“I know. And I’m sorry I didn’t at least write and tell Jeff, and let him tell you what my plans were.”
“No, you were right. You didn’t owe me anything. That first night when we went for the walk, I’ll admit part of my problem was I was scared. I thought maybe now that you’d taken the big step you’d be out for bigger fish than this underage guitar man whose past isn’t quite as pure as you deserve.”
His words brought her head up. Bracing on one elbow she twisted to look back over her shoulder at him. “I long ago stopped placing any importance on the differences in our ages. You’re more mature than most of the thirty-year-old men I work with at school. Maybe that’s why you were so ... I don’t know. Understanding, I guess. Right from the first, I sensed that you were different from all the others I’d ever met, that you really did look into me, the person, and judge me by my inner qualities or shortcomings.”
“Shortcomings?” He flopped down on his back almost underneath her partially lifted chest and touched the tangled locks above her left ear. “You don’t have any shortcomings, sweets.”
“Oh, yes I do. Everybody does.”
“Where they been hidin’?”
She smiled at his playfulness, glanced down at her forearm, and answered, “Several thousand of them have been lurking just below the surface of my skin and are just now coming out to introduce themselves.”
Indeed, her “heat spots” were heating up. The freckles on her arms had already grown so fat their perimeters were dissolving into one another.
He rolled his cheek against the towel, pulled her soft inner arm to his lips, and declared quietly, “Angel kisses.” He kissed her again, higher, almost at the bend of elbow. “Have you been kissing any angels lately, Miss Brubaker?”
She studied his green eyes, and let her feelings show in her own. “Not as often as I want to.” She smiled and added impulsively, “Gabriel.”
“Then what do you say we remedy that?” With a swift flexing of muscle, he was on his feet, reaching out a hand to tug her up. He gathered towels, togs and lotion and handed her the bag. She followed willingly, walking at his side while one light hand guided her shoulders as she crossed the grass toward the sliding door of his apartment.
She stepped inside where it was cool and shaded. She heard him snap the lock on the screen door, then step to the drapery cord and draw the curtain closed until the midday light was even more subdued through the open weave of the fabric. It threw gentle checkers across the thick carpet and her bare toes. She had the fleeting thought that her hair was probably plastered to her head in some places and flying at odd angles in others, and that her makeup was all washed away. Behind her she heard a metallic click, then the soft shhh of a needle settling onto a disc. She was frantically scrambling to find her comb in the bottom of the tote bag when a guitar introduction softly filled the room, and an insistent hand captured the drawstring bag and pulled it from her nervous fingers, as if Brian would brook no delays, no repairs, no excuses.
My world is like a river
As dark as it is deep ....
As the poignant words met her ears, she was turned around by lean, hard fingers that closed over the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulders. When his eyes delved into hers, he wordlessly searched out her palms and carried them up around his neck. His body was moving in rhythm to the music but so very slightly she scarcely felt the evocative sway of his shoulders beneath the soft flesh of her inner arms. But some magical force made her body answer the almost imperceptible beckoning as he swayed, drawing nearer and nearer until the fabric of her suit brushed the hair upon his chest. The invitation was wordless at first, as his warm palms found her naked back and pressed her lightly against him. Then he began humming softly, drawing away only far enough to continue searching her uplifted face while his palm gently caressed the hollow between her shoulder blades, then traced the depression down her spine. With only the slightest force he urged her hips closer, closer, until her bare stomach touched his—sleek to rough. He undulated slowly as if bidding her to join him. She responded with a first hesitant movement until she felt his hips and loins, confined by the taut piece of clothing that covered him, pressed firmly against her.
His breath was warm upon her mouth as he touched it first with the tip of his tongue, then lightly with the outermost surfaces of his lips. He was still humming. As her lips dropped open she felt the soft intonation tickling the crests of them. The sound, the feeling and his careful doling out of contact served only to tantalize, then he lifted his head and began singing the refrain that had been in her heart since she’d heard him sing the words with the battered old fifteen-dollar Stella in his lap.
Sweet memories,
Sweet memories ....
When the voice on the record hummed the final notes and took the song home, she was settled securely against the full, hard length of Brian’s body, feeling all its surfaces, ridges and textures as if she were on an elevated plane of sensory awareness.
In the thundering silence between songs, his hard body and soft voice combined in a message of latent passion. “Theresa, I love you, girl ... so much ... so much.” It seemed too sweeping to take in. Their bodies no longer moved, but were pressed together until the naked skin of his thighs and belly seemed bonded to hers by the slightly oily, very fragrant suntan lotion whose aroma evoked images of tropical islands, warm sunlit shores and the calls of cockatoos. Her senses were filled with the smell of him, his warmth and firmness, but mostly with the sleek texture of his skin.
“Brian ... my guitar man, I think I started loving you when you stepped off that plane and looked me square in the eye.”
Another song had begun, but its rhythm went unheeded, for they were entwined in each other’s arms, hearing only the beats of their hearts pressed together with nothing but two triangles of thin green material between them. The kiss lost all tentativeness and blossomed into a full complementary exchange of sleek tongues and throaty murmurs. His head moved sensuously above hers, wooing and winning her slow, sure acquiescence. Her inhibitions began dissolving until he felt her hips reaching toward a closer communion with his as she raised up on tiptoe to mold her curves more securely against his, all the while clinging to his sleek shoulders.
His palms moved down to learn the shape of her firm hipbones once more, then the solid flesh of her rounded buttocks, cupping them in both hands as he drew close.
He tore his mouth from hers, his eyes glowing with the fire of a passion too long denied. “Sweets, I promised I wouldn’t come back here and force this issue. I said I’d take it slow, and give you time to—”
“I’ve had twenty-six years, Brian. That’s long enough.”
When he lifted his head she felt deprived at the loss of his warm lips and reached with her own, as if she suddenly couldn’t get her fill of these long-delayed joys.
“Do you mean it, Theresa? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Oh, Brian, I’m so sure it hurts ... right here.” She took her palm and pressed it against her heart. “I thought I’d be afraid and uncertain when this moment came, but I’m not. Not at all. Somehow, when you love, you know.” She gazed up at him in wonder, touching his lips with her fingertips. “You just know,” she breathed.
“Yes, you know, darling.”
Slowly he covered her shoulders with his hands and pressed her away from him to gaze into her ardent eyes while he spoke. “I want you to look around at this room.” She felt herself turned until her bare back was pressed against his rough-textured chest. From behind he circled her ribs, his forearms resting just below her breasts, touching their undersides. “This room has no furniture because I wanted us to pick it out together. I thought about waiting to ask you until afterward, but I find I want to know first. Will you marry me, Theresa? Just as soon as it can be arranged? And we can fill this place with furniture and your piano and music and maybe a couple of kids, and make sweet memories for the rest of—”
“Yes!” She spun and l
ooped her arms around his neck, cutting off his words with the kiss and muffled word before lifting her mouth from his and singing, “Yes, yes, yes! I didn’t know whether I wanted you to ask me before or after but it’s probably best before, ’cause I probably won’t do so well ....” His eyebrows drew into a puzzled frown. “I’m not experienced at this part,” she explained diffidently.
The next minute she was scooped up into his arms and felt his hard belly against her hip while he carried her down the hall to his bedroom.
“Trust me. You will be, as soon as it can be arranged.”
From the bedroom doorway where he paused, she saw her marriage bed for the first time. It looked like any other bed, covered with a quilted spread of brown-and-blue geometric design that matched the two sheets haphazardly thrown over the curtain rods to lend the room privacy.
“I never thought to ask you before I bought a waterbed if you like them or not.”
“Can a person get seasick on it?”
“I hope not.”
With her arms looped around his neck she drew his head down until his mouth joined hers. Muffled against his lips she muttered, “Well, I brought plenty of dramamine pills along, just in case.”
Chapter Sixteen
THE TRIP TO THE BED in Brian’s arms was like crossing the bridge of a rainbow connecting the earth to heaven. When she was a girl, Theresa had wondered, as all girls do from the time they feel the first stirrings of maturity, what the man would be like when the moment came? And the setting—would it be dark? Winter or summer? Day or night? Inside or outside? And our first intimate encounter—would it be rushed or slow? Silent or vocal? Reckless or poignant? Would it leave me feeling more—or less?
The sheets rippled at the windows. The sun brought the blue-and-brown pattern alive, backlighting it until the entwined diamonds and parallelograms danced upon the shimmering fabric, while from outside came the faraway voices of children who clanged the gate to the pool area, then whooped gleefully as they took their first plunge.
From the living room came the strains of love songs, distant now, unintrusive, but mellow and wooing. Brian’s bare feet moved soundlessly across the cocoa-colored carpet. His lips wore a faint smile, and his steady eyes rested upon Theresa’s while he sat on the edge of the bed with her legs across his lap. She felt a faint surge of liquid motion lift them momentarily, then subside. Twisting at the hip he placed her the wrong way across the bed, across its width, lying on his side next to her with his knees slightly updrawn.
He braced up on one elbow, smiling down into her face, running the tip of an index finger along the rim of her lower lip. The smile had drifted from her face, and her lingering apprehensions were reflected in the wide brown eyes and the slightly parted lips.
“Are you scared?” he asked softly.
She swallowed and nodded. “A little.”
“About anything in particular?”
“My lack of experience, among other things.”
“Experience will take care of itself. What are the other things?” His fingers trailed along her jaw and began gently freeing the strands of hair from about her temples, absently arranging them in a bright corona about her head.
Already she felt the telltale blush climbing her chest. “I ....” The words stuck, creating a tight knot in the center of her chest. “I don’t ....” His eyes left the hair he’d been toying with and met hers, but his fingers were still threaded through the red strands, resting upon the warm skull just above her left ear. “Oh, Brian,” She covered her face with both hands. “This is so hard, and I know I’m blushing terribly, and there’s nothing less becoming to a redhead than blushing, and I’ve never—”
“Theresa!” His gentle reprimand cut her off as he circled her wrists and forced her hands away from her face. She stared up at him in silence. The reprimand left his voice, and it became compelling. “I love you. Did you forget that? There’s nothing you can’t tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together, all right? And, just to set the record straight, redheads look darling when they blush. Now, would you like to start again?”
The muscles in her stomach were jumping. Her fists were clenched, the tendons tight beneath his grasp. She sucked in a huge, fortifying gulp of air and ran the words out so fast she wouldn’t have a chance to change her mind. “I-don’t-want-to-get-pregnant-and-I-went-to-the-drugstore-yesterday-and-bought-something-to-make-sure-I-wouldn’t-but-the-instructions-said-I-had-to-use-it-half-an-hour-before-and-I-don’t-know-before-what-or-how-long-anything-takes-because-I’ve-never-done-this-before-and-oh-please-Brian-let-my-hands-go-so-I-can-hide-behind-them!”
To Theresa’s amazement, he laughed lovingly and wrapped her in both of his arms, falling to his side and taking her along until they lay almost nose to nose. “Is that all? Ah, sweet Theresa, what a joy you are.” He kissed the tip of her very red nose, then lay back, running a finger along the crest of her cheek. His voice was quiet and calm. “I had the same thought myself, so I came prepared, too. That means you have a choice, sweetheart. You or me.”
She tried to say me, but the word refused to come out, so she only nodded.
“Well, now’s the time.” He sat up and tugged her along after him, and she padded to the living room for her purse, then back down the hall toward the bathroom.
When she returned to the bedroom he was lying on his back across the bed, still in his swimtrunks, with his arm folded behind his head.
Through the open doorway he had watched the green bathing suit appear as she opened the bathroom door, crossed the hall and approached the bed. Long before she reached it, he’d extended a palm in invitation.
“Come here, little one.”
She lifted one knee to the edge of the bed, placing her palm in his, and let him tug her down until she fell into the hollow of his arm, partially across his chest. The water stirred beneath them, then went still. His right arm remained beneath his head, but even one-handed he eased her closer, tighter, until she hovered above him, and his eyes conveyed the remainder of the message. She bent her head to touch his lips with her own, and the kiss began with a meeting no heavier than the morning mist settling upon a lily. It expanded into the first brief touch of tongue tips—tentative, introductory, promising. He tasted slightly sweet, as if some of the tropical sunscreen still lingered on his lips. His tongue sought the deeper secrets of her mouth, and hers his. Seek, touch, stroke, chase, devour—they shared each advancing step of the intimate kiss. Longing sang through her veins, enlivening each of her senses until she perceived each touch, sound, taste, sight and smell with that new, exultant keenness she’d discovered for the first time today. His relaxed pose lifted the firm muscles of his chest and exposed them in a way that invited exploration.
She let her hand seek out his neck first, recalling the throaty sound he’d uttered when she’d stroked that soft hollow once before. She allowed her thumb to explore the hard knot of his Adam’s apple, and beneath the soft pad, the masculine point jumped as he swallowed. When her thumb slid down to the shallow well at its base, she felt his pulse racing there, pressing against her finger like a knocking engine.
It had happened again, that response she could kindle so effortlessly in this man. She sensed it and experimented, a little bit more. Her hand left his neck and flattened upon the firm rise of his chest, experiencing the rough texture of hair, then the tiny point of his nipple, which she first fanned, then scissored between her fingers while bracing over him, moving her lips downward to touch the warm skin on his chest. She tasted him. Sweet oil and salt and sun and chlorine and coconut and papaya. She had not dreamed he would have taste, yet he did, and it was heady and sensual. Beneath her tongue the rough hairs of his body felt magnified, yet silky. Upon her lips she felt the faint oily residue left behind by the sunscreen. He was warm and resilient and utterly male.
Lifting her head, she felt drugged by senses that had sprung to life from the shield behind which they’d been protected for so many years. Suddenly she was eag
er to know all, feel all, to glut herself on every texture, hue and scent his body possessed. Her eyes met his, then dropped to travel across the shadowed throat, his ear, his nipples, his jaw where a tiny, tiny scab remained from some incidental nick of razor, perhaps. She touched it with a single fingertip, then pressed the length of her palm along the underside of the biceps of the arm bent beneath his head. She ran the hand down to his armpit, awed that even the wiry hair there could be something she craved to know, simply because it was part of his physical makeup.
“Brian,” she breathed, looking into his eyes, “I’m like a child tasting candy for the first time. I never knew all these things before. I have so much to catch up on!”
“Catch then. We have a good seventy years,”
A flickering smile passed her features, but was gone again, wiped away by this new rapt interest in his body. He closed his eyes, and like an eager child she twisted onto one hip, bracing a palm on the bed to get a better overview of this delicacy called Brian Scanlon. Still it wasn’t enough. Finally, she pulled both legs up beneath her and sat on her haunches at his hip—looking, touching, familiarizing.
“You’re ... exquisite!” she marveled. “I never thought a man could be exquisite, but you are.” His belly was hard, his ribs tapering to the indentation of his waist, just above the spot where his trunks sliced his abdomen. Within the white trunks she saw the mysterious raised contours of his arousal and wondered if it hurt him to be bound up so tightly.
She lifted her eyes to his and found he’d been watching her. A charming, lopsided grin bent the corner of his mouth.
“Darling girl.” He lazily lifted his hand and ran a finger along the path of one string of her tie top, starting at the side of her neck, traveling beside it to the point where it met the band beneath her breasts. She shuddered with delight. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s exquisite.” The finger idled up the opposite strap. Her eyelids felt weighted and a coil of anticipation wound through her stomach. His four fingertips traced the line of her collarbone, then moved downward, drawing a quartet of invisible Ss along the freckled mound of her breast. The faint tickle lifted the fine hairs on her bare stomach. He gave the other breast equal attention, fingering her skin with the brush of a dragonfly’s wings. Her eyelids slid closed, and her head dropped slightly backward, listing to one side while his callused fingertips followed the first strap again, but this time also moved over the shimmery green triangle of fabric to graze the hidden, uptilted nipple that gave an unexpected spurt of sensation down her arms, stomach and straight to the seat of her femininity.