by Toni Blake
Our beans are up in the backyard garden and Mother says this weekend would be a good one for canning them. I’m already so tired of early canning this year, though, that I could just die. And must we always do it when the weather’s so hot?
Robert is picking the beans now and tonight Mother and I will wash and break them. I offered to help with the picking, but Daddy said no—he still thinks Robert is some sort of danger to me.
Though Robert smiled at me once last week. While talking with Mother about the day’s chores, when she looked away he glanced toward me and gave me a friendly grin. And I don’t think he’s dangerous at all. Or if he is . . . well, it’s somehow more . . . enticing than scary, if that makes any sense. And I’m not sure it does, since how could danger be enticing and appealing? All I know is that when he smiled my way, it made something inside me sizzle like when Mother is frying up chicken in a skillet, and I wanted to know him better.
Ever since then, I’ve been hoping he might smile at me again, but he hasn’t. I keep watching him, though, since, if I get the chance, I might say hello to him, or if it’s across a distance, maybe I’ll wave.
Anna smiled to herself, remembering that enticing had been on a list of vocabulary words Cathy had written into the diary a couple of weeks earlier. Then she lifted her gaze back through the large screened window to where Duke worked. Was this the same as Cathy’s view of Robert when he’d been picking beans? She suddenly wondered if, when the home repairs were finished, she should perhaps ask Duke to plant a garden for her. And then she laughed at herself, all caught up in Cathy’s first crush.
Looking back to the diary, she turned the page and found entries about the end of the school year and attending the graduation ceremony for the class above Cathy’s. She’d gotten another new dress for the occasion—white with tiny pink rosebuds—and she liked it particularly because the cut was more grown up than most of her dresses. And while Cathy was glad school was over, the weather sounded unseasonably hot even for the start of June, and the summer seemed to be stretching endlessly before her without any friends or fun nearby.
Then came an entire two page entry about a blue and black butterfly that kept coming to the flower beds lining the porch, and how Cathy came to think of it like a friend. Which made Anna sad. This is what happens to people who spend too much time alone in a big house. They start hanging out with butterflies. And talking to cats.
She turned the page, pleased in a totally voyeuristic way to see that this entry was about Robert. Because Anna liked butterflies just fine, but Robert was a lot more exciting.
This afternoon I was sitting on the summer porch watching Robert hoe weeds from the cucumber patch in the garden. The sun was beating down hot—it was hot even in the shade—and I began to think he looked thirsty. Daddy was still at the bank and Mother was in her sewing room upstairs, so I decided to take Robert a glass of lemonade.
I thought maybe I’d be nervous doing it, but instead, I walked right up to him, bold as you please. Because the moment seemed to call for that, you know—I think if you’re going to do a thing, you’ve got to just be brave and do it. Otherwise, what’s the point? And so I held out the glass I’d poured and I said, “Thought you might enjoy this on such a hot day.”
He looked up at me, looked right into my eyes. His were so green, like a pine tree. I’d never noticed that before, having only been close to him a few brief times, but now I couldn’t stop noticing. When he took the glass, his hand touched mine and it sent a wonderful tingle all through me. He smiled and said, “Thank you,” just that, but something in the way he said it made me feel . . . special somehow. Like . . . if Mother had given him the lemonade, he’d have appreciated it and all, but not in the same way.
I stood and watched him drink it. I wasn’t sure if that was the thing to do, but I reasoned he wouldn’t want to be bothered with the glass afterward, so I decided to wait. And I found myself feeling oddly jealous of that cool, sweet lemonade sliding down his tan throat. And seeing mysteries in him that I wanted to solve.
When he gave the glass back to me, he said, “Appreciate it, Cathy.” He knew my name!
“You’re welcome, Robert,” I told him. Because I wanted him to know that I knew his, too.
Anna clapped the diary shut, sighing with satisfaction. She didn’t want to turn the page because nothing in the next entry could match this—and she wanted to savor Cathy’s moment a little while, as if doing so somehow brought it back and made it real again, not just a long ago occurrence that no longer mattered in anyone’s world.
Then her eyes fell back on Duke in the yard. He looked hot. Figuratively and literally. He appeared absorbed in his work, so she felt comfortable narrowing her gaze on him. Had his T-shirts always fit him that way? And his jeans? Something about the way those jeans hugged his butt—not tight but not loose—was somehow just right. And—oh Lord—there was a bulge. In front. She wanted to get closer to it on sight.
Okay, stop this. Seriously. And don’t let the experience of a sixteen-year-old girl over fifty years ago let you get all wistfully caught up in the idea of first passion. Maybe keeping Cathy’s memories alive had a downside.
And stopping was easier commanded than done, since now everything about her view of Duke in the yard was something she felt as much as saw. Low in her belly. Lower, actually. Raw desire stretched like long, feathery fingers down through her pelvis, expanding wildly between her legs. Del Shannon’s “Runaway” came from the record player in the house.
Anna drew in a breath, let it back out. Then she bit her lip, determined—and yet not quite able—to pull her eyes away. She shut them in frustration and blew out a soft sigh.
Maybe I need to cool down with some lemonade. She tended to drink a lot of lemonade in the summer and had just mixed up a fresh pitcher this morning, so now seemed like a wise time to get up, go inside, and pour herself a glass.
As she did so, she consciously pushed down her feelings. She was an adult, after all, not an adolescent girl in the first blush of romance. And if she really wanted a guy, she could find one that would likely be a lot better for her—and safer, in lots of ways—than Duke Dawson. She could start hanging out with her brothers more, and meet their other friends. She could go with Rachel and the other girls to Mike’s softball games, a place she’d learned last summer was absolutely teeming with sexy, sweaty, athletic men—just her type. And who knew—maybe working at Under the Covers really would push her out into “Destiny society” more and maybe she’d meet some eligible guys naturally. And then she wouldn’t have to worry about getting all worked up over a very not-her-type guy just because he happened to be the only one in the vicinity right now.
But as she stepped back out onto the screened porch, she saw that—oh Lord—Duke had set down his saw in order to strip his sweaty T-shirt off over his head. She gasped slightly because it was a beautiful sight. She just hadn’t imagined—couldn’t have accurately envisioned—him looking this way. His skin was slick with sweat as another bead of it rolled down his well-muscled chest. And she couldn’t help thinking that he looked . . . thirsty. Same as Robert had.
Would it really hurt to give him some lemonade? The man was working hard, after all, and it was hot. She couldn’t have him getting dehydrated, could she? And sure, she’d told him to help himself to whatever he wanted in the fridge, and she’d seen him come in a time or two and leave with a bottle of water, one time a soda—but it couldn’t hurt to save him the steps, right?
This is a very bad idea. He’s way more dangerous than Cathy’s Robert ever could have been—she knew that without doubt. She told herself again that if she wanted a sexy, sweaty man she could find plenty of them somewhere else.
And yet she found herself going into the house, pouring him a glass of the lemonade she’d mixed up this morning. She became aware that her fingertips, arms, actually tingled with the motions she made. Then she was walking back out, and over to the screen door, pushing it open. She heard it slam shut behin
d her, saw him look up. She wasn’t even completely aware of making the decision—only felt herself moving toward him, almost as if gliding on the hot May air.
When his eyes locked on her, she couldn’t read his serious expression and didn’t even try. Yet her breasts ached beneath his gaze, and God knew she suffered the same heavy yearning below as well.
“Lemonade,” she said. Though when had her voice gotten so husky?
Something in his hesitation, in the look in those blue-gray eyes, told her he was sizing up the move, trying to figure out if it meant something—if it was indeed about more than lemonade. But then he took the glass, their hands brushing—wetly, from the condensation on the outside—same as Cathy’s and Robert’s had. And like Cathy, she stood there and watched as Duke tipped the glass to his mouth and took a long, cool, somehow ultra sexy drink. She could almost feel it running down her throat as well, could almost taste the cold, lemony goodness at the same moment he did.
And then, just like walking out here, what happened next took place without her decision or consent.
Her hand rose, almost of its own volition, and reached out to touch his stomach.
She pressed her palm flat against his hard abs. She felt the sweat there, felt the heat. She knew her hand was cold from holding on to the glass.
Done drinking, that’s when he lowered his gaze, his eyes locking back on hers.
And she realized what she’d done. Oh God.
Sucking in her breath, she pulled her hand away as emphatically as if she’d touched a hot stove. And her heart beat so hard that her chest hurt.
Go. Get out of here. Now. She could deal with the embarrassment of this later, but right now her instincts told her to run away. Just like when she’d first seen him in the woods.
But as she took the first step back, ready to turn and flee, Duke’s free hand closed around her wrist. He drew her hand back toward him. He pressed it flat against his stomach the way it had been before, holding it there.
Anna could barely breathe. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. And she felt the stark connection—her palm to his slick, warm skin—in her panties. “Um . . .” she began.
But Duke quieted her, saying, “Shhh . . .” And then he smoothly slid her hand downward, lower on his belly, over the waistband of his jeans, and then below—stopping it on the shockingly hard bulge behind his zipper.
She gasped just before he let the near empty glass fall to the grass and kissed her. And it was then that Anna understood what it was that had frightened her so much about Duke all along. It was this. It was the invisible thing about him that was as potent as it was powerful. And it was knowing, already, that she couldn’t say no.
“You’re trembling . . . you’re quite excited . . .”
Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera
Seven
The kiss swallowed her, owned her. Anna had thought she’d been kissed passionately before, but this went beyond any kissing she’d ever experienced. There was no thought, no inner protest, no room for remembering what a bad idea this was. There was only his mouth on hers, his strong arms wrapped around her, his hard body pressed into her softer one.
And speaking of hard—oh Lord. She’d moved her hand from between them now, her arms twining naturally around his neck, but she could still feel—both in her mind and somehow still in her palm, too—how very hard he’d been. Her heart beat all the more violently for the knowledge—that he’d gotten that way for her, and that she’d touched him there already.
It had been perhaps the most starkly intimate moment she’d ever shared with another human being—and it was someone she barely knew. And she thought that should have made it feel empty somehow, yet it didn’t. It was as if she’d known him just barely well enough for that ever-so-personal touch to be shockingly powerful, to move up through her arm and out through her whole body like high voltage electricity. Maybe that was why she thought she could still feel it in her hand—the energy it had delivered had been left behind.
When Duke’s tongue pressed into her mouth, she welcomed it and instantly let her own join his. The second their tongues touched, a fresh burst of arousal blossomed moistly between her thighs. As she became all the more lost to his kiss, she realized she clutched at his neck now, as if hanging on for dear life, her body gone weak. The sun blasted down, plastering their skin together with perspiration, but Anna felt nothing but heat.
As Duke shifted her body, his knee slid between her thighs, his leg pressing snug against the spot between, escalating her every physical response. The position drew their chests tighter together, their stomachs—and her hip met his erection, which she could have sworn was even bigger and harder than before, only that didn’t seem possible.
She drew in her breath at the contact, the primal need for more coursing through her like wildfire, and it ended the kissing. Their faces remained close, though, their eyes meeting. In one way it broke the spell, the intoxication, the loss of control—but in another it heightened it. The locking of their gazes was like both of them acknowledging it. This is real. We’re right in the middle of it. We both feel it. We both want it.
Just when Anna feared she would combust, Duke lowered another hot kiss to her mouth, somehow reckless and soft at the same time.
She’d known she was attracted to him; she’d known the pull was potent and increasing. But she hadn’t known until now just how wild and untamed their connection would make her feel.
When Duke planted his hands on her ass, through her jean shorts, pulling her even more snugly against the column of stone behind his zipper, a small whimper erupted from her throat. And as he heaved her body upward, lifting her from the ground, her only response was to wrap her legs around his waist and hold on tight.
They resumed kissing yet again as he carried her through the yard, toward the house. Part of her didn’t even want to bother—wanted him to just lay her down in the grass—but the idea of shade and coolness sounded nice, too; she liked the idea of him being in her bed, between her soft, flowered sheets. Because he contrasted with them so much, maybe. Because it would remind her all the more how dangerous he was, and right now, the particular danger he brought to her life sounded like a good thing.
She wasn’t sure they’d make it all the way upstairs to the bed, though. Without planning it, she ground the juncture of her thighs against his erection, making him let out sexy little groans between kisses. And she wanted him inside her as she’d never wanted a man before.
She could tell herself over and over that this was just about not having had sex in a while, just that her body was missing it, but she could no longer deny that this was about more—a stark, heady chemistry that kept them gravitating toward one another, a hot, smoldering pull between them that had simmered and heated until finally now igniting into flames. She couldn’t want just any man this badly—she couldn’t. It was Duke Dawson she wanted; no one else.
They kissed more as he smoothly climbed the back steps with her in his arms and maneuvered the screen door open, carrying her inside. Crossing the screened porch, he got them through the inner door as well, and into the kitchen. Little Richard was belting out “The Girl Can’t Help It” as Anna began to wonder exactly where they’d end up, figuring she must be getting heavy—when she felt him letting her slip from his grasp. So she untwined her legs, her feet finding the floor.
The cooler air inside the house wrapped invitingly around them as he pressed her back against the doorjamb between the kitchen and a small sitting room. They didn’t stay there, though, both of them moving forward even as they touched each other, soon embracing again, making jagged, uneven steps toward the front of the house.
When they reached the front room, Duke stopped kissing her, pulled back, his hands planted on her upper arms. “This is as far as we go, Daisy,” he rasped.
What? He was stopping? Anna nearly couldn’t breathe. “Huh?” she murmured, dumbstruck.
His next words came between panting breaths. “No bed,” h
e said “Sorry. Right here.”
“Oh,” she whispered, possibly more relieved than she’d ever been in her life. He wasn’t stopping. In fact, he couldn’t wait any longer. A realization which made her say, “Oh!” again, this time much more excitedly as fresh enthusiasm blossomed inside her and she threw her arms back around his neck, just wanting to kiss him some more.
Duke’s hands clamped firmly onto her hips and he moved her a few steps backward, then pushed her down onto the same sofa where he’d lowered her that first day after she’d sprained her ankle. She lay there, propped on her elbows, eager and waiting, ready to be thoroughly ravished.
Within seconds, he was on his knees on the couch, between her thighs, reaching down to the hem of the embroidered tank top she wore, pushing it up over her breasts in one brisk move to reveal the hot pink bra underneath. Without hesitation, she lay back onto throw pillows, freeing up her arms to remove the top the rest of the way, over her head.
Her breasts ached and she knew the urge for him to see them so she kept going, reaching behind her to undo the hook and toss the bra aside. She felt like the wildest of sex kittens to have bared herself for him, to glance down and see her pointed nipples between them right there in the late afternoon light.
A low, sexy growl left him as he studied her, his gaze as potent as a touch and hardening the pink peaks further. But at the same time, he’d moved on, clearly as impatient as her—his fingers now worked at the button of her shorts.
She reached up to his waistband as well, a hot, heavy breath pushing past her lips as her touch brushed unavoidably across his erection once more.
They started pulling each other’s pants down at the same time, and Anna lifted without reserve, letting him lower hers, her small panties coming down with them. Duke’s jeans dropped to his thighs to reveal snug gray boxer briefs underneath—and, oh God, the tip of his erection peeked through the front opening.
