When she would have walked to the door, he stopped her and gestured toward the open window, where the top of a ladder rested on the sill.
“We’re going out that way,” he said.
“Through the window? Why?”
“Because, as I already told you—” he affected a look of exaggerated patience “—you need to have fun.”
Sneaking out of the house through the window? Down a ladder?
Yeah, she could do that.
He stepped out and onto the top rung.
“I’ll go first in case you fall.”
She scooted over to follow. “I won’t fall. Anything you can do, I can do better, buddy.”
He chuckled. She shushed for him to be quiet. “Are you sure you can do this, with your knee?” she asked, turning serious for a moment.
He smiled at her. “Think I can manage, but I’ll go slow and steady, just in case.”
“Let’s go, then.” Her heart set up a happy pounding. This “sneaking out of the house” business was fun.
A couple of rungs from the bottom of the ladder, he stopped her with a hand on the small of her back.
“I won’t let you down,” he said.
What did he mean? She jumped to the ground.
Stepping onto cool grass, she realized she’d forgotten about socks and shoes.
She hadn’t run barefoot through the grass in years. A cliché, yeah, but, dear God, it felt good.
She’d been crammed chock-full to the brim with cares and responsibilities for too many years.
Dusty grabbed her hand and they raced along the yard toward Marvin’s house, where Dusty’s truck waited.
He shoved her into the passenger seat and pushed the door closed with the barest click.
Max had never experienced the carefree delight of sneaking out of the house in bare feet in the dark for an illicit date with a boy.
Dusty started the engine and pulled away from the yard quietly. He drove out across Max’s fields.
His hand settled on her thigh, warm and heavy. A man’s hand, on her thigh, in the close-quartered cab of a pickup truck, in the darkness.
Heaven.
She waited for his next move. Whatever it might be, somehow she knew she was along for the full ride.
He parked in the middle of a field and put on the hand brake.
“Get out,” he ordered.
She did, loving the feeling of discovery, of holding her breath in expectation.
“Come here.” He stood at the back of the truck, let down the tailgate and climbed into the bed. “Come on up.”
She followed him onto a couple of old handmade quilts softening the hard metal of the bed. He must have raided Marvin’s closets.
She sat down, curling her bare feet under her thighs.
He opened a picnic basket. Where on earth had he found it?
A picnic in the bed of a pickup truck, in the middle of a field, in the middle of the night. The surprises kept on coming.
Max smiled.
Oh, Dusty, I am loving this.
If she didn’t know better, Max would think Dusty was bent on seduction.
He snapped the top off a lime cooler and handed it to her.
Her eyes widened.
Oh, myyyy. Quilts. Coolers. Was that a container of chocolate-covered strawberries on the blanket? He did intend seduction.
Her excitement shot through the stratosphere to play hide-and-seek with the stars.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and she understood what he was really asking.
Did she agree with what he had in mind?
She’d missed all of this in high school, so she didn’t know how it worked, but if Dusty wasn’t intent on seducing her, she would be very, very disappointed.
Her one and only experience of sex had been painful, wet and disappointing.
Surely Dusty would know how to do it better than Joel ever had.
The thrill of anticipation ran along her nerves like water bubbling up from a hot spring.
All of her unrealized yearnings built up over the years, and brought down by disappointment after disappointment, bloomed in her with renewed hope. When would another chance, another opportunity, another Dusty come along? Her younger self, still inside of her after all of these years, yelled, “Go! For! It!”
“Yes,” she said, that simply.
In the moonlight, Dusty’s smile was neither triumphant nor smug, but quiet. This wasn’t about what he could get from her, but what he could give to her.
Tonight was all about her.
She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Her brain, body and heart turned to mush.
Oh, Dusty.
He opened a can of chocolate fondue sauce and set out a container of apple and pear slices. Max suspected that in daylight she would probably see they’d started to brown.
She didn’t care.
Everything delighted her, including moonshine alighting on Dusty’s thatch of dirty-blond hair.
She would feast on memories of this night for years to come.
He dipped a fruit slice and handed it to her.
She tried to take it from him, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Allow me,” he said. He held it near her mouth. She opened her lips and tasted chocolate, soft and sweet against tart apple when she bit down.
His finger brushed her bottom lip. She shivered.
He tossed the rest of the slice into his own mouth.
Max stared.
He’s sharing my spit, she thought. He’s sharing my germs.
Her gaze fell to his teeth shining white in the starlight.
Yes! Yes, let’s share spit.
She sipped her cooler and shivered again.
“Cold?” he asked. “Come here.”
When she didn’t move, he grasped her around the waist and lifted her onto his lap, putting her legs on either side of his hips.
He was moving fast.
Too fast?
She thought not.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She didn’t understand the games men and women played. She didn’t want to assume that Dusty had brought her out here to do...stuff...with her. She didn’t think he even liked her, so she needed to know.
But what other purpose would he have? He’d just snuggled her onto his lap, with her private parts nestled firmly against his.
And didn’t his private parts feel superb?
He leaned against the side of the truck and took a long, slow pull on his cooler. “Drink up,” he said when he swallowed and she watched his throat move. She’d never seen anything more erotic than Dusty swallowing.
She needed to get out more.
She sipped her drink and it chilled her again.
He slipped his hard arm around the back of her waist and pulled her closer.
He dipped a pear slice and held it to her mouth. She bit into it.
Instead of eating the rest, he dipped it again.
Double-dipping. For shame.
He pressed the chocolate-covered fruit to the hollow at the base of her throat.
She gasped. He nudged her chin with his. Her head fell back.
He licked the chocolate from her skin.
“Having fun yet?” he asked, voice husky.
“Yes!” she squeaked.
He raised his lips to hers.
Dusty Lincoln kissed with a slow thoroughness that left her mind hazy and her body limp.
Only his updrawn knees against her back kept her from swooning onto the quilt like a deflating soufflé, in boneless sensual overload.
Oh, sweet heavenly merciful sensual...sex.
And all he had done was kiss her.
Whatever came next just might kill her.
She fell onto
him as though he were chocolate cake and potato chips and vanilla sundaes all rolled into one.
His lips persuaded and nibbled and tickled. They ate at her mouth as though she, homely little Maxine Porter, was the most delicious woman on the planet.
His tongue explored, tasting her and taking her mouth as though it belonged to him.
Maybe it did. She no longer knew where she ended and he began.
She’d never French-kissed a man who had so much skill.
She did now, her tongue making enthusiastic forays into his wet, warm mouth. He stilled, giving her access and patience, as though to say, “We have all night.”
All night would be good. Awesome. The best.
She licked and withdrew then licked again.
He tasted sweet, like maybe he’d had lemon meringue pie for a bedtime snack.
The man was hopeless. Undiscipli—
His tongue entered her mouth forcefully this time. He’d finished playing games and wanted to get down to business.
But she liked the games. She wanted more of them.
He unbuttoned her blouse.
Oh! Getting down to business was good, too. Fine. Better than fine.
Yes. Let’s do it. Let’s get down to business.
His fingers full of tender caresses and pressing forays past the pesky restraints of plain cotton slid onto her skin.
Oh, his beautiful, long, knowing fingers.
He’d known a lot of women. He’d figured out what they liked.
She reveled in his experience. It taught her the beauty of sensual delights.
“More,” she whispered and he laughed.
“I take it that’s a yes?”
“That is a definite yes.”
He pulled back to meet her eyes. “To everything?”
“I want it all.”
A slow grin glimmered in the moonlight.
She should wipe that smugness out of him, his smile full of such pure male confidence, but maybe later. After he touched her some more. After he touched her a lot.
“Let’s get rid of this,” he whispered.
“What?”
“This thing that’s restricting you.”
Her sports bra.
She wiggled her shirt from her shoulders and arms, and lifted the white restricting bra over her head.
He whistled. “You’ve been hiding treasures.”
Her cheeks warmed. Dusty was only the second man in her lifetime to have seen her breasts. She liked the way he looked at her in the dim moonlight.
Her nipples peaked in the open air.
The master of sensual enchantment whispered his breath over her bare breasts.
He blew on her and she gasped.
“Ohhhhh, yessss.”
His lips on her breast curved up and she knew he was smiling.
“I like when you do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Enjoy.”
Oh, it was so much more than mere enjoying, but she didn’t have the words.
She gave herself over to feeling.
Dusty’s callused fingers abraded her soft skin and set up shivery delights all over her breasts.
Goose bumps arose on her arms amid the trembles he started in her when he dipped his forefinger into the chocolate sauce and spread it on her nipple.
When he licked it off her, she just about arched to the stars.
His fingers slipped inside the waistband of her jeans.
When she moved to unzip them he stopped her.
“Not yet.”
His fingers delved past the denim and into her panties. The backs of them touched her there, flicking over her hair, the barest whisper of a touch. Back and forth. Back and forth.
She got all hot and achy.
Her eyes flew open and, that moment, she got it.
She understood what Dusty was doing.
He was copping a feel.
He was pretending they were teenagers stealing hot summer delights. He was gifting her with all of the forbidden, stolen secrets she’d been robbed of as a lonely, scared adolescent.
Hence stealing out of the house and the pickup truck, the chocolate he’d dabbed on her nipples, the coolers—coolers! As though Dusty would ever order one in a bar.
When she pushed back on his shoulders so she could see his face, his dimple made an appearance. She imagined him as a teenager, as many young girls would have seen the callow charmer years ago while he learned his art.
In that moment, she fell in love with the man who understood her and with the boy he pretended to be to give her experiences she’d missed.
Tenderness washed through her.
He would never be hers to keep. She understood that, but he was hers for tonight, and it would be enough.
She gave herself over to the adventure.
While he watched her face, he slipped one finger inside of her and she was lost. All she knew was Dusty and the endless firmament of wonder above and around them.
Sex with Dusty Lincoln was spectacular...and it had barely begun.
He cherished her.
She might be the only woman on earth, certainly at this moment the only woman as magnificently and thoroughly loved as a woman could be.
She helped him with the condom and he entered her body, where he felt like the most delicious part of her. Where their bodies bonded as though they belonged together.
They played for a couple of hours.
When she’d reached her third climax, Max got it. Finally. She understood what all of her friends had been raving about over the years.
She got the fun. She got the passion. She got the exquisite sensations and the beauty of a man and a woman’s body linked together in intimacy.
She got orgasms.
She got sex.
Turning her attention to exploration, because she’d never seen a more beautiful body than his, she wanted to know it all.
She touched, tasted and reveled.
Dawn sent a chill through her.
Pink crested the horizon.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice echoing the depth of her emotion, trying to convey a gratitude she could never adequately express.
She lay boneless against his chest.
“Was it fun?” he asked, his tone surface light, and she understood. Dusty didn’t like to delve. He didn’t do heavy or emotional.
After all the gifts he’d given her in the past few hours, she could accept that.
“More fun than I’ve ever had in my whole life,” she said and meant it.
They crept back to the house.
Max didn’t want the night to end. She sensed that Dusty didn’t want that, either, which was a nice surprise.
“Ladder or front door?” he asked.
“Definitely the ladder.” She climbed up and entered her bedroom. She didn’t look back. No sense. She already heard Dusty driving to Marvin’s house.
After she undressed, she put on her pajamas and lay down, pulling the covers over her.
She rested her hand on her breast.
Her body would never feel the same again.
How could it?
How could she?
Dusty Lincoln had happened to her.
She fell asleep smiling.
Before she knew it, it was time to get up. She rolled over and stretched, every cell in her body humming with energy and satisfaction.
She giggled and thought of taking out an ad in the paper to announce that she finally realized what all the hoopla was about.
After last night’s amazing, satisfying encounter, she understood what everyone else had already known.
Sex was the best thing ever invented.
She’d come around to liking Dusty despite their rough s
tart.
Even though she didn’t respect charm for charm’s sake, Dusty had enough awesome stuff going on underneath the charm. He wasn’t a phony.
He’d given her a precious gift last night, the memories of which she would cherish for a lifetime.
She got up and jumped into the shower, only then noticing there was a spot of chocolate on her breast that Dusty had missed last night.
She’d never look at chocolate fondue the same way again. She’d never be able to drink a lime cooler, or lime anything, without thinking of Dusty. And sex.
Sensations washed through her.
Bits and pieces of memories flickered and warmed her.
Dear Lord, the man knew how to make love.
Laughing out loud, she washed herself and pronounced this day to be amazing.
Only one problem marred the beauty of last night’s memories and today’s energy.
Maxine Porter had fallen in love with Dustin Lincoln.
She hoped and prayed she could keep that from being problematic.
An hour later, she walked into the stable to find Dusty there ahead of her.
He looked as tired as she felt, but also as relaxed, a loosening up of bones and sinews and attitudes.
“Good morning,” she said.
He glanced up from the horse he’d been brushing.
“Good morning to you, too!” He stepped around to the horse’s far side so Max couldn’t see his face. “Great day, eh?”
Where her tone had been quiet and satisfied, his was upbeat, but she frowned because it didn’t ring true. Dusty used a fake hearty voice.
Aw, Dusty, she wanted to say, you don’t need to do fake this morning. He’d given her a bout of fun. He’d taught her about lovemaking, and about how sex could take a woman to the stars and back again.
With her lack of experience in all things male and female, she didn’t know what to do with her newfound love.
She didn’t know how to act with Dusty, and how to be normal.
There was no more normal.
She might love the man, but she wasn’t expecting forever. So why was he being so surface charmy?
Or was she just so gauche that she didn’t know how to play the game?
Had last night been about his pity for her, or taking advantage of her?
Had she read all the signs wrong?
She didn’t know.
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