Summer Sizzle (11 page)

As he approached the partially open door, he heard sobs coming from her room. He pushed it all the way open. The brief flash of lightning provided just enough illumination for him to see her huddled under the blanket. He rushed to her side.

“Vicki, are you okay?” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the cover off her head so he could see her face. The distress in her tear-filled eyes immediately tugged at the heart strings that had been winding around his senses since her unexpected arrival at his front door. The cat jumped on the bed and paced back and forth, emitting little cries as it paused to rub its head against her cheek.

“I—I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re trembling.” He gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. His logic told him he should leave her bedroom and allow her some distance because she’d made it clear that was what she wanted. His instincts, however, told him she needed comfort and reassurance. Or was his own need to hold her pushing at him?

He pulled her into his arms and held her close. Her firm breasts pressed against his chest, causing an involuntary shudder to ripple up his spine. A rush of excitement spread through his body, which he tried to ignore. She trembled as another bolt of lightning crackled across the sky.

“It’s the storm, isn’t it?” He kept his voice calm as he twined his fingers in her hair and gently rocked her in his arms.

“I’m all right. Honest.” Her voice came out barely above a whisper. “Sorry you were disturbed. It’s just this childish thing I have about thunder and lightning.”

He liked holding her, liked the sensation of warmth and contentment—a strange feeling separate from wanting to drink in her essence and stroke his cock in and out of her hot pussy. Something he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

“Well, unless you have some strenuous objections,” he pulled the blanket over them, “I’ll stay here a little while longer. Just in case.” He leaned against the headboard, more sitting than reclining, with her snuggled into his embrace. He closed his eyes, allowing the sounds of the storm to chase away the heated desire churning inside him, desire totally inappropriate to the situation.

It was not a time for steamy sex or to indulge the heated desire neither of them seemed able to resist. Even more surprising, he found the intimacy and closeness very satisfying as well as confusing. A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. He also found it a little frightening in its implications, a fear he didn’t know how to handle.

****

Blake opened his eyes and looked around. Morning had arrived but without the sun. The rain had continued throughout the night without letting up, even though the thunder and lightning had passed. He had dozed rather than slept as he held Vicki in his arms. His back ached from maintaining an uncomfortable position against the headboard. He finally eased his arms from around her and slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. As he headed for the bathroom, the cat woke, stretched, then curled up in the warm spot where Blake had been.

The hot shower sprayed across his back, soothing his muscles as he attempted to stretch out the kinks. They were both fully aware of their differing philosophies on life causing momentary conflicts. Even those
inconveniences
did not dampen their enthusiasm for indulging all the facets of heated sex. But last night was not one of those times. And last night had more of an impact on him than he wanted to admit. He had tried to fight off the thoughts and feelings tugging at his reality. Yet, holding Vicki had felt so right. This compulsively organized woman belonged in his arms, in his bed.

In his life.

He dried himself and dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt, the weather having turned decidedly cooler with the rainstorm. He paused at his bedroom door before walking to his dresser. Removing the photograph of his son from the box, he stared at it for several seconds. His grief and sorrow didn’t seem quite as heavy as it had been. Maybe there was some hope for him after all. A future.

Closing his eyes, he tried to compose the turmoil, then placed the photo on the dresser. His thoughts remained a tangled web of confusion, all of them centering around Vicki. He took a moment to peek into her room. She appeared to still be asleep. He headed for the kitchen to make some coffee, leaving Ty-Ling on her bed.

The cat stretched and began to groom itself, licking its paws and rubbing them against its face. The activity stirred Vicki awake. She slowly opened her eyes, looking around as she sat up. Blake wasn’t in the room. She recalled falling asleep in his arms but had not been aware of when he left. The bed still held his body heat.

As much as she craved the exquisite things his touch did to her body, the sexual rapture that raced through her veins every time they made love, there had been something so very right about the way he held her in his arms last night and comforted her fears. But this morning when she woke, she had experienced a moment of disappointment when she discovered he wasn’t there. Making love first thing in the morning when they woke had become the most perfect way to start the day. And glancing around her empty bed told her how much she wished he had stayed until she woke up.

As she looked out the rain-streaked window, she allowed a little frown to crease her brow.

“At least the thunder and lightning have stopped.” She shooed the cat from the bed. “Come on, Ty-Ling. It’s time to get up.”

She hurried into the bathroom to take her shower and dress for the day. Her thoughts presented a combination of warm contentment at the memory of Blake’s comforting embrace and a growing sense of apprehension and embarrassment at the prospect of facing him after her childish display of irrational fear. He had seen her vulnerability, glimpsed inside her carefully constructed façade of order and organization.

She finally made her way downstairs at eight-thirty, much later than normal for her. Blake had not been upstairs, and she didn’t see him anywhere downstairs, although he had made coffee. Surely, he wouldn’t be jogging in the pouring rain. What could be so important that he would have gone out in such terrible weather? She gave a little shrug and fixed Ty-Ling’s breakfast.

After grabbing a mug of hot coffee, she headed toward the dining room to start her work day, already an hour behind schedule. She soon became totally absorbed in her work.

****

Blake drove into the garage and entered the house through the side door. It had been three hours since he left to run a few errands. He paused at the dining room door and watched Vicki work. A minute later, she looked up. Her startled expression said she hadn’t heard him come home.

“I didn’t want to disturb you.” He offered her a friendly smile. “How are you feeling this morning? Any better?”

“A little foolish.” A pink tinge came to her cheeks. He maintained eye contact with her. He wasn’t asking an idle question just to be polite, wasn’t judging her or ridiculing her fears. His concern was very real.

“I’m, uh, sorry you were bothered with my problem last night. It’s just that, well, ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always been afraid of thunderstorms. I know it’s silly, a totally irrational fear, but…” She dropped her gaze to the table as the crimson blush of embarrassment covered more than her cheeks. “That doesn’t make it any less frightening for me.”

“Everyone has their own private fears and personal demons.” He reflected on the idea that perhaps his refusal to think about the future was rooted in his fear of how empty it seemed to be. “Well, I see you’re busy. I won’t keep you.” He started to leave, then hesitated and turned back toward her, his voice less than confident. “Uh, while I was out this morning, I drove past the rental agency’s office.” He cleared his throat and nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

The audible sigh that escaped her lips and the way her shoulders sagged in resignation said it all. “You don’t need to tell me. Nobody was there, and the office was closed.”

“I’m sorry.” He left the dining room, stopping in the living room to build a fire in the fireplace, something bright and warm to combat the rainy day’s gloom and the disappointment and hurt on her face. After he was satisfied with the fire, he picked up the package he’d dumped on the couch when he first came in from the garage.

Placing it on the kitchen table, he opened it much like a child did with a new toy. In fact, a
toy
was exactly what the package contained. He had bought a kite for Vicki, a stunt kite for beginners, just like the one he’d purchased for his son on the boy’s sixth birthday. It was smaller than a regular stunt kite and constructed so it would disassemble rather than break if it crashed to the ground. As soon as the weather cleared, he would teach her to fly it. Maybe he could talk her into entering the summer competition in the adult beginner division.

He sat back for a moment, sipping his coffee. He visualized the excitement in her eyes when the box kite had soared into the sky. The memory of her laughter filled him with warmth. She needed more fun in her life, needed to get out from under her tightly controlled lifestyle. And he wasn’t thinking about sex, either. She needed to laugh more. He stared at the brightly patterned red, orange, and yellow nylon fabric that made up the kite.

His mind turned to his growing connection to Vicki Templeton, a woman more of a paradox than anything else. One moment a totally uninhibited, hot, driving passion. The next moment, compulsively organized. And a moment later, almost painfully shy and easily embarrassed. All three facets of her personality tugged hard at his emotions.

Chapter Six

The rain continued through the middle of the week. Blake didn’t tell Vicki about the kite he’d bought for her. He was sure she would label it a bunch of foolishness and insist he return it. He preferred to wait until the weather cleared when he could teach her to fly it. Their cohabitation seemed to have settled into a fairly comfortable day-to-day routine. They didn’t interfere with each other’s activities, but still found time to indulge their sexual desires on a regular basis, including what had become a daily ritual of morning sex before breakfast. And each time, the physical included an ever increasing emotional element, something he was not at all sure he wanted to openly acknowledge.

Though Vicki remained busy with her work during the day, Blake became restless being cooped up inside the house. He tried to convince himself it was only a temporary situation due to the rain, and each day he made a valiant effort to find something to do. But he always ended up spending more time staring out the rain-streaked sliding glass door than anything else. It was during those times his mind turned to the dangerous, unexplored territory of what the future held. And more often than not, those thoughts about the future included Vicki.

“Would you like to go to a movie?”

“What?” She looked up from her work, a startled expression on her face. “A movie? You mean, do I want to rent a video tonight?”

“No. I mean go out to a movie. The rain seems to have stopped, and the sky’s beginning to clear. We can catch the early matinee at the village theater.”

The frown that immediately creased her brow told him she disapproved of his suggestion. She rearranged some of the papers on the dining room table, the slight tug of irritation pulling at her sense of what made up appropriate and responsible behavior clearly visible to him. “I couldn’t possibly take off in the middle of a weekday just to go to a movie. I have work to do.”

“You’re self-employed and work at home, so what difference does it make if you do the work on a weekday or a weekend, during the day, or in the evening? We can either go now or later this afternoon.” A blanket of determination settled over him. One way or another, he intended to see that she allowed some time in her day for fun and recreation. He walked around behind her, pulled the chair away from the table with her still sitting in it, then grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.

“Come on. It’s a comedy. It won’t hurt you to take a two hour break and have some laughs. Think of it as a long lunch hour.” A teasing grin played at the corners of his mouth. “You can make it up by staying in your office an hour later tonight.”

“I said no.” She tugged her hand free of his grasp. “I have work to do. Perhaps another time. I could check my schedule to see when—”

“Ah, yes.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “That carefully planned schedule that accounts for every minute of your life. It seems you leave me no options. You won’t go to the movies with me, so I guess I’ll have to find something else for us to do right here…
right now.
”

Before she had an opportunity to protest, he glanced at his watch, then quickly made a notation on her daily planner. He placed his hands on her shoulders, plumbed the depths of her eyes for a moment, and flashed a truly mischievous grin as he pointed to the calendar.

“You don’t have any choice. It’s on your schedule.”

Before she could react, he cupped her face and captured her mouth with a soft kiss. He pulled back, then quickly brushed his lips against hers again. He grabbed the pen and made another entry on her daily planner. A satisfied little grin tugged at his lips. One way or another, he intended to loosen up her tightly controlled existence and teach her how to have fun. Perhaps he, too, could learn to truly enjoy life again rather than just going through the motions. He turned and left the room.

Vicki watched Blake climb the stairs. Several seconds passed before she collected her senses and composed the tremors of excitement dancing inside her. She glanced at her schedule book. In large, bold letters, next to the appropriate time slot, he had printed
kiss Blake.
Beneath that notation, in the next fifteen minute time slot, he’d written
play game of stable boy ravishes innocent milk maiden
and had drawn a line to block out the next two hours.

A smile slowly curled her lips. Even though they had indulged their sexual appetite first thing that morning, a rush of moisture dampened her panties and her nipples puckered into taut buds. How was it possible for him to turn her neatly ordered existence into a mass of disorganized confusion? For the first time in her life, she made the decision to abandon her work in the middle of a weekday for the sole purpose of pandering to her own pleasure. And what was worse, she knew she wanted more of him—so much more.