He laid his fork down and expelled a deep breath. “I learned early that no woman loves a man who fails. My momma taught me that. When Daddy got laid off, she tried very hard to be supportive, but she nearly tore him limb from limb from disappointment before he got another job. I think if he’d stayed out of work much longer, they’d have wound up in the divorce courts.”
“Not every woman reacts that way.”
“Most women do, no matter how hard they try not to.”
“Don’t compare me to your mother. She never thought I was good enough for you.”
David laughed. “At least you two had the same view of my life. You should have heard her when I told her I was leaving New York for Mississippi.”
“But with Melba? Surely she approved of that,” Kate said dryly.
David reached across the table to take her hand. She tensed, but did not remove it from his grasp. “She really liked you, Kate.”
Now Kate did remove her hand. “Your mother? Get real.”
“She did. But your education and your background threatened her. And then when you threw me out...you have to remember that my mother always thought I was perfect.”
“Most mothers do think their sons are perfect.”
“Mine has mellowed a great deal since Daddy retired. She’s softened.” He shrugged. “But she still can’t cook.” “But I’ll bet she’s still a cleaning fool, isn’t she?”
He laughed, but then he sobered. “We can’t seem to get past who we were and what we did, can we? Will we ever be able to?”
“Not completely.” She shoved her chair back from the table and stood. “Suddenly I’ve lost my appetite. You better drive me back to the motel.”
He stood as well. “No way.”
“David...”
“Look, you want to sleep in the guest room, then do it. You can lock the door, put a chair under the doorknob. I don’t want you in that motel alone tonight, particularly now that Arnold’s going to stay in Jackson.”
“I’m too tired to argue with you. I feel as though I’ve been running for twenty years.”
He came up behind her and began to massage the back of her neck. “You feel as though you’ve got iron bars running across your shoulders,” he said softly.
SHE HELD HERSELF taut for a moment, then he felt her relax a bit under the pressure of his fingers.
“You remember when I used to do this every night?” he whispered. Her ear was delectably close to his lips. He fought the urge to take the lobe between his teeth. He knew that used to drive her crazy, but it was too soon. He had to go very slowly and carefully if he didn’t want her to spring away from him again the way she had before. He knew darned well she was feeling vulnerable after what had nearly happened in the parking lot. A gentleman would not take advantage of that vulnerability.
He was through playing gentleman.
“I looked forward to it all day at work,” she said softly. Then made a long drawn-out “um” sound. He smiled. He knew that sound. He was getting to her. Good.
His fingers stroked up the back of her neck. She bent her head with a sigh.
“I looked forward to other things,” he whispered.
“Those, too.” She chuckled. A low, sexy chuckle. He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
“We were good together, Kate.”
“Yes.”
“We can be again.”
Her lowered head swung left and right in denial. “We’re different people. Our lives have gone in different directions.”
“Our lives may be different, but our bodies aren’t.” This time he did run his lips gently over her earlobe, then took it in his teeth and worried it softly.
She shivered against him.
“Being this close to you still sets me on fire.” He slid his hands around her midriff and brushed his lips against the soft down at the nape of her neck. She gave a soft moan and let her head fall back against his shoulder..
“We can’t do this,” she whispered.
“We can. We should.” His hands slid up her chest to cup her breasts so that his fingertips just grazed her nipples. They felt like pebbles, hard, erect, swollen under her bra.
She caught her breath as he caressed her, rolling the pads of his thumbs back and forth across her nipples. She didn’t fight him, didn’t protest, didn’t move away. She felt so right leaning against him this way. Her head fit perfectly into the curve of his throat, her back arched slightly so that her bottom pressed against his groin.
“Katie, my Katie,” he said softly. He stroked down over her belly and her thighs, then moved his hand to the inside of her thighs, caressing her through the soft wool of her slacks as though he could feel the tender flesh under his fingertips.
He prayed for the moment when she’d commit to him once more. He longed simply to let go, to lay her down and make love to her without conscious thought, letting pure sensation drive him. He fought to stay in control because he wanted this night to be perfect for her.
She’d always been perfect for
him
From that first night when she’d come to him frightened and unsure, then wildly ardent, he’d only known true joy in her arms, buried in her body, touching her, her scent in his nostrils, her skin against his. He groaned softly.
Then without a word or a sound, in one smooth motion she lifted her arms to encircle his head, and twisted in his arms so that she faced him. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted. She was breathing as hard as he was. His heart lifted.
He sought her mouth, felt her tongue reach for his, tease, move over his lips and dart into his mouth. His hands slid down her back to cup her bottom against him. She began to move her hips slowly, sensually, then she stopped.
She broke the kiss to stare up at him with dreamy eyes. “This is crazy,” she whispered. He smiled down at her.
“It’s right,” he whispered as his mouth sought hers once more. “We’re right.” His fingers worked under her sweater and unfastened her bra.
She ran her hand down the front of his chinos. He caught his breath at her touch. He was more than ready, but he knew from experience she had a long way to go to catch up. He would bring her along every step of the way and relish every moment. His fingers inched around the waistband of her slacks. “Where do these damn things open?” he gasped.
She smiled without breaking the kiss. “In back,” she said against his mouth, and guided his hand to the button at the top of her waistband.
“You could help.”
“My hands are otherwise occupied.”
He caught his breath. “Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said hoarsely.
He felt his belt come out of the buckle, heard the slight pop as button parted from buttonhole.
“Hey,” he said, and picked her up. “If we don’t find a flat place before these pants wind up around my ankles, we’re going to break both our necks.”
She squeaked, kicked off her shoes, wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She bit his ear and began to nibble the edges like a hungry bunny. The feeling that shot through him was in inverse proportion to the softness of her touch. He felt as though someone had hooked up his extremities to electrodes and was cranking up the amperage second by second.
He turned with her locked around him and began to walk toward the stairs with his hands supporting her bottom and hers entwined around his neck.
As he reached the hearth rug, she whispered seductively, “This is flat.”
“So it is,” he said, and set her down. She slid down his body to the floor. He shoved off his sneakers, stripped off his socks and yanked his sweater over his head.
She wriggled out of her sweater and tossed it behind her, then reached for her bra straps.
“My job,” he said. He slipped them off her shoulders, then ran his fingers gently under the bra to pull it away from her breasts. Her skin shone rose gold in the firelight, her nipples as rich as ripe peaches. He bent his head to encircle her nipple with his tongue and was rewarded with a long indrawn breath.
She tangled her fingers in his hair.
After a moment he raised his head, and his fingers found the zipper at the back of her slacks. He slid them down her legs and tossed them across the room. She wore black lace bikinis that barely covered the soft brown triangle at the apex of her thighs.
“I’m ahead,” she said, groping for the zipper of his jeans. “You better catch up.”
“That’s the least of our problems,” he said, and stripped.
She reached her arms up to him. “Now,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” he answered. “Not yet.” He hooked his finger in the center of the waistband of her panties. As he inched them down, his finger slipped into the crease between her thighs.
“Oh,” she said, arching her back. As he tossed the panties behind him, her knees came up and her eyes closed. She encircled him and began to stroke him.
He kissed her breasts, her belly, ran his tongue around the edge of her navel. She moaned and opened her legs to his questing tongue.
“Every atom, every molecule, my Katie,” he whispered as he bent his head.
KATE FELT TWENTY YEARS of separation slip away. It was as though she’d grown a thick reptilian skin the day he left, and now it was dissolving. The nerve endings of this new skin were raw and exposed to his lips, his fingers, his tongue, his body. She couldn’t protect herself from sensation, from the aching in her loins. Her breasts felt as though they’d swollen two sizes in two minutes.
She’d almost forgotten how beautiful his body was, the soft whorls of brown hair on his chest, the line of down that descended across his navel to his abdomen and below. As she caressed him, she gasped at the size of him. How could she have forgotten how big he was in every way, from shoulders to hands to the erection that she knew would fill her to breaking.
And he would break her, she knew. She couldn’t control him or push him or fake him out. Not that she wanted to. He remembered how long it took her to be as ready as he was. He’d always been able to read her body, gauge her responses. She gasped.
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened. She dug her fingers into his shoulders. He’d learned a few things. His pace increased and she let herself go, feel as though every atom of her being was centered beneath his lips. She screamed as the spasms began.
A moment later he thrust into her, and she broke again immediately. She bucked against him wildly as her nails dug into his bottom as if she could force him even deeper into her. She lost conscious thought. She was all feeling and color—a kaleidoscope of sensation that drowned her in reds and purples.
She felt him tighten in her arms, and his body spasm inside her. As he sank against her, she wrapped her legs around his, wishing she could hold him inside her forever, but she knew she couldn’t. When he finally rolled away, he pulled her with him so that she lay against his chest.
“Why did we wait so long?” he whispered against the top of her head. “I feel as though I’ve just woken up after twenty years.”
She raised her head and rubbed her cheek against his chin. “Your beard’s not long enough, Mr. van Winkle. It’s supposed to be white and all the way down to your waist.”
“It’s my heart that has been unconscious, Katie, my love.”
My love. He’d never called her that. Except for the one time he’d been so drunk he couldn’t get his own shoes off, he’d never actually said the words
I love you
. She’d longed to hear them, tried every way she knew to evoke those words, but somehow he could never get them past his lips. Now here she was at last, his love, when it was too late for either of them.
She didn’t realize she was crying until the sobs broke through and threatened to choke her with grief.
“Kate?” he said urgently. “Katie? What have I said?” She shook her head and sniffed to keep her nose from running. “Nothing. It’s okay. Really. Call it endorphins.”
He sat up and propped his back against the leather sofa behind him. She sat up as well, turned away and ran her fingertips under her eyes to slide the tears away.
“It’s not okay,” he said. He took her shoulders and twisted her so that she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “Tell me.” Then in a gentler tone. “Please, love.”
That did it. She collapsed against his chest and let the tears flow. She didn’t know precisely why she was crying. For lost youth and lost opportunities. For the two kids they had been. For the love that had shattered. For the years apart when they had grown in such different directions. Because it was too late now for love.
When she could speak, she said through the gulps and hiccups of tears, “You never told me you loved me.”
“I told you over and over again, every moment of every day.”
“No, never. Not in words.”
“I showed you...”
“Doesn’t count, David. I needed the words.” She sat up and hugged her arms across her naked breasts. “You said I wasn’t surprised when you were unfaithful. You’re right. I knew you didn’t love me because you couldn’t force out those three words—‘I love you.’ They wouldn’t come out of your mouth.”