He flung the bedroom door open and switched on the overhead light, a massive bronze chandelier. It was a man’s room, its elegant furnishings of mahogany paneling, oriental rug, and fine Sheraton and Hepplewhite pieces overlaid with a clutter of boots, riding gear, books, and discarded clothing. The bed was a massive four-poster, a reading lamp clamped to the headboard, computer printout sheets and magazines on cattle raising and hunting and the morning’s newspaper cascading over the foot.
“Lot’s of light.” His voice was slightly weary. “A real first for us, honey—I can see you, and you can see me. Lucky you,” he murmured as he let her go.
Rachel stepped back, rubbing her wrist. “I’m carrying your child,” she whispered.
“So you said.” He pulled his belt from the loops and let it drop to the cluttered floor. “I’m not going to be rough with you, Rachel. Have I ever hurt you?” He sat down on the bed and started unbuttoning his shirt, still watching her with his glittering gold eyes. “Take off your clothes.”
Chapter Twenty
“Why are you doing this?” Rachel cried. She stood before him, not making any move to do as he ordered.
He lay back on the bed, propping himself on one elbow, the discarded shirt in his hand. “Knock it off, Rachel, you’re being tiresome. Don’t you want to turn me on? I just want to see all of that sweet white beautiful body I can’t get enough of. Take your clothes off.”
“Don’t be like this, please,” she pleaded. “I know that you can be caring, so tender—”
“Forget it. Take your clothes off, everything off, a little bit at a time. I’ve never seen you undress for me, remember?” he said huskily. “It’s always been dark.”
“I want you to listen to me,” she told him. “I came here to talk to you. Not just because I’m carrying your child, b-but because there are other things too!”
He didn’t move, his big virile body tense, unrelenting. “Yeah, I know. Like you love me. I don’t want to talk about it, Rachel.”
He suddenly sat partway up and started lowering the zipper of his fly, still not taking his eyes from her. “Take off the pretty dress, angel. Just do as I say.”
Rachel stared back at him for a long moment, putting her resistance aside with an effort. She wouldn’t deny him, she never could, but she wasn’t going to let him defeat her. Very slowly, she unfastened the neck of her dress, pulled the zipper down to her waist, tugged her arms out of the tight puffed sleeves, peeled down the snug bodice, and wriggled out of the skirt. The silk dress was puddled at her feet, leaving her in only a lacy beige scrap of a bra, small matching bikini panties, and strappy high-heeled sandals.
He lay back on one elbow again, leaving his fly open, a small, hard smile lifting the corners of his graceful mouth.
“New undies too. Rachel, you surprise me.” His eyes traveled over her like flames. “You don’t look very pregnant.”
“I ... I am.” She couldn’t help a rush of pink to her cheeks. “I went to the doctor in Hazel Gardens. The t-tests were positive.”
He raised a dark, skeptical eyebrow. “All dressed up in a pretty dress and sexy underwear just to come here and tell me you’re pregnant. You’re magnificent, sweetheart. Now take off the rest.”
Still flushed, but setting her mouth stubbornly, she unsnapped the front closing of the bra’s nylon and silk with unsteady fingers.
“Slowly,” he ordered.
Slowly she pulled the bra away. When her creamy rose-pointed breasts swung free she heard the swift, involuntary sound of his indrawn breath.
“I keep forgetting how beautiful you are,” he said, staring. “No wonder I can’t leave you alone, get you out of my head.” His voice darkened. “Take off the rest of it, Rachel. But slow.”
Just as slowly she pulled down the bikini panties and stepped out of them, then her high-heeled sandals, her stubborn compliance confirming what she’d told him before—that she would not stop loving him. When he reached for her, taking her by the hand, she allowed him to pull her to the bed and over him.
“It is making love,” she protested. Taking him by surprise as he tried to put his arms around her, she pushed him down on the bed. “I don’t mind undressing for you.” She shoved his hands away as they tried to seize her. “But I’m not going to let you turn it into something ugly.”
He went perfectly still as she bent over him to tug at his trousers, the silky curve of her breasts swaying.
“What are you doing, Rachel?”
“I want you,” she said softly. “Isn’t this what you want? You taught me well, you know.”
His hands gripped her wrists tightly. But he lifted his hips to let her slide his pants all the way off. He wore black elasticized nylon briefs that tightly hugged his hips and loins, boldly revealing the big rod of his straining arousal. He gave a small grunt of surprise as she slipped her hands under the waistband to pull them down. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, closing his eyes.
His mouth clenched tightly as she stroked the white, pitted scars with the tips of her fingers, following them over his thigh and damaged hip to the triangle of sparse patches of brown curls interspersed with the slickly scarred flesh of his groin. He shuddered, his eyes closed tightly.
“Rachel.” The word was a harsh sound ripped from deep inside him.
She felt him flinch when a lock of her hair brushed his thigh. Then he was frozen as her kiss touched the rigid velvet of his flesh, his hands clenched in her hair. His face was taut, almost pained, as he shuddered.
“I love you,” Rachel murmured against his damp skin
“No,” he ground out, and jerked up. Pulling free, he took her by the arms, and dragged her under him. He rolled onto her, breathing rapidly, his weight holding her down. “No, baby, it has to be me this time. I’ll give you what you want, and I’ll take what I want, but I have to feel that beautiful body, I need to hold you. I need to get deep inside you, Rachel, I need to feel you tight and hot and sweet around me, that’s all I want. I’ll be gentle.”
With a low groan he fitted his mouth over hers and kissed her so softly, so deeply, that a silky fire flowed into her like scarlet waves, smoldering and spreading. Without moving his mouth, his tongue teasing her lips and her teeth and the sweet recesses beyond, he lifted her arms and placed them over her head and then began to explore her as though imprinting her on his mind and senses, outlining the shimmering smoothness of her shoulders, her breasts the curve of her ribs and the sleek fall of her belly, then the outside of her thighs. When she stirred restlessly she heard him laugh softly against her mouth.
“I haven’t been really gentle with you, Rachel.” The husky murmur caressed her lips. “No sweet words, nothing to woo you as you ought to be wooed, and yet you came back to me. Look.” He took her hand, his fingers around her wrist, drew it to his mouth and kissed each finger separately and then the palm, his tongue stroking lightly. “See how tender I’m being for you? I just want to have you, honey. I know you won’t hold anything back from me, that’s the beauty of it, the way it’s always been with us. That’s what makes it so damned sweet, so perfect, that I always remember.”
She stared up at that hard, handsome face with widened brown eyes, searching for some trace of mockery, but there was none. He seemed intent, careful, gently deliberate—as if he wanted not only to please her but to taste her, savor her as slowly as he could. With a small cry she lifted her hand to touch his tightened smooth flesh over cheekbones and the hard outline of his jaw. The quick scrape of his roughened fingertips went down her body and backup again swiftly, then he moved to follow them with his mouth, his kisses against her skin inexpressibly warm, tenderly soft.
He kept the pace slow, his soft words whispered against her skin, across her stomach and thighs, and then finally, when she was moaning for it, the delicate undercurve of her breasts. With excruciating gentleness his firm lips followed the ripe, creamy fullness, and at last with little nips of his teeth he came to the aching pink centers. She writhed wildly under h
im, trying to press him closer as his hurting, exquisite mouth took her firmly.
“In a minute, love,” he muttered. “Right now I want to do this, cover every inch of you, the way I’ve dreamed of these past weeks.”
He began in earnest, touching light kisses to her kneecaps, the backs of her thighs, his hard, stroking hands and fingertips following his mouth. His lips found her ankles, and he lifted her feet to kiss and caress them; as he held her leg high, his hand slid down the length of it to the warm furry patch at its joining, opened it with a touch of his finger and slipped inside. He heard her gasp, then her low moan of desire. He stroked her softly, watching her flushed face as she stared at him under half-closed lids.
“Oh, God, Rachel,” he rasped. “Oh, God, woman—how much I want you! How damned beautiful you are like this, wanting me, letting me touch you. I dream of it. I can’t get you out of my thoughts.”
He came back to her then to hold himself above her on his elbows, his body shaking to match her own fevered trembling. “Now touch me, Rachel. Do the same thing to me.”
Her hands began to follow every taut, straining line of his powerful body that he laid open for her to do as she wanted, and she was as gentle as he. He took her hand and put it, against his inner thigh, and the muscles jumped spasmodically under her light touch.
“Touch me now,” he managed, his eyes closed. A rough sound, almost a sob, broke through his lips as she took him in her hand and stroked him, adoring his bursting power with every touch.
“I miss your red hair,” he grated. “Ah, babe, that’s heaven, don’t stop. Your hair—beautiful red hair that used to wind around me like a net, holding me. Like the women in Homer who sang.”
“Sirens.”
“Yes, sirens. Oh, Rachel—” His voice cracked. “You were never supposed to be here—I was never supposed to find you. Never in this life.”
He rolled over her slowly, gathering the coiled power in his aroused body with deliberate care. He kissed her deeply, murmuring urgent words against her wet, opened lips that she hardly heard. Then, very softly into her ear, “Do you still love me, Rachel?”
With her arms twined tightly around his neck she could only nod.
“Keep saying it to me, honey, I want to hear it.” He pressed against her slowly, powerfully, entering her as she murmured the words, watching her with gleaming eyes. He kept pressing, his body following in a continuing thrust that filled her until she moved under him, easing around him, taking him more and more, until she gasped.
“Take me, my beautiful darling.” The choked words were shaken. “And move for me while I’m like this, inside you. I want to remember this, how much you want me.”
Rachel was sobbing as she moved, twisting her body with increasing wildness under him in a flooding ecstasy of love and desire. He held himself still, his forehead pressed to hers, his face contorted with pleasure and pain. Her hands roved over him with a sort of madness, caressing the broad wet expanse of his back with the muscles rippling under smooth skin, the tightly contracted strength of his buttocks and waist, his satiny powerful arms, until he was trembling violently. When he began to move, long, forceful strokes that demanded her strength and her passionate endurance, a blackness swept over her. She sank her teeth into the skin of his shoulder and heard him moan raggedly.
“Ah, love ... ah, love.” His husky rasp was tormented. “Give me this to remember!”
Then there was only the sound of her name over and over as deep, drugging madness overtook them, out of control, their hearts thundering, violent desire claiming them as time and the world fell away. They were the only ones in the darkness, hovering between heaven and hell; they had found each other, possessing each other, and there was nothing more.
After the violence, the mindless ecstacy of desire, they lay for what seemed like a long time in exhausted twilight, travelers no longer lost, spent with their seeking. Beau rolled away and lay perfectly still beside her, his chest rising and falling with slow, shuddering gasps.
Trembling now with tiredness, Rachel tried to sit up.
“Where are you going?” His voice was rough.
“I only wanted to turn out the light.”
“Leave it. You’re not going to stay.”
He pulled himself up to his elbow, lifting his forearm to wipe his wet, glistening face. He put his long legs over the edge of the bed. “Get your clothes.”
She drew back a little, staring at him. He was not angry, not cold or withdrawn. He simply sat, his beautiful naked body as still as a hunting animal’s, waiting, calmly dispassionate.
“I ... I wanted to stay a little,” she stammered. “I thought—”
“Do you still love me?” He didn’t look at her; his voice was even, expressionless.
She only wanted to get back in bed with him, to feel his arms around her, but he’d said she wasn’t going to stay. The windows were dark; it was night.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You’re a liar, Rachel.” The sibilant words fell quietly. “I’m just finding out how much of a liar you are. It’s disillusioning as hell.” He reached to the floor and lifted her dress. “Put it on,” he ordered, handing it to her.
She took the dress out of his hand and could only stare. “What have I done?” Her voice broke. “What are you punishing me for now?”
He pulled her from the bed and made her stand before him as he sat on the edge. He handed her the bra and panties and waited while she put them on.
“You know what you’ve done better than I do.” The empty voice was dangerously quiet. “But spare me the details. I don’t want to hear them right now. Put on your dress. Such a pretty dress, I suppose it’s new.”
“No, it’s not.” She hardly heard her own words. She lifted the dress and he helped smooth it down as she slipped it over her head. She looked down at the top of his head, fine, thick hair falling in glistening strands over his forehead, but his face was shut, adamant.
“What have I done?” she repeated, staring at him.
It was as though he wasn’t listening. “Rachel, this is a tough world,” he murmured, staring at the silk folds of her skirt and the little embroidered flowers. “You were on the right track—coming here tonight looking beautiful for me in the pretty dress, the sexy undies—but you haven’t quite got the hang of it. I don’t guess you ever will. It takes more than looking beautiful and knowing that I want you—that I can’t keep my hands off you and that I’ll go to bed with you any time I can—to play a winning game. I hate to tell you this,” he said, lifting his gaze to her face, “but you’ve just been aced. It was a good try, though.”
“Don’t do this to me,” she begged. “You’ve got to tell me what this is all about!”
“I’m telling you. Why the hell don’t you listen?” Something flickered in his eyes, bright as a match flame, then it was gone. “I want you so much, Rachel, I don’t think even you know how much, but that has nothing to do with it. You’re not tough enough to play this sort of game—any sort of game—and win. For one thing, you always have to be on the lookout for the unknown factor. It’s like military strategy-count on the surprise that you don’t even know about, what you least expect, because it will always get you. I didn’t, once, and I paid for it on a path in the jungle. You didn’t, here tonight, and you just blew it.”
“I don’t understand you,” she wailed.
“I didn’t get you pregnant, honey.” The low, quiet words were relentless. “Because I can’t. They gave me a vasectomy, part of the patch-up job, while I was still in the field hospital in ‘Nam. They told me it was routine, considering the area of damage.” His hands gripped the front of her dress as he said, “I’m sorry, angel, but I’m not the one. I’m sterile. I’ll just have to refer you back to Jim Claxton.”
O cloud in the west, like a thought in the heart
Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start
And do a grace for me.
Marsh Song
Chapter Twenty-
One
The full complement of the Draytonville High School band—including the eight pretty twirlers in orange and white miniskirted uniforms who also doubled as the cheerleading team in football and basketball season—played and marched for an exciting and noisy half hour on the upper end of Main Street to mark the departure of Rachel Goodbody Brinton, who was returning to Philadelphia.
The band had turned out also, unofficially, for Til who had announced that he would not seek a renewal of his contract for the coming school year. He would be moving his family to Atlanta to accept a position as community liaison with that city’s government.
While the co-op’s potluck picnic lunch was being spread out in the parking lot behind the storefront office, and pickup trucks were still arriving with the members’ families, the sizable crowd of townspeople and other visitors was urged by Billy Yonge, the cooperative’s chairman of the board, to tour the new offices and see the exhibit of historic photographs of DeRenne County arranged by the county librarian’s office in Hazel Gardens. Some of the library exhibit’s old black-and white pictures had been taken almost a half a century ago by WPA photographers; their scenes of rice and cotton fields and turpentine operations in the midst of the Depression aroused great interest, especially among those who could recognize some of their relatives. The viewers, staring at the faces of the county’s tenant farmers and the smalltown rural poor in these pictures, commented that in general things had certainly changed. In the 1930’s there had been no 1-75, the huge north-south interstate expressway along the southern coasts; Hilton Head had only been a half-deserted hunting preserve for wealthy northerners; and even Savannah and Charleston existed as small southern cities whose fortunes were still in decline. In the last rows of pictures, as the crowds exited through the back door, were photographs of fresh-faced young men in uniform posed with the military bombers that had been stationed at the Hazel Gardens World War Two Army Air Force Base, now the familiar DeRenne County airport.
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