by Peggy Webb
"Why?" she asked softly.
"I think you know."
"I want to hear you say the words."
His smile was slow and lazy. "Do you want it in writing, Doctor?" The smile took the sting out of the words.
"What would you do if I said yes?"
He reminded her of a lion as he walked toward her, deliberate and purposeful, a golden-hued sleek jungle cat, king of his kind, stalking the victim. She smiled. She had never felt less like a victim in her life. She felt vibrant and alive, and surging with joy.
Dirk didn't stop until he was so close that she could see the tiny scar on his jaw. He cupped her face with his hands, lifting it so that he could look into her eyes. "I would say, 'Get me a piece of paper.' "
She took a long, ragged breath. "You once vowed that you would not be involved in a summer affair."
"Some vows are meant to be broken."
"Are you very sure?"
"Yes." His thumbs traced her jawline as he talked. "I've discovered some things about myself, Ellen."
She smiled. "You said that once too."
"I've discovered feelings that are too strong to be denied. I've discovered that I have to have you—no matter what the consequences."
The words echoed in her mind: no matter what the consequences. It amazed her that she and Dirk were so alike. He had expressed her feelings exactly. She knew that her work was a demanding master. She knew that a husband and family didn't fit into her plans. Besides that Dirk still had secrets—a name and a past that he had chosen to hide from her. In spite of all that she still wanted him. She wanted to know the touch of his hands on her body. She wanted to know the feel of his lips on her skin.
"Yes," she said. "I’ll go with you ... no matter what the consequences."
It was his turn to ask the question. "You're sure? You're sure you can handle a summer affair with no commitments?"
"Yes." She put her hands over his and pressed them against her face. "I'm very sure."
He leaned down and kissed her lightly. The kiss tasted of sun and pine and sweat salt. It was a miniature lightning bolt, a prelude to the thunderstorm that was to come. He released her lips and took her hand. "Ready, Ellen?"
"As soon as I check on Ruth Ann and Gigi."
Together they walked up the hill. Dirk waited in the shade of a pine tree while Ellen went inside. She found Ruth Ann in the office.
"Is Gigi napping?" Ellen asked.
"Yes. She's been as good as gold today. She knows that she shouldn't have run away." Ruth Ann pushed her glasses down on her nose and studied Ellen. "How's the fence building coming along?"
"We haven't finished. It will probably be at least another day. Dirk's going to stay in the guest cabin until the job is done."
"Is that necessary? He lives only three miles away."
"No. It isn't necessary, but it's what I want." Ellen spoke quietly. She had already decided that there was no point in trying to keep their affair a secret. She was too old to sneak, and she was too close to her assistant to keep secrets. Besides that Ruth Ann knew everything that went on in the compound. She was nobody's fool.
"You already know what I think," Ruth Ann said. She took her glasses off and polished the already sparkling lenses.
"Yes."
She shoved the glasses back on her nose. "I just hope you know what you're doing, that's all."
"Don't worry about me, Ruth Ann. Dirk and I will be back—" -
"There's no need to tell me. I'm not a house mother." Ruth Ann waved toward the door. "Go, go. I’ll handle Gigi. You're spoiling her rotten anyhow. She's been trying all day to con me into letting her drive the Buick."
Ellen laughed. "Don't you dare."
"Don't worry. I'm not as softhearted as some people I know."
Ellen left the office and walked into the bright sunlight. Dirk smiled at her.
"Ready, love?" he asked.
"What happened to honey-bunchums?"
He put his arm around her shoulder and led her to his car. "That was for make-believe. This is for real."
o0o
As they drove to Tony's cabin, Ellen decided that Beech Mountain had never looked more glorious. It was like a handsome old warrior with rugged, weatherbeaten cheeks of stone, a girdle of stalwart pines, and a victory crown of goldenrod. She thought the setting was altogether appropriate for the beginning of an interlude of pleasure.
Dirk parked Rocinante in the shade by the cabin. "Here we are," he said. He turned and looked at her, his eyes unnaturally bright in the shadows of the car. That was all it took: the simple words and one look.
They didn't know who made the first move, but suddenly they were together in the middle of the seat, holding each other, lips seeking lips, torso straining against torso as they sealed their fate with a kiss.
She tasted the salt of his lips and smelled the wind scent of his hair. Her hands moved restlessly across his bare back until they found what they sought, the jagged scar. Tenderly she traced its lines as her mouth flowered open to welcome his tongue. She moaned at the roughness of his tongue as he caressed the warm satin of her mouth, inciting her body to riot. Their breaths mingled as their tongues danced together, thrusting and probing, a heated prelude to the intimacy to come.
Without the coolness of the air conditioner the car, even under the shade of the pine tree, became a hotbox. Perspiration beaded Ellen's forehead and ran in rivulets between her breasts as she remained locked in Dirk's arms. She could feel his bare chest, sweat-slick and heaving, through the thin cotton of her blouse.
He made a sound deep in his throat and moved his mouth only inches from hers. "I want you, Ellen, but not like this. I want to savor you." Taking her hand, he pulled her almost roughly from the car.
She followed him willingly across the clearing, but as he strode past the cabin she tugged at his hand until he stopped. "Wait." She laughed breathlessly up at him. "Where are we going?"
"I know a place." His voice held the rough edge of suppressed passion. "Follow me."
Right at the moment she would have followed him to the ends of the earth. She smiled at him, and her eyes told him what he needed to know.
Without another word he led her into the woods behind Anthony Salinger's cabin. The trees made a cool canopy over their heads as he guided her to a pond, set like a blue jewel amid the thick growth of pine and oak and willow. Skirting the edge of the pond, they came to a natural bower, walled in by a thick tangle of muscadine vines and a rampant growth of wild roses.
They stopped inside the bower, still holding hands, and looked deep into each other's eyes. All the days of waiting, the lonely hours of wanting, were clearly stamped on their faces. They made no move to embrace but stood perfectly still, savoring the tight moment of anticipation, reveling in the delicious shivers of desire that were running through them.
He reached up slowly to touch the soft tendrils of hair that had slipped from her topknot and framed her face. "All my life I've dreamed of a woman like you and a place like this."
She covered his hand and rubbed it against her cheek. "Do dreams come true?"
"Only when we make them." And Dirk, the man accustomed to the hard knocks and the harsher realities of life, set about making his dream come true.
With a control that he was far from feeling, he let his hands trace the lines of her body, starting at her face, sliding down her neck, moving across her shoulders and down the length of her arms. The hands, sun-bronzed and powerful, moved back up her arms and across her chest, stopping to cup her breasts. Through the fabric of her blouse they teased and molded until her nipples were tight and jutting.
She tangled her hands in his dark hair as he lowered his head and opened his mouth over one breast. While his hands continued to knead and mold the other breast, his tongue wet the fabric around her nipple, until the nipple was a dark, tempting rosebud visible through the thin blouse.
Her hands moved in his hair, pulling him closer as her head tipped back. Flashes of heat
shot through her body as he took her deep in his mouth. The sensations were heightened by the faint abrasion of wet fabric on her breasts. The heady scent of wild roses filled her nostrils as Dirk moved from one breast to the other, seeking and suckling.
When he at last lifted his head, she was weak- kneed with desire. She felt his hands begin the slow unbuttoning of her blouse.
"I approve this new fashion," he said. His voice was low and hoarse with passion.
"I didn't take time to put on a bra this morning." Her hands moved to his mat of dark chest hair, gold-tipped by the sun. She felt its springy texture as her fingertips explored in erotic circles.
"That's the first thing I noticed this morning," he said, "when you came for Gigi. It's been driving me wild all day."
He slid the blouse from her shoulders and let it flutter to the ground. Cupping her face in his hands he urged her closer until their bare chests were touching. His mouth descended on hers, claiming it with hot, wet kisses as he brushed his chest back and forth against hers. Her sensitive nipples, already primed by his tongue, tightened into aching readiness as the crisp hairs of his chest massaged them.
While his mouth slid across hers, wetting her lips, teasing them, tasting them, his hands slipped down to unsnap her shorts. His thumbs hooked the waistband, forcing the shorts to ride low on her hips. She wiggled against him, and the shorts slid down her legs and landed on the grass. He drew her tight against him so that she felt his hardness through the thin silk of her panties.
His hips plunged against hers with growing impatience. He lowered her to the ground and divested himself of his clothes in one fluid movement. The scent of the summer grass and the wild roses seemed to drug her as she felt his hard body on top of her. He rolled to one side, propping himself up on his elbow, and pulled the pins from her hair and flung them aside. With one motion of his powerful hand he loosed her hair and spread it like a flame on the grass.
He bent down and buried his face in her fragrant hair. The silken curls caressed his lips as his hands traveled down her legs, taking the last scrap of clothing that stood between them.
Lifting himself over her, he looked deep into her eyes. "I want you more than I ever dreamed possible," he whispered.
Her head moved restlessly from side to side. "Love me . . . love me. Dirk."
The world tipped sideways as his heavy tumescence slipped into her. He was velvet and she was satin as they began the age-old dance of love. With a tantalizing slowness they moved together in the dappled shadows of the late afternoon sun until the ancient rhythm became a frenzied beat. The sun shot from the sky and melted inside Ellen as
Dirk became jagged lightning and rolling thunder. Her shoulders pushed into the grass as she met the fury of his storm with an abandon that matched his.
His hoarse cry filled the bower as they rode out the storm together. She arched high for his powerful thrusts, her hands clenched on his tense back and her head thrown back in the fragrant grass. Her body shuddered with completion as he drenched her with the final fury of his love.
Their limp legs tangled together as he lay on top of her, spent. His cheek rested in her hair and his damp chest pressed against her breasts.
"Ellen?" His voice was muffled by her hair.
"Hmm?"
"I'm already wishing the summer would last forever."
"So am I."
They stayed locked together, not speaking, until the lowering sun began to pink the western horizon, and he slipped, unbidden, from her. He rolled off her and raised himself to his knees, pulling her up with him.
"Follow me, love." He held out his hand.
As she reached out she teased, "You're always saying that."
He pulled her to her feet. "I've always wanted to have a beautiful woman do my bidding."
"Just any woman?"
"No. Only the red-haired ones."
"Which red-haired ones?"
"The ones who live on Beech Mountain and teach gorillas to talk." Without warning he scooped her into his arms. Looking down into her face, he spoke earnestly. "Only the one whose hair smells like wild flowers and whose body makes a man forget."
"Forget what?" Her green eyes searched his black ones for answers.
As the sun sank lower and the scent of wild roses became more pronounced on the still evening air. Dirk lowered one more barrier. "The evil that men do," he said. "The reasons for prisons and wars." His eyes became blacker than night as he added one last bit of truth to the revelation. "The reason for my loneliness."
She reached up and gently touched the tiny scar on his jaw. "I'm glad I could make you forget."
He shrugged his shoulders as if the motion could cast off the real world. Suddenly he laughed, startling a pair of cardinals into flight. "Time's a-wastin'." He strode swiftly to the pond.
"You sound like Aunt Lollie," she said.
"Where do you think I learned that expression? That woman has a way with words."
As he put his foot into the water she realized his intent. "Dirk! I’ll be cold. Even in summer these mountain ponds are chilly."
"Where's your sense of adventure?" He waded farther into the water until he was standing thigh- deep. He lowered his arms briefly, dipping her backside into the cold water.
"Dirk Smith Caldwell the Third! Put me down."
"Benedict," he said calmly as he dumped her into the water.
She came up sputtering and gasping, but the shock of the cool water was nothing compared to the shock of hearing his name. Tossing her wet hair out of her eyes, she stared at him. "Benedict? For real?"
He nodded. "Benedict." Turning from her, he arched his body and dived cleanly into the water. With strong strokes he swam toward the middle of the lake.
"Come back here," she yelled. "You can't just leave it at that."
"Come and get me," he shouted. Grinning wickedly, he went underwater again.
With the blood thrumming in her ears with this new knowledge and her body still ablaze with recent lovemaking, Ellen decided that the pond was not too cold after all. She jackknifed expertly into the water and swam after him.
Suddenly she felt her left foot being tugged. Even under the water Dirk's hand sent shivers up her leg. She took a deep breath before she was pulled under. His hands slid up her body, inch by inch, until he was clasping her around the waist.
The water distorted his features and played with his thick, dark hair. With his hands guiding her she floated closer until their bodies were touching, length to length. He lowered his head for an aquatic kiss, a brief skimming of lip across lip, and then, holding her tight, he shot to the surface.
Ellen shook her hair from her eyes. "So. You like to play games, do you?" She reached out and ducked him.
Instead of coming back up, he grabbed her ankle again and pulled her under. Reflections from the sunset sky turned their bodies to gold as they cavorted like two of nature's children. Their combined laughter rang out in the still air, and its happy sound was so right, so much a part of nature, that the two deer who had come to the edge of the pond for a quiet evening drink simply lifted their heads for a moment and, finding nothing to alarm, continued their drinking.
Refreshed from the swim and invigorated by laughter, Ellen and Dirk joined hands and of one accord waded to the shallow edge of the pond. He stopped when they were knee-deep and looked down at her. Lifting one finger he traced the edge of her cheekbone and the line of her jaw.
"So beautiful," he murmured. "You are so beautiful." Bending down, he followed the path of his hands with his tongue, licking away the droplets of water on her face. His lips found the hollow of her throat and paused there, pressed against the soft skin that fluttered from the sudden wild thumping of her heart.
Joy flooded her as he lifted her from the water and carried her ashore. Their private bower was now shadowed with purple and redolent with the scent of roses.
He stood, looking into her face. "I love these mountains," he said. What he wanted to say was / love you
.
"I will always remember the smell of wild roses," she murmured. What she wanted to say was I will always remember you.
He lowered her to the grass, letting her wet body slide against his. By the time her feet touched the ground, she was aware of his pulsing shaft and her own growing passion. Their arms locked, and they held each other fiercely, not kissing but letting their bodies communicate their mutual need.
The grass welcomed them as they sank to the ground, and they rolled over and over, feeling, bumping, touching, not wanting to let go. Not ever wanting to let go.
At last they stopped, and Dirk lay on top of Ellen, breathing harshly. He slipped to her side and gently brushed away the bits of grass that clung to her still-wet body. His touch sent shivers skittering along her spine, and she arched toward his hand.
Without speaking, he let his fingers trail across her breasts. His face filled with pleasure at the instant response. Lowering his head, he took the ripe tips between his teeth and tugged gently. Ellen buried her face in his hair and knew the return of splendor.
His mouth and tongue feasted on the heavy, love-filled treasures until she was writhing beneath his touch. He parted her legs and moved his questing mouth downward. His tongue left a path of liquid fire in its wake. He explored the indentation of her navel, the soft downy fuzz on her stomach, the satin of her inner thighs. And when his tongue nudged its way into the dark triangle between her legs, spasms of ecstasy ripped through her.
When she became limp under his expert lovemaking, he rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him, fitting her over his hard shaft. The world seemed to explode as she was once more caught up in the frenzy of passion.
Time stood still for Ellen and Dirk as their bodies spoke love on top of Beech Mountain. They both told themselves that this was a grand beginning of a summer affair, but deep inside they knew better. Theirs was a joining that claimed the heart as surely as any vows ever spoken. Theirs was a coming together of two lonely people, the bonding of two brilliant deceivers who experienced love while denying its existence.