With the lights out and the drapes pushed aside a small crack, she peeked out. Gulliver’s bedroom swam in bright light. A smile crossed her lips when she saw his window wide open. If she screamed, he’d break all his bones crashing through her window with it shut and latched. Just in case, she flipped the catch undone so he could get the window open.
Kacy walked to the bathroom. She picked up the bottle of Valium. Nothing would keep the nightmares away if the devil wanted to harass her. One small pill hardly appeared capable of giving her a tranquil sleep. She wondered if it would keep the storm trapped inside her head. What happened to the note in her house? Where did the ski mask come from at the drycleaner’s? She stared at the pill and decided she’d push away the questions on her own.
Tomorrow things would be clearer and she’d try to solve the mysteries then.
* * *
Kacy had lain in bed for hours thinking about the things she couldn’t solve. Then, before the sun had come up, she played a game of what-if. What if Gulliver didn’t really care for her and she made a bigger fool of herself? Like some doctor’s patient, what if she confused gratitude with love and ended up humiliating herself? What if all Gulliver’s protectiveness wasn’t enough and her attacker got to her?
Kacy finally got up to answer the ringing phone. She cradled it to her shoulder while pulling on her clothes. “Hello.”
“Am I allowed to come over after work?” Gulliver asked.
“Yes.”
“If you need me you can—”
“I have your number,” she reminded him. “Believe me, Gulliver, I’ll not hesitate to call you or the whole army. I have been known to go to all extremes.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to go all day thinking I should call you.”
A squeak of disappointment eked out. Had she pushed him away too far?
“I mean, too often. I will be calling you every chance I get.”
She liked the casualness of his tone, as if it were an everyday thing he suggested, but she didn’t really believe he’d call her as often as he claimed.
“I’m going shopping, so don’t even try until after noon.”
A silence deadened the conversation. She knew what he thought. She got a warm, tingling sensation from Gulliver without him even in her house. Only magic could describe the way he noticed her unspoken feelings.
“I’ll be all right, Gulliver.” She broke the silence as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“You know, I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he commented and the moment of seriousness passed. “All I wanted was to knock on your door at three this morning and crawl in bed with you.”
Kacy flopped back onto the pillow. Her face ached with a smile. His voice enchanted her soul.
“Just tell me I get another chance.”
“You come for dinner after work and you’ll find out then,” she teased, and laughed again at his exaggerated groan.
“I’ll be there. Bye.”
“Bye.” Kacy bit the inside of her lip and held the receiver next to her ear until she heard the dial tone.
She put the phone on the nightstand and jumped up from the bed. Stretching her toes and curling them into the carpet, she reached her arms high above her head. She hadn’t thought of going shopping until Gulliver suggested he might call often. She couldn’t keep living the stale existence she had before him. Before they met, every morning consisted of the same routine—a few errands and a telephone conversation with her sister. She had nothing meaningful to fill her lonely hours, and now she couldn’t expect Gulliver to be a substitute.
With coffee, the newspaper from the front porch and inspiration, Kacy sat studying the employment section. Everyone she knew had a job. The time had come for her to stiffen up her backbone and face life. She’d find a way to work around her mind-warping handicap.
* * *
Kacy filled the day with chores she had long put on hold. She took the initiative and called Gulliver first, asking if he could meet her for lunch. Unfortunately, he was tied up at work and promised to be home early for dinner. She loved the idea of having a home with him.
Later, when she heard his car pull into the driveway, she practically ran out of the house to meet him. As it was, she had the door open just as he made it up to her porch.
“Hi,” he said, a little out of breath.
“Hi,” she answered, with the same hurried excitement.
He touched her cheek and let his fingers glide beneath her jaw to stroke soothingly at her neck. She shivered in anticipation of his kiss.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“It was rather good.” She smiled serenely, feeling the tenderness of his seductive gaze warm her extremities.
“No bad moments?”
“None.” She leaned from his touch, hoping it might venture downward.
“Huh, and here I was all ready to make you forget every awful second you went through.” He displayed a well-formed pout.
“I’ll still let you practice your miracles.”
“Good, because I don’t think I’m ready to give up my hold on you.”
“Me neither.” She moved in against him, encircling his waist with her arms. Tilting her head back, she looked into his eyes. “I haven’t been this happy in a very long time.”
“That goes for me too.” He slid his fingers, as light as a butterfly, along her collarbone.
Gulliver’s kisses traveled up her chin, rounded the end and landed on her mouth. He devoured her with the same hunger she felt for him. She knotted her embrace behind his back and clawed his jacket to bring him closer, even though he already held her like a second skin.
“What time is that party?” He sucked on her earlobe.
Her breath stuttered. “Four, but we…can…be…late.”
Gulliver, strong and capable, scooped her up and cradled her against him. His mouth sweetly promised everything she wanted to follow from his kiss. He walked down the hall into her room and lowered her to the bed with a gentle bounce that repeated when he dropped his weight alongside her.
“I missed you,” he whispered, within the inch their lips parted. “I thought of nothing else besides you today.”
“I don’t believe you.” She giggled as his warm hands brushed open her blouse.
She didn’t even know the buttons were undone.
Gulliver lifted his head. He had a sad look and the expression was wrong—lovemaking should be completely happy. She gripped his jacket and pushed it over his broad shoulders. He helped by shrugging one arm and then the other free. Kacy kissed him harder, wanting nothing more than to help him erase whatever lingered in his thoughts.
She swirled a finger through the hair on his chest and followed the shallow outline of his stomach muscles. Dragging her lips over his delicious skin, she stayed on the path. When she reached the waistband of his trousers, she sat up.
“Have you decided whether you’re keeping them on or taking them off?” She rubbed over the front of his pants.
She laughed as he fell off the bed in a rush to remove them. In so many ways, they acted like teenagers obsessed with the novelty of sex.
Gulliver returned to the bed and examined her bare skin. He petted and stroked each of her breasts until he teased her nipples to hard peaks. Burnished pink, they ached for his lips. His vigorous kisses, however, he planted on her face while his thumb and forefinger dexterously rolled her nipples. Every inch of her skin came alive. His tongue whipped over her flesh, flickering at the slight curve to her belly, sending shivers up her back. Effortlessly, his mouth suckled her most sensitive areas. Kacy squirmed with delight.
The path Gulliver ventured led exactly where she hoped.
“Oh God,” she groaned.
He mouthed her pussy with long, sensuous kisses, his hot breath riding into her, making her squirm. His tongue snaked around every crease of flesh, circling her clit without touching. The stimulation, slow and teasing, drew her hips up to him.
His actions com
pelled her to beg him to stop, then plead for him to continue.
“You taste good,” he said, licking the fissure. “Open wider, Kacy and let me eat you.”
She stiffened at the phrase. It triggered a bad memory. She knew something would, eventually. She’d told Gulliver she hadn’t been raped, but she had always wondered if this form of sexual abuse counted.
Either Gulliver sensed her withdrawal or he felt the tension in her legs. He rose over her and started from the beginning, slowly repeating his seduction, the tender, engaging kisses that made her only think of him.
He worked his way down and she eagerly spread her legs. He probed with his tongue along the outer region of her aching center. A soft moan escaped the instant he licked between the inner lips and reached her twitching slit.
Repeatedly, he thrust and suckled until she couldn’t control her limbs. Unconsciously she tried to clamp her legs together. Her knees squeezed Gulliver’s head and forced him tighter into her pussy. He didn’t seem to mind and managed to restrain the pressure by wrapping his arms around her thighs.
“Gulliver,” she gasped, frenzied by the sensation of a million nerve endings in her clit tingling.
She drove her fingers into his hair and tugged when the intense climax peaked. Trembling with her orgasm, she took deep breaths.
He sat up and rubbed a hand over her belly, along her hip, and tickled her into rolling over.
She didn’t question his positioning of her bottom. He held her waist and pulled her up on her knees. The hardness of his cock rubbed through the valley of her ass, deep into the moistened channel of her cunt.
“Relax honey, I’d never hurt you.” He kissed her shoulder blades.
Kacy didn’t need that assurance. She felt it in her heart.
The small edge of panic subsided while he gently impaled her from behind. Reaching a hand around her hip, his fingers played with her sensitive and throbbing clit. The hair around the base of his shaft brushed her bottom each time he jerked his solid hips against her.
Gulliver’s voice deepened with groans.
Three times, he brought her to a beautiful climax.
Three times, she started to sob.
Three times, she gripped his arm around her belly and wouldn’t let him stop because of her fretful cry.
His tenderness forced away the bad memories and she needed that. Love had a healing power she clung to with every fiber of her soul.
When he finished, Gulliver flipped her over.
“You should have told me,” he said sadly.
“Told you what?”
“Everything. I had a suspicion last night, but now I’m sure you’re holding back something from me.”
Kacy swallowed nervously.
“Was it something I said, or something he did?”
She bit her top lip, unable to speak.
He lowered over her, as if he was doing a push-up, except he swooped down with a sticky kiss to her mouth.
“Kacy, you said he didn’t rape you.”
She nodded her head in agreement.
“He still violated you in some way, though, didn’t he?”
She gave another small nod and turned her head away. Gulliver was the first to know what she hadn’t ever told the police.
“Are you all right?” He shifted to the side of her.
“I don’t want to remember it, Gulliver. I don’t want anything to interfere with how happy I am with you.”
“Honey, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but without knowing, I hate blundering into doing or saying things that trigger those memories. If you could tell me…”
“I can’t give you details.”
He gathered her in his arms and said nothing more about her trauma. His steady stream of kisses assured her everything was all right between them.
* * *
The bedroom had been Kacy’s haven, her prison, her only reality. With Gulliver, it took on a new meaning. The scent of him and their encounter hung over the bed as if it were a willful cloud of passion ready to burst. Kacy lay in the crook of Gulliver’s arm, dreaming up ways to tell him her feelings.
“We should get dressed and get to that party.” He rubbed at her arm over his chest.
She swirled her fingers in the dark hair and skated them up to the dip at the base of his throat.
“That would be the normal thing to do.” She sat up.
He gave her a wicked smile for a response, and she seriously considered not going. His knuckles tickled the tip of her breast, stirring all her desires. He didn’t need to convince her they should stay in bed. He sat up, clamped a hand behind her head and kissed her deeply. She crowded to him until her aching nipples pressed flat to his hard chest.
“We make an appearance and then we come home early.” He held her chin while still kissing her lips. “Then we won’t feel guilty for standing up Andy.”
“I don’t think he’ll miss us.” She pushed Gulliver back down on the pillow and hovered over him.
“I know enough about kids to figure he’ll miss the shortage of presents.” He grabbed her waist and rolled her over to her back. “Though, I don’t think ten more minutes should matter.”
“I agree,” she panted.
He claimed her lips with a feral lust. He expertly moved over her and they came together with a clash of bodies. Hips met hips and he ground his hardness deep into her. She never thought there could be a day she’d like a man taking charge of doing things to her body, but she shuddered against him in response. He dragged himself up and plunged into her. Her ankles crossed and locked over his buttocks. Finally, the stabs he took at a sweet spot within her core awakened all her pores. Perspiration glistened on her skin and on his. Their locked bodies undulated in union like a turbulent sea.
Faster and harder, their movements tossed them about on the mattress. Gulliver’s mouth froze against her cheek. His vocal cords strained with an emotional roar that capped her cry of elation. She struggled to hide the salty sting of tears as she squeezed her eyes shut tight. He had forced her to love him. He did everything so right, it was hard to consider anything between them as business or casual.
“Kacy?” his concerned voice questioned her tears.
“It’s nothing.” She kissed him.
“Honey, I asked you not to shut me out.”
“I’m not. I just haven’t been this happy in a long time.”
“Hummm, I don’t think I ever have.” He kissed her lightly and then held her. “I don’t think anybody has ever been as happy as I am right this minute.”
Chapter Sixteen
In each mirror Kacy passed in her sister’s house, she saw the glow in her face. To her it represented the love in her life. To her sister, it was quite basic.
“You’re late, and if I’m reading right, you and tall, dark and handsome in there were getting it on before you came here.” Ginny poked candles into the blue and yellow cake.
Kacy took a quick glimpse toward the closed kitchen door. She and her sister were alone. They were close. Everything in her wanted to describe in detail her experience with Gulliver. Yet she also wanted to keep it private. She and her sister lived under extremely different sets of circumstances where men were concerned. Kacy’s two-year sabbatical from men had changed her.
“I’m not going to discuss this with you.” Kacy smiled, scooping ice cream onto brightly colored paper plates.
“What’s to discuss? Is he good in bed or not? Although there couldn’t be a more evident answer than that expression on your face every time you look at him. I just want to hear it from you.”
“Ginny.” She took a breath, afraid if she admitted her feelings, it would destroy the dream.
“Yes or no is a short conversation without details. Does he make you happy?”
“Yes.”
“And the sex, is it out of this world?” her sister pressed.
“Yes.”
“I knew it. I could tell just looking at his body language. A man who walks aro
und confidently like that is always good in bed.”
“Ginny, someone might hear you. Could we please change the topic?”
“Is he as hard all over as he appears from the contours straining the fabric of his T-shirt?”
“You’re impossible.” Kacy grinned and turned her head. “Harder,” she whispered, and pushed the kitchen door with her bottom to go into the dining room.
“Whoops.” Allen grabbed her waist to steady her. “This doorway wasn’t made for two-way traffic.”
“No it wasn’t.” Kacy laughed.
Allen’s hands fell away and she walked to the table, feeling something oddly different. She hadn’t jumped out of her skin when he touched her. It felt good not be as jumpy as she once was. She searched the guests in the den until her gaze locked with Gulliver’s. Smiling, she laughed to see him trapped into playing a video game. The new ones she brought sat in the stack of presents on the dining room buffet. And because Gulliver had paid for them, she’d had him sign the card with her.
“Everyone, time to cut the cake,” she called.
“It’s about time.” Gulliver walked up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I thought you promised not to let me get roped into one of those games.”
“Well, Mr. Knight, I believe I owe you a few fibs.”
“It’s payback, huh?” He kissed her cheek and whispered, “I’m hungry.”
Kacy was just as famished and food would never cure her cravings.
Ginny came in carrying the cake and began to sing “Happy Birthday”. Everybody joined in and soon it was cut and served.
“This is good.” Gulliver offered a bite to Kacy while she sat perched on his lap. “I don’t think this came from the freezer.”
“No, my sister is a good cook. You won’t find Sara Lee in her house.”
The evening was long. Kids were passed out on the floor, the beds, and wherever their heads landed. Gulliver and Allen talked at length several times. Kacy didn’t pry. However, she eventually learned why Allen’s wife had not come. She’d heard rumors they were having trouble in their marriage.
A Desperate Longing Page 16
