The hellion

CHAPTER TEN

They moved with one accord, tipping their heads until their lips met again in tremulous reunion, sweeping them back in memory to the time of sweet innocence, when only bright dreams lay ahead.

Rachel's fingertips moved from his lapel to his shirtfront, and felt the skin warm through the cotton as his breath came with a celerity 301 that matched her own. Their heads swayed in a lovers' choreography, seeking a firmer fit of mouth upon mouth. His hand flattened on her warm, bare back, drawing her nearer as his tongue slipped between her silken lips, bringing the taste of tobacco and some long-remembered essence as individual as a fingerprint. A sound rose in his throat-the end of the bitter, a rebirth of the sweet-and came a second time while his tongue scribed ever-widening circles over her eager mouth.

Ardor flared. Intimacy beckoned.

"Rachel… Rachel," he murmured, the name slurred between their hungering mouths. And as the kiss grew greedier he reached up to loosen his tie, then settled more firmly against her, slipping a hand to her ribs as he pressed her shoulders against the resilient leather seat.

The kiss swept them with the realization of how easily sensuality had been revived between them, and the pleasure they still found in each other. They experimented, recalling how it had been in the past -a scrape of teeth against a soft inner lip, a gentle bite, an interchange of tongues in the most secret recesses of their open, willing mouths, a suckling that seemed to tug deep within. Rachel's body shimmered in response. It had been so long… so long. His body pressing hers was vital, resilient, healthy. Her breasts peaked and yearned for the warmth of his hands.

But the kiss ended and he backed away to look down into her face. "Rachel," he whispered in wonder. "I can't believe it. After all these years." He wrapped her in two tight arms, her chin catching on his shoulder as he rocked her in jubilant celebration. "God, I can't believe it."

She smiled against his jaw and hugged him back. "I can't either."

Abruptly he backed away, but his eyes held embers as he ordered gruffly, "Turn around." Deftly he manipulated her, twisting her about until she was cradled in his lap, and in the same sweeping motion he returned his mouth to hers. Sealed beneath his lips she felt herself settled against his chest while a hand swept down to draw her knees up onto the seat. Then he leaned back into his corner and stretched his legs out toward the passenger door.

And it felt like coming home-birdling to nest, cub to den, Rachel to Tommy Lee. How warm and secure and familiar was this spot she'd known uncountable times before. And, ah, how their bodies fit together. So natural, with her arms twined about him until their joined breasts left space for nothing more between them than the paired heartbeats. He shifted a hip, raised one knee to buttress her spine and buttock while kissing her in a remembered way that brought welcome sensations sizzling through her body.

She had thought the years would have created obstacles to interfere, to present warnings. But instead, she felt only impatience. This was right. This was where she belonged.

She reveled in the feeling, exploring the back of his neck, sliding her long nails into his midnight-black hair while his hands played over her back and his tongue blandished, coaxed, and sent shivers scattering along her skin.

When he finally lifted his head their hearts were beating crazily. Rachel's limbs felt weighted. Her eyes drifted open to find his mouth still close, his palm lazily stirring the fabric on the side of her breast.

"How many times do you think we lay like this in my car?"

But she couldn't even guess. She could only recall the grand and terrible temptation of those days when they'd gone only so far but restrained themselves at the last moment. It had been heaven. It had been hell.

"Too many to remember. A hundred… two hundred… more."

"Do you remember the last time?" His hand made patterns that threatened to cup her breast but never did, bringing back the sharp thrill of the forbidden.

"No, I don't remember."

"It was the night when we'd driven up to Muscle Shoals to a dance, and you were wearing a flared skirt with green squares on it, and you could hardly get it buttoned anymore because you were pregnant."

She lay back comfortably in the crook of his arm, feeling again the seductive sense of security-how painless it was to talk about the past, wrapped in his arms this way. She touched his lower lip tenderly. It was puffed and moist from kissing. "You remember everything."

"Yes," he confirmed softly. "Where you're concerned, I remember everything. The smell of your skin, the exact brown of your eyes, the texture of your hair…"

In that moment it was incredibly easy to love him, and she wondered how she would find the strength to turn the tide of their desire. His head dropped and he crushed her close while lowering his open lips toward hers. The past melded with the present to bring a desire more potent than any they'd known in their youth. Their tongues imitated the act they'd shared in the days when they were raring and satiable, and they felt again the supreme urgency they'd thought themselves able to curb.

His hand slipped around her to cover one tiny breast at last, working the sleek cloth over her aroused nipple. She writhed in complementary circles, rising toward his touch, making a faint mewling sound in her throat. Beneath her she felt his tumescence, sheathed tightly but straining warmly through his trousers as she moved restlessly upon it. His hips began thrusting, and she instinctively drew common sense back into its rightful place, pressing a restraining hand against his chest.

Immediately his body stilled. He drew a tortured breath and buried his face in the fragrant curve of her neck. "I swore I wouldn't rush you… but it's damned hard."

She was breathless, floating, realizing how naive she'd been to think she could tread such a tightrope again without falling. Had she thought being forty-one instead of sixteen was adequate insurance against desire? Her voice shook as she answered, "And I swore I'd be sensible and settle for a few kisses." She laughed tightly, ending with the familiar little hiccup he had never forgotten. Then she surged up, holding him tightly, pressing her forehead into the inviting hollow below his jaw. "But you guessed right. It's been a long time since I've done anything like this, and the last time was with a man who was ill and unable to dredge up the fire I needed." She held him possessively and said through clenched teeth, "But you feel so good, so healthy. It's terribly hard to stop."

His hand caressed her breast, then slipped down one buttock and stroked it deftly before moving to the warm hollow behind her knee.

"Why should we stop?"

"Because it's the most sensible thing to do. Because I've only been a widow for a few months. Because our motives may be strictly carnal. Because if we start something it could get to be a habit," she recited in a rush against his neck, willing herself to believe it.

"I believe, Rachel"-he kissed her eyelid-"it's already started"-and her nose-"and out of our hands."

When his mouth opened hotly over hers she found herself clinging, kissing him back with nothing held in reserve. His hand caressed her hip, then sought her flat stomach before moving in one unerring swipe to cup the yearning warmth between her legs, pressing her skirt against the damp curve of femininity, tracing arousing circles on her flesh until she murmured inarticulately into his mouth.

"We have to stop…" she tried to say, but the words were muffled beneath his lips.

"You feel so good… so tiny… just as I remember…"

"It's too tempting."

"Just like the old days."

His hands moved over her freely while she lay across his lap, her heart pounding so hard it seemed to make the magnolia leaves tremble above them. His fingers curved-contouring, pressing, stirring, kindling, while she lifted and drifted, thinking, Just a little more, just a little…

Then her dress rustled up and his hand sent fire-flashes dancing up her thighs and stomach as he sought naked skin.

When he reached her waist she stopped him.

His head rose. His eyes questioned.

"Don't, Tommy Lee… please," she whispered urgently. To her surprise, he immediately complied, but took up the idle rhythm through her clothing again.

"Rachel, remember the first time?" he whispered.

"Yes. It was out by the quarries, and I was very scared."

"So was I."

"You were? I never knew that before. You seemed so confident, as if you knew everything about it."

"I didn't know any more than you did." He bit her lower lip, adding persuasively, "But I've learned some new things since then."

She chuckled throatily. "So have I. Like how disastrous it would be to get caught like this if a policeman came by in a prowl car and shone his spotlight on us."

He laughed softly, caressing her stomach. "It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

"No, but it would be a lot more embarrassing at our age. Why don't we take a walk and cool off?"

"So you're teasing again, Rachel?" he questioned, but without rancor.

"Again?"

"Yes, again."

"When have I ever teased you?"

"You teased me plenty back then, before you finally let me make love to you."

"Oh, back then. Well… I was scared I'd get pregnant. And besides, it was forbidden."

"And what about now? Is that what's holding you back?"

She considered for a moment, then ran the tip of an index finger along his lips. The nail skimmed his teeth until they opened and suckled the fingertip, then clamped down lightly upon it. "Will you understand if I say maybe that's partly true? You're that… that naughty Tommy Lee Gentry," she whispered. "And there's something inside every woman that's drawn to a bad boy. I'll admit I'm shamelessly attracted to the forbidden side of you. But no matter how many times I analyze it, there's still a part of you that's my Tommy Lee, the one who gave me my first kiss in the break of the boxwood hedge. That's the Tommy Lee who keeps crowding my mind when I can't sleep at night."

"You mean I've kept you awake, too?"

"Ceaselessly. Thinking about what we're doing now. Which is why one of us needs to be sensible and get us out of this car so we can cool off."

He sighed as if put upon, but obediently released her and pushed her up. "All right. A walk it is," he obliged, then opened the door and got out, watching her slide beneath the wheel, hair tousled, lips swollen, dress twisted at the waist. When the door slammed he dropped his hands to her hips and adjusted the disheveled dress until it hung properly again. "What an untidy little mess you are," he teased. Automatically she reached up to smooth her hair. "No, don't. Leave it." He pulled her hands down. "I love it that way. You look like you used to after we'd been out parking. Not a trace of lipstick left on your mouth, and your lips all red and puffy." He caressed them lightly with a thumb, weakening her resolve again. And when his hips pressed her back against the car, she looped her arms around his neck, unable to stop herself from inviting his warm kiss or the capture of her breasts in his wide palms.

After several tempting minutes, she drew away and reminded him shakily, "I thought we were going to take a walk and cool off."

"Yes, dammit, we were." He draped a wrist over her shoulder and she entwined her fingers with his, their joined hands bumping her collarbone with each step. They ambled aimlessly along the darkened street, talking of their past. He told of the dreams he'd had of coming back to Russellville after college and succeeding in business, of achieving that success but finding it hollow as relationship after relationship failed and he had no one to share it with. She confessed how badly she'd wanted a child to replace the one they'd lost, and of the slow death of that dream, and how devastated she was to learn she could not conceive again. They walked then in silence, nothing but the night chorus of crickets and peepers accompanying their lazy footsteps along the somnolent avenue where shadows were deep. They returned at last to her familiar magnolia, crossed the night-damp grass, which wet her nylons through her open-toed shoes, then passed beneath a hickory tree, blacker than black, and wandered thoughtlessly toward her backyard. They moved beyond the soft hum of the filtering equipment. Then all was silent but for the burble of water circulating somewhere in the pool, and their own matched, lazy footsteps clicking on concrete.

It was very late, and they were both tired, but unwilling to call an end to the night as they stopped, Rachel with her back to Tommy Lee and his hands resting on her shoulders. They looked up at the myriad lights burning across the night sky. The moon was at its apex, a lopsided blue-white smile amid the winking eyes of the stars. From the dew-laden juniper bushes along the brick wall came the thick scent of evergreen, and somewhere crickets sang in unison.

Tommy Lee turned Rachel to face him, leaving his palms in an undemanding parenthesis about her neck. He drew a shaky breath but spoke with uncommon steadiness.

"I told you this once in anger, but that's no way to say it-I love you, Rachel. There. I've wanted to tell you for so many, many years."

"Oh, Tommy Lee…"

She found herself near tears. What am I going to do with this man? How long can I fight him? Her arms circled his neck and she kissed his left cheek, then his right, wondering if she loved him, too, in the way he loved her. But to say so without being sure would be cheating them both. She meant her kisses to express affection without commitment, but when she would have backed away he suddenly pulled her flush against him, lifting her on tiptoe, matching her curves to his. Tongues, hips, and hands soon began taking an active part in the kiss, and by the time it ended, both Rachel and Tommy Lee were breathing as if winded.

"Rachel, this is silly. You want it, too. Let me come in with you."

She managed to shake her head and back away.

He studied her for a moment, wondering just what it would take to make her break down. "All right, have it your way. We'll cool off again." Then, calm as you please, he began removing his suit jacket. Her first impression was to giggle, but when she realized his intent, she grabbed his lapels.

"Oh, no, you don't, not in the pool!"

"Why not in the pool?"

"Because that's the oldest ploy in the history of seduction, and I'm not about to fall for it."

He nuzzled her ear. "Come on, Rachel, it could be fun."

"And dangerous."

"Have you ever done it before? Shucked down in the dark and gone in with nothing on?"

"No, and I'm not going to start now."

Suddenly there came a snap as he whipped off his tie. "Mind if I do?"

"And what do you expect me to do? Stand here and watch?"

"Mmm… it could be interesting." He leaned close and bit her earlobe.

"You haven't changed a bit!"

He chuckled and moved away toward the pale shadow of the patio table, and before her astonished eyes he went on undressing, slipping off his shoes, then hanging his jacket neatly on the back of a chair before reaching for his belt.

"Tommy Lee, don't you dare!"

"Ain't no damn way I'm ruining another suit." She watched in utter helplessness as his trousers came off and were laid across the table, followed by his socks. Panic and excitement turned her skin hot.

"If you take off one more stitch, I swear I'll go in the house and lock the door and call the police to tell them there's a naked man using my pool without permission."

Her threats bounced off him like the moon's reflection from the surface of the pool. His fingers lazily worked their way down his shirt buttons, and she sensed him grinning at her out of the deep shadows. She had a flashing thought about the wisdom of occasional tumult, but if Tommy Lee continued what he was doing, it would be more tumult than was advisable. He'd already half shrugged out of the shirt when she appealed in a desperate voice, "Please… please, don't."

He stopped in mid-motion and flipped his palms up. "Okay, you win. I'll leave the rest on." But he casually removed the cigarettes from his shirt pocket and set them aside, then strode lazily toward her. As he advanced she sensed the feral gleam in his eye and retreated.

"Tommy Lee…" she warned.

But he kept coming, deliberately, unrelentingly.

"You're the one who said you wanted to cool off."

"Tommy Lee, you wouldn't."

"Oh, wouldn't I?" He was a mere foot in front of her when she reached out a hand to fend him off. In the blue-white smile of the moon she saw his devilish grin a second before he lunged.

"Tommy Lee Gentry, don't you dare!" she squealed, but he clasped her beneath her knees and armpits and headed for the steps of the pool.

"Kick your shoes off, Rachel, if you don't want them to get wet."

"Gentry, you hellion, put me down!" She was still squirming as his feet splashed into the water.

"The choice was yours-with our clothes on, you insisted." The water touched Rachel's derriere. Her hips bucked, and she squealed and grabbed his neck. "Mmm… nice. Do that again," he teased, lowering her again until the water soaked six more inches of underwear and her toes went under.

"My shoes!" Her knees straightened like a switchblade, sending a spray of droplets scintillating across the surface of the pool.

"Too late now. You should have taken them off when you had a chance."

Down she went again, deeper this time, until the water's cold fingers slipped between her thighs. A shudder pelted across her skin, bringing a chuckle from Tommy Lee as he nuzzled her neck. Then he licked her skin with his warm tongue while bobbing her lower and lower and lower into the water.

"The chlorine's going to ruin my dress," she insisted, but with waning urgency.

Against her neck he mumbled, "Send me a bill."

She stopped fighting him then, hanging suspended and helpless in his tight grip, feeling the water lick up and down her thighs with a faint suction and slap each time she was drawn free, then plunged beneath the surface. The shivers were steady now. Goose bumps sprouted up and down her arms and across her bare shoulders. Her breasts-dry though they were-had puckered up like a pair of gum drops.

"Tommy Lee, you're crazy… crazy." But the words came out in a breathless murmur as her knees relaxed and her shoes trailed in the water.

"I know-crazy white boy who builds crazy houses, and dreams crazy dreams, doing crazy things because he's got his woman in his arms at last and he doesn't want to let her go."

He kissed her fiercely, the contact so warm when contrasted against the cool seeking water swashing between her thighs. Her arms twined about his neck as she went pliant and welcomed his probing tongue, which sent a new, different set of shivers up her spine. He started nipping her-sharp, enticing tugs between teeth that knew exactly how hard to bite, and where.

"Crazy…" she whispered, letting her head loll back.

Her eyelids slid closed and the water seemed to grow warmer as Tommy Lee turned them both in a circle. One of her shoes drifted free and sank somewhere in the water. But she no longer cared. Riding weightlessly in his arms, she felt the cool caress of the night water slithering along her skin. It pressed the wet nylon tight against her calves, then shimmied along her thighs to make the dress cling, then unfurl as he reversed directions.

The scent of her-woman and perfume-drifted through the night, released from garments and skin by the water. She opened her hands on his tensile shoulderblades, then drew back to meet his eyes, which reflected the moon and a wealth of desire. He came to a halt, his shirttail drifting in a pinwheel on the surface of the water.

His voice was gravelly, intense. "I want to make love to you. I want to do all the things we were too ignorant to know how to do back then. For twenty-four years I've wanted it."

His head blotted out the moon and his lips were summer-warm as they opened over hers. She kissed him back with delight, which swiftly changed to impatience, seeking out each changing texture and mood of his mouth as it demanded more, then less, then more again. The wrist beneath her knees slipped away and the water bore her weight for a moment before she was drifting down, down, until her toes settled on something stationary and she found herself standing waist deep in water, fully dressed, kissing Tommy Lee Gentry, their bodies coalescing, half dry, half wet, but all aroused.

He gripped her hips, drew circles on them with his own, swaying, kissing, losing his balance and righting himself again as the water nudged them. His hands slipped deeper, cupping her buttocks, holding her securely as he rocked against her. The next moment she flinched and gasped as he brought both palms up, dripping, and clamped them over her breasts. Her nipples cinched tighter as the wet fabric clung, but soon the warmth of his palms eased through as he teased, caressed, heated. His hands rose to skim the straps from her shoulders, drawing the flimsy dress down to her waist.

Then his open mouth possessed her breasts, one and then the other, and her head fell back, eyelids closing, blocking out the moon. He dipped lower, and the shocking sensation of heat and cold sent renewed shivers through her limbs as the water lapped near his lips. She drove her fingers through his hair and clasped his head tightly against her stomach.

"Oh, Tommy Lee… it was inevitable, wasn't it?"

He straightened, and their eyes met in a moment of surrender. She slipped her hands inside his shirt, spreading it wide to kiss his chest, his collarbone, his neck, his chin. His mouth. Ah, his warm, long-denied mouth. Her hands rode his shoulders, divesting him of the garment, which soon lay adrift upon the water. Moments later it was joined by her dress and a brief scrap of white they had together shimmied from his loins. Her pantyhose came next, followed by an even tinier scrap of white as he grasped her beneath the arms and held her buoyant while she kicked free of her panties. Before the garments drifted to the surface, Rachel's legs were clamped tightly around Tommy Lee's waist.

He waded toward the steps, his mouth communing with hers, then laid her down on the concrete, still warm from the day's sun, her feet trailing in the water, while he rested on one hip beside her. The moon shimmered along her wet limbs like a rich silver garment while his hand followed its path, relearning the curves of breast, stomach, thigh, and mons.

"Rachel," he managed throatily, "I've loved you since we were fourteen years old- maybe even before that. There were times when I thought I'd die without getting the chance to tell you again."

She raised her arms in welcome and he came to her, pressing his length to hers as she caressed his back and buttocks, whispering, "Oh, Tommy Lee, none of us can ever quite get over our first love, can we? And you were that for me. I loved you so much… so much. And some of that love has always stayed with me, no matter who either of us was married to or what was going on in our lives." She felt him shudder and gently pushed him back to delve the dark mystery of his eyes. "I feel it still, and it grows stronger each time I see you." This was the supreme surprise, that she should at last recognize the love lying fallow within her heart, untouched, untarnished all these years, and be so eager for it to be nurtured and brought to bloom again.

A stab of wonder pierced his heart, and she saw it in his eyes, realizing fully what this moment meant to him. And she was suddenly filled with the need to give him back a thousandfold all the happiness he had missed in life.

She kissed his eyelids, held his face in both hands. "When I saw you tonight, walking to the door… this feeling started then. You looked so devastatingly wonderful to me, as if the past twenty-four years had never happened." She praised his sleek shape with the brush of her hands and felt him shudder.

He kissed her eyelids, uttered her name in a pained murmur, and returned to her mouth with an impatience he found reflected there. "Ah, sweet woman, the things I want to do to you… things I was too green to know about then. Do you realize that I've given you a baby but never a climax?"

"Mmm…" Yes, she realized it only too well, had thought of it often, especially during these last months along. "Please feel free…"

Their exchange sent a fresh current of sensuality rippling through Rachel's limbs. As his hands reacquainted themselves with her body, time spiraled in reverse, taking her back to that first nubile exploration, when he'd initiated her into the rites of sexuality. Once again he brought her the thrill of anticipation, then the even greater thrill of sensation as he touched the inner Rachel, whose secrets could no longer be withheld.

Her palm gathered the moisture from his back, transferred it to his belly, and closed about his flesh, still chill from the water, but quickly warming beneath her touch. He groaned, and the wasted years fell away. He twisted low, following the moonbeams down her wet breasts, sipping the dampness from them with his warm tongue, dipping into the shallow navel where more water pooled, like dew in the chalice of a flower. He kissed the glistening hair at the juncture of her legs, where droplets still clung, bringing again to her lips the mewling sound. And only the heaven-borne stars and the guardian moon stood witness as he moved lower, inundating her with rapture.

And when they hovered at the pinnacle, their bodies taut and trembling, he turned again to press his length to hers, then paused on the brink of entering to vow, "I love you, Rachel Talmadge," unconsciously slipping back to the name he'd planned to change to his own when first they'd loved this way, aeons ago.

She touched his face with great tenderness while savoring this wondrous exchange about to happen.

"And I love you, Tommy Lee Gentry," she whispered with tears in her eyes.

Then the hurts of the past were lifted away as he thrust deep and fell into the rhythmic pulsing that made their bodies leap and flow. Soon the cry that shuddered from her throat was joined by his deep growl of release.

And in this world of false starts and misgivings, they knew at last where they belonged.