The low purr of thunder overhead echoed my latent satisfaction as I moved slowly, gracefully, across the room. My hands lifted to touch him.
No words were spoken.
None were needed.
My towel dropped, and I lifted my hands to the buttons of his shirt and drew him irretrievably toward the scented water behind me.
“Love me,” I whispered, as I drew him backward.…
At the soft rattle of the doorknob, Lettie turned and waited. The door opened, inch by inch, and finally, Ethan stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
For a moment, he stood at the bottom of the staircase, gazing up at her. As his eyes slipped from her shining hair to her freshly scrubbed face to the simple lawn wrapper belted about her waist, something quiet within Lettie’s soul blossomed and warmed. Because she felt pretty. Loved.
“What took you so long?” she murmured.
He climbed the steps before speaking. “I wanted to make sure everyone was asleep.”
When he continued to study her with eyes that had grown dark and heated, she nodded and watched him with an intensity that she hoped would convey just a few of the emotions twining within her.
“I also brought us some refreshments.”
She glanced up to see him brandishing a jar of her mother’s currant wine and two tin cups.
“How did you know where to find it?”
“I was a thief, Lettie,” he answered with a quick grin. “Everyone was asleep, so it was a simple enough matter to slip through the house and gather what I thought we might need.”
She smiled in delight. Her heart was already pounding in eager anticipation and her skin seemed to tingle. But Ethan’s romantic gesture enhanced those emotions even more.
She turned to wave a hand toward the tin hipbath in the middle of the room. “I—I arranged for a bath for myself, then thought you might like one.”
He turned toward the tub. “I don’t think so.”
“I won’t look.”
He hesitated.
“The water’s cool and refreshing. It would wash off some of the grit from the creek.”
He glanced up at her.
“Please.” After a slight hesitation, she added, “It would make me happy, help me to feel like I’ve done something special for you.”
He glanced at the tub again, then at Lettie, before finally conceding. “All right. But first we drink.”
She smiled and took the jar from his hands. Taking it to the bureau, she uncapped the wine and poured a small measure into each of the cups.
Padding toward him, she offered one of the cups to Ethan. “Shall we make a toast?”
He nodded his head.
“To us.”
She drank from her cup, but he turned away, walking toward the window and pulling aside the shade to stare out at the moon-drenched yard. Seeming restless, he set his cup on the sill and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.
“You know there can be no ‘us,’ Lettie,” he finally murmured.
Moving toward him, she slipped an arm around his waist and kissed his shoulder. “Please. Not tonight.”
His hand reached out to cover her own and they stood together for long moments, absorbing the silence of the house and the shivering awareness growing between them with each breath they took.
Finally, he turned. “I guess I’d better take that bath.”
Lettie smiled to herself in secret pleasure when his voice emerged just a little too low and a little too ragged.
“Take all the time you want.” She crossed to the bed and sat with her back to the tub, her shoulders resting against the footboard. “I’ll just sit right here and entertain us with a few poems.” Taking Natalie’s poetry book from the foot of the bed, she bent her knees and rested the book on top.
She paused for a moment, waiting for some sign that Ethan had begun to undress. When she heard no noises, she prompted, “Well? Aren’t you going to bathe?”
There was a pause, then: “Yeah. I suppose.”
She heard his bootstrides, then looked up when he approached the bureau, refilled her cup with currant wine, then handed it to her.
“Why, Ethan McGuire, are you trying to get me drunk?”
“It’s an idea.”
“It won’t work.”
“Then maybe I’ll get drunk.”
She grinned. “That’s an idea.”
Smiling at her impudent humor, he moved toward the hipbath. “Don’t turn around.”
“Afraid of what I’ll see?”
“No. But you should be.”
She giggled and took another sip of her wine. Behind her, she heard the soft rustling of Ethan’s clothing and she closed her eyes, savoring the sound. In her imagination, she could see him slipping the suspenders from his shoulders, one by one. Then he unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it free, and dropped it to the floor.
The noises stopped.
“What are you doing?” he demanded lowly.
“Imagining.”
“Imagining what?”
She smiled, though she knew he couldn’t see her. “I’m imagining each stitch of clothing as it falls from your body.”
“Oh, hell,” he muttered softly.
“Go on, Ethan.”
“With what?”
“Undressing.”
There was a pause, then she once again heard the rustle of cloth.
“One button.”
“What?”
“You’re unbuttoning your pants.”
“Lettie.”
“Two.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Three. Take your trousers off, Ethan.”
“Lettie!”
She chuckled. “All right, I won’t listen anymore.”
She heard the thump of his boots, the whisper of his socks, and the rustle of his pants. Taking a deep breath, Lettie held tightly to the image in her head: the image of Ethan, lean and naked, standing in front of the tub.
A soft moan of delight melted from her throat.
“Dammit, Lettie, stop that.”
She chuckled. “What poet do you want to hear?”
“Anything. Just wipe that smirk off your face and let a man wash up.”
“Yes, sir.” She took another sip of the wine in her cup and yawned deliciously, grasping the book and stretching her legs out before her.
As she heard the lap of water from behind, she turned to one of the last sections in the anthology of poetry. Walt Whitman. Months before, there had been a ruckus in the boardinghouse when Celeste Grey had discovered poems by Whitman in one of her subscriptions. Even the Beasleys had been atwitter. Before Lettie had been able to get a copy of the periodical, her mother had canceled her subscription and burned the magazine. When Ethan had forbidden her to read the poet several nights before, Lettie had read all of Walt Whitman’s poems in Natalie’s book, then read them again.
“Are you ready?” she asked, finding the appropriate page.
There was a pause, then Ethan muttered, “Just read.”
She giggled, then took another sip of her wine before settling back against the pillows she’d mounded against the footboard. The wine was evidently relaxing her, just a titch, because she felt all tingly and warm.
“ ‘From Pent-Up Aching Rivers,’ ” she slowly read. “By Walt Whitman.”
She heard a splash behind her. “Lettie,” Ethan growled in warning.
“Oh, hush up and listen,” she muttered, then took another sip of her wine. “From pent-up aching rivers,/From that of myself without which I were nothing,/From what I am determin’d to make illustrious, even if I stand sole among men/From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus—”
“Lettie—”
His protests were a little less forceful this time, and Lettie smiled. “Singing the song of procreation,/Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people.”
Turning onto her stomach, Lettie dropped her empty cup to the floor and stared at Ethan through
the iron rungs of her bed. His chest rose from the barrier of the tub, strong and broad, dappled in moisture. His eyes met hers, heated and filled with passion.
The book dropped to the floor beside the cup and Lettie continued by memory: “Singing the muscular urge and the blending,/Singing the bedfellow’s song…”
Ethan’s eyes closed as if he were fighting for control, and Lettie smiled, a slow sultry smile. Standing up, she took a bath sheet from the foot of the bed and walked toward him, slowly, wantonly.
“O resistless yearning!/O for any and each the body correlative attracting!/O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all else, you delighting!”
She knelt beside the tub and reached out to place her hand against his breast, absorbing the heat of his skin, the water-dappled texture, the swirl of hair.
“From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,/From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,/Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it many a long year.”
She bent close, pressing her lips against his own, and Ethan moaned, grasping her behind the head and pulling her so close that her breasts were crushed against the wet expanse of his chest.
She hungrily met his need with one of her own, seemingly intent upon absorbing his essence into hers until there was no separating the two of them and they ceased to be two separate souls and became one. Her hand slipped down the muscled contours of his breast, tracing the hair that grew there, circling his navel with her nail, then moving farther down.
Her hand was captured by his own, and he forced her palm to a safer location higher on his chest, even as he held her tightly against him, his lips slanted against her own. His kiss was hungry and filled with a desperation that this time they might once again be forced to back away.
But Lettie wasn’t about to let that happen. She had given Ethan McGuire her heart and her soul. As surely as if she had spoken marriage vows, she knew she belonged to this man. For now. And for all time.
She drew back, her lips leaving his own in tender regret, then bent to brush another butterfly-light kiss against his mouth, as if leaving the caress were too much to bear.
Ethan shuddered, knowing that he had never felt such passion with a woman, such delight. It stretched far beyond the physical pleasures, blending heart and body and soul.
Smiling at him with the smile of Eve, she took his hand and stood up. Grasping the bath sheet in front of him, he allowed her to pull him upright in a rush of water. His skin burned as he felt her gaze sweeping over him in open curiosity.
Tugging gently on his wrist, she tried to draw him forward, but he slipped his hand free and wrapped the bath sheet tightly around his hips.
“Shy?” she murmured.
A shaky chuckle eased from his throat. “I guess so.”
She giggled in delight and took a step backward, her hands closed around the tie of her wrapper. “Make love to me, Ethan.”
Ethan swallowed hard against the tightness building within him, trying to tamp down the fire stoking within his own blood. The sultry heat of the garret closed about him, filling him with a tension, a yearning, that he knew he could no longer deny. Yet he still hesitated, all of the reasons he shouldn’t touch her tumbling into his head.
Lettie gazed at him with dark, slumberous heat. “Make love to me, Ethan. Please.”
If not for that last whispered plea, Ethan could have resisted. He could have gathered his clothes and slipped from the room.
Sensing his hesitation, Lettie continued her recital, and, being familiar with the poem himself, Ethan knew just what she was about to say.
“Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,/I love you, O you entirely possess me.”
“Lettie,” he moaned, trying to cling to the last vestiges of control within him, but Lettie merely smiled with the awareness of a temptress. Gone was the child, gone was the delicate girl in need of protection. And in her place was a woman. A woman of passion and grace.
Yet she offered him no relief, continuing with her poetry. “From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow’s embrace in the night,/From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,/From the cling of the trembling arm,/From the bending curve and the clinch,/From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing—”
He moved toward her, interrupting Lettie with the line he knew followed her own: “From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling to leave.”
He pushed her hair away from her face, absorbing the silky texture of the well-brushed strands against his calloused palms. Her eyes flickered closed in delight, and he watched as her entire body seemed to soak in the sensation of his touch. He had never known a woman who reveled in him so much. He had never known a woman who cared for him so much.
And he ached to be the man she wanted him to be.
Dipping his head, he kissed her, allowing his mouth and hands and body to tell her all of the things that he knew he could never say. That he cared for her. That he wished they could have a future together.
Finally, he pulled away, squeezing his eyes shut and muttering one last time, “Your husband should be the first.”
Her hands tunneled through his hair, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t say that, Ethan. You’re the only man I’ll ever love.”
“Lettie.” His voice was husky, filled with raw emotion.
“Love me.”
“You’ll be hurt. It’s wrong to take you like this.”
“It’s not wrong. It’s beautiful.”
“You aren’t thinking right now.”
“Maybe not. But I’m feeling. And what I’m feeling for you is special.”
He looked at her, and he found his strength of will weakening beneath the firm intensity of his gaze.
She frowned. “You think I’m too young, don’t you?”
He shook his head and held tightly to her hand when she tried to lay it on his chest. “I think you’re too special.” His thumb brushed against her palm. “You don’t know yet what it means to make love.”
“I do know.”
“I’m not talking about the mechanics, Lettie. I’m talking about the emotions, the feelings, the responsibilities. No one ever forgets the first time, Lettie. Especially a woman. It should be special. Something that can be remembered without regret. I won’t take that from you.”
“The only way you can take the memory is by not giving it to me tonight. In my heart, you will always be the first.” Her arms wound about his neck. “And the last.”
She hesitated, then drew him toward her for her kiss. Ethan moaned when he realized that he had taught her too well the art of seduction, because even now he felt himself weakening. He wanted to abandon his conscience. He wanted to delight in the fervor of her embrace and the simple passion of her caresses.
Lettie drew back, and her eyes lifted to study him. She smiled as if she saw just how much she had affected him. And just how fragile his control remained. Then she placed her hands upon his breast. Her touch was tender, almost reverent. “I love you,” she whispered, then bent to place a kiss upon his chest. “I love you.” She kissed one brown male nipple, then the other, then glanced up. “I love you.”
He swallowed against the pure emotions that shone from her eyes. Desire and passion. Pure adoration. And something more. Something that could only be the light of her love.
His hands lifted to frame her face.
She purred, nudging into the pressure of his hands.
And he was lost.
“Just promise me you won’t ever regret this night,” he whispered, closing his eyes and crushing his mouth against her own before she could reply, or before he could see any flickerings of doubt that might flash across her features.
But her hands slid up his chest, and she melted into his embrace as if she were coming home after a long journey. Her arms, strong and supple from her work at the boardinghouse, held him with a strength he never would have imagined. Ethan could feel h
er breasts flattening against his chest. The fabric of her wrapper was cool and damp with the moisture it had absorbed from his own skin.
His arms swept down her back, grasping at her hips and pulling her closer still, and Ethan was shaken to the core. Dear heaven, how he wanted her. Needed her. Not just physically but emotionally as well. He needed her laughter, her passion, and her hope. And he didn’t know what he was going to do when he was forced to leave her.
Breaking free, he gazed down at her flushed features. “If I had my way, you and I would be together forever.”
“I know.”
He lifted his hand and pushed the hair away from her features. “You’d live with me in Chicago in a big white house, and—”
She covered his lips with her fingers, knowing that neither of them were ready to hear might-have-beens. “I know,” she whispered. “But right now, we have tonight. And we have each other.” Her hands lifted to caress his face and the features she had grown to love so much. “Love me, Ethan,” she murmured. “Love me tonight as if you and I were man and wife with a whole future spreading out before us.” She raised herself on tiptoe to press her lips against his own, whispering again, “Love me.”
The shadows of the garret cloaked them both in the warm velvet heat of summer, and Ethan scooped her into his arms and gently placed her on the bed. He then lay beside her, his head propped in one palm.
In the shadows, his eyes seemed even more blue and intent. For long, heart-stopping moments, he didn’t move, didn’t touch her. Then, just when she thought that she would die from wanting his touch, he reached out. One single finger dipped toward her face, tracing the jut of her cheekbone, the smooth shape of her jaw, her lips.
When she moved impatiently to wind her arms about his waist, he drew away and whispered, “Shh. My way.” His lips lifted in a tender smile. “We’re going to savor each moment.”
Lettie shivered as Ethan’s finger once again began a tingling journey, slipping to her chin, then plunging down the line of her throat. He hesitated a moment at the hollow between her collarbones, then skimmed lightly down.
Her breathing became ragged as starbursts of sensation rushed through her veins from that single inquisitive finger. As Ethan began to nudge beneath the delicate boundaries of her wrapper, she shuddered and tried to draw air into her lungs.
Silken Dreams Page 26