by Sandra Hill
Under her sweeping appraisal, he never once lowered his eyes. Women faltered under such close scrutiny, but not men . . . not this man.
“Can I touch you?” she whispered.
The hard ridges of his stomach muscles lurched.
Heat curled in her stomach, almost a mirroring reflection.
At first, he closed his eyes and a low strangled sound emerged from his lips. He appeared to be out of breath, panting. When he lifted his eyelids, Annie almost staggered backwards under the onslaught of the blue fire. “If you don’t touch me, I think I’ll go up in smoke,” he whispered back.
Well, that sounds encouraging. She stepped closer and put her hands on his shoulders. He tried to take her in his arms, but Annie swatted his hands away. She wanted to do this herself, with no distractions. “Let me . . . I want . . . ,” she murmured, her brain reeling with a feverish urgency. “I want to do things to you. So many things.” Things? What things? Where are these outlandish thoughts coming from? And how am I getting up the nerve to say them aloud?
“Annie . . . ,” he started to say, then paused, lost for words. “You take my breath away.”
“Don’t move,” she ordered and ran her fingertips down both sides of his tension-corded neck, over his shoulders, skimming over the light furring on his arms to his hands where she twined their fingers for one brief moment, raising the knuckles of one hand, then the other for a brief kiss. She released his hands then, setting them back at his side.
Smoothing the palms of her hands across his chest, she felt his heartbeat thud. She watched in fascination as the flat male nipples hardened and elongated.
Clay gritted out one crude word between clenched teeth. Annie decided to take the expletive as a compliment.
She couldn’t resist then. Lowering her head, she licked one nipple, sucked it into her mouth, rolled it between her lips.
“Omygod, omygod, omygod!” Clay exclaimed, snaking out a hand to grasp her nape, then lift her into an embrace where her hips cradled his erection. He was still braced against the wall, thank heavens! Otherwise, they would have probably fallen. Alternately kissing her with a devouring hunger and growling into the curve of her neck, he ended up cupping her buttocks and rocking her against him. All the time he was overcome with a violent shiver.
Incredibly, Annie felt herself approaching climax. It was way too soon for that, and not the way she wanted it to happen.
It was Clay who slowed the action. Setting her away from him, he said in a grainy rasp, “Do you know what I want, Annie-love?”
She cocked her head to the side. “I think so.”
“Not that, silly girl. I mean, yes, I want that, but not now. What I really want is to feel your skin against mine.”
It took several moments for his words to sink in. When they did, Annie felt a thrill of excitement ripple through her already oversensitized body. She jerked off her flannel shirt, then drew the tee shirt up and over her head, leaving only a plain, white nylon bra. Through its thin fabric, her small nipples stood out with stiff, pale rose peaks, aching for his touch.
His eyes studied her with apparent appreciation. He licked his lips as he waited for her final unveiling. When the wispy bra fell to the floor, his eyes seemed to water up. “Oh, Annie, you are so beautiful.”
She wasn’t beautiful, Annie knew that. But it was nice that he found her appealing. She wanted to be beautiful for him.
“It’s your turn now, sweetheart. Don’t move,” he said then, giving equal attention to her body, murmuring compliments to each part examined by his tantalizing fingers and feathery kisses. When he came to her breasts, Annie’s heart stood still. First he raised them up from underneath in the palms of his hands, then skimmed both nipples with the pads of his thumbs. By the time he angled his head down to wet one, then the other with his lips and tongue, and finally suckled rhythmically, Annie was mewling with an increasing frenzy.
Recognizing her spiraling passion, Clay eased away from the wall and backward toward the couch, taking Annie with him. But he lost his balance and fell onto his back, half reclining, with one leg extended out to the floor. Annie tripped, too, and ended up plopped on top of him. When she raised herself up, she found herself, amazingly, straddling him, jean-clad groin to jean-clad groin.
Clay groaned, a long, husky sound of pain emitted through clenched teeth.
Immediately, Annie remembered Clay’s injuries. It was a sign of her fevered brain that she’d forgotten. “Oh, my God! Did I hurt you? Is it your head? Or your ankle?”
Clay tried to laugh but it came out strangled. “That’s not where I’m hurting, Annie.” He rolled his hips from side to side against Annie’s widespread thighs, and Annie felt the clear delineation of the ridge pressing against her with an urgency that matched her own.
“Oh,” she said.
Clay chuckled. “‘Oh’ about says it, darling.” Then he chucked her under the chin.
“I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?” she asked, belatedly shy.
Shocked would be the understatement of the year, Clay decided. Who knew when I woke up this morning, a cold, dreary day in Princeton, that my evening would end in such a blaze of unexpected manna from heaven? But wait a minute. I don’t like that look of second thoughts creeping onto Annie’s face. “Don’t go shy on me now, Annie.”
“I’ve never behaved this way before . . . so forward and uninhibited,” she confessed, hiding her face in her hands.
“Your eagerness excites me. Tremendously. Don’t you dare stop now,” he said in a suffocated whisper, prying her fingers away. “I have plans for you that require a major dose of forwardness and un-inhibition.”
“You do?”
Was that hope in her voice? “Absolutely. Are you afraid?”
“No. Are you?”
He laughed outright. God, how he loved her openness.
“Listen, Annie . . . stop, you witch . . . I can’t think when you do that.” She was leaning forward, her hair a thick swath curtaining his face, as she still straddled him. Back and forth, she was brushing her breasts across his chest hairs.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? Not to think?”
He leaned up and gave her a quick kiss. “You don’t act like any virgin I’ve ever known.” Not that I’ve known very many . . . or any, for that matter, that I can recall.
“Just because I didn’t do that, doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything,” she said, meanwhile kissing a little line from one end of his jaw to the other.
Clay fought against the roil of jealousy that ripped through him at the thought of any other man touching his Annie in any way. Had it been the milkman, or someone else? How many someone elses? “Annie, you’re driving me mad. Be still for one moment. Please.”
Surprisingly, she did as he asked. Of course, when she stilled, she also sat upright, square on his already overeager, over-engorged erection. He closed his eyes for one second, to keep them from bulging clear out of his head. Finally, when he managed to speak above a squeak, he said, “We’re not going to make love tonight, Annie.”
She stiffened at once, and her face went beet red. “You don’t want me?”
“Of course, I want you, but I refuse to make love with you on an uncomfortable sofa . . . out in the open . . . with a houseful of people . . . no matter what you say about sleeping patterns or rules for . . . uh, courting.”
She pondered his words, then seemed to accept their logic. “So, we’re not going to make love tonight? Will we ever?”
“Oh, for sure, darling. For sure.”
She smiled widely at that.
“And there’s another thing, Annie-love. We have to talk about this thing that’s happening with us.”
“It is . . . strange.”
“Strange, overpowering, confusing. I have an idea, Annie. Let’s go out tomorrow night. Slow down this runaway train. See where this relationship is going.”
“I like the sound of that.”
He took a breast in each hand then and ad
mired the contrast of the firm, white mounds against his darker skin. “I love your breasts. I love the way they aren’t big, but appear to be so because of your thin frame.” He stretched his head forward to savor one of them with his mouth.
She made a keening sound low in her throat, halfway between a purr and a cry for mercy. “I thought we weren’t going to make love,” she gasped out.
“True. We’re not going to make love. But we can make out. A little.”
“Oh, goody,” she cooed. Before he knew what she was about, Annie slid a hand between them and caressed him. “Does this count as making love or making out?”
He about shot off the couch. And all he could think was, Who the hell cares? “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Annie.” Very carefully, he dislodged her grasp and placed both her hands at her sides and held them there. “You’ve been running the show for much too long in your family. It’s time for you to sit back and let someone else take over.”
Her chin went up, balking.
“All right?”
After a long pause of hesitation, she nodded.
He proceeded then to unbutton her jeans.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she didn’t protest.
“Lift up a little, honey, and lean forward,” he advised. When she did, he slid a hand inside the waistband of her panties, down between her legs. The warm, wetness he met there caused him to sigh with pleasure. “Oh, Annie-love, you feel so good.”
“Claaay,” she cried out, unsure whether she wanted him to touch her there.
Before she had a chance to think further, he inserted a long middle finger inside her tightness and rested a pulsing thumb against the swollen bud. “Now, Annie,” he encouraged her with a guttural hoarseness, “you ride . . . you set the pace.”
“I . . . I don’t think I can,” she whimpered.
“Yes, you can, darling.” And she did. With each forward thrust, she brushed the ridge of his erection. They were separated by denim material but the sensation was still intense. With each withdrawal, that part of his body yearned for her next stroke. It didn’t last long. Probably only minutes. But when Annie began to spasm around his finger and melt onto him, he held her fast by the hips, leaned forward to kiss her with a devouring hunger, and bucked upward . . . once, twice, three times.
“Annie-love,” he whispered into her hair a short time later. She was nestled at his side, both of them stretched out full-length on the sofa.
“Hmmm?” She was half-asleep and sated.
Clay couldn’t have been prouder if he’d pulled off a million dollar investment deal. You’d think he was personally responsible for having made the world move. Well, he had, actually. For both of them.
“Clay?” she prodded.
“I’m think I’m falling in love with you,” he disclosed. He hadn’t intended to tell her . . . not yet. But his senses were on overload, brimming with so much joy. He couldn’t contain it all.
“I already know I’m in love with you,” she admitted. “I think I fell the minute I saw you storming across that vacant lot looking like Scrooge himself.”
He poked her playfully in the ribs at that insult, but inside he felt such a triumphant sense of elation. Annie loves me. Annie loves me. Annie loves me. It was all so new and strange and confusing. Not what he’d come to Memphis to find. It would pose all kinds of problems in his life. But what a wonderful, wonderful thing! Annie loves me.
Annie worried her bottom lip with her teeth then. Obviously, she had something on her mind. Finally, she blurted out, “When will you know for sure?”
Clay chuckled and said, “Maybe after we check out the hayloft.”
The best-laid plans of foolish men…
I love her.
It was Clay’s first thought when he awakened the next morning to bright sunlight warming the cozy bedroom. You’d think it was springtime, instead of four days before Christmas. But then, Clay recalled, he was in Tennessee . . . almost the deep South.
With an open-mouthed yawn, he stretched widely, becoming immediately aware of the ache in his ankle and at the back of his head. He glanced to the side, saw the bedside clock, and jolted upright, causing the dull pain to intensify. Ten o’clock! He hadn’t slept beyond six a.m. in the past twenty years.
Oh, well! First, he would take a shower. Afterward, he had at least a dozen calls to make, first to check with his office in New York, then to set the hotel sale in motion here in Memphis.
But there was only one thought that kept ringing through his head. I love Annie. Clay was not a whimsical person. If anyone had told him a few days ago that he would believe in love at first sight or romantic destiny, he would have scoffed, vehemently. He didn’t know how it had happened or why, though he suspected, illogically, that it involved that dingbat bellhop and God’s big toe and Elvis’s spirit. He’d been fated to come to Memphis. Not to sell the blasted hotel, though he would do that as soon as possible, but to find Annie. Amazing!
It would take some doing to get Annie moved to Princeton. Probably, they’d have to wait till after the holidays. Oh, he knew it would be hard for her to leave the farm, but she had Chet and her brothers here to take over for her. And her Aunt Liza would care for the boys. Hell, he’d hire a live-in housekeeper to help Aunt Liza if necessary. Or the whole gang could come live with him, though he couldn’t imagine that ever happening. It would be like the Clampetts moving to Princeton. All he knew was that it was time someone took care of Annie, and Clay thanked God it was going to be him.
Would they get married?
Of course. There was no way her family would allow her to live with a man without a wedding. And Annie would want that, too, Clay was sure.
How did he feel about marriage? Hmmm. A few days ago, he would have balked. But now . . . Clay smiled. Now, the idea of marrying Annie seemed ordained. Perfect.
So, everything was all set. He and Annie would go out tonight on a date. He would propose. She would accept. They’d make plans for the wedding and then move to Princeton. And a honeymoon . . . they’d fit a honeymoon in there, too. Perfect.
The only problem was that Clay kept hearing the oddest thing. Somewhere in the house, a radio was playing that old Elvis song, “Blue Suede Shoes,” but every time Elvis would belt out a stanza that was supposed to end in a warning not to step on “my blue suede shoes,” Clay kept hearing, “ . . . don’t you step on God’s big toe.”
If Clay was a superstitious man, he’d consider it a premonition.
He was getting love advice from Grandma Moses…
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
Clay had showered and shaved with a disposable razor he’d found in the bathroom. Then he’d unhesitatingly entered Chet’s room where he borrowed a clean set of clothes, including a pair of new underwear straight from the package. This family owed him that, at least. Okay, he owed them a lot, too, he was beginning to realize . . . like a new life.
But now, Aunt Liza had forced him into a chair at the kitchen table where she’d placed in front of him a half dozen platters heaped with bacon and sausage, hot cakes drizzling butter and maple syrup, scrambled eggs and leftover biscuits from last night (also drizzling butter), slices of scrapple (which he’d heard contained pork unmentionables, like noses and things), black pudding (which Aunt Liza told him without blinking was blood sausage), coffee, orange juice, and a glass of cold milk with a header of pure cream.
“All I ever have for breakfast is coffee, juice and an English muffin, or toast,” he demurred.
“Well, you ain’t in New Jersey now, boy. So eat up. I got some oatmeal cookin’ on the stove, too, to warm up your innards.”
He groaned. “If I eat all this, I won’t be able to move.”
“You ain’t goin’ anywhere anyhow, sonny. You’re stuck here on the farm with a gimp leg, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“But I have work to do . . . calls to make—”
She slapped a couple of pig nose slabs on his plate and glared at him till he finally gave in
. He pushed the pig nose slabs to the side, though, and gave himself modest helpings of eggs and biscuits, one sausage link, two slices of bacon, and one hot cake, but before he knew it his plate was overflowing.
Despite all his protests, the food was mouth-wateringly delicious, and he told Aunt Liza so. She smiled graciously at the compliment and sat down at the table with him, sipping at a cup of coffee.
“When did everyone leave for Memphis?” he asked as he ate . . . and ate . . . and ate.