“Please, Reid,” she said, and he knew that his eyes mirrored the desire that threatened to strangle him. “I can’t afford to slide into an affair with you.”
“We’re having an affair whether you can afford it or not,” he heard himself say in a voice that seemed to him unnatural, more like a growl. “I want you this minute so badly that I think I’ll explode. You can’t know what it does to me when you—a woman of your accomplishments—let me know that you believe so strongly in me. No other woman ever made me feel as if there’s nothing I can’t do. Kendra. I need to give myself to you.”
“Honey, we’re headed for heartbreak. Both of us.”
He stood and walked around the table to her chair. “Why? We’re both unattached. Why can’t we love each other? I’m tired of sneaking around to spend time with you. A judge is human, and a female judge needs male company as much as any other woman.”
“Yes, but suppose your case comes before me? I could be fired as a judge and disbarred as a lawyer. I want to do all I can to ensure that you get a fair trial.”
“I hear you, but you’re overstating it. I’ll get a fair trial, because I’ve done my homework.” He pulled her chair back from the table and lifted her into his arms. “You gave me heaven, and now you tell me I can’t have it? Until that night in your arms, buried inside your body, I didn’t know who I was.”
Tremors raced through him when he recalled the minute he had exploded inside her. “For the first time in my life, I held back nothing, and I didn’t want to, because you gave yourself to me without reservation. I’ll never forget it, and I want it. I need it. I need you.” He could feel her relax as the tips of her nipples hardened against his chest.
“You said we’d go to Cape May. Even if we went public, so to speak, you shouldn’t be seen leaving my house late at night.”
“I’ll never knowingly expose you to censure or ridicule. You mean too much to me. And I’ll do what I can to avoid it.”
“You didn’t eat all of your potatoes,” she whispered, grabbing at anything that would reduce the tension between them.
“Potatoes are not what I want in my mouth right now.” He let his eyes mirror his feelings, wrapped his right arm around her shoulder and let his left fingers stroke and pinch her erect left nipple. She grabbed his wrist, and though he knew what she wanted, he didn’t accommodate her, but waited until, frustrated, she guided his hand into her scooped-neck blouse. He freed her breast, lifted her to fit him, sucked her nipple into his mouth and suckled her until she undulated against him.
“Reid. Honey. Get into me.” She locked her legs around his hips and pressed herself to his erection.
“Not here, sweetheart. I need more than this.”
“I can walk,” she said when he picked her up, but he ignored her and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom. He hardly glimpsed the lavender taffeta in a sea of white, including carpet and window treatments, as he unzipped her dress and let it slide to the floor. When she stepped out of it, he rose to full readiness, threw aside the covers and put her on the bed. “You said you love me, Kendra, and I’m holding you to it, because I need you to love me.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You’re everything to me.”
Her arms opened, reached out to him and happiness suffused him. In a flash, he shed his clothing and lowered his body into her waiting arms. How had he been so fortunate as to find a woman like her? Her fingers stroked his back, his buttocks, every place that she could reach, and then she let him know that she wanted him to lie on his back. With her tongue, she fired his libido as she teased and sucked first one aureole and then the other. Warm, feminine fingers danced on his belly, promising him heaven if she would only move lower. She skimmed his inner thighs, barely touching him, until his body rose to meet her hand, but she ignored his rising frenzy and explored his testicles.
He heard his moans as she toyed with him. Finally, when he thought he’d go insane, she grasped his penis in her hand and stroked him. Nearly mad for the feel of her moist lips, he cried out, “Take me. One way or the other, but stop tormenting me.”
His body nearly sprang upward when her breath, warm and sweet, fell on him. She wrapped her arms around his hips, imprisoning him, and took him into her mouth.
“Oh, my sweet, sweetheart.”
He steeled himself, concentrating on self-control. She had no technique, but she made love to him as if he were the most precious…“Kendra. Easy, honey. Stop. Listen to me, baby. St—” He pulled away from her, using force to separate them.
“Come up here, love. Did I hurt you?”
“No. Why? Can I…?” She didn’t finish the question, but evidently realizing her advantage, she mounted him and took him with her to a shattering climax. She fell over onto him, clearly exhausted.
“Why did you decide to do that?” he asked her later when he was able to get his breath back.
“You needed me.”
He turned over, putting her on her back and looked down into her face. “I’m having trouble believing that any woman could be as selfless as you were a few minutes ago. You didn’t want anything for yourself. You only wanted to make me feel good. If you’re serious about not wanting an affair with me, you just killed the possibility. I’d have to have a Herculean will to stay out of your arms.”
She had given him everything a man could want, and he meant to repay her in full and then some.
“Are you tired?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Who, me? No, indeed.”
To his mind, her reply gave him license to love her until she screamed for relief. After leaving nothing to her imagination, stimulating every nerve ending in her body, he tested her for readiness.
“Do you want me?”
“What do you think I am, a piece of wood? You can ask me that when you know I’m going out of my mind?”
He wanted to shout for joy because he had her where he wanted her, irritated and frustrated. “Take me in, baby,” he whispered.
She swung her body up to him, grabbed his penis and he sank into her. Within minutes, she began thrashing wildly beneath him, begging for completion, and he took her on a wild ride to that place reserved for them alone. She flung her arms wide and gave herself to him.
“Are you all right?” he asked her when he could get his breath.
“I guess so. Oh, Reid. That was…Is this going to get better each time?”
“The more we learn about each other, the more skilled we should become in pleasing each other.”
“I don’t want you to get any more skilled than you are now. Believe me, that’s skill enough for me. You had me feeling as if I was going to die sure enough.”
“Yeah? What do you think you did to me?”
She wrapped her legs around him and purred like sated feline. “You got what you asked for.”
He stared down at her, a warm bundle of sweet mush. Compliant and yielding. His lover. “I love you,” he said, and for some reason his willingness to say that without provocation seemed strange, even worrisome.
Kendra didn’t doubt that her heart belonged to Reid Maguire. Her problem was the unknown. She believed that Reid would protect her from any semblance of harm, to the extent that he could, but if she behaved in-discreetly, he could not protect her from the law. And “the law” would respond to anyone who decided to complain that, for a judge, her behavior was unseemly.
Deciding that she needed a focus other than Reid, she telephoned her sister, Claudine, and invited her to spend a week, now that school had closed for the summer. “It’s very nice here, and you can swim in the Albemarle as often as you like. It’s only four short blocks from my house. We can go boating, too, but not very often, because the winds tend to come up suddenly. How about it?”
“Okay, but don’t let me cramp your style.”
Wasn’t that precisely why she’d called her? “When are you coming?”
“I signed up to teach summer school because I didn’t have anything else to do, b
ut I don’t start till Monday week, so I could come this weekend. Sure I won’t be in the way?”
“Listen, Claudine. You’re talking to Kendra. Am I in the habit of deliberately making problems for myself?”
“Well, no. What’s the nearest airport?”
“Caution Point.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know what time I’ll get in Friday afternoon.”
On Friday, with the county clerk sitting in her court, Kendra was reluctant to adjourn an hour early in the afternoon in order to drive to Caution Point to meet her sister. She recessed for ten minutes, went to her chambers and called Reid.
“Are you going to Caution Point today?”
“Why?” She told him of her difficulty in meeting her sister. “All you have to do is ask, sweetheart. I have an office right in the airport terminal building, and I can work there as well as here. What’s her name?”
“Claudine Rutherford. She’s half an inch shorter than I, two years younger and we resemble each other.”
“Just in case, I’ll wait for her at four o’clock with her name printed on a piece of paper. Not to worry.”
“Thank you. I hope I’m not inconveniencing you.”
“It gives me pleasure to do things for you. Kiss me?”
She made the sound of a kiss. “I won’t be home until five or a little later.”
“If I don’t see your car in front of your house, I’ll show her the town. Okay?”
She went back to court, ended the recess and the prosecutor continued her cross-examination of a man charged with child neglect and abuse, a man who, Kendra was reasonably certain, was being unfairly accused. The prosecutor rested her case early, so Kendra was able to adjourn and be home just before five o’clock.
When she opened the door to her sister and Reid, his move caught her off guard. He stood by while she greeted her sister, then closed the door, pulled her into his arms and, with his tongue dancing in her mouth, drugged her until she collapsed against him.
“I like your sister,” he said.
“Right now I don’t care whether you like her or not. Why did you do that?”
“So it won’t be necessary for you to fudge the truth. You’re my girl, and your sister should know that.” He turned to Claudine. “I’m happy to have met you, Claudine, and I expect I’ll be seeing more of you. Good night.” He walked over to Kendra and kissed the side of her mouth. “I’ll call you later.”
Claudine’s eyes seemed permanently arched. “Well, how do you like that?” she said.
At the supermarket that Saturday morning with Kendra, Claudine felt a hand on her arm and turned to see Reba, one of her sister’s neighbors. “You must be Judge Kendra’s sister, ’cause you look just like her. I’m Reba. How long you staying?”
“At least until midweek, I’m not sure. How are you, Reba?”
“Me? I’m fine, thank the good Lord.” She looked at Kendra. “Maybe I’ll drop by and bring Claudine some of my pecan Noels I made yesterday. She’ll love ’em. See you later.”
“I thought you said people here give you a cold shoulder,” Claudine said to Kendra.
“That was before I moved out of Albemarle Gates. Now I’m practically a hero. They think I moved because of that controversy, but I moved because the house was shoddily built and the company that built it was too vulnerable to put up a fight.
“I’m also in the local theater, and that doesn’t hurt my popularity. You haven’t told me what you think of Reid,” Kendra said later as she drove them home.
Claudine let out a long breath. “He’s a hideous-looking man, a runt of minimum intelligence and totally lacking in charm and personality.” Kendra nearly slammed on the brakes. “If he was mine, I wouldn’t let him out of my sight,” Claudine continued.
Kendra had forgotten about her sister’s oddball sense of humor. “I’m glad you like him,” Kendra said dryly.
She had just finished putting away her groceries when the telephone rang. “Hi, sweetheart. I just spoke with Philip, and he wants us to come down there Friday. The whole place is in bloom, and this time we won’t have to work. His cruiser’s ready to sail—plums, blueberries and apricots are getting ripe.” He paused. “Please?”
“Just a minute.” She asked Claudine if she’d like to go.
“Any decent-looking men down there?”
“He’s as good-looking as they come, well-educated and independent.”
“Does he have all of his teeth?”
Kendra couldn’t help laughing. “Absolutely, and they glisten. You may not think he’s eligible, though.”
“Why? Does he have one leg? So what? They still make crutches.”
“Nothing so simple. He’s a green-eyed blond.”
“How tall is he?”
“I’d guess about six-four.”
Claudine slid off the kitchen counter. “The man’s six feet four inches tall and you’re telling me some garbage about the color of his eyes? Girl, I haven’t had on a pair of three-inch heels in years. Tell Reid we can leave tomorrow.”
“We can’t, because I have to work Monday, and so does Reid. Claudine is anxious to go,” Kendra told Reid.
“Yeah. I heard most of that conversation. Your sister has a wicked sense of humor. I detected that when I was bringing her here. We’ll have a good time down there.”
Reid rang the bell at the wrought-iron gate leading to Dickerson Estates at precisely five minutes after seven that Friday evening, and gave thanks that he had not been given a ticket for speeding.
“This is Reid with two stunning females,” he said to Philip, who answered his ring. The gate swung open and in the still-bright summer evening, they drove up the sleepy land to the white Georgian mansion.
“This place is breathtaking,” Claudine said of the long lane that wound between moss-filled willow trees, crepe myrtles and fields of colorful flowers. “Who owns it?”
“Blond and green-eyed Philip,” Reid said with a laugh, “and trust me, he’s got both legs.”
“If you tell him I said that, I’ll…I’ll poison my sister against you,” Claudine said to Reid. He parked, and Philip ran down the steps to greet them.
“How’s it going, brother? Hello, Kendra. Welcome back. This must be…” He stopped as if shocked. “Hello,” he said, and Reid took Kendra’s arm and went to the back of his car to get their bags. “Come on, baby. Let them deal with it.” He removed their bags and closed the trunk of the car. “I’ll put these in the foyer. Philip will tell me where we’re sleeping.”
“But Reid,” Kendra said, seemingly distressed, “shouldn’t you introduce Philip to Claudine? It’s improper to bring a guest to his house and not—”
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. “You couldn’t be serious, sweetheart. Their hormones have given them all the introduction they need. Can’t you see that? What they need from us is privacy.”
“But they…” She looked up and saw that, with his arm around Claudine’s shoulder, Philip guided her toward the side of the house where he’d installed the swimming pool, barbecue pit and basketball court. “Oh! Good Lord! He’s a fast mover.”
“That’s just it,” Reid said. “He is not a player. He isn’t even a ladies’ man. Philip is a loner, and apart from the people who live on the estate, he stays to himself. Doris said he was once engaged, but he wasn’t rich enough in those days, and his fiancée dropped him for a rich man who she later sued for neglect and wife abuse. Philip’s richer now than that guy ever was. Talk about justice!”
He rang the bell, and Max opened the door. “Come on in. Glad to see you again, Kendra. Philip tells me you’re flying, Reid. You can’t know how happy I am to hear it. Doris barbecued a young pig, Reid, because she knows how you love her barbecue, and we’re eating out by the pool tonight. Where’s Philip?”
“I was wondering the same thing. He disappeared with my sister,” Kendra said.
Max’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah? Well, she couldn’t be in better hands.” He looked at Kendr
a. “Maybe you want to freshen up before dinner? I’ll take you up to your room now. If Philip’s got your sister occupied, I sure hope it means something. Reid, nobody sleeps in your room except you.” Max put the bags belonging to Kendra and Claudine in their rooms and went back downstairs.
“He just met her,” Kendra said to Reid. “What’s with him?”
“She poleaxed him. That’s what’s with him. And if you’d been looking, you’d have seen that he did the same to her. Your fast-talking sister couldn’t open her mouth.”
“I must be losing it. That ran right past me. I hope you’re right, and I hope he realizes that Claudine runs her mouth because she’s self-conscious.”
“Self-conscious or not, she’s obviously Philip Dickerson’s type. Meet you down at the bottom of the stairs in fifteen minutes.”
The first time he’d looked at Kendra, he’d thought something exploded inside him, shaking him so that he wanted both to run away from her and never to leave her. He unpacked, washed his hands, scrubbed his fingernails, brushed his teeth and changed into a yellow, collared T-shirt and a pair of white pants. When she drifted down the stairs, he laughed aloud, for she wore a yellow, collared T-shirt, white slacks and white sneakers.
“This is proof positive,” he said, swinging her into his arms, “that we’re soul mates.”
“They’ll think we planned this. Don’t tell them it was accidental,” she whispered, “because they won’t believe us anyway.”
“I don’t give two hoots what they think. Next time, let’s plan it. I want everybody to know I’m your guy and you’re my woman.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he wondered at that. Staring down at her with his feelings bare, he said, “I am your man, am I not?”
“If you asking me whether you have privileges that no other man has, the answer is yes.”
Whether to gain strength from a coming blow, he couldn’t say, but he widened his stance and looked her in the eye. “That’s not the answer to my question, Kendra. Am I your man?”
One Night With You Page 16