Secret Desire

by Gwynne Forster

  “What if I lock my room door?” tumbled like a hoarse growl from his throat.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No…I…”

  “You want me as much as I want you. What will you feel when you have me inside you? Huh? Tell me.”

  “Luke, you said we should cool off.”

  “And after that I told you I love you, and you said it was mutual, and that you needed me.”

  “I do,” she groaned. “Oh, Luke. I do. I do. I’m aching for you.”

  His fingers toyed with her right nipple and, when she gasped, his tongue plunged in and began to stroke the inside of her mouth. She tried to get closer to him, to feel more of him, and her hips began a wild dance against him as he cradled her in his lap.

  “Sweetheart, you’re…” His big hands stilled her hips. “Randy’s asleep, and he’s too exhausted to wake up.”

  Why should she deny herself the loving she knew they’d find together, the sweet fire he would build within her? She stood, took his hand and squeezed it. “Come with me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  For an answer, she started walking toward her room door. He locked the door behind them. “We don’t need a light,” he said, but on the dresser in her bedroom half a dozen beeswax candles burned slowly, casting their soft glow over the room. He closed the shades, went to his room and opened the door to Randy’s room. Finding him asleep, he locked it.

  He slipped her caftan from her shoulders, let it pool at her feet, threw back the bed covering and she lay back on the pale yellow sheet. She watched him strip off his clothes, and fluid accumulated in her mouth when at last he was bare before her—masculine, big, strong and powerful. She crossed and uncrossed her knees as he stared down at her, his eyes ablaze with hot desire. Her arms opened to him, and he removed her bra and panties and leaned over her.

  “Baby, you’ll have to cooperate with me, because I’m near the point of explosion.”

  She’d have agreed to most anything right then if he’d wrap her in his arms and love her. She nodded. “Hold me.”

  At last, his fingers stroked her naked flesh, and his lips brushed her eyes, her face and the sensitive pulse of her neck. Why didn’t he kiss that place where she longed to feel his mouth? She put his hand on her breast, and he toyed with it until she writhed beneath him.

  “Please, honey. Stop teasing me. You know what I want.”

  His thumb twirled her nipple. “What? Tell me.”

  “My breasts. Kiss them.”

  Her body surged to him when his lips circled an aureole and began to tug at it, rhythmically, as he’d learned she liked it. Her hands went to his buttocks, but he escaped her clutches and continued his assault on her breast. She spread her legs, welcoming him, but he ignored her, and let his fingers travel slowly, tantalizing, promising, heating her blood on their way to the nub of her passion. She couldn’t help the involuntary movement of her hips, and spread her legs for him. His fingers toyed with her belly, making her want, until at last, frustrated with need, she reached for him and began to stroke his velvet steel. Fiery needles raced through her blood when his fingers found their goal and began their talented siege of her love nest. She cried out, but his lips subdued her. She felt his body temperature rise as she went after him, caressing him rhythmically and mercilessly, but he increased the pressure and pace of his stroking until tension gathered in her loins and that awful deathlike tightening began. Tremors shook her body. He rose above her, and she sheathed him with a condom.

  “Take me in, baby. Take me.”

  She raised her hips, led him to her lovers’ portal and he drove home.

  He had to find more for her. Her belly and hips wiggled beneath him, demanding, begging, for the essence of him. “Be still, honey. Don’t make a move, or I’ll explode.”

  He stroked powerfully, but the tiny quivers, the sweet signs of her surrender, nearly drove him to climax. The way she opened to him, cradling him with her arms and legs, kissing him, stroking. Her quivers exploded into a wild and powerful squeezing, and she gripped his buttocks as the pinching changed to pumping and her moans begged him for relief. He stroked with everything he had, and she began to suction him into her, like quicksand, and he couldn’t…

  She erupted all around him, over him and in him, and he couldn’t fight it, couldn’t hold back the rushing swell, the terrifying release that overpowered him. When she screamed and went limp with relief beneath him, he exploded into her and fell helplessly into her arms.

  He fought for his breath, lodged somewhere in his belly, as he pulled himself out of the vortex into which their tumult of passion had pitched him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, though he didn’t see how she could be otherwise after the way her body had responded to him.

  She opened her eyes and gazed at him through heavy lashes. “I’m in heaven. What about you?”

  “If I didn’t think you might take it the wrong way, I’d ask you to give me back myself. I’m…” He shook his head, awed by the power of his emotions. “I’m drunk on you.”

  She moved beneath him. “Wait a while before you sober up. Who knows when you’ll decide to ignore your willpower again?”

  He grinned, delighting in her wickedness. “You mean, you’re storing up?”

  “I plan to try, though it probably won’t work.”

  He felt himself stirring within her. Her desire for him excited him like the potent aphrodisiac that it was, and he gloried in the knowledge that he satisfied her, saturated her body with pleasure and left her with the feeling that she was a whole woman.

  She kissed his neck, undulating beneath him until he hardened to full arousal. On cue, she swung her legs across his hips. But he wanted her to have her way, so he flipped over on his back, bringing her atop him.

  “I’m all yours,” he said.

  Her eyes glowed and she licked her lips as though anticipating a feast. Her fingers frolicked on his chest and settled on his right pectoral. He tensed and she bent her lips to him, biting and sucking.

  A riot of sensation plowed through him, and he steeled himself for a battle with his control. “Kate! Sweetheart, hold on there.”

  “Don’t give me the keys if you don’t want me to drive,” she murmured as her lips teased his belly. She kissed his thighs and skimmed her fingers over them. Then she suddenly attempted to hook his knees over her shoulders, as he’d done to her. God, he’d give anything to feel it, but as far gone as he was, he couldn’t risk it.

  He pulled her up, locked her to him, rolled over and settled between her legs. With his lips, he tortured her breast while his fingers worked their magic at the seat of her passion.

  She lifted her hips to him. “Can’t you…Please, I…I can’t stand this,” she said.

  Love’s liquid flowed over his fingers, and he sheathed himself quickly with a condom, found his home within her, and loved her until they collapsed in a whirlpool of ecstasy.

  After a few minutes, he separated them, but lay above her and gazed into her face. How had it happened that he’d gone head over heels, irrevocably, in love with this woman? Never in his life had anything or anybody captured him as she had. But he didn’t feel like communicating that. He raised himself up on his elbows.

  “I’d like to stay here with you, but it wouldn’t be wise.”

  “No. Suppose Randy’s nightmares return, and he wakes up.” Her eyebrows shot up. “Would you believe I didn’t think of that earlier?”

  “Sure I can believe it. A one-track mind will do that to you, and that includes mine.”

  She kissed his neck and licked his collarbone. “Be careful, sweetheart. A little more of that, and I’ll be here all night.”

  He rolled over, sat up and sprang out of the bed. She watched as he dressed, a lazy sleepy glow of contentment on her face, and he wanted to get back in that bed. But he finished dressing, leaned over her, and loved her mouth.

  “See you in the morning. Sleep well.”

 
“You, too.” Her voice carried that low, sexy drawl that always raised his heat index.

  “Behave. You know I can’t stay here all night, but if I get back in that bed, that’s what I’ll do.”

  She raised her arms above her head and stretched. He couldn’t help grinning. “I owe you one, sweetheart, and I plan to pay.”

  “Be too glad to collect, honey. ’Night.”

  He didn’t know when he’d had such a great feeling. “Good night, sweetheart.” He blew out the candles that glowed on her dresser, careful to prevent the wax from splashing, and went to his room.

  Kate all but skipped along the hallway to breakfast, letting her nostrils lead her to the bacon and buttermilk biscuits. She wanted to fling her arms above her head and shout to the world: He loves me. “Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Life,” she sang as she rounded the door and entered the breakfast room.

  “Good morning, dear,” Ellen sang out. “You must have slept well. I’m so glad.”

  She greeted them all, served her plate from the buffet spread on the sideboard and sat down. They spoke to her as if they found nothing out of the ordinary, but Randy eyed her quizzically, and Luke managed to greet her without looking into her face. Not so with Asa, who scrutinized her as if he, not Luke, were the detective. Immediately, she was on guard, though the smile she gave him disguised her thoughts.

  “Soon as I call Amy, can we go sightseeing, Mom?”

  “All right.” Randy gulped down his milk and the remainder of his breakfast and looked at his grandfather.

  “Grandpa, can I make a phone call to Caution Point?”

  “Sure,” Asa said, “but where is it?”

  “North Carolina,” Randy flung over his shoulder as he raced out of the room.

  “How old is Amy?” Asa wanted to know. When told she was almost seven, he nodded slowly. “I didn’t start that business till I was thirteen. Things have changed.”

  “That’s Diamond Head over there.” Luke pointed up later, on their morning tour. The huge rock couldn’t be considered a mountain, yet it was one of the island’s major tourist attractions. They journeyed to Pearl Harbor, viewed the structure resembling a covered bridge over the hulk of the USS Arizona, the ship that sank with 1,177 American servicemen aboard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

  “It’s a memorial to the servicemen who died here,” Kate explained to Randy.

  Randy wanted to see tropical fish, and Luke rented a boat whose pilot took them over the reefs and the clear green water near the shore on the lush leeward side of the island. They watched the blow whales, saw the pineapple farms and witnessed a quick downpour of rain during bright sunshine.

  Kate couldn’t help comparing the relaxed, laid-back demeanor of the locals with the tourists’ galloping pace, so like what she’d known in Grosse Pointe—that all-consuming drive to be first and accumulate the most. Luke’s intuition had served them well, and she was glad she’d come to Hawaii, that she and Randy had been disabused of the false notions they’d had about Ellen and Asa Middleton. She wouldn’t mind staying a few days longer, but the next morning they would board a plane for Norfolk. Please, God, she prayed, don’t let anything happen before we leave here.

  Luke took Asa aside, told him about the persistent harassment against Kate, and watched Asa closely for his reaction. Liking the man’s response, he related his role as a police detective, assured Asa that Kate and Randy were safe, and told him of the measures taken to assure it. It pleased him that Asa offered money for around-the-clock bodyguards, though he rejected the offer as unnecessary.

  Kate’s in-laws wanted to take them to the airport for the flight home, so Luke had Hertz pick up his rental car. With Ellen beside him, Asa drove their guests to the airport for their trip home. “We won’t go in with you,” Asa said, “because we’d have to park so far away.” He got out and handed Kate a large manila envelope. “Handle this with care, and be sure and come back. It’s been many a year since we’ve been so happy.”

  When Kate assured him that she and Randy would visit them again, Asa said, “And I hope you’ll bring Luke, too.” He turned to Luke. “You’re a fine man,” he said, “and it’s my pleasure to know you. My grandson is fortunate to have you in his life.”

  “He’d be a lot more fortunate,” Ellen said, “if he could call you daddy.”

  “Now, now, Ellen. Meddling is the best way I know to ruin a good relationship,” Asa said.

  She looked toward the heavens and raised both hands, palms up. “No point in pussyfooting around the truth with all that business about how fortunate somebody is. I believe in calling a spade a spade. Bless you all.” She hugged the three of them and got back into the car.

  After embracing each of them, Asa remained standing beside the car as they walked into the terminal.

  “Two fine human beings,” Kate said.

  “Absolutely! Glad you came?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I am. I wish we lived closer to them.”

  In the airport gift shop, chills streaked down her back when Luke watched while she bought a tourist card that had a color picture of Diamond Head. Momentarily flustered, she went to the ladies’ room, wrote her father a short note, addressed and stamped it and put it in a mailbox. She felt as if she’d betrayed Luke by not sharing that important part of her life with him, but she couldn’t do it.

  They’d been away for two whole days. If anything untoward had happened in Portsmouth during that time, he hadn’t mentioned it. But she couldn’t help wondering whether things had gone amuck—her house, her apartment and the store. Whoever had set out to plague her had to know that she and Randy were out of town, and Luke, as well. She wondered what she’d find when she got back there.

  Jessye hadn’t expected Axel’s fast rush any more than she would have believed herself capable of tolerating it, but she hadn’t forgotten Kate’s words. She hadn’t given up her campaign to get Luke, but its seeming hopelessness made her insides sag. She did her best to search for whatever good there was in Axel. And Axel surprised her, for she hadn’t thought she’d find in him a man who would actually listen to her, see her as a person and not just as a soft place to lie, as most men did. Something about his attitude and his patience with her brought her down to earth and let her open up to him. He just held her hands and listened quietly as she told him of her life in Orangeburg, her envy of Kate, who got all the best roles in school plays, made the highest grades in school and graduated at the top of their class.

  “She wouldn’t believe how jealous of her I was, because I never let it show. Instead, I put her down. I’m not proud of that now, but it looks like she’s still getting the best of things.”

  “I know what you mean,” Axel assured her. “It’s the same with Hickson and me. He gets everything I go after. He may be a good detective. I’ll give him that, but just because he busted up a crack ring doesn’t justify his rise from rookie cop to top detective in eight years.”

  Though she tried to concentrate on Axel, Jessye still wanted to know everything about Luke. “He busted up a drug ring? That must have been dangerous.”

  Axel shrugged. “Maybe, but not risky enough to merit the payback he got. It’s time to close up. Let’s go to dinner and then take in some jazz.”

  She took a mirror from her pocketbook, found her makeup and hair in perfect condition, smiled at him, and said, “I can’t think of anything more exciting than doing the town with you.”

  Chapter 13

  Axel seated himself at his favorite table in the River Café, leaned back and stared at Jessye. “You mean, Kate spent the weekend with him out of town?”

  Jessye shifted in her chair and lowered her lashes. “I don’t know where they were. I just know I couldn’t find either of them, and I’ve been trying since Friday afternoon when she left the store early.”

  Axel narrowed his eyes. In spite of the attractive things she’d discovered about him the past few days, she got a queazy feeling when he showed anger.


  “Why would you be trying to find Hickson? Are you hot after him, too?”

  Jessye allowed herself a long sigh. “Honey, no Southern gentleman would let such words slip off his tongue. I declare you Northerners are something.”

  “Answer my question, Jessye.”

  She supposed the expression on her face would pass for a smile, but he’d better know it didn’t mean anything. “Honey, my papa didn’t boss me around, and he had a right to. You’re not my husband, and I’m not sleeping with you, so if you want to be friends, cool off.”

  His shoulders drooped. “Sorry.”

  Axel defeated? She didn’t believe it. “Axel, honey, Luke’s not after me. He wants Kate.”

  He straightened his posture. “And you?”

  She shrugged, almost as if she had no voice in the matter, not that anyone who knew her would believe that possible. “Which one of us do you want, Axel?”

  “You, and you know it.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  Later, he parked in front of the apartment building in which she lived, walked around the car and opened the door for her. With her hand in his, he walked with her to her apartment.

  “I’m at my worst when I think of Hickson. I’m sorry if I got out of line back there, but I…I care so much for you, Jessye.”

  She searched his face. “Earlier this evening when you were so gentle, I believed you. If you ever get over your fixation about Luke, you’ll be a…a super fellow. Good night.”

  As quickly as a flash of light, he pulled her to him, and she didn’t have time to escape his embrace. His soft, delicate and worshipful kiss stunned her, and she stepped back and stared at him. “Goo-good night.”

  She stumbled into her apartment, closed the door and leaned against it. Not only did he care for her, he’d just showed her how a man treated a woman when he cherished her. She’d been used to passion hot and heavy, blazing fiery stuff that had always petered out, but this…She blew out a long breath. Who would have thought Axel Strange capable of that?