Tall, Dark And Difficult

by Patricia Coughlin

  His hand inched lower still, his touch light—a whisper, a promise.

  “Now?” he asked, as the warm, sweet ache beneath his fingertips grew stronger.

  “Now.” She lifted into him, her lips parted, wanting.

  “Not here.”

  Not here? Rose was pretty sure she whimpered aloud as her mind filled with thoughts of hauling herself back into the truck, of driving the short distance home, of leaving the shelter of his arms for even a few minutes. It was out of the question, far beyond the ability of a woman whose legs had turned to jelly and muscles to mush, and she was about to tell him so—when he astonished her by scooping her up in his arms and heading toward the front of the shop.

  “Griff! Where…?”

  “Shh.”

  “But your leg. You can’t—”

  “Apparently I can. Chalk it up to adrenaline,” he grunted.

  “Don’t you mean testosterone?”

  “Got plenty of that bottled up, too.”

  She lifted her hand to his cheek, aware of the undercurrent of pain in his humor, and felt both concerned and very happy.

  He bent, depositing her on the old white iron bed in the center of the shop, and heaved what was unmistakably a sigh of relief.

  “That was pretty dumb,” she told him.

  “Not from where I’m standing.” He was gazing down at her, his look so tender, so nearly worshipful, that a sudden lump formed in her throat.

  “From here, it’s looking like the smartest move I’ve made in years. You have no idea,” he went on, reaching out to loop a lock of her hair around his finger, “of the dreams I’ve been having about this damn bed.”

  “You’ve dreamed about the bed?”

  “The bed with you in it.”

  She had goose bumps. “You’ve dreamt about me?”

  He nodded, grinned and lowered himself next to her, sinking with her into the artfully arranged feather mattress and multiple layers of embroidered sheets and heirloom quilts intended to inspire in her customers visions of romantic liaisons. Never, in her wildest imaginings, had Rose envisioned herself in this lovely old bed. In the middle of the night. In the middle of the shop. With Hollis Griffin.

  But here she was. And what she thought, as Griff rolled to half cover her, looking hungry enough to devour whatever she was willing to offer him…what she thought for as long as she was able to think, was that she was very, very glad she had decided to position the bed facing away from the windows, and discreetly tucked behind a hand-painted screen made of solid old folding doors.

  …meant to be, meant to be…

  As soon as he had settled in, she found herself on the receiving end of so many things that made her glad, and grateful and astonished, that she lost count. And still they came, delivered by Griff’s big hands, as they roamed over her, unbuttoning, unsnapping and removing everything in his path that wasn’t part of her; bestowed on her by his sweetly stubbled jaw, the scrape of it in tender places making her shiver and squirm; and by his very adventurous mouth, which seemed dedicated to tasting every square inch of her.

  It was pleasure so pure it almost hurt. When she could no longer hold it all inside, it seeped from between her lips in soft, broken murmurs of delight and demand.

  “Your hands,” she whispered, unable to keep from arching so that her breasts filled his palms, pressing, wanting. “I love your hands…I love the way they feel on me.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you for so long, I don’t plan on taking them off you in a hurry.” His words rasped against the side of her throat as his palms moved in lazy circles around her breasts.

  “Forever,” she breathed. “I want this to last forever.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he promised, nipping her, rubbing his face against her tender flesh.

  She tilted her head back into the pillows, her thighs shifting restlessly, as he slid lower, the unhurried exploration of his hands clouding her mind, igniting her body. Until—

  In the same way sudden lightning can rip through a lazy summer night, a fleeting image of the scars beneath her breasts flashed into Rose’s mind, threatening to yank her from whatever spell she was under. How could she have forgotten about them, she fretted as her stomach muscles clenched, starting a chain effect all through her.

  The scars were small, like hairline cracks in fine porcelain, barely discernable even in full light—but they were there. Would Griff notice? Would he mind?

  Her rush to panic was interrupted by his deep voice.

  “I ought to warn you, Rose, my hands aren’t the only thing I’ve been wanting to get on you. These past few days I’ve also given a great deal of thought to how your skin was going to feel on my tongue.” Even before he finished speaking, he was stroking her with it, following the downward curve of her breasts, and lower, paying that part of her no more, or less, attention than he had any other.

  “Just thinking about doing this made me crazy, but my fantasy didn’t even come close to the real thing. Your body is so much sweeter…and riper…and more fascinating…than anything even my imagination could conjure up.”

  She had no way of knowing if he had read her mind, and chosen words to soothe her, but that was the result. His praise was powerful magic, shielding her safely within the spell.

  “I dreamed of tasting you here,” he went on with a lavish caress of her ribs. “And here…” His hands framed her waist as he traced the swell of her hip. “And…what the—?”

  He raised his head to get a look at what his fingers had encountered.

  Rose went still. “It’s a belly button ring,” she explained casually, as if body piercing was nothing unusual in a thirty-five-year-old divorced woman who frequented rest homes and adhered to a moral code rooted in Sister Mary Raphael’s fifth-grade catechism class.

  Despite the lack of light, Rose could tell he was frowning. Boy, that was irony for you. She’d been so focused on the scars, she’d forgotten all about the ring in her navel.

  “You had your belly button pierced?” He sounded stunned.

  “Sort of.” She gave herself a mental shake. “I mean, yes, I did. I probably should have mentioned it beforehand, to avoid this big, awkward moment of surprise.”

  “I like surprises.”

  She could feel his warm breath on her belly, as he studied her closely.

  She felt an overwhelming urge to fill the silence. “I probably would have mentioned it, but this is the first ti—that is, I don’t make a habit of jumping into b—this sort of thing, and it just…slipped my mind.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Did it hurt when you had it done?”

  She shook her head, cleared her throat. “Not much. But then, I was a little…tipsy.”

  “You’re not tipsy now. How does…this feel?”

  She shivered at his touch. “Good.”

  “How good?”

  “Too good.”

  “No such thing.”

  “Then I guess it doesn’t…you know, turn you off?”

  He laughed and moved so he was on top of her, his thighs outside hers, leaning so that most of his weight was on his right leg.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t think there’s anything known to man that could turn me off now. I’ve got the woman I want right where I want her, just the way I want her…” He ran his hand over her naked body. “I’m as close to knocking on heaven’s door as I’m likely to get.”

  The tension in her muscles eased. She almost laughed.

  “Besides, the damn thing is flat-out erotic…you have to know that. I’ve always had this secret fascination for women with pierced belly buttons.”

  “Have you known many?” she enquired, not sure the revelation pleased her.

  “You’re my first,” he assured her, his grin fading into something raw and ravenous. “Damn, Rose, I wanted you like hell already. Now I want you so bad it hurts.”

  “I want you, too, but…” She saw h
im jumping to the wrong conclusion and continued in a rush. “First I just want you to know, I did not have it done to be erotic. At least, that wasn’t the main reason. There’s a very simple exp—”

  He stopped her mouth with his. “Later,” he said when he finally lifted his head and let her breathe. “I want to hear every fascinating detail about it—later. Right now, I only want this…”

  He moved so he could kiss her belly, touching the tiny—very tiny, very tasteful, she reassured herself—gold ring, lightly, then catching it with his teeth and tugging gently.

  There was something sexy, in an exotic, harem-girl sort of way, about lying in bed, naked, while a fully clothed man played with the ring in your belly button. Rose vaguely recalled that it was a very similar notion, encouraged by Maryann, which had led to her inebriated decision to cap off her après divorce liberation celebration by having it pierced in the first place. But until tonight, that particular fantasy had never come close to being fulfilled.

  She closed her eyes, wanting to lose herself in the fantasy. It was not difficult. What would be difficult for her, probably even impossible, would be to not feel sexy and sultry, when Griff was touching her the way he was touching her now. Everything that made her a woman found its match in him. Her uneasiness waned, giving way to a mysterious feeling of power flowing from deep within.

  He straightened and took her face in his hands, his touch still gentle, and completely at odds with the unleashed heat and hunger that burned in his eyes.

  For Rose, the combination was lethal, irresistible.

  Lust, she reminded herself. That’s really what all this shimmering and tingling and throbbing was about. Lust. No big deal. She’d figured it all out hours ago, and she could handle it.

  She wanted this. A good thing, because despite an awareness of her own feminine power, she was rapidly moving from being simply willing, to being defenseless, to being his for the taking. She was ready even before he rocked his hips against hers, pressing her deeper into the mattress, grinding into her in a way that was brazen and wildly arousing. Rose met his thrusts, gloried in them, demanded more.

  When his rough hands closed over her breasts, she clutched the front of his shirt, her shaking fingers clawing at the buttons. She managed to free one, swore at the second and ripped off the third. She wanted hot, slick, skin-to-skin contact, and she wanted it now. To get it, she dragged the half-buttoned shirt over his shoulders and shoved it to his waist.

  She urged him closer, writhed under him, rubbing against the damp heat and hair-roughened splendor of his chest. Excitement coursed through her. She was on fire, her senses running over, and greedy for more. She touched him, again and again, everywhere, her hands skating along his ribs, around and up his back, all of him new and uncharted and wondrous to her.

  The powerful yearning at her core drew her hand lower, her fingers sliding beneath his belted waistband, trailing the enticing line of dark hair that went from rough to silky to coarse and dense. He was hard, and the brush of her fingers made him shudder and fall still. He sucked in air and didn’t let it go.

  Wedged against the back of her hand, his shaft felt steely and smooth and scorchingly hot. The intimacy of it made her tremble, made her bold. With her heart pounding wildly, she turned her hand and curled her fingers around him.

  Griff threw his head back, his mouth open, his eyes tightly shut. His voice was hoarse, coming from deep in his throat. “Oh, my.”

  Instantly her hands were on his belt buckle and his were on hers. Together they fumbled and yanked, tore and shoved. He rolled to his back with her on top of him, locked in a tangle of tongues and murmurs and jagged, open-mouth kisses. Somehow they dealt with buckle and zipper, and his clothes came off, revealing flesh and muscle and scars. When they were both naked, he rolled back, urging her legs apart, positioning himself between them.

  He stroked the inside of her thighs, first one, then the other, as he made his way with maddening slowness to the slick, heated cove at their apex, the place that most ached for his touch. He made her wait, made her shiver, made her squirm.

  And when his fingers at last found and opened and possessed that waiting portal, Rose had only one thought. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

  Slow down, slow down, slow down, Griff ordered himself when he could no longer resist letting his fingers breach her nest of silky curls to claim the treasure beyond. The warning did little good. Not surprising, when one considered how long it had been since he’d been with a woman. It had been just as long since he’d wanted one, much less wanted one as badly as he wanted Rose. Understanding why he was so desperate for release, however, was not the same as liking it.

  Hard and fast would serve his needs at the moment, but it wouldn’t take care of Rose’s—not really, despite the increasingly insistent rise and fall of her hips beneath his that suggested otherwise. He’d resolved that if this happened, he would see to it that it was long and slow and sweet, that he would spin it out until she surrendered control, until she surrendered everything and went crazy in his arms the way she had in his dream. He wanted it that way for himself, sure, but mostly he wanted it for Rose. After hearing about her marriage, he wanted to burn clean any place inside her where a doubt or second thought might hide.

  Unfortunately, he was rapidly being forced to accept the fact that all the resolve he could ever muster would not be sufficient to override the clawing, twisting need that was inside him and growing stronger. He couldn’t slow down, couldn’t hold back, couldn’t stop himself from taking what he needed.

  He pushed against her, seeking entry, then drove into her. She was tight and hot and wet. Heat and honey. He struggled to show some restraint, but she felt so good that it was impossible not to be greedy. With each stroke he was in deeper…and wanted more.

  Beneath him, Rose shuddered and quaked, lifting one arm to grasp the iron bedpost above her head. Her expression told him all he needed to know. She was already right there, at the edge. The awareness that she was about to go over drove him closer, as well. His thrusts became even harder and faster, the frantic pace echoed by his tongue as it mated with hers until they were both panting for air.

  His mind shut down, leaving something more primitive to drive him. His sense of touch intensified, others dimmed. It was from inside a darkening haze that he felt her hips buck, saw her head arch back, heard her crying his name.

  Her explosion triggered his own. He was hurtling toward oblivion, and in the final instant before he went under, he knew with all certainty that his plan had failed, big time. The realization only made his fall faster, the rush of pleasure stronger, the slow drift back to reality sweeter.

  Rolling to his side with her still in his arms, Griff savored the aftershocks, letting them carry him along aimlessly. Just as satisfying to him as those lingering waves of pleasure was the knowledge that he had not succeeded in getting Rose to surrender. Not even close.

  Instead, he’d gotten what he’d really wanted without realizing it, something that was both a hairbreadth and a universe away from surrender. It was something you could never force the way you could a surrender. Something that could only be given, willingly and under the right circumstances. That something was abandonment.

  He had seen it for himself. In those final few seconds, with fulfillment hovering ever closer, Rose hadn’t simply given in to the pleasure he wanted to give her—she had thrown herself in the air to meet it. She had abandoned herself, utterly and completely. Not to him, though he would like to believe he’d played an integral role in the whole thing. What she had really abandoned herself to was passion…she had given herself up to the unrestrained quest for pleasure and fulfillment. And for the first time ever—if he was any judge of the slightly unfocused, very bedazzled way she was looking at him.

  When his breathing was steady, he brushed the hair from her cheek and smiled at her. “Whatever your asking price is for this bed, it’s not enough.”

  Her lips curved. “Granted I’m no expert, but I’
m pretty sure that what just happened had more to do with you than this bed. Still, why risk a good thing? First thing tomorrow, I’ll reprice it high enough to keep it around a while.”

  “That still sounds too risky to me.”

  “Trust me. I do it all the time,” she assured him, her hand moving across his chest in slow, random exploration.

  “And it actually works?”

  “Like a charm.” Her hand fell still and her lips formed a rueful slant. “Except…”

  “Except?” he prodded.

  “Except one time—one time in five years.” Sighing, she explained. “It was when you bought my garland of dried hydrangeas that no one was supposed to buy.”

  “Then why was there a price tag on it?” asked Griff, slightly bewildered, but very, very content.

  “Because things in a shop are supposed to have a price tag.”

  “So it had to have a tag, but it wasn’t actually for sale. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It was for sale,” she corrected. “Just not yet.”

  “Then when…no, wait, don’t tell me…you would have just known when the time was right to sell it?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I have to admit, I was skeptical the first time you ran that one by me, but after tonight, I’m a believer.” He stroked his hand along her arm, trailing off to follow the curve of her hip and lingering there. “Tonight was right for this. Our planets must have been ascending, or whatever the astrological arrangement is for perfect timing.”

  She smiled but said nothing.

  “At least,” he went on, fishing, “that’s how it felt to me. Perfect.” For some reason, tonight he wanted reassurance from her that she felt the same way he did about tonight.

  “That’s how it felt to me, too,” she said softly.

  “No regrets?”

  “Just one.”

  Damn, he thought, frowning. Why couldn’t he have left it alone? “What’s that?” he asked.

  “I regret that at some point in the not-too-distant future, we have to leave this bed and drive home.”

  Groaning, with relief as much as dread, he pulled her close and rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too good for business if we’re still here when customers start showing up.”