Small Town Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  He froze where he stood, with a question behind the burning desire in his eyes.

  In answer, she licked the salty taste of him.

  She smiled as his fists clenched, and he admirably restrained himself until she’d tested and tasted enough to satisfy her curiosity. A man with that much restraint in the midst of passion was a man who could tumble walls with his bare hands.

  That she trusted him enough to do this dissolved all barriers.

  When she’d tortured him sufficiently, she wriggled out of her skirt. He was on the couch beside her and had his fingers in her panties before the skirt was past her ankles.

  “Let me.” He kissed her navel and proceeded downward while his big hands swept the scrap of silk away.

  She’d spent weeks imagining this man’s hands on her. She wouldn’t argue now.

  Flint played her with the same finesse as he played his guitar. His talented fingers plucked and strummed and tuned until she reached perfect pitch. Jo screamed her release the instant he applied his tongue.

  When he was satisfied she was satisfied, he raised up, parted her knees with his, and shoved deep inside her without missing a beat. It was a coming home and a joyous reunion and a Hallelujah chorus all rolled into one.

  Jo arched upward until she was full to bursting, savoring the moment as Flint rested his forehead against hers and didn’t move. He was seated so deep that he tickled her heart strings and nearly robbed her of breath. They stole that moment of togetherness, blocking out past hurts and future problems to claim the physical connection of the present.

  When fear and regret threatened to raise their ugly heads, Flint shattered them by lifting her hips and thrusting deeper, over and over until the music of their bodies built to a crescendo and crashed with ringing cymbals and a drum roll that refused to end until they dripped with sweat and fell together, satiated and beyond thought.

  ***

  “Umm, yum,” Jo hummed as a warm rough hand closed over her bare breast.

  “My thoughts precisely,” a deep voice murmured near her ear.

  The hard male body behind her moved closer, curving around her back. A stiff poke against her rump informed her of masculine intentions. She’d better rouse from her pleasant stupor if she wanted to participate. Or stop things now.

  She opened one eye and peered over an acre of navy satin sheets. She didn’t remember this. “Umm, how did I get here?”

  “You demanded all the couch, and I refused to sleep on the floor.” The voice was low and silky, and the hand was even better.

  “I sleepwalked up here?” She wasn’t precisely thinking clearly with lust clouding her brain. She pressed backward, letting him slide between her thighs.

  “Something like that.” Flint leaned over and nibbled her ear. “Good morning, Starshine.”

  Then he slid his hand between her legs from the front, and it was a good long time before she cared whether she thought about anything ever again. Flynn Clinton had a way of making a girl feel weightless, timeless, and in a special universe all her own.

  Next time Jo opened her eyes, sunlight poured through the picture window that was his bedroom wall. Her stomach rumbled. The Lance crackers from the hospital vending machine weren’t designed to last until dawn, much less half way to noon.

  She heard Flint’s stomach growl in accompaniment to her own and glanced across the sea of satin to the man who had ravished her more thoroughly than she’d ever been ravished, while playing sweet love songs with her body. She still tingled all over and felt as if she belonged in a harem, taking a wanton bubble bath after a night with the sultan.

  Flint lounged with his arm under his head, his splendidly nude body sprawled on top of the sheets, his gaze turned hungrily in her direction.

  She wanted more. From his state of semi-erection, she gathered he wanted the same.

  And they were both out of their ever-loving minds.

  Obviously, she was no longer immune to men, or at least to this one man who hid as much pain or more inside him than she did, a man sensitive enough to notice the people around him, even if he didn’t know how to act on what he saw.

  She might start thinking she could change a man again if she wasn’t careful.

  Tearing her gaze away, Jo sat up and looked around for direction. Her clothes hadn’t sleepwalked up the stairs with her.

  She wasn’t shy about her body, but she still felt the sensation of Flint inside her, and her hormones whirled like a tornado centered between her legs, knowing he was watching her every move. She really had done it this time. He was her boss.

  “Bathroom?” she asked without turning around.

  “Across the hall. I’m roughing it out here.”

  “That’s the only way I know to live.” Standing, she could see his driveway through the trees. The rain had washed away the summer dust and left the world sparkling with diamond droplets. “There’s a fancy white SUV crawling up the drive.”

  He uttered an expletive and hit the floor running. “I’ll bring your clothes up.”

  She left him dancing into a pair of jeans while she darted across the hall to the shower. It was Saturday. Flint’s parents and sons were arriving.

  She showered hurriedly, using his smelly shampoo. She had to leave her hair wet after she climbed out because she couldn’t find a dryer and didn’t have her brush. Flint had dropped her clothes on the bathroom rug and run, but her panties were missing. Wearing this skirt without underwear was almost the most scandalous thing she had ever done. Air tickled where Flint’s fingers had been not half an hour ago.

  She could hear him down below talking to a shrill female voice.

  This was beyond humiliating. She could crawl out a window, except she had nowhere to go. She didn’t even have her car.

  The knit top and denim mini-skirt were meant for the show last night. She couldn’t wear them in front of his parents. She wondered what had happened to the dress shirt Flint had provided, but he’d ripped the buttons off of it, so it wouldn’t be of much use.

  She slipped from the bathroom and across the hall to Flint’s bedroom. She rummaged until she found a heavy blue denim work shirt to pull over her sleeveless high-necked shell. The work shirt was loose enough to conceal the fact that her only bra was in the knit top.

  She would roast as the day warmed up, but the shirt had a long tail that hung past her hem like a big jacket and held Flint’s piney scent, so she felt secure, except for the draft where her panties ought to be.

  She checked Flint’s underwear drawer and decided his Calvin Klein’s might be a trifle noticeable under her skirt, even if she could keep them up, which she probably couldn’t.

  She turned her mind to other things, determined not to let this faze her. She needed a telephone to check on her mama. She couldn’t hide up here forever. At the sound of rising voices below, she decided now might be an excellent time to make her entrance. They couldn’t get much angrier.

  Jo stalked out in her high-heeled slides prepared to take on the world, and almost fell over the young Goth sitting at the top of the stairs, tapping away on a laptop. He didn’t even glance up at her as she approached.

  At the sound of musical notes emerging from the box, Jo lowered herself to the top step with him. She’d never owned a computer. Curiosity was her besetting sin, and she was equally curious about the machine and the kid. No Fear was her new motto. Besides, the kid looked too unhappy to fear him. “It plays music?” she asked, studying the screen.

  The notes from the computer were erratic and not high fidelity. She watched in amazement as he punched some buttons to change them.

  “Of course it plays music,” he answered with the arrogance of the young. “Do you think he has DSL?”

  “DSL? Daily Silly Lines? Yeah, a lot.” She really wasn’t that dumb, but the kid was way too serious.

  He shot her a scornful look that was pure Flint. “For the internet. Or cable, maybe. I didn’t ask when we were here last week.”

  �
�Sorry. Cable hasn’t reached this far into the hills. We have to use the phone lines. What’s that making the music?”

  “A program.” He hurriedly shut it down, turning off the noise. “I need to plug it in. My battery is low.”

  “Right. Well, I’m sure there are electric outlets. We got electricity a few years ago.” She was pulling his leg, but he seemed to take her seriously.

  “Why would anyone live in a hole like this? It’s the pits.” He got up and walked away, apparently in search of electricity.

  Interesting. But she didn’t have time for child psychology. She liked kids well enough, but her grand plans for fame and fortune had never included them. Ending up broke and supporting two kids like her mother wasn’t on her agenda.

  With no other diversion to prevent her from entering the lion’s den, Jo headed down the stairs where the argument had escalated to sullen silence.

  ***

  Flint had to bite back a grin of pride as Joella sashayed down the stairs as if she were wearing a ball gown and glass slippers. Her crowning glory of golden curls were no more than lank damp tendrils dripping over his shirt, and she was still the most glorious sight he’d ever seen.

  And he had to quit thinking of her right now. Despite her declaration of stage fright, she had a promising future outside these hills. His kids deserved better than another traveling musician in their lives.

  “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton,” she called brightly, as if his parents weren’t staring at her like she was Eve and the serpent all in one. Jo switched her gaze to him. “Where’s your phone? I need to call and check on Mama. Amy might know if they’re fixing the rock slide. If Mama is ready to go home, I’ll have to find someone to take us around to the other side of the mountain.”

  All this flowed like musical notes as Jo nonchalantly strolled past him, his parents, and back to the kitchen. Flint followed as if she were the Pied Piper. He noticed his parents did the same.

  “How about some eggs this morning?” she chirruped when she found Adam gazing into the refrigerator. “I’d fix you the best pancakes this side of the Pacific if I thought Flint had the ingredients in there.”

  She picked up his cordless and hit numbers while she gazed over Adam’s shoulder into the refrigerator. “You did good. Eggs and milk and maple syrup. A little flour and baking soda somewhere maybe?”

  Flint opened the cabinet with the dry goods. He hadn’t a clue what baking soda was, but he had pancake mix and figured that was better.

  Propping the telephone against her ear to ask for her mother’s room, Jo handed ingredients to a startled Adam. She located the bacon and pulled that out.

  It wasn’t until she started chatting with Marie and mixing pancakes at the same time that Flint recognized what Jo had done. She had thrown a verbal shield around both of them. Unable to get a word in edgewise, his mother grabbed the bacon and huffily prepared it for microwave cooking. His father took his newspaper and wandered back to the front room. Adam had been handed a fork and the bowl Jo had poured ingredients into, and he mixed the batter, unable to utter a word of protest.

  “That’s good, Mama. I’ll find someone to take me down to get you. Are you sure you’ll feel well enough to go all the way around the mountain? I could get you a room in Asheville…”

  Flint suspected she’d twist arms until she found one, too, then would scrub floors to pay for it. He was calculating how much more his credit card could hold when Marie apparently decided she wanted to go home.

  “Let me talk to Amy if she’s at the café,” he managed to squeeze in when Jo clicked the phone off on one call and began punching in numbers for another.

  He tried to keep enough distance between them so he didn’t smell his shampoo in her hair or accidentally set his chimes to ringing by touching her. Adam watched them with enough suspicion as it was.

  Listening for the phone to ring, she nodded while Flint produced a frying pan from beneath the stove. He’d lived on his own before. He knew the essentials.

  “Honestly, Flint,” his mother whispered, flinging the platter into the microwave, “you expect your sons to live like this?”

  “Hey, Amy, stay away from our new stove,” Jo called into the receiver with laughter in her voice, drowning out anything else his mother could say.

  The kitchen wasn’t big enough for two women, Flint decided. He really ought to escape before the next world war broke out, but he couldn’t desert Jo like that. Besides, Adam was turning to him with the bowl of pancake batter as if he expected him to do something with it. Might as well show the kid how it was done.

  Just as Jo was showing him how handling family was done. Flint admired her style and resolved to learn it. It wasn’t as if he’d paid a lot of attention over the traveling years, but the opportunity beckoned.

  In a blinding moment of revelation, he realized he didn’t want a maternal woman like his mother for a wife. He loved and respected his mother. He’d let her take his kids, after all. But a maternal woman had a tendency to nest and peck like hens if a man got too close to her chicks. A woman like his mother would make life hell. Damn, now what he would do? Raise the kids on his own?

  Shit, he should have known life never provided an easy road.

  After Jo had reported on their mother to Amy and discussed alternative transportation, she handed the receiver to Flint and took over pancake flipping.

  Rather than examine his latest brainstorm, Flint checked on business. “All right, why don’t you close up around two?” he told Amy on the other end of the line. “That will give everyone time to come in and gossip and get a hot meal if they need it. I sure appreciate this. If Sally baby-sits the kids, I’ll pay for it.”

  Reassured that his customers were taking the roadblock in stride, even if the tourist business was cut off and his profits wiped out for the weekend, Flint hung up to dump coffee into the machine. Unlike Jo, he couldn’t do two things at once.

  “Adam helped, so he gets first serving.” Jo reached for a plate in the dish cabinet she’d located. “Mrs. Clinton, how many can you and Mr. Clinton eat? I’ll remind Flint to stock some frozen strawberries next time so he can make strawberry compote for you.”

  “We’ve already eaten,” his mother replied frostily.

  “Oh, then you won’t mind if I give this next batch to Flint. He had a long night last night.” She said it with a naughty wink in his direction before ruining the effect by adding, “He was a lifesaver helping me get my mama to the hospital. And you should have seen how he stopped that car when the boulder came down! He ought to be in NASCAR.”

  “We heard about that on the news. We had to go around a road block to get here. It’s unsafe living in mountains.” His mother checked the bacon, then slammed the microwave door. “You really can’t expect your sons to live like this.”

  Flint grabbed Jo and clapped his hand over her mouth before she launched any more verbal volleys. At the breakfast table, Adam snorted and hastily shoved an enormous forkful of pancake into his mouth.

  To get even, Jo nibbled on his fingers and ground her lush tush near his groin, but Flint figured it was time he took control. He didn’t need a woman fighting his battles, although he sure appreciated her efforts.

  “It’s unsafe living anywhere, Mom, and you know it. The boys are mine. Don’t push me too far, okay? All I want is what’s best for them.”

  It was a pretty good speech and would have worked, too, if Johnnie hadn’t walked in right then with what would have been complete innocence, except Flint knew his clever younger son far better than that.

  Johnnie held up his Sunday shirt and the thin strip of silk that Flint hadn’t been able to locate in his hurry this morning. “Why were these shoved behind the couch cushions?” he asked.

  Sixteen

  With the brazen knocked right out of her, Jo gave up the fight and waited for the humiliating scene to sink her through the floor. Flint’s arm had left a permanent impression on her midriff. She was amazed she could stil
l stand upright when he released her.

  She mentally cheered as Flint took his son’s defiance in stride. Before Mrs. Clinton could open her mouth, he pointed Johnnie toward the door at the end of the kitchen. “Put those in the laundry and sit down at the table if you want to eat.”

  Shoulders slumped, the kid dragged himself across the tiled floor to do as told. Not as easily defeated, Mrs. Clinton found the outlet she needed for her outrage.

  “I cannot let children be raised in a house with these kind of lewd goings-ons. This is exactly the reason we took the boys in. They need a stable home environment. You have to learn to live the kind of life—”

  “Can it, Mom. If we can’t provide a solid front for them instead of this constant carping, then it’s no better than before.”

  Jo watched Flint’s noncompromising sternness with admiration. She might not know much about raising kids, but he did. And he wasn’t afraid to stand up and show it. Any idiot idea she may have harbored that he’d abandoned his kids—as her father had—got up and walked out the door.

  His mother shut up and poured coffee for herself and her husband, who’d followed Johnnie in. With relief, Jo returned to flipping pancakes and stayed out of the family squabble—even if those were her panties, and she was standing here with nothing on under her skirt, and Flint had to know it.

  A night of sex hadn’t reduced the steam between them any. It only took one of his smoldering gazes to imagine him lifting her onto that table and having his way with her.

  Hands shaking, she set a plate of pancakes on the large pine trestle table just as Johnnie returned to sit beside his brother. She’d like to collapse in a chair until her knees stopped trembling, but Flint blocked her way. He slapped a jar of sugar-free jam on the table beside the maple syrup without a word of comment. Johnnie took one look at his father’s face and reached for the jam.

  Jo was impressed. Apparently Flint took his responsibility seriously if he was watching his kid’s weight problem. He’d even bought sugar-free ahead of time. Maybe if she dwelled on his superior character, she’d quit thinking about his bod.