by Sandra Brown
Mark embraced her. "Good. I'm glad. A case of raw lust is going to be very healthy for you." Chuckling, he added, "This is going to be interesting to watch, even from afar." He kissed her temple, then her lips. "Be happy, Schyler."
He released her and moved across the veranda toward the screen door. "Don't bother showing me upstairs. I know the way. Forgive me for abandoning you tonight, but I'm exhausted. The flight and all." He blew her a kiss, then stepped inside.
Schyler remained where she was, staring at the empty doorway. After several moments, she turned, still keeping contact with the pillar, and looked out across the lawn.
The red glow of a cigarette winked at her.
She was down the steps and walking through the damp, cool grass before she even realized the fluted column was no longer supporting her. It seemed to take forever for her to reach the woods, but then before she could prepare herself for it, she brushed aside a clump of crepe myrtle blooms and came face-to-face with Cash. He tossed down his cigarette and ground it to powder with the toe of his boot.
"What are you doing skulking around out here in the dark?" Schyler angrily demanded. "If you were spying on me, why—"
"Shut up."
Chapter Forty-three
He took her jaw between his hard fingers, backed her into the trunk of a pine, and forced her lips to open beneath his kiss. His tongue arrowed toward the back of her throat as his lips rubbed kiss after hot kiss upon here. Her arms went up around his neck. She drove her fingers through his hair and held his head fast. He released her jaw and moved both hands up and down her body, touching as much of her as he could.
He tore his mouth free and locked his lustful gaze with hers. Their breaths made a thrashing sound in the dark stillness.
"Goddamn you, say you want me."
Schyler moistened her swollen, vandalized lips. "I want you. That's why I'm here."
He enclosed her wrist in the circle of his fingers and dragged her deeper into the forest. She stumbled along behind him, half laughing, half crying. She wasn't frightened. Her heart was churning with exhilaration, not fear. She didn't feel a sense of being dragged away from everything that was familiar and safe, but rather toward something that was new and exciting. And though he had her wrist imprisoned in his grasp, she felt free and unfettered.
He took her to the place on the bayou where he'd treated the dog bites a few weeks earlier. The same lantern was there, die same pirogue.
"Get in."
She stepped into the small boat and unsteadily lowered herself onto the seat. Cash pushed the boat away from the bank and stepped into it in one fluid motion. Taking up the long pole, he moved the pirogue through the shallow, murky waters by pushing along the bottom with the pole.
He stood in the prow, never taking his eyes off of Schyler. His silhouette looked large and dangerous and dark against the moonlit sky. The moon played in and among the trees that lined the bank, so that the surrounding forest was a constantly shifting pattern of light and shadow. The waters of the bayou swished pleasantly against the pirogue. Bullfrogs croaked from their natural barges and night birds called to each other.
"Why did you leave him and come to me?"
"Mark?"
"Did you break it off with him?"
"There was nothing to break off."
"You could get hurt playing me for a fool, Schyler."
She didn't doubt that for an instant. "Mark is gay. Our living arrangement was purely platonic."
He didn't laugh. He didn't accuse her of lying. He didn't express disbelief.
She would have expected any of those reactions. He said nothing, and only continued to help the slow-moving current by applying the pole to the muddy bottom of the bayou.
Sometimes the channel was so narrow that tree branches interlaced above them and formed a canopy. The bayou took twists and turns until Schyler lost all sense of direction. Even the moon seemed to change position in the sky.
She experienced sights and sounds and smells that she had never experienced before. The air felt different, still, but teeming with energy, with life unseen. It was an alien world, Cash's world. He was lord of it, so she wasn't afraid.
At last the pirogue nosed against the bank. He stepped out and dragged it to more solid ground. Dropping the pole, he reached for Schyler's hand and helped her alight. Carrying the lantern in his free hand, he led her up the incline toward his house.
They entered through the screened porch. He set the lantern on his bedside table and turned to face her. For endless moments they said nothing, just stood there, staring at each other, feeling apprehensive about what was about to happen.
Moving simultaneously, they fell on each other hungrily. His fingers sank into her hair and folded around her scalp. He angled her head back and kissed her mouth, then her throat, then her mouth again. In between those explicit kisses, he murmured even more explicit words. Some were spoken in the language of his mother's ancestors. If the words were indistinguishable, his inflection was easily understood. Schyler responded to the sexual dialect, demonstrating her willingness by arching her body against his.
The fabric of her dress was so soft, so sheer, that it seemed as insubstantial as cotton candy against the hard, demanding toughness of his body. Schyler wanted to be wrapped in his virility.
His kisses gentled. He moved his tongue in and out of her mouth with deliberate leisure, savoring each nuance, the sleek texture, the sweet taste.
"Last time, you didn't know what hit you," he said gruffly. "This time, lady, I want you buzzing."
"I'm already buzzing." She gasped as his hands moved down the front of her dress. His palms were hot. They seemed to melt the fabric.
He looked down at her and smiled. "Good. That's good." He bent his head and kissed her mouth again. He reached for her buttons. Ending the kiss, his eyes followed the movements of his hands as he meticulously released each button from its hole. When they were all undone, he parted the bodice. Her demi-bra was pastel and floral and all for show. It seemed to disintegrate beneath his deft fingers.
And then her breasts were lying in his palms and his thumbs were sweeping back and forth over their tips. "Cash." Softly crying his name, she placed her hands at either side of his waist as her body angled back.
He made small sounds of arousal and gratification as her nipples turned as hard and rosy as pink pearls against his brushing fingertips. He bent his head toward them and laved them quickly with his tongue. He drew one into his mouth and sucked firmly.
"I can't get enough," he groaned, flinging his head up. He pressed her face between his hands and glared down at her, his intense desire bordering on fury. "I can't get enough," he repeated before assaulting her mouth again.
Locked together they fell on the bed. He worked her dress down to her hips, then he tossed it over the bed. He took only an instant to visually admire her skimpy lingerie before helping her remove it.
When she was naked, he laid his hand on her belly and rubbed his calloused palm across it. He stroked the wedge of tight, blond curls. They ensnared his fingertips. Then he curved his strong dark hand around her breast.
Holding his stare, Schyler pulled his shirt out of his waistband and slid her hands beneath it. She combed her fingers through the thick curly pelt. His eyes narrowed with increasing passion. His breath made a whistling sound through his compressed lips.
With rapid, jerky motions, he ripped his shirt buttons out of their holes and shrugged his shirt off. The buckle of his belt required a little more dexterity. He cursed it numerous times before it and his jeans became unfastened. He quickly rolled to his back and, raising his hips off the bed, pushed the jeans down his thighs. He kicked free of them, sending his boots to the floor at the same time.
Naked, warm, and hard, he rolled on top of Schyler and pinned her hands on either side of her head. His kiss would have been ravishment had she not participated with equal ardor.
"I'll kill you if you're lying to me abou
t him."
"I'm not. I swear I'm not."
"Then this is for me? You're hot for me?"
"Yes," she cried out.
Inching his way down, he kissed her neck and chest. She laid her hands on his shoulders and gripped them hard while he stimulated her breasts with his lips and tongue until her nipples were stiff. He kissed his way down her middle, nipping her lightly with his teeth. His tongue flicked over her navel until she was gasping for breath.
Then it became impossible to breathe at all because he planted a hot, wet kiss just above her pubic hair, kissing her so strongly that he drew her delicate skin against his front teeth and made a mark. Her reaction was electric and involuntary. Raising her knees, digging her heels into the mattress, she tilted her hips up and forward.
Cash slid his hands beneath her derriere, pressed his fingers into the supple flesh, and drew her against his open mouth. He ate her with gentle avidity, letting her know he derived as much pleasure from it as he gave. Mindless as she was, and drowning in sensation, Schyler realized that Cash wanted her in the most intimate way.
His tongue pressed high into the giving folds of her body, sliding in and out in a delicious tongue-fuck. When he allowed it to slip free, he made sharp, stabbing motions with it against that kernel of flesh that had become exposed.
She clutched his hair. "Stop. Stop. Cash. No." Her belly grew taut. Her throat and breasts grew flushed. She felt as if she were poised on the edge of a cliff, looking down.
"Come," he grated hoarsely. "I want you to. Come against my mouth."
She couldn't have stopped it if she had wanted to.
When the last wave receded and she opened her eyes, his face was bending close above hers. She saw herself reflected in the swirls of gray and green and gold in his eyes. She smiled tentatively.
"What?" He playfully nudged her belly with the smooth, velvety tip of his iron penis.
"I look thoroughly debauched."
He grinned. "You certainly do." Then he sobered as his eyes wandered over her face. It was rosy and dewy with perspiration. Her lips were full and moist and slightly battered from his kiss and her own teeth. "You look beautiful."
He wasn't a man who handed out compliments frequently, if at all. Schyler had the feeling that he'd never told another woman feat she was beautiful, at least not after he had succeeded in getting her in bed.
Her eyes turned smoky wife fee thought. Moving her fingers over his chest she said, "I think you're beautiful, too." She drew his head down and kissed his lips, licking fee taste of herself off them.
Cash, hissing in sexual agony, caught her hand. He carried it down between their bodies and filled it with his erection. "Hold me. Squeeze me. Tight." He said the last word between clenched teeth, because her hand was already caressing fee smooth, thick shaft. She discovered a drop of moisture on the very tip and spread it in and around fee cleft.
Chanting love words, swear words, Cash reached between their bodies and separated fee moist lips of her sex with his fingers. He planted himself so solidly inside of her feat their body hair meshed.
He whispered, "You're tighter than a fist. Wetter than a mouth."
She massaged him with the walls of her body, contracting and releasing her muscles in an undulating motion that reduced him to a whimpering, quivering male animal, defeated by his own superb sexuality.
"Damn you," he breathed as he began to stroke her harder. "Damn you."
Again and again he delved into her body. Each time he almost withdrew, stretching and opening to give them ultimate sensation when he sank back into her. Schyler arched up to meet each deep thrust. Soon her choppy breathing matched his. When climax was imminent, they clung together and helplessly surrendered to each other, and to the rampant desire that neither wanted.
Chapter Forty-four
Lying face-to-face, Schyler lovingly examined him.
"What caused this?" She touched a knick of a scar on his chest.
"Knife fight in Vietnam."
"You got that close to the enemy?"
"Not the enemy. Another GI."
"What were you fighting over?"
"Hell if I know. It didn't matter. We invented reasons for fighting."
"Why?"
"To let off steam."
"Wasn't there enough of a fight going on in the battie zones?"
"Oui. But that wasn't a fair fight. Most of the skirmishes in the barracks were."
"Were you a regular soldier?"
"I was irregular. All of us had to be to survive."
"I meant did you specialize in something."
"Munitions and explosives." His jaw tensed. "I guess I did my share to get the body count up."
She tried to smooth the hair on his eyebrow, but it was too unruly. "If you felt that way about the war, why did you volunteer to go? I was told you kept reenlisting."
He shrugged. "It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I wasn't doing anything else."
"What about college?"
"I was enrolled, but I knew more about my major than the professors."
"What was your major?"
"Forestry."
"You didn't have to go to Vietnam to get out of college, Cash. You could have stayed here and worked."
He was shaking his head before she finished. "Cotton and I had had a falling out."
"Cotton was partly responsible for you going to war? How? What did you argue over?"
He gazed at her for a long time, then said, "Over your mother's death."
"My mother's death? What did that have to do with you?"
He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. Propping herself on one elbow, Schyler looked down at him inquisitively. He avoided looking at her. "After Macy died, I expected Cotton to marry my mother. He didn't. Wouldn't."
She rested her hand on Cash's breastbone, opening and closing her fingers like the pleats of a fan, snaring curly strands of chest hair between them. "I don't know what to say about that, Cash. I don't know much about it."
"Well I sure as hell knew what to say. I said it all to Cotton's face. We had a helluva fight. We would have come to blows if my mother hadn't intervened."
From what she knew of Monique, Schyler imagined how she must have felt when the two men she loved were at each other's throats. "What did she do?"
"Do? She defended Cotton, of course. She always defended him. She had justifications for everything he ever did. She never saw what a son of a bitch he is."
Her lover was calling her father a son of a bitch, but Schyler didn't jump to Cotton's defense. It was little wonder that Cash resented Cotton for not marrying his mother. Under similar circumstances, she would have felt the same way.
Cotton had been a good father to her and Tricia. She adored him in spite of his shortcomings. But she was no judge on how he conducted his personal life outside of Belle Terre. Until a few weeks ago, she didn't even know about his relationship with Monique Boudreaux and her volatile son. Each man was strong-willed and Schyler clearly imagined how vehemently they could disagree.
"The night we brought Gayla to Belle Terre, you mentioned that your mother had miscarried a baby."
"Oui."
"My father's baby?"
His eyes flashed defensively. "Oui. My mother might have been unmarried, but she wasn't a whore. She didn't sleep with anybody but him."
"I didn't mean to imply—"
"I'm hungry. Are you?" He rolled off the bed and snatched up his jeans.
Troubled, Schyler took the shirt he tossed her and pushed her arms through the sleeves. "Yes, I'm hungry. What have you got?"
"Red beans and rice."
"Sounds delicious."
"Leftovers, but I'll heat it up."
Together they padded through the house, switching on lights as they went. Schyler sat in a chair at the table and watched while Cash moved about the small kitchen heating up a pan of the fragrant, hearty ethnic dish. When he passed her a plateful she saw that the bean
s and rice were complemented by large disks of spicy sausage.
"Just the way I like it," she said, digging in. "Hmm, wonderful. Who made it?"
"I did." She stopped chewing. He laughed at her incredulous expression. "Did you think the only recipes my mother left me were cures for warts and dyspepsia?"
Schyler ate with an unladylike appetite and finished everything on her plate. As Cash was carrying it to the sink, she studied the graceful lines of his back, the natural swagger of his narrow hips, and his long, lean legs.
He turned around and caught her looking at him with dreamy, misty eyes. "See anything you like?" he asked cockily,
"You're conceited, but, yes, I like everything I see."
"You don't sound too happy about it. What's the matter?"
"What's going to happen tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?"
Suddenly embarrassed, Schyler glanced down at her hands, which were nervously clasping and unclasping in her lap. The hem of his shirt barely skimmed her thighs. She resisted the urge to modestly tug it down.
"I mean, what's going to happen between us? Daddy's coming home."
"I know." She looked up hastily. "I called the hospital," Cash said by way of explanation. "When you left the landing in such a hurry, I thought something might be wrong."
"On the contrary, he's doing much better. But he's still a heart patient. He can't get upset." She ran her tongue over her lips. "I don't know how he would take to something, you know, an affair, between you and me."
"He'll go ape-shit."
Cash's response was not very encouraging. She continued anyway. "You know how busy we're going to be for the next few weeks. We've got to get that Endicott order filled in time. I can't let anything, particularly my personal life, stand in the way of that. There won't be much time for. . . for. . ."
Cash, leaning against the old-fashioned, corrugated cast- iron drain board, crossed his bare ankles and folded his arms over his hairy chest. His silence urged her to continue. "I'm not sure I'm ready for any kind of emotional entanglement. The relationship I had with Mark was special, even though it wasn't sexual. I'll miss him. I know you see other women."