Amy looked up to see Mrs. Ingallstadt, her neighbor, peering at her over the fence. The older woman was wearing a gardening hat and wielding clipping shears.
"I was just—" Amy paused to clear her throat and to work up a smile. "I was just thinking out loud, Mrs. Ingallstadt. How are you?"
"Well, my arthritis is going to be the death of me one of these days, and my gall bladder is acting up again, but otherwise I'm pretty chipper. Tell me, dear, how are you?"
Well, Amy thought, I'm seeing things and I think I'm actually going to get on an airplane and fly away to another continent with a virtual stranger. Other than that, Mrs. Ingallstadt, I'm just fine.
"I've been keeping busy." Recalling Mrs. Ingall-stadt's fondness for white lilacs, and how Tyler had occasionally charmed the old woman with a bouquet, Amy walked over to one lacy bush and broke off several blossom-laden boughs. Without saying any more, she handed the flowers over the fence to her friend and neighbor.
Mrs. Ingallstadt beamed with pleasure, and Amy realized, with some chagrin, that she'd hardly exchanged a word with the woman in six full months. After Tyler's death, Mrs. Ingallstadt had been wonderful to Amy, and to Ashley and Oliver as well. She'd made meals, babysat and listened patiently when Amy was overwhelmed with grief. That first dreadful Christmas, when it seemed there would never again be reason to celebrate, the thoughtful neighbor had come into Amy's kitchen, pushed up her sleeves and proceeded to bake sugar cookies with the children.
"I'll just take these right inside and put them in water," Mrs Ingallstadt said happily. "I don't know why I haven't planted a few lilac bushes of my own. My husband was allergic to them, you know, but Walter's been dead these twenty years and I don't reckon anything could make him sneeze now."
Amy's grin was probably a little on the grim side. Don't count on it, she thought.
Later that day, when she'd vacuumed the upstairs hallway and gone through her closet four times, all the while insisting to herself that she would not do anything so impetuous as fly to Australia with Harry Griffith, Amy got her suitcases from the guest-room closet and laid them on her bed. Open.
Even then, she told herself she only meant to pack things for Ashley and Oliver to take to Kansas.
Still, when Louise brought the kids home from Mercer Island in her shiny silver Mercedes, Amy had filled the luggage with her own best summer clothes.
She and Louise did the kids' things together. Louise Ryan was an attractive woman, tanned and obviously prosperous, and she was intelligent.
"How was your evening with Harry Griffith?" she asked, snapping the catches on Ashley's suitcase into place.
Color surged into Amy's face, and she didn't quite manage to meet her mother-in-law's gaze. She couldn't help wondering what Louise would think if she knew her son's widow was about to do something completely reckless and wanton.
"I like him," Amy finally replied. She was sure a greater understatement had never been uttered.
Louise smiled, her Tyler-brown eyes laughing. Her hair was a rich auburn color, frosted with silvery gray, and she claimed she was covered in freckles from head to foot. "A woman doesn't simply 'like' a man like our Harry," she said confidently, her gaze steady as she regarded Amy. "She either finds him totally intolerable or can't keep her hands off him."
Guess which category I fall into, Amy thought ruefully, her face going warm again. "I guess Tyler liked him a lot," she hedged, picking up Ashley's suitcase and lugging it to the doorway. Its weight didn't justify the effort, however, and she had a feeling Louise knew that.
"Tyler thought the world of Harry Griffith. So do the rest of us."
As understanding and progressive a woman as Louise was, Amy still couldn't make herself confide that she was wildly attracted to Harry. The thought reverberated inside her mind, however, like the silent toll of some mystic bell. "He's a nice man," was all she said.
After Ashley and Oliver had left the house with their grandmother, bag and baggage, Amy felt as insubstantial as an echo, bouncing aimlessly between one empty room and another. Finally, she went to the phone and dialed Debbie's home number, knowing she'd get an answering machine because her friend would be at the clinic.
"Hi," Amy said with a stilted effort at normalcy, "this is Amy. I just wanted to let you know that, well, I've completely lost my mind. Harry Griffith invited me to fly to Australia in his private jet, and God help me I'm going to do it." Color flooded her cheeks, even though she was talking to a whirring mechanism and not another human being. "Actually, do it isn't precisely the phrasing I was looking for, although I'm a grown woman and responsible person and if I want to do— anything—oh, never mind!" Amy forcibly stopped herself from rambling, drew a deep breath and let it out again. "I'm going to Australia, but I don't want you to worry about me because I know what I'm doing."
She hung up before adding, "I think."
Harry arrived an hour later, looking like a Gentlemen's Quarterly model in his elegantly cut navy-blue suit. When he saw her luggage sitting in the entryway, he arched one dark eyebrow and favored her with one of his nuclear grins.
"Let's go, love," he said, reaching down to take the handle of one suitcase in each hand. Rumpel purred and curled around Harry's left ankle. "You have, I presume, made arrangements for the cat?"
"Mrs. Ingallstadt will look after Rumpel," Amy said, and even as she spoke she could hardly believe she was really doing this crazy, impulsive thing. She had always been the practical type, the one who balanced her checkbook to the penny and color-coded her sock drawer.
Harry's blue gaze drifted over her simple cotton print dress with unsettling leisure. "Mmm. Well, then, we're off."
They drove to the airport in Harry's rented van, and Amy gnawed at her lower lip through practically the whole trip. Once in a while, she even reached for the door handle in an impotent stab at making a run for it.
Harry seemed amused.
"I suppose you're used to women who do this sort of thing all the time," Amy said in stiff and testy tones, clutching at her anger as though it were a lifeline.
He chuckled. "What sort of thing is that, my lovely?"
he teased, pulling the van to a stop next to a sleek jet that stood gleaming on the tarmac beside a private hangar.
"This is not at all like me," Amy insisted, when Harry came around to her side to help her down.
He made an answering sound, a low rumble in bis throat, and then brushed her lips ever so lightly with his own. "Which is one of the many things that makes you so blasted appealing," he agreed with a philosophical sigh. For the first time, Amy realized that Harry didn't want this attraction between them any more than she did.
The idea was oddly painful, all things considered.
The pilot had already arrived and was in the process of a preflight check when Harry gave Amy a tour of the aircraft. There was a galley, glittering and efficient, and all the leather-upholstered seats were cushy and wide, built to swivel on their shiny steel bases. There was a bar, which didn't interest Amy—just the thought of combining liquor with altitude made her queasy.
"There are water closets back there," Harry said, gesturing toward a wide hallway at the rear of the cabin. "Take your choice."
For Amy, in those moments, curiosity was a refuge, a place she could scurry into and hide out from her fear of the inevitable. She ventured into the hallway and peered through two separate doorways.
Even though Amy's father was a heart surgeon, and she'd never known poverty in her life, those glitzy bathrooms came as a surprise to her, with their glass and marble.
Harry went past her with the suitcases, disappearing into yet another room. The master suite, no doubt.
The magnetism was powerful, and resisting it took a formidable effort, but Amy managed to grope her way back to the main cabin. She was standing behind one of the elegant seats, her fingers digging deep into the sumptuous upholstery, when Harry returned.
She smiled shakily. "You certainly have nice bathrooms," she sai
d. The instant the words had left her mouth she longed to call them back, they sounded so silly.
Harry chuckled. "Yes," he agreed. His indigo eyes moved over her in a way that was, incomprehensibly, both arrogant and reverent.
Amy felt as though he'd deftly peeled her clothes away, and it seemed to her that the very air was pulsating with some elemental, unseen force—a power that emanated from Harry himself.
The intercom saved her from having to speak, which was fortunate because a troupe of heated fantasies had invaded her mind, crowding out all rational thought.
"The preflight check has been completed, sir," announced the pilot's voice, "and we have clearance for takeoff."
Harry walked over to the bar and pushed a button on a high-tech unit behind it, and his soul-searing gaze never left Amy once. "Fine," he said in a voice that was somewhat hoarse. "Thank you."
He crossed the cabin then and, smiling slightly, pressed Amy into a seat. The act of crouching beside her and fastening her seat belt was entirely innocent, and yet it left Amy feeling as though they'd engaged in half an hour of intense foreplay.
Harry took the seat nearest hers and fastened himself in. It was plain enough to Amy that he hadn't missed the significance of her bright eyes and flushed face.
Soon the plane was speeding down the runway. Harry held Amy's hand until they were aloft.
"There now," he said, unsnapping his seat belt and rising as casually as he might from an easy chair in his living room. "We're on our way. Would you like something to drink?"
Yes, Amy thought. A double shot of the strongest whiskey you have. "A diet cola would be nice," she said aloud.
Harry made no comment on her choice; he simply went about taking a can of soda from the refrigerator beneath the bar.
Amy unfastened her seat belt and thrust herself shakily to her feet. There was no going back now.
She crossed to the teakwood bar, which was bolted securely to the floor, and leaned against it, trying to look as though she did this sort of thing all the time.
"You must practically live in this plane, it's outfitted as well," she commented.
Harry was still behind the bar, and he handed Amy her cola. Then he grinned his endearing, soul-wrenching grin and said with a shrug, "I'm rich."
A nervous giggle escaped Amy, and she just barely kept herself from slapping one hand over her mouth. She'd never been more sober in her life, and yet she felt as though she were roaring drunk.
"Relax, Amy," Harry said, leaning forward slightly, bracing himself against the bar with wide-spread hands. "I'm not planning to heave you over one shoulder, haul you off to my bed and ravish you. When we make love—and we will, God help us—it will be because the desire is mutual."
Although Amy was relieved by this declaration, she was also damnably disappointed. And she certainly would have been better off without the caveman images Harry had just planted in her mind.
"Did you do that on purpose?" she demanded, only realizing she'd spoken the thought aloud when Harry laughed and answered her.
"Do what, love?" he countered, rounding the bar and laying his hands on either side of her narrow waist.
Amy swallowed hard. She was a nineties woman, liberated and successful in her own right, but she couldn't help imagining what it would be like to be hoisted over Harry's shoulder like the willing captive of some sexy pirate. "Oh, God," she groaned.
Harry bent his head and tasted her mouth as though it were some rare and priceless delicacy, to be enjoyed at leisure.
Amy's heart began to pound and her breathing was audible.
Harry's lips strayed to her throat, the tender hollow beneath her ear. He took the glass from her hand and set it on the bar.
Amy's traitorous body was already preparing itself to receive him, already pleading for a fulfillment that had been denied it for over two years. "Oh, God," she said again, when Harry's hands cupped her breasts. His thumbs made her nipples go taut against the soft cotton of her sundress.
"Maybe," he speculated huskily, from the tingling space between Amy's shoulder and the base of her neck, "we'd better do something about this."
"D-do something about what?" Amy's voice trembled, like her body. The rumblings of an impending spiritual and emotional quake were making cracks in the wall she'd built around her innermost self, while, on the surface of her skin, a million tiny nerves quivered.
Harry touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of her mouth, and Amy had a melting sensation. In another minute, she'd be all over his shoes, like warm wax.
"About this attraction between us," he finally replied. Between light, teasing kisses, he added, "Amy, we're not going to have a moment's peace until we've made love."
The last of Amy's defenses crumbled then; she knew Harry was right. "Yes," was all she could manage to say, she was so overcome, so confused, so in need.
He lifted her easily, gently, into his arms and started toward the hallway and the one room Amy hadn't dared to explore earlier.
"Will the pilot know?" she asked warily.
Harry kissed the top of her head and chuckled. "No, love. Not unless you turn on the intercom."
The master bedroom was surprisingly spacious, even considering the luxurious proportions of that airplane. The floor was carpeted, the lighting dim, the air subtly tinged with Harry's very distinctive scent.
He set Amy on her feet at the foot of the bed and pushed a tendril of hair back from her cheek with a gentle forefinger.
"You're sure?" he asked.
She nodded, unable to speak, though every word in every dictionary in the world seemed to be waiting at the back of her mind, wanting to be part of some enormous declaration she couldn't begin to make.
He unzipped her sundress and eased the fabric down over her shoulders. When the dress was gone, Harry caught one finger under her bra strap and brought that down, too. She sucked in her breath and tilted her head back in surrender when he bent to sample her nipple as he'd tasted her lips earlier.
Tears trickled over Amy's temples and into her hair, not because she was ashamed or unhappy, but because it felt so wondrously good to give herself in this age-old way.
Presently, Harry bared her other breast and gave it proper and thorough attention, having tossed her bra aside. She was wearing only her satiny tap pants when he laid her on the bed.
The velvet softness of hundreds of rose petals cushioned her fevered flesh, and their lush scent perfumed the room. Amy was transfixed as she watched Harry strip away his clothes.
His body was lean and magnificent as he stretched out beside her. Taking a handful of the scattered pink, yellow and white petals, he sprinkled them over her and then bent to kiss the places where they landed. As he did this, he took her tap pants down over her hips and thighs, and they were lost in the blanket of blossoms.
Harry covered Amy with petals, and with the touch of each one to her quivering skin, she wanted him more.
"Harry, please," she finally rasped in desperation.
He raised her knees and kneit between them. He burrowed and nuzzled his way through the blossoms that sheltered her most vulnerable place, then scored her boldly with his tongue.
Amy gave a primitive groan of welcoming surrender and arched her back. Harry held her taut bottom in his hands and drank from her greedily.
Delirious with a terrifying, sweeping pleasure, Amy tossed her head from side to side. One forearm rested across her mouth, muffling the soft cries of wonderment and glory that she couldn't hold back.
And still Harry consumed her.
Finally, with a shout of joyous desolation, Amy reached her climax.
Even as he lowered her back to the flower-strewn mattress, Harry kissed the insides of Amy's thighs and the smooth moistness of her belly. She was beyond speech, beyond thought; all she could do was lie there in Harry's arms, her head resting on his strong chest. As pieces of her soul gradually wandered back from the far reaches of the universe, where her shattering release had flung them,
Harry lightly caressed her shoulder blades, the small of her back, her bottom, her thighs.
Presently, he laid her on her back and settled his powerful frame between her legs. It seemed to Amy that every muscle in her body had melted—she could not possibly respond to this final stage of Harry's love-making—but she longed to be joined with him. The desire was far more complex than mere physical need.
He paused at the portal of her womanhood and looked deeply into her eyes, silently asking her permission.
Amy nodded, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes.
Harry moved into her in a powerful stroke that awakened all her satisfied senses to an even keener need than before.
Amy's eyes flew open again, in startled surprise, and her fingers rushed to Harry's hard, sun-browned shoulders.
"Do you want me to stop?" he asked quietly, his manhood buried deep within her.
"No," Amy whispered in a frantic rush, shaking her head.
He withdrew slowly, until their joining was almost broken, and Amy felt genuine despair. But then Harry took her forcefully and she was completely, joyously lost.
As her body convulsed beneath his in the final moments of Harry's conquest, her cries echoed off the back of his throat.
Moments after she'd settled back to the mattress, completely exhausted, Harry wedged his hands under her hips to press her closer still. With a low groan, he faced his own moment of utter surrender.
At least half an hour must have passed before either of them had the breath to speak.
"Rose petals, huh?" Amy said, staring up at the ceiling. "You were pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?"
Harry was propped up beside her on one elbow. With the fingers of his other hand, he caressed a responsive nipple. "I was pretty sure of you," he countered.
Amy was holding a lot of things at bay in those moments. Like reality, for instance. "The flowers were a poetic touch," she said. "I guess you probably do that every time you bring a woman here."
He was silent for a long interval, during which he continued to tease her nipples, each in turn, with skillful fingers. "I've brought women to this bed before, of course," he said finally, unapologetically. "But those rose petals were for you and you alone, Amy."
Wild About Harry Page 7