Bonnie sighed, determined to keep her head. Eli was clearly trying to annoy her, but he needn’t have the satisfaction of knowing just how thoroughly he had succeeded. “If you won’t behave as a gentleman, then kindly give me my wrapper. I’m cold.”
“You’re cold?” The words were crooned in a tone of mock sympathy and Eli’s chair made a scraping sound as he rose from it and slid it farther out of reach in almost the same motion. He took the kettles from the stove and carried them to the iron sink, the muscles in his arms and shoulders moving beneath his shirt, stretching it taut, as he pumped water into each one. The pots made a clink-sizzle sound as they were placed on the stove again. While Bonnie watched with wide, disbelieving eyes, her former husband returned to his chair and again sat astraddle of its seat, his arms propped along its sturdy back. “There will be more hot water soon—darling.”
Bonnie wished that the water she already had, now very tepid and inadequate stuff, were deep enough for her to drown in. Beyond leaping from the tub and dashing, naked as the day she was born, for the bedroom, Bonnie was at a loss for a strategy.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked in a small voice.
Eli ignored her question entirely, giving a sigh and gazing off into the distance with a dreamy expression on his face. For a moment, the only sounds were the surging of heat moving through the water on the stove and the traffic in the street below—more that night than usual, because the Pompeii Playhouse was offering an evening’s entertainment.
“Remember that night when all the servants were out—it was raining and we—”
Bonnie remembered all right, and she gave a little cry, shifting in a whoosh of water and outrage so that she sat cross-legged like an Indian in her bathwater, her arms still shielding her breasts. Their tips were pulsing now, at the memory of the delightful attentions they’d gotten that night “when all the servants were out and the rain was falling.” “Eli McKutchen, you wretch, I know what you’re doing and I demand that you stop this instant!”
Eli gave a throaty chuckle, his eyes still fixed on the long ago and faraway, his chin propped on one steel-corded forearm. “Ah, yes. They can have their central heating—every parlor should have a fireplace with a bearskin rug on the hearth—”
Heat was surging through Bonnie now, just as it was surging through the water warming on the stove. She found her sponge, after a moment of frantic one-handed groping, and hurled it at Eli in fury and desperation. It missed its mark, splattering against the railed back of the chair and bringing nothing more than a chuckle from her tormentor.
Inwardly Bonnie cursed herself for every kind of fool. Why hadn’t she locked the door when she’d come in? Why had she allowed herself to forget how skillful Eli was at arousing her? From the very first day of their marriage he had been able to stir her deepest passions with a word or even a look. What if he reminded her of that time in the carriage, on the way home from dinner at the Astors’?
Too late, Bonnie realized that she had reminded herself. Her body trembled in delicious memory of that scandalous encounter, her breasts growing heavy and her secret place expanding painfully in need of its natural counterpart. “Oh, Lord,” she wailed softly, letting her chin rest on her knees.
Eli was back at the stove, testing the water in the kettles with an index finger. “It’s ready,” he announced blithely, taking one pot by its handle and carrying it to the side of the tub. “Look lively there,” he said, “I don’t want to burn you.”
Bonnie instinctively shifted to one side, and the water Eli poured into the tub swirled around her bottom like a warm cloud. As if that part of her needed warming! “Eli, please—if you’ll just—”
“More water. Heads—er—bottoms up.”
Another stream of liquid heat moved around Bonnie in a sweet current, lulling her, permeating her. The aching need spread into the deepest parts of her, demanding fulfillment.
As though he had every right to be there, causing her such sinful anguish, Eli returned the kettles to the stove and recovered the sponge. He squeezed it out right where he stood, with no regard whatsoever for the carefully polished linoleum, and then approached.
Bonnie knew that she was lost when he paused to roll up one shirtsleeve and then the other, his movements methodical and unhurried. Though a lot of people would have said otherwise, there was but one man in all the world who knew how to turn Bonnie McKutchen into a wanton, one man who had ever gotten the chance to try, and that man was standing next to her bathtub with a sponge in his hand.
Bonnie closed her eyes and allowed the back of her head to rest against the edge of the tub and her strong arms to sink, powerless, into the freshly warmed water that smelled of carnations. She felt his hand brush past her hip, heard the soft scratching sound of soap being lathered against the sponge.
Deftly the sponge circled the outer part of Bonnie’s left breast, moving ever so slowly inward toward the center. She gasped involuntarily when the nipple was reached and gently lathered.
“I’ve never bathed a mayor before,” Eli remarked in a low voice, now washing her right breast. “How did you come to hold that office, may I ask?”
Bonnie opened her eyes and was about to make a stand when Eli’s free hand slipped beneath the water and parted her legs, seeking the bud that would bloom to passion, finding it. As he dallied, Bonnie’s protest lodged in her throat, then slipped out as a moan.
Eli chuckled and continued to stroke Bonnie even as he filled the sponge with water and then squeezed, letting the scented liquid wash the soap from her breasts. “You were saying?” he teased.
Bonnie’s knees drew upward and then fell wide of each other, even though she had ordered them to close tight together. “Ooooo,” she whimpered.
“You can tell me how you got elected later,” Eli conceded charitably. “Right now, you’re a lady much in need of pleasing.”
Bonnie was a lady in need of pleasing, a healthy woman who had not been made love to in two years, and her need was a searing thing, immune to reason and propriety, flowing through her entire being with all the elemental force of the river surging past Northridge in the darkness. She felt Eli’s breath on her breast and arched her back, muttering, “Yes, oh, yes.” Her wet hands clasped at his broad shoulders and then the back of his head, and when his lips closed around her nipple in a teasing nibble, a great trembling went through her.
And all the while his fingers worked, driving Bonnie on and on toward what she knew would be only the first of many savage crescendos, for Eli had never been one to give quarter in that respect. No, he would love Bonnie again and again, satisfy her again and again, until they both fell into exhausted sleep.
Bonnie’s hips rose and fell in shameless response as Eli attended her, now trailing kisses along her collarbone, now nibbling at her earlobe, now taking greedy suckle at her breast. Water splashed over the sides of the tub as though set to boiling and with a keening cry of abandon and release, Bonnie rose high above its surface, trembling as the tumult within her had its primal way and then, long moments later, allowed her to sink back into the tub. She was shivering when Eli lifted her from the water into his arms, and it seemed perfectly natural to rest her head against his shoulder as she had done on so many other occasions.
He didn’t seem to mind that her wet flesh was soaking his shirt and trousers; his voice was gravelly as it grated past her ear. “The bed, Bonnie. Where is it?”
Still languorous from her release, Bonnie mumbled directions.
He laid her very gently on the bed, crosswise, and, using a towel taken from atop the bureau, dried her with tenderness before shedding his boots and clothes and kneeling on the floor. His strong hands moved up and down Bonnie’s naked thighs, bringing back the gooseflesh he had toweled away so carefully. He touched her breasts and her slender waist and her satiny stomach, his golden eyes wondrous, as though he had not loved her a thousand times before, in a thousand unconventional places.
“Oh, Bonnie,” he muttered
once, as he eased her knees far apart and then put his hands on her waist to draw her forward for full and unrestrained enjoyment, “how I’ve needed you—wanted you—”
Bonnie knew the pleasure to come and was not sure that she would be able to bear it, after wanting so long. She trembled as he parted the nest of curls at the joining of her thighs to unveil what he would so thoroughly consume.
“Sweet Bonnie,” he said, his voice throaty and gruff and close enough to warm a part of Bonnie that could belong only to him, whether he chose to love her or to discard her when he had had his fill. He was an expert at heightening her need with words, and now, over her whimpers, he wove his singular spell. “Remember that restaurant at Newport, Bonnie?” he asked softly. “We had a private dining room and I kissed you—just like—this—”
Bonnie was fevered as he kissed her again; her fingers tangled frantically in his hair and a low, primitive wail came from her throat, senseless and yet telling the story of all womanhood. He burrowed close to take full suckle and covered her breasts with his strong hands, fondling them, kneading them, encouraging their pink tips until they became hard points thrusting against his palms.
For all the intensity of Eli’s loving, Bonnie’s climax came slowly, slowly, extracting every passion, calling every muscle and every sense into play. She fretted and pleaded and when, at last, satisfaction overtook her, she knew an anguish of repletion.
Eli lay beside her then, turning her so that they lay lengthwise on the bed, and she stroked his broad, solid chest with one hand for a time, waiting for her breathing to settle into evenness again, for the quivering beneath her flesh to cease. Despite twice reaching the sweet pinnacle, there was yet a need within Bonnie: a need to be taken, to be filled with this man. Only so would she truly be appeased.
She whispered the words she’d never expected to say again, as long as she lived. “Have me, Eli. Take me.”
A chuckle moved through the sturdy flesh beneath her hand. “You were always persuasive,” he said, but to Bonnie’s surprise he sat up instead of poising himself above her.
Her expression of wide-eyed worry made him smile. “Don’t worry, love—I need you very badly. It’s just that if I lie down to take you, I may never be able to stand up again.” Eli paused and assessed the beauty of her with a slight, marveling shake of his head. “Come here,” he said.
She moved to stand before him and for a time he caressed her. At last Eli drew her down to sit astraddle of his lap, easing inside her with the gentleness that had always marked his lovemaking. Never, no matter what heights their passion had reached, had he ever hurt her.
Their mutterings became one tangled sound as Bonnie raised and lowered herself upon Eli, both soothed and driven by his possession. When the pace did not suit Eli, he slowed Bonnie to an excruciatingly tender meter, and periodically he took time to sample each of her breasts, to kiss her deeply, to caress her face and her shoulders and her bottom. She was eager to please and be pleased, but Eli kept her in check until a moment of his choosing, when he finally gave Bonnie the freedom to move as he moved, in a wild search for fulfillment that ended in a fusion so explosive that new universes were surely created.
They rested and loved, rested and loved, until the world was quiet and the night was deep. Bonnie slept then, curled close to Eli, her body no longer fevered but wholly appeased.
It was nearly dawn and Eli lay awake. Through Bonnie’s window, he could see the stars blinking out like silver flames over the roof of the Pompeii Playhouse. The distant sparks of light shifted and blurred and Eli wiped his eyes with the back of one hand, shamed even though Bonnie wasn’t awake to see his disgrace.
He should not have come to Northridge, even though Rose Marie was here, and the smelter. After this night, he might never be able to deal with Bonnie rationally again.
She nestled close to him in her sleep, her flesh soft and fragrant, and Eli ached to know that she had been one of Forbes Durrant’s women, selling herself. He couldn’t afford the luxury of believing her assertions that she did nothing more than dance, though God knew he wanted to believe it.
More tears followed those he had wiped away, silent, masculine tears, but tears nonetheless. Eli eased out of bed, found his clothes, slowly got into them. He paused for a long look at Bonnie, one that cost him a part of his already wounded spirit, memorizing the way the moonlight washed over her curves, glimmered in her hair, caught in the thick eyelashes that rested on alabaster cheeks. The anguish he felt was unlike anything he had ever endured before.
He had to remember who Bonnie was, what she was. She had given herself to him as she would have to any man who could pay the price. Her fierce yielding had been a practiced thing, a part of her trade, and so had her cries of pleasure, her soft pleas and that special way of satisfying him. She had never done that during their marriage and he had not asked it of her. So where had she learned it?
The answer to that question rocked Eli McKutchen to the core of his soul. With resolution, he drew a sizable bill from his wallet, laid it on Bonnie’s nightstand, and crept out of her bedroom.
Bonnie awakened slowly, stretching her thoroughly sated body in systematic motions, like a cat. She sensed that Eli was no longer in bed but was not concerned by that, for he had always been an early riser. He was probably well into his day’s work, in fact.
Normal morning sounds came from the kitchen—stove lids clattered and clanked and water was pumped. Bonnie sat up in bed, yawning behind one hand and smiling as Katie’s voice rose in a crystalline rendition of “Take Me Back to Home and Mother.” Rose Marie teetered into the room and, with a cry of glee, thrust her plump little body up onto the bed, nestling close to Bonnie.
In those precious minutes to come, Bonnie McKutchen was supremely happy. During the night, she had been loved to near madness by the one man she cared for and now, on this bright sunny morning, she had the luxury of giggling with her daughter. Oh, it was easy to be optimistic, when one’s life seemed to brim with love, so perilously easy.
The scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the room and Bonnie, seeing her wrapper draped neatly over the footboard of the bed, reached for it and put it on. She was smiling as she tied the belt, but her smile faded when she saw the folded bill tucked beneath the lamp on the bedside table.
At first Bonnie could not accept the meaning of that money. Eli had been a generous husband, where finances were concerned at least, and he had often left cash for Bonnie before going off to his place of business in the mornings.
She sank to the side of the bed, her hands lying numb in her lap, her throat thick with a growing misery. After some moments Bonnie reached for the bill, her fingers shaking, and unfolded it. Fifty dollars.
Feeling ill, Bonnie closed her eyes and swallowed. Eli was no longer the indulgent if somewhat overbearing husband, leaving money behind of a morning for his pampered darling to spend on trinkets and hats and vaudeville tickets. The brutal truth was that Eli was a stranger now, and the fifty dollars constituted payment for services rendered.
The bill wafted, forgotten, to the floor. Bonnie rose from her seat on the edge of the bed, crossed the room and quietly closed the door, muffling Rose’s giggles and Katie’s expert rendering of “Two Little Girls in Blue.”
Tears slipped down Bonnie’s cheeks as she washed and dressed and arranged her hair in a soft knot atop her head, but she made no sound, and by the time she joined Katie and Rose Marie in the kitchen, her eyes were dry, if swollen and red.
Having no appetite, Bonnie drank coffee while Rose and Katie ate their eggs and toasted bread. She ignored Katie’s worried looks and dodged her artfully presented questions, and when the meal was over and the table had been cleared, she went back to the bedroom and collected the fifty-dollar bill from its resting place on the rug.
The first order of business would be to return it to its rightful owner.
“Please leave those dishes,” Bonnie said, when she returned to the kitchen and found Katie up to her elbo
ws in steaming water. “I’ll take care of them later. I have an errand to attend to, but I won’t be gone long.”
Katie dried her hands on her apron, looking puzzled and not a little concerned. “Is there something wrong, ma’am?”
Bonnie could not reply honestly. She feared that she would dissolve in misery if she tried. “I would like you to open the store for business,” she said, averting her eyes.
Blessedly, Katie did not press for an answer to her question. “Rose and I will see to the shop. Take as much time as you need.”
“Thank you,” Bonnie managed to say. And then, with dignity, she walked out the door, down the stairs, onto the wooden sidewalk. There were more people on the streets than there should have been on a workday, she thought distractedly, as she walked toward Genoa’s house, and something else was different, too, though she couldn’t quite decide what it was.
With no memory of the walk, Bonnie arrived at the McKutchen gate, entered it, and made her way up the driveway. Eli was standing on the broad veranda at the front of the house, engaged in a volatile if hushed conversation with Seth Callahan and eating from a plate at the same time.
Seth saw Bonnie first and greeted her cordially, his eyes lighting. “Good day, Mrs. McKutchen,” he said, for he and Bonnie had always been friends, though their relationship was a formal one.
“Mr. Callahan,” Bonnie responded politely, but her gaze had already attached itself to Eli and his plate of corned beef hash, and she wondered that the food didn’t scorch under it.
Though Eli remained absolutely still and quite silent, Seth cleared his throat and beat a hasty retreat into the house, closing the swan-etched door behind him.
Bonnie held her skirts as she climbed the steps leading onto the long porch, the fifty-dollar bill rolled in one hand and moist with perspiration. She approached Eli, her bearing and facial expression revealing nothing, and stood before him, tilting back her head to look up into his face.
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