His gaze traveled the length of her body, halting momentarily to examine the nest of blond curls at the apex between her thighs. Then he lifted his gaze to meet hers. Reaching out, he prized her hands away from the wall and laid them on his chest.
With nervous fingers rushing at the task, she unbuttoned his gray cotton shirt and jerked it free from his jeans. She spread her hands over his naked chest, curling her fingers in his thick, black chest hair.
Wondrous, delicious feelings spiraled through her. Touching Rick was such a pleasure. He was hard, muscled man, his flesh warm and tempting. She inched her fingertips up his chest and onto his broad shoulders.
Was there anything more purely, primordially male than the breadth of a man’s shoulders? The look and feel of something so powerfully masculine enticed all that was feminine within Lori Lee to respond. Her heartbeat accelerated. Her breasts felt tight and very heavy. And the core of her body tingled with hot, moist anticipation.
Growling deep in his throat, Rick speared his fingers through her hair and captured the back of her head. Lori Lee gasped at the primitive, possessive gesture, but didn’t protest his right to claim her. Giving herself over to him, trusting him not to hurt her, she gazed up at him, allowing him to see the yearning in her eyes.
This was what she’d wanted since she was seventeen and Rick kissed her for the first time. This exquisite, tormenting desire was what she’d been born to feel—but with only one man.
He trembled, his need for Lori Lee so strong it frightened him. Holding her head, he leaned down and brought her face upward to meet his. Her hot, womanly scent, combined with her expensive perfume, intoxicated him. Clamping his mouth down over hers, he kissed her ravenously. He had spent a lifetime wanting and needing this. Wanting and needing Lori Lee in a way no amount of sex with other women had ever been able to satisfy. It was as if she had been created for him and him alone. Only his touch could awaken the sleeping beauty of passion within her; and only she could bring him the ecstasy he had sought and never found.
While he thrust his tongue into her mouth with a driving rhythm, he pressed her against the wall, trapping her there with his big, hard body. Sliding his hand between her legs, he palmed her, then squeezed her mound. She shivered uncontrollably. Prizing her thighs apart, he stroked her intimately with his thumb as he inserted his fingers into her hot, clutching body. A storm of raging hunger ravaged her senses. Grasping his shoulders, she moaned into his mouth.
Rick pulled her hands off his shoulders and eased her robe down and off, letting it pool about her feet in a red silk cloud. He kissed her chin, her neck and both distended nipples. His sex grew harder and heavier with every little moan and cry she uttered.
“I’ve dreamed of touching you this way,” he told her. Bending his knees and lowering his head, he licked damp circles over her stomach. “I’ve thought about tasting you. Every inch of you. Eating my fill of your sweetness.”
He delved his tongue into her navel, then withdrew, only to repeat the process several times. Lori Lee’s knees weakened. She swayed unsteadily on her feet.
Rick reached up, grabbed her hands and placed them on his shoulders, showing her how to brace herself for the upcoming assault. Burying his face in her soft, musky curls, he pleasured her with his mouth. When she clawed at his shoulders, pleading with him to end the torture, he increased the pressure and speed of his strokes until he felt her body tighten and release. She screamed as fulfillment erupted inside her, shaking her so badly that she slumped over, her bones becoming liquid.
She was still gasping for air and trembling with tiny aftershocks of release when Rick lifted her in his arms and carried her up the stairs. Resting her head on his shoulder, she clung to him. She had never known anything so shamefully, sinfully erotic as the sweet, intimate loving Rick had given her.
“Which room is yours?” he asked.
Still surrounded by a fog of hazy satiation, Lori Lee couldn’t speak. She pointed to her open bedroom door. Rick carried her into the golden room, lighted by two bedside sconces that cast the elegantly feminine room into soft, subdued shadows. Leaning over, he lifted her up and into the middle of the undraped four-poster brass bed, laying her on top of the handmade crocheted coverlet. With his knees pressed against the edge of the bed and his hands braced on either side of her, Rick worshiped her with his gaze. Adoring her with his hungry eyes, he nuzzled her neck and whispered softly, “I’ll make you forget any other man who’s ever made love to you in this bed.”
“There hasn’t been anyone else.” She caressed the hard, chiseled line of his jaw, loving the feel of his heavy, day’s growth of beard. “Not in this bed, this room or this house.”
“Not even Goodman?” The thought of her with that man ripped at his guts.
“No one,” she vowed.
He lifted himself up and off her, quickly divested himself of his clothes and came back to her, covering her body with his. Nestling his throbbing arousal between her legs, he took her in his arms and kissed her over and over again, murmuring boldly erotic words to her, telling her with basic, earthy phrases how he felt and what he wanted. She welcomed his raw, untamed passion, at first submitting to and then becoming a full participant in the glorious orgy of kissing.
She swept his big body with her hands, settling her fingertips on his tiny bronze nipples, teasing them unmercifully. Reaching beneath her, he lifted her buttocks and brought her upward to meet the demanding steel of his arousal. The inner walls of her femininity clutched and released, preparing for his entrance.
“Please, Rick. Don’t wait. Take me now.” She longed to feel him buried inside her, thrusting to the hilt, filling her completely. She wanted—no, she needed—his masterful possession.
He pressed himself against her. She moaned. “You want me?” He taunted her with the mocking thrusts of his body, promising but withholding. “You want this?”
Arching up to meet him, her body undulating pleadingly, Lori Lee grasped his firm, tight buttocks. “Yes, I want you.”
“All of me?” He rose over her, separating their bodies as he looked down at her and smiled devilishly.
“Yes, Rick, yes!”
“Then take me, honey. Take all of me.”
He entered her hard and fast, his body throbbing painfully with need. She gasped at the sensation of having him so deeply, fully embedded within her. His possession was all she had wanted and more. They made love. Hot. Wild. Furious. Turning and twisting. Thrusting and retreating. The bed trembled with the force of their savage mating. Their fervent, vulgar words of passion fueled the fires burning so turbulently within them.
Lori Lee screamed with release as spasm after spasm of pleasure shook her and the dark, sweet oblivion of completion surrounded her. When her wet heat tightened around him, urging his body to follow hers, he thrust one final time. Groaning, shaking, sweat dripping from his big body, Rick exploded as a hard, shattering release claimed him. He lay atop her, hot, sticky and heavy. But she loved the feel of him still inside her, and draped her arms around his waist, holding him tenderly.
“I’m too heavy,” he told her, then eased to her side, pulling her damp, shivering body close to him.
Curling up against him, she kissed his shoulder. “What just happened was... I don’t know how to describe how I feel. Nothing like this has ever... Oh, Rick, Rick.”
He kissed her, his lips soft and giving on hers. “You told me how you felt, honey, without saying a word. Your body said it all for you.”
“You’re so wonderful.” She rose on one elbow and gazed down at him. Big, hard and beautiful beyond words. A body thickly muscled. Long arms and legs sprinkled with curly black hair, a thick patch encircling his impressive manhood.
“You’re the one who’s wonderful.” He kissed her on the nose, then rolled them over to the edge of the bed.
She giggled and squirmed when he lifted her in his arms and stood, carrying her through the open bathroom door.
“What are you doing?”
she asked, clinging to him.
He eased her down the length of his body, then held her by her waist while he turned on the shower. “We’re both sweaty and smell of sex,” he told her. “We’re going to take a shower, then go back to bed and start all over again.”
True to his world, Rick lathered her with scented soap and washed her thoroughly, acquainting himself with every inch of her body. And when he completed his task, she returned the favor, finding great enjoyment in scrubbing him from head to toe. She lingered on the part of his body that fascinated her the most, giving it special attention. By the time they had dried each other, Rick’s hardness beckoned to her, tempting her beyond reason.
She led him back to her bed, and this time she took charge, teasing and tormenting him with her hands and tongue. She licked and sucked, coaxing his body, taking him to the very edge before retreating. When he couldn’t bear another minute of her torture, he lifted her up and over his body, and thrust upward into her welcoming heat.
Crying out with pleasure when he filled her, she straddled his hips and positioned herself like an equestrian preparing for the main event. He bucked up, plunging higher, asking her to take him completely. She accepted him, settling around him and leaning over just enough to offer him her breasts. And while she rode him hard and fast, pushing herself closer and closer to completion, he suckled her breasts and stroked her hips. Then, within seconds of each other, Lori Lee and Rick experienced the longest, hottest, most earth-shattering moments they’d ever known.
Keeping his earlier promise to take her every way a man can take a woman, Rick explored countless avenues of erotic pleasure, taking Lori Lee to places she’d never known existed—to heights he had never achieved with any other woman. For both of them, these were precious stolen hours of bliss. No past. No future. Only the wondrous, glorious present.
When dawn’s first light appeared in the eastern sky, Rick and Lori Lee cried out their pleasure one more time, then lay in each other’s arms, replete and totally spent. Tyke rested snugly on a small floral rug beside the bed.
“I should go,” Rick whispered against her breast.
“No.” She held him to her warm body.
“My old truck is parked in your driveway,” he told her. “People will know I’m here, and you don’t want that.”
“What if I told you I don’t care if the whole town knows you spent the night here with me?” She caressed the long, silky strands of his hair.
“I’d say you’re lying to yourself, honey.” He kissed one rosy nipple and smiled when he saw it pucker into a tight bud. “Besides, you’re still caught up in the aftereffects of a lot of great sex.”
Lori Lee yanked his hair, pulling his head up so that he faced her. “Are you saying this was a one-night affair? Or are you suggesting we sneak around and keep our relationship a secret?”
Pulling out of her grasp, Rick sat up in bed and grabbed her chin. “You know as well as I do that we can’t control this thing between us, so I suppose how we handle it is up to you. If you want to be lovers in private and little more than strangers in public, then I’ll swallow my pride and deal with it somehow.”
“I’m not quite ready to announce to the whole world that we’re lovers,” she admitted. “But I’m not ashamed of you—of us—if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just that we started our relationship off backward. We’ve become lovers before dating and becoming friends.”
“Are you saying you want us to date?” he asked.
“I know you don’t have a lot of spare time, but you and I and Darcie could do things together. That way you and I could get to know each other better, and you could still spend time with Darcie.”
“Just what do you have in mind?” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Taking my daughter to Disney movies and you and me making out in the dark theater?”
“I’m serious.” She jabbed him in the ribs. “I want you and Darcie to come to dinner on Sunday.” When she looked at him and saw him grinning at her, she slapped him playfully. “This all happened too fast, and I’m not sure of myself or my feelings. I want to back up a little and take things a little slower.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. As much as I wanted you, as many times I dreamed of becoming your lover, all this doesn’t seem quite real.” Cupping her face in his hands, he stared at her. “Don’t you think I know that I’m not good enough for you, that you could have your pick of men.”
She covered his lips with her fingertips. “Hush. Don’t talk crazy. I’m not the perfect woman you think I am. There are things about me—”
He kissed her, thoroughly yet tenderly. When he ended the kiss they were both breathless.
“Darcie and I will be here for Sunday dinner. You just tell me what time.”
“One o’clock.” She caressed his cheek, then let her fingers trail down his neck and onto his chest. “We’re going to date and get to know each other and see if there’s more to what we feel than sexual attraction. Agreed?”
“There’s something about this deal I’m not going to like, isn’t there?” he asked, shaking his head. “We’re not going to have sex for a while. That’s the catch, isn’t it?”
“As long as we’re having sex, how will we ever know if there’s more to our relationship?”
“Damn!”
“It will be just as difficult for me as it will be for you,” she said. “All the while you’ll be wanting me, I’ll be wanting you just as much.”
He grunted. “Believe me, honey, doing without is going to hurt a lot more than you think it is.” He flung the cover away from her naked body, reached out and flicked his nail across her nipple. Lori Lee cried out as pure sensual sensation shot through her. “See what I mean?”
“Uh-huh.” She shoved him down on his back, covered his body with hers and claimed his mouth in a tonguethrusting kiss.
When she allowed him to come up for air, she said, “We’ll date for six weeks, without having sex, and then we’ll decide where to go from there? Agreed?”
“Agreed. But I’m not happy about it.” He stroked her naked hip. “Are you too sore to take me again, honey? If you are, I’ll understand. But six weeks is a damn long time.”
“I’m pretty sore,” she admitted. “My body’s not used to marathon lovemaking sessions. But since I’ll have six weeks to recuperate—”
Rick needed no further inducement. He surged up and into her, wanting to brand her his forever.
By lunchtime, everyone who cared to listen to the latest gossip knew that Rick Warrick’s GMC pickup had been parked in Lori Lee Guy’s driveway from sometime after midnight until nearly seven o’clock that morning.
A steady stream of browsers entered the Sparkle and Shine shop, chatted with Aunt Birdie and inspected Lori Lee as if looking for some change in her appearance, then exited the building as they whispered to one another.
By the time the twentieth customer came and went without purchasing anything, Aunt Birdie flipped over the Closed sign and locked the front door. She planted her hands on her wide hips, pursed her lips and glared at her niece.
“I demand to know what’s going on! People who’ve never been in this store have dropped by today, and they’ve all been twittering around like idiots and looking you over from head to toe. It seems that everyone in town knows something I don’t know, and I won’t have it. Do you hear me? I won’t have it!”
“I suppose some of my neighbors saw a pickup truck parked in my driveway from around one last night until seven o’clock this morning.” Lori Lee looked her aunt square in the eye without flinching.
“An old, battered, blue GMC pickup truck?” Birdie asked, a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Yes.”
Birdie scurried behind the checkout counter and grasped Lori Lee’s hands. “You know that confession is good for the soul, don’t you, sugar?”
Nodding agreement, Lori Lee smiled. “I’m having an affair with Rick Warrick.”
Birdie squeezed Lori Lee’s h
ands tightly. “Well, glory be. It’s about time.”
“Aunt Birdie!”
“I know it’ll take your friends time to come around, to accept Rick, but once they realize what a fine man he is, they’ll change their minds about him. And you and I have enough money and clout in this community to help things along. I could give Rick the money to buy Bobo’s business as a wedding present for the two of you.” Birdie patted her hands together like a gleeful child.
“Calm down, Aunt Birdie. You misunderstood—”
Disregarding her niece’s attempt to explain the situation, Birdie rattled on and on. “This is all so wonderful. I’ve known all along, of course, that the two of you were meant for each other. And now, you’ll have that precious little Darcie for your very own. You will make the most beautiful bride, and Darcie can be your flower girl, and...oh, dear me, it’s already the middle of March. You are planning a June wedding, aren’t you? I don’t think I can pull together anything really spectacular before then.”
Lori Lee grabbed her aunt’s fluttering hands. “Rick and I aren’t getting married. We’re having an affair. Sort of. We’re going to date and see if there’s more to our relationship than great sex.”
“What more do you need?” Birdie raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
“I need to be in love before I marry a man,” Lori Lee said. “And I have to know that a man loves me enough to accept the fact that I can never have children.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you and Rick aren’t in love? Well, don’t bother. You’ll never convince me. You were in love with him when you were seventeen and he was mad about you.”
“Sexual attraction isn’t love,” Lori Lee said.
“Yes, well, maybe it isn’t, but sexual attraction is a good seventy-five percent of it, my girl. I should know. I’ve been in love half a dozen times in my life and I married five of those lovers.”
A Child of Her Own Page 12
