Southern Comforts (24 page)

“But since Raintree county was dry in those days, my mama's family's recipe sold better than ice-cold watermelon on the Fourth of July.”

Chelsea thought about the life Cash had described. “I think I'm beginning to guess what it was that Jeb said that made you break his nose.”

Cash's smile was slow and reminiscent. “He called Mama a bootlegger. Just like Al Capone. That would've been bad enough by itself. But coming from a kid from one of those big houses, well, I just had to pop him.”

“That's quite a start to a friendship.”

“The Townelys weren't like some of the other rich folk in Raintree,” Cash conceded. “After Jeb and I became friends, they'd invite me to dinner, then send me home with
the leftovers. It was years before I figured out Mrs. Townely always had her cook make extra on the nights I came over.”

“That's nice.”

“They were nice people. And they helped me realize that there was a life beyond Raintree, if I was willing to work hard enough for it. Becoming rich became an obsession. I promised my mama I'd buy her one of those fancy houses like Roxanne's Belle Terre. And make her queen of Tara. But she died before I could make good.”

“It was the thought that counted.” She turned their hands, linking her fingers with his in the center of the small black table. “Besides, she knows what a success you've made of your life, Cash. And is proud of you.”

“You sound awfully sure about that.”

“I am.” Her gaze was earnest, her green eyes sober. “If I couldn't believe that my father somehow knew that I was a successful writer—although admittedly not in his class— I'd feel horribly let down.”

“Good point. And one I'll think about.”

“I'm glad.”

He lifted their joined hands to his lips and kissed her fingertips, one by one. “And, if you're right, I'll bet your dad thinks you've done just fine. Following your own star, which doesn't shine any less brightly than his.”

The touch of his lips on her skin sent tiny flames, like sparklers, skipping through her blood, warming her from the inside out. “How badly did you want that cheesecake for dessert?” she asked.

He read the desire in her eyes. “Why don't I order a couple of pieces to go?”

Her smile was nothing less that beatific. “I knew you were an intelligent man.”

They returned to the room with two orders of raspberry
cheesecake in a foam box and a bottle of champagne Cash immediately put on ice.

“Would you like a glass now?” The waiter, obviously recognizing the opportunity for a generous tip, had also sent along a pair of flutes.

“No.” She shook her head as anticipation and nerves warred within her. “I don't need any champagne when I'm with you, Cash.”

“Believe me, darlin', I know the feeling.” He drew her into his arms.

An unseen maid had left the radio tuned to an oldies jazz station after turning down the beds. As if on cue, Billie Holiday began singing about her man.

For a long, silent time, punctuated only by the occasional scream of a siren or taxi horns outside the window, they merely swayed to the music, to several more songs until Quincy Jones's “One Hundred Ways” began to play.

“That's not enough,” he murmured against her hair.

“What's not enough?”

“One hundred ways.” He pressed his lips against her temple, rewarded when he felt her pulse leap in response. “Do you have any idea how much I want you?”

He pulled her closer to him, moving in time to the slow, lonely sound of an alto sax that brought to mind steamy southern nights, and the sweetly seductive scent of night-blooming flowers. “I want you, Chelsea. In more ways than I could count. And not just for tonight.”

One hand tightened on her waist while another fisted in her hair, tilting her head back again, holding her wary gaze to his. “Not just for tomorrow night. A thousand nights won't be enough.”

A flicker of fire leaped beneath her skin when he slid his wicked, clever hands between their bodies and his fingers began tracing slow, aching circles on her breasts.

She was trembling. It stunned her. When his thumbs stroked over her nipples, a liquid, shimmering pleasure drifted through her, warming her body and clouding her mind. She slipped her own unsteady hands beneath his jacket to his back, and held on.

Chelsea thought she'd known desire before. She'd thought, during her long ago time with Cash, she'd known need. But those emotions hadn't come close to the intense hunger she was suffering now. She moved closer, exalting in the feel of his hard male body. Reveling in the heat that threatened to have her melting like a candle beneath a hot southern sun.

“If you don't kiss me…really kiss me…I think I'm going to scream.”

“Can't have that.” Banking the fire for now, he brushed a tingling kiss against her lips that only left her wanting more. “I'd hate for us to get thrown out for disturbing the peace.”

His mouth rubbed over hers, lingering, then drawing away. Once. Twice. A third time. His lips remained cool while hers warmed. But instead of the instant flash fire she'd once experienced with this man, the heat was a golden glow, infused with tenderness.

He reached behind her to unzip her dress. It slid down her body like a silken waterfall, creating a scarlet puddle at her feet.

“Good lord.” He stared at the erotic sight of her standing in front of him, wearing only a pair of high heels and those long gold earrings. “You weren't kidding about not wearing anything beneath that dress.”

Her slow, enticing smile was as sensual as any woman ever shared with any man. “You're not the only one who can tell the unvarnished truth, you know.”

Unable to resist the lure of all that silken, perfumed flesh,
he reached out and traced a slow circle around first one breast, then the other. “If I'd believed you, darlin', I never would have been able to eat dinner.”

“Then it's a good thing you didn't believe me.” She looked up at him through the fringe of her lashes, giving him the same saucy look that Georgia's most famous southern belle had used to bring that devil-may-care Yankee blockade runner to his knees. “Because you're definitely going to need your energy.”

Her scent was surrounding him, seeping beneath his skin and into his blood like a drug. Her flesh was as pale as porcelain, as smooth as satin. His fingers glided over the sprinkling of freckles scattered over the crest of her breasts.

“Sun kisses,” he murmured.

Her head was spinning again. She could feel her legs weakening. She thought she'd known what to expect from Cash. After all, they'd been together countless times like this.

But not like this, she amended as she grabbed hold of his shoulders to keep from melting. Never like this.

“What?”

“Your freckles.” He dipped his head and skimmed his lips across the light brown flecks. “My mama always told me freckles were kisses left by a smiling sun.”

She shivered as his tongue flicked over a taut nipple, causing a spark that shot straight through her to that warm, moist place between her thighs. Her skin, beneath his lips, felt strangely tight. Too tight. And sensitive almost to the point of pain. Her body felt hot and swollen.

She closed her eyes, all the better to concentrate on the tumultuous feelings flowing over her. Inside her. Dazzling lights sparked behind her lids like heat lightning flashing on a distant horizon.

He bit her fragrant shoulder. Then soothed the reddened
flesh with his tongue. Chelsea heard him say something, but his low deep voice was only a distant roaring in her ears.

He lifted her up, carrying her into the bedroom. He continued to kiss her, the kisses growing deeper and more drugging with each step.

He placed her on the turned-down bed. Although the room was dark, the light streaming in through the open door from the living room cast a warm golden light over her. Her body gleamed like pearls; her eyes shone like emeralds. Cash stood beside the bed, looked down at her and found her wonderful.

“You are so beautiful.” He shook his head, as if wondering what miraculous trick of fate had brought her to him.

Chelsea held out a hand to him. “What I am,” she said, in a lush, throaty voice, “is lonely.”

Cash did not need a second invitation. He began stripping off his clothes.

Although it took a Herculean effort, Chelsea managed to keep her passion-heavy lids open to watch him. The sheets felt cool against her back; his gaze, dark with hunger, heated her breasts, her stomach, her thighs.

Age had not diminished his sex appeal. During the intervening years, Chelsea had, whenever she thought of Cash, managed to convince herself that she'd imagined the perfection of his body. But she was wrong.

He was a strong lean man who'd not allowed himself to soften. There wasn't an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body; he was all lean sinew and hard muscle. And he exuded a male vitality that made her nerves sizzle like hot electric wires on a rain-slicked street.

The mattress sighed as he sat down beside her. “You are so soft.” He skimmed a finger up the inside of her thigh. “So lovely.” Excitement crackled along her skin like a flash fire. As she unconsciously gathered up a handful of sheet
beside her, he took her hand, slowly uncurled her fingers, and pressed her palm against his chest. “Feel what you do to me, Chelsea.”

His heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Pleased that she was not the only one so harshly affected, she smiled up at him. “That's amazing.”

“It's you.” He sucked in a deep breath as she explored this phenomenon further. Her hand slid slowly downward over his rib cage. When she bent her head and pressed her open mouth against his hard, flat stomach, she felt every muscle clench. “Only you.”

Her fingers curled around his penis. He was as hard as stone, as warm as a new sun. She tested his weight and thickness and found him thrilling. She felt the tumescent flesh stir beneath her stroking touch and felt a surge of feminine pleasure that she was responsible for such obvious desire.

Chelsea's heart swelled with such emotion she thought it was going to explode right out her chest. Moved, but unable to express her feelings in mere words, she bent her head and touched her lips to the smooth, straining tip.

He bucked beneath her intimate kiss and made an animal sound, deep in his throat. The tortured growl caused sensuality to pump like molten lava through her veins. Encouraged, she flicked her tongue along the length of his penis, and was prepared to take him fully in her mouth, when, sensing her intentions, he fisted his hand in her hair and lifted her head.

“Lord, lady, if you keep that up, we're going to end this in about ten seconds flat.”

“I don't care.” Her fingers continued to stroke him as her eyes offered a blatant feminine dare. She wanted him. Now.

“Well now, honey, I'm real sorry about that.” He
grabbed hold of both her wrists in one hand and pushed her gently back against the pillows, holding her hands together above her head. “Because I want to take my time.”

She squirmed beneath his restraints. But in a sensual, erotic way designed to make his temperature and blood pressure soar. “And do you always get everything you want?”

His smile was a wicked slash of white in the purple shadows of the darkened room. “Tonight I do.”

Clamping down on his need to take, Cash concentrated instead on his desire to give. To touch. To torment. Lying down beside her, he trailed his hands all over her naked flesh, fondling her aching breasts, scraping over her tingling nipples, creating a spiral of flame down her back before kneading her buttocks.

After her body had warmed to the boiling point, he continued his sensual torment by trailing his mouth over the fiery trail his hands had blazed.

He sucked on her nipples with hot, hungry greed, creating a primal pull deep in her feminine core. His teeth bit into her shoulder, nipped at the tender cord in her neck, closed around an earlobe and tugged. He kissed her stomach, the sensitive hollow between her pelvic bones. His tongue cut a hot wet path through the nest of coppery curls between her thighs. All the time, she was moving restlessly beneath his hands and mouth, writhing on the sheets.

When his lips plucked at the source of all that moist heat, her body bucked, moving instinctively, unashamedly against his mouth.

“Please.” Chelsea knew she was begging. But she felt no shame. Her secret places were swollen, throbbing with need. A wild, out-of-control pulse that matched the jackhammer beat of both their hearts was throbbing between her legs.

“Cash.” Her voice was half gasp, half sob. “Hurry.” She
tossed her head back and forth on the pillow as his tongue slipped into her wet hot center and his teeth began nibbling on her ultrasensitive clitoris. “Please hurry.”

“It's okay, darlin'.” He put his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her hips off the sheets, pressing her harder against his mouth as he feasted on the feminine juices flowing from her. “I promise not to take you anywhere you don't want to go.”

The pleasure-pain escalated, spiraling into a tighter and tighter coil. Just when she thought there couldn't be more, he replaced his tongue with first one finger, then two, reaching deep inside her, stretching her, rasping the tender inner tissues with his deep hard thrusts. His mouth covered hers, allowing her to taste herself on his lips. He held her tightly against him, his fingers deep inside her, his tongue tangling with hers inside the moist cavern of her mouth. This was the way Cash had wanted Chelsea. The way he'd imagined her too many times during too many long and lonely nights during their years apart. Hot and hungry, rising higher and higher toward the dizzying peak of passion.

He released her mouth and tilted his head back, drinking in the sight of her parted lips, her heightened color, the flush, like a fever that covered the lithe body arched against his stroking touch.