by Laura Jordan
“I never cared for that. I wondered why Seth didn’t bequeath me the majority of his estate. Now I know. He knew I’d be uncomfortable with it.”
“He knew I would be.” He kissed her forehead and played his fingers across her lips. “I love you, Kathleen.”
She raised up on her elbows and said, “I love you, Erik. More than any house. More than an inheritance. More than anything. I’ll never run away from you again. You’re my security, my home, my life. Believe me, I’ve learned that running away never solves anything. It only prolongs it. Had I not been orphaned at the age I was, maybe I wouldn’t have been so afraid of life’s consequences. Intelligently, I knew better than to duck the issues, but sometimes emotions override intelligence.”
“Did you ever wonder why we were put through this? Why we couldn’t have met at Mountain View, fallen in love and admitted it, gotten married, started our family without having fought so damn hard for it all?”
Kathleen pondered his question at length before she attempted an answer. “I don’t think either of us was mature enough to accept the responsibility of that kind of relationship when we met. We weren’t capable of making the commitment, because we were each so wrapped up with ourselves. The life, the happiness, we’ll know now has more value, because it was so hard to come by. And we wouldn’t have known Seth. I think we both learned what it really means to love from him.”
Erik was quiet for a full minute before he said, “You’re too young to be that wise.”
“That’s just what a woman who is lying naked with her lover wants to hear—how wise she is.”
He laughed. “Let’s bring Theron in here to sleep with us tonight.”
“Okay, but later. I’m selfish and want you all to myself for a while longer.”
“I think I can suffer through that.”
She kissed him, and as with all their kisses, what had been intended as a brief caress became one of passion. Finally, she dragged her mouth from his. “When will you marry me? Tomorrow?”
He stretched lazily and said, “Gee, I don’t know.” His eyes rested on her breasts as he drawled, “I may not respect you in the morning.”
Kathleen’s green eyes narrowed and she slipped her hand down his body. “It’s not your respect I want right now.” His breath was sucked in quickly as she found her target.
“Perhaps we… Perhaps we should set the date after all… ah, Kathleen.”
“Do you know what I’d like?”
“No, but it’s yours,” he said breathlessly. “Anything, darling, anything.”
She chuckled and continued her sweet torture. “I’d like for all of us to go to Arkansas and get married in the chapel at Mountain View. I want B.J. and Edna to be included. We could invite your mother, Bob and Sally, Jaimie and Jennifer, George and Alice, maybe even Eliot would come. And, of course, Theron will be there.”
“Right now,” Erik ground out, “I’d agree to… to anything.”
She draped his chest with her hair and leaned over him, brushing her lips across the flat brown nipples as she asked, “Do you love me?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
Her tongue flicked over him and he moaned in ecstasy.
“Tell me,” Kathleen insisted, her mouth now teasing his lips.
He caught her hand with his and pressed it against him. His blue eyes pierced through the darkness like a beacon and captured her in their magnetic light. “Yes. With my heart, with my life, I love you, Kathleen.” He lay atop her, gathering her to him and relishing her nakedness. His lips kissed her while his hands stroked the silkiness beneath them.
“See how right we are, Kathleen.” Her eyes followed his down the length of their bodies lying entwined. He straightened his arms, levering himself up so they could see his virility nestled in her receiving warmth. Lifting his eyes to hers, he nudged her provocatively. “Touch me. Please.”
She lowered her hand between them and closed her fingers around him. The smooth, love-bathed tip knew the brush of her thumb. “I love you, Erik.”
“I love you.”
As they watched, his body was fused with hers. Their loving knew no bounds, but it was far more than physical. This time, it was made complete by the knowledge of the other’s commitment. Not only their bodies, but their spirits as well, were forged by a conflagration that burned in a timeless sphere.
* * * * *
George opened the door quietly and peered around it. “They’re all in there, all right,” he told a curious Alice who was trying to see over-her husband’s shoulder. “Snug as three bugs in a rug, all in the same bed and apparently naked as jaybirds.” He chuckled. That earned him a slap on his arm.
The three people lying in the bed were unaware of their audience. They all slept facing the same direction. Erik’s arm was stretched across Kathleen and his hand rested on the shoulder of his son, who was curled up against his mother.
“They belong together like that,” Alice whispered as George shut the door.
“Yes, they do. Indeed.”
Table of Contents
Start