Dust Devil (11 page)

Those
were some of the happiest days of her life, she was to think years
later, so much a part of her and of her youth that she was never able
afterward to thrust them wholly from her mind, not even when Renzo
was long gone and she was alone—and heavy with his child.

For
it was inevitable that as the two of them grew up, they should turn
to each other. Somehow they had always been destined for each other,
Sarah thought that afternoon of her seventeenth birthday, as she sat
with Renzo in the tree house and blew out all the candles on the
chocolate cake he had bought for her at the Farmers’ Market
grocery store.

“
So,
tell me, what did you wish for, Sary?” he asked as he watched
her slowly remove the still-smoking candles one by one from the gaily
decorated cake, then, with the plastic knife he had also brought with
him that day, slice two generous wedges from it.

Earlier
that morning, Sarah had gone into town, to the Shear Style beauty
salon, and had had more than a foot of her hair cut off, much to his
anger and disgust. It was still long, falling below her shoulders.
But this new hairstyle made her look different somehow—older, a
young woman instead of just a child. She’d had her nails done,
too; they were polished a pale shade of pink that matched the powdery
blush on her cheeks and the gloss on her mouth. At her newly pierced
ears, tiny gold studs glinted. They were her mama and daddy’s
birthday present to her. She was never going to be stunningly
gorgeous, as Eveline Holbrooke was, but there was a quiet, arresting
beauty about Sarah all the same. Renzo thought he had not misnamed
her that long-ago day when he had called her “sweet Sarah.”

As
a result of all this, he was finding himself uncomfortably aware of
the now cramped quarters of the tree house built for a child, of the
softness and creaminess of Sarah’s skin and of the delicate,
honeysuckle fragrance of the perfume that drifted from it, of the way
one strap of the blue gingham sundress she wore that warm spring
afternoon had slipped from her shoulder and of her full, ripe, round
breasts, which strained against the checked cotton.

“
If
I tell you what I wished for, then my wish won’t come true,”
she replied lightly as she handed him a paper napkin holding one of
the two big slices of cake. Grateful for the new side part in her
hair, which caused the cascade of rich, shining brown to conceal her
suddenly flushed face, her eyes unable in that moment to meet his
own, Sarah pretended to concentrate on licking the chocolate icing
from her fingers, oblivious of the effect this simple action had upon
Renzo.

He
wanted to grab her hands and suck the icing off himself. He wanted to
jerk down her straps and suck her breasts, too. The sundress was cut
in such a way that Sarah didn’t need a bra for it, and Renzo
was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing one, that her breasts were
bare beneath the gingham. He could just barely make out her nipples.
His groin tightened at the realization; he felt himself growing hard.
To cover that fact, he growled, “Well,
I
wish
you hadn’t cut your damned hair, Sary!”

“
I’m
sorry you don’t like it, Renzo.” She blinked back sudden,
hot tears at his criticism, for she had wanted so desperately for him
to like her hair, to understand what cutting it at long last had
meant to her symbolically. “But Mama said I could style it as I
pleased now, that I was a woman full grown today. And if
you
must
know
what I wished for, it was
that!
That
you’d see I wasn’t a child any longer, Renzo Cassavettes!
That you’d—that you’d... Oh, just forget it!”

“
No,
I won’t forget it!” Without warning, startling them both,
he stretched out his strong, dark, slender hands, grabbing hold of
her pale, bare arms and giving her a small, rough shake. His eyes
blazed as he stared at her intently, searchingly, feeling as though
he stood on the brink of some important discovery, that it mustn’t
slip away. “Tell me, damn it! That I’d
what,
Sarah?”

She
glanced up at him then, and he saw the tears glistening in her wide,
expressive green eyes, the trembling of her sweet, vulnerable,
rosebud lips.

“
That
you’d kiss me,” she whispered huskily, embarrassed and
ashamed.

Renzo
inhaled sharply at her words. “You think I don’t want to
kiss you? Is that it?”

“
Well...
do you?” The question was soft, breathless. In response, his
brown eyes darkened, glittered with a sudden, predatory hunger that
both frightened and excited Sarah as she gazed at him raptly, her
heart thudding so wildly that she was half afraid it would burst in
her breast. In that instant, she was abruptly, acutely conscious of
how cramped the tree house was, how near Renzo was to her, how
potently male he seemed. At twenty-two, his dark, unshaven face was
shadowed with a man’s rough stubble. A small gold cross gleamed
at the lobe of bis left ear. The masculine scent of him—a
mixture of soap, sweat and cigarette smoke—wafted from his
white T-shirt to fill her nostrils, mingling intoxicatingly with the
redolence of the greening sycamore tree, the sweet aroma of the
chocolate cake, forgotten for the moment. At his glance,
a
violent
shudder
such as Sarah had never felt before ran through her, leaving her
trembling with fear and expectation as, slowly, Renzo’s hands
slid up her arms to cup her cheeks, his fingers tangling in the
strands of hair at her temples, tilting her face up to his.

“
Sarah...sweet
Sarah,” he muttered hoarsely before his mouth took hers
fiercely.

It
was her very first kiss—but not his. She knew that
instinctively, somehow. And the bittersweet pain of that knowledge
pierced her momentarily before his urgent lips drove it from her mind
and heart, scattering her thoughts as though they were no more than
leaves tom from their boughs by the wild spring wind that whipped
through the woods and bent the tall grass and wildflowers of the
meadow. As Renzo’s mouth moved on hers, his tongue insistently
parting her lips to slide deep between them, to tease and twine with
her own tongue, a mass of sensations erupted inside Sarah, new and
tantalizing and terrifying.

She
hadn’t known it would be like this, as though she were being
swept up and borne aloft by some dark, primeval force against which
she felt utterly powerless. Of their own volition, her hands burrowed
convulsively through Renzo’s long black hair, tightening into
fists as she clung to him, as though if she did not, she would be
seized by the fearsome, unknown thing and hurled away to some equally
fearsome, unknown place, as the tornado had hurled away Dorothy
in
The
Wizard of Oz.
In
some dark comer of her mind, Sarah wondered dimly if when she at last
opened her eyes, it would be to find herself standing upon a winding,
yellow-brick road, lost and far from home.

She
strove for air as Renzo swallowed her breath, kneeling over her,
bending her back, pressing her down upon the floor, so the rough,
worn wood of the tree house bit into her tender skin. But she
scarcely felt the pain, was conscious only of the powerful electric
shocks coursing through her body, so every muscle and nerve and sinew
felt as though it were a live wire, hot and sparking and burning. A
great longing for something unfamiliar yet instinctively felt and
recognized wakened and uncoiled within her like an insidious snake
stirring in the pit of her belly. She heard the sound of low
whimpers—and realized dimly that they came from her own throat.

If
her soft moans were as much in apprehension and protest as pleasure,
Renzo dosed his ears to that fact. He had waited so long—too
long—for her to grow up, to realize she belonged to him, that
she had always been his. While he had waited for her, there had been
other women in his past, furtive couplings in the backseats of cars
at drive-in movies, in the narrow beds of college dormitories and
elsewhere. But none of those women had been Sarah, the other half of
his soul. She tasted sweeter than Renzo had ever imagined she would.
He wanted to breathe her in like cigarette smoke, to hold her inside
him until his lungs felt as though they would burst with her, until
his head spun and his blood throbbed with her, as it did from a
nicotine rush. He wanted to savor her, to devour her, to explore
every curve and hollow and secret place of her, to feel her body
entangling with his own. He wanted to be inside her...deep
inside...claiming her, impaling her, leaving his mark upon her for
all time.

Groaning,
Renzo tugged roughly, impatiently, at the straps of her sundress,
pulling them down so her bare breasts abruptly came free, full and
burgeoning with newfound passion, their nipples dusky, taut and
engorged. His hands shook slightly with a young man’s eager
desire and excitement as he cupped her breasts, squeezed them,
rotated his palms lightly over their sensitive crests. Sarah’s
sudden, swift gasp of shock and surprise and delight rang in his
ears, spurring him on. He nuzzled her neck, trailing quick, feverish
kisses down her throat before his mouth closed possessively over one
pert, upthrusting nipple, sucking hard and greedily.

An
exhilarating tide of feeling flooded Sarah’s body, ripples of
pleasure that began at the very center of the stiff, swollen bud he
nibbled with his teeth, licked with his tongue, until the ripples
became waves that pounded like a surf through her entire being,
making even her toes curl. A strange, sweet, hot rush of moisture
dampened the insides of her thighs, the inset of her panties, so the
musky scent of her filled the air, mingling with the fragrance of her
perfume, the leaves of the sycamore. Deep at the secret heart of her,
a savage, scorching ache seized her. Instinctively, she sought
easement, and as though aware of her need, Renzo abruptly crushed her
to him, so she could feel his arousal hard against her mound,
rubbing, taunting, speaking silently of both the promise and the
menace of the unknown, the forbidden. She could feel his hand at the
hem of her sundress, roughly shoving the material upward, his fingers
tightening upon her naked thigh, moving ever higher.

In
moments, he would be tearing away her panties, thrusting himself deep
inside her, taking her innocence and filling her with his sex, his
seed.

Sarah’s
heart leaped to her throat at the thought. She wasn’t ready for
this. It was too much, too fast, too soon. What if Renzo didn’t
love her as she did him? He had a bad reputation. What if he didn’t
respect her afterward? Although this was the age of the sexual
revolution, she had been strictly reared, taught that a “good
girl” saved herself for marriage, and warned of the trouble a
young woman could find herself in otherwise. At the memory of those
dictates, she began to struggle against Renzo, growing frightened and
wild when it seemed that despite her objections, he would persist,
would force himself on her. Even worse was the fact that she
recognized that a part of her actually wished he would, so the
decision would be taken out of her hands. But Sarah had also been
reared to take responsibility for her own actions.

“
No,
Renzo! Please don’t!” she cried, trying desperately then
to push him off her, turning her head away when he would have kissed
her deeply again to silence her demurring. “I want you to stop.
Please. I’m—I’m not ready for this.”

“
You’re
ready,” Renzo growled huskily, his breath harsh and labored,
hot against her skin. “I can feel it in my hones. Come on,
Sarah. You know you want this as much as I do. Let me. I won’t
hurt you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“
No.”
She shook her head. “That’s not it... not exactly.
I
am
afraid,
but not that you’ll hurt me—at least, not any more than
you have to. It’s supposed to hurt, the first time, I mean,
isn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. It’s
just that...what if something goes wrong? What if I get pregnant,
Renzo?”

“
You
won’t. I’ve got something with me, in my pocket, to take
care of that. So you don’t have to worry about it. When the
time comes, I’ll protect you, I swear!”