Intimate Portraits

by Cheryl B. Dale

  “Rennie.” She moved into him. “Stop belittling yourself.” Then she waited while his arms came up, inch by agonizing inch, proving his will wasn’t strong enough to stop them. They locked around her until she stood in her own circle of warmth. “I do love you. I meant it when I was seventeen and I mean it now. I can’t stop loving you.”

  His shoulders sagged, his head dropped. “I’m too tired to fight you anymore. Heaven help you, because I love you, too. I guess I always have.”

  Her heart sprang and flipped.

  He still tried. “I didn’t know, couldn’t believe it when I started thinking of you like this. I didn’t want this to happen.”

  “Shhh.” She turned her face up and they kissed, a comfortable enterprise lacking the earlier fire and urgency.

  There would be no interruptions, no second thoughts this time. She knew it and so did he. His lips and fingers moved over her face as if memorizing each inch.

  When her heart threatened to burst, she rested her head against his chest and he laid his face against her neck. For a long moment they held each other that way.

  How strange. I can feel his breath leaving his nostrils and entering mine, feel the blood rushing through him like mine, feel his heart beating in time to mine, feel his flesh warming mine. If I listen real hard, I bet I can hear his thoughts. As if we were one person.

  His hand eventually slid down, cupping her butt, drawing her to him. He didn’t stop her when she opened her legs to take him against her, did not stop her when she ran her hand under his sweater. He slid her own top up, found the fastening of her bra and undid it. Her too-small breasts spilled from the figure-enhancing binder, but he caressed one like it was perfect.

  All without haste, all without frenzy.

  Because this time we’ll finish.

  As his head bent, she sighed, arched her neck so his lips could reach its curve, pulled in her stomach so that his fingers could slip down inside her slacks. He splayed his hand on her stomach gingerly, afraid he’d hurt or frighten her.

  As if he could. This was what she’d wanted for years.

  She unsnapped her slacks herself so his fingertips could touch her, could slide down her belly to the curls.

  “I can take them off.” Giddy with anticipation, she tackled the zipper.

  “No.” He laid a hand over hers.

  “I want to take them off. Please let me take them off.” She wriggled her hand, trying to make him release it. Her intimate parts clamored for his attention.

  “Not until we can make arrangements to do things right.”

  “Right? This is right.”

  “Autumn.” His voice held back laughter. “I don’t do this all the time. I don’t carry rubbers around with me.”

  “Oh. That. What do you think took me so long at the store?”

  She would have giggled at his shock except that she had a shrewd idea it was better not to make fun of a man when the joke had the least connection to his sexual prowess.

  “You bought condoms at the grocery store?”

  She could have sworn his body relaxed. Was he turned off? Had she done something wrong? Been too aggressive? Taken too much for granted?

  She hurried on. “Yes. Just in case.” She went and got them. Coming back, she closed the bedroom door in Squeaky’s annoyed face. “I hope this is all right with you.”

  “You planned this? You knew we’d make love?”

  Was he annoyed? “I hoped.”

  “Autumn, I… Once we do this, there’s no turning back.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I’m sick and tired of hearing your dire predictions about what will happen if you make love to me. Let’s do it and worry about what happens later.”

  Dark eyes flew open.

  He swooped her up and laid her on the bed. As she drew off her sweater and unzipped her slacks, he ripped off his own clothes. While she threw back the coverlet and climbed between the sheets, she heard fabric tear, heard a button bounce against the wall. She snuggled down and waited.

  “What’s taking you so long? Oh.”

  He had removed Fran’s picture and set it on the floor facing the wall.

  She smothered a smile.

  * * *

  Rennie propped Francisco’s photo against the wall, the back turned out. He would be damned if he let Francisco’s likeness leer down at them when he made love to Autumn. The first time ought to be special. He’d go slowly, do it right. Then she’d be safe from anyone like Fran.

  That was all that mattered, that she be safe. He’d give her everything she needed because he wasn’t the same person he once was. She deserved better, and he’d be better.

  For her.

  When he climbed into the bed, he took his time adjusting the sheets before turning to her. Her hair, when he pushed it back, smelled faintly of roses. Her eyes were clear and blue.

  Who was he kidding? He’d never been with a woman like Autumn. His two intimate relationships had both involved women who carried too damned much emotional baggage.

  One had been anxious to forget an abusive father by making every man she met love her. She’d also tried to boost her self-esteem by bringing everyone close to her down to her level.

  The other had been determined to put a deprived childhood far behind by climbing the rungs to monetary success as quickly as possible and dumping anyone she feared might hold her back.

  But Autumn was whole, self-sufficient. He was unnecessary to her financially or emotionally because she was poised, lovely, intelligent, and stable. She could have anyone she chose.

  But she said she loved him, and Autumn never lied.

  Tension he hadn’t felt within him uncoiled. Being here with her felt like finally finding himself.

  He rolled into her waiting arms and lost himself and his insecurities in the heat that surged through his body and overwhelmed his senses.

  She was so sweet. When she pulled him against her bare skin and cradled him to her breasts, he forgot his doubts and took his time, relearning each ridge, each bone in her face and shoulders, before moving his tongue from her ear and running it down her neck. Tasting the dainty breasts, the flat stomach and navel, the slick warmth that welcomed his intrusion.

  All the time she lay willingly beneath him, spread out like a prize for his plundering. When he found her center, she began to tremble.

  He held her hips and teased her with his tongue. Her hands in his hair tightened with each whimpering breath, until suddenly she rose beneath him, crying out and arching her body in utter abandonment.

  He wanted to shout, to plough triumphantly into her. But he stilled his longing and stretched out beside her until her breathing steadied and her heartbeat calmed. When her hand found his length and would have caressed him to breaking point, he nudged it aside and began all over again on her. Her flesh was dewy from his success, slick from her satisfaction.

  And when he recognized her soft whimpers from earlier, knew she was close to climax, he slipped inside her, reveling in her tightness, her heat, her need for him. As she gripped him and held him to her, she whimpered again, pushing up at him, trying to end what he had begun.

  “Please, Rennie. I can’t wait.”

  “Yes, you can,” he whispered. He pulled back and drove into her. “Long enough.”

  She screamed and flailed like a wild creature, her contractions forcing his seed to spew out in a hot shower that brought on his own silent scream.

  I am lost, he thought in the midst of his delirium. I should have been strong enough to keep her from making this mistake.

  Eventually, her starry romanticism of what he was would curdle under the glare of reality. But whatever she decided in the future, whatever roads she took that might not include him, he would be hers forever.

  That’s why he was so afraid of Autumn, because he knew loving her would mean losing himself and whatever hard-earned self-respect he had achieved; because he could never live up to her standards. And that meant nursing a new hurt when she realiz
ed she had been mistaken in him.

  Chapter 15

  Autumn lay entwined with Rennie. Her happiness turned the dim bedside lamp radiant and enhanced the muted colors of her bedroom. The musk of sex touched the air.

  His shadowed body propped slightly over hers as he ran one hand up and down her naked hip, and talked about the future. “You’ll have to go to Athens with me now,” he was saying when her cell music played.

  She ignored its ring. “Why?” Surfeited, she wanted nothing more than to lie still and listen to Rennie make plans. “Don’t,” she said when he reached over to pick up her cell.

  “You’d better.” He handed it to her.

  She sighed.

  Rennie never shirked responsibility. That was another thing about him she loved. But this one time, after his earth-shattering admission he loved her, he could have been irresponsible. Just this once.

  She cradled the receiver between her neck and ear, wanting to pout. “Hello.”

  Rennie grinned before he bent over her chest. His tongue brushed one exposed nipple, delighting her, making her heart thud and her mouth quiver against the plastic cell. Making her stomach clench with remembered delight.

  “Autumn,” Laney’s piqued voice came over the wire, “I’ve been calling Mom’s house for hours. I thought we’d decided you were going back there for the night.”

  “No, Laney.” How demure she sounded. “We didn’t decide that. But it’s okay. Rennie’s here with me.” She laid a hand on his bare chest. Muscles twitched at her touch. “And he’s going to stay here tonight.”

  “Oh, good,” Laney said, blithely oblivious to the true situation. “John and I've been talking. We think Rennie’s right, that you shouldn’t be by yourself. Kiki’s death probably had nothing to do with you, but you can’t ever tell. Him being there will keep you from worrying.”

  “Yes, it will. Rennie’s right here to take care of me so I'm not worried a bit.” She circled his nipple with her thumb, let her fingers trail down to his navel and then his erection. “He’s taking excellent care of me. Believe me, I’m fine.”

  That was an understatement.

  Laney didn’t notice. She had no idea Autumn’s world had turned on its end. “Oh, good. What I was calling about was your TV. Is it on?”

  “My TV? No.” She had better things to do than watch TV. And chatting with Laney wasn’t one of them.

  “Turn it on to WSB. They’re showing some of the reception on the late news.”

  “Reception?” A total blank.

  “For this opening at the High Museum, silly. Guess who they interviewed? Francisco!”

  “Fran?” Autumn widened her eyes. “It figures. It was a woman reporter, right?”

  “Of course. They showed a teaser just now, and he was so cute. I knew you’d want to see it. And Rennie, too. The report’s coming up on the news at eleven.”

  Autumn yawned as she powered off and transmitted Laney’s instructions to Rennie. “I guess we’d better go watch.”

  His grin, slow as molasses and twice as sweet, spread. His hand touched her stomach and started a new tingling. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. Francisco won’t know.”

  Tempting. So very tempting. “Of course he’ll know. He’ll grill us unmercifully as to how his tux looked, how he sounded, whether every hair was in place, if they showed the right profile. Then when he finds we didn’t think enough of him to turn on the TV, he’ll be crushed.”

  “Not for long. His ego’s too big.” Rennie spoke without the least hint of malice. There was no smugness behind his words because he was in bed with a woman Fran wanted.

  Was there?

  No. Rennie hadn’t made love to her because he thought she was involved with Fran and wanted to pay off old scores.

  He hadn’t. She was sure of it.

  Rennie would never do anything like that. Not to her and not to Fran.

  He wasn’t like Fran.

  Well-being suffused her, warming her, making her feel as if her very toes were happy. Why hadn’t she ditched her stupid pride and gone after Rennie years ago, before he’d ever met Jane? She could have followed him to California, and they could have been together all this time.

  Except he’d have sent her back home.

  No matter. The present more than made up for the past.

  In the middle of his stroking her, when the gentle warmth inside her was on the verge of becoming full-blown heat, she wavered over going downstairs. “I could run down and set up to record. Then we wouldn’t have to interrupt this for Fran’s big interview.”

  “I’d forgotten about Fran.” He lay back and groaned. “We’d still have to set it up and watch it later. So let’s get it over with. He’ll make us replay it in front of him if we miss the real thing. But look on the bright side. It won’t take long and we can come back to bed.”

  “All right. But only because you say so.”

  He ran a finger down between her breasts and around her navel. “You know I’m right. Little brother’ll give us a pop quiz tomorrow. We’ll have to know the answers or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Uh huh.” She wriggled as he tweaked a nipple. "But it might be worth it."

  He abruptly rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed. “No, it wouldn’t. He can get ugly. Remember that time Norma stole his mirror and he lectured her for an hour on dishonesty, immorality, and the dire consequences of making wrong decisions? And she had to listen because he threatened to tell Mom if she didn’t. Do you need a robe? We’d better go now before it’s too late. Anticipation will make it better, I promise.”

  Downstairs, TV turned to the right channel, they shooed Squeaky out and curled up in her easy chair. Not until toward the end of the newscast did the report on the High Museum came on.

  By that time she had unzipped Rennie’s jeans and they were engaged in another activity, one in which her bare fanny sat on his lap while she lay back against his chest and gently rocked back and forth.

  They had to take time off in the middle of their exercise to watch the interview.

  “We should have waited for the tape,” Rennie muttered as she made him stop his lascivious exploration of her bottom.

  “Shush.” As his hands reached around her waist to part her thighs, she took hold of them and held them still. “Anticipation makes it better. Remember?”

  First the camera swept through some of the exhibits. “At the High Museum tonight,” the pretty reporter began, leading into her shtick about the Louvre’s unprecedented decision to loan its renowned Ornaments for the Human Body exhibition for a three months’ display in Atlanta.

  Precious jewels and metals dotted the collection, the earnest young woman explained. “Take, for instance, this set of Byzantine earrings and necklace. They’re made of gold, emerald crystals, sapphires, and pearls. But some of the truly invaluable pieces are made of less costly materials, such as this pair of 16th century armlets from southern Nigeria, carved of ivory and inlaid with copper. Or this eleventh Dynasty Egyptian wesekh-collar of composition beads—”

  That collar. Those brilliant colors.

  Autumn sat bolt upright.

  “Ouch. Careful how you bend.” Rennie tightened his hold on her hips and immobilized them as she settled back. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” But she did. Or thought she did. “Except… Rennie, that necklace, the one with the beads.”

  “What about it?”

  “Sarita wore it in our photo shoots.”

  With her back against him, she couldn’t see his face but she could feel him switching from pleasure to business.

  “I doubt it,” he said after a moment. “At least not that one. It would stay under lock and key. Sarita might have a necklace that looks like it. Maybe.”

  She wriggled, trying to twist so she could see him. Carefully so that she didn’t injure anything. “Why would she? Nobody wears things like that today. I thought at the time it was an unusual choice because Egyptian jewe
lry isn’t that fashionable.” She saw his skepticism. “I think she wore that same necklace. And some of that other stuff looks awfully familiar, too. That ivory bracelet, for one.”

  He didn’t scoff. Instead, as if her squirming on his lap had reminded him of other things, he turned her back around toward the TV, bringing his hands under her arms and catching her breasts and pulling her to his chest. Holding her tight against him, he somehow managed to roll her hips across him and back, provoking lovely extended billows of pleasure.

  Still… “Rennie, it is the same necklace.”

  “Okay. And how, beautiful lady, would Sarita have got that particular necklace out of the museum’s custody and back?” His breath warmed her ear.

  “Um, I don’t know, would you do that again, please, that thing with—Oh, there’s Fran.” She caught his thighs, stopped him, momentarily sidetracked from the agreeable tension he’d elicited.

  “—all due to Danielle Huertole’s hard work and personal contacts,” Fran was telling the interviewer as he gave generous credit to his boss’s wife for bringing the exhibit to Atlanta. He stood before the High Museum, his swarthy good looks spotlighted against its stark white tiles. “She’s the type of person who, when she makes up her mind something should be done, does it. Gus and I are glad she’s on his side in this upcoming campaign.”

  The pretty blonde beamed at Fran. “So Gus Huertole is definitely going to run for governor next year then?”

  “You heard what he said in his speech tonight.” Fran looked striking in his tuxedo, credible with a frank gaze, and perfectly at ease despite the microphones stuck in his face. “People want Gus to run, and providing he has the resources, he intends to give them what they want. From the way our phone’s been ringing off the hook the past few days, we should have plenty of volunteers and contributions. See me later,” he added with a twinkle to the reporter questioning him, “about that donation you promised in return for me answering your questions. Fairly sizable, I believe you said?”