"Move toward the trees. I want your knickers."
She stood there, planted, putting her fists on her hips. "You
have a childish interest in underwear."
"Actually, it's a pretty grown-up interest, when it comes to
yours."
"Asking for them is immature of you."
"Is it?" He laughed. "Then I wish I was ashamed.
I'm not. I'll take my winnings now, thank you: your hat, shoes, stockings"
– he wiggled his eyebrows, grinning – "and drawers." Ah, some days
were real good fun. He moved aside, making way with a little bow, extending his
arm, palm out, toward the trees. "After you, Your Majesty. Move on over to
the shade. You can take 'em off there. And if you can do it slow, you'll only
make me happier, so just reach on up there and take your time."
18
We
are all pulled along by our pleasures – but we know the real one when we give
up all the others for it.
A Texan in
Massachusetts
W
hat had become of a man's needing encouragement,
Lydia
wondered, as
her father had counseled?
Refusing to budge, she said, "You c-can't have my hat and
shoes. People would see that i-if – if you came in with—"
For some reason, this made Sam hoot. When he calmed down enough,
he said, "All right, I'm feeling generous. Just your knickers, then. I'll
make do with those."
"No."
His laughter quieted, his smile developing a squint that made her
take a step back. "Look," he said, "I risked having to explain
my departure to the U.S. State Department, not to mention the President of the
United States. And I came damn close to losing, so you can pay up.
I
would have."
She dared to raise her finger at him, a gentle reprimand.
"You see, you're more honest than I am—"
"Wh-h-hoo," he said, letting out a gust. "I'm about
to make an honest woman of you, Lid. You take 'em off, or I'll take 'em off for
you."
"You wouldn't dare." She blinked, frowned. "It's
bad enough that you get to stay." She complained again, still trying to
absorb that she'd lost. "I out
shot
you."
"Right. And now I'm going to give
you
a handicap. You get five seconds' head start. Decide what
direction you're running and go. When I catch you, I'm having your knickers."
"God, no!"
"One."
"You wouldn't!"
"Two."
"Jesus!" she breathed, a whisper.
"Three."
"Bloody hell!" She took off toward the house, the trees.
She never heard
four
, he
didn't wait. "You cheated!" she started screaming as she ran. She
flew, but he was right on her heels. "You cheated you cheated you
cheated…"
The second she made the shade of the trees something pulled at the
back of her skirts. They grew taut, her legs caught back in them. At the same
time, his arm came round her middle, then his body collided full force at the
back of her. Her teeth snapped. And she tumbled, screaming again. "You
cheater! You bloody cheater!"
She and Sam fell to the ground together, tussling. He wanted her
on her back, himself on top, but she'd be damned if she'd let him get her
there. In the end, he pinned her on her stomach, his full weight on her.
She let her forehead drop to the ground. "Ah, bloody
hell," she muttered again and gave a pound of her fist to the grass. She
could barely move, her quiver twisted around on her shoulder.
In the next seconds, they both grew still. Just the pant of their
hard breathing from their run and scuffle.
In the loamy damp of earth, cool from shade, her nose brushing the
soft glume of grass, there was Sam: his cheek just over hers, warm, his mouth
at her ear. "
Bloody
isn't nice,
is it?" A deep-voiced murmur, his gravelly whisper.
The plane of his chest rested on her back, broad and heavy. Lower,
she could feel his abdomen at the small of her spine, the weight of his hips on
her buttocks. "Let me up," she murmured.
She lay there, the woodsy scent coming off his hair where it
flopped on her temple, faint under the odor of soap that she recognized from
her own house – her parents' soap on Sam Cody. It was so at odds with the other
knowledge: that, through their bunched clothing, between her bum and his
pelvis, there was a solid erection taking shape. He didn't try to hide it.
The sum seemed impossible. A collision of worlds.
He shifted his weight onto one forearm to untangle her quiver from
her arm and draw it over her head. As he freed her, she felt him roll slightly
and bring his leg in, between hers. He gently made his leg a place – there was
no practical way to resist – his other leg had already landed between hers in
their tumble. When he pushed his legs out, hers went with them, further apart:
splayed on her stomach under him. "It isn't nice, is it?"
"W-what?" Nice? The feel of him was pleasurable beyond
any memory of it. Unearthly. Her blood danced, alive in a way it hadn't been
since the moor.
"The way the English use
bloody
,"
he said.
In the tent of his body, she muttered into the ground, "Not
at all. I never use it." She had to correct, "Not aloud." Then
groaned to realize, "Except with you." She wobbled her forehead in
the prickly, soft grass, side to side. "I never used it, even to myself,
until
you, in fact."
She could feel his breath on her neck, the
ha
of voiceless laughter. He said in her ear, "You're becoming
a regular bandito, Lid. And it wears good on you, I gotta say. More power to
you."
"Let me up."
"Your knickers," he whispered. "You gonna hand them
over?"
"You can't mean that."
"Oh, I do."
"You're heavy. Get off."
Instinctively, he raised up a little on his arms – just enough
leeway that she could get a palm on the ground and push, lifting one shoulder
as she twisted to look back at him. A mistake.
It was quite horrible of her. But there, under him, inside his
arms, inside the harbor of his body, with her buttocks pressed tight against
him, she twisted and oh— Never mind his handsome, sun-brown face, the breadth
of his shoulders and chest. No, it was the warmth and smell of his skin that
undid her – she breathed it in. How welcome and familiar! She wanted to rub her
nose against his chest and neck and face till her skin smelled of him. She
wanted to rub her cheek down his body. Against his flat belly, his strong
thighs, along his penis, put her lips, her mouth down over it…
She wet her lips, her mouth dry, then bent her forehead back to
the ground. Oh, Lord. She couldn't look: her wild good time come home to roost
– roosting right on top of her, in fact.
She told the ground, "I want you to leave."
"That's nice, but you lost." He continued with more heat
than she would have expected, "You poke fun. You make me feel bad—"
"That's not hard to do," she pointed out.
"Well, too bad for you, 'cause now I took you out here and
beat your pants off." He laughed. "Literally. Now who of us is
peeling them off you? You or me?"
She glanced over her shoulder again, pressed her lips together,
then blew out through them an exasperated breath. None of this was right. He
threw her off. She couldn't think how to handle it, what to do. "Diplomats
don't behave as you do," she complained.
"One does."
"You'll be recalled."
As he spoke, he lifted her arm, rolling it to get at the inside
where the band held her arm protector to it. He undid it, saying, "You're
kiddin', right?" At this awkward angle, their eyes met – he smiled down at
her. The shade made his eyes dark, a dusky slate-blue, bluer than the sky
behind him, starkly fair against his thick, black eyelashes. "Or else you
know nothin' of the long tradition of American diplomacy, starting with Ben
Franklin. Why, we're a regular bunch of wild fellas away from home. So are the
British, by the way." His smile broadened into rich, chuckling sarcasm.
"And, as I remember, you behave a little differently away from home, too,
don't you?"
The last two words were muddled: He'd taken her other arm, bending
it at the elbow, her hand toward him. She jumped when he bit her fingers, but
he was only pulling the leather finger tabs off with his teeth. Oh, his thumb
pressed into the ball of hers … his teeth pulling … he made her shiver. There
was the sudden give as the tabs released. He opened his mouth to drop them.
They fell at her neck to lay on the ground against the top of her collarbone.
Another shudder, goose bumps.
She turned back toward the ground and told the earth, "All
right. You've won. Let me up. I'll do it."
"And a kiss," he said.
"What?" She glanced over her shoulder again, and her
back arched. And there was no mistaking – at her bum, he was full and solid.
God help her, every part of him was so perfectly masculine, especially that
part, nothing halfway about it any longer. He had to be mad even to suggest—
"I'm sorry, but it's a penalty kiss," he said, almost
sounding apologetic. "For having to chase you down." He laughed
softly, deep-voiced.
They were both mad. Because, despite herself, she let out a little
burst, laughing, too. It was so ridiculous. "No." While the feel of
him at her backside made her eyes glaze. He shifted a degree, and suddenly –
perfectly – long, hard Sam nestled into the indentation between her buttocks.
God bless – she closed her eyes and bent her head to the ground again.
"Come on, Liddy." So gently, his voice descending to the
sweetest whisper, he said, "Kiss me," and brought his mouth to her
neck.
Shivers again, goose bumps, deep, melting quivers… No, no, this couldn't
be, she kept thinking. The wrong feelings in the wrong surroundings. He brushed
his mouth up her nape and into her hair, drew a deep breath, and let out a
muted sigh or moan, it was impossible to tell.
Then, so quickly she didn't realize what he was about until it had
happened: He lifted onto his arm, pushed her shoulder, came down in the space
beside her, up against her, then rolled them both back. Like that, she was
under him, looking up into his face, his hair tickling her temple as he brought
his mouth down.
She was going to turn away, going to thrash in his arms so he
couldn't find her lips. But this happened in fantasy, for when his mouth
brushed hers, all the wonderful, uninhibited pleasure of the moor was suddenly
with her. As if he could carry it inside him, breathe it alive again into her
throat: resuscitate it.
He twisted his head and pressed a full, passionate kiss into her
mouth, tongue, teeth, lips, hot and wet, shifting his weight as he brought his
hips against her till he'd found just the right fit. He pushed his hips against
her and groaned softly, a sound that echoed down into the hollow of her throat.
While his face blurred and the clouds and treetops spun. She arched, glimpsing
blue sky just before she closed her eyes and dropped into the sensation of him,
hot like sun everywhere their bodies met.
For a moment, she was back on the moor, so willing. More than
willing: aggressive, wanting him. Oh, the freedom to have him, to feel him
enter her. Her hips answered his. What a kiss. She opened her mouth and kissed
him back. He tasted faintly sweet, like the orange marmalade from breakfast. He
smelled, oh … he smelled like Sam … sunny, a leafy woods, with the faint tangy
scent as off new leather. She caressed the back of his head, smoothed his hair
with one palm then the other, petting him. Oh, oh—
She didn't want the kiss to end. She followed it … the intimate
penetration of his tongue … his long body stretched out on her … his pelvis
pushing, the outline of his penis distinct, grinding through their clothes at
her belly, her pubis—
She shocked herself. She wanted to lift her legs up around him.
But they weren't on the moor, and if someone happened to look from
an upstairs window…
This can't be right
,
she thought again, disoriented. The wrong feelings in the wrong place. Or the
right feelings in the wrong place.
With him on her skirts, thankfully, he held her legs back. She
couldn't raise them round his hips, but her shifting around trying to brought
some semblance of good sense. She broke free of his mouth, turning her head,
pushing at his chest. "This is – something is—" Something was wrong.
Something sent her into a state of alarm.
"You like it, Lid," he whispered, insisting: "You
like it."
She could only shake her head, struggling to bring herself back.
"I – I don't—"
He waited till she looked at him – his expression was at once
pained and tender. "You could come to my room," he began, then knew
she wouldn't. "I could come to yours—" He stopped, scowled, looked at
her chin. He tried to invent ways. Then met her eyes and told her, "We
could slip out here, walk to the trees. Tonight. Under the stares if you like.
I want to make love to you again—"
"You're insane."
"What was so sane about a moor?"
"It wasn't here." More bluntly, "I won't. Not in
this place among these people."
"Why?"
Because there was the moor. And there was her life here at Castle
Wiles and in London at Mayfair. The two were separate, not related, and had to
stay that way – as different and discrete as Devon was from Yorkshire or the
city capital.
When he spoke again, it was almost as if he'd read her mind.
"Liddy," he said, "you're trying to make yourself into two
different people. Just be the one you are."
She put the back of her hand over her mouth, arm up, holding it
there, then closed her eyes. Indeed. She felt torn in half ever since Sam's
arrival.
No, before that. By something going on inside her. And angry for
it, absolutely ripped apart. How had she become so different from her family?
From her friends? When had this happened? She felt foolish, critical of
herself. "How many of my friends might relish gallivanting across a
moor," she muttered – or lying on her back looking up at sky, treetops,
and Louche American Sam – "for no better reason than it was exciting and
fun?"