“Have to go,” she whispered, and ran off into the dark. Some of the confusion she felt must have reached him, because he didn’t follow this time. She retrieved her car and drove home, and by the time she arrived, the knot in her belly had eased. It wasn’t completely gone—all she had to do was think of Judd and it tightened again—but at least there was hope.
She spent a long time in the shower, letting the water stream through her hair and over her body to cool her heat. When she had toweled off, she wrapped herself in a short cotton robe, put on a low light in her bedroom and her reading glasses, and climbed into bed with the silver key and Yankee magazine, which she proceeded to flip through. It seemed the perfect publication in which to advertise the key. And it was time. She wanted to know who she was. It was time.
Frustrated, she set the magazine, the key, and her glasses on the nightstand. Restless, she climbed out of bed. The frustration was due to the mystery of who she was. The restlessness was due to Judd.
Barefoot, she wandered quietly through the farmhouse. Everything smelled of sawdust and new wood, quite a switch from the first time she’d seen it, when things had been falling apart. It would be another month before these rooms were finished enough for furniture, but that was fine. She enjoyed watching the process. She also liked having people around, even if those people were workmen who were as apt to give her one-word answers to ten questions in a row as they were simply to shrug.
She sank down on the stairway in the front hall, wrapped her arms around her knees, and sat in the dark. She tried to think about the year to come, about the baby growing inside her, the designs waiting for her attention, the inquiries about granite that were coming, but none of those topics held her for long.
Her mind wandered to Judd and how wonderful being in his arms had been. She felt a stirring inside. It wasn’t the baby. She was appalled.
So she tried to think about Kevin and whether he was having fun in Michigan. She tried to think about what her friends in Baltimore were doing. She even tried to think about the Mahlers and the dismay they would feel if they’d known where she had been wearing her ring.
Her mind returned to Judd. He had held her hand when they’d first danced. Later he had held everything, in a sense. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d danced that way. She wasn’t sure she ever had. It had almost been like making love.
She sucked in a shaky breath and was just letting it out when a knock came at the door. She went very still. The knock came again. Silently she rose from the stairs, went to the door, and put a hand flat on the new wood.
She remembered the voices she had heard on the telephone the night before and wondered if there was cause for fear. Her heart thought so. It was beating a rapid tattoo.
“Yes?” she called.
“It’s me.” The voice was deep and as instantly recognizable as it had been in the dark on the green.
She put her forehead to the door. Her heart kept beating its rapid tattoo, but for a different reason now. She had two choices, she knew. She could either run and hide and hope that he’d go away, or she could open the door and let him in.
“Chelsea?”
She made a small sound, a sound of loneliness, wanting, desire.
He knocked again, slowly this time and softly, as though he knew just where she stood.
With an unsteady hand, she opened the door. She didn’t say a word, simply stood back, nearly hidden, while he came in. Closing the door, she remained with her hand on the knob, her back to him, and her head bowed.
She waited for him to speak, but he was silent. That very silence was confirmation of why he had come. Her heart beat even faster and was joined by a quickening inside her. The knot in her belly tightened.
He touched her hair so lightly that she might not have felt it if her senses hadn’t been so keyed up. He took a step closer, eased the hair aside, touched the curve of her ear.
She nearly died.
She was still trying to catch her breath when he turned her around. He took her face in his hands and tipped it up. All she could see of his features in the dark was the deep gleam of his eyes, but she felt his heat, just as she had when they’d danced. The two hours that had passed since might never have been.
He kissed her then, stealing what little breath she had left. His mouth was as firm as his body, as sensual, as fluid, as male, and he tasted as good as he smelled. Her knees went weak. She clutched his shirt for support. When he finally raised his head, she was dazed.
“If I kiss you again,” he warned in a gritty voice, “I won’t stop there.” He watched her and waited.
Chelsea knew that there were dozens of reasons why he should leave, but she couldn’t think of a one just then. She wanted him to hold her, and make love to her, and do all the things she had been thinking about since the very first time she had seen him—and if all that was wrong, then life was a cruel hoax, in which case her being selfish was the least of it.
“Kiss me again,” she whispered.
The words were barely out before his head descended. He kissed her once, then again from a different angle, then a third time and more deeply. He ran his hands down her back to her bottom and drew her to him while he buried his face in her hair.
“What’s under this?” he asked hoarsely.
“Not much,” she answered.
With characteristic bluntness, he slid his hands inside her robe, from neck to hip, until the tie fell open and the robe parted. With similar bluntness he looked at her, and in that instant Chelsea felt threads of doubt. She wanted Judd to find her beautiful, but her body was far from perfect. Particularly now. There was no evidence of a baby at her waist or belly, but her breasts had swelled, and she had just begun to notice the tracings of tiny blue veins.
If he saw them, he wasn’t bothered, because without a word he lowered his head and, splaying his hands on her bare back to draw her close, opened his mouth on one of those breasts. Ultrasensitive there, she bit her lip, but she wouldn’t have pulled away for the world. He suckled her, teased her nipple with his tongue, finally plumped up both breasts with his hands and turned his mouth to the other one.
She did cry out then. She couldn’t help it. What he was doing was burning her up. Her insides were shaking, so were her knees. She clutched his back, still she was sure she would fall.
He lifted her then and, knowing the way, carried her up the stairs to her bedroom. Though the light was low, she felt a moment’s self-consciousness when he laid her on the bed. Then he began to undress, and she blessed the light. His body was incredible. A spattering of dark hair covered his chest, tapered down his front, flared again. His thighs were beautifully sculpted. Between them, he was heavy and hard.
He put on a condom. She wanted to tell him not to, that pregnancy wasn’t a problem, that she trusted he was free of disease. But before she could air the words, he was crawling up the bed and straddling her.
He spread the robe wide, ran his hand down between her breasts, over her belly, to the throbbing spot between her legs. She caught her breath when he touched her there, then again when his touch deepened, then again and with an audible click when he removed his hand, braced himself, and entered her.
She burst out of herself. That was the only way she could explain the sense of blooming she felt at the moment of his penetration. She had never been so filled, so heated, so high. One stroke, and she nearly exploded. Two strokes, and she did. Her body became one endless ripple of pleasure. Her mind went blindingly white. She heard a vague guttural sound but had no idea what it was until the ripples finally eased and she realized that Judd was breathing as harshly as she.
Simultaneous orgasm. She couldn’t believe it. Orgasm, period. She was stunned. Not that she was frigid, but she’d always had to work so hard to come, until now.
Judd pressed his pelvis to hers, savoring the last of his pleasure, but when he made to leave her, she locked her legs. “Wait,” she gasped. Even his last movement had touched something warm a
nd still sensitive. She didn’t want it to end.
Then she realized that he probably wouldn’t be feeling what she was, so she unlocked her legs and whispered, “Sorry.”
He stayed over her for a minute, the muscles of his arms still quaking faintly. She was thinking that maybe he didn’t want to leave, either, when he slipped away, rolled off the bed, and went into the bathroom.
Chelsea pulled up the sheet. She refused to think, to agonize or anticipate. Instead she concentrated on the satisfied lull in her body and kept her eyes on the bathroom door. After a minute he was back, walking slowly toward her. Another man as virile might have been arrogant, but not Judd. Nor was he self-conscious. He was at ease with his body, with his sexuality, and, apparently, with what they’d just done.
He stopped at the side of the bed, his eyes dark and direct, his voice low.
“Should I go?”
She shook her head. She wanted to touch him again, desperately.
Shifting a pillow to the headboard, he climbed into bed. She held her breath until he opened an arm. That was all the invitation she needed to curl against him. Her cheek came to rest on his chest, her thigh fell between his. She breathed in his scent, breathed out a contented sigh.
“Okay?” he asked.
She nodded. She was more than okay. She was in heaven.
She moved a hand lightly over his skin, over the hair on his chest, over the hard nipple nesting there. Unable to resist, she went lower, over the smoother skin at his waist and hip, looking at all she touched with fascination. She couldn’t remember ever seeing a man as well made, not that she’d seen scores of naked men. But those she had seen couldn’t hold a candle to Judd.
He tightened his arm around her. She looked up. In the low light she could see in his eyes what she had just seen at his groin. She was mesmerized by its warmth, its strength, the effect it had on her.
The slightest nudge of his hand brought her close enough for a kiss. He explored her mouth, intrigued but unrushed. Then he shifted them so that they faced one another and touched her body as he looked on, much as she had done.
Their joining was more leisurely this time, but no less hot. If anything, the effort spent in the build up, the slow stroking, the deeper caress, the eventual driving thrusts, made the climax more powerful. Judd didn’t leave the bed as quickly this time but stayed to hold her a while, and the holding was wonderful. He had no way of knowing it, since he didn’t know her well, but Chelsea found the sense of being with someone nearly as pleasurable as the sex itself. She wanted to tell him that. She wanted to tell him lots of things. She wanted to ask him lots of things. But he didn’t seem inclined to talk, so she was quiet.
At some point she dozed off and woke to find his hands on her again. He seemed enthralled by her body—which was only fair, Chelsea decided, since she was similarly inflicted. She came once with his fingers between her legs, then again when he rose over her, bowed his back, and began a deep pumping. As when they’d danced, he found just the right rhythm. Following his lead was as natural to Chelsea as breathing.
Shortly before dawn, he rose and dressed. Leaning over her, he touched her mouth with his finger in a wordless good-bye and left. She climbed from bed, put on the robe that was pathetically wrinkled but wonderfully redolent of the scent of their passion, and went downstairs to the living room window, just as the Blazer’s taillights disappeared down the road.
For a time she stood there wondering what she’d done and what it would mean. She didn’t regret the pleasure for a minute. Her body still hummed in a soft, silent way, her insides were tender, still full. She did regret the dishonesty—she should have told Judd she was pregnant—but that could be remedied. She would tell him. If they were together again, she would definitely tell him. Just as she would tell Kevin. And Carl.
She was about to turn away from the window when a flicker of light caught her eye. It was little more than the reflection of dawn, coming and going as the breeze ruffled the trees on the knoll above the farmhouse. She stared at it, waiting for it to come again. When it did, she felt a sudden confusion. On that knoll was Hunter Love’s motorcycle.
As she watched, he kicked off and rolled down the incline to the road, gaining momentum enough so that he didn’t have to rev the engine until he was nearly out of sight. The sound was so faint then that she might not have heard it if she hadn’t been listening. She followed the single taillight until it was gone, stood looking out the window, trying to sort out her thoughts, for another little while, before slowly, broodingly, climbing the stairs.
Thirteen
Chelsea wasn’t the only one to brood. Two hours later, shortly before seven in the morning, Judd sat over a mug of muddy black coffee in his regular booth at Crocker’s. The place smelled of bacon grease and sweet rolls and was packed with quarrymen communicating in their usual indistinct rumble amid the clink of forks and knives. Judd found the sameness of it a comfort after the night he’d spent.
The screen door swung open and slapped shut. Hunter came down the aisle and slid in across from him. Settling sideways into the corner between the back of the booth and the wall, he peeled off his sunglasses and dropped them on the table. He looked around at the other men, looked up when Debbie Pepper brought his coffee, stared at the coffee, taking occasional drinks, until Debbie returned with his scrambled eggs. He was halfway through the eggs when, in a voice that wouldn’t carry beyond their booth, he said,
“I gotta hand it to you. You’re a fast worker.”
Judd had known something was on his mind, but he hadn’t expected the something to be this. On the vague chance he was wrong, he asked, “Want to elaborate?”
After another mouthful Hunter said, “You spent the night with Chelsea Kane.”
Judd took a swallow of coffee. He wasn’t ready to discuss the night with himself, let alone with someone else. “Who told you that?”
“No one told me. I saw.”
“Saw.”
“Sat on the hill right outside.”
Judd wondered how much he had seen. There were no curtains on Chelsea’s windows, and for a good part of the night the light had been on, which meant that they had been in a goldfish bowl of sorts. He felt a flash of raw anger, a sense of violation, but he kept his voice low. “That how you get your jollies, playing voyeur?”
“I didn’t see anything. Just the light in the bedroom on and the Blazer sitting outside all night.” He jabbed at a piece of egg. “Was she good?”
“That’s none of your goddamned business,” Judd muttered, and tightened his fingers around his mug. Was she good? She was unbelievably good, and that infuriated him nearly as much as Hunter’s nosiness.
“You don’t usually stay with them all night,” Hunter said.
“For Christ’s sake, what kind of comment is that?”
Hunter shrugged.
“You’ve followed me before?”
“Didn’t follow you this time. Just went there and saw the Blazer.”
“So you stayed to watch.”
He shrugged again. “It was a nice night. I had nothing better to do.” He pushed the egg around. “I didn’t think she’d be so easy.”
Easy had nothing to do with it, Judd knew. There hadn’t been conscious volition involved. What had happened had been inevitable. Maybe if he hadn’t danced with her, hadn’t held her so close, hadn’t touched her skin or smelled her hair, he might have been able to wait longer. But the chemistry was right. It had only been a matter of time.
“What does she want?” Hunter asked, seeming more serious now.
“How the hell do I know,” Judd grumbled, and glared at his coffee. He had thought he knew Chelsea, thought she was a typical city woman, thought she was just like Janine. But she hadn’t been at all like Janine in his arms. She had been honest and open and hungry. Janine would have been up the minute it was done, lighting a cigarette, then bounding out of bed to use the phone or write a brief or shampoo her hair. Not Chelsea. Chelsea had curled up
next to him as though that closeness were the only thing in the world that mattered.
He never would have expected it. But what did he know? Chelsea was a mystery. He knew very little about her—except that she was the last woman he wanted to have an affair with.
“She must be after something,” Hunter said, frowning now.
Judd was open to suggestions.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But something. Why else’d she be here? She could be doing the same stuff back in Baltimore.”
When Judd had hit her with that, she mentioned having lost three people. One was her mother. He wondered about the other two.
“How long’s she staying?” Hunter asked.
“How the hell would I know?”
“Because you’re the one screwin’ her.”
The word drilled Judd, sounding harsh and dirty and cheap. It wasn’t like there was anything more than a physical attraction between Chelsea and him. Still, that word was wrong. Chelsea Kane was a classy lady. She wasn’t harsh or dirty or cheap. She made love to him like a soft, warm woman with a whole lot to give—either that, or she was one hell of an actress. He wished he knew which it was.
Torn and annoyed and tight in the gut just thinking about Chelsea under him, Judd looked hard at Hunter. His hands gripped his mug. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “I’m gonna tell you something, pal, and I want you to listen good. I’ve gone out on a limb for you more’n once, and not ’cause anyone told me to. If I’d listened to the old man, you’da been driving the fork lift. But I thought you deserved better. I covered for you over the years when you did dumb-ass things, so the old man wouldn’t get wind of it. Well, I don’t want the old man—or anyone else—getting wind of what you saw up on that hill last night. It’s no one’s goddamned business. What I do on my time is my affair. What she does on her time is her affair.” Still gripping the mug, he straightened a warning forefinger at Hunter. “You open your mouth, and that’s it. I’m done. It’ll be you and the old man with no buffer. Got that?”
The Passions of Chelsea Kane Page 22
