One More Summer

by Liz Flaherty

  Then he pulled carefully at the belt of her robe.

  Chapter 15

  When Dillon pulled ever so lightly on the belt of her robe, Grace stiffened. Robert Elliot’s voice began instantly to clamor from its permanent place in the back of her mind. “Faith and Steven got all the looks in the family, girl. You better find some way to make yourself useful. No decent man will ever want anything to do with you.”

  What if Dillon thought she was ugly? What if he turned away from her boyish body in disappointment? What if—

  “Gracie?” His voice was soft, and his hands framed her face even though her robe lay open below. He looked into her eyes, not at the skin he’d exposed. “Don’t go away from me. If you don’t want this, tell me so, but don’t retreat into that emotional attic of yours.”

  “You always find me when I hide in the attic.” She laid her hands on top of his.

  When he smiled, she reached to smooth the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, loving the feel of his skin under her fingertips. It was one of those things, like the smell of coffee, that should be bottled for retail sale. Sometimes the touch was warm, sometimes tender. Sometimes tension filtered from the skin into the fingertips and brought the entire body to full alertness. This was one of those times.

  “I’ll find you this time too,” he said, “but only if you want me to.”

  Was that what she wanted? She wasn’t certain. All she knew for sure of that she wanted his hands on her. Rubbing the way he’d rubbed the polish on her toes, a motion so sensuous it thickened her words when she tried to talk. Stroking the way he stroked her hair, an act so warm and friendly it defied any notion of deviousness. Touching the way he touched her face, as though she were infinitely precious.

  Oh, and she was sure she wanted his mouth too. It was so soft when he kissed her, so erotic when his tongue thrust and parried with hers.

  Erotic? Grace’s face grew warm at the mere thought of the word. She’d only just worked herself up to wearing nail polish on her toes, for heaven’s sake. What was she doing with words like erotic whizzing around in her head?

  But, oh, yes, erotic. She closed her eyes and imagined those full lips moving down her neck, over her chest. She thought of them closing over one breast while one of his hands caressed the other. Her nipples tightened in response to the thought, almost painful in their contraction, and she forced her eyes open again. It was amazing how heavy her lids were when she wasn’t the least bit sleepy.

  “Dillon?” The sound of her own voice startled her. It was low and husky, as if she needed to clear her throat. But her throat was clear. It was her mind that was giving her trouble.

  He didn’t reply, seeming to know the answers she needed didn’t come in words.

  She moved her hands to rest them on his shoulders, but they couldn’t seem to hold still. Her fingers moved down and curled themselves into the whorls of gold-tipped brown hair that covered his chest. Soft and crisp at the same time, the curls sprang between her fingers as she searched for…for what?

  When she found them, she knew, and she caressed the small brown nipples buried in the hair. His breath hitched against her palm, his heartbeat stumbled and his hands slipped from her face to her shoulders.

  He pushed the robe out of the way, following the progress of its sleeves down her arms with his hands. They warmed every inch of the path, stopping when they reached her wrists.

  He lifted one of her arms and lowered his head to kiss the tender skin on the inside of her elbow, the scar on her forearm from when she’d gone “eyebrows over toenails” over the handlebars of Steven’s bicycle when he was teaching her to ride, and the newer scar on her palm.

  She curled her fingers up to touch his lips, and he sucked the pinkie inside, then let it out again to press his mouth to her scarred palm. He leaned toward her, kissing her collarbones, the hollow between them, the sensitive area behind her ears. Cold chills preceded heat.

  From nowhere, the words to the song she’d grown up considering her own private anthem, “Amazing Grace,” skittered across her mind like dry leaves in the October wind. “…I once was lost, but now am found…”

  Dillon took a deep breath, then another, fighting to maintain his equilibrium. If it weren’t for the heat and the tension that arced between them, reminding him of the waves rising from blacktop streets on hot days, her touches would seem almost childlike in their innocence.

  The thought gave him pause. At thirty-six, he was a good fifteen years past the time he considered deflowering virgins the ultimate sexual experience. For either party. He wanted sex to be satisfying for both partners. Exciting, gritty, sweaty, and…fun. He wanted it to be painless and something to grin in his beer about afterward, not moon over the next day. He didn’t want to worry about whether anyone would respect anyone in the morning.

  But, oh, sweet Jesus, he wanted Grace. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn if she was as pure as…no, he wasn’t even going to think “driven snow.” There was nothing about her that a cliché would adequately describe.

  Everything about her was so small? her breasts, the distance between chest and hips, the hands that moved restively over his chest. Even her legs, lightly muscled and elegant in shape, were short.

  She had a farmer’s tan, uneven and scattered. There were three different color demarcations on her thighs, and he knew which pair of shorts had delineated each mark. She only had about three pairs, all of them disreputable except those little white ones. Her arms, chest and belly were golden, a v-shaped area below her neck darker, but the triangles of creamy white over her nipples made his heart trip over itself. He knew if he could see her back, it would be more tan than the front, from riding the lawn tractor and bending over her flower beds.

  It would never occur to Grace to apply sunscreen or to lie on her back in the sun to even out her color. The thought of her doing nothing made him smile, and he kissed her, his tongue stroking lazily over her lips until they gave him entrance.

  He lifted his head and dropped his gaze to her face, to the nutmeg eyes that searched for his. He saw the innocence that worried him, but there was more. Beyond the uncertainty, there was trust. “Love all, trust a few,” Dillon had read years ago when he had force-fed himself a Shakespeare assignment.

  Grace didn’t love all, and she was even more sparing with her trust. He’d received a gift, one that was bound with a bright ribbon of responsibility.

  He’d found her in the attic. The door was wide open.

  “There you are,” he said softly. “I thought you were lost.”

  Dillon’s sheets were soft and smooth, the kind Mrs. Willard used. Only Mrs. Willard’s were covered with those God-awful pink flowers and his were snowy white. His pillows were the good goose-down kind—the ones that didn’t stab you with little ends of feathers or smother you in fiberfill stuff that got hot the minute you laid your head on it.

  Grace kept the top sheet pulled up over her shoulder. She didn’t recall precisely where her robe had gone, but she knew it wasn’t on her. She was fully naked in the middle of Dillon Campbell’s bed.

  Beside her, lying on his side with his head propped against his hand, Dillon was naked, too. He didn’t bother pulling the sheet up over any part of him, and she was pretty sure she should be squirming with embarrassment.

  But she wasn’t.

  He was wonderful to look at. He was muscled but not huge and bumpy the way those oily body-builders Maxie watched on television were. The hair on his body was gold-tipped and silky to the touch, his skin soft and inviting. He was big enough to make her feel small in comparison, but his size was neither overwhelming nor frightening.

  Well, the size of one part of him was a little scary, and although she’d glanced at the thick and rigid manifestation of his manhood, she’d averted her eyes quickly. Panic rose in her throat and she swallowed hard, then concentrated on his mouth.

  He kissed her lips, then her cheeks, eyelids and the lobes of her ears—soft, tickling touches that warmed h
er in unexpected places.

  A humming tingle started between her legs and danced across her thighs to melt up into her belly and make her breasts ache. They felt swollen and heavy, and she peered beneath the sheet to see if they looked different. Maybe in her present state of depravity, she was developing a cleavage.

  “What are you doing?” Dillon plucked the sheet from her fingers. “Are they still there?” He pushed the soft cotton away from her. “Oh, yeah.”

  He dropped light kisses on the upper slopes of her breasts, pushed them up with a gentle hand and trailed his tongue along the undersides. He moved up the valley between them and over to draw one distended nipple between his lips and suckle.

  Oh, geezy Pete. The warmth in her belly and in the folds between her legs ignited into flaming heat and she moaned, a desperate sound that ended in a sob. She tunneled her hands into his hair to keep him where he was, and her hips lifted beneath the sheet in a wordless quest to put out the fire.

  When both nipples were wet and throbbing, he reached up to take her hands and put them down at her sides. Then he moved his head, laying kisses in a scorching line down the indentation between her ribs. His tongue swirled into her navel and out again.

  Then lower.

  The hands that grasped her buttocks were gentle, with very little pressure in the hold. She felt his tongue again, sliding over the tops of her thighs and then nudging its way to the soft flesh on the inside.

  “Oh, God.” It was her own voice, sounding thready and thin.

  Then his tongue was inside her, finding the source of the hum that tingled. He kissed, stroked and sucked, and with each motion, Grace’s world tilted further and further toward a maelstrom of sensation she’d never even imagined, much less known.

  It was all too much—a kaleidoscope of colors and heat and music and touch. Oh, dear Lord, the touch. She couldn’t absorb it all, couldn’t bear to feel it all, yet couldn’t bear not to. In the hurtling confusion of her mind, she thought she’d die if he didn’t stop what he was doing.

  And knew she’d die if he did.

  Just when she thought she’d surely fly into a million pieces if she were pulled any closer to the sensual maelstrom, he drew her over the edge.

  She flew into a million pieces.

  “Geezy Pete.”

  She was limp as a dishrag in his arms, though he felt quivers of reaction jumping in the legs that lay across his.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  She turned into him, and her lips moved tantalizingly against his shoulder when she said, “More than okay.”

  He stroked her hair, damp at the temples and on the back of her neck. “Want to sleep awhile?”

  Her eyes were lit by an inner glow that was new to him. “Isn’t there more?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He kissed her lingeringly, then drew back, searching her face. “Are you sure you’re ready for more?” He ran a light forefinger over the bluish skin below her eyes. “You’re tired.” And afraid. Her fear telegraphed itself to him as surely as if she’d said the words.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to stop now,” she argued.

  “We’re not keeping score.”

  She moved restively under the sheet she’d drawn over them, her thigh rubbing against his engorged shaft, and he almost groaned. Nobility didn’t come naturally to him, evidently. If it did, he’d give her a kiss and hustle off to a nice, cold shower. That’s what he should do. This had been for her, after all, not for him, but…

  What in the hell was she doing with her hands?

  Oh, God.

  He’d shower later.

  As she explored his body with tentative fingers and soft lips, he tried to lie still, hoping to allay the fear that radiated from her.

  “Is this what you do during this part?” she asked. “Just lie here?”

  Air hissed out through his clamped teeth. “Not exactly,” he muttered, and raised his palms to her breasts.

  “I’m not very experienced,” she admitted, circling him with one hand. “Is that a problem?”

  How could one bony little hand feel so soft? “No problem.” He moved his hands in circles, feeling her nipples rise and harden against them, then reached down to cup her mound and slide a finger inside her moist warmth.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  Her voice was breathy and high, completely un-Gracelike, and he grinned against the side of her neck. “To make sure your body’s ready. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Tension shivered through her. He smoothed a calming hand down her back, then lifted her over on top of him. He tucked her knees beside his hips and adjusted so that his penis teased her opening.

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened.

  He drew her face down to kiss her openmouthed, one hand holding the back of her head and the other between them. He found the little nub he sought and stroked gently.

  She ignited, her body straining against his circling finger, and he grasped her hips. “Go slow,” he whispered, “or this will be over before we start.”

  With that warning, he positioned her to where his erection nudged her moist entry and slipped inside. She was so tight, so hot and wet, he was afraid for a moment it was going to be over anyway. He slowed his progress, trying to take deep steady breaths even though they caught in his throat.

  She moved against him, then tugged at his shoulders in a silent plea. Moving carefully, not breaking the junction of their bodies, he turned over, taking her with him. He settled between her legs and they came up around his hips to draw him even closer, even deeper. He was home. Warmly, tightly, blessedly home.

  Need was a red haze over his vision, and he stroked slowly to keep control. She moved with him, her slim hips having captured the rhythm immediately. Her hands were on his back, and he felt them clenching and unclenching.

  Between them, he moistened his finger with the juices from inside her. He found the nub of skin and rubbed gently. Her fists closed again, this time over the skin on his shoulder blades, and his name came from her throat in a strained whimper.

  “Open your eyes,” he said, his voice rough with emotion and the best kind of stress there was. “When you fly, I want you to see where you’re going.”

  Her gaze met his in a look so intensely intimate he’d remember it forever. Then her eyes widened and her internal muscles tightened, and he felt the spasms of her ecstasy at the same time as he felt his own.

  And they flew.

  Chapter 16

  He would show up for breakfast, Grace knew he would. He’d act like nothing ever happened and she’d act like…what? How did one behave the morning after? More specifically, how did one behave four hours later when one hadn’t had much sleep?

  If he walked in and acted nonchalant, she’d be mad. That much, she knew. If he walked in, draped her over his arm and kissed her senseless, she’d be…mad. If he didn’t walk in at all, what would she do?

  Well, hell. Nothing like starting the day recognizing one’s own limitations, which meant she opted for scrambled eggs instead of omelets and orange juice in lieu of the mixed melon balls she’d been contemplating.

  Steven came into the kitchen as she cooked. “Morning.” He poured coffee and took the fork she was using to push bacon around the skillet. “I’ll do the bacon. You trying to cholesterol us all to death?”

  “No.” She reached for her own cup. “Just some of you.”

  “I heard someone in the hall at three o’clock this morning.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.” He turned the bacon, his brows knit in concentration. “Figured whoever was up, it was none of my business.”

  “You’re probably right. Everyone in the house is an adult. If one of us wants to be up then, it shouldn’t be a problem for anyone else.” She melted butter for the eggs, ignoring his look of shock at the appearance of more cholesterol-laden food.

  “Right. And if the person needed anything, she’d probably ask, even if the person she was asking acted like a real jerk the day before.�
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  “She probably would,” Grace agreed.

  “I’m going to do what you suggested,” he said, evidently satisfied with the outcome of their little social dilemma. “I’m going back to Knoxville Sunday and will come over on weekends.” With a scowl that belonged on a billboard advertising big brothers, he added, “When I fax you, answer me. Don’t just trash it. Better yet, let me get you a computer.”

  “All right,” she agreed, “if I have something to say, I’ll fax you, but I don’t want a computer. The bacon’s going to burn.”

  Promise came into the kitchen. “Maxie had a headache last night,” she warned, going to the sink and taking her medication from the windowsill.

  She shuffled when she walked, and made little attempt to use the arm that had been affected by the surgery. Her eyes were dull, and her complexion pasty. The wig was incongruously neat and shiny.

  Grace exchanged a bleak look with Steven before saying sharply, “Pick up your feet, Prom. You’re going to wear the finish off the floor.”

  Promise waved dismissively at her. “I’ll put wax on my socks. The floor will be great. Give me a break, Gracie. I feel like something the cat dragged in.”

  “Do you want to set the table or do you want to sit down and play the pathetic card?” Grace kept her voice crisp.

  “Grace,” said Steven, “lighten up.”

  “You lighten up,” she suggested rudely. “I don’t have time today. I have to clean Mrs. Willard’s house. This summer’s been so weird, my schedule’s gone to Paris in a hand basket.”

  “Hell,” Promise said.

  “Well, no, it’s not so bad. It keeps me from getting bored, you know.” Grace carried the bowl of scrambled eggs to the table.

  “No, I mean the saying is ‘hell in a hand basket,’ not Paris,” Promise explained carefully.