Finding Home (15 page)

An hour later Gage was still on
the stoop, and of all things, smoking a pipe. The sweetish aroma of the tobacco drew Phoebe out the screened door. She sat on the same step as he, taking care to tuck her skirt about her knees against mosquitoes and the off chance Gage might skitter a glance. Her knees were not her best feature.

“
I didn’t know you smoked.”

“
Now and then.”

Phoebe glanced up at the sky. Stars twinkled
, but the moon hadn’t made any headway. “The air is just right tonight, ain’t it?”

“
Almost, a little muggy. Tide is turning, we ought to get a good breeze in a few minutes.”

“
Yard looks good.”

“
I shouldn’t’ve let it go so long.”

“
Why did you?”

He knocked the coals out of the pipe and ground them with his heel.
“Lots of reasons.” Velma, for one. Misery, for two.” With her death, the manner of it, he’d lost his sense of well-being, the direction a man needed to see where he’s been and where he’s going. Seeing the place through Phoebe’s eyes, those old feelings were stirring again. He was beginning to feel whole again, not as if his heart had been cut out.

“
Name one.”

Gage cringed. He could no more articulate his thoughts than the man in th
at sliver of moon. “You’re nosy along with everything else.”

“
You’re always callin’ me names. Don’t you like me one little bit?”

He laughed.
“Can’t make up my mind. I like your cooking. I can’t get over how I just let you come in and take over.”

“
That’s easy to figure. Your house needed a lot of soap and water. So did Dorie. No doubt that was in the back of your mind,” Phoebe said, hopefully. “No doubt you took one look at me and decided I was good and strong and—”

“
Nope, that’s not what I thought.”

“
Oh. What did you think?”

“
That you were the scrawniest, tattered-looking human being I’d seen since folks came out from under the last hurricane.”

Scrawny?
Tattered? Phoebe went rigid. “You must not think that now. You’re always trying to feel me up.”

“
The hell I am!”

Phoebe registered the set of his jaw.
“You like touchin’ me. You just won’t admit it.”

He turned his head, facing her.
“If I touched you, you’d know you’d been— Hell, you’d break in two.”

Her want of Gage came from a primitive urge
. It took on an intense quality, an urgency. If she could talk him into...”I wouldn’t. I’m limber. Size don’t make no nevermind.”

For a moment they stared at one another. In the
starlight Phoebe looked beautiful in a natural way. There was an allure to her face, the shape enigmatic, her dark eyes glowing. Gage jerked.

“
Phoebe, get away from me. Go to bed.” He took a tobacco pouch from his pocket and began to refill the pipe. He fumbled with it and dropped it. “I said, go in the house.”

Phoebe went, her mind moving faster than her feet. He wanted to do it. He wanted to and was scared to. She was scared herself. But it was in the natural order of things, of life, the
reason why Woman was put on earth. If that wasn’t so, then why had God made Eve for Adam? Her problem was that unlike Adam, Gage didn’t have anybody telling him Phoebe Hawley was the right woman for him. Lor! She had to do everything—even think for the man. Planting ideas in Gage Morgan’s head and getting them to grow had about as much chance of success as getting a rose to sprout in the desert.

She put on her night dress and lay down on her bed.
Waiting.

I
’m going to do it
.

Her heart pound
ed so loud she could hear no other sound.

~~~~

It was long after midnight when Gage made his way down the hall and closed the door to his room. After midnight suited Phoebe. It was no longer the Sabbath. She had gotten through the Lord’s Day without committing the sin of fornication and if she had her way, come next Sunday, why, she and Gage would be well into their understanding. God favored understandings. So did Ma.

She crept out of bed
, padded barefoot down the hall and pressed her ear to Gage’s bedroom door. He coughed once. The import of what she was about to do rolled over her. Suddenly her face felt hot, her throat dry. She jerked away from the door and went to the bathroom. She wet her throat, splashed her face with cold water and filled her cupped hands twice over to assuage her thirst. It didn’t help much. She was still warm all over.

She looked in on Dorie, on Maydean and Willie-Boy. All were soundly asleep.
Dern!
she thought indignantly. When she needed a distraction they just lay there curled up like a pack of God’s little angels.

She went back to Gage
’s door, put her hand on the knob. Gage would no doubt toss her out if she so much as took one step inside his room. She wasn’t his kind of woman. She was freckled. Skinny. Scared.

What she was thin
king about doing had the unreality of a dream. What if she got naked and Gage laughed?

What if he didn
’t love her back?

Her whole future hinged on that.

She took a deep breath and turned the knob, ready to flee at the slightest sound. Her heart thudded so noisily she feared it would wake Gage.

Barefoot, s
he slipped inside the room, closing the door so that the latch didn’t click and aided by light from the sliver of moon creeping into the room above the humming air-conditioner made the trek from the threshold to the foot of his bed without notice. He lay with his back to her, facing the window. Phoebe tugged her gown over her head and dropped it on the floor.

Naked, she lay down on the bed.

Gage lifted his head. “What the—”

“
It’s just me,” Phoebe whispered.

Gage reached
over and switched on the bedside lamp.

Phoebe
’s courage shriveled. She hadn’t counted on light. Lying down the way she was caused her breasts to go flat against her ribs, leaving hardly a mound to entice him.

He was staring at her over his shoulder, his lips parted in shock.

“Turn that dern light off,” she snapped.

The next instant they were in
shadows again. Phoebe scrabbled for the sheet, got under it. Every nerve in her body throbbed to a savage beat. She pressed her length against Gage. He was as naked as she! She felt every muscle in his body go rigid.

The unexpected sensation of his flesh next to hers was like nothing she
’d ever experienced. It made lights go off behind her eyes.

“
Get out of my bed,” Gage said, recovering his voice, but not his aplomb.

“
I just got in it,” Phoebe managed, still dealing with the awakening sensations, awed that the mere act of lying next to Gage could cause so much havoc. “I feel like firecrackers are goin’ off inside me. Don’t you?”

“
This won’t work.”

“
Cause you ain’t tryin’.” Her voice sounded odd to her own ears. She put her hand on his chest, felt the wiry hair beneath her fingers.

~~~~

Gage grasped her hand. “Stop.” The word stuck in his throat. He could feel every inch of her that was pressed against him. Skin and bone alike felt smooth and silky. It took his breath away.

“
Turn loose my hand. I want to see what you feel like.”

“
Don’t...” It was a futile plea. He was burning internally with fires of long-suppressed passion. “I haven’t had a woman in a long time. You—”

“
That’s good,” Phoebe murmured. “I don’t like a man that drops his drawers for—”

Prudence found a crack in his sensory perceptions, slipping through.
“Out!” he raged in a whisper, sitting up, attempting to roll out of Phoebe’s reach. She threw both arms around his neck, clinging with all her strength, her lithe body against his back. His brain registered the warmth of her flesh, the sensuous smoothness, the rapid beat of her heart. A guttural moan erupted from him. “Phoebe, stop. This is insane. We don’t fit—”

Phoebe
heard the conviction go out of his tone. “We’re not situated right. Turn around.” She kissed the back of his neck.

“
We don’t—”

Her fingertips caressed his shoulders, feather-light strokes that trailed up the thick sinews of his neck and traced forward until she had explored his jaw, the shape of his lips. She bent her head and touched the nape of his neck with her tongue.

“Damn. Oh damn...”

Phoebe felt rather than heard th
e shape of his words on her fingers. As he lay back, she cautiously moved her leg over his, over his thigh, brushing him with the soft inner side of her upper leg.

“
Lor!” she cried in astonishment. “Gage, is that your tallywhacker?

Before he could protest, she had her hand down there. Her fingers closed over h
im exploring, tracing its shape, its engorged length. “It’s a miracle, the way body parts work,” she said, full of wonder.

Her touch was sending delightful shocks racing down Gage
’s spine. He struggled for an inner balance, for air. His arms felt leaden, it seemed to take forever to move and clasp her hand to stop her.

“
You can’t...” he panted. His mind was numb, but far back in his brain logic said he had crossed an emotional brink; told him he was plunging into something far more entangling than a casual liaison. “Just a minute ... Here, lie in my arms—”

“
You sound like you’re getting an attack of asthma.”

“
An attack of something. Keep still.”

“
I can’t. I can feel the hairs on your legs ticklin’ me. I wish I could explain how I feel inside. Everything is circlin’, rockin’.” Like a tempest, she thought, when she could think, for his hand was moving slowly at her waist, over her hip, back to her waist. Phoebe held her breath, expecting a comment about her bones, how little flesh covered them. He applied some slight pressure that drew her closer. His kissin’ lips were at her brow. They felt warm, soft, like new cotton. She didn’t dare move, and yet, she felt as if she were floating.

His lips moved down her face, touching her eyelids, her nose, the edge of her mouth, her lips. He put his tongue in her mouth. Shock gave way to a wave of blissful pleasure
and she relished the sensation for a few seconds. Phoebe strained against Gage, but still she could not get close enough. Her hands explored where he had forbidden. A moan escaped him, the sound as if he were being tormented and tortured. Then he was atop her.

She could feel him thrusting into the center of her being as if a floodgate
had been opened. Thrusting, attempting a deep invasion. Strange heats burst inside her, little fires. Her body seemed to know just what to do without any instructions. Her hips rose up to meet his, to accept him fully. She cried for him to press her harder.

Gage stopped in
midthrust, a moment’s bewilderment pulsing through him. Clarity dawned and he felt perspiration break out on his arms and face.

“
You haven’t ever...” he began, tight-jawed.

“
Please don’t stop,” Phoebe arched her hips, flexing muscles that she had not known existed to keep him within her.

“
You should’ve told me.” He began to withdraw.

Phoebe threw her legs about him, locking him inside her.
“I told you I was limber. Besides—”

“
Phoebe...”

“
It’s the natural way between a man and a woman.”

“
I’ll hurt you.”

“
You feel good!” she said with ferocity against a mounting panic that she had no feminine power with which to hold him to her.

Gage could feel his willpower unraveling
. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to her cheek, her earlobe. “Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop.”

“
I will,” she promised, sighing as he again began to rock with an erotic rhythm that reached to every sinew and inch of flesh she owned. Her virtue was now an alien and unwanted part of her body. When the sharp pain came, she bit her lip.

The eagerness of her body hung suspended for an instant,
then a sudden release of abundant happiness welled up in her. She was out-and-out a woman now. It could never be undone. She closed her eyes and gave her entire being up to unmasking the heretofore mystery of sensual love.

~~~~

Gage was lying with his elbow over his eyes. Phoebe’s body was aligned to his. She was hugging herself, partly because the air seemed now to be unreasonably cool and partly because she didn’t want to let any of the good feelings out. She was going over in her mind all that had happened. Discovering to her dismay she couldn’t recall every minute detail.