Your Desire

by Dee S. Knight

  “I was, yes. How did you know we got it?”

  She looked away, acting like she was checking the progress of the coffee maker. “Oh, I must have seen it in the paper.”

  Something wasn’t right. Why wouldn’t she look at him? He played a hunch. “The Washington paper?”

  “Hmm, might have been.” Reaching out to jiggle the pot she frowned. “What’s taking this thing so long?”

  “You read the Washington paper to find out about me, didn’t you?”

  Facing him, her chin set in a stubborn pose, she said, “I suppose I did. I was interested, knowing you and all.”

  Ah! She hadn’t forgotten about him, not for a minute. He could feel it. But he wanted to hear her say it. “I’m very glad you were curious about me. Why didn’t you call?”

  She snorted. “Let me ask the same of you.”

  He tried to meet her eyes, but she turned toward the damn coffee pot again. Couldn’t she tell he didn’t give a rat’s ass about coffee? “I couldn’t call you, not until…”

  “Thanks for all the flowers, by the way. They weren’t necessary.” Changing the subject when he was trying to get personal could be good or bad. His heart began a steadily increasing thump.

  He stood and walked across the room, bracing his hands on the counter and bracketing her with his arms. Her rich, brown eyes darkened with his closeness and her breath hitched. The satiny smoothness of the dress brushed his skin as she tried to edge away, but he stepped forward, making her space as much his as he could.

  “They were necessary. If I’d been able to write the notes myself, they would have said what I felt, what was in my heart, not the impersonal things I’m sure my admin felt obliged to write.” If ever there was a time for nerves of steel, this was it. He grasped the counter tighter to keep her from knowing how unsteady his hands were.

  “I couldn’t tell her to spell out that you were never out of my mind, that every night I went to sleep thinking of how you felt in my arms. How much I missed having you in my arms.” He leaned down to kiss her, a brief touch of lips. “Until I knew if you felt the same I was too afraid to say those things. And until I could see, I didn’t have the courage to come and find out if you felt the same.”

  Were those tears in her eyes? Oh, God! The worst had happened. He’d gotten up the nerve to tell her his feelings and she was so upset she was crying.

  “It’s okay, Allison. Don’t feel embarrassed. I guess I know now what I came to find out.” He started to pull away.

  “Wait!”

  He studied her, hoping he hid the fear that she would confirm in words what she’d shown silently with her tears. He didn’t want to listen to her explain why there was no need for him to hang around.

  She pushed out of his arms, and walked away. “Frank, I didn’t hear a word from you. Flowers from your secretary and phone calls from your assistant, but nothing from you, for two months. How could you do that and then come here expecting me to fall into your arms?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Allison.” Coming up behind her, he took a breath to formulate exactly what to say. “I was stubborn, I guess. I wanted you with everything in me, but I couldn’t bear to ask you to accept me handicapped.” He saw her stiffen and placed his hands on her shoulders, then lightly ran them down her arms, catching her hands and wrapping them at her waist. “I knew you would, you see, because by then I knew who you are and that you love lost causes. I couldn’t stand the thought that you would come to me simply because you wanted to help.

  “That was at the beginning. I thought when we were on equal footing, then I’d call and ask you to see me again. I couldn’t do it before then, don’t you see? To hear your voice and not be able to tell you how I felt, what I wanted, would have been awful.”

  He heard her sigh, felt her muscles relax. “I’d just decided that being without you was worse than having my stupid pride, when I found out about the ceremony. I was determined to be here tonight come hell or high water, blind or not, and find out how you feel about me, with all my imperfections. Then the contract came through and my eyesight returned all in the same jumbled mess. I’m so sorry I hurt you. Can you forgive me?”

  She fell back against his chest, leaning into him. “So you came here tonight to find out how I feel about you?”

  “Yes.” Should he say it first or wait for her? He loved her, damn it, but what if she didn’t love him?

  “I can’t believe you’re saying these things to me.”

  For the second time in minutes his heart sank. She didn’t feel as he did, struck by a wild emotion that had knocked him off his feet. It had all been on his part.

  “Love at first sight is a fairy tale, a romantic myth that never happens to anyone, really. So how did it happen to us?”

  For a moment, what she’d said didn’t penetrate the fog in his brain. “You mean you do feel something for me?” Despair turned to elation in milliseconds. He wanted to shout, dance, tell the world that this amazing, wonderful woman loved him, even with his weaknesses and flaws. He was the luckiest man alive. Suddenly he couldn’t stop smiling.

  “Something? Much more than ‘something.’ I can’t believe you feel anything for me. I mean…” Turning in his arms she closed her eyes, seeming to reach for the right words. “Being without you taught me a few things about myself. Things that I need to change in my life. But I’m not sure those changes can involve us.”

  The smile disappeared. “What are you talking about?” His tone was sharp, but he couldn’t stand any more of this roller coaster of emotion. “I love you, Allison.” To hell with waiting for her to say it. It was time to put his cards on the table.

  Opening her eyes, she reached up to touch his face. “You only like perfection, Frank, you said so. And I’m the one who’s handicapped, as you can now see.”

  Taking her hand to his lips he kissed her palm. “Why would you say that? When I turned around after hearing that beautiful, wonderful noise this dress makes, I couldn’t believe my eyes. That your physical beauty would match the person I already knew you to be seemed too much to hope for. Allison, there isn’t anything about you that isn’t perfect.”

  “Not true. I’m not pretty, I know that. But I have scars, I—I limp. There’s nothing graceful about me. You don’t know me, not really.”

  “Scars, a limp? What are they compared to who you are? And I know a great deal more about you than you might think. My foundation doesn’t hand out money without pretty thoroughly investigating the prospect. Stupid me, before I came here the last time I hadn’t looked at the plaque and didn’t know who it was going to. David had to tell me who you were. When I got home I had Martin fill me in on everything he’d discovered. I know about the accident, Allison.”

  She flinched.

  He pulled her closer, tucking her head against his heart. “We got letter after letter explaining how horrible the fall was, how you almost died, then how the surgeries left you scarred, physically but a bit emotionally, too. Funny, I never noticed a limp when I was here before and we walked side by side. If I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have noticed it tonight. That’s because like most people, I’ll bet, I was looking at your beautiful face. How your eyes sparkle with warmth and life.”

  She shook her head against his shirt.

  “Yes! You don’t know how many people told us what an example you were, of your courage through everything, how you made friends and shared, always, with those who had less than you. We heard from people at the battered women’s shelter and the literacy group—do you have any idea how many people could even write their letters to us because of help you gave them?—and from shut-ins who look forward to your visit and conversation even more than the hot lunches you bring. Don’t even get me started on your colleagues from the hospital and former patients.

  “But I didn’t need any of that to know I already loved you. In the one night we were together, you taught me I could let go. That sometimes it’s okay not to be in control, that I could tr
ust myself to someone else and not be weakened. You don’t know what a relief it was. You had pain and needs that night and yet you were willing to do everything for me, to give me strength to lean on. Do you have any idea how important that was?”

  Again she shook her head.

  “When I got home my staff closed around me like a phalanx. I would never have asked for help, but they must have sensed that I was changed somehow and they closed ranks around me. That never would have happened before my night with you. You changed my life, all because you gave me your trust and accepted mine. I love you.”

  “Are you sure your feelings aren’t coming just from the sex, Frank? Or from misplaced feelings for your nurse? That happens, you know.” Tears streamed down her face.

  He wiped them off with hands that no longer trembled with nervousness. “Very sure.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  He crushed her against him, certain he felt tears in his eyes, now. “Do you think the town is going to hate me for taking you away? Because I want to marry you, but I have to live a little closer to business.”

  “I think they’ll understand,” she answered with a short laugh.

  “Good.” He took her lips in another gentle kiss and let it grow as she pressed into him. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth and she opened to him. He loved that her tongue immediately touched his.

  He dropped his arm to her side, smoothing his hand on the fabric covering her thigh. “Is your leg bothering you?” he asked in a voice hoarse with longing.

  Shaking her head she said, “No, I’m fine.” She tried to kiss him again.

  Leaning back, he gazed into her eyes. “I just thought maybe you needed to get off your feet.” He saw the moment his meaning dawned on her.

  With a look of complete innocence she grazed her hand along his inner thigh until she caressed his raging hard-on. “Do you feel the need to get off your feet?”

  “You know it.” The kiss he gave her was hard and fast. “Are you still on birth control?”

  “I never was.”

  “What?” His heart stopped as he recalled their making love without condoms.

  She looked chagrined. “What was done was done. I wanted to be with you. There wasn’t any reason to add to your worries, and I would have dealt with anything that happened.”

  He opened his mouth, but she answered the question before he asked. “As it turned out, nothing happened. I would have told you if it had, I promise.”

  He could barely speak, he wanted her so. “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I want to marry you.”

  Thank God! “And children?” He whispered against her lips.

  “Your children? Yes, I’d love to have children.”

  It was as though a sun burst inside him, filling him with heat. “I do love you, Allison.”

  With a smile more seductive than he’d seen on any other woman’s face, she murmured, “If I could only find someone to help me get out of this dress.”

  His chuckle was low. “I can help you with that.” Reaching around, he untied the strap at the back of her neck then unzipped the lower bodice. The dress pooled in a soft rustle at her feet.

  He drank in the sight of her.

  “There’s so much more I want to know,” she said, “about you and about us.”

  “Later, sweetheart. Right now I just want to enjoy the magic.”

  She smiled as he lifted her and carried her to the kitchen table. In seconds he divested her of panties and hose. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head on her stomach and slipped his finger between her legs. She was wet and ready for him, which made him smile with wonder. He unzipped his trousers and released his cock, engorged and just as ready for her.

  “It is magic,” he groaned, pushing into her, losing himself in the perfume of their mixed desire and the touch of her fingers. This was home, this was where he belonged.

  “Yes, magic,” she whispered. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she pulled him down for a kiss. “I’ll never disbelieve again.”

  * * * *

  “Well, that turned out very nicely, indeed,” said Nigel as he matched two pieces of material and pinned them.

  “How do you even know what happened?” asked Edwina. “You weren’t watching from the window.”

  He spared her a brief smile. “That comes with age and experience. I could feel that they’d finally gotten together.”

  Edwina twisted her hands and frowned.

  He laid the material on the table in order to focus on his granddaughter. She looked younger than she had in weeks, in pigtails—purple and green, of course, but he was almost starting to enjoy her frequent color changes—and coveralls. “What’s wrong?”

  She took a breath. “Gramps, they were … you know … doing it on the table. That’s so gross.”

  Nigel chuckled and picked up the material again. “Yes, I suppose you’d see it that way. But you might not always. Love is strange sometimes, my dear.”

  “Well, I hope the people in Iowa are a bit more discriminating,” she said, sounding so priggish Nigel had to laugh.

  “One can always hope.”

  The End

  About the Authors:

  Dee S. Knight hasn't led a dull life, she's led a lucky one. For instance, she was lucky enough to grow up in a military household where she got used to seeing lots of handsome men in uniform. Thus, at thirteen she was prepared when she met her future husband. He also grew up in a military family and then attended a military high school and college. Another handsome man in uniform-YES! Lucky Dee!

  For the past thirty years, as long distance truckers, teachers, computer trainers and consultants, she and her hubby have experienced many of their dreams and happily lived the adventure they call their life. Wanderlust strikes often, but fortunately they consider anywhere they're together, home. Yes, again. Very lucky, indeed.

  Please visit http://deesknight.com to see what's currently going on in Dee's world.

  *

  Francis Drake grew up the son of a Marine in the neighborhoods of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Quantico, Boone, and Virginia Beach. He attended a military high school and college, but didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, at twenty-three, he married his high school sweetheart and they traversed forty-eight states and the western provinces of Canada in an 18-wheeler. For eight years they traveled almost continually, hauling whatever freight they could find.

  Now, as a software validation expert, Francis Drake moves from city to city, plying his trade in large and small corporations. Even all these years later, though, he still dreams of the open road and the feel of a big rig.

  His favorite movie is Paint Your Wagon because of the words describing a permanent home in the song “Wand'rin' Star.” “Home is made for coming from, for dreams of going to, which, with any luck will never come true.” Now, home is anywhere he and his wife are together.

  Meet LSB authors at http://lsbooks.net

  We invite you to visit Liquid Silver Books

  http://lsbooks.com

  for other exciting literary erotica romances.

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