“It would be nice. Thanks for the thought.”
Saturday came too soon. The number of last-minute chores was almost too demanding for one person to handle. “I’ll be glad when I open my office and have a place to store my own merchandise,” she told the woman she’d hired to assist her.
“Be sure and remember me when you start hiring,” the woman said.
“If we get on well here, I will,” she said.
She didn’t remember a more elegant, perfectly served dinner, but almost as soon as the coffee and aperitifs were served, guests at table after table lit a joint, and she was sickened by the aroma and the inhalation of the smoke. Because she was responsible for everything in the room, from glassware to the chairs on which the people sat, she was reluctant to leave. She noticed a change in the type of drugs used and, in desperation, called her sister and explained her dilemma.
“I’m responsible for all these things I rented,” she told Alexis, “and I can’t decide whether to walk out or stay here and protect my financial interest and risk being arrested.”
“I hope I never have to bail you out of jail, hon. Go near the front door, so you can get out if things get worse. And have your coat and your pocketbook close by.”
She enjoyed a challenge, and right then, she faced a serious one, but if she stayed and was arrested on a felony charge, she could say goodbye to her business.
“I’m leaving,” she said to herself. “After all, everything I rented is insured.” She rushed to the cloakroom, got her wrap and briefcase and headed for the door. But as she reached for the doorknob, the door opened with such force that she fell backward and nearly toppled to the floor.
“Sorry, I…”
Thinking that a policeman had stormed in, she stood behind the door waiting for a chance to slip away. However, the intruder, realizing that he had hit something or someone, pulled the door as if to close it.
“What the…Velma! For Pete’s sake, did I hit you with this door?”
She stared up at Russ, too dumbfounded to speak and wondering how and why he was there. “Let’s get out of this place,” he said, taking her briefcase in one hand and her elbow in the other one. “I smell that weed all the way out here.”
“How did you know about this? Did Alexis tell you?”
“Indeed, she did, and it’s what you should have done.”
“I was leaving when you almost knocked me unconscious, wasn’t I?”
“I know how you must feel about this, so I’m not going to react if you decide to chew me out for coming here to get you.” As startled as she was, she recognized the change in his voice from outrage to gentle caring. “Will you let me take you home?”
He settled her in his car before getting in and fastening his own seat belt. “Where to?”
By then, her alarm was turning to anger. “Home, please. All that scrumptious gourmet food, and I had to leave without tasting even a crumb of it. I have never been so disgusted.”
He rested his forearms on the steering wheel. “Run that past me again.”
When she repeated it, he said, “If I ever learn how your mind works, I’ll give myself a medal and I will deserve it. If you’re hungry, we can go to a restaurant, to my apartment where I may be able to find a sandwich, or to your house, and I’ll cook whatever I can find there.”
“How about takeout?” she asked him.
“Whatever you want.”
“Surprise me with something from that gourmet take-out shop.”
He bought two veal cordon bleu dinners, a quart of pecan praline ice cream and a bottle on Pinot Grigio wine. “We are going to have a feast,” he told her and headed the car for her house.
“You set the table, and I’ll put the food out,” he said. “Where do you keep your serving plates?”
“What the heck?” she said to herself and led him to the cabinet that held her fine porcelain. “He bought the dinner, but we’re eating it in my house.” She set the table with white linen place mats, crystal wine goblets, sterling silver flatware and white candles in silver candlesticks. Not satisfied, she took the bowl of yellow snapdragons from the coffee table in the living room and placed them in the center of her dining room table.
“There,” she said, then lit the candles and dimmed the chandelier.
“Hey! What’s all… Were you expecting dinner guests?” he asked her.
“I set the table while you were doing whatever you were doing in there.”
“Woman, your mouth is going to be your ruin.”
“I’m sure that with your help it can learn to be…uh…gratifying rather than ruinous.”
“I am not going to touch that. The table is lovely. You and Alexis have a penchant for elegance, and it suits you both, or maybe I should say you wear it like your skin.”
“Thanks. Hadn’t you better say the grace? I can imagine what Tara would do if she saw us sit down and immediately begin to eat.”
“Don’t mention Tara and grace in the same sentence. She’s the reason I started saying it at home. By the time she finished saying the grace, the food was cold. She was four years old, first time I had that experience, and she blessed everybody she ever heard of.”
She didn’t think it wise to eat the ice cream following that caloric meal, but a feeling, warm and sensuous, washed over her when she looked first at the double scoop that he served her and then into his dark eyes. Eyes that sparkled with warmth, affection and mischievousness.
“Anything I give you will be good for you,” he said with a grin that spread over his entire face.
“Anything?” A ten-year-old would have detected the sexual overtone in that one word. In an attempt to cover that brazenness, she smiled and added, “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t doubt it.”
He set the ice cream down in front of her and handed her a spoon. “It’s a good thing you don’t, because nothing revs my engine like a good challenge.”
She thought it best not to push the envelope further, to resist being clever and enjoy the evening with him. “I don’t put these dishes in the dishwasher,” she said, “so let’s stack them in the sink.”
“Nope. We’ll clean the kitchen properly.”
She stared at him. “You’re ruining your reputation as a sloppy person.”
“No, I’m not. I’m sloppy, but I am very clean, and I don’t like to look at dirty dishes.” They hand-washed the dishes and glasses and put the silverware in the dishwasher. “Now, you won’t face it tomorrow morning.” He took her hand and walked with her to the living room.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a fire in that fireplace?” he said. “It’s what I miss most about being away from Harrington House.”
“It won’t take but a minute,” she said and lit the kindling.
“Come over here?” he asked when she would have sat opposite him, and patted the place beside him on the sofa. His arms slid around her; she inched closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“You ate with gusto tonight.”
“And I’ll pay for it.”
“Do you believe that the only thing about you that attracts me is what I see?”
“Whether you’d walk away from me and whether you would still care for me aren’t the same thing.”
He tightened his arms around her, leaned over her and gazed into her eyes saying nothing, wordlessly communicating to her what she needed so badly to hear him put into words.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Russ, tell me you care for me.”
“Don’t you know that I do? When we’re together like this, can’t you feel it? I care deeply for you.”
His heat enveloped her, firing up every nerve in her body, and heating the blood that rushed to her vagina like lemmings toward the sea. She swallowed the moisture that accumulated in her mouth and lowered her gaze. But he tipped up her chin with his index finger.
“Look at me.”
The hard, masculine man in him seemed to jump at her, lassoing her the way a cattleman ropes a st
eer. She couldn’t stand the intensity of his gaze and the sensual storm raging in his eyes sent shivers coursing through her body. “Honey,” she whispered as her breathing became pants, “hold me.”
Her left hand brushed the side of his face and slid up to the back of his head, but still he gazed at her, seeking she didn’t know what. When she could no longer bear it, she said, “I need you, Russ. Just like you need me, I need you.”
The words had barely escaped her lips when she felt his mouth hard and urgent in hers. “Open, baby. Open to me.”
His tongue drove into her mouth and she welcomed his passion, pulling him deeper, sucking on it, feasting, satisfying her hunger to have him inside of her in any way possible. He slowed the pace, and brushed his lips over her eyes, her cheeks and her neck.
“Kiss me. Kiss me,” she moaned, and he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips before finding his home inside, darting, searching and claiming her. She was going mad, she just knew it, when her nipples began to ache and the discomfort between her legs made her want to cross her knees and create a friction of her own.
“Russ, please.” She grabbed his hand and rubbed it across the nipple of her left breast.
He unzipped the back of her dress and pulled it down to her waist, tore off her bra, bent to her breast and covered it with his warm lips. Screams tore out of her as he suckled her, teasing the nipple with the tip of his sweet, loving tongue and pulling on her as if his life depended on it. Her hips began to move, and when he stopped, she held his head to her, moaning as he kissed, nipped and suckled.
“Honey…oh, Lord.”
The suckling ceased, and she looked up to find him gazing down at her. “Do you want me? Now? This minute?”
“Yes. Yes. Oh, yes!”
“If we take this step,” he said in a voice she hardly recognized, “there won’t be any turning back for me. So if you’re not sure I’m the man for you…”
“I love you, Russ. I fell in love with you Christmas Eve. You’re it for me.”
He zipped up her dress, took her hand and climbed the stairs with her. In her bedroom, he took her in his arms and asked her, “Are you sure?”
For an answer, she unbuttoned his shirt and reached for his belt, but he stilled her hand. “Let me.” In seconds he’d stripped her of everything but her bikini underwear, threw back the bed covers, lifted her and lay her between the pink satin sheets. He stood gazing down at her, and when she tried to cover her body with her hands, he stopped her.
“This minute is mine. Let me enjoy it.”
She reached out her arms to him and he moved to the edge of the bed, unbuckling his pants as he did so. He let them drop to the floor and stood before her nude but for the G-string that cupped him. She had never dreamed that a man’s body could be so beautiful, lean, tapered and muscular.
She wanted to touch him, to feel him, and when she ran her hands over the treasure before her, he jumped to full readiness. She realized that she licked her lips though she was a little scared at the size of him. When he put one knee on the bed, she opened her arms to him in a gesture as old as time. Her legs spread as if of their own volition, for she could think of nothing but getting him inside of her.
“Will you let me lead us in this?” he asked, leaning over her.
For an answer, she nodded, but her fingers itched to stroke him, to make love to him and she moved her hand over his left pectoral. “Too soon for that,” he said and brushed her lips with the tip of his tongue. And then he was lying on top of her, and she could feel his strength as she parted her lips for his kiss. But he didn’t linger there. His mouth cherished her ears, eyes, nose, neck and throat.
If only she could feel his lips warm and moist pulling at her nipple! But even as she tried to rub her breasts against his chest, he denied her.
“Russ. Honey, please.”
“Please what. Tell me what you want. I want to please you.”
“I want your mouth on my nipple. I want… Oh…” she moaned as he suckled her left breast and rolled the nipple of her right one between his fingers. Rivulets of heat cascaded through her body and zoomed straight to her love canal. Her hips undulated and she reached for him, but he moved away from her.
“Russ.”
He moved downward, and she felt his lips on her navel, kissing her belly as his fingers skimmed the inside of her thighs. She tried to cross her knees, but he held her open and vulnerable to him, kissing her thighs and beneath her knees until she thought she would incinerate. Suddenly, he gripped her legs, rested them on his shoulders and parted her delicate folds. She held her breath, and then the tip of his tongue sent fire shooting through her. Her moans filled the room as he kissed and sucked until she let out a keening cry.
“Get inside of me. Honey, get in me.”
He kissed his way slowly up her body. “Open your eyes, and look at me.” She felt his fingers dip into her folds and stroke the nub of her passion until the liquid of love flowed freely from her. If he didn’t get inside of her she’d die. He reached down and handed her a condom. “Can you…?” She snatched it from him, took him in her hands and rolled it on him.
“This first time is important for us,” he said. “I want you to trust me.”
“I do. I do. Please.”
He kissed her nose, and let her feel the tip of his penis. But frustrated and anxious, she grabbed his buttocks and swung up to him, taking him inside of her.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. The feel of him. Oh, the feeling of having him inside of her. Slowly he began to move and as she joined his rhythm, the pulsating began. He increased the tempo, moving in and out and from side to side, filling her to the point of explosion but not letting her burst.
“Russ, I’m dying. I want to burst.”
“You will. Be patient and give yourself to me.”
“I am. I do.”
“All right. Move with me now.” He reached between them and stroked her. She couldn’t bear it. Suddenly, heat seared the bottom of her feet, her thighs trembled and the squeezing, pumping and clinching began in her vagina.
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Baby!”
The heaven-and-hell pleasure gripped her and she threw out her arms in surrender as her cries of passion echoed through the bedroom. The unearthly sensation plunged her to the depths and then flung her up to ecstasy.
“Oh, Russ. I love you. I love you so much.”
The wind seemed to seep out of her, but then she wrapped her weakened arms around him and met his thrusts as he raised his head from her breast, and drove into her, pumping furiously. With a groan, he tightened his buttocks, then let out a fierce shout and gave her the essence of himself.
“Velma. Sweetheart. Mine. Mine.”
Open and more vulnerable than he had ever been in his life, he braced himself on his elbows and gave her as much of his weight as he dared. Drained. She had drained him of more than the fluid that left his body, more than his energy and strength; she took from him the part of himself that had always propelled him to walk alone. The quiet of the room, broken only by the sound of their breathing, seemed to him as noisy as the loneliness he had sometimes felt. He couldn’t find himself. Still buried within her, still a captive of the drug that gripped him as nothing ever had, he couldn’t do the one thing at which he had always excelled: think. He couldn’t think straight. When she stirred beneath him, he raised up with his elbows for support and looked down into her face. Her sweet, loving face.
“I love you,” he said. “I don’t have to ask whether you had an orgasm, because the strength of it nearly wrung me out of socket. Ah, Velma. Velma.” Her lips, glistening and pouting, beckoned to him and he bent to taste their sweetness.
“I love you, too. And I want you to know that I never felt anything like that before in my life. I don’t think I knew who I was, until now.”
He rubbed her nose with his own. “I certainly never had an experience like that one. If I had, only the Lord knows what kind of wild oa
ts I’d have been sowing.” He felt a playful slap on his buttocks.
“You no longer know or understand what wild oats are. They’re out of fashion. Got that?”
Soul-warming laughter poured out of him. “As long as I can sow my oats with you, I don’t care about the wild ones.”
She raised her arms and stretched like a cat, and he stared down at her until she drew up her knees, bathed her lips with the tip of her tongue and asked him, “Any more where that came from?”
He grinned, partly because her words amused him and partly because just knowing that she loved to make love with him turned him on.
“For you, it’s like an eternal flame, a spring that can’t dry up. Why? Interested?”
The shock of her teeth on his left pectoral sent a shot of adrenaline straight to his groin, and he hardened within her. Pride suffused him when her eyes widened, her lower lip dropped and her eyes then took on the glaze he recognized as desire. She bucked beneath him, and an indefinable, gut-searing sensation plowed through him.
Her fingers dug into his buttocks, urging him to move, and he bent to her breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth. Her muscles tightened around him and he put a hand beneath her hip and carried them on a fast, wild ride to sweet paradise.
He lay buried inside of her, as drunk on her as if he had too much hard liquor. Emotionally and physically depleted. Many times, he had imagined what it would be like to have her fitted to him as a glove fit his fingers. The first touch of her portal had been the kiss of sunshine, the awakening of every nerve ending in his body. And then he was deep inside of her. Home. Heaven. He didn’t know how he survived the thrill of it, the shattering, heavenly torture of her explosive release. He kissed her eyes and put his head on the pillow beside her. She didn’t know it, but he was hers.
When he awoke an hour later, he wondered how he would react if she lapsed into self-doubt and, with it, the inability to give freely of herself. He knew it was possible, because she still had the image of Alexis always before her, and she still believed that her parents had never loved her—both potentially lethal.
“No matter what else is on your agenda, I want you to make time for us. I’ll do the same. I want us to find out if we can make it together. Do you agree to that?”
After the Loving Page 18