by Anna Jeffrey
“What about?”
“Everything. Kevin felt trapped being married. And so did I.”
“That’s his name? Kevin?”
“Kevin Barton. He was unstable, but I didn’t realize it until we started sharing the same apartment. I sure couldn’t see it when I was a high school kid. Back then, I thought the off-the-wall stuff he did was daring and cute. Later, I learned he was bi-polar.
“Was he abusive?”
“He didn’t beat me up or anything like that, but he had a mean streak and a bad temper and he drank a lot. Plus, he was a lot bigger than me. And really unpredictable. He scared me. If we’d stayed married, he might’ve gotten around to physical abuse.
“Even if he hadn’t had the affliction of being bi-polar, he’d never learned how to behave or how to deal with something that didn’t go his way. He was sort of one of society’s throwaways. His mother did drugs and he’d lived in and out of foster homes. He didn’t talk about it much, but I always wondered if he’d been abused himself.
“Anyway, it didn’t take long for me to figure out I wasn’t in love with either him or with marriage. And his problems were just too big for us to deal with.”
“You didn’t have any help? Parents?”
She shrugged. “He just had his mother and she couldn’t help herself, much less anyone else. I was alone, too, for all practical purposes. My dad and mom got a divorce when I was around ten. Then my dad passed on when I was fifteen. My mother and I just never got along. She’s a lunatic. A hippie a generation too late. Too self-centered to ever rely on. Soon after we got married, she moved to California with some guy my sister and I didn’t even know. She’s still there. But I have to say, as nutty as she is, she’s head and shoulders above Kevin’s mom.
“So you see, Drake—and I guess this is what I’m really trying to get around to—I’m in that white trash category. Or at least I was until, thanks to my grandmother, I moved back to Camden and started over. That’s the deep-down reason my grandmother means so much to me. She didn’t do much for me or Colleen when we were kids, but after I got grown, she saved me.”
He lifted their interlocked fingers and kissed the back of her hand again. “I don’t recall that I’ve ever used that term ‘white trash.’”
Perhaps not, she thought. But after hearing her tacky story, he probably wondered what kind of mess he had gotten himself into. But he was making such an effort to get down on her level, she couldn’t keep from laughing. “It’s okay, Drake. I’ve used it myself.”
“I’m serious. I don’t pigeon-hole people that way. I believe we’re all what we want to be. We’re all what we work to be.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Just a lot of people don’t work to be anything.”
“That’s my point. Stop and think about it. Out of ashes, so-to-speak, you chose to educate yourself and become a successful businesswoman. You could’ve continued to live a life of low expectations and making bad choices, but you didn’t. An inner strength drove you to do what you instinctively knew was the best thing. The first time we talked, I saw that in you. I have the same instinct. We’re lucky that way.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve had those thoughts at times. But there’s a big difference between you and me. You haven’t had to struggle for money.”
“True. But believe me, I’ve fought my battles. There are degrees of battles. When I decided I didn’t want to be a rancher, it was damn traumatic around the Double-Barrel for a long time. Years, in fact.”
She turned her head and smiled at him. “But you’re such a great-looking cowboy.”
“A part of me will always be a cowboy. It’s how I grew up.”
“That night in the Worthington, when I first saw you, you know who you reminded me of?”
“Who?” he asked, heightened interest sounding in his tone.
“It took me a while to put my finger on it, but I finally did. Hugh Jackman. Like he was in that movie, Australia.”
He chuckled. “I remind you of Drover?”
“You saw the movie? You look like him. People must have told you.”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Your hair’s like his. You even have that crease between your brows like he does.”
He raised his hand and rubbed between his brows with his fingers.
“You must have frowned a lot when you were a little boy to get that.”
“I was a pretty serious kid.”
And he was a pretty serious man, she had already concluded even before he told her he was stodgy and conservative. “Why didn’t you want to be a rancher?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I love the ranch, but I was never sure I could give it my undivided attention. I always had outside interests. The business world always drew me. Back then, when I was more tuned in to football, Roger Staubach was my hero.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Pro football player. He was a quarterback at Navy. After his hitch in the service, he became the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Then after his football career, he put together a successful real estate company in Dallas. I thought to myself, I could do that.”
“And you did, huh?”
“I haven’t caught up with Roger yet, but I’m, trying. But maybe as much as anything, I was tired of the brawling between my mom and dad. Being the oldest, I was always the peace maker. I wanted to get away from it. If I’d stayed there, there would’ve been no escaping it. For Pic to want to stay with the ranch was a huge weight off my shoulders.
From what she could remember of her own parents’ relationship, they, too, had fought a lot. But they had divorced, which had left her at the mercy of her mother. “Your folks fought a lot?”
“They still do, even though they don’t live together. But I don’t want to get into that. I don’t want to fuck up the good time we’re having by discussing something I can’t fix.”
“Their fights don’t bother your brother?”
“Not as much as they bother me. Pic’s like my dad. He accepts reality for what it is. Doesn’t’ try to rearrange it. He’s in the right place.”
“And you do?”
“Not so much anymore. But I used to. Now my business consumes so much of my time and energy, I don’t have the time or the inclination to get involved.
“How old is your brother?”
“The same age as you. Thirty-three. Two grades behind me in school. When he first graduated, he talked about joining the army. He thought that if Dad anointed me to run the ranch, there was no place for him. I was terrified. Even though I was in college in Dallas, Dad was still trying to convince me I wanted to be a rancher, still trying to persuade me to quit SMU and enroll in Tarleton.”
“If he’d enlisted, you’d have stayed in Drinkwell?”
“Oh, yeah. Too much was at stake to have both Lockhart sons jump ship. The Double-Barrel is a family corporation. Some Lockhart will always have to look after it. If Pic had left, I wouldn’t have had much choice without throwing the whole family into turmoil. Lockharts stick together, through thick and thin. We might cuss and brawl, but we function as a unit.”
“I can’t imagine that much family loyalty,” she said.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. “I’ve been sitting here picturing what’s under that thin thing you’ve got on.”
She gave him a grin and stood up. “Well you don’t have to picture any more, cowboy.”
She slipped the cover-up off her shoulders and dropped it onto the lounge chair, leaving herself naked. Then she stepped off the deck into the moonlight that bathed the yard in silver. Turning in a circle in front of him, she lifted her arms above her head and swayed her hips like a hula dancer as she moved around the yard. “Do I look like you imagined?” she asked.
“Better,” he said hoarsely.
Recognizing desire in his voice, she turned to face him. He had been wearing cargo shorts and a loose island shirt, but now he, too, was naked. Even in the moongl
ow, she could see his erection standing against his belly and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Lust, as raw and primitive as she had ever felt it, sent little prickles of heat through her veins.
He stepped off the deck and came to where she stood. “My imagination’s never as good as the real thing,” he said softly. He scooped her into his arms and carried her up the steps and into the condo.
They met in a tangled embrace in the center of the king size bed, their bodies cast in an eerie glow by a crescent of moonlight. They rubbed against each other sensually, kissing lusciously, stroking and caressing until their breathing became shallow and the air around them was awash in passion. Driven by mind-numbing desire, she urged him to his back and sat up.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Shhh,” she whispered, leaning over him and blowing softly on his nipple. “Just be still.” She trailed little suckling kisses over his hairy chest. “I’m an island goddess come to earth to give you pleasure.” She licked the brown button around his nipple, then gently nipped the nub with her teeth, all the while, stroking his rigid penis with her fingers.
She felt more than heard a catch from inside his chest. His hands combed into her hair. “God, Shannon—”
“Shhh,” she said softly. “Don’t talk. You’re my captive. I’m in charge.”
She turned. As she trailed her mouth down to his navel, she stroked inside his muscular thigh with her fingernails. A quiver ran along his thigh. She moved her mouth down to his solid belly, licking and kissing. She closed her hand around his hard penis. “You feel like velvet,” she murmured. “And steel.”
He gave a soft groan and opened his thighs, giving her access to his manhood. She cupped his hairy scrotum in her palm and gently fondled as she moved her mouth on down. His erection jerked powerfully against her cheek. When she reached her destination, she carefully drew one of his testicles into her mouth and wallowed it across her tongue, gently sucked it, enjoying every primitive sound that came from him. She even relished the pinch to her scalp as he gripped a fist full of her hair. Then she moved to his other testicle.
Finally, when she had him groaning and shuddering, she covered the head of him with her mouth. His hips jerked, he gave a deep grunt and clutched her shoulder. “Aw, goddamn…”
His grip was like iron, but she took her time, licking him, stroking his slit with the tip of her tongue, gently sucking the soft bulb of him. He whimpered and whined—but gruffly—and his hips lifted to her again and again, begging her for more. When she thought he’d had enough teasing, she slid her mouth all the way to the root of him and began to suck in earnest.
On a rumble from deep in his throat, he caught the back of her knee and urged it across his shoulders until she was kneeling astride him, her sex above his face. She felt herself open, felt his breath hot against her sensitive flesh, felt his agile fingers exploring…stroking…penetrating. A hum of pleasure traveled from deep in her throat.
Then she felt his whisker stubble rasp her delicate layers and his tongue licked into her. Her deep muscles clenched. A shiver shot through her and she entered another realm, became a stranger to herself, uninhibited and on fire with need. His mouth suckled, his tongue licked in and out. Her own breath echoed in her ears. A gravelly moan rose up in her own throat, muffled by his penis in her mouth. With no prompt, she began to suck to the cadence of his tongue and his pumping hips.
He grunted and puffed. She sucked him harder and faster, nipped and licked. With each upward stroke, his penis drove into her throat and his tongue penetrated her again and again in a steady rhythm. Desperation grew like an expanding balloon in her belly, ready to burst.
When she thought she would surely go insane if he didn’t allow her release, he drew the tiny core of her sex all the way into his mouth and she rocketed from the earth in mindless ecstasy. Then, sucking him harder and faster. Tandem spasms of pleasure assaulted her. Starbursts exploded behind her eyes. She wanted to beg, wanted him to stop, wanted him to never stop. Tears rushed in and an unidentifiable sound crawled all the way up from her belly.
His body stiffened and he grunted. His erection contracted with amazing strength and his salty semen shot into her throat. She swallowed but didn’t leave him until he was empty and weak and gasping for breath.
She was almost helpless with weakness herself, but she lifted herself off him. Shaking and
sniffling, she clumsily turned and found his mouth with hers. They kissed savagely with bumping teeth and punishing tongues and mouths that tasted of each other’s flesh. His massive arms enveloped her in a tight embrace and they kissed and kissed. And she sniffled.
This wasn’t the first time sex with him had brought her to tears. The same thing had happened in his condo the very first time she had been with him. She didn’t know where so much emotion came from. No man had ever driven her to tears. He stroked her hair, her face, while she cried into his warm shoulder. “On, my God,” he whispered. “You’re so…You’re so…Oh, my God…”
She sniffled.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“N—No.”
“Shh-shh…don’t cry, darling…It’ll be okay….My God, you’re just…Let’s rest a minute. It’ll be okay.”
She could tell from his voice and the way his sweat-slicked body trembled, he was in no better shape than she was. But she didn’t have to rest. She was already okay. She had absolutely nothing on her mind but the fact that she was secure in her dream man’s arms and he just given her a sexual experience like none she had ever had.
They slept the night in an embrace, then made love again in the morning while they were still half asleep. They both were gentle and tender, with emotion more important than heat. They stood melded together in the shower, kissing and caressing in a long embrace. Her heart beat against his and she sensed the joining of their souls. Only after their skin had turned wrinkled and they were pressed for time to get checked out and in the air did they separate. They made no conversation about the fact that they would be parting today, but a quietness had grown between them and their actions spoke louder than any words they could have said.
On the flight of several hours, he held her hand, but he was pensive and quiet. So was she. She had so much to think about. Something Christa had said once badgered her. Sex with emotion is different from sex for fun.
She must be in love with him. That she could be made no sense. She had known him only six weeks, though she felt as if they had been one forever. And he surely didn’t love her.
Still, whatever was going on between them was no longer about just sex. But if not that, then what was it about?
She knew only one thing for sure. A rollercoaster had taken control of her life. Should she try to stop it now or wait and risk it throwing her off its highest point?
Chapter 32
Betty Lockhart returned to her home on Monday. After nine days, she was glad to escape Barron’s company. He was a lovely man, but he was an old man, who acted even older than he was. No amount of Viagra could turn him into a seething stud. He was nothing like Bill Junior who was a seething stud who could still ride a horse, flank a calf, climb a windmill, or do whatever he wanted to physically. She well knew she was getting older herself, but she certainly didn’t want to be reminded of it.
Wanting to re-anchor herself with the family, her first call was to Drake’s office. Debra, his wonderful assistant told her he was in Hawaii.
“Hawaii?” Betty asked, unable to recall Drake mentioning a trip to Hawaii. “Did he go on business?”
“He finally took some time off,” Debra told her. “He and a friend flew over there last Thursday to a golf tournament, but he’s due back today.
Instinct pricked at Betty. “What friend? Who went with him?”
When the assistant didn’t answer right away, Betty recognized she had overstepped. “Oh, never mind. I’ll call him at home later. Thanks.” She hung up.
Oh, dear Lord. Could Drake have taken that Piper woman t
o Hawaii with him? If so, this was getting clear out of hand.
She made a mental inventory of Drake’s girlfriends she had met. Believing she knew how he felt about most of them, she couldn’t imagine him taking any one of them on a trip of several days. The regional phone book still lay on the counter under the phone base. On a whim, she thumbed through the yellow pages, found the number of Piper Real Estate in Camden and pressed it into the phone.
Her pulse escalated as a young woman answered cheerily. “Good afternoon. Piper Real Estate.”
“I’d like to speak to Mrs. Piper, please,” Betty said.
“I’m sorry. Miz Piper is out of the office a few days. Can someone else help you?”
“When will she return?”
“I expect her back tomorrow. Could I—”
“Thank you,” Betty said and quickly hung up before she said too much.
Her next thought was that Pic might know what Drake was doing. She called the Double-Barrel on its landline. To both her dismay and her delight, Bill Junior answered the phone. She closed her eyes and pictured him standing in the den, the phone pressed to his ear, his fist jammed against one slim hip, his starched jeans hugging his butt and muscular thighs, his masculinity making that sexy little bump at the bottom of his zipper.
Girding herself for a sarcastic exchange, she said, “This is your estranged wife. I have a question.”
“You’re estranged only because you want to be,” Bill Junior said in his sexy deep voice. “I heard you went off on a boat with that old man.”
How did he know that? She couldn’t believe Drake had told him, but he might have told Pic, then Pic relayed the information to Bill Junior. Her children always conspired against her. Betty frowned. “I said I have a question.”
“I’ve got one, too,” Bill Junior said. “Did you sleep naked with that old geezer? I imagine you fucked him.”
Betty made a mental gasp. “Shut your mouth, Bill. We are not having that conversation. I
