Just the Man She Needs (24 page)

He stopped eating. “You heard somebody walking in front of your tent—a somebody who, out here, could only have been a man, and you went outside not knowing who it was or what he wanted. Have you lost your mind?”

His remark was not unexpected. She sipped her coffee, rested the cup on the table and said, in the tone of one talking to a mentally challenged child, “Was I supposed to wait till he came into the tent, where I wouldn’t stand a chance? No one would have heard me if I screamed. I got outside because I knew there aren’t many men in this camp who can outrun me, and if I screamed, everyone, including you, would have heard me. No point in getting upset, Ashton. Until I leave here, I’m sleeping wherever you sleep. Period.”

He stared are her with an expression of incredulity. And then his face transformed itself into a thing of beauty as he grinned from ear to ear. Her lower lip dropped, and she gazed at him. Mesmerized. Unable to shift her glance. Sometimes she forgot what a good-looking man Ashton Underwood was, mostly because he seemed unaware of it. Thank God, he was decent and respectable; if he were different, she’d be in real trouble.

His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Sweetheart, let me assure you that you may sleep with me as often as you like. Twice a day wouldn’t be often enough for me.”

She managed to recover her aplomb, dragged her gaze down to her food and said, “I hope you noticed that I brought my own bedroll.”

“As a matter of fact, I did notice it. How were you going to run while you were carrying that thing?” Suddenly his jocular mood faded, and his gaze roamed the food tent. He didn’t have to tell her that he was looking for the man who might be watching their table. “I’m glad you’re with me, Felicia, and I’m also glad that whoever the fool was, he had the sense not to pursue you. My foot is in a cast, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with my two fists.”

“I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble because of me. You have a reputation to protect.”

“I have a woman to protect. That’s what’s important here. By the way, would you like to ride into Jackson with Matt and me tomorrow? It’s Saturday, and I want to call my family.”

“I’d love to. Thanks.” She hesitated, lest he think she had a reason for asking. “Eartha is very dear to you, isn’t she?”

“She is, indeed. I know she’s limited in some respects, but she takes good care of Teddy. She’s honest and caring, and Teddy and I are her whole life. She doesn’t have a family, and if she didn’t live with us, she’d be completely alone. She loves us, and we love her.” In other words, Felicia understood him to imply, “she comes with me and my son.”

Ignoring the implications of his remark, she said, “I’ve thought that you are indeed fortunate to have this woman to care for Teddy. There’s a simple decency and honesty about her, and I’ve wondered if she was like that when you hired her or if she grew into the person she is.”

“Some of both, I guess. Once she realized that I considered her a part of my family, she began to treat us as if we were her family. You are a very perceptive woman. We work half a day today, and we’re off tomorrow.” She knew he’d deliberately changed the subject.

She didn’t want him to hobble around the city of Jackson showing her the remnants of Antebellum Mississippi. She’d seen enough slave quarters, whipping posts and plantation mansions built with the blood and sweat of slaves. Two hours there would be enough for her. “Do you think we can get Matt to join us in a game of cut-throat pinochle tomorrow evening when we get back? If he doesn’t know the game, I’ll teach him,” she said.

He shrugged. “If it’s a card game, Matt plays it. Let’s go. I’d like us to get the front steps in place this morning. Two of our group made them earlier.”

Now that she no longer faced the night alone in that tent, she felt like skipping to work. “Gee, this air feels great,” she said, and headed for the house that she, Ashton and three other volunteers hoped would be perfect when they left the camp four days later.

“Why are you sitting out here, man?” Matt asked Ashton after supper one evening. “If I had in my tent what you have in yours, damned if I’d be cooling my heels out here.”

He wasn’t in the habit of explaining his personal affairs to anyone, but Matt was becoming a friend, and he didn’t feel like dusting him off. “She’s in my tent because some jackass or other who’s in this crew frightened her one night by hanging around her tent. We don’t live together in New York, and it didn’t occur to us to shack up here. I respect her feelings about this. She was scared, so she came to me, as she should have. She’s out of there before I get up and she’s in bed before I enter that tent in the evening. It’s difficult for both of us, but I want her to be safe, and I don’t want to have to commit a crime in order to insure her safety.”

“But if she’s your…your woman, what’s wrong with it?”

“Not a thing. This is the way she wants it, and I respect her wishes.”

Matt took off his baseball cap and fanned his face. “Whew! I’m not sure I’d have your self-control. That’s a beautiful, feminine woman.”

“Thanks.”

Matt rested his back against the post that would someday support an electric or telephone wire, stretched out his legs and said, “I’m curious about what you do when you’re not volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. You’re different from most of the guys here, and it isn’t just the way you talk.”

Trust Matt to ask a question, personal or not, if he wanted the answer. “I manage some companies with the help of my two brothers. I began with nothing. My parents could have paid my university tuitions, but I worked and paid my own way, and they encouraged me. I don’t mind hard work, and I believe in helping those who can’t help themselves. That was my mother’s creed, now it’s mine, and that’s why I’m here.”

Matt drew up his knees toward his chest, wrapped his arms around them and appeared satisfied, as if he’d worked out a puzzle. And maybe he had for he said, “I’ve got it. It isn’t your height or your bearing, it’s the polish that sets you apart. And it’s so much a part of you that you don’t even know you have it. Way to go, man.”

If Matt could get personal, so could he. “What about you, Matt? I confess that I’m curious about you, too. I told Felicia that if she had a problem here and I wasn’t around, she should go to you because you’re as straight as the crow flies. What’s your background?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m a seminarian. I haven’t yet been ordained, and I’m wondering if I should settle for teaching theology at a university rather than preaching. Either way, I want a career as a theologian. Does this surprise you?”

“Not really. I would only have been surprised if you’d told me you did manual labor. I’ve looked at your hands, and they’re not the hands of a man who uses them to earn a hard living.”

“Neither are yours,” Matt shot back.

Ashton observed Matt from the corner of his eye. “How far do you live from New York City?”

“Twenty minutes via the Path train. I live in South Orange, New Jersey.”

“Then I hope we’ll see each other from time to time. I’ve enjoyed your company here.”

“And I’ve not only enjoyed your company, Ashton, but I’ve learned some important things from you. I’d like very much to see you from time to time. And I’d like you to meet my girl.”

“It would be my pleasure. Is she the reason why you’ll probably be a university theologian rather than a priest?”

“One of them. My conscience tells me that it’s service that matters, not the capacity in which I give it.”

“You’re so right,” Ashton said. “I think I’ll turn in. Good talking with you.”

She was not in bed and covered from her neck to her toes as usual, but sitting in a chair, fully clothed, with her knees crossed and an expression of displeasure on her face. “What’s with you?” she asked. “Anybody would think that an armed bandit was waiting for you in here. If you’d rather I moved out, say the word. Anybody else in this camp will welcome me in a second.”

He must have looked like an idiot staring at her with his mouth wide open. She stared right back at him.
She’s asking for it, and she’s going to get it.
Why did women get testy instead of just saying they wanted you to make love with them? She set the rule, and her rule said no, not here. Now she was acting as if he ignored her because he wanted to. He closed the tent, secured it, walked over to where she sat, leaned down and covered her mouth with his own. Immediately, he got the reaction he wanted when her breath quickened and her lips parted. He slid his tongue into her mouth, and she grasped it like a drowning person grabbing at a rope. Handicapped by his wounded foot and unable to pick her up and stretch her out on her bedroll, he settled the issue by yanking her blouse over her head, unhooking her bra, leaning down and sucking the nipple of her ample left breast into his mouth.

“I didn’t tell you you could do that,” she said, panting as if she’d run a marathon. He raised his head and grinned at her. “Oh, but you did. You want me to stop?”

She grabbed his right arm. “You know what I want. I’m starved for you. I—” He returned to his feast at her breast, and the excitement that her muffled groans created in him nearly sent him over the edge.

“Honey, if you keep that up, I’ll scream. I can’t stand this. I don’t need all that teasing, I want you to get inside of me. Ashton, I’m burning up.”

“Then why didn’t you say so instead of being mean to me when I walked in here? I’d waited outside to give you privacy.” He threw his shirt over to his own bedroll. “I should tell you no, because I’m hurt,” he said, wanting to tease her into showing him how much she wanted him.

Ready to give as good as she got, she said, “Do that, and everybody anywhere near here will sympathize with you.” She slipped out of her slacks and kicked off her loafers. “If I didn’t love you, I’d walk out on you.”

“Yeah,” he said, unable to banish his humor, “after you got straightened out.”

“Now, you—”

His kiss stopped her words, and he locked her nude body to his own. “I’d give anything if I could pick you up and put you on that bedroll. Lie down over there, sweetheart. I want my place inside of you. I’ve sweated for seven straight nights listening to you breathe, hearing you turn over, and wanting you so badly, I thought I’d go mad. If I didn’t love you…Oh, never mind.”

She stretched out on the makeshift bed, raised her arms to him in a gesture as old as Eve, and desire rioted in him. With as much care as he could muster, he knelt to her, covered her with his body and began his assault on her senses.

“Please,” she moaned. “I’m ready. I was ready before you walked in here. I just want to…Oh, Lord,” she said when he flicked his tongue over her nipple. He had to watch it, because he knew that if he loved her the way he wanted to, she’d scream and bring every man within three hundred yards to his tent. He slid his right hand slowly down her body, past her navel until he reached his goal. He wanted to taste her, but that would have to wait till they had more privacy. She spread her legs and the perfume of her sex nearly sent him over the edge. He stroked her gently and, within seconds, the evidence he needed flowed over his fingers.

“Take me in,” he said after shielding himself, and then her fingers grasped his penis, fondled and played with it until he croaked out, “If you don’t stop it, I’ll spill it. Sweetheart,
stop!
” She slid down and guided him into her welcoming body, and he thought he’d lose it. She started rocking, and he shifted his hips and took them on a fast ride to ecstasy.

He longed to collapse and simply give in to the sweet oblivion in which he was engulfed, but he couldn’t let her take his weight. He braced himself on his forearms and gazed down at her. It hit him then with the force of a locomotive slamming into the night. He couldn’t let her slip out of his life, and he’d better stop telling himself otherwise. It was up to her. She held the aces, because she had his heart, she met his needs, and Teddy believed that she loved him.

His lips brushed hers in a gentle kiss, and she smiled. “Were you angry with me when I came in here this evening?” he asked her.

“I was hurt and that’s the way I showed it. Until you mentioned it, I didn’t realize that you always waited until I was in bed before you came in.”

He tweaked her nose. “Tell the truth. You wanted what you got, and you were tired of waiting for it, so you got testy. Level with me now, because I want to know how to read you in the future just as you have to know how to read me. There’s want, and then there’s need, and we have to recognize the difference.”

“Yeah. I was pretty hungry,” she admitted, and he liked that. He had no patience with coyness. Although he found it cute in little girls, he had no tolerance for it in women.

“Hungry? I was starved. I can now boast that I’m a man capable of rigorous self-control.”

“Good,” she said, “because this is it for now. I don’t want to get used to sleeping with you every night.”

“Why not?”

“You can easily become addictive, and I’ve already developed a taste for you,” she said, and lowered her left eyelid in a long, lusty wink. “You know what I mean.”

He couldn’t help grinning. When she was sassy and impish, he felt as if he could love her senseless. “Behave yourself, woman. You are totally vulnerable, and if you’re not careful, I’ll have you begging for mercy.”

“Go ahead,” she said, stretching and purring like a satisfied feline. “I’m shameless.”