“How soon?” she asked in reply. “I’m telling you now, I won’t stand for any long engagement. I won’t give you time to change your mind. And I don’t want any big wedding, either.”
“We ought to be able to get the license and line up Judge Chmelecki in two days. How’s that?”
“Okay, but I’m not letting you out of my sight until then.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he echoed her words. “Except into bed.”
The bed was far too narrow for two people, but they managed. The hurricane roared and the dog whimpered. The rain pelted and the house creaked. They didn’t hear any of it, only words of love, sighs, and purrs of pleasure.
Louisa was everything Dante had ever dreamed of in a woman, and so much more. More softness, more warmth, more responsiveness. More Louisa, who threw her heart into everything she did. He caught it, and carried her with him to new heights, new depths, new closeness that had nothing to do with the single bed.
Louisa knew Dante was generous, but she’d never imagined any man could be so unselfish, so gentle and so strong at the same time. He loved her, and he made love to her with an intensity she’d never known, making sure she was as enraptured as he was. She couldn’t get bored or seasick like she’d done with Howard. There wasn’t time, the first time, they were both so ready. She knew she never would, the second time. Dante would never let her, keeping her at the fever edge of completion with his hands and his mouth and his words of love. He kept her with him, urgent, needing, pulsing, pounding.
She cried out in ecstasy.
For a minute Dante thought she’d shouted Howard’s name, but then Louisa shouted it again. “It did! It did!”
“What did?” he asked, gasping, their bodies still joined.
“The earth! It moved. I knew it would.”
He kissed her eyelids, first one and then the other. “Thank you, sweetheart. But that was the hurricane, not me.”
They both listened, catching their breaths.
“It’s quiet!” Louisa wriggled until Dante shifted positions so she was lying on top of him. “We made it! The hurricane is past and we didn’t get washed away or blown to kingdom come.” She kissed him fast and hard. “We lived through it and the house is still standing.” She paused. “We are still going to get married, aren’t we?”
“Hell, yes. Do you think I’d part with a woman who makes love like that? I hate to tell you this, though, but this calm is the eye of the storm passing over. It’ll come back, maybe stronger.”
“Stronger?”
He was stroking her back, loving the feel of that slope at the bottom of her spine, the softness of her rear end, the dewy feel of her skin after lovemaking. He nodded. “Stronger.”
She could hear the wind howling again already. “Then maybe we better do that again.”
“That?”
She trailed kisses down his cheek and his neck and on to his chest. “That.”
“Again?” Dante wasn’t sure he could, until she rubbed against his lower body. He rose to the occasion, letting her set the pace this time, happy to have her on top so his hands were free to explore her perfect breasts, the tiny curls where their bodies met, the no longer private places hidden there. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?” he gasped.
“Not for…five…minutes…or so.”
“I do. More than—”
BOOM!
Dante was off the bed so fast Louisa landed on the floor. He grabbed up his pants and the dim flashlight and ran toward the front of the house. The house hadn’t collapsed, so Louisa took the time to find a robe and reassure the dog with a pet. “What was that?” she asked, coming to join him by the front door he’d just closed again.
“I think the old oak tree at the corner finally went over. On my truck.”
“Oh, no! Your brand-new truck?”
He took her hand and led her back to the little bedroom. “My brand-new flat pile of scrap metal, I’d guess.”
“I really am a jinx, then! Howard’s Porsche, and then his new Jag, Fred’s jalopy, and now your lovely new truck. It’s all my fault for making you come here when you would have parked it somewhere safe. You would have put it in the garage at the Hill or the field at—”
He stopped her agonizing with a long kiss, then said, “Hush, sweetheart, it’s no one’s fault. You’re not a jinx. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Disaster-prone, maybe, but the best.”
“And you’re not mad?”
“Hey, I’m not Howard.”
“Howard who?”
He pulled her into his arms, then onto the bed. “It’s a truck, Louie, only a truck. But you, you’re my life, my love, soon my wife. Now come, let’s make the earth shake again.”
“I thought that was the hurricane?”
“What hurricane?”
Author’s Note
Paumonok is the Native American word for Long Island, meaning fish, or fish-shaped. There is no village of Paumonok Harbor, however. I plunked it, school, bank, library, and bayside boatyard, at the eastern end of Long Island’s South Fork Hamptons, halfway between Montauk and Amagansett, which are decidedly real. None of the characters in Love, Louisa are based on the characters of either place.
About the Author
Author of more than thirty romance novels, Barbara Metzger is the proud recipient of two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards and a RITA from the Romance Writers of America. When not writing romances or reading them, she paints, gardens, volunteers at the local library, and goes beachcombing on the beautiful Long Island shore. She loves to hear from her readers, through her publisher or her Web site: www.BarbaraMetzger.com.
Love, Louisa Page 27
