“Tell me about your wife,” she said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
He raised his head slowly to look at her. “Now?”
She knew the look in his eyes, felt his arousal against her thigh, and started to laugh. “If you wouldn’t mind, in fifty words or less?”
He chuckled, shifted his weight a bit, then frowned in concentration.
“Nothing really happened,” he said, looking back on it. “It wasn’t as if we cheated on each other or fought a lot. We were young when we married and our life was complicated—with Chloe coming a little sooner than we’d planned, working, and both of us with school to finish. I was substitute teaching and working on my master’s degree, and Janis was just finishing up her MBA and planning to go on to law school. But we were happy then. I finished up and got a full-time job. Janis started law school a semester late after having Chloe, but she made it up the next summer. There was a day-care program at the high school I taught at, and I’d take Chloe there sometimes, so Janis could study. If we had a problem, there always seemed to be some way to work it out. The crazier our life was, the happier we were—the more we needed each other, depended on each other, and valued the other.”
“So, what happened?” she asked when he seemed stumped on the memory.
He shook his head. “Life got easier, I guess. I was cutting my teeth as principal of a big inner-city high school, and she was a promising young clerk at a big law firm, Chloe was just three and starting preschool. We could finally afford to take a short vacation. We left the baby with Jan’s mother and went to the Bahamas for five days. On the fourth morning we woke up in each other’s arms and...just sort of stared at each other.” He frowned, remembering. “We were two people in bed together with nothing in common, no common goals, wanting different things out of life. We cared about each other, but we weren’t in love anymore. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. What we had just fizzled away.”
“That’s it? No blowout? Nothing?”
He rolled away onto his side, no longer in the mood, and propped his head up in the palm of his hand.
“No. We tried to make it work. We stayed together a little longer. For Chloe. For ourselves. Saw a couple different marriage counselors, her mother’s minister...It just wasn’t there anymore.”
“So you ended it.”
“Basically,” he said, nodding, his eyes clear and steady on hers. No anger. No regrets. No doubts. “She came home from work one night and said she thought we should—she thought she might be falling in love with someone else.” She cringed in sympathy at that, and he grinned. “By then I’d been looking at other women for a while.” He shrugged. “It was only a matter of time before one of us said it.”
“And was she, is she, in love with someone else?”
“The jury’s still out, but yeah, I think so. Maybe. She quit her job, rearranged all our lives, and moved all the way to Springfield to be with him. I’d say she was feeling something for him.” He laughed and reached up to play with a stray lock of her thick, dark hair that wasn’t spread out with the rest in a long tangle of curls across her pillow. “You know, if I were more philosophical about life, I’d be tempted to say that my marriage turned out the way it was meant to.”
“You would? Why?”
He traced the ridge across her lower lip with his thumb and wasn’t at all surprised to feel his desire for her stir once more.
“Because now I have the job I’ve always wanted. I’m living in a house I don’t have to pay for. And I’ve met you.”
She smiled, quickening hard and fast, her insides twisting into a greedy knot of need. She reached up and caressed his stubbled face, thoroughly amazed that she could. And because she could, she lifted her head off the pillow and kissed him.
No great philosopher, she didn’t care how they came to be together, only that they had. The newfound awareness of her own happiness had struck her with force and intensity, and she wasn’t about to question it. Enjoy it. Relish it. She’d cling to it as long as she could. A week. A month. A year—if good luck really existed.
He put his palm flat on her chest and pushed the pale blue sheet down her body, below her navel. A cool breeze sent chills across her skin. His hot mouth dropped to her breast. Exquisite pleasure swelled up in her, gurgled in her throat. Her back arched, and she squelched a flicker of guilt at her selfishness. She wanted this. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to love and be loved—if only for a while. Happiness was her right, and God knew, she was due some.
She rolled toward him, slipping her leg between his, pressing close to him when his lips met hers, clever and eager to please her. He leaned back, pulling her with him until she was on top of him. Kneading her firm buttocks, he let her feather kisses about his head and neck indiscriminately.
The world came to a screeching halt—and so did they. Their eyes traveled upward toward the ceiling where they heard Bert’s toenails tapping across the floor above to greet Chloe into a new day.
“Oh dear,” she said, suddenly standing beside the bed, tugging the last remaining tucked-in corner of the sheet loose to wrap it around her nakedness. “Quick. I have to go.” In a fluster, she was gathering her shoes and dress and underthings and holding the sheet and leaving and wanting to stay all at once. “Did I bring my purse? No. God, I don’t think I even closed my front door.”
He couldn’t help laughing. She reminded him of a nearsighted bird come in through a window, bouncing off the walls in an effort to find her way out again. Reaching for his pants, he thought he should help her before she knocked herself out cold.
“Oh sure, you laugh now. Just wait till you have to explain this to her,” she whispered loudly. “I don’t have time to get dressed. I’m taking your sheet. I’ll bring it back later.”
“Bring it back for breakfast.”
She gasped, surprised by what a great idea that was. She laughed softly.
“This is insane.”
Passing her on the way to the door, he planted a kiss on her mouth, saying, “Completely insane. And you’re loving it.” She grinned, unable to deny it as she tiptoed past him into the hall. He grabbed her arm, spinning her around toward the back of the house. “You laugh now, but just wait till you have to explain this to all the neighbors.”
She giggled. Clandestine love affairs and sneaking home in a bedsheet were new to her—and truth to tell, she was loving it. She’d bet her hair was a mess, too, but she didn’t care. Who would have thought the quiet, seemly, regimented Augusta Miller would ever feel so brassy, wanton, and careless?
He opened the back door for her, followed her out onto the porch, and held the screen door for her. Then because he wasn’t ready for her to leave him—and because her hands were full of clothes and bedding, he walked with her to the gate.
She hesitated before going through, made a vague gesture toward his house, and finally stepped forward to place her hand, palm flat, on his bare chest.
“Thank you,” she said, sensing it was a silly thing to say. Yet what more could you say to someone who’d rescued you from a prison, who’d mixed hope into the unrest of your heart, who’d awakened you with a kiss as if he were a prince in a fairy tale?
He grinned, dimples denting his cheeks deeply, fully aware of her meaning. “Hurry back and I’ll scramble your eggs too.”
She giggled. “And I thought you were obnoxious before. What have I done?”
He took a tender hold of her chin, tipped her mouth up to meet his. “You’ve made me very, very happy. That’s what you’ve done.” He kissed her again, his hands moving low on her body. “Think this bedsheet is big enough for both of us? Let me in.”
“No. Stay away from me,” she said, holding the sheet tight, backing herself through the gate, giddy with happiness. “Should I bring apple juice?”
His lecherous grin turned to a warmer, more meaningful smile. “She’d like that.”
The look in his eyes had her feeling more self-conscious than if she’d been standing there n
aked. She wasn’t used to being looked at as if she were a rare and precious gift—only the vessel of one. It was embarrassing. Recalling that Chloe liked apple juice was not that big a deal, but if it elicited that sort of response...
“Anything else? Milk? Cereal?”
He shook his head. “Just hurry back.”
SEVEN
GUS ALWAYS FELT THAT September was wholly misunderstood. Generally considered to be one of the autumn months because of the distance of the sun from the equator, in its heart it was still part of summer, clinging desperately to early sunrises, warm days, and balmy nights well into October as proof.
School started, but her heart as well cleaved to the sensations of summer. Redolent, romantic, fraught with life. Certainly she’d never felt more alive, more passionate, more acutely aware of subtle changes in the air.
The children, too, were hanging on to summer like leeches, tapping its energy, bleeding its spirit of freedom dry.
“Behave now. Keep your hands to yourself or you’ll have to sit on them until the bell rings,” she said sternly.
“I don’t wanna. And you can’t make me.”
She gasped at such impudence. “Guess again, pal. Just because I’m the music teacher, doesn’t mean I don’t have a ruler around here somewhere to rap your knuckles with.”
“You can’t do that. I’ll sue you for assault.”
“Oh yeah? Then I’ll sue you for...for...mental cruelty.”
“Mental cruelty?” he said, laughing as he continued to slide his hands up her bare thighs, her dress no obstacle at all. “You don’t look as if you’re suffering much.”
“I will be if the children catch us like this,” she said, unable to stop grinning. Scotty had her pinned against the blackboard in the music room, rendering pianissimo kisses over her face and throat, his hand movements clearly agitato. She squirmed to get away from him, and he grinned—affectuoso. “Is this how you behave at your school?”
“Who would I behave like this with? Mrs. Fiske?” he asked, chuckling at the picture in his mind, releasing her skirt—just in case.
“Carolann Goreman? I met her at the last school board meeting. I don’t think teaching biology was a random decision for her.”
“Me either, but...” he said, between tiny nips at her neck, “...she doesn’t smell nearly as nice as you do.”
Rubber-kneed and mentally foggy, it was several seconds before this registered.
“How would you know what she smells like?” she asked, catching him in a comparable condition and twisting easily out of his grasp.
“Eau de formaldehyde?” He laughed and let her go, discretion being the better part of most things in life. Besides, it was almost as satisfying to see the rosy flush of her skin and the vivacity that seemed to have taken up a permanent residence in her eyes of late. Well, almost. “Poor Ms. Goreman’s perfume turns a corner before she does.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” she said, pretending to be shocked as she prudently maneuvered so the piano was between them. “She wasn’t overly fragrant when I met her.”
A slow, smug grin settled into his expression. “You aren’t jealous, are you?”
“Me? Of course not,” she said, holding her head high even as she recalled how green and mean she’d felt the day she’d watched him with his sisters—and she’d barely known him then. “I trust you.”
“Do you?” he asked, glad to hear it because he sometimes wondered about it.
“Sure,” she said. And she did, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t constantly watching for signs of discontent in him. If the pattern of her life held true, he would love her and be faithful until she did or didn’t do something to change his mind, until he discovered how ordinary and imperfect she really was.
“Then give me your panties.”
“What?” She was instantly hot and shivering with chills despite the fact that she was pretty sure she’d heard him wrong.
“Your panties. Quick. Give them to me,” he said as a bell rang in the hallway.
“No. Why? No. What for?” she asked, backing around behind the piano as he walked toward her, smiling like a friendly wolf.
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with my underpants?”
“Just give them to me. I want to carry them around in my pocket all day.”
“No. That’s silly.”
“Please, Gus?” His voice was as soft as a kiss, his gaze as ardent as a lover’s touch. Mesmerizing. “Take them off.”
Anxious and confused, she worried her lower lip and tried to decode the look in his eyes, sensing it was more than a challenge or a dare. More than a simple act of trust. His request was like a sex act, as personal and intimate as making love, but scary and thrilling like doing it in an elevator.
“It’ll be our secret,” he said. “Something only the two of us know.”
She swallowed and teetered on the edge of titillation.
“Gus,” he whispered, soft and urgent. His gaze hot and pleading.
Breathing quick and shallow, her heart racing, her mind growing dull as excitement and desire curled low and deep inside her, she bent to lift the skirt of her dress. Her hands trembled when he leaned slightly over the piano to watch them. There was a boldness, an entirely feminine, erotic, and naughty sensation that she couldn’t contain as she lifted first one sandaled foot and then the other, couldn’t hide when she rose to face him with her panties in hand.
“You keep looking at me that way, and sitting on my hands will take on a whole new meaning,” he said soberly, until she laughed. He laughed with her, but it only added spark and light to the fires of lust smoldering in his eyes. “Now I know, for sure, that you’ll be thinking about me all day.”
“I think about you constantly,” she said, leaning against the back of the piano to be closer to him, a kiss-me-again smile in her eyes.
“No, I mean really thinking about me,” he said, meeting her halfway. “Touching you, kissing you, in you...”
A movement in the window of the door caught her attention—she hid her panties behind her as if the piano were transparent.
Seeing the look on her face, he responded naturally, turning casually to face the door when it opened. Beverly Johns held the door open for her thirty-one first-grade students, and they filed in, smiling at Gus, eyeing Scotty with open curiosity.
“Good morning, Ms. Johns,” he greeted her. “How are you today?” he asked, blinding the woman with his grin as he meandered around the piano, passed behind Gus, snatched her panties, and stuffed them into his right pants pocket. “Looks like you’ve got a great group of kids here.”
“I do,” she said, all but batting her eyes at him. “So far, I think this may be the best group of first-graders I’ve ever had.”
This being the second week of school, it was understood by everyone over the age of reason that her statement remained to be seen for several more months yet, but that positive reinforcement and a little ego boost couldn’t hurt the end result.
They exchanged a few more words, but Gus was too distracted to pay much attention. There was so much air and freedom under her skirt. Her thighs were tingling as if they’d never brushed together before. She’d worn a soft cotton half slip under the thin fabric of her dress, it was cool and smooth against her overexcited skin.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she was shocked and scandalized by her behavior. But up front and in her heart she felt like a vamp. Sexy and seductive. Full of sensual secrets.
Scotty, on the other hand, was growing uneasy. There were the panties in his pocket, of course, but at the moment it was the look on Gus’s face that threatened to be his undoing. Standing perfectly still, her hands sedately clasped on the top of the short, boxy piano, her eyes were dreamy and glazed, and she was smiling like a cat with a live mouse in her mouth. If she’d gone to bed and started without him, he couldn’t have felt more left out. She was turned on and ready, and he didn’t dare cross the roo
m to her.
He bandied a few words with Ms. Gray while her second-graders were finding places to sit on the floor, but his eyes kept gravitating toward Gus and the euphoric look on her face. With the addition of the two kindergarten classes, the music room was becoming crowded and noisy, and when he simply couldn’t restrain himself any longer, he used the hubbub and confusion to do something about it.
Removing his sport jacket, he laid it over the top of the piano, very nonchalant, and joined her on the other side. He rolled up his right shirtsleeve and most of his left before leaning toward her and whispering, “Feel good?”
She nodded and smiled at one of the children waving to get her attention.
“Let’s see,” he said, even as his right hand slipped behind her to stroke her bottom, one cheek at a time through her dress. She continued to nod and smile at the children, he noticed, but her eyes grew larger and rounder with each stroke. “Mmm. Care to join me in the hall, Ms. Miller?”
She laughed out loud then and shook her head, appearing for all the world to see to be declining a juicy offer from the notorious Scotty Hammond and innocently moving away from him as if he were a sweet but pesky suitor.
“That boy will never change,” Ms. Feldhour murmured under her breath as she walked away from her group of five-year-olds, alongside Gus. “I think he likes you, Augusta.”
“We’re neighbors,” she said, hoping that would explain everything.
“Well, you play your cards right and you might have something there,” she said, nodding sagely. “I’ll never forget, I taught him in Sunday school years ago, and he was the sweetest little boy...and shy, if you can believe it.”
“That is hard to believe,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at him, returning his conspirator’s grin.
“Oh, not for an instant,” she said, not wanting Gus to get the wrong idea. “He’s still one of the nicest, sweetest young men I know. I’m so pleased that he’s returned to us.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, fairly certain she’d never be able to convince anyone in Tylerville that Saint Scotty Hammond the Midas Man was walking around with her panties in his pocket—even with her bare butt as proof.
Ms. Miller and the Midas Man Page 10