Love Me Tonight (10 page)

“Tell me you're mine,” he said. “I don't want any other man near you.”

“I don't want anyone but you. Love me. I need to know who I am in your arms.”

He kissed her eyes, her ears, spread kisses over her face, tender and loving kisses. At last she had his tongue in her mouth, but no sooner had she begun to enjoy it than he moved to her neck. She held her breath, waiting for the moment when she'd feel his moist tongue brush over her nipple.

“You're teasing. You know what I want, and you won't give it to me,” she pouted.

“Be patient, love. Before I leave you tonight, you'll have every experience with me that you can think of.” He sucked her nipple into his mouth and began to suckle it feverishly while he rubbed her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She didn't try to hold back the moans.

“I want you in me. I need you.” He pulled off her panties and kissed her belly. She thought the feeling of his tongue sliding along the inside of her thighs would incinerate her. “Please, honey,” she said, frantic for
relief. He slipped his finger into her and teased until he found the spot. Then he hooked her legs over his shoulders, kissed her and then let her feel the thrust of his tongue. She moaned. She couldn't help it. She needed that, but it was a tease. She wanted more. He stilled her undulating hips, sucked, nipped and kissed until heat flooded her feet. He suddenly stopped.

“You can't leave me like this,” she cried.

“I'm not.” He kissed his way up her body, looked down into her face and smiled a smile so beautiful that she thought she would melt.

“Take me in your hands, sweetheart.” She did. “Now look at me. This is something we can only experience together.” She brought his penis to her vagina, he touched her, and she imagined that her eyes grew bigger. “We'll take it slowly…”

Before he could complete the sentence, she grabbed his buttocks, swung herself up to him and forced his entry. “Easy, sweetheart.” Slowly, he moved. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she gasped. “Why does it take so long to get started?” she said, pulling him closer. He sucked her nipple into his mouth and stroked her clitoris until she released. Seconds later, he was thundering inside of her, around her, under her, over her, everywhere. She saw stars, moons and a kaleidoscope of images as he took her to another world. Suddenly the pumping, squeezing began in her vagina. Her legs and thighs trembled uncontrollably. He increased the power of his strokes, then slackened, increased them again. Each time she
thought that at long last she'd reached the summit, he denied her.

“Honey, I can't stand this. I want to burst. Don't stop.”

“Shh. I won't. Give yourself to me. Do you feel me? I mean is it different from this?” he asked. He stroked in another way.

“Yes,” she screamed. “Right there.” He poured his power into every stroke, and like a slowly revving engine, it came upon her until her entire body shook. She felt herself clutching him and squeezing him.

“That's it, sweetheart. Ah, yes.” He tightened his hold on her, stroked rapidly and she screamed in relief.

“Yes, yes. Oh, Judson, honey, I love you. I love you.”

“And you're mine. Do you hear me? Ah, sweetheart! Baby, I love you,” he said and collapsed in her arms.

After long minutes, she stroked his back. “That was wonderful. You were wonderful. I never dreamed that I was missing something so precious.”

“Whether it's precious depends on who you experience it with and, especially, how you feel about that person. It can be plain sex, taking care of your needs and feeling nothing but release or, if you love each other, it can be wonderful.”

“Uh…was it the same for you as for me?” she asked him.

He rose up and looked at her. “It was the most precious experience I ever had with a woman. You're perfect for me, and I suspected that you would be. Were you telling me that it never worked for you before?”

“I made love the first time because I was nineteen and the only girl I knew who was a virgin at that age. It didn't work at all. I did that the next time because my libido suggested it. But that didn't work either, and I decided I was not cut out for it. I've never been in love, and never needed anyone until now. I liked one man a lot, but he let me down. I didn't have girl friends with whom to gossip and learn. One day I'll figure out why. Annie shies away from intimate matters, and my dad would have had a trauma if he'd known I was interested in sex. Scott was my first real buddy, and I wouldn't consider discussing such things with him.”

“Now, you don't need to,” he said and kissed her left breast. “Hey, what's this?” he asked her when he felt in her a series of weak contractions.

“Is that normal?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he said. He knew her now and knew her body. He shifted his hips and, like a bee to stamen, he hit the mark and took them on a fast trip to ecstasy.

“Where are you going?” she asked him minutes later when he swung his legs off the bed and reached for his pants.

“Across the hall to my room. I'll be back in a minute.” He put on his shirt, buttoned every other button and grinned at her. “We shouldn't have been so quick to tell that guy on the registration desk that we didn't want connecting rooms.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Bring your toothbrush.”

He stopped. “Unless you don't want to,” she said quickly.

“Don't be shy, sweetheart. It's what I want, too. And after what we've experienced here, I think it's natural for you to want us to be together. Be right back.”

She got out of bed, went to the bathroom, freshened up and got back in bed seconds before he knocked and walked in. “What's that?” she asked him.

“I ordered some refreshments and snacks, but I didn't want to be so presumptuous as to have them sent to your room. The wine is still cold. We have some little sandwiches and some sweets. Would you like some? No, stay there. Don't get up. I plan to get back in that bed and eat there.”

She'd never done that. “What about the crumbs?”

“What crumbs? You may be messy, but I'm not.” He put his pants and shirt on the chair and got into bed. At least he's wearing shorts, she thought.

As if he'd read her mind, he said, “I usually sleep nude, but I put these on to appease your modesty.”

“How did you know what I was thinking?” she asked him.

“Another one of my clever traits. Here. Have some of these.”

She ate the little ham sandwich, resting her head on his shoulder as she savored it. “What will you do this weekend?” she asked him. “Are you going to Frederick?”

“Absolutely. I intended to suggest that we leave here tomorrow morning at eight o'clock. I'll take you home. Then, I'll go home, check my mail, pack a few things for overnight and be on the road to Frederick by ten o'clock.”

“I wish I was going with you.”

“So do I.” He drained his wineglass, covered the tray of sandwiches, gathered her to his side and turned out the light.

“Are you tired?” she heard herself say, though she wasn't sure she had planned to.

“Not one bit.” He leaned over her. She locked her hands behind his head, parted her lips for his kiss and took him in. Minutes later, he began their dance and soon swept them both into an ecstatic oblivion. Later, with one hand on her breasts and the other below her belly, he nestled her in front of him, and she slept in his arms.

The next morning, he asked her, “Are you happy?”

“Oh, yes. I feel as if I want to stand on top of this building and shout it to the world.”

He held her close.

 

Later, alone in her Baltimore apartment, tears trickled down her cheeks. Nothing that wonderful could last. She had opened herself to the possibility of great pain. She'd let her happiness depend on the love of a man. She thought about her father and his twenty years of loneliness.
Please God, don't let me be sorry.

 

She walked into the embassy in Bogota, Colombia, at five o'clock that Saturday afternoon. “We've arranged a reception for you at eight this evening,” the ambassador told her. “I hope you can get through to these guys. They seem hell-bent on destroying themselves and everybody else.”

“Yeah,” she said, not hiding her contempt for the matter. “If we could make it inconvenient and unprofitable, they'd cooperate in a minute. The problem is that it's making them filthy rich.”

“I know, and making it less profitable is pretty close to impossible.”

“Putting them in jail won't make it less possible—they do business from their cells. Getting good-paying jobs for the men who grow and harvest the stuff will make them unavailable to the drug barons who exploit them. They would rather have good, legal jobs, make a living for themselves and their families and not have to stay on the run to escape or pay off the police. So let's start there.”

The ambassador appraised her with respect. She was used to that, and it didn't impress her. “There are some people in the government who agree with you. We'll get them here Monday morning. This time, we may make some progress. There's a mineral miner here who may be willing to support a good project.”

“I want to meet him,” she said. “See you at the reception.”

 

Judson was about to leave home for Frederick that Saturday morning when his cell phone rang. “Mr. Philips, this is Hank Fields in Hagerstown. My pastor spoke to me and said you were looking for Fentriss Sparkman. Is that right?”

He leaned against the front doorjamb and braced himself. “That's right. Do you know his whereabouts?”

“I worked with him for nearly ten years. He built a number of buildings in Frederick, and did a lot of work with some boys, getting them in school and that kind of thing. The police credited him with breaking up those street gangs. If you run into him, give him my regards. He's a good man.”

“I'm in your debt, Mr. Fields. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“Well, I hope you find him.”

“Thanks. So do I.”

He made the fifty miles from Baltimore to Frederick in a little less than an hour and made the
News-Post
his first stop. He handed his card to the receptionist. “I'd like to speak with the managing editor. It's very important.”

She scrutinized him thoroughly, and he could see her making up her mind about him. He'd taken that into account when he'd dressed in a lightweight suit. If you wanted to be taken seriously, you had to look serious.

“Have a seat, sir.” She spoke into an intercom. “An Attorney Judson Philips of Baltimore is here and he'd like to see you. Yes, I think so.” She turned to him. “Mr. Rawls will see you in two or three minutes.”

He thanked the receptionist and, minutes later, followed her to Jack Rawls's office. “Mr. Rawls, this is Mr. Philips.”

He shook hands with the man. “Thanks for seeing me without an appointment.”

“You're welcome. Baltimore lawyers don't show up here every day. What may I do for you?”

“I'm looking for Fentriss Sparkman, an architect and
builder who I'm told lived and worked in this area for a number of years.”

Rawls leaned back and looked hard at Judson. “Mind if I ask why you're looking for Sparkman?”

Deciding that if he told the truth he was more likely to get what he was after, he said, “Not at all. I was adopted when I was three. Both of my adoptive parents are gone. My mother died recently. I'm an only child, as far as I know, and I want to know who my birth parents are. From my research so far, I suspect that my adoptive mother was actually my birth mother, and from letters I found in her safe deposit box, I suspect Fentriss Sparkman was my father.”

Rawls was sitting forward now, his hands on his knees. “Whew! That's a helluva load. Well, I can tell you this much—Sparkman died about three years ago. But that shouldn't end your search. The Harrington brothers arranged a fine funeral and burial for Sparkman. I used to wonder why, but since you've told me that, I think I have a clue.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you walked in here, if Layla hadn't introduced you, I'd have sworn that I was looking at Drake Harrington. You could almost be his twin.”

Judson stood up. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that Sparkman was that man's father?”

Rawls held up both hands palms out. “No. No. No. As I recall, the funeral notice said Sparkman left three nephews. That would be the Harrington brothers.”

“Do you know anything about them?”

“Sure. Everybody in these parts knows them. They
own a real estate development firm. Among the three, you have the builder, an architect and an architectural engineer.”

“Are they here in Frederick?”

“They're in Eagle Park, about fifteen miles from here.” He wrote something on a piece of paper. “Something tells me your search is about over, Mr. Philips. It can't be an accident that you look so much like Drake Harrington. I wish you luck and Godspeed.”

Judson shook hands with the man. “I don't know how to thank you. I've wanted an answer to this question since I was a child. Thank you again.” He checked his guidebook, located the nearest restaurant and went there. He was too excited to eat, but he ordered a sandwich and coffee, because he didn't know what he'd find at 10 John Brown Drive in Eagle Park, Maryland. He knew he'd have to deal with three men, one of whom was his spitting image. He prayed that they would at least be friendly. He simply wanted to find out if Fentriss Sparkman was his father.

He telephoned Scott and told him what he had accomplished in Frederick. “The only other time I remember feeling like this was the day before the provost handed me my J.D. diploma. I can't imagine what I'll find when I get there, but I'm about certain that I'll find the truth.”