Once in a Lifetime. Gwynne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ stared at the rise and fall of her bosom, and when he let his gaze drift to her eyes, he didn’t doubt that she knew where he’d been looking and that his attention to her breasts excited her. She wet her lips, obviously without knowing she did it, and her breathing accelerated. She knows I’m here.

      “You didn’t want Evangeline in this house, and you didn’t want her here with me. Oh, you weren’t rude; in fact you were sweet as sugar. I wanted to get my hands on you—”

      “If you had, what would you have done with your girlfriend looking on?”

      “I’d have—”

      “She’s not looking on now.”

      Of their own will, his left hand went to her sweet little bottom and his right one to her shoulder, and in a second he had her in his arms and his tongue deep in her mouth. Shudders plowed through him, and his blood pounded in his ears as she locked him to her. The hardened tips of her breasts rubbed against his chest, and when he heaved her higher to take one into his mouth and suckle her, she straddled him and rocked against him. Heat enveloped him like tongues of fire from a roaring furnace, as she pressed against the weight that hung hard and heavy between his legs. Her hips undulated in a pulsing rhythm. Wild and reckless.

      Her whimpers heightened his need to have her thrashing beneath him with his name spilling from her lips, and when she pressed her crossed ankles against the small of his back, he nearly exploded.

      “Alexis. Baby, I’m reaching my limit. Do you want us to—”

      Her moans quickened, and her hands caressed his hair as she held his head to her breast.

      “Tell me what you want.” She held on tighter, and he knew he had to loosen her hold on him and look into her eyes. This was not a time for a gargantuan error on his part. He took several steps away from the door, tripped and fell backward with her across her bed.

      He rolled away from her. “Do you want me to leave or stay?”

      She ran her fingers across her forehead, as if clearing away a patch of haze. “Both,” she said, sitting up. “I don’t understand how it is that when you put your hands on me, I stop thinking.” She frowned. “What were we talking about?”

      He sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “You could drive me insane. You know that? One minute you’re setting a torch to me and the next you’re as cool as spring rain.” He’d leave, but he couldn’t stand right then. “Did you think I wouldn’t ever bring a woman guest here?”

      “The other time when you kissed me, you went at me as if women were about to be banned. We backed off from that and said we weren’t going that way. But still, you should have told me ahead of time that you were bringing her here.”

      “Come off it, Alexis. Henry told you. You want me to believe you dressed like this to have dinner with Tara, Henry and me?”

      She had the nerve to grin. “I can do better than this. What’s wrong with looking nice at dinner? Did she like me?”

      He threw up his hands. “Did she like you? Of course. Why shouldn’t she? She’s crazy about you.”

      She looked at her fingernails, then polished them on the silk that covered her thigh. “Hmmm. Then it’s you she doesn’t like. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten back here so soon.”

      “If I thought you meant that, I’d teach you a few things.” He got up and walked to the door. “I wouldn’t advise you to try that again.”

      “What? You mean I shouldn’t kiss you if you kiss first? What do you expect from me? I’m human, and you’re…” She licked her lips. “You’re indescribable.”

      “I don’t know what I expected to solve by coming here. You’re unreasonable.”

      She gazed at him through slightly lowered lashes and served notice that she could give as good as she got. “You expected exactly what you got.”

      He wanted to kiss her until she opened to him, surrendered and flowered in his arms, and he wanted to shake her. He did neither. “See you in the morning.”

      “Sure thing,” she said with an airiness he knew she didn’t feel. “Good night.”

      He closed the door softly and headed for the den. One of these times when we come together like that, I’m going to let her call a halt. If she doesn’t…

      If that evening had been a bust, and it had, it was his fault. Evangeline Moore was not and never had been special to him; indeed, he could count three perfunctory kisses as the extent of their intimacy. It was the minimum a man could do when he took a fawning woman home after a reasonably decent dinner. Hell, he didn’t even know where her bedroom was and, unless she was confined to bed with a prolonged and serious illness, he didn’t expect to find out. He’d been so intent on covering his flank, on proving to both himself and Alexis that they didn’t have any ties and were free to do as they pleased and with whomever they liked, that he overlooked one simple thing: when a man and a woman fired each other up and came as close to all-out lovemaking as they had, they had solid ties whether they liked it or not. Besides, he hadn’t cleared that agenda with Alexis. She was right when she said he should have told her. He didn’t want to think of his reaction if she’d had a man in her room when he knocked on her door.

      He sat in the darkened den with his feet on the coffee table and his hands locked behind his head. If he got Alexis out of his system, what would he do about Tara?

      The next morning, Alexis opened the liquor cabinet, her heart in her throat. She needn’t have worried. Her whole being awakened, rejuvenated like new life in early spring, when her gaze took in the six bottles of dry white vermouth on the bottom shelf facing the door where Telford couldn’t have missed them. He had deliberately refused to give Evangeline the martini she asked for. When the woman mistreated Tara with her rudeness, she lost points with Telford, and he took steps immediately to shorten his time in her company.

      Several afternoons later, Alexis walked with Tara along the road leading to what would soon become the new Harrington warehouse. They paused at the quaint bridge—logs grayed from the wind and rain and flat from having borne the weight of humans and animals for a century or longer—that straddled the small brook marking what was the end of Harrington land until the brothers bought the adjacent acreage for the warehouse. Tara picked up a few pebbles and tossed them into the moving stream. Lilies of different colors had sprouted up in the patches of briarberries and blueberries that grew on either side, and she wondered about lizards and snakes. A color picture of either one could give her nightmares.

      Holding Tara’s hand securely, she walked on. With so much free time on her hands and none of the social obligations she’d had as Jack’s wife, she longed to take up once more the hobby she loved. She planned to begin by sculpting wood and hoped to find some hardwood on the premises. She stopped short when Tara said, “I’m going to ask that man over there if he has any little children for me to play with.”

      “Honey, you can’t just…”

      But Tara dropped her hand and ran to a tall man who was speaking with a much shorter one and told him what she wanted.

      Obviously impressed, the man introduced himself to Alexis. “I’m Allen, and I work for the Harringtons. You have a charming little girl. It’s too bad they’re so fragile.” His eyes mirrored a sadness, and СКАЧАТЬ