Old Enough To Know Better (3 page)

Cat was still sobbing quietly into the pillow he’d given her that, luckily, was a spare.  She’d drenched it, and wouldn’t want to sleep on it tonight.  Clint sighed, wanting to rub his hand over the havoc he’d created on her bottom, wanting to rub lotion on it, to soothe away the hurt he’d just deliberately caused, but he restrained himself, knowing that she needed the reminder of rolling over onto a sore bottom tonight, and sitting on it tomorrow morning at breakfast, and in the car on the way to the mall when they returned the dress together.

So after divesting her of the dress, which he lay carefully over the chair next to the bed, and popping her into her favorite nightgown, he tried to content himself with being a replacement for the pillow, tugging it away from her and transferring her limp body into his waiting arms as they cuddled close together under the warm covers.

She glommed onto him as she often did after a spanking, as if he was a rock in the middle of a storm, still hiccoughing sobs.  He enveloped her in his strong arms and rocked just a bit, back and forth, rubbing her back and just letting her cry it out.  Clint loved the feel of her body pressed up against his, and he did all what he could to not lay her back and make love to her like every inch of him wanted desperately to.  His desire for her hadn’t diminished one iota from the moment he’d seen her.  If anything, the more time they spent together, the more it grew; the better he knew her, the more intimacies they shared, the more the raging inferno of his desire was stoked.

And just after a spanking was one of the times he desired the deepest intimacies with her the most, yet he had made a rule for her that effected the both of them – and although he knew she probably didn’t see it much that way, most all of her rules did effect them both, in one way or the other – and denied himself that ultimate pleasure.

He had never broken that rule.

Until now.

Clint lifted her face from his shoulder with a finger under her chin, covering her lips with his immediately, insistently.

Cat’s mouth was moist and soft.  He could feel that their lips were damming what remained of her tears until he rolled with her, tucking her beneath him, insinuating himself between her legs.  She gasped and arched her back at the way he took her, all at once, to the hilt, no words, no explanations . . . simple possession, in its basest of forms.

She was so tight around him; he could feel her body pulsing and trying to accommodate him, her hips arching and rocking as she came to grips with the sudden, stark pleasure of being both pinned and pricked so unexpectedly.

He hadn’t so much as moved, beyond claiming her inside and out, and yet she was soaking wet and panting already.  Clint reached down and tugged the nightie over her head, hating even the flimsiest of obstacles to the joining of their flesh, top to toe.

Tongues danced, lips sucked, nipples pinched and tweaked on both sides, and then he reached under her and clenched that still sore, cute little rear of hers that he’d so recently tended to, forcing her even closer against him to avoid his grasping hands, making her groan in a way that had him wishing they were on an island of their own, where no one would ever hear her scream, in pleasure or in pain.

In lieu of the island, he covered her mouth with his and dragged himself out of her so slowly that she was begging him to take her before his hips had made it halfway back.

Her answer was his most evil chuckle, which, to her, was false advertising.  There wasn’t an evil bone in his body . . .

She thought.

But apparently there was at least one.

Their lovemaking that night was her undoing.  In the aftermath, she shook and cried in his arms to the point that he thought he might have seriously hurt her, but the truth was far from it.  He split her open, the very insides of her, places she never showed anyone. He brought the light of his love to places she didn’t even know she owned and, although it was a tender, joyous thing, it wasn’t easy, which made it all that much more achingly tender to her.

She fell asleep, as she nearly always did, with her head on his chest and her body throbbing in time to his pulse.

So there she stood at the very back end of the engagement party for a dear friend, years later, Clintless, alone by choice. Wishing she was anywhere else, and thinking too much about old times with a man she’d never see again, who’d never again hold her in his arms or even sear her flesh with his palm.  Hell, she’d even gladly sign up for a spanking again without so much as a second thought, if only to be near him.

Tears flooded her eyes, and she turned, wanting to run home when she knew she should have been trying to enjoy herself at Jane’s party.  After all, Jane was one of her oldest friends, and she’d been alone, too, raising her first husband’s son from his first marriage, Finn, for more than twenty years.  Jane’s husband had died, too.  You would have thought she would have understood better than anyone else what Cat was going through.

But Cat and Clint’s relationship wasn’t the norm, and neither had Jane and Paul’s been.  It hadn’t been the happiest of marriages, even at its best.  Paul’s favorite companion had been the bottle, and he’d preferred to take out his shortcomings on Jane, so she actually had less of an understanding of Cat’s reluctance to date and come out of mourning than her other friends did.

It was funny.  Out of her close friends there was only one couple that she thought actually had a good relationship, anything like what she and Clint shared.  Everyone else had cycled through good and bad relationships like the seasons of the year, picking up and then discarding them for one reason or the other, four out of the five of them ending up alone and seemingly content that way.

Three out of four, now, she corrected herself, mentally raising her glass to Jane and whatsisname.

What was that guy’s name?  She couldn’t come up with it for the life of her.  Early Alzheimer’s was definitely setting in.

Cat was shaking her head at the way she was slowly losing her mind as she headed for the dining room, where all of the potluck dishes had been laid out for everyone to help themselves, spread from hell to breakfast on the groaning, gorgeous mahogany trestle table that had been in Jane’s family for more than two hundred years, on the immaculate sideboard that her great-great-great-great grandmother had brought over from the old country with her, and on the Hoosier that Cat had always not so secretly coveted.  Leave it to Jane to have a party for herself and then make everyone else contribute towards it.  If it had been Carol’s party she would have had it at the Bar Harbor Inn and she would have spared no expense.  Cristal would have flowed like water, and there would have been a huge spread of lobster and caviar and Kobe beef fit for a sheik.

But Jane was a much more the down to earth type.  They had all been born and bred on the Island, but Jane had retained that down home practicality that some of them had lost.  She had inherited a perfectly gorgeous old center hall colonial from her parents, circa 1825, decorated with lovingly treasured antiques that had been handed down from generation to generation, so she didn’t feel the need to have her party anywhere else but her own home.

Besides, she knew some of her friends were the best cooks in town.  Why let that go to waste?

And she was right.  Cat took one – and only one, she told herself sternly – of Carol’s famous stuffed shells, two paper thin slices of Rhonda’s famous garlic studded leg of lamb, a homemade roll that she knew by the cloverleaf shape was Mrs. Kellerman’s, and a small – all right, a slab – of Jane’s chocolate cheesecake and made her escape to the screened porch, where she was relieved to find no one was at this time of year, to devour her bounty in relative peace and privacy.

It was still a little to chilly for most folks, but the Taylors had gotten a prime piece of land in Southwest Harbor sometime near its inception in 1761, right on the water, back when that didn’t mean anything like what it did now in terms of value, and the town was just a small, working fishing village. 

She took a slow, calming breath.  Even with all her traveling, Cat had never lost her deep love of the smell of the Maine ocean, even at low tide.

She was just sitting back, having kicked off an uncomfortable high heeled shoe to place a stockinged foot on the cold floorboards in favor of rocking the swing a little as she listened to the ocean and began to tuck, miniscule bite by miniscule bite, into the luscious cheesecake - first, of course, in case there was an earthquake and the house fell into the sea and she’d started with the roll and missed out for eternity on her last possible bite of chocolate cheesecake - when she heard the screen door open and Finn appeared.

Oh, God, now she had to feel guilty about what she was eating, because someone had caught her at it.  The rule was that if no one saw you eat it, there were no calories, right?

“I thought I’d seen you come out here,” he said.

My, my.  When did he get old enough to possess a voice like that?  It was at least as smooth and guilt inducing as the cheesecake that was melting in her mouth.  She cocked her head to one side, thinking that that was a relatively strange thing for him to say, too.  Why on Earth would he be paying attention to where she was?  “I was just trying to escape the crowd, and this has always been my favorite place in this house.”

“Mine, too,” he said, leaning against the railing of the porch, watching her thoughtfully but in a manner that was making her nervous nonetheless.

Despite the smooth richness of the dessert, she was beginning to regret that she hadn’t brought anything but lemonade out to drink.  It really didn’t go with cheesecake, and she frowned as she took a sip. It completely ruined the effect.

“Can I get you something else to drink?”

Her eyebrows rose. Wow, an attentive young man; what a novelty.  She thought about making the comment out loud, but didn’t want to offend him.  She decided to keep her negative thoughts about the rude, self absorbed younger generation to herself, since he was one of them.

“Only if you’re going to get something yourself.”

He levered away from the rail.  “What would you like?  Champagne?  Wine?  A cocktail?”

She surprised him by wrinkling her nose and answering, “A big glass of milk?  Do you think your mom might have some in the fridge?”

Finn chuckled.  “I know she does.  She’s still trying to get me to drink it, like I’m seven or something.  I’ll be right back.”

Well, he definitely wasn’t seven, Cat thought, watching him leave almost absently, but letting her eyes dwell where they shouldn’t.  He had a nice butt that was encased in tight jeans.  A very nice butt in very tight jeans.  And, if she was pressed to admit it, he had a very nice front, too, a nice package, she believed they called it nowadays.  She wasn’t much for noticing the physicality of any one – male or female.  She became attracted to personality traits primarily, intelligence being first and foremost.  But she had to admit, he was quite an attractive young man.  Too young for her, of course, but still.  She could appreciate the eye candy.  She was older, yes, but not dead.  Yet.

It was a surprising thing for her, though.  She didn’t usually notice men, or rather, she hadn’t since Clint had died.  Frankly, she hadn’t much when she was with Clint; there hadn’t been any need.  She’d had found the perfect man for her.  Why look around when the ultimate in perfection slept next to you each night?

He was back before she knew it, handing her a big red plastic cup which she drained a third of on the first gulp.  It tasted luscious mixed with all of that velvety chocolate goodness.  “Thank you.  Lemonade and cheesecake don’t mix.”

“Bleh,” he shuddered.  “No.”

“Do you mind if I eat?” she asked, raising her plate towards him.  “You’re welcome to have some, if you’d like,” she offered, greedily hoping he wouldn’t take her up on it.

“No, thanks, go right ahead.  Mom’s been feeding me so much since I came home that I’m going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe twelve sizes up.”  He patted an entirely nonexistent belly.

Cat snorted very unsympathetically and tried to delicately shovel another piece of cheesecake into her mouth, then gave up trying to be delicate.  Who was she trying to impress, anyway?  She would’ve bet anything he had washboard abs under that casually unbuttoned dress shirt and jacket, and she could hardly pretend to match them.  “Puh-leeze.”

“She is!  You know how she cooks.”

Cat nodded vehemently.  Jane had grown up in a large family, and cooked like a dream, but enough for an army, even though it had really only ever been herself and Finn.  She and Clint had been on the receiving end of Jane’s charity overflow, and had been extremely grateful at the time when she’d gone on a baking or cooking or canning binge.

“You’re not slouch in that department, either, as I remember,” he added.

She nodded her head back and forth saying, “I can hold my own in a kitchen, but I’m nothing compared to your mom in the way of quantity.”  Finished, and delicately licking her lips, she set the plate aside on a wicker end table.  “So you came back here from Silicon Valley?  Your mom was really surprised that you’d moved back.  She figured you were out there for good.  Weren’t you happy out there, where it never rains and there’s no snow or mud season?”

He chuckled softly and shouldered himself away from the wall to join her on the swing.  It was an average sized porch swing that suddenly had Cat feeling very crowded.  Trying not to let him see quite how uncomfortable she was at his proximity, she turned towards him to talk, her back against the arm rest, one arm along the back of the swing.

When he sat down, he took over the swinging motion for her, for which she was just as happy; her foot was so cold it was about to fall off.  But before she could tuck the nearly blue appendage under her to warm it up, he’d claimed it and brought it all the way from the floor onto his lap.

“Jeez, your foot must be frozen!  It’s not very warm out here to be barefoot.”  Now that sounded uncomfortably like something Clint would say, just before he made her put her shoe back on.  Finn began to rub her foot briskly, then massaged it absently while he answered her question.  “Oh, I did what I wanted to do out there, so now I’m home.”