Heartbreak, Tennessee (12 page)

Amber said nothing,
afraid to speak, wanting Mac to continue. This was more than he had ever said
about his father before.

“Sorry,” he amended. “Dumb
joke. Still, I lived for a few words from that man. Do you know, the day I
turned sixteen, I waited all day long for my old man to say something about it.
I remember that day because Dad had me scrubbing boats that were set to store
for the winter. And I had to do it in the yard, and I was freezing, and I could
barely feel my hands any more as I lugged that bucket around. All day, and
finally I gave up. When we were closing up the shop, my Dad turned to me and
said ‘Reckon your mom’ll have a cake or something.’ That was it, his way of
wishing me a happy birthday.”

“Oh, Mac,” Amber said
softly. He didn’t dare look at her, couldn’t handle the tender release her
sympathy offered.

“I could tell he
wanted to say something more...but he just couldn’t. As hard as he tried, that
was the best he could come up with. He was right about the cake, too,” he added
with a short laugh. “She picked it up at the grocery store at the last minute. A
leftover no one else wanted. I knew because it had pink frosting.”

“I’m sorry,” Amber
said simply. She lifted her small hands to his face, cupped his jaw softly. “So
sorry,” she repeated.

And this time she held
on.

CHAPTER SIX

Pink frosting on a
forgotten boy’s birthday cake. Amber’s heart ached for the boy who’d longed for
his parents’ love. Once she’d been there to fill the void, but now she was
gone, and the boy had become a man who hid his hurt well.

But not from her. From
Amber, Mac could hide nothing, and she found herself responding, reaching
across the chasm of fourteen years and wanting so desperately to heal his hurt.
The story she’d come to tell him was put away, locked back in her mind. Its
power to wound him further made Amber determined to forget it.

Her touch held
concern, sadness. But when her fingers found the planes of his face, warm and
rough from a day’s growth of beard, those emotions were replaced by others.

Dangerous ones.

Pull away. Take your hands off
him, turn and walk out of here. Don’t look back.

But her heart would
not be commanded.

Her fingers began a
slow exploration, traveling up to find the creases at the corners of his eyes,
wondering again if they were from laughter or worry. She traced his lips
lightly, and a low groan answered her touch.

“Amber.” Mac’s voice
was tight, choked. “What the hell are you doing? We said—”

“I know what we
said....now hush.”

Perhaps it was the
wine. Or a giddy sense of freedom once she’d made up her mind to forget her
plans to tell him what had happened so long ago. Or a simple desire to give, to
soothe, to heal through her touch.

Amber began to feel
bold, reckless. She marveled as her hands continued their exploration, down his
throat, easing under his collar, finding the muscles hard and tensed
underneath.

At seventeen, Amber
had lost herself in a first kiss with Mac, following his lead, meeting his
tender probing with new-found response. She learned from him, learned how lips
and teeth and tongue can turn a simple embrace into something dangerously close
to ecstasy.

She continued to learn,
always following, waiting for Mac’s tentative lead. He never pushed. When the
time seemed right, he questioned silently, offering new pleasures with a tug at
a button, a caress that strayed beyond known territory.

And always, always, he
stopped at the first sign of her discomfort. Through the long, delicious dance
over the course of a year, he led her slowly higher and higher until finally,
on her eighteenth birthday, he loved her as a woman, and she met his release
with cries of her own, cries of joy.

But always she
followed.

Now, for the first
time, Amber found herself leading, exploring, as she unbuttoned one button and
then another so she could slide her hands around Mac’s chest, burying her face
against his pounding heart.

It was reckless, she
knew. And promised hurt.

But it felt so right,
so irresistibly right.

“You told me it would
be a mistake,” Mac whispered hoarsely through clenched teeth. His senses were
so heightened that he could feel her eyelashes flutter against his skin. He
grasped at her hair, looping the silky strands through his fingers, meaning to
pull away.

Instead, he found
himself lifting her face to look at him. “I want you. God, how I want you,” he
managed to say. “But—”

Amber silenced him as
she met his lips with her own. In a single fluid motion their bodies met and
melted together, the sensory memories taking over where logic and reluctance
left off. Amber arched into him, sinking back against the counter as her thighs
gave way to his weight. He cradled her close, running his hands down her body
to cup her hips in his hands.

Amber parted her lips
to the explorations of his delving tongue, answering with urgent thrusts of her
own. She snaked a hand through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp, the
sharp sensation heightening his passion all the more. She lifted her chin, led
his probing mouth across her cheek, her throat.

She had never felt
such raw hunger. Mac’s beard scratched her skin, but she pulled him even
closer. Her back arched against the counter as he supported her with one hand,
the other sliding down the cotton of her dress, reacquainting himself with the
contours of her body.

Hot. His touch was so
hot, raining sensation down on her. She moaned softly and abandoned her
attempts to loosen his shirt to help him in his own task as he eased down the
zipper of her dress. Shrugging out of the cotton fabric, she grasped his
shoulders, feeling the muscles rippling as he bent his head to taste the swell
of her breasts in the ivory satin of her bra.

Suddenly he stopped,
lifting his head. Apprehension seized her, a screaming ache of desire as she
prayed he wouldn’t abandon her now.

But in an effortless
motion he scooped her up in his arms, as though she were weightless.

“Not here,” he
whispered. “I want to love you upstairs, where we can hear the rain on the
roof.”

“Oh, yesss...”

He took the oak stairs
two at a time, and carried her through a broad-beamed doorway into his bedroom.
A wide open window let the misty air trail in, and as Mac laid her gently down
on a soft featherbed she felt her skin tingle and her nipples harden in
response.

“Goose bumps,” he said
softly, lifting one of her arms. He kissed his way slowly up the inside,
lingering in the crook of her elbow, until she squirmed at the sensation, which
was maddeningly erotic. Her body arched under him, begging him to hasten.

She couldn’t stand to
wait. She pushed at his chest, struggling out from under him. In mock
obedience, he lay back on the bed, his breathing labored, and watched her.

“My turn,” she
whispered.

Amber straddled him
and resumed her efforts at his buttons. Though her fingers shook, she freed
them all, and slid the shirt off his body. As she yanked the sleeves off the
last two buttons burst free of his cuffs and rolled away on the hardwood floor
below.

“Brute,” Mac
whispered, grinning, though his breath was labored. “I’m beginning to think I
should be afraid of you.”

“But I’ve just barely
begun,” Amber said.

She had no idea where
her newfound boldness came from. It was like thirst, and she knew she couldn’t
stop until she’d drunk her fill. She lowered her head to taste deeply of the
smooth, hard expanse of his stomach. The few burnished blond hairs tickled her
cheeks, and she rubbed her face in the warmth of his skin. She dipped her
tongue into his navel, then bit gently, his muscles hardening in response.

“Sweet lord, Amber,”
Mac sighed. “Where did you learn all this?”

The question barely
registered. She continued to experiment with the textures of his body. She
pressed her cheek against the cold, hard metal of his belt buckle, rubbed her
chin against the rough denim. He arched his hips against her, and she felt the
hard expanse of his passion. Taking him in her hand through the cloth, she
remembered how he’d gently guided her the first time, how he’d taken such care
not to hurt her.

There would not—could
not—be any such caution tonight.

She slipped the belt
free and tugged down his zipper. With a hard shove Mac yanked jeans out of the
way, freeing his glorious staff. Amber sighed softly before touching it, tentatively
at first. She looped her hair around its length as her caresses became more
certain.

The motion of Mac’s
hips belied his need.

“Please,” he
whispered. “I want to be inside you, I want to hold you—”

He grasped her gently
beneath her arms and slid her up, her body traveling against his and causing
the most delicious friction.

“—to love you—”

He covered her throat
with kisses as she positioned herself gently above him, her breasts pressed to
his pounding heart, her legs wrapped firmly around his hips.

“—to make you
mine again...”

As he arched to meet
her, sliding inside in a single fluid motion, she cried out once in joy and
then let her instincts take over, rocking against him in a rhythm set by her
own body. She pushed herself up on her arms, her hair falling free and brushing
against his forehead, wanting to see his face. His eyes narrowed, his lips
parted slightly.

“I need you,” he
whispered. “Damn it, Amber, I still need you.”

Dimly, far away, an
alarm went off, but Amber could not stop to listen. His voice against her skin
only brought fresh sensations and she increased her tempo.

When Mac lifted his
head and kissed her breasts, darting his tongue in slow, maddening circles
around her nipples, Amber felt that she couldn’t hold on much longer. She threw
her head back and crested the wave, crying out her ecstasy as shudders of
delight racked her body. In seconds Mac seized her hips and matched her cries
with his own, finding his release as hers subsided in wave after wave of
sensation.

Afterwards, Amber
collapsed against him in exhaustion. Her hair, damp from exertion, clung to her
neck in unruly curls, but Mac slowly twirled his fingers through it, with his
other hand absently caressing the valley between her shoulder blades.

Perfect. That was how
she felt, as though all of her needs had been met, her mind at ease, her
troubles vanished. Her body hummed with warm satisfaction, her limbs nestled
into the crooks and hollows of his body.

“That was...” Mac
paused, his chin scratching the top of her shoulder. “I can’t come up with the
right word. Incredible? Unbelievable?”

“Mmm,” Amber sighed.

“You’re exactly the
same in some ways. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed—”

He hesitated again,
and Amber caught her breath, waiting for him to continue. When he finally did,
there was awe in his voice.

“But you’re different, too,”

“I’ve gained some
weight,” Amber said self-consciously. When they were younger, her lithe body
had very little padding. The years had added curves where none had been, her
hips blooming along with softness in her arms, her breasts. Only her waist had
remained unchanged, trim and tight.

“No, you’re perfect. I
love this—” he ran his hands along her skin to illustrate his point,
sending fresh waves of giddy sensation. “—and this, and...but that’s not
what I meant. You seem more confident. Not many women could...pull off what you
just did, for want of a better way to phrase it.”

A flush of
embarrassment threatened to flood her skin. Lifting her head a little from his
chest she mumbled, “I’ve had a couple of lovers since you, if that’s what you
mean. A woman learns a thing or two.”

Mac shook his head,
tightening his grip on her so that her body was nestled within his, and she
relaxed. “That’s not what I mean, either. Although, don’t get me wrong, I
enjoyed every second. I just meant that you were so natural. So...free. The way
you loved me, it seemed like you put all your heart and soul into it, nothing
held back. Maybe I’m not making sense.” The circles he was drawing on her back
slowed and stopped. “It’s just that it all seemed so right, like it was meant
to happen,” he finished, his voice barely above a whisper.

The words settled over
her, and she held onto them as the rain fell outside, and the mist swirled, and
Mac gently pulled up a blanket to cover them, and finally she drifted into a
deep, dreamless sleep.

Sleep, however, eluded
Mac.

Long after Amber’s
breathing became regular, he held her in his arms, listening to the rain and
going over every second of the last few hours. Hours in which he had felt more—more
passion, more emotion, more pure raw sensation— than he had in over a
decade.