by Ruby Laska
“Goose bumps,” he said softly, lifting one of her arms. He kissed his way slowly up the inside, lingering in the crook of her elbow, until she squirmed at the sensation, which was maddeningly erotic. Her body arched under him, begging him to hasten.
She couldn’t stand to wait. She pushed at his chest, struggling out from under him. In mock obedience, he lay back on the bed, his breathing labored, and watched her.
“My turn,” she whispered.
Amber straddled him and resumed her efforts at his buttons. Though her fingers shook, she freed them all, and slid the shirt off his body. As she yanked the sleeves off the last two buttons burst free of his cuffs and rolled away on the hardwood floor below.
“Brute,” Mac whispered, grinning, though his breath was labored. “I’m beginning to think I should be afraid of you.”
“But I’ve just barely begun,” Amber said.
She had no idea where her newfound boldness came from. It was like thirst, and she knew she couldn’t stop until she’d drunk her fill. She lowered her head to taste deeply of the smooth, hard expanse of his stomach. The few burnished blond hairs tickled her cheeks, and she rubbed her face in the warmth of his skin. She dipped her tongue into his navel, then bit gently, his muscles hardening in response.
“Sweet lord, Amber,” Mac sighed. “Where did you learn all this?”
The question barely registered. She continued to experiment with the textures of his body. She pressed her cheek against the cold, hard metal of his belt buckle, rubbed her chin against the rough denim. He arched his hips against her, and she felt the hard expanse of his passion. Taking him in her hand through the cloth, she remembered how he’d gently guided her the first time, how he’d taken such care not to hurt her.
There would not—could not—be any such caution tonight.
She slipped the belt free and tugged down his zipper. With a hard shove Mac yanked jeans out of the way, freeing his glorious staff. Amber sighed softly before touching it, tentatively at first. She looped her hair around its length as her caresses became more certain.
The motion of Mac’s hips belied his need.
“Please,” he whispered. “I want to be inside you, I want to hold you—”
He grasped her gently beneath her arms and slid her up, her body traveling against his and causing the most delicious friction.
“—to love you—”
He covered her throat with kisses as she positioned herself gently above him, her breasts pressed to his pounding heart, her legs wrapped firmly around his hips.
“—to make you mine again...”
As he arched to meet her, sliding inside in a single fluid motion, she cried out once in joy and then let her instincts take over, rocking against him in a rhythm set by her own body. She pushed herself up on her arms, her hair falling free and brushing against his forehead, wanting to see his face. His eyes narrowed, his lips parted slightly.
“I need you,” he whispered. “Damn it, Amber, I still need you.”
Dimly, far away, an alarm went off, but Amber could not stop to listen. His voice against her skin only brought fresh sensations and she increased her tempo.
When Mac lifted his head and kissed her breasts, darting his tongue in slow, maddening circles around her nipples, Amber felt that she couldn’t hold on much longer. She threw her head back and crested the wave, crying out her ecstasy as shudders of delight racked her body. In seconds Mac seized her hips and matched her cries with his own, finding his release as hers subsided in wave after wave of sensation.
Afterwards, Amber collapsed against him in exhaustion. Her hair, damp from exertion, clung to her neck in unruly curls, but Mac slowly twirled his fingers through it, with his other hand absently caressing the valley between her shoulder blades.
Perfect. That was how she felt, as though all of her needs had been met, her mind at ease, her troubles vanished. Her body hummed with warm satisfaction, her limbs nestled into the crooks and hollows of his body.
“That was...” Mac paused, his chin scratching the top of her shoulder. “I can’t come up with the right word. Incredible? Unbelievable?”
“Mmm,” Amber sighed.
“You’re exactly the same in some ways. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed—”
He hesitated again, and Amber caught her breath, waiting for him to continue. When he finally did, there was awe in his voice.
“But you’re different, too,”
“I’ve gained some weight,” Amber said self-consciously. When they were younger, her lithe body had very little padding. The years had added curves where none had been, her hips blooming along with softness in her arms, her breasts. Only her waist had remained unchanged, trim and tight.
“No, you’re perfect. I love this—” he ran his hands along her skin to illustrate his point, sending fresh waves of giddy sensation. “—and this, and...but that’s not what I meant. You seem more confident. Not many women could...pull off what you just did, for want of a better way to phrase it.”
A flush of embarrassment threatened to flood her skin. Lifting her head a little from his chest she mumbled, “I’ve had a couple of lovers since you, if that’s what you mean. A woman learns a thing or two.”
Mac shook his head, tightening his grip on her so that her body was nestled within his, and she relaxed. “That’s not what I mean, either. Although, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every second. I just meant that you were so natural. So...free. The way you loved me, it seemed like you put all your heart and soul into it, nothing held back. Maybe I’m not making sense.” The circles he was drawing on her back slowed and stopped. “It’s just that it all seemed so right, like it was meant to happen,” he finished, his voice barely above a whisper.
The words settled over her, and she held onto them as the rain fell outside, and the mist swirled, and Mac gently pulled up a blanket to cover them, and finally she drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Sleep, however, eluded Mac.
Long after Amber’s breathing became regular, he held her in his arms, listening to the rain and going over every second of the last few hours. Hours in which he had felt more—more passion, more emotion, more pure raw sensation— than he had in over a decade.
But he shouldn’t have said all those things, he chided himself. Stupid. How stupid could a guy get? The fates had delivered the one dream he’d held onto, and he’d been foolish enough to hope for more. It felt so right...hah. He sounded like a Hallmark card. Couldn’t he have come up with something more original?
Or better yet, just kept his damn mouth shut?
She hadn’t said anything in reply, probably not wanting to embarrass him for sounding like a love-struck teenage dolt.
Now she was sleeping peacefully, her long legs twined with his, her graceful arms draped across his chest. He could feel the beat of her heart, smell the perfume of her hair, faintly spicy and flowery at the same time.
If only he could preserve this moment. But soon she’d wake up, and then what?
The impossibility of the situation frustrated him so deeply that he wanted to curse, to pound his fists against something. He felt powerless to do the one thing he longed for more than anything in the world.
To keep her with him. To hold her tightly, forever, so that she would never again run.
But even as he held her, he knew she soon would slip away. There was too much between them, a chasm he couldn’t even begin to understand. And she wouldn’t—couldn’t—explain it. For the thousandth time he racked his memory, searching for the one clue he’d overlooked that might explain why she’d gone.
Amber stirred gently in his arms. He held his breath until she relaxed, then pulled the blanket up a little further on her shoulders. The heat of the day had been quelled by the rain showers, and now it was almost chilly, the breeze teasing, deceiving. In the morning a scorching sun would rise and burn it away and the mist would be a memory.
As would their night together.
Ambe
r stirred again, and a small whimper escaped her lips. She was dreaming, troubled. Mac stilled himself, praying that she’d slip back into sleep and rest against him a little longer.
But she slowly woke. He could tell because her breathing changed, and her limbs tensed, the release of their lovemaking and deep sleep ebbing away. He wondered what she was thinking, as she remembered whose bed she shared, how she’d spent the last few hours.
Her face, as she rolled away from him and deftly covered her body with the blanket, offered no clue.
“Mac,” she said softly, her eyes clouded with an emotion he couldn’t read. “I have to go.”
“No,” he said, “Stay with me. Morning’s just a few hours away. What difference can it make?” He longed to reach for her, pull her back to him, but something told him to hold back.
Amber shook her head and swung her feet to the floor, her back to him. He gazed at the pale stretch of flawless skin, the graceful nape of her neck, the red hair cascading in a disarray he found even more becoming than her sleek new style. She ran her fingers through it before rising and dressing in the faint glow from the porch lights he’d left on below the window.
“I just have to go, that’s all. I need to get a little sleep and wake up in my own room and be fresh for tomorrow. Sheryn’s husband was coming in tonight, and he’ll want to get together first thing in the morning. He’ll want to go over a million things that Sheryn hasn’t even thought about yet. There’s zoning issues, city council, chamber of commerce...”
As Amber kept up a steady stream of talk, she dressed quickly, shrugging into the red dress that lay puddled on the floor. She smoothed the wrinkles with a few distracted motions, easing the fabric over her hips. Mac sat up on his elbows, watching her dress, aching to keep her with him. The night, without her, stretched long and empty before him.
Suddenly she stopped, jammed her fingers through her hair and bit her lip, looking around her.
“Shoes,” she said. “Where are my shoes?”
“I think...you might find them somewhere on the stairs. Between here and the couch, at any rate.” Mac spoke as delicately as possible. He remembered one of the leather flats sliding off her arched foot as he lifted her from the couch, another thudding down the stairs as he carried her to his bedroom. Memories of the night before crowded his thoughts, and he didn’t trust his voice not to quake if he elaborated.
Nor did he trust his body not to respond if he got up to see her go. Feeling helpless, he waited as a long, emotion-laden moment hung between them.
“Oh.” Amber studied the floor, her hands twisting together in anxiety. “Well, look, Mac, I suppose at some point we have to talk about last night—”
Mac winced as the words sliced through him.
“—but I just can’t do it now, so can we wait until things settle down with my job?”
“Tomorrow,” Mac said quickly. “I mean, today. Whatever. Have lunch with me later.”
Amber hugged one arm tightly to her waist and shifted her feet. “Lunch...I’m sure I’ll need to spend it with Gray and Sheryn. I was supposed to have contacted the city council by now and—”
“For God’s sake, Amber,” Mac said, his voice betraying the anguish he felt. “Just lunch, okay? We can eat in town. In public. I promise, I won’t seduce you or even lay a hand on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No...no. It’s not that. I’m sorry.” She stepped to his bedside, offering a hand. He caught and held it, feeling as though he were clutching a lifeline.
And then he forced himself to release her.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll call you later.”
And she disappeared to the hall, the sound of her bare feet on the stairs muffled. He could hear Heather and Randy’s toes clicking on the floor as they dashed to besiege her with affection, and a few murmured words from Amber before he heard the front door open and then latch shut. A moment later the car started and sped away.
The luminous dial of his bedside clock glowed 3:20. Mac went to the sink for a glass of water, drinking deeply to soothe his parched throat. The dogs, who were not permitted on the second floor, whined below as they heard him moving around.
For a couple more hours, he tried to sleep, fragmented memories of times with Amber jolting him back to consciousness whenever he was about to drift off. When the early light began to glow outside, he rose and dressed in an old T-shirt and shorts and went downstairs.
He picked up his novel and turned to the page he’d been trying to read for the last week. Stretched out long on the couch with the dogs thumping their tails on the floor below, it was only minutes before he sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Aw, hell,” Mac muttered under his breath as he pulled a few more leaves off the stems he held in his hand. Picking wildflowers had seemed like a pretty good idea earlier in the morning as he drank a second cup of coffee strong enough to peel paint and let the memories of the night before wash over him, his skin warming when some of the finer details came to mind.
The Black-eyed Susans looked so pretty in the clearing out past the wood pile. Somehow, though, they weren’t quite coming together into the bouquet he had in mind. With a final oath Mac tossed the rough stems into the sink and swiped his car keys off the counter, glancing at the clock as he strode for the door.
Eleven o’clock.
They hadn’t exactly set a time, or a place, for lunch. For that matter, Amber hadn’t exactly agreed to meet him, either.
But there was nothing Mac could do about that. He could try to track Amber down and collect on the lunch date, or he could head on in to work as though it was just another day, as though he hadn’t just spent one of the most amazing nights of his life.
Besides, if he didn’t seek her out on his own terms, the next time they met might be over this crazy plan of Sheryn’s. He didn’t doubt his ability to squash the development, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t raise his stock any in her eyes. Given the alternatives, he’d just as soon give it his best shot now.
“Take care of the place,” Mac called in the direction of the kitchen. In response, twin tails thumped from under the table. Mac had barely touched his omelet and toast, sliding the contents of his plate into the dog bowls after a few bites, so the beagles were well fed and happy.
Too bad people weren’t as easy to please as dogs, Mac brooded as he started up the truck. A good meal, a warm place to lie down at night - those were things he took for granted. And Mac had been further blessed with an honest living, his health, friends, plenty of women who’d be glad to keep him company.
“That ought to be enough, damn it!” Mac swore to no one in particular, slamming his free hand on the dash as he drove down the familiar roads.
It had been enough for his father. Mac was sure that any love that had graced his parents’ marriage had long since slipped away. He had always assumed that Fran and Pete had sex just once, since he was born nine months after their honeymoon. They never touched, never exchanged a covert kiss or even a cursory peck on the cheek as his father left for the shop early every morning.
No, there was very little pleasure in his parents’ union. Better for his father if they’d never met, Mac thought. Marrying Fran was the biggest mistake of Pete’s life, an admission ticket to a forty-year harangue.
There were worse things than solitude, and besides, McBaines were self-reliant creatures, plenty capable of shouldering life’s burdens alone.
Mac was proof of that.
But what if his father had had a chance to love someone the way Mac loved Amber...
Their lovemaking the night before had stirred long-buried memories, setting them in motion. He and Amber should have been celebrating nearly a decade and a half of marriage by now. They might have had kids, shared a house, a pot of coffee in the mornings, a tired caress at the end of a long day.
Much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, Mac knew that if Amber had stayed and become his
wife, their life together would have been nothing like his parents’.
But instead she had left, shutting down his dreams without a word of explanation.
But today he was going to see her again. Today he might learn a little more, ask the right questions, touch the vulnerable part of her that he knew was still there. Somewhere.
Mac grabbed his phone and stabbed at the buttons as he drove.
“Junior,” he growled. “Can you guys get by without me for a few more hours?”
The note jammed into the door frame was written on a page torn from a yellow pad like the ones Amber seemed never to be without these days. “Dear Mac, Something came up,” it read in her familiar hand. “Sorry.”
Mac yanked it from the door and crumpled it tightly in one fist, trying to quell his rising frustration. What he really felt like doing was sending his fist through the flimsy motel room door, but he wasn’t about to pull a stunt like the other day. Leaving this same room in a fury had gotten him exactly nowhere.
A couple deep breaths. Then Mac turned and leaned his elbows on the iron railing overlooking the parking lot, letting the sun warm his face as he tried to decide what to do next.
“Hello, friend,” a deep, unfamiliar voice said at his side. Mac turned slowly. A big man in his fifties stood smiling with his hand extended. Mac hesitated only a moment before shaking it, the powerful grip warm and sincere.
“Don’t think I know you,” Mac said. The man’s chambray shirt and jeans didn’t stand out in Heartbreak, but the boots were clearly handmade, their workmanship splendid and obviously expensive. And clean. This gentleman hadn’t been walking through any dusty fields lately.
“Gray Sawyer,” the man said amiably. “And I bet you’re Mac.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit to that, I guess. Lawrence McBaine, actually, but nobody calls me that.”
“And, you’re looking for Amber.”
“Two for two.” Mac kept his voice steady, but felt his jaw harden. How was it that his business was making itself known to strangers who just got into town?
