He jerked away from her probing tongue, feigning displeasure. But she would not be denied. She clutched two fistfuls of his hair and pulled him into the kiss. Her lips became insistent, her tongue impetuous, demanding to mate with his.
He refused and his refusal enflamed her.
She ran her hands across his chest, enjoying the feel of his steel-hard body through the bulky fabric of his sweater. Her hands lingered on his nipples, hard and pointy, and she knew that his pretend indifference was crumbling. She stroked the hollow of his stomach, then downward to the bulge between his legs. She gripped him.
Her tactic surprised him and he caught his breath at it. With difficulty, he maintained the pretence. But when her hand unbuckled his belt and he heard the metallic hiss of his zipper, he could not prevent a gasp from escaping his lips. She took advantage of her small victory and inserted her tongue. She plundered his mouth, leaving no haven unloved.
He yielded to the pressure of her hand on his chest, letting himself be pushed to the gauze curtains of the bedroom. Step by step, with each step accented by a kiss, he walked backwards until the canopied bed stopped his progress.
Obedient to her shove, he tumbled on his back, allowing her to crawl on top.
"Our roles should be reversed, considering the decor," he quipped. "I should be the masterful sheik and you the submissive slave-girl."
"Change is good."
"You're going to undress me?"
"That's my plan."
She suited action to words, pulling off one boot and then the other. Each fell with a careless thud. She paid little heed, intent on the next article of clothing. She seized his sweater, giving it an upward yank.
"Can I help?" he asked.
"No! I want to do this all by myself."
She gave the sweater another yank, succeeding this time in pulling it over his head. She threw it like a jettisoned Frisbee to land in a heap in the corner of the room.
Next, she struggled with the clinging corduroy of his pants, jerking it roughly over his hips until the zipper cut low, where his flat stomach blended into the coarse, hairy delta between his legs.
"Careful," he said, as he popped free. Long and free.
"Hush!"
She searched for his stiffness, finding it standing proud.
"It's amazing how it stands up like that," she mumbled, stroking the full length of him. She fingered the swollen tip. Drops of his pearly wetness flowed and she felt a similar rush of her juices.
"Enough! Finish it, sweetheart, finish it!" he shouted. His hips made pumping motions, obeying the command of his brain to mate.
"Lie still! No further until you stop moving."
She paused, listening. She found a sealed foil and ripped it. Keeping him aroused with her tongue, she rolled the condom down, delighting in every jerk of his cock. She flipped her body like an experienced courtesan, to land on his erection, taking him in one full, downward thrust. She impaled herself to the hilt.
"Damn!" He grunted the words between gritted teeth.
"Damn is right!" she gritted too, as she settled herself around him.
She placed her hands on either side of him and using the bed as leverage, she raised and lowered herself. She took the entire length of him in strong, sure, quick strokes, riding him, moving and quaking, her knees pressed taut against his waist. Her full breasts jiggled, as she rose and lowered herself, her fingers curling into his backside, her vulva thrusting against the short, frisky hairs at the root of his prick. She could hear the fiction, the scraping of flesh against flesh; she could feel the white, pearly essence of her coiled in her middle fly free to rush down the sides of her walls, drenching the bed beneath. She was bouncing, arching, and reaching the pinnacle, she collapsed-exhausted, depleted, sated-as he sought his fulfillment.
He tossed her on her back with such speed that she gasped from it, her body recoiling as he plunged down. He bracketed her thighs with his hands, his large, square hands, separating her, opening her, widening her until her legs were a perfect V. He dug in deep, deeper, pumping, pumping, the muscles in his firm ass flexing with each thrust. His head fell forward to find its rest in the soft swan of her neck. His entire body pressed her into the mattress, his long frame covering her, so close, so pasted, that their sweat married. He grabbed her ankles, pulling them around his waist, grunting when she moaned, when she burrowed her heels into his back, when she lifted her hips to welcome him anew. She screamed his name, causing him to bang into her with the fierceness of a mighty piston, screaming too as he fell, exhausted, depleted, sated.
They were a tangle of bodies in twisted sheets, so intertwined that there was no beginning and no ending. In the heavy, thick mist of the aftermath, he placed a kiss on her damp curls. They caressed, dream-like, as the final waves of passion receded.
"You called me sweetheart," she murmured. She glared at him, her bottom lip the classic pout. "I liked it. I love you, Drake Smith."
"Marry me, Alexis. Spend your life with me."
She went still, her body stiffening. Her hands fluttered like the gentle flapping of white doves, and she turned her head to bury her face in the hollow of her shoulder.
The silence grew between them, broken only by the ticking of the alarm clock.
"You know," Drake said offhandedly, as if he had not asked the most important question of his life. "When a man asks a woman to marry him, he usually gets an answer." He bunched the pillow behind his head, letting his arm rest there. The muscle in his upper arm flexed and flexed again, the only evidence of his unease.
"Alexis, I utterly refuse to talk to your hair, no matter how beautiful it is." He rubbed the rose-flecked strands, so like silk, between his fingers. He turned her over and tilted her face up to look at him. What he read in her violet eyes made his heart hammer against his rib cage.
"Hey, hey," he soothed. "I know that you're not ready to marry me yet. But I wanted you to know how I feel and where I want our relationship to go."
"I love you, I do," Alexis vowed. "Marriage? No ... out of the question."
"It can't be. I love you. You love me. We get married. Men and women have been doing it for centuries." He tried for a light touch. "Come on, make an honest man out of me."
"I'll be with you in any other way, but..."
"We've something very special. I don't want to lose it."
"I can't marry you," she said, her voice a whisper. "I couldn't do that to you."
"What are you saying? Do what to me?"
"I can't marry you ... because I may die."
Chapter 8
On this mid-week evening, the Silver Dollar Casino was deserted, except for a smattering of couples and the usual drunks and regulars. Business was so slow that a few of the backroom girls had wandered out, bored or hunting for prey. Jessie Dane, the ever-efficient madam, had already picked up the receipts for the night and was in her office, working on her accounts.
The last customers left, but Drake did not leave with them. Instead, he hunched further over a table in the dark corner of the lounge, not ceasing the contemplation of his drink. He was oblivious to everyone and everything, except the bottle at his elbow and the Chivas Regal in his glass. He searched for answers there. As if by the power of suggestion, the whiskey swirled, changing into gloomy shadows that suited his mood to perfection.
He swallowed the rest of his drink, giving the impression of a man who had swallowed a few too many. But he was quite sober. He was not at the Silver Dollar to drown his sorrows, but to get a final glimpse of Alexis before she caught her plane and flew off to her death.
Drake did not cease the contemplation of his now empty glass when Ted Peterson sauntered over, tray in hand. Standing in front of Drake's table, the bartender assumed a stance that he thought commanded respect.
"What's the matter?" Ted asked, dropping the tray on the table with a resounding clang. "Trouble in paradise? Oh, that's right. Your honey's getting herself fixed tonight."
Drake looked up. He pour
ed himself another drink and took a gulp, letting the liquor roll around on his tongue. With silent, yet speaking eyes, he looked Ted over.
"You won't hold on to a chick like Cash," Ted said, taking the bait. "Once she gets herself fixed, she'll see the handwriting on the wall. You'll be history. She'll move on to the next man, someone just as rich but younger, a high performance stud who'll keep her coming, give it to her rough, right up the ass. Hey! Is your son busy?"
He laughed, his laughter nasty and cruel, as he turned away. In his amusement, he did not see the fury leap into Drake's eyes, but he felt it when Drake's five fingers, more like twisted tendons of iron than of flesh, wrapped themselves around his throat.
Drake squeezed tight, cutting off Ted's air, making him gasp for breath. He increased the pressure until Ted's eyes popped, until Ted fought the dark edge of unconsciousness. Before the darkness overtook him, Ted felt his feet leave the safety of the carpet and felt cloudy water seep from his eyes. His life flashed before him. He knew death. In the very last seconds of his life, he was released to fall in slow motion to the floor, to rest there, too tired, too defeated, to do anything more than to clutch at his windpipe and to bellow his depleted lungs.
Drake wiped the sudden perspiration from his temple. The heavy, gold signet ring on the fifth finger of his left hand flashed with evil intent.
"Get up!" Drake ordered, kicking Ted's leg.
Ted staggered to his feet, taking more time rising than Drake thought necessary, for Drake helped him with a sharp elbow to the ribs. From the impact, Ted swayed but found his footing. He heard Drake's voice as if from a distance.
"I owed you that, Peterson," Drake said, grabbing Ted's shirtfront. He backed Ted up, jacking him up against the lounge wall. "Pay attention 'cause I intend to say this once. Don't ever let my woman's name come out of your mouth again. Don't even think about her, and if you see her on the sidewalk, you cross the street and you walk the other way."
Drake punctuated his order by slamming Ted against the wall and then let him slide to the floor. He stepped around Ted's crumpled body to return to the table. There, he reached for the Scotch bottle and tossed down a slug. The liquor burned through him, from his fingertips to the pit of his gut, calming him. No one looking at him would have believed that he had almost committed a murder.
But Ted Peterson knew that only Drake's forbearance had let him cheat death. This knowledge was strangely liberating. Ted's feet no longer felt like lead weights; his eyes were no longer foggy and unfocused. He shuffled to the bar to splash cold water on his face. Looking in the glass over the counter, he straightened his collar, noticing as he did so, the purplish palm print at his windpipe.
Drake leaned his head against the cushions of the booth, his eyes shuttered to slits of blue light. The rage that he just felt made him think of his foster son, Johnny, and those days in Saudi Arabia. Though Drake would never hurt Alexis-as Johnny had hurt women and children in the name of patriotism-he had been sorely tempted to shake some sense into his woman.
"I can't marry you ... because I may die."
Her words returned to him, plunging his thoughts back to that evening.
* * * *
"What are you talking about?" he had asked. "Retinitis pigmentosa isn't fatal."
"This doesn't have anything to do with RP," Alexis said. "That's not true. It does, sort of, but then it doesn't. I don't know where to start... I can't explain it if you're going to scowl."
"I'm not scowling, but I want an answer."
"Yes, you are. Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I don't know when your face gets that rugged, lined I plan to kick ass look-a look that I love by the way."
"Don't deflect, Alexis," Drake said, with a wag of his finger. "It won't work with me. Explain!"
"I'm going to. Give me a second. Jeez. There's no need to yell."
Drake bit back the acerbic response on the tip of his tongue. In his opinion, yelling was perfectly acceptable given the circumstances.
"Get dressed," she said, reaching for her robe. "I'll fix us a snack."
Drake sensed that she was stalling and threw on his clothes. Within seconds, he was standing in the entrance to her walk-in kitchen. He watched her place crusty French bread and slices of Gouda on a serving tray and opened a bottle of wine. To him, she seemed to dawdle over every action. He took the tray from her hands and led the way to the living room. He waited, as tense as an arrow in a bow, for her to begin. When she picked at her bread, he set his wine glass down with a snap.
"Okay. Talk. What's going on? Good God," he added when she rushed into his chest and circled her arms around his waist. Like a child with a plush toy, she snuggled her nose in the soft fabric of his sweater.
"Tell me," he coaxed. He ran his hand along her shoulder to lock her to his heart.
Her hair fell forward, shading her face. She bit her lip, pausing, and when she spoke, her voice was flat and faraway.
"It all started long before I came to Nevada, when I was working at Seung-Tell International. I heard about RIC, the Retinal Implant Center. Of course, I knew about the research underway, but a marketable implant wasn't expected for another ten years. RIC, however, seemed to be making breakthrough after breakthrough."
"Wait. I don't understand," Drake interrupted. "Are you saying that this RIC has found a cure for RP?"
"No, there's no cure. RIC has developed experimental surgery..."
"Surgery. Experimental surgery..."
* * * *
"You just gonna sit there, staring into that shot glass," Jessie Dane said. She stood before Drake's table with her head thrown back and her broad feet far apart. "Or are you going to stop Cash from making the biggest mistake of her life?"
"What do you expect me to do?" Drake asked, slowly pouring himself another drink. He trickled the dark liquid into his glass, upending the bottle until the final drops plopped out.
"So you're giving up."
"Jessie," he said, slapping the bottle on the table. "Alexis told me it's her body. It's her choice. Unless I lock her in her townhouse, there's nothing I can do."
"You're not gonna fix it by sitting there," Jessie snapped.
"What do you expect me to do?"
"Talk to her. Make her listen."
"I have tried. Tried! TRIED! I gave up. Okay, I give up. I couldn't convince the woman who claims to love me not to kill herself."
Drake knew that his statement was not an exaggeration. Deep down inside, he was certain, call it a frightening hunch, that Alexis would not survive the surgery.
He shook his head in disbelief. He had never felt so helpless or so frustrated. He had used every argument, but nothing had swayed her. In the end, he had wished that he were a desperado of the 1890's. That he could kidnap his woman, tie her up, force her to do what he wanted.
"You can choke my bartender. Yeah, I saw you."
"No kidding."
"What time's her plane?"
"Soon. I don't know."
"Damn it, Drake! Do something!"
"I'm a gentleman or, at least, I have the trappings of one. Gentlemen support the decisions of their ladies. Alexis chose this surgery over me, over us, over my love. There's not a damn thing that I can do about it." At those words, he felt a primal urge to track his woman down, to bend her to his will, to break her if necessary. To kiss her until she was so overcome with passion that no thought of defying his wishes would ever enter her head.
Jessie opened her mouth, a scathing retort on the tip of her tongue, but Drake brought the palm of his hand down so hard on the table that the Scotch bottle jumped.
"I can't push any harder," he said. "I would be pushing her away. I can't do that. It hurts too much. It all just hurts. I hurt." He swallowed hard. His next words came out through clenched teeth; low words, spoken so softly that Jessie had to strain to hear them. "It hurts to know that she doesn't love me as much as I love her."
He slumped into the leather cushions of the booth. There, he had admitted it. W
hen the ultimate decision was made, she had chosen to risk her life on the slight possibility of sight over an unseeing life with him and his love. In some ways, her choice baffled him, for short of restoring her sight, which was beyond his power, he would have done anything to make her happy.
Jessie glared at Drake with brown eyes that held no sympathy. Just then, one of her backroom girls walked by the table. Jessie's next act was not considered and was not done for drama. It was mere reflex. She snatched the Perrier bottle from the girl's hand, shook up it, and dashed it-full-in Drake's face. She turned sharply on her heel, so sharply that she didn't see him wipe the water from his cheek or flick the droplets from his shirt.
"Men and their pride! Their stupid, pathetic pride!" she said, storming back to her office. Once there, she reached for her car keys and checked her watch. She knew that traffic would be light at this time of the night, but it was still a forty-minute drive to the airport. She found her purse, making sure that she had cash and credit cards.
Walking to the closet, she quickly changed her shoes and grabbed her coat. As she shut the closet door, she heard the tapping of Alexis' cane.
"Jessie, are you there?" Alexis asked.
"Yeah," Jessie said, throwing her purse and coat on the desk. She twirled the executive chair and sat down with a flounce. She kicked off her pumps, propped her stocking feet up on the desk, and waited while Alexis navigated the doorway.
"I just popped in to say goodbye," Alexis said, standing there. She folded her cane shut and held it in a tight grip. "I'm heading out to Denver."
"Ah-huh."
"I couldn't go without thanking you."
"Ah-huh."
"You've been a peach from the moment I arrived."
"Ahhh-huh."
"So ... thank ... you," Alexis stammered, unnerved by Jessie's coldness.
Romantic Days, Romantic Nights Page 17
