hands on the damp metal and looked out at the nearly empty beach. A handful of people were milling about. But they were mostly the clean up crew, collecting the mountains of refuse left by yesterday’s massive crowd.
No squealing, laughing bathers rushed into and out of the surf. No sun worshippers lolled lazily on the sand. The big, muscular lifeguards were no longer on duty. The sand artists had departed.
Lucy turned suddenly and hurried back up the Boardwalk. When she was sure she had located the right spot, she stopped and leaned out over the railing. She squinted down at the site where a few short days ago her Happy Birthday sand sculpture had graced the beach. No part of the sculpture remained. It was gone. Trampled by thousands of bare feet and carried out to sea with the tides.
Lucy’s chin sagged down onto her chest. She closed her eyes. Her hands gripped the solid steel railing and she stood there motionless, lost in thought. Only a few seconds had passed when a soft, almost inaudible sound, which she couldn’t identify, attracted her attention.
Lucy’s eyes opened and she looked curiously around. She heard the sound again. A soft plaintive moan or the whimpering of a small child. Frantically she looked about, searching for the source. She saw nothing, no one.
She felt a tug on the hem of skirts and glanced down. Her lips fell open in astonishment. Lucy immediately went down on her heels and put out her hands.
“Precious, what in the world are you doing here?” She picked up the heavy black Persian and rubbed her cheek against his head. “I can’t believe Lady Strange would allow you to…to…”
She stopped speaking. Her eyes lifted, swept searchingly out over the beach.
Laboring to keep up, Lady Strange was short of breath as she waded through the soft sand of the beach. She had been short of breath since Cort Mitchell had banged on her door a half hour ago, waking her from a deep slumber.
“Beatrice, wake up!” He had shouted loudly, his fist hammering on the solid door of her penthouse suite. “It’s Cort, Beatrice, get up!”
Her heart had started pounding before her feet touched the floor. Cort never called her Beatrice except in times of an emergency. And he knew better than to awaken her before ten thirty in the morning unless it was absolutely necessary. She glanced at the porcelain clock on the marble mantle. Five minutes to ten.
Anxiously hiking the long tails of her flowing nightgown up around her dimpled knees, Lady Strange lunged out of bed, rushed frantically into the parlor, and opened the door.
“It’s time, Bea,” Cort said gently.
“Oh, dear god,” she murmured and her plump hands flew up to cover her mouth.
“Get dressed, my dear,” Cort patted her rounded shoulder soothingly. “He’s asked to go down to the beach. He wants the ocean to be the last thing he sees on this side.”
Nodding, she gave no reply. Just turned and hurried back to her bedroom. Ten minutes later she was puffing and trying to keep up with the long legged Cort as he pushed Lochlin MacDonald’s wheel chair down the deserted, wind-swept Boardwalk. Worrying and wondering how Cort would be able to get Lochlin down from the Boardwalk and onto the sandy beach, she trotted along beside Lochlin’s rolling chair. Wheezing and chattering nonsensically, Lady Strange, for once in her life, scolded the spoiled Precious when the big, black tom kept getting in their way.
The trio reached the nearest set of wooden steps to the beach. The winded Lady Strange watched in awe and admiration as the sixty-six-year-old Colonel Cort Mitchell lifted Lochlin’s chair—with Lochlin in it—and carried the dying man across the lonely stretch of sand almost to the water’s edge. There, Cort carefully set the chair down.
Lochlin MacDonald could no longer move a muscle. Nor could he speak. But a dim light still burned in his expressive eyes and it said to Cort, ‘thank you, good friend, for letting me spend my last minutes here beside this old briny sea I so love’.
“Don’t mention it,” Cort said aloud.
“Is there anything we can get you, sugar?” Lady Strange asked, taking one of Lochlin’s useless hands in both of hers. He blinked no. “Well, you just tell us and we’ll get it for you,” she said as calmly as if she were asking him if he’d care for another glass of iced tea.
Lochlin MacDonald gazed wistfully out at the ocean, his eyesight fading as death drew ever nearer. Still, those dim eyes lighted slightly when he caught the ocean’s heavy scent and felt the sea breeze ruffle his lank, perspiring hair.
One lone tear formed in the corner of his left eye.
Lucy stared in disbelief when she spotted the three people far down on a lonely stretch of beach. The tall, silver-haired Colonel Mitchell and the short, mountainous Lady Strange flanked Lochlin MacDonald in his chair.
Lucy was dumbfounded.
She had never seen any of the trio on the beach before and couldn’t imagine what they were doing there on a bleak, sunless morning such as this.
Puzzled, Lucy nonetheless started to smile, feeling her spirits lifting a little. What difference did it make what they were up to? She was delighted to see them. She’d go down and join them, say goodbye one more time.
Lucy lowered the purring, black Persian to its feet and murmuring “come on, Precious,” eagerly headed for the wooden beach stairs. She stopped there, hesitated, then took off her shoes and stockings and left them on the bottom step.
Her smile growing wider, she yanked her skirts up and started to run toward the trio.
Cort saw her first.
He looked up when Lucy was still a couple of hundred yards away. His worried frown alerted Lady Strange. She turned her head and saw Lucy in the distance, running eagerly toward them.
Smiling nervously, she leaned down and said to Lochlin, “Dearest, that sweet Lucy Hart has spotted us from the Boardwalk. She’s come down to the beach and is heading in our direction.” Lochlin could no longer even blink his eyes to object, but Cort Mitchell was a perceptive, sensitive man.
He knew.
Cort said, “Lochlin, I imagine you’d rather Lucy not see you like this. I’ll go stop her.”
The Colonel walked fast across the sand. He intercepted the running Lucy when she was still more than fifty yards away.
Gently clasping her upper arms, he said, “Child, Lochlin’s…he…well, he isn’t feeling his best this morning.” He smiled down at her. “He told me he’d skin me alive if I allowed any pretty young ladies to see him looking anything less than his handsome best.”
Lucy looked into the Colonel’s calm, gray eyes, then past him to the others. “But I…I’m leaving at noon and I just wanted to say one last goodbye.” Her eyes returned to Cort’s face. And she knew. Somehow she knew. Had known all along. “Colonel, he’s…Lochlin is dying, isn’t he? I mean right now, this morning?”
“Yes, Lucy, he is.” She saw his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down in his throat. He continued calmly, “He won’t live out the hour. Bless his heart, he’s such a proud man; he wants to go with as much dignity as possible.”
Tears again stinging her eyes, Lucy nodded. “I understand. “I knew you would.” He sa
w the tears brightening her green eyes, lifted a hand and gently cupped the back of her head. “Don’t be sad, child. Don’t grieve for Lochlin. It’s a merciful God that’s freeing him this morning from the prison of his useless body.” He kissed her cheek, then hugged her. “Go now, and take with you only the good memories of your visit. Will you do that?”
“Yes, Sir, I will,” she said, the words muffled against his shirtfront.
“Have a safe journey home, Lucy.”
He released her. She turned away. He stood there and watched as she ran bare-footed across the sand, skirts and chestnut hair flying in the rising winds.
Cort took a deep, spine-stiffening breath and started back. When he was still a few steps away, he called, “She didn’t suspect a thing, Lochlin, she said…she…”
He caught sight of Lady Strange’s tear-wet face and stopped speaking. Silently he moved around in front of the wheel chair and looked down at the man seated there. The lone tear that had formed in Lochlin’s left eye was still there. It had never fallen down his pallid cheek.
Cort Mitchell took a freshly laundered, linen handkerchief from his pocket and gently blotted the tear from the corner of Lochlin’s eye. He put the handkerchief away.
With his right hand he gently closed the dead man’s sightless eyes and said, “Good-bye, old friend. May the wind be at your back throughout all eternity.”
Then Colonel Cort Mitchell turned and took the weeping Lady Strange into his comforting arms.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A chill, wind-driven rain greeted Lucy when she stepped down from the train at the Colonias station. Other than a few scattered sprinkles, it was the first real rain the community had seen for more than three weeks. The hard driving rain peppered Lucy’s face and the winds pressed her beige traveling suit against her slender body as she dashed into the shelter of the depot’s small waiting room.