Spring fancy

by LaVyrle Spencer

  Caught off guard by her sudden reversal of roles, just when he'd been about to make his move, he stood with his shoulders and chest heaving while the awesome power of his breath beat between them. His fists were clenched. The shadow in his navel became rhythmically wide, then narrow, wide, then narrow again.

  Muscle by muscle he forced himself to relax, then with his dark eyes boring into hers, he swung onto the chair. But instead of facing the mirror, he faced her, straddling the small stool as he'd done once before, running his hands up the backs of her thighs, cupping her buttocks and pulling her up close. He pressed his face into the warm pillows of her breasts, but immediately she pushed his shoulders back, gaining her freedom.

  "Not yet. I feel feminine and powerful when I make you wait, just as you made me wait. Let me hang onto it for a little while. Relax… close your eyes… please."

  He did. And stopped trying to claim her, resting his wrists on the low wire back of the chair, letting his relaxed fingers trail toward the floor. His shoulders slumped a little. His head relaxed and his lips parted slightly. Though his breathing was still pressured, the rest of him waited in apparent repose.

  She adulated his hair with her eyes before doing what she'd thought of doing countless times. She lifted her fingers and threaded them through his curls. But his locks had coiled tightly as they'd dried, and only at the crown of his head was his hair still damp. So she brushed it, running the bristles back from his forehead to the base of his neck, then from his temples to the same spot. When she drove the brush through the curls, his chin lifted and his head was tugged backward. But his eyes stayed closed.

  "The two things I loved first about you were your hair and your eyes. Even that first night I had the terrible urge to touch your curls, to smell them." She leaned forward and buried her nose in the soft strands, kissed his warm skull-his hair was the finest texture of any she'd ever felt, and as she sniffed its clean scent, his moist breath dampened the fullest part of her right breast. Still he remained docile, not grasping or nuzzling. Pleased, she returned to her delightful chore. She'd been brushing for a full minute when she felt his fingers behind her right knee. They brushed upward until they encountered her red knit shorts. Her breathing shattered, and she glanced down sharply only to find his eyelids still closed. His fingers glided slowly down to her knee again, then made the same titillating journey up and down her opposite leg. The brush continued drawing through his hair, but slower… slower… slower…

  His knuckles caressed her inner thigh and trailed upward to tease the tender flesh at the top of her leg. Then he treated the opposite limb to the sensual harbinger of things to come.

  Her hand now lay still upon his head, the brush caught in his curls while the backs of his fingers brushed upward again and slipped within the elastic of her panties. But instead of retreating, his fingers continued moving up to her hip where they explored the hollow before making the leisurely journey back down again.

  When they touched flattened hair, his fingers paused, and both Joseph and Winn opened their eyes. His head was thrown back, hers dropped forward. Neither of them saw a visible movement on the other.

  He slipped his fingers fully within the white tricot garment and sent rivers within Winn's body flooding their banks. Her left eye blinked slowly. Her wrists fell limply across his shoulders, and her tongue stole out to wet her lips. His free hand found her back and drew her closer until she took a single step, and her knees came up against the back of the chair.

  His warm wet tongue touched the bare skin of her stomach just above her waistband, and then his teeth grasped the elastic of her red shorts and worried it suggestively before he fell back again, gazing up at her blue aroused eyes.

  He turned his exploring fingers over so the pads rested against her flesh, but still they encountered little, for Joseph reached from an awkward angle, sitting below her, straddling the chair as he did.

  "Kneel down," he ordered in an odd, thick voice.

  His hands pressed her hipbones, and without hesitation she dropped to her knees. His right hand splayed upon her back while his left slipped down inside the elasticized waists of both garments, searching for the object of his desire.

  Then the brush dropped to the floor with a muffled thud as an agonized sound came from her throat.

  His lips found hers, and she gripped his shoulders while his explorations took on a rhythm upon which she rode as if posting with the canter of a horse. A deep groan vibrated in his throat, and she slid one hand down his hard chest with its sleek covering of hair, passing a tiny nipple, then continuing down the wedge of hair that led to the brief strip of fabric covering his loins. When she caressed and measured him through the cutoffs, it was with zipper and placket adding to the fullness of his flesh.

  His widespread legs gave her full access to him. She followed his example, slipping her fingertips up inside a frayed leg, encountering first the resilient texture of a soft masculine orb that was flattened by his shorts. He groaned and stretched backward, removing his lips from hers. But still, she couldn't reach. He moved sinuously, lifting his hips from the tiny chair, bracing against the dressing table on an elbow.

  She reached for his waistband, and at the touch of her warm fingers on his stomach, he jerked in a breath and held it, creating slack between his flesh and the garment. The muscles of his stomach were like sculpted teak as she touched them with her knuckles while working the heavy metal button from its hole.

  She thought about the white cotton he'd earlier clenched in his hands. She reached for the zipper and eased it down with agonizing slowness.

  He jerked again as she touched him deliberately for the first time, but tentatively, almost shyly, with fingertips only, then he settled his hips back against the chair and waited. He lunged forward now in the chair, whispering harshly in her ear, "Winn… Winn… I've wanted you to touch me for so long."

  She'd always thought it was women who voiced such yearnings, but his heavy breathing and words of encouragement made her realize he was different from most men. He was unashamed of admitting his vulnerability, and this pleased and excited Winn.

  When her hand closed around him for the first time, he groaned and rammed one hand inside her back waistline, the other in the front, bracketing her like a saddle made of warm flesh, until his fingers met and nestled within her warm folds.

  "Oh, Joseph, you're so good at this. I knew you'd be. I use to lie awake at night and imagine the different ways you'd touch me… oh!" She gasped and arched backward, and his tongue slipped into her mouth with a rhythmic imitation of the stimulation he was bestowing.

  The upward pressure increased, taking her with it until she realized he had stood and bowed his legs around the tiny chair, then kicked it behind him, pulling her to her feet in front of him.

  With a swift flexing of one knee, he took her shorts and panties down to the floor. When he raised up again her hands were waiting to skim down his ribs and shimmy his cutoffs over his hipbones. They hit the floor with a soft jingle of change from one pocket, and he stepped from them and swept both arms around her, as they'd been before, one along her center front, the other center back, resuming the sweet insinuation of which she'd not yet had her fill. Their mouths met with a voluptuous exchange of tongues while her hard stroked, caressed, explored.

  "Easy, lady," he whispered gruffly into her mouth. "I'm about at my limit."

  "So am I."

  He lifted his head and smiled. "So soon?"

  "Too soon?" she inquired diffidently.

  "Mmm…" His eyes caressed. "Not at all. Come here…" His hair-spattered legs nudged her smooth ones until she came up against the foot of the bed and fell backward.

  He dropped to his knees on the floor, parting her legs with his chest as he fell forward, spread ing his hands wide across her ribs while kissing the soft valley at her waist. He pushed himself higher, driving his chest hard against the bony feminine structure that lifted to greet his flesh as it pressed.

  Then at
last-oh, sweet last-he kissed her breasts, taking turns, a kiss on the left, a kiss on the right. A lick across the left nipple, which lifted in frustration, and then across her right. She clutched the back of his head and would not allow him to move away, directing his mouth to the puckered tip that strained willingly against his tongue, which at last closed over it. Wide, wet, wonderful taking of what she offered, what he'd put off encountering until he, too, had known intense desire for it. He stroked the nipples with his pursed lips as if they had length, much as a clarinet player softens and plies the reed of his instrument before trying to force perfect notes from it.

  But the perfect notes were forced from Winn's throat as ecstasy found voice. They were wordless notes of praise and heightened desire. She writhed beneath him and lifted her hips in invitation. But he pressed her flat, taking his time, leaving her breasts with the outward drawing and dampening strokes until the need for more was actual pain down the center of her body.

  His warmth disappeared from her breast, and she opened her eyes to look down at him. He was studying her without smile, his eyes slightly somber in the mellow light from the dresser lamps. "If I'm going to get you for only one night of my life, I want to have all of you. I don't want to look back and wish I'd done what I wanted to do."

  She braced up on both elbows, her blue eyes immersed in his intense brown ones. His pose announced his intentions, and her heart thrummed crazily as she wondered if she were adventurous enough for him. Yet she felt so right with him, her inhibitions waned before the power of his eyes. They were both exceedingly physical people-she should have guessed that in the love act he would be as physical as he was on a racket-ball court. She sensed him waiting for her approval and lifted a hand to caress the hair above his ear. He turned to bite her little finger and spoke with it still between his teeth.

  "You still smell too much like me, and I want you to smell the way I remember you smelling. So, lay back, Winn, and indulge me, please, pretty lady."

  She paused uncertainly, then fell back, watching cautiously as he rose to his feet and crossed to her chest of drawers. From its top he took a round white plastic container upon which lay a white fuzzy puff. He slipped the cover off, then turned back toward the bed. Her eyes followed as he came to sit beside her, his knees hooked over the foot of the bed while he twisted at one hip, then fell back onto one elbow. He set the body powder on her far side, dipped the puff and said, "Lift your chin for me."

  She did, letting her eyes drift closed as the scent of Chanel No. 5 filled her nostrils. He fluffed it upon both of her breasts, her ribs. "Lift your arms." She threw them lazily over her head and let erotic images drift across her mind, powered by the evocative scent. He dusted her armpits, then the arms themselves, replenished his supply and leisurely began an excursion down one leg, pushing himself to a sitting position, finally lifting her foot from the floor, bending forward to reach its instep. Her other leg and foot received the same attention before he bent her leg forward and kissed it lightly, then let it drop.

  Once more he dipped the puff, applied a white cloud to her abdomen, and the soft hollow of her inner thighs. He leaned, gave her belly a lingering kiss, then ordered, "Roll over."

  With hands still thrown above her head, she rolled. The soft tickle of the powder puff touched each inch of tensile skin as she turned her cheek into the rumpled bedding and relaxed. When he brushed the hollow behind one knee, she flinched and rubbed it with the opposite foot.

  "Ticklish?"

  "Mmm-hmm," she murmured into the bedspread.

  "Mmm… interesting." He trailed only the finest tips of the puff along her hollows again, and she writhed and reached back to slap his hand away. He chuckled deep in his throat, then the mattress shifted, and she heard a light thump on the floor, the touch of plastic to plastic, and a moment of silence before his knees cracked.

  His cool rough hands surrounded her left foot and bent it at the knee. Something warm-his nose-touched it, running from big toe to heel before he kissed and wet the arch, then lowered the foot again and ran a string of moist kisses up her calf, pausing longer at the hollow behind her knee before continuing along her firm thigh, over one buttock, which he bit lightly, then up its rise to her vertebrae. When he reached her neck, his knee was pressed between hers, and a palm rested on either side of her head.

  "Winn, my beautiful Winn. If I do something you don't like, just stop me."

  But she couldn't imagine putting a stop to heaven. He knew the female libido as he knew the angles of a racket-ball shot, anticipated Winn's every response, much as he could anticipate the caroms of a ball off walls, ceiling and floor.

  He played her with an expertise she found at once appalling for all the practice it must have taken him to become so facile at it, and debilitating for how accurate he was about her most vulnerable spots.

  He smoothed his hands over her shoulders, lowered his naked length upon her back and writhed his hips while slipping his hands beneath her to caress her flattened breasts. And all the while his tongue searched and teased her neck, her earlobe, her nape, the tendons below her arms, her waist, her buttocks, then down her legs until he knelt on the floor again.

  With gentle but relentless hands he turned her over onto her back again. He kissed the insides of her knees, her thighs, bringing responses singing to the surface of her skin, plunging her into a new realm of wantonness where nothing mattered except that he bring ease to the awesome throbbing within her body.

  When he touched her, she was unprepared for the fiery heat of it, and her hips leaped convulsively… once. Then her fingers took great fistfuls of the bedspread and twisted. And twisted. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced before, not only in its power to stimulate, but in its far greater meaning, the total giving over of one's self to another for that burning space of time. It was the epitome of vulnerability. The epitome of trust.

  As she lifted to him, she heard his murmured wordless protestations of love. The pleasure was terrifying. And so intense at times she whimpered, hearing her throat creating sounds it had never made before.

  She would realize much later that at one point while he stroked her ever closer to the brink of climax, her mind pictured a line of black powder with the sparkles of fire sizzling along at a steady relentless pace; burning its way closer and closer to the detonator, then reaching it at last and sending the earth into the sky.

  "Jooooo-seffff…" she growled in two elongated vowels of ecstasy as her body quivered and pulsated.

  Then her hips collapsed. There were beads of perspiration on her face and along the center of her chest. Her throat hurt from the rasping cries he'd forced from it. She was lethargic, limp. She was sliding down the bed, drawn by strong hands that curled beneath her knees and tugged. When her hips reached the end of the mattress, Joseph's face appeared above her.

  "Winn Gardner, I love you." His elbows trembled as he braced a palm on either side of her head, then his warm swollen lips pressed to hers. And she tasted of the sweet fragrance with which he'd earlier powdered her.

  His rigid body hovered at the entrance to hers, and she reached to guide it within, offering her deepest self as his heart's ease. She learned a new wonder about this act of love: how magnificent it is to experience it in an already sated state. For while Joseph thrust above her, she was replete and aware, taking exploratory interest in each of his tensed muscles as they rippled along her ribs, corded at his inner elbow and bulged across his chest. Her palms hovered lightly on his buttocks, feeling them grow hollow, then round, with each driving stroke of man into woman. She contoured his hips and felt the smooth movements of meshing in his superbly toned body. His back-ah, his back, how warm and strong and tough it was as he undulated. She came to know its texture beneath her palms, then beneath her heels, beneath her calves. And once she reached the backs of her fingers to the soft masculine orbs that swayed against her as he rocked into her flesh, her light touch an accolade to the act they shared.

  He was an exquisit
e male animal, a sensitive human being. He was more than her sexual nemesis. He was her love.

  When he climaxed, he drove her a foot up the bed with the force of his final thrusts, and a magnificent animal sound escaped his gritted teeth.

  Then he fell, exhausted, almost knocking the breath from her.

  Chapter 10

  " Winn, what are we going to do?" The sheen had dried from his shoulders. He lay on his side, his troubled brown eyes probing hers.

  "I don't know."

  "You can't marry him. You just can't."

  She closed her eyes and the lids trembled. She opened them, and he saw the turmoil she faced. A terrible hurt grabbed his heart like a giant fist, wringing.

  "Could you really do this with me, then go back to him?"

  "What other choice do I have?"

  He lay with an elbow folded beneath an ear. With his free hand he caressed the side of her face, his fingertips delving the messed hair at her temple.

  "I want to say, marry me, Winn, and I think that's what I want. But it's happened awfully fast. I need some time alone with you, more time than we've had. We both need it so we can explore the possibility. I'm twenty-seven. I've waited a long time to find the right woman, and I don't intend to make it a temporary commitment when I get married."

  "Neither do I."

  His thumb had been stroking her cheekbone but fell still. Their somber gazes grew too intense, and she closed her eyes to shut out his compelling face.

  "Look at me!" His hand pressed hard in emphasis. She opened her eyes again. "I love you, Winn Gardner. But I don't want you to do the thing that's wrong for you. I've spent a lot of time sending out little digs about him and you, hinting that he's not right for you, not good enough for you. Is he?"