Sweet Water

by Anna Jeffrey

  Mama was in bed by nine. After a hot, busy day, Marisa longed for a lengthy bath herself, so she filled the tub, added two different kinds of water softener and finally, some of Mama’s bubble bath. She loved West Texas, but sometimes something as simple as a bubble bath was a major undertaking. As she soaked, she continued to debate if or when she should call Terry and tell him about her Aunt Radonna agreeing to come.

  Or should she wait until she saw him again?

  Or should she call him and back out of the trip altogether?

  A yes answer to the latter question would be the safest. Of that she had no doubt.

  After her bath she pulled on some lightweight warm-up pants and a T-shirt and sat down in front of the TV with her magazine of crossword puzzles. This was how she spent many evenings, but tonight the clock hands seemed to be stuck. If she went to bed before ten, she would be wide awake at three.

  On TV, a meteorologist reported that Cabell County was experiencing its fifth driest year in history. Who cared? Cabell County was a desert. Only a scientist would be able to tell one dry year from another. The difference between a dry year and a wet year, the meteorologist reported, was eight inches.

  Just think about my hard eight inches sliding all the way to your heart

  She huffed. Eight inches. He wished.

  Well, thanks to the TV weatherman, at least she had now owned up to the reason for her restlessness. She had to find something to think about besides sex with Terry Ledger.

  Disgusted, she slipped her feet into flip-flops, her arms into a sweat jacket and walked outside. There, she turned on the radio and dropped into one of the rocking chairs on the deck.

  ****

  Terry paced in his kitchen. All day he had waited for Marisa’s call confirming that one of her aunts was willing to stay with Raylene while he and Marisa went to Albuquerque.

  Nine thirty. By now, she would have put her mother to bed. The day’s unrelenting heat had begun to give way to evening’s temperature drop, so he slipped on a nylon windbreaker and headed on foot for the Rutherford singlewide.

  As he walked, far on the distant horizon he spotted a flare, a lone fire used like a giant candle to burn gas off oil wells or drilling sites and prevent wildfires and explosions. When he was a kid, before the collapse of the oil industry, the nighttime West Texas landscape had been peppered with burning flares as numerous as city lights. Now, with oil exploration curtailed, flares were few, but most of the ones he could see probably had some attachment to Lanny Winegardner’s oil kingdom.

  The ever-constant zephyr from the west touched his face, the night’s silence filled his ears. Smells--sage and sulphur gas--seemed pronounced in the darkness.

  Above the crunch of his footsteps, music floated through the air, something with a sad note. At first he thought it came from Ben’s mobile, but then he realized it drifted from Marisa’s direction. Recognizing “It’s Getting Better All the Time,” he stopped and listened. The song was a slow one by Brooks and Dunn, about recovering from a broken heart. For some damn reason, Terry thought of the day he met Marisa and the asshole who had two-timed her. He had never done that to a woman. But then, he had never really had a committed relationship, either. Sex for the hell of it wasn’t commitment.

  Drawing nearer to the singlewide, he saw her on the deck slumped in one of the rocking chairs, one foot propped on the deck rail, her hair falling behind the chair back.

  You could wipe out me, Terry.

  A warning charged from somewhere deep within him, a mysterious consciousness telling him to be careful of her feelings and to protect her. From what, exactly, he didn’t know.

  He didn’t want to hurt her. But he didn’t want to give up being with her, either. The scolding from his psyche rattled him, but he shook off the sensation and moved on.

  Typically, he didn’t have protective feelings about women. Most of the ones he met were in the business world and were often tougher than he. They didn’t display the sweetness and feminine vulnerability he sensed in Marisa.

  “Nice night,” he said before he reached the deck, not wanting to startle her.

  She startled despite his warning, and stood up.

  As he stepped onto the deck, though she had on a jacket, it was open and he saw that she was braless in a thin T-shirt.

  The tension that instantly coiled in his belly nearly took his breath. Coupled with the mysterious protectiveness that had fallen on him just seconds earlier, a million words rushed into his head. None seemed to find their way to his mouth, probably because all the blood had drained from his brain to his groin. “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

  Marisa heard the tenderness in his baritone voice and was moved by it, though not surprised. He had already shown himself as being more gentle-natured than the ruthless businessman she had started out believing him to be. “A little,” she said and smiled. “I didn’t recognize your voice at first.”

  His walking up on her had left her a little shaky, so when he came forward a few steps and, without a word, wrapped her in his arms, she leaned into him, snuggled against his shoulder and breathed in the scent of him. He smelled clean and musky and she slipped her arms under his jacket, around his waist, and caressed the firm muscles of his back, just like they were old and familiar lovers. The scene at the kitchen sink filled her mind and she couldn’t deny the desire just touching him aroused. She even felt wetness between her thighs.

  “Hmm,” he said. “You feel good. And you smell good. Like flowers.”

  “Lavender bubble bath. I borrowed some of Mama’s.”

  Vince Gill’s breathy voice came on the radio singing of the power and pain of being found by love. In Terry Ledger’s arms she had no problem relating to the song’s message, though her sense of self-preservation continued to warn her against being sucked into a fantasy.

  He began to move her around the deck in a slow dance. “We do this pretty well,” he murmured.

  She drew in a deep breath, willed herself to ignore the poetic words of Vince’s song.

  Through the thin fabric of her pants she could feel the firmness at his fly. “Something tells me you didn’t come here to dance.”

  “I don’t know why I came.” His hands slid to her bottom. “It’s just that you’ve been on my mind all day. I wanted to see you.”

  She looked into his eyes and believed his words. “Me, too,” she said softly, loving the tenderness in his strong hands. She freed her arms from beneath his jacket, slid them up to his neck, rose to her tiptoes and pasted her lips to his. He tightened his hold on her bottom and began to kiss her with long, slow kisses that tasted like peppermint. She sensed an urgency in him and pushed her tongue into his mouth, deepening the kiss. He met her with equal passion and soon they were devouring each other’s mouths like hungry coyotes.

  “I don’t want to wait ‘til Albuquerque,” he said hoarsely.

  She pushed away and stepped back, fighting for breath. He stood there, his breathing as heavy as hers, his eyes homed in on hers. There was no mistaking the desire she saw in them. Oh, hell. Sex tonight, sex in Albuquerque. What difference did it make? “Wait a minute,” she said. “I have to get a key.”

  She went into the mobile, stole up the hall and checked on Mama, then lifted the apartment keys off a hook in the kitchen, glad she had put clean sheets on the apartment bed. Outside, she grabbed his hand and said, “Come on. I don’t have that much time.”

  The minute they closed themselves inside the apartment behind the cafe, they began tearing at each other’s clothing. “You first,” she said, helping him shed his windbreaker in the living room. “You’re wearing more clothes.”

  He dropped to the sofa and pried off his boots.

  The apartment felt tight and hot, so she switched on the swamp cooler that filled half the window in the living room. When she turned back to him, he had removed his shirt, revealing a tanned, muscled chest and well-defined biceps. She scanned the line of dark hair that trailed down his flat stomach and
disappeared into his waistband. A bulge showed in his jeans, which he made no attempt to hide. An effort to swallow the tennis ball-sized lump in her throat brought nothing but a dry click. Nothing was left to do but lead him to the bedroom.

  In the pitch-black bedroom, she groped for the switch on the lamp beside the bed. The tiny room came alive with soft, low light. A few feet away, he was already shucking his Levi’s and boxers. Of course he felt no awkwardness at getting naked. The session in the café kitchen had already shown he was an aggressive lover.

  For a few beats her gaze traveled the smooth ridges of muscle that ran from each hip bone down the sides of his belly. Efficient. That was the word that described his body. No fat. Every part had a purpose, including the erection rising thick and rigid as marble from a nest of dark curls. The very thought of the thing inside her sent a shiver of anticipation through her. “Oh, you’re so—”

  “Yours for the taking,” he said, his velvet voice rumbly and deep.

  She forced herself to look up into his beautiful blue eyes, now dark and stormy with passion. For her. A thrill like she had never known coursed through her and she began to tremble.

  She had on no underwear, had to dispose of only three garments. In a matter of two heartbeats, she yanked off her jacket, peeled her T-shirt over her head and dropped her sweat pants. She felt his eyes. They burned her skin from her forehead to her toes.

  “My God,” he murmured. “You’re beautiful.”

  A thank you didn’t seem necessary. Before she could turn back the bed, he came to her, enclosed her in an embrace and kissed her again. His hands moved down and gripped the backs of her thighs. As if she weighed no more than a feather, he lifted her off her feet. Her back hit the comforter that covered the bed. and he followed her down, stretching his nakedness alongside hers, rubbing against her, pushing his knee between her thighs, kissing and kissing her all over--her mouth, her neck, her breasts, even her fingertips. She kissed him, too, and stroked him everywhere her mouth and hands could reach.

  He stopped abruptly, his breath rasping, his chest heaving. “Can you feel me shaking?”

  She did feel the tremor in his body, which only added to the heat and tumult in her own. “Sort of,” she replied weakly.

  “I haven’t been in this bad a shape since I was seventeen.” He resumed where he left off. His hand gathered her breast and his mouth covered one nipple. As his tongue played, delight danced through her, all the way to her sex. Heat began to sizzle through her veins. She clasped his head with one hand and ran the other down the valley of his spine all the way to his taut, sleek buttocks. He felt as good as he looked and she had to have more of him.

  She sat up and pushed him to his back. “Let me,” she said and suckled his nipples, dragging a little grunt from him. She began licking and kissing her way down his hairy chest and mid-section, savoring the salty taste of his skin, inhaling the musky smell of his body. She dipped the tip of her tongue into his fuzzy navel, slid her hand down between his legs and stroked his hairy scrotum.

  “Aw, damn,” he ground out.

  She teased him more, taking his firm penis into her mouth. A strangled sound came from deep in his throat and his fingers dug into her buttocks.

  He let her taste him for only a few seconds before he gripped her shoulders and pulled her back up to his mouth. Then they were kissing again, his hands buried in her hair and holding her still while his tongue delved her mouth.

  She couldn’t let go of his erection, relishing how the thick thing filled her hand, loving how his whole body responded when she brushed the tip of him with her thumb.

  “You’re killing me,” he growled. He wrested control from her and turned her to her back. His mouth traveled down her neck, over her breasts and lower, sucking in little patches of flesh. So delicious and so arousing, as if she needed to be aroused any more. “Everything,” he murmured against her skin. “I want everything.”

  So did she. And she no longer felt playful. The self she had always held back at such moments demanded to be free. She arched her body and offered him her stomach. “Then take it,” she said.

  He scooted backward and sank to the floor between her knees, his hands grasping her hips and dragging her to the edge of the bed. A burst of anxiety skittered around in her chest, but his hands held her like a vise. Even if she had wanted to do something about them, she couldn’t think what. It had been so long since a man had loved her in this way.

  Like a wanton, she bent her knees and opened herself. His hands slid up the backs of her thighs and pushed her knees high and wide, leaving her totally vulnerable. For a nanosecond she felt panic, but then his warm breath touched her, his late day stubble rasped her delicate flesh and his tongue was there. It pushed into her, warm and wet. Her breath caught, her neck arched as pure pleasure washed through her like warm May rain.

  He French kissed her in a maddening rhythm. It was wicked and erotic and her hidden places rejoiced. In no time a throb began deep in her belly. Her hips wanted to move, but couldn’t. “Terry—” She grabbed both fistfuls of his hair and tried to steer his mouth to where she frantically needed it. “Terry, please...”

  He didn’t abandon his mission. Instead, he draped her legs across his shoulders, grasped her wrists and pinned them to the mattress, not missing a beat with his tongue. The need consumed her. White noise roared inside her head, she began to shake. “Please,” she whimpered.

  He stopped and pulled back, his eyes burning black as they locked on her sex. I love looking at you,” he said softly.

  She was desperate for release, could feel herself convulsing in quick little beats, her deep vaginal muscles begging to receive him. She didn’t care if he saw. She wanted him to look at her, wanted him to know he made her hot enough to catch fire. And she wanted the thick hard thing she’s had in her hands and mouth just moments ago inside her body. “Hurry,” she said.

  A corner of his mouth, red and wet from loving her, tipped up. “No way. This should last a good long time.” He leaned into her and began to trail his mouth and tongue along the inside of her thigh. “I love the way you taste...” He moved to the other thigh. “I love the way you smell.”

  She squirmed and tried to lift herself to him. “Terry...

  At last, his fingers pushed into her, his tongue touched her clitoris and fireworks exploded behind her eyes. She sobbed out. This fingers worked inside her, his tongue and mouth flicked and suckled. She sobbed and whimpered as she came for what seemed like forever. When she could no longer endure the exquisite agony, she begged him to stop.

  He stretched and reached for his jeans off the floor. With shaking hands and panting breath, he found his wallet and a condom. They scrabbled through climbing beneath the bed covers and together, fumbled with rolling on the latex sheath. At last, he seated himself inside her with a thrust so powerful they both gasped. In that dazzling instant, every male she had ever known vanished. “Oh, God,” she whispered, almost forgetting to breathe.

  “Look at me,” he ground out.

  She opened her eyes and saw him holding himself motionless above her, is expression dark and grim. Their gazes held as his hips began to rock.

  Then, pumping, pumping, hard and fast. Matching his rhythm, the power and force of him filling her, surrounding her, holding every conscious thought at bay. Sometimes their gazes held each other’s, sometimes not. Sometimes they kissed fiercely, sometimes they didn’t. But the rhythm and the friction didn’t falter. The old iron headboard hammered the wall as he flailed into her, rasping, pressuring, thrilling.

  “Come, again,” he growled.

  She did, helpless not to give him all that she was, panting open-mouthed as she fell into a purple void, her deepest muscles milking him.

  His jaw clenched. A vein pounded in his neck and she knew his climax was near. She gripped the headboard’s stiles and dug her heels into the backs of his thighs, pressed against him, her body taut and arched like a drawn bow, urging him, wanting him to know e
cstasy equal to hers. His moment came, violent and powerful. He bucked hard, pounding into her deeply once, twice, three times. She hung on until his whole body stiffened and a ragged cry tore from him.

  Even after he collapsed on top of her she hung on, unable to bear letting him go. They were both sweating and shaking and still he held her tightly, at considerable physical cost, she suspected, after the release he’d just had.

  “Awww, God,” he gasped at last, rolling to her side and pulling her with him.

  They were drenched in sweat. The heavy scent of fresh sex filled the tiny room, but that wasn’t her concern. Something profound had happened. She’d had an orgasm that felt like it would go on forever, a first in her life.

  “That was wild,” he whispered, his chest still heaving.

  “I know.”

  He stroked her hair back from her face. “You okay?”

  No, she was not. He had touched a frightening place no one else had ever found. She had abandoned herself in a way she never had with any man. She opened her mouth to tell him, but she could see in his eyes he knew. Some kind of line had been crossed and he knew as well as she that neither of them would ever be able to go back to the safe haven they occupied just an hour ago. Still, she managed a tiny nervous laugh. “I think so.”

  “God, Marisa.” He placed a wet kiss on her lips and she tasted her own essence. “You’re so—you’re just so good.”

  “You, too,” was all she could say.

  “Stay here,” he said and left the bed for the bathroom in the hall. When he returned and slid back into bed, he maneuvered both of them until they lay belly to belly and he enveloped her in a nest of furry limbs. The heavy scent of fresh sex filled the tiny room. His knee pushed between hers and she slung her leg across his hip. His hand found hers and entwined their fingers. His eyes, always intense, but now even more so, looked into hers. “Do you believe in fate?”