She settled into his arms as if she’d been made to fit him. Her face felt cool to touch, her breath against his skin warm and sweet. She gave a shuddering little sigh and snuggled against him as if she’d finally come home, and that did it. The last gleam of reason flickered and died.
Swinging her up into his arms, he made for the bedroom. Somewhere—in his shaving kit, probably—he had protection. Not because he’d expected to need it, but because he never traveled without it. With every intention of doing the responsible thing, he lowered her gently onto the bed. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.
“Don’t leave me. Oh, please—” Catching him by the shoulders, she drew him down over her. The position was uncomfortable. Bracing one knee on the bed beside her, he leaned over to kiss her once before he took care of business.
She opened to him like a hungry bird. Her fingers moved eagerly, awkwardly over his chest, tugging at buttons, lighting brush fires that rapidly spread out of control. Dragging himself away, he shrugged off his shirt and tossed it aside, his only thought to feel her naked body against his. By the time he lowered himself onto the bed again, he was shaking badly, struggling to regain control.
“You’re not helping,” he told her, but as his mouth was moving over her throat, she might not have heard him. Her hands fluttered down as far as his waist, exploring, stroking, tugging at the thick ribbon of dark hair that arrowed down into his jeans, then up again to the tufts that surrounded his nipples. Her fingers brushed over him there, sending an electrical charge jolting through his body, bringing him perilously close to the edge.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, someone was chanting a warning. He ignored it. It was all he could do to keep on breathing. Her hand moved to his buckle, hesitated and then moved down to cover him. The part of him that was already swollen painfully hard, swelled even more to fill her hot palm.
Of their own volition his hips began to move against her hand. He groaned, drowning in the urgent need to drive himself inside her, the blind need to find release.
Slow down, slow down, slow down…
He covered her hand with his and dragged it up to his lips to suckle her fingertips. “Darling, we’d better slow down, or it will be all over.” His voice was rough, harsh, that of a stranger. “Let me see you.” With trembling hands he spread the lapels of her voluminous robe. Her skin was like cream, pale, rich, incredibly soft. He already knew her breasts were small, but he could never have imagined their perfection. Her deep rose nipples stood shyly, proudly erect. He kissed each one in turn, heard her gasp and stroked her with his tongue while his free hand tugged at the tie of her robe and spread it apart. The heady scent of arousal drifted around them like incense, spicy, musky, wildly intoxicating.
He held her eyes with his, needing to see every nuance of expression as he moved his hand slowly down from her breast, seeking the shadowy triangle nestled between her thighs.
His palms felt leathery against her tender flesh. When he encountered dry white cotton instead of warm, moist curls, his throat tightened with an emotion that hovered somewhere between tears and laughter. He didn’t even try to analyze the feeling as he slid his hands under the elastic, over her satiny belly, to ease her cotton drawers down over her hips. It should’ve been enough to bring him to his senses.
It wasn’t. She smelled of soap, shampoo and something suspiciously like baby powder. She was moving restlessly under his touch, making soft, incoherent demands. “Please—oh, please—” she whimpered.
“Easy, easy, I’ll take care of you.” He kissed her navel. She cried out, curling her body around him, and he nearly lost it completely. Slow down, he warned himself. He’d always prided himself on being a considerate lover, and she was obviously inexperienced. “We’ll take it slow and easy,” he promised.
What he hadn’t counted on was Callie. The effect she had on him. He’d never lost control, not since he was fifteen or thereabouts. “Callie, honey—” He kissed his way up the satiny slope of her breast.
“Oh, yes—do that again.” Clutching his ears, she held his head so that his mouth covered her rigid nipple. “This is—I’m so embarrassed—oh, oh, oh! I never knew—”
Twisting under him, she sucked in rapid gasps of air, then lifted his head, still holding him by his ears, and kissed his chin, his throat, and finally his nipples. Shyly at first, then with increasing boldness, she used her tongue and her teeth to drive him quietly out of his mind.
Hank let her take the lead, which she did, hungrily, inexpertly, eagerly. Not even when her fingers began fumbling with his belt and zipper did he try to rush her. It nearly killed him. He bore it as long as he could before he stood and quickly shed his jeans and briefs.
And then he knelt between her thighs, every muscle in his body trembling under the strain. “Easy—I’ll try not to—”
“Hurry, please hurry up and do it before I explode,” she urged, her hands everywhere, fluttering over his shoulders, reaching down to grasp him.
He had to laugh, but it sounded more like crying. She spread her legs wide for him. He could feel her trembling, feel her heat rising to meet him. He met it with his own hard, fierce heat, nudging her open first with his fingers, then with his shaft.
She was ready. He was miles past ready. He felt her legs wrap around his hips, and he eased himself inside her, hearing her gasp at the same time he felt her tightness knot around him. If the world had come to an end in that moment, he might have been able to stop. As for anything short of that…
“Slow down,” he urged in a raspy, barely recognizable whisper. “Let me help you—”
Before he could voice his promise, she began to move. Twitchy, awkward little movements that sent him hurtling into space.
It was a long time before his breathing slowed down enough so that he managed to get out a few words. Not that anything he could say now would help. He tried, anyway. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry, Callie.”
She was quiet so long he began to feel uneasy. “Callie? Honey, are you still here?”
She sighed. “I told you I didn’t know very much about it. Next time I’ll probably be better, once I have time to think about it.”
His shoulders began to shake. His face was buried in the pillow, but at least he’d had the presence of mind to slide most of his weight off her slight, damp body.
“You don’t have to laugh,” she said with quiet dignity. “I doubt if you were all that much better the first few times you did it.”
“You mean better than I was tonight?”
“I mean better than I was.”
Rolling onto his side, he gathered her into his arms. The light was still on—they’d never got around to turning it off—so that he could see her flushed face, the marks of his rough hands, his kisses on her tender skin. Currents of dry, chilled air blew over their damp, overheated bodies, and he pulled the sheet up to cover them. “Honey, have you ever done this before?” He should have been able to tell, but he’d been in too great a rush. She’d been incredibly tight, incredibly sweet, and he’d been incredibly aroused.
“I told you I wasn’t exactly an expert.”
“Not exactly, hmm?”
He accepted her answer. He would have resented any guy who’d taken her innocence. Wondered whether she’d loved him, whether he’d loved her, and if so, why he hadn’t married her and taught her more about the art of good sex.
Callie didn’t need any coaching, she was a natural. Once she’d become aroused, he’d never seen such sheer, uninhibited enthusiasm. The trouble was, he’d been burning a short fuse. It had been over much too soon.
“Did you—” He didn’t think she had, but then, his own climax had been damn near cataclysmic. The roof could have fallen on his head and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Inevitably sanity began to return. Hank didn’t particularly welcome it, but then, he’d learned a long time ago that the best way to face a problem was head-on.
Problem number one: he hadn’t us
ed protection.
Second problem: he’d just made love to an innocent young woman nearly half his age. A woman who wasn’t even his type. One he’d known for less than two weeks. One who worked for him. Any way you looked at it, she was off limits. And the scary thing was that he’d do it all over again.
“If you’re asking if I had an orgasm—” Trust Callie, he thought, amused, to put it in technical terms. “I’m not exactly sure. Something happened, though, and it was nice while it lasted. I’m sorry. Maybe next time—”
He groaned. And then he rolled over onto his back, flung one arm over his face, swore a little and began to laugh.
Nice. Right. It had been so nice he was getting hard again just thinking about it.
“Ah, Callie,” he murmured, thinking next time—if there was a next time—he would take it slow and easy, making sure she was with him all the way. But first he’d better lay his cards on the table. “Don’t apologize, it was my fault,” he confessed. “All I can say in my defense is that I was blindsided. I can’t explain it. Even if we’d known each other all our lives, there are too many differences.”
He waited. She didn’t argue, so he continued. “Age, for one thing. Experience, for another. You’re afraid of flying, I was practically born with wings. I don’t dance if I can get out of it. I don’t watch TV except for world news and a few business programs. I’ve never even seen this guy Seinfeld. I don’t do any of the things your generation does, so you see, I wasn’t looking for anything, uh—personal.”
He waited for a response, but evidently, he wasn’t the only one suffering second thoughts. “Don’t say anything right now. Think it over. We’ve got a decision to make, but it can wait until—Callie? Are you listening?”
A soft snore issued from the still body curled up against him. He swore, chuckled and then swore some more. So much for his good intentions. Maybe they both could do with a little perspective.
Callie woke up sore, puzzled and alone. For several minutes she lay there, wondering why she was naked. Wondering why she was tender in places that had never been tender before.
Wondering if she could possibly have dreamed what she’d dreamed.
Before she even sat up and swung her feet off the bed, she knew it had been no dream. At least not a sleeping dream.
There had been four pillows on the bed. Three of them were on the floor, as was half the covering. There was a shirt dangling half off the chair, and a pair of familiar boots over in the corner.
Hank. Oh, God, had she lost her mind?
A cliché popped into her head. But I’m not that kind of woman.
Every woman was that kind of woman with the right man.
And where she was concerned—where far too many women were concerned—Hank Langley was definitely the right man.
She had fallen asleep in his arms after a night of wild, passionate love. Actually it hadn’t been a night, it had been more like a few minutes, and it hadn’t been love, it had been sex. For both of them. Because they were attracted to each other. They’d both admitted that much, at least. And because she’d just undergone an extremely emotional experience and hadn’t been thinking straight, and they were right there between two king-size beds, what was more natural than sex?
“Oh, Lordy. Oh, my mercy, what on earth was I thinking about?”
He was on the phone. Through the open door she could hear his voice, his business voice, sounding unusually terse. Almost as if he were worried. Her first thought was for Manie and she crossed to the door, her feet silent on the thick carpet.
“—to run interference for you. Get Marwick on it right away. Then get Kubecek on the line and tell him I need a list of embassy contacts, pronto.”
He was pacing. He was also limping. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks, and Callie felt a quick surge of guilt. He was an incredibly important man, not to mention a busy one, for all he tried to seem so laid back when he was at the club. She’d never known a man who carried a portable office with him when he traveled, but then she’d never known a man like Hank Langley.
He punched out, raked a hand through his hair, then punched in another number. “Pete, we’ll be taking off at—” Glancing at his watch, he frowned and said, “Better make it fifteen hundred hours. Right. I’ll need to be in Washington for an early appointment tomorrow.”
There was more. Callie listened because listening was better than thinking, and she wasn’t yet ready to think about what had happened, much less what was happening now.
He was leaving. He’d brought her here, done his duty by her and now he was leaving.
Well, fine. Who needed him? She certainly didn’t. The house was insured with her father’s old agency, and she knew everyone who worked there. By now they probably already had the claims filled out. She could stay with Grace and start making calls—”
Callie? You awake? I ordered us a pot of coffee and some cinnamon rolls. Come have breakfast, we need to talk.”
Ten
They were too busy during the next few hours to argue. For reasons she didn’t even try to understand, Callie was spoiling for a fight. Hank seemed just as determined to avoid one. He drove her back to look at the remains of her house. She got out and walked around, the harsh morning light revealing in ghastly detail all that was left of the garden and Grandpop’s grape arbor. The shed was unharmed, but as it had been on the verge of collapse for decades, it was no great asset. A few of the trees nearest the house would have to come down, but most would probably survive.
“The chimneys will have to go,” Hank said. He’d come up behind her so quietly she hadn’t even realized he was there.
“They will not! They’re not hurting anything.” She was reacting emotionally, not rationally. She knew it, but couldn’t seem to help herself.
“Callie, they’re a hazard. A liability. In legal terms, it’s called an attractive nuisance. Half the ads you see on TV today are pitched around mountain climbers. You think any boy could resist a challenge like that?” He gestured to the tall rock tower. “With those handholds, it’s a natural for climbing.”
“Even little boys are smarter than that.”
“Are we talking about the same species here? Me, I’d have been up that sucker like a shot.”
She turned away, arms crossed over her bosom. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She’d dismantle the things herself, rock by rock, brick by brick, before she’d see a child injured there. As for insurance, she had no idea whether or not she had liability. She’d simply continued to pay the premiums on Grandpop’s old policy, trusting that her father would have seen that he had adequate coverage. He’d been in the business, for heaven’s sake.
“Fine,” Hank said calmly, leaving her to wallow in her own miserable doubts.
A cardinal swooped in, hovered for a few moments where the old window feeder had been and then flew away. Oh, Lord, she’d have to do something about the birds. They depended on her, too.
Hank asked, “Who do you need to see besides the insurance agent?”
She sighed. “Grace, I guess. I’d better stop by on the way out and see if I can stay with her for a few days.”
He got that steely-eyed look, the one that usually meant he was going to argue with her. “A few days?”
“I’ll have to stay here and take care of everything, but first I need to go over my policy and read all the fine print to see what’s covered and what isn’t. I can’t believe I haven’t done it before, but—” she sighed. “By then Mama and Daddy will be back.”
“What about Manie?”
“What about her?”
“Did I hear you saying something about taking care of her in her old age, or did I just imagine it?”
“I’m doing the best I can, but it takes time, so stop pushing me. Don’t you have to be in Washington? I certainly don’t need you here.” It hung there between them, a matter neither of them was ready yet to address. Ignoring it was like ignoring a fifty-foot neon sign, but Callie managed to do it. Ju
st barely. “In a day or so, once I get everything settled here, I’ll go back for Aunt Manie. You can tell her—no, don’t tell her anything, I’ll call her tonight.”
She wandered around the ruins, waving away mosquitoes, pushing with the toe of her sandal at a section of banister, the once-white spindles now charred. Her throat ached from holding back the tears. Grieving was painful enough without having to hold it inside.
Finally driven beyond the limits of her patience, she turned on him and exclaimed, “You’re doing this deliberately, aren’t you? Stalking me. Trying to get me to hurry up so you can get back to town.”
He didn’t bat an eye. “I’m only trying to keep you from getting hurt.”
“Well, you’re too late, I already hurt.”
“I meant glass and nails—that kind of thing.”
“Oh, I know what you mean—and I appreciate it, I truly do, only.” She swallowed hard, but the painful lump in her throat refused to budge.
“Go ahead and cry. It’ll ease some of the pressure. I can hold you if it’ll help.”
With her whole body still quivering after that last episode? Crying didn’t cure anything, it only complicated it. “No, thank you,” she said coolly. Then, with her past and future lying in ruins all around her, the acrid stench of it stinging her eyes, she whispered, “Damn, damn, damn,” and fell into his arms. Unable to help herself, she cried until there were no tears left. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Shh, you’re tough as a ten-penny nail. A few tears isn’t going to change that.” His raspy drawl poured over her like a healing balm.
“I know, but I’ve ruined your last shirt. Again.” She gave a hiccuppy little laugh and pulled away, her throat still aching. Her heart aching. She ached all over, and not just from grieving.
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