Just a Kiss Away (32 page)

She lugged the bucket over and set it on top of the chest, which, true to form, wobbled like a drunken duck for a few water-sloshing seconds. She plunged a rag into the water, wrung it out with a few jerky twists, and plastered the damp cloth onto the throbbing welts on her itchy neck.

Ooooh. It was pure heaven. She closed her eyes and stuck her forearms into the water bucket, elbow high, letting the cool water soothe the itching. Relief was almost immediate. She removed her arms, peeled away the rag, and dropped it into the bucket while she fought with the metal buttons on her shirt. They were too big for the buttonholes, and it took a good five minutes to unfasten them.

She slid her arms from the sleeves, letting the shirt dangle down behind the waist of her tightly belted pants.

Wrung-out rag in hand, she moved her gaping undershirt aside and ran the rag over her shoulders, neck, and chest, letting the cool water slop all over her upper body. It felt wonderful. Humming, she grabbed the large yellowish ball of greasy soap and scoured it across the cloth. The soap ball slipped from her hands, fell to the floor, and rolled under the table.

Rats! She tossed the rag near the bucket and bent to get the soap, stepping back so she could better see under the chest. Upside down, with her hair grazing the floor, she extended her hand, feeling around for the soap ball. All she could feel was hard, dusty wooden floor. She took one more step back and moved her head closer, squinting while her hand still searched for the soap.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of black speeding by. Her hand froze. Breath held and without moving her head she looked left, then right, then left. Nothing moved. She peered up at Medusa’s perch, thinking for an instant that maybe the mynah had flown back inside. The perch stood empty.

“Medusa.” She straightened and looked around the room. The bird wasn’t there. She frowned, shrugged, and moved toward the chest.

The black flash scurried by again.

Her breath caught. Whatever it was, it was bigger than her hand—the same size as . . .

“Oh, my Gawd! A tarantula!” She flew toward the cot, her booted feet barely touching the floor before she leapt up on the cot, her heart beating in her throat, chills racing down her arms. She fumbled with her shirt, shoving her arms through the sleeves, then hugging herself as she scanned the floor, trying to see the horrid thing, her breath heaving in fear-driven pants that rasped through the room.

She edged up the cot, still scanning the area, waiting, knowing the huge spider was gonna leap onto the cot any minute. Her fanny hit the wall. The deadly black thing crept over the left edge of the cot.

It was stalking her! She whimpered and moved back just as it crawled over the rim of the cot.

Screaming so loud her hair hurt, she took a flying jump off the cot and bounded across the floor. She had to make the door. She had to. Had to!

Her hand hit cool metal of the lock. She twisted it with a hard, panicked yank. It stuck. She fumbled, knowing that at any second the awful thing was gonna jump on her. She knew she’d feel it.

Oh, Gawd!

The lock clicked. She wrenched open the door, catapulted out, and slammed it hard, sagging back against the door, her breath heaving, her heart pounding, tears running like rain down her hot cheeks.

Fighting for control, she let her head drop, rubbing a hand over her face before she opened her eyes and focused on the bottom of the door. A little bit of black appeared from beneath the door.

It was scrunching itself under . . . Oh, my Gawd! She jumped back and the horrid black thing moved out from under the door. Her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. She screamed until her throat was dry and then bolted forward.

Sam’s chest stopped her.

“What the hell’s going on?” He staggered back a step, clamping his arms around her, because she’d hit him with such force.

Her feet didn’t stop moving until she’d almost climbed up his chest. She tightened her arms around him. “It’s another tarantula! Oh, Gawd, oh, Gawd, get it, please, please!” She buried her nose in his neck and squeezed her arms tighter.

He grunted, and she felt him looking over her shoulder before he said, “Where is it?”

“Behind me. It’s coming out from under the door.” She answered into his neck, unable to bear to look at it again.

She couldn’t stop shaking, but her fear had seemed to dissipate the minute she hit Sam’s chest.

Suddenly his shoulders and chest began to shake, slowly at first, then growing stronger and harder. If Sam was shaking, the spider must really be huge and awful, she thought, trying to “ignore the chills that ran through her.

“Do you see it?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

“Get rid of it, please.”

“I’m not sure I can kill it . . . alone.”

“Ohhhh,” she moaned in horror, waiting. When he didn’t make any move or say anything, she asked, “Can’t you shoot it?”

“I doubt it would do any good.”

“Try, please try! I can’t stand it.”

“A gun won’t kill it.”

“Don’t you have any really big bullets?”

His shoulders shook again. “Bullets won’t stop this one.

The image his words conjured up, that of a thick, black, leathery-tough skin beneath the spider’s plump hairy body, was enough to make her shake all over again. “Is its skin really that thick?”

“No, but your head is.”

She tore her face away from his neck and stared into his sardonic face. Peering over her shoulder she looked down. A big black wad of tangled thread lay harmlessly on the wooden porch. Her embarrassed gaze followed the one long black thread that was stuck to the sticky rubber on the sole of her boot.

Medusa must have gotten hold of a full spool of thread. Lollie let go of Sam’s neck and slid down his chest, not knowing whether to run inside and slam the door, burst into tears, or shrivel up and die right there.

Worse yet, Jim Cassidy and a group of soldiers stood a few feet away, apparently being completely entertained by her foolishness.

“You were right. She is flat chested,” Jim said and suddenly a whole round of male laughter filled the air.

She looked down, remembering her undone shirt. It gaped open, her wet undershirt plastered to her chest and protecting nothing from the eyes of the whole male group. She gripped the shirtfront closed in her tight fists and tried not to cry, which was what she wanted to do. Instead she acted as if she still had some dignity left by lifting her chin a notch before she spun around to take her flat chest inside. She got as far as the door, with its jammed lock.

One hand clutching her shirt closed, she twisted the blasted lock as hard as she could. It didn’t budge, and she was so frustrated, so near the edge that her tears just burst forth—a final humiliation. She couldn’t even make a grand exit. She let her forehead rest against the wood splintered door and cried as quietly as she could.

“Jim, take the men and keep them busy somewhere else.” Sam’s deep voice came from behind her.

At his words, she cried even harder. Then she could feel him standing behind her. His big hand closed over hers on the doorknob and turned. The stupid door clicked open as if it always worked perfectly. She took a deep breath and tried to pull her hand away, but he held fast. She refused to look at him. She just wasn’t that strong, and couldn’t bear to see the droll look in his eye. It hurt to be the brunt of a joke, to be laughed at and never taken seriously.

For some strange reason this man could see right inside her, and she felt too wounded to let anyone see that open, vulnerable side of her. It was just too personal to reveal, especially to a man. None of her brothers could understand and they loved her, so she doubted someone like Sam could.

And yet a part of her wanted Sam to take her seriously, to like her. She wanted his respect, and she didn’t know why. Maybe she wanted it because she had a strong feeling that respect was something he didn’t give often. If Sam Forester respected a person, then that respect was something to cherish.

She stepped through the open door and he followed her inside. She took a deep breath and the heaving from her quiet tears sounded louder than a scream. He pulled her into his arms. The second she hit his chest she started crying all over again.

“It’s not easy out in the real world, is it, Lollipop?” His hands drifted over her back.

“No,” she whispered.

They stood there, neither of them speaking, the only sound in the room an occasional sniffle. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It really looked like a spider,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” His voice choked a little, and then he took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to laugh at you, but it was funny.”

She thought about how she must have looked, screaming the place down and running as if she were tearing up the pea patch, all because of a wad of tangled black thread. It was pretty silly, and now, with Sam’s arms around her, it wasn’t quite so embarrassing. She smiled a little, imagining her eyes filled with horror and reliving the way she’d been jumping all over the room like a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad.

The inklings of a giggle escaped her lips. “I guess I did look pretty silly.”

“Yeah, you did.”

She leaned back and looked up at him. “You could play the gentleman and deny it, you know, out of respect for my sensibilities.”

His face grew serious, and his gaze moved to her mouth. “Don’t ever forget that I’m no gentleman, Lollie, and if I cared about your sensibilities, I wouldn’t do this.”

His mouth came down on hers so fast she couldn’t get a breath, but she didn’t care, because his tongue filled her mouth, stroked, and retreated, only to plunge back inside as if unable to stop. It was just as it had been before, and it felt so wonderful she like to died.
Thank Gawd you’re no gentleman, Sam Forester.

She stood on her toes, trying to wrap her arms farther around his neck. He moved his left hand from her waist to the back of her head, held it in his palm, and lifted her completely off the floor as he walked her to the cot. He sat down and pulled her across his lap, kissing all thought from her.

Over and over his mouth ate at hers, and a hand slid inside her open shirt and toyed with the tip of her breast through her wet undershirt. She groaned against his tongue, and he slid the undershirt aside and exposed her breast. In an instant he left her mouth and drew on her breast until half of it was in his open, warm, wet mouth.

His hand pulled her shirts free of her pants and rubbed up over her ribs, her stomach, then stroked lightly around her navel. Her breath caught, and suddenly he filled her mouth again, stroking and retreating, stroking and retreating, until she was all sensation and no thought. His warm palm slid under her waistband, flicking open a button, then two, then three. He untied the drawers and moved lower.

She ached between her legs, ached for something, a pressure, his touch, anything that would quench the liquid fire there. Her mind flashed with the thought that this was wrong, but the minute his fingers scored through her mound of hair and touched between her legs the ache soothed, so she moaned and moaned with the feel of his fingers rubbing and stroking.

Her legs fell open, widening to accommodate his hand, and he answered her unspoken need by palming her, cupping her, pressing until she cried a different kind of tears. His lips moved on hers with hard passion, his tongue rhythmically stroking at the same tempo as his fingers stroked low. His fingertip circled the small, sensitive point of her, over and over, slower and slower.