Lightning That Lingers (14 page)

“Jenny, darling,” he gasped, “I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry. But do you think you’ve confused me with Fitzwilliam Darcy?” That drew him another round of pummeling. She was laughing now too, her eyes alight with indignation, though her facial muscles had relaxed like a child’s. Gathering her head in the curve of his hand, he brought her parted lips inch by inch to his, pressing her again and again into his slow open kiss. Their eyelashes drifted against each other’s skin like damp brushes. Her lips shone intoxicatingly with their joining moisture. Desire ran through him like torch fire. Thought expired. Now, Jenny. Love, I can’t wait anymore. I can’t wait. His hand had started to slip to her breast when she spoke to him, her voice quiet, love-slurred.

“Philip?”

“Hmm?” he murmured tenderly.

“Others might care. Some of your relatives.”

Oh, God, he thought. She’s still thinking about it. For all the kindling responsiveness of her body, part of her mind remained in the shadows. His body was so filled with the red mist of wanting her that most of him seemed to be floating. Half the fluids in his body felt like they’d buried themselves into the part of him that wanted to bury itself in her. If she’d been any other woman, he would have let nature roll on its own sweet, inevitable course to avoid the cost of subduing his fiery body. But this was Jenny. For Jenny, he had to make everything right. Some of his relatives, she had said.

“No one I’m interested in,” he murmured, and was relieved to see the bruised eyes warm. He wanted to shower her sensitivity with gifts, to crowd her memories with so much joy that the blackness would draw back like a tide and tremble at its own lack of significance.

He stood, cradling her to his chest, carried her to a Java teak wardrobe and set her lightly down.

“Since we’re up here, would you like to climb into something prettier than my jeans?”

Eight

When jeans encased his incredible legs, there really was no prettier garment in the world, she thought. She had been burning since breakfast to climb out of the jeans she’d borrowed from him and into his arms. The problem was, she had done about everything that seemed possible for a basically shy person to initiate that. Loving someone was no longer an abstract dream. He was here with her, his company a giddy delight. Every part of him seemed touchable, inviting. In her lifetime, she had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted him at this moment. She smiled at him as he opened the wardrobe, but she could feel the tautness in her mouth, and the jittery nerve-thrills within.

Inside the cedar-lined teak cabinet was a world of costume that rivaled free access to a storeroom of historic dress at the Smithsonian. There were top hats, satin opera slippers, umbrellas in black
silk, handpainted evening gloves, beaded evening bags, huge elegant hats with flowers or plumes and veils. Gowns in rich textiles glowed like old gems in the delicate attic light.

She laughed when he put a top hat on her head, and remembered that she had been Abe Lincoln the first time his mouth, with its softness and eroticism, had closed over hers.

Then with the abandon of children dressing up, they turned the lovely clothes into play. She peacocked in a black velvet evening cloak, her eyes finding his over a gold ostrich fan. He lounged indolently in a chair like an Edwardian rake, a brown derby hat tipped forward over his eyes, quizzing her figure through opera glasses. She let the cloak slide to the floor, and with her heart beating wildly, caught a handful of fabric at her back and tugged the T-shirt tight, very tight over her breasts, making her nipples stand out in delectable arrogant points. The bowler hat toppled, the opera glasses fell lightly to the Persian carpet at his feet, and Philip slithered from the chair as though his spine had turned to jelly. The tumble was a masterpiece of athletic grace. She joined him quickly on the floor, reviving him with a mink muff rubbed teasingly against his cheek.

A lazily heated smile glittered in the blue eyes. He took the muff from her, sliding his hand inside it, and put it to her cheek. Then his lips replaced the muff, wandering over her skin to lightly caress her mouth. Long sleepy kisses followed, a feast of sensation, suffusing her body with liquid heaviness. He did not touch her intimately, but she felt the growing tautness there, deep, a flaring pressure. Gently he brought the
muff back to her cheek, massaging her flesh with the dense fur. The massage wandered to her nape, the fur raising little welts of pleasure down the length of her spine. He played the fur over her scalp, and in slow erotic circles on her back, following her hips, the curves of her bottom. His kiss sank into her, a repeated motion, his body angling slightly away to permit his hands access to the front of her. Her body curled toward his hand as the fur stroked her stomach, and then, softly, her breasts. One of his hands tugged at the T-shirt, drawing it up until she was uncovered for him and the mink tingled over her breasts, whetting her nipples to a hypersensitivity that made the air against them have texture. Her mouth was deeply open to him, her skin tender. Her body writhed against his hand as it traveled over her jeans, sliding over her thighs, her belly, between her legs.

Her skin was feverish, her eyes as overbright as his when he swept her to her feet.

“Will you dance with me now, Jenny love?” He laughed, probably at her expression. His breath came in short gasps that sounded as though he were trying to bring them under his control. “Don’t look like that.…” More thick laughter. “I love you. Let’s dance. Just like this. It’ll feel so good—wait. Come here, darling.…”

He pulled a gown from the wardrobe, a fairy-tale creation from the turn of the century, of biscuit-colored chiffon with drifts of Valenciennes lace. He held it to her, smiling, and she saw in a daze that the shade matched her skin. Her legs barely held her as she dressed in it behind the clouds and winged cherubs of a French giltwood screen.
Quavering, her heart aloft, she ran back to the exhilarating strength of his arms.

Honeyed melodies from the early years of the century drifted from a gramophone with a mahagony horn and the room swirled with color and sound. His voice softly taught her the steps but it was his hands and his body that guided her into them, making the movements simple and direct, a blur of pleasure.

The bouquet of cedar and floral potpourri from her gown enclosed them like the perfume of a spray of flowers. Their bare feet streamed against the warm oak floor, making soft sounds. Her naked skin under the gown felt the slippery fabric move over it in fluid swirls. Her silk petticoats rustled, caressing his legs. They seemed to be free-falling, then blended together, their bodies exquisite against each other in their heightened state of sensual awareness. Each brush together was dulcet, golden.

He stepped back from her, holding her fingers in a light clasp, and the warmth in her body centered, humming, in her fingers where he touched her. She was a little shaky, but the sensation was delightful, and her pulse became a slow uncertain rhythm, holding time as his mouth bent to hers in a nectarous whisper.

He drew her to a velvet chair that stood by a desk inlaid with marquetry.

“This was my great-grandmother’s desk.” His breath grazed her skin like a petal. “When I was little, she used to sit beside me at this desk and make me practice my signature, because she said I was going to be an important man and I should have an impressive signature for the momentous
documents I was going to be required to sign.” His smile registered the memory. “And—she said—a gentleman should be able to write beautiful love letters to all his mistresses.” The blue eyes held apology and amusement. His unsteady fingers rested for a moment on her cheek. “I’m afraid a few of her notions were on the outdated side. I do keep the inkwell filled, though.” He took a pen from a compartment in a gold-mounted inkstand and dipped it twice in the lapis inkwell. “As things turned out, no major bills of state have been graced by my signature, but would you like to see this masterpiece anyway?”

She nodded and watched the graceful, quietly flowing movements of his hand as it performed a charmingly ornate signature on a piece of pressed paper. Below it he drew a heart, entwining their initials like a monogram. He picked up her hand and touched his lips to her fingertips, and her pulse tickled through her senses. In the same archaic, romantic script, he wrote
I would never do anything to hurt you. Are you protected?

She stared at the words. The pen was placed lightly in her fingers and she wrote, blotchily,
I meant to be. But I’m not
. She hoped there was some place reserved in heaven, and perhaps in Philip Brooks’ heart, for failures with good intentions.

The pen in his hand wrote,
Let me take care of it. And you
.

She extended her fingers slowly, touching his mouth. “It’s a good thing one of us knows what he’s doing,” she murmured. “I should have said this before … you’re very nice, Philip.”

The humor in his eyes grabbed at her heart. “Now say to me—‘and you’re very sexy, Philip.’ ”

“And you’ve very—” Her throat tightened like a clamp on the words—a smile was blossoming—“
very
sexy, Philip.”

“Now say ‘Kiss me, Philip.’ ”

She could feel the suspended sexual longing in his body. “Kiss me,” she breathed. His fingers separated hers, and slid between them, bringing their palms together. She was floating and frightened, flame-light, alive with her own apprehensions and need and love. Her fears had returned because it had become suddenly, blindingly real. She was waking from a dream and finding it had become her life.

His lips moved to take hers, sailing lightly against her tense lips, alternating the pattern and placement of his mouth gently, until her mouth grew receptive and tingling, opening to his potent melting kisses. His tongue stroked provocatively against hers and then he drew back to kiss her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose. His cheek rubbed hers.

His eyes closed, he brought the tips of their noses together, laying his brow upon hers, tracing his thumb over the glazing of her mouth, penetrating slightly inside.

“Jenny? Do you want to love me now? Jenny, my soft, wonderful lady—do you want us to be together?”

Sparks grew in many places inside her. Yes. She wanted him. Her body was raw with wanting, doubts were vanquished, her spirit tripping through the grass with his in a slow motion haze. What foolery of brain was this that had suddenly put these darts of vacillation into her? No. Vacillation
was too strong a word; it was some form of excited apprehension that nipped at her heels. Virginal anxiety. Ugh. Unforgivable of her temperament to do this to her. At her age, this ought to be simple. Fine. She’d just ignore it. But she heard herself say,

“Phillip, I know this will sound crazy, but wouldn’t a short walk be nice?” She winced internally at the nervous brightness in her voice. “We could bundle up warm and—” The words trailed and her dignity seemed to sink with them into oblivion. Help! She felt his hands leave her, but not his interest. His tender scrutiny singed her cheeks.

“Why not?” He stood and crossed the room in two long strides to take her clothes from the screen. “We’ll pick up your boots in my bedroom. You can take the dress off there.”

She stood in place like she’d stepped in a puddle of superglue. Superglue—wonderful stuff. One drop bonds forever. She fantasized scientists using it to put together space shuttles, skyscrapers.…

“Come, love …” His smile stroked her, his hand touched her arm, and the glue loosened and allowed her to walk beside him. The glue that held her joints seemed to have loosened too. Her knees kept wanting to buckle on the attic steps. Her heart did doubletime.

In the bedroom, he closed the door quietly behind them. Her boots were drying near the heating grate. He picked them up and then let them drop softly back to the carpet.

“There. I’ve picked up your boots. And we’ve
been for a walk. And I want you so much that my eyes hurt from looking at you.”

Her pulse began to sprint. “I wonder how you stand me. I’m a basket case.”

“No, Jenny.” He lifted her, the gown murmuring against his legs, his face nuzzling her hair. “You just haven’t learned how to pretend.”

He let her down on the bed so gently she seemed to float against the bedclothes. She felt the mattress pull as he came down at her side, and his long legs stretched out next to hers. She put her face into his sweater, breathing in his sweet scent through the warm wool.

Not looking up, she said, “The part is coming, I think, when you undo my buttons with your expert fingers. So my romances have always said. I’m widely read, if not …” A soft ahem, “… experienced.”

“You may have been misled.” His finger tipped up her chin and trailed slowly down her cleavage. “It doesn’t take much expertise to undo buttons.”

Tact, perhaps, had made him bypass comment on her point. Conscientious to the end, she repeated it. “Philip—I’ve never had a lover before.”

“No!” The sternly beautiful mouth affected shock, though there was tender laughter in his eyes. “And here I was, imagining you did this all the time.”