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“I still want to take you with me.” Luke had already kicked off his loafers, and he sat on the side of the high brass bed to remove his pants. He was wearing black knit boxers, and he peeled them off and tossed them on the growing heap of clothes strewn across the convenient chair.
She was so intent upon watching him, she failed to discard the rest of her clothing until he looked up to send her a questioning glance.
She didn’t feel the least bit awkward with him, merely fascinated to have him there and find him such a warm and tender lover. She stepped out of her skirt and slip, and he reached out to grab the waistband of her panties. With an easy tug, he coaxed the satiny pair down her thighs. She quickly stepped out of them.
“Had I known you’d be in such an affectionate mood,” she confided in a sultry whisper, “I wouldn’t have bothered with underwear.”
“Mrs. Brooks,” Luke scolded, but whatever else he’d meant to say was lost in a roll of deep laughter.
She pushed him back on the bed and crawled up over him to brush the tips of her breasts across his chest. “Don’t we know each other well enough for you to call me Catherine?”
Rather than reply, he slid his hands around her waist and rolled over with her clutched tightly in his arms. He kissed her until she was again breathless, then licked a meandering trail over the soft fullness of her breasts and down across the inviting hollow at her hipbones. He combed her soft bush, then shoved her legs apart with his shoulder. He slid his tongue along her moist cleft, then with a graceful precision found her clitoris.
He eased two fingers inside her and stroked in time with his slow, sweet lapping until her inner muscles began to spasm. Deliberately leaving her on the brink of release, he raised himself up to slip on a condom and positioned himself between her thighs.
“Now I know you well enough, Catherine.”
His first thrust was shallow, but she rolled her hips to take him deeper, and his next thrust stretched her with an intoxicating warmth that he stoked with each successive lunge. Once buried deep within her, he stretched out, and with his weight balanced on his elbows, he remained perfectly still.
She wrapped her legs around his thighs to bridge the last separation between them. Close in height, she savored the feel of his hair-roughened skin along the whole length of her body. He dipped his head, and her own exotic taste flavored that kiss and the next, and then she was so lost in him she could only moan as he began to move with a slow, slyly teasing rhythm.
She clung to him to encourage more, and as his breathing grew ragged, he quickened his pace to fill her with a fiery heat that sent her spiraling through a climax so intense it bordered pain. Their passions perfectly matched, she uttered a joyous cry as echoing waves of pleasure coiled through her and tore through him.
Awash in bliss, she floated down from their tangle of shared ecstasy and fell asleep with her head cradled on his shoulder. When she awakened hours later, he was wrapped around her still and gently combing her hair through his fingers.
Unable to devise a compliment that would do him justice, she was satisfied to simply snuggle deeper into his embrace. “Do you suppose we could go out on a date sometime?”
Luke yawned sleepily. “I remember dates. I’d have to wash my car, iron a shirt, buy you flowers. Do you like holding hands in the movies?”
“Hmm, I sure do.”
“How about romantic dinners in candle-lit restaurants where we’d eat each other’s entrees without noticing the waiter has mixed up our orders?”
“I’ve done that,” Catherine recalled dreamily.
“Moonlit drives along the beach?”
“That would be nice too.”
Luke hugged her tight. “For now, I just want to lie here and pretend nothing else matters.”
She understood him completely. “It doesn’t,” she assured him, and when he turned toward her, she expected the loving to be even better the second time, and incredibly, she wasn’t disappointed.
The first faint rays of dawn had just begun to lighten the room when Smoky’s insistent meow woke Catherine from an exhausted slumber. The irate tomcat was outside on the roof, peering through the window to noisily protest the fact he’d been forgotten. Chagrined to have completely overlooked her beloved pet, she slipped from Luke’s embrace to feed him.
She pulled on a silk robe, then paused at the doorway to appreciate just how comfortable Luke looked in her rumpled bed. The tension that so often marred his expression had been soothed away, and he appeared years younger.
Believing sex was most definitely a delicious fountain of youth, she went downstairs to feed Smoky, brought in the Los Angeles Times, and made coffee before she ventured back upstairs. When she found Luke had already gotten dressed and made her bed, she forced a smile and handed him a mug of coffee.
“I didn’t know if you took cream or sugar.”
“No, thanks, black is fine.” Luke nodded toward the framed photograph atop her dresser. “Is that your husband?”
Sam had been tall and blond with a grin that never failed to melt her heart. It had been months before she’d been able to glance at the precious photograph without sobbing. Now, she strove to remember the love rather than the eventual pain.
“Yes, that was taken in Las Vegas on our wedding day. My parents were nearly forty when I was born. My father was a history professor at USC and my inspiration to become a teacher. He was a wonderful man, but he had a weak heart. By the time Sam and I became engaged, he was quite ill, and we didn’t want a big showy wedding when neither of my parents would have been able to truly enjoy it. So, with their blessing, Sam and I eloped.
“I wanted an Elvis impersonator, but Sam insisted upon a much more tasteful ceremony.” She adjusted the placement of the photograph and wished with all her heart she’d known how brief their time together would be. “We had a wonderful marriage.”
