by Luanne Jones
He laughed, then leaned forward, his hand still holding her face. He kissed her first on the corner of her mouth. Then, lightly, just on her lower lip. His face to hers, he let out a low, satisfied growling sigh and moved his body over hers. At last he kissed her full and hard, holding back nothing.
Somehow dull, plain Rita found the courage to touch this man’s body. To feel and familiarize herself with every plane, every shallow, with the mass of his muscles and the textures of his skin. She sought what made him groan with pleasure and what made his pulse quicken as they explored and enjoyed each other.
She only tensed once, when he whisked the gown from her lower body and she lay there revealed and vulnerable.
“You are amazing…amazing,” he whispered.
She let her breath out and reached for the waistband of his boxers. She tugged them downward until he sprang out, thick and heavy and ready to find his way inside her. “Let me return the compliment.”
He nudged his knees between hers.
She gasped.
“Goddess thighs.” He spread his hand high on the inside of her leg. “I knew they would be.”
“Will…”
“Shhh.”
She wet her lips, shut her eyes, and waited.
His weight came over her.
The mattress creaked.
His coarse hair chafed against her legs, stomach and breasts, teasing her with the promise of what would follow. He licked the shell of her ear before whispering, “Now?”
“Now!” The tenderness in her plea surprised her. Had it sounded too desperate?
No. She wanted this. She had wanted it—this act, this sensation, this man for a long time. For once in her life she had gone after what she wanted, and she would not talk herself out of relishing every moment.
“Now,” she moaned. “Please, yes. Give it all to me, give me everything—just for now.”
He groaned and in that split second joined them.
She raised her hips to take him in, all of him, holding back nothing of herself. “Oh, yes. Yes.”
He grunted, moving into her faster, deeper as she urged him on.
“Give it to me. All of you, all of you.” Every thrust pushed her farther until finally she let go of every inhibition, every doubt and indecision and surrendered to the man and the marvel of the one fleeting moment.
“Oh, darling, I can’t hold back any longer.” Braced on his elbows above her, he bent to press his face to her neck.
“Don’t. Just let go. Let go. You’re safe inside of me,” she said against his temple.
He cried out her name, then primal, powerful sounds replaced words, and he drove deep into her one last time, then went quiet.
She had made love with Wild Billy—made love, not just bumped uglies in the night to stave off loneliness and lust. He had been so careful—so caring. What did that mean? Had he acted out of pity or…
Not tonight. She would not talk herself down from this high. She would not analyze or worry. She would not try to forecast the future or build walls and dams to guard against what tomorrow might bring. Tomorrow Will would go home. She would have plenty of time then for rehashing her every mistake.
His breathing still labored, Will lay atop her, spent. “What now?”
She ran her fingers through his hair and cocked her head to meet his gaze. “Well, there’s always cake.”
His laughter shook the rickety rollaway. He rolled away and stretching out alongside her, enveloped her in his arms. “You truly are amazing, Rita. Amazing.”
“Where…” Rita scrunched her eyes shut against the shaft of sunlight aimed right onto her face. That wasn’t right. She always slept with her back to the window.
Two months in this tiny apartment and not once had the sun awakened her. She was an alarm-clock kind of gal. Set it faithfully each and every night of her life. Every morning of her life, her eyes popped open five full minutes before the thing went off and she hopped out of bed to face…
“Will.” His whispered name hummed on her lips.
Light came streaming in through the gaps in the torn curtains and around the painted pig she despised but Pernel had insisted putting on the door. She had to get out of here before Will woke up. She held her breath to keep the bed from squeaking and lifted the sheet.
“Good morning, Rita.”
“It is morning, isn’t it?” Morning and what they had shared was over.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for my whole brain this morning.”
His fingers skimmed along the exposed skin of her back. “Was it that bad?”
She shut her eyes. “It was that good. I can hardly think today.”
“Excellent.”
“Far from it.” She pushed his hand away. “I have to think today. Your part in all this may be over, but mine has just begun.”
“My part doesn’t have to be over.” He kissed her shoulder.
She wrestled with the covers until she got them almost under her chin. “Let’s just leave it at one special night.”
“Why? Why only share one night when we could have the summer?”
“Summer? What are you talking about?”
“There’s a lot of work here.” He edged the sheet lower on her back. “You know how we discussed having to do as much as possible by yourself and with the help of friends.”
“With the help of friends, yes. Cozie will pitch in, no problem. Her husband, Mouse, too.”
“Cozette’s husband’s name is Mouse?”
“Not his legal name, no. That’s a nickname left over from his hippie commune days.”
“I of all people know how a nickname can haunt you, no matter how hard you strive to get shed of it.”
“I don’t know that he ever tried to get shed of it or felt…haunted by it.” Haunted? She really wanted to ask him to explain but wanted to get out of this current situation more. “Ridiculous nickname or not, he’ll be here and work till the cows come home.”
“So far you’ve got Cozie, Mouse, and the cows. Not much of a crew.”
“Well, I have two hands.”
He fit himself close behind her, reached over and took her fingers in his. “And they are lovely, magical hands, but can they wrap themselves around a hammer and drive a nail home?”
“You tell me.”
He laughed.
“So my contribution will mostly be in the food supply end of the business. I’ve still got Jillie, and even Pernel might come around if he thinks it could give him a chance to put his two cents’ worth in on how it’s done.”
“I can see the pair of them now. Tightening screws with fingernail files, using fake boobs for counterbalances, hissing and spitting at one another like rivals in a 1950s bad-girl lockup movie.”
“Don’t be tacky.”
“How could I be anything but tacky talking about that pair?”
She cocked her head. “Pernel’s pair?”
“My sister and your ex-husband.”
“Oh, right. Right.” She sighed. His nearness created far too big a distraction. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Rita, you don’t have to beg at all. You’ve got a first-rate carpenter who is right now looking for a reason to find his way back in town now and again until the job is done.” He cupped her breast, his breath warming the back of her neck.
She rolled onto her back but did not quite focus her gaze in his. “Are you suggesting working something out in trade?”
“No! No, I…” The hollows of his cheeks went red as he must have realized how he had sounded. “I have a light schedule right now. I could clear it with a few phone calls and stay, if you want me to, Rita.”
“Stay?”
“Just until the work is done. A month, six weeks at the most.”
“And then what?” He was asking too much and too little of her in the very same proposition.
“And then the summer will be over.”
“Right.” Wh
at had she expected? The man wouldn’t hang around longer than a weekend for his own family. He’d had one long-term relationship in his life that lasted longer than a football season, including playoffs and a bowl game. He hadn’t even made himself available for his own baby until it was almost too late. What made her think he’d change for her? “Go back to Memphis, Will. There’s nothing for you here.”
“Rita…”
“We’d better get moving. Never know who might happen by and peek in the Palace window.”
“They’d get an eyeful for sure.”
She let her breath out all at once. “They’d get an eyeful, then I’d get an earful of advice, a few lectures on decorum, and more than one attagirl for finally doing something worthy of my bloodline.”
“How do you stand all those people mixing into your life?”
“It’s just the way it is.” She flicked a strand of hair from her eyes and shook her head. “You know that. Life in a small town. Everybody being in your business is the trade-off for everybody being there for you when you need them.”
“I just can’t stand that they might say things to hurt you.”
“Hurt me? How can they hurt me? They love me.”
“People who love you are the very ones who can hurt you the most.”
“Isn’t that a song?”
“You know what I mean, Rita. You know.”
“Anyway, I can’t fathom they’d do much bad-mouthing of me over this—on account of my ‘situation.’”
“Situation? That’s funny euphemism for ex-husband.”
“Ex-husband? No, my dear, the situation I mean is a girl like me having the once-in-a-life-time shot at waking up buck nekkid in bed with a man like you.” She raised the sheet to peek beneath. “They’d call me a fool and worse if I’d let that pass me by.”
“Well, you couldn’t, could you?”
“Because you’re so damned irresistible?”
“Because you had to grab your taste of heaven while you could.”
She laid her hand on his stubbled cheek. “There is that.”
“Funny, huh?”
“Funny ha-ha or funny like The Twilight Zone?”
“Somewhere in the middle.”
“My favorite place to be.” She smiled.
“I came here to work with you thinking some little part of what’s special and good about you might rub off on me.”
“Well, if it didn’t, that’s not my fault, I did some of my very best ‘part rubbing’ for you last night.”
“For which my parts are mighty grateful.”
“Especially those swollen, throbbing, thrusting parts of you?” She raised her eyebrows. “Right?”
“Do you kiss your mama with that mouth?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t see my mama. I haven’t for years.”
He only nodded in acknowledgment of her situation.
Rita sighed and patted his cheek. “Maybe now would be a good time to tell me about that in-the-middle-funny thing.”
“The thing is, I came here to do something good.”
“Help me make plans for the remodeling.”
“Yes. But I also thought I’d get something good. I didn’t know I would give something good—or that maybe you’d take it.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Long time ago you took me to task because you thought I should be more like you—to stick by people, to invest myself in them.”
“I still think that.”
“Ah, but you also have learned to let go. Today when you told me to go back to Memphis I knew a little bit of me had been left with you.”
“We took precautions against that happening, remember?”
“Make a joke, Rita, but you know what I mean. These last few days together, they’ve changed you as much as they changed me.”
“Have they changed you, Will? Really?”
He didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
“Maybe I can let you go because that’s the only way I can get my life back. Did you ever think of that?”
He started to shake his head, then stopped and just went on gazing into her eyes.
She slid her hand down his cheek until only her fingertips rested on his jaw. “You have thrown things out of kilter since you showed up in my kitchen that morning. Now it’s time to set them right again.”
“I hate the idea of leaving you here to deal with the meddlers, busybodies—and people betting on when you’ll up and start acting like your mother—on your own.”
She wanted to believe he meant it. If he did, then he had changed. He had made a connection and felt responsible. She did not dare think it would make him long to settle in and put down roots, but she couldn’t help hoping it would make walking away a little harder this time. And next time…
Next time it would be another woman, another bed where he hesitated and perhaps finally decided to stay.
“Never you mind what folks will say. They’ve always been generous with pieces of their minds.”
“That certainly explains a lot of the half-witted behavior around here.”
“Besides, all things considered, my status in town may well rise a notch or two.”
“How so?”
“Did you hear that our Rita got herself bedded by a certain handsome gentleman caller from Memphis?” She put on a nasal twang, animating her gestures to play up her performance.
He chuckled, just barely.
“None other than you know who. She said he’d come to town to take some measurements and give her a ‘consultation.’” She made the quotation marks in the air though no one in Hellon would have used the affectation. They’d prefer instead to hit each syllable of the word hard, eyebrows arched and lips pinched white to convey any underlying—and unsympathetic—meaning. “I’ll tell you what—reckon that ain’t all he did.”
He laughed outright.
She touched his chin. “I could survive that I think.”
“You ought to flaunt it. Have some fun with it. Show them you don’t give a Yankee dime about their gossip.”
“What? You mean put a plaque on this spot? Local hero slept here?”
“Slept?” He nuzzled her neck. “That hardly tells the tale. I did a hell of a lot more than that.”
“I’m not writing everything you did here on a plaque.” She pulled away. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin to describe some of it!”
“You would need a lot of damn big words, maybe even have to make some up.”
“Are you flattering yourself?”
“Am I?” He commanded her gaze to meet his.
Meeting his eyes, she recalled his every touch, kiss, the warmth and wit and the very wildness of him.
She swore she felt a blush work over the length of her whole nude body. “No.”
“Besides, why limit your marketing possibilities to this one space? I also used the rest room.”
“Maybe we could rename that the William West Junior Memorial Reading Room.”
“You can, but you’d be honoring my grandfather, then, not me. I’m a third.”
“Shame you’re not a fifth, we’d keep a liquor bottle behind the cash register with your picture on it.”
“Given my reputation around here folks’d just think it was a saloon keeper’s version of the face on the milk carton.”
“How about I come up with a whole new menu to commemorate our night together? Start with eggs—over easy, of course.”
“You kidding?” He sat fully up. “There was nothing easy about what happened here last night.”
“For the lunch special how about fried chicken on a bed…of mashed potatoes.”
“Kinky, but I like it.”
“Nothing but breasts and thighs—”
“Goddess thighs.”
“Goddess thighs,” she amended without making eye contact.
“And for dessert?” He ran one finger along the edge of the sheet just above the swell of her breasts.
She put her thumbnail b
etween her teeth and smiled. “We never did get around to indulging, did we?”
The sheets rustled and he stretched his long legs out, “Speak for yourself, I felt entirely indulged.”
“It does beat the bejeebers out of cake for a late-night treat any day.” Rita rolled onto her stomach and laid her cheek on Will’s chest, where she felt more than heard him chuckle in response.
“Do people still say ‘it rocked my world’?”
“Since when does Wild Billy West care what people say?” He went silent. Not simply grew quiet like he’d gone pensive or something but silent—dead silent—at the mention of his old nickname. His whole body stiffened up tighter than a drum. She wasn’t even sure he took a breath for two, three, maybe five whole seconds.
“Doesn’t matter anyway.” Her words rushed out to fill the vacuum his tension created. “Rocked world or not, it’s morning. Time to set everything back the way it was and go on with our lives the way they ought to go on.”
“Like nothing ever happened.” Some would say a man like Will did not have the capacity to sound wistful. But that’s what Rita heard in his barely audible response.
“Maybe more like something happened, but now it’s passed, like…like a…”
“Like a tornado?”
“Like a sweet dream that ends when morning comes. You still have the memory of it, but—”
“The dream was never real. What we had was real, Rita.”
“And I’ll have the muscle aches for days and days to prove it.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “And a faraway look in my eyes and a secretive smile no one can quite explain.”
He pushed the feather pillow into a lump and leaned back against it. The sheet, glaring white against his dark skin, slid down to his belly, then lower still. He made no move to catch it.
She had a twinge of regret when it did not slither completely off the bed.
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Technically, this night’s not over until we get up.”
“Then it must be over.” She raked her fingers through the black coils of hair on his chest, while her gaze wandered to a more southerly point on his wonderful, masculine body. “Because you, sir, are definitely up.”
“Up and rarin’ to go, girl.” His movements under the sheets confirmed his boast. “What do you say, Rita? One more for the road? Want to try to reheat some of last night’s passion?”
