Just a Kiss Away (43 page)

She shook in his arms, arms she never wanted to leave. He pushed up out of the pool, pulled off his own drawers, and crawled up her body, his arms holding his weight off her. His lips barely touched hers.

“More,” he whispered. Then he kissed her, long, hot, and stroking. He lifted his body to her side and turned her toward him. His hand drifted over her breast, to tease each rib, her stomach, her belly, and down to comb through her mound of hair. Then he stopped and lifted her hand and rubbed it over his chest, pressed it hard against his own nipple, which hardened like hers had done. Then he released her hand and let his drift over her ribs. She followed his lead.

His hand moved down to that place of fire. Her hand scored through his body hair lower and lower, until it brushed a hardness. She pulled back. He groaned and grabbed her hand, placed it on him, and pressed.

“Do it,” he whispered, his hand covering hers and making it grip him. He moaned. “That’s it. Hold me. More . . . more.”

She reached down with her other hand and closed both over him and still could not hold all. He shifted, moving his hips so her hands slid up and down him.

His own hand moved back to her center, delving inside again and starting the friction all over. It happened faster, longer, and harder this time.

He moaned and pulled her hands away from him, then got to his knees, pulling her up with him. He sat back on his heels and pulled her head forward for a deep kiss.

“Inside. I want to be inside you.” He lifted her so her legs went around his waist, her burning center resting against his.

Now she understood, but she didn’t want to think, she wanted to feel. Her whole body was so finely alert to him that just a brush of his body hair sent strange hot chills over her. Her mouth met his, an answer to his plea.

“Yes, inside me,” she breathed into his mouth just before his tongue filled it. His hands grabbed her hips and slid her back and forth over his length.

He tilted her back so the very tip of him entered her, as his fingers had. Then he touched her center with his thumb over and over, brushing and pushing and rubbing until she tried to pull him closer with her legs.

Just as she throbbed with that exquisite pulsing, he drove up. Something tore within her, a sharp pain, but the pleasure kept coming over and over, so strong that only thick pressure remained.

He pushed upward, and her eyes shot open to look at him. He watched her with a look so intense, so binding, that tears ran freely down her cheeks. He bent his head and drew on each breast over and over, all the while sliding up and pulling back, so slowly. The ecstasy built again, higher and higher, and she pulsed around him.

He stilled, breathing with forced slowness. “Don’t move,” he whispered.

She didn’t. She stayed still in his arms, feeling him absorb her heart and soul, feeling the warmth of his body, the warmth of the fire behind her on her back.

He was still inside her, full and hard, when the fire finally flickered out.

She lay drained against his chest; the only thing holding her up was his arm. He slid one arm under her left knee and raised it.

“More.” Then he started again, hard and fast for long, deep minutes. She couldn’t believe it was happening again, quicker and faster, and suddenly he was thrusting in rapid tempo. The harder and faster he pushed, the deeper her pleasure spiraled until he dropped her leg, held her hips in his gripping hands, and ground up. She did it again, throbbed and pulsed with such strength that she was dizzy with it. He moaned and she felt him pulse within her just before she blacked out.

Sam stared down
at Lollie, asleep in his arms. She thought herself a failure. He laughed at the irony. He’d found something she excelled at. The virgin, the little southern virgin who could talk longer than she could think, had just taken a part of him.

He leaned up on one elbow and watched her sleep. There wasn’t anything different about this woman. He’d had women who were prettier, women who had known all the tricks to make a man feel the most intense pleasure, hot pleasure that burned at that moment but eventually died out like that fire.

But not with her. With her he didn’t want to leave. With her he wanted to start all over again, to stay inside her until he died. Then he’d never need heaven.

The idea was enough to bring a giant to his knees, and it scared the bloody hell out him. He was no giant. He was a slum kid, a professional soldier, a man who had done things he could never tell her about. They weren’t pretty. They weren’t things she’d understand. Her world was too different from his.

They were too different, like fire and wood, water and salt, one would consume the other until one of them was lost, gone completely. He had a hunch that he would be the one who was consumed.

He looked at her sleeping so soundly, and something inside him said it would be worth it. But his mind, his logical mind, said it wouldn’t. Lollie LaRue and Sam Forester had no future, and it was up to him to make sure they both remembered that.

A sense of uneasiness swept over her. She stepped closer to him and sat down, tucking the blanket under her arms. He still didn’t say anything, so she placed her hand on his arm and slowly trailed her fingers up the length of it.

His gaze turned to her trailing hand, and he watched it for the longest time. Finally his hand covered hers and she felt better, for about two seconds. She realized his hand hadn’t covered hers out of affection, like it had so many times the night before. It had covered hers only to stop the movement of her fingers.

“Don’t,” he said with no gentleness in the word. His tone was an order, coldly given.

“Sam? I thought we . . .”

He pinned her with that one-eyed stare.

“I mean you and I . . . Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like last night didn’t happen.”

“What about it?”

She stared at him, stunned silent.

“Expecting rings and roses? Sorry there, Lollipop, that’s not me.”

His words registered. Her chest suddenly ached, as if something inside had just broken.

“Don’t go naming the kids. It was just good sex, probably spurred by our circumstances, being stuck together like we’ve been.”

The sun had just fallen from her bright sky. She tried to breathe; it was a struggle. Her throat closed and the back of her eyes burned. She felt helpless against all the things that welled within her. She loved him, but he didn’t love her back.

“Oh . .” she whispered, backing away from him, unable to bear being close to him. Shame swelled over her, humiliating shame. She turned away, crying, but so devastated that her tears were silent. She had never cried such silent tears, but she had never lost her heart before, and now that she had, it was to a man who didn’t care. But how could he care? Sam Forester had no heart.

The sunlight broke
through the clouds just long enough for Lollie to make her decision. It had stopped raining hours ago, and now the sun was shining—she peered up at the cloudy sky—sort of, and she wasn’t about to endure any more of Sam than she’d had to. They’d spent eternal silent hours confined to the cave. The only break had been an occasional comment from Medusa or the sound of her eating peanuts.

It had taken a while for Lollie’s hurt to change to anger. Now she was good and angry, not because Sam didn’t love her, although that fact still hurt, but because he’d treated her without respect for her feelings—just like her brothers and her father. And some little part of her wanted to hurt him back. She just couldn’t help that feeling. She needed to fight back.

The fighting would start now.

She knew how the bird affected Sam, so after a while she and Medusa had sung their repertoire of songs. Every time the bird had sung a chorus Lollie had given her a nut and taken great pleasure in watching Sam wince and grimace at Medusa’s loud munching. After a good half hour of
crack! chomp! chomp! chomp!
Sam had stood, twitched at the noise, and said something about getting some wood while the rain had let up. Then he’d left.

She intended to do the same, but she wouldn’t come back. He’d said something about spitting in the eyes of the world. Well, she’d do that to him. If he didn’t want her, fine. After hurting her, using her, she didn’t think Sam Forester was worth the trouble it would take to spit.

She picked up the bundle beside her and walked over to Medusa. “Come on, hop up. We’re going for a little walk.”

Medusa hopped up on her shoulder, settled down, and began to whistle “Dixie.” She went to the entrance to the cave, where she stood and looked down. It had been steep climbing when they’d found the cave, but now, since the rains, the mountainside had eroded even more, and from her angle it looked very steep.

“Spit at the world, Lollie,” she told herself. Then she squared her shoulders, gave Medusa a nut, and walked along the edge of the hillside, working her way toward a tree that stood on the right side of the entrance.

Sam had worked
his way up the muddy hill, his arms loaded with firewood. He’d made a decision, something that had been one hell of a lot easier without the accompaniment of that obnoxious bird. He would talk to Lollie, explain that they had no future. He figured he could live with that. It was honest. What he couldn’t live with was the look of shame and hurt she tried to hide from him so proudly. Somehow she’d gotten to him. Somehow that little southern woman had a damn hard grip on him, and he’d never have thought that possible.

They were so different. She had family, respect, social standing, wealth. He had money; his earnings over the last ten years had been substantial enough that when he wished to stop working, he could. Nothing had ever made him think he wanted to stop what he was doing. He’d always imagined that any other way of life would be boring. Of course he’d never known anything but fighting—fighting his way out of the slums and fighting for profit and excitement.

Lollie’s life couldn’t have been more different from his. She didn’t have to fight for anything. Everything was given to her, just because of who she was and who her family was. That kind of acceptance wasn’t something he could understand or respect. In fact, he still wasn’t quite sure what it was about her that got to him. But something did, and whatever it was, it touched a place he didn’t want touched.

Time would make it easier for her, and once she was back home where she belonged, she’d eventually forget him. But he doubted if he’d ever forget her face and the way it had changed from joy to confusion to devastation. He did know that the sooner he put an end to this, the better it would be for both of them. But that didn’t make the doing of it any more palatable.

What he wanted was to do the same thing he’d done last night—hold her, kiss her, lose himself in her until nothing else mattered but her. To do so would be crazy, sort of like continuing to walk the wrong way once you realized you were lost. Sam knew one thing for sure: a part of him was lost.

Life could deal a man the strangest hands. Who’d have thought it possible? Lollie LaRue and him, Sam Forester—unbelievable. Jesus Christ, was he sunk.

He shook his head, resigned to the inevitable, and he climbed up to the cave and dropped the armful of wood. He straightened and scanned the cave. He couldn’t see Lollie. He stepped deeper inside and looked in the dark corners.

Nothing.

An uneasy feeling coiled inside him. He ran to edge of the pool. Nothing. Then he realized the bird was gone. That stupid damn woman had left, alone.

“Aw crap,” he muttered, running to the cave entrance and slowly scanned the densely treed area below. His trained eye covered every inch of the panorama. He didn’t see a sign of her. He squatted down and looked for signs of her trail in the soft mud hillside. Her boot prints went along the east side, and he followed them until he reached the first tree.