She sat up, letting the fur fall indolently down to expose one pale shoulder and a breast, and his head went light.
Just looking at her body was a little like having a hand permanently on his cock. The nipped-in waist and that swelling curve of her ass, and those heavenly, full, uptilted breasts were as erotic as it got.
She peered where he was pointing.
He was going to savor the expression on her face forever.
“Eli . . . is that . . . is that my guitar?”
He took it out of the case and brought it over to her. She reached up for it as if she were Moses reaching up for the commandments.
She held it in her arms.
She was suspiciously quiet.
She didn’t look up, either.
“Are you going to cry again?” he teased softly. “You are such a girl.”
She laughed. And sniffed.
Then looked up at him.
She didn’t have to say thank-you. He’d remember that look, too, for the rest of his life.
She ran her hands over it, as if to check for broken bones.
“How did you find it?”
“Put out a bulletin on John-Mark’s car. A deputy friend of mine pulled him over on his way to Black Oak for a minor infraction. She called me and held him there until I showed up. Guitar was in the backseat. I took it from him and he knows why. He felt so guilty, Glory. He almost cried. He was so scared of Cameron—she can be tough, believe me—that by the time I got there he just looked like a skinny, quivering kid. I tore him a new one, anyway, one he isn’t going to forget. I told him if he needed money he could get himself some better skills and a better damn job. I’ll see about helping him however I can. I think he has it in him to make it.”
Glory was listening to this as if it was now her favorite bedtime story. “But . . . wait. Didn’t you have to be somewhere today, Eli? I called your office yesterday. They said you were going to be gone all day.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “I had to be here with you.”
She stared at him and frowned a little, but he met her gaze evenly.
It was only the truth. Or at least one part of it. He didn’t need to burden her with the rest.
“Want me to put it back in its case?” he asked. “We wouldn’t want to jounce it off the bed.”
“If you would.”
He settled it tenderly back in and locked it up. And he sat down across from her.
“You look like a czarina,” he said softly.
“In all the excitement earlier, I may have forgotten to tell you how hard and thoroughly I blew off Franco Francone.”
“So I gathered,” Eli murmured. “But say it again, because it’s making me hard.”
She laughed.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly. Then traced her lips delicately with his tongue. Then parted her mouth with his lips, and took that kiss to dizzying, spiraling depths, savoring the sweet hot satin of her mouth. He slipped the furry throw down from her other shoulder and dragged the fur lightly, deliberately, to and fro over her nipples.
She moaned softly against his mouth. “You are a mad genius,” she whispered.
“You have no idea what I know,” he whispered by way of reply. “In my hands, everything is a sex toy.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you.”
She wrapped another little section of the fur throw around the head of his cock and stroked hard, letting her fingernails drag lightly behind to cup his balls.
She did it again.
He hissed in a breath.
“I’m a quick learner,” she said.
“Holy . . .” he breathed, impressed. “Don’t stop.”
She did it again, then bent to close her mouth over the head and suck.
He groaned, and threaded his hands in her hair.
“Don’t stop . . .”
She dragged her tongue up the shaft, then closed her hands over it and stroked hard, and leisurely and skillfully, and sat up again to cover his lips with hers.
Vixen.
“I can’t decide,” she murmured, “if I want to sit forward or backward when I ride you.”
In a couple of swift moves he’d folded her into his arms and rolled her over onto her stomach and pulled her upward onto her knees.
“I decided for you.”
He dragged his hands along her spine, tracing the lyrical curve of her with his hands, her torso, the nip of her waist, the swell of her hips, so like a guitar. He dragged his palm over the satin coolness of her ass and pulled her closer into him.
Then eased into the slick, satiny wetness. And withdrew.
And thrust again, teasing both of them.
She moaned softly, a low keening sound of pleasure. “Eli . . .”
How many of his dreams had included her moaning his name?
Suddenly it seemed all of his dreams had. He couldn’t imagine wasting all that precious time thinking of anything else.
He moved again, teasing her cleft, and she made a sound that was nearly a growl of pleasure.
It went to his head like a belt of Everclear. Every cell in his body was electrified.
He moved again and again, almost languid, but pleasure had claws and they were sinking in deeper and deeper.
He watched her crimson nails curl into the white fur of the throw, and her black hair whipped like a storm cloud as her head thrashed.
Her body swayed with her swift breathing. “Eli . . . so good . . .”
He could hear the roar of his breath and hers, and feel the sweat beading on his body as he slid inch by slow inch in again, savoring the hot, silken cling of her, and she arched upward to meet him.
And again.
She writhed as pleasure surged and built in her, and her pleasure rippled through him, and then the madness won out over control and he let go.
His hips drummed swiftly as he gripped her, pulling her into him to take her deeply. The primal smack of their bodies and the tattered roar of their breathing and the moans ripped from each of them were all of a piece; all of it made them wilder still. And then her body arced upward and he heard his name in a hoarse cry, as if from a distance, as pleasure all but tore him from his body and cast him like stardust into the ether.
They collapsed together, brainless and boneless, sated and sweaty, sex-drunk and peaceful.
She sighed and he wrapped his arms around her, and she flung a leg over the top of him, and he cupped the back of her head, and they both fell asleep as hard as if they’d killed each other.
He woke up when his leg was asleep and they were both chilly, and they communicated in murmurs and grunts like forest creatures, and got under the covers, claimed separate pillows, entwined their limbs, and then slept a dreamless sleep, because all their dreams had just come true.
Chapter 21
It was the silence that woke him up. The rain had come down pretty hard all night, and the sound of it, and Glory’s breathing, had been like a lullaby.
He reached over and the sheets were still warm. He smiled with manly satisfaction and peered out his bedroom’s French doors.
She’d pulled the throw from his bed, wrapped herself in it like a coronation cape and trailed it out.
She was on the back deck, head tipped up, looking out at the dawn. No color in the sky yet. Just a sort of shimmering silver on the edge of the canyon.
She didn’t turn around, but she knew he was there.
“That’s about what color your eyes are.”
As if it was a question that had haunted her for ages. He supposed she meant the gray of the dawn sky.
He smiled. “Can I get in on this throw?”
She opened it like a flasher and let him inside. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and she burrowed into his still-warm-from-the-bed body and clasped it shut in her fingers.
They were quiet for a long time. This was new and beautiful: each other and the dawn. They’d known each other forever but so many new and beautiful moment
s could lie ahead.
“They want me to fly to Los Angeles,” she said finally.
“Yeah?” he answered softly.
“I’ve never flown. Let alone alone.”
“You’ll love it. You’ll love all of it. You were made for it.”
“They said words like agent and producer and publicist and stylist. Though they kinda like my style.”
“Who wouldn’t? I like what you’re wearing now, for instance.”
She smiled again.
They were quiet. He savored small things: how her head fit snugly beneath his chin, how it felt to breathe with her.
The stars retreating, giving way to the sun.
The silence with her in it.
He broke the silence.
“I love you,” he said softly.
He hadn’t fully known he was going to say those words then. They’d just sort of emerged as naturally as a breath. Part of the moment.
But he knew why he’d said it then when the words rang in the morning calm like a tolled bell. Or a chanted prayer.
He felt her breath catch.
He added softly, “I know you probably already know that. And before you say anything, Glory . . . I don’t ever want to be a reason you feel obligated to stay in Hellcat Canyon. I don’t ever want to be the reason your world feels smaller or constricted. What I want is for you to have whatever you want. Always.”
She burrowed more closely into him. She obeyed him: she was silent.
“Okay. I understand. But Eli . . . before I say anything . . . I have to show you something.”
“Does it involve the handcuffs?” he teased.
“Nope.”
“A tattoo I might have missed in my explorations?”
“Nope.”
Now she sounded nervous. And a little somber.
Which made him a little nervous.
“Not yet, though, okay?” she said. “It’s not here. We have to go to it at a specific time. Let’s sit out here and watch the sun rise.”
This was very mysterious. But he didn’t hate mysteries.
“Okay, let’s move to the chaise.”
They shuffled on over to his padded deck chaise and curled up, cocooned in his throw. She snuggled back against his chest, her head leaning on his shoulder.
They watched the gold arc of the sun nudge its way up.
And then she turned her head up in an invitation, and he angled his, and their lips met softly.
For a while they fell in to nearly chaste kisses, leisurely but seductive, reveling in the decadent, delicate discovery of the pleasure that could be had from lips alone. The promise of untold pleasure that lay ahead of them.
And inevitably his hands began to roam, languidly. Less starved, more leisurely, more luxuriating. He stroked her breasts, and she rippled into his touch. Her shuddering, ragged breath as desire overtook her was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard.
She turned around, slowly, gracefully, and straddled him, stroking his cock, then sliding down over it. And the hiss of breath, his head going back hard, was the most erotic thing she’d ever heard. She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him, moving over him slowly, slowly, even as his hands slid to her hips to urge her on. But no, it was her turn to tease. To watch his eyes go black and intent. To see the cords of his neck go taut. To make him sigh softly, and then beg her just as softly, using her name, as she traced his ear with her tongue and teased herself with the slow rise and fall of her body over him. Slowly taking him into her, then sliding up and away, then slowly easing down again.
His breath was sawing now, and her nipples chafing his bare chest made her ever more lust crazed, and that feeling of soft fire over her skin spread, and she knew she was close.
“Christ . . . love . . . I am dying . . . please . . .” His words were broken gasps.
He arched up, groaning. Begging.
But she had all the control. She laughed softly, sadist that she was.
“You want it, Eli?”
“Yes.”
“How bad do you want it?”
“Fucking essay questions now?” he moaned.
She laughed a sorceress’s laugh. And then she showed mercy to both of them. He held her fast, arms locked around her, bucking his hips up to meet her as she came down over him, ever more swiftly, ever harder, until she was whimpering, and then her head fell back on a raw soundless scream as she came, wracked with wave after wave of white-hot bliss, and she felt him shaking in her arms, coming just as hard.
They showered happily and quickly together.
And then all at once she was in a mad rush. “Eep! We have to go now, Eli.”
He threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and hiking boots.
And then, his heart accelerating to Porsche speed, he hesitated only briefly. And he slid open his nightstand drawer, took something out, and pocketed it.
Since it was only just past dawn and chilly, he tossed Glory one of his sweatshirts and one of his old jackets, both of which engulfed her. Her hands disappeared. The effect was pretty comical.
“I think you should hire me as your stylist,” he said.
She laughed. “Come on. We have to be there at a certain time.”
“Okay, jeez. You’re not taking me to the dentist, are you? We don’t have an appointment somewhere?”
“Nope. Shhh,” she ordered.
Bossy thing.
As it turned out, they were going on a hike.
She was still nervy. Her hair was a shambles, but he didn’t tell her, because he liked knowing it was because she’d slept in his bed and because his hands had been rummaging around in it.
She held his hand the whole way.
Hellcat Canyon, Whiskey Creek, Coyote Creek. All of it apart from the creatures who made their homes in the trees and shrubs and burrows was still pretty asleep.
They were both pretty sleepy and a little bit sore from all the vigorous lovemaking, and it was a pleasant and dreamlike walk. Leisurely and familiar. Not in fact, unlike actual dreams they’d had about each other over the years, except now they finally got to hold each other’s hands.
She led him through the old pasture, and past that elm, just as dawn’s light tickled the tips of the long grass there. She cut across Whiskey Creek to the secret shortcut up to the Full Moon Falls trail that every kid who grew up there knew about.
From there, it was a pretty decent long hike, with plenty of rises, but they were both used to walking. They startled deer on the trail. A chorus of birdsong, a half dozen varieties, had started up, and they enjoyed that as a soundtrack as they walked.
He’d seen this trail in nearly every light, in every season, and he never tired of it because if you were born in the country you grew to appreciate the subtleties: when the Indian paintbrush and Scotch broom and wildflowers bloomed, which trees leafed out when, which ones were bound to put on the biggest fall show.
And suddenly he knew where they were going.
He just wasn’t entirely sure why she was leading him here.
They stood in front of the vast, ancient tree known locally as the Eternity Oak.
“Okay, Eli. You know how you told me not to say anything, right? I’m going to answer you now. But my answer is illustrated.”
She led him over to the tree, and ducked behind the vast trunk to one of the branches that reached out toward the fall.
And a shaft of morning light lit them up:
GHG + ELB
His breath left him in a gust. “Glory . . .”
She turned to study the effect of this on him, and her smile was huge.
“I carved them there early in the morning the day after your seventeenth birthday. Remember that knife Jonah gave to me one Christmas, that cheap little pocketknife? It was the day after I played that song for you. After the party, I had to do something. I think I always knew, Eli. I just didn’t know what to call what I felt. And then I did. And this is what I did about it. You know me—I go all in. It’s okay to cry no
w.”
“I’m not crying.”
That was actually a little bit of a lie.
“So what I’m saying, Eli, is it’s impossible for you to ever be the reason the world feels smaller to me. You have to know that you kind of already gave the whole world to me. And by that I mean that I feel free and safe and brave when I’m with you.”
He swallowed.
“So if you think you’re doing me any favors by deciding you’d better, oh, let me go, shooing me off like some wild bird that you’ve raised, or something . . . well that’s too bad. You’re stuck with me. I am music, I guess, and music is me, but as long as I have you, everything else in my life is a grace note. Life doesn’t make sense without you. Eli . . . you should know that you are all my songs. And all my songs are you. One way or another. I don’t see that ever changing.”
He gave a stunned laugh.
Next to “I love you,” it was the best thing anyone had ever said to him.
He stroked her hair away from her face. Looked down into those midnight-blue eyes.
“Wanna hear something funny?” he asked her.
“Always.”
“It’s quite a coincidence,” he warned.
He saw in her face that she anticipated what he was about to do.
“Come over here, Glory. I’m going to have to give you a boost. ” He knelt and hoisted her up by the waist as if they were figure skaters performing a routine.
“Hurry. I’m strong but you’re not a feather. Run your hand along that branch there. Then look at it.”
She did.
He felt her go still.
And he saw her face light up like a sunrise. She laughed. “Eli . . . Oh my God.”
He lowered her into his arms again.
She knocked tears from her eyes, and said, “I think it might be raining again.”
“You beat me to the tree by a few hours that day, but isn’t that just like you? I carved them there the day after my seventeenth birthday. I felt like you’d gone and carved them right on my soul that night anyway. I had to do something about it. Me and the tree. We kept that secret for a long time. I felt like I was alone with it.”
Dawn was bathing them in a cloud of filtered light and the tree’s fall wardrobe made it look like it was wearing leaves of gold.
Wild at Whiskey Creek Page 28
