Perfecting Amanda, page 2
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Chapter Two
Amanda looked up as Travis walked toward her across the room. Her pulse sped and her breath caught. Despite the wilting heat, he looked crisp and cool, his white shirt dazzling against his dark blue coat and the burgundy vest stylish without being flashy.
Travis looked collected and confident, making her feel messy and awkward as a child. Her hand went to her hair, tucking strands back into her loose bun. Then the man’s penetrating gaze swept over her body and Amanda felt like anything but a child. It was as if he were undressing her with his eyes.
Her hand dropped to the front of her blouse and fiddled with the top button. Beneath the cotton blouse and chemise, her breasts felt like they were swelling and expanding. Her nipples grew hard and tender where they brushed against the lacy top of her corset. Between her legs the aching, pulsing sensation started up again. Amanda shifted in her chair and pressed her thighs together to stop it. She was glad her fiancé was such a pleasing figure of a man. It wouldn’t be difficult to be intimate with him when the time came, but a hotel tea room was not the place to be experiencing these base urges.
Travis sat across from her, setting his hat on the table. “Now you must tell me more about your trip.”
“I’ve never ridden on a train before. It was exciting at first, but after a few hours—”
He laughed. “The novelty wears off quickly. Still, it’s more comfortable than stagecoach and faster than a riverboat.”
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Amanda was puzzled. “I thought you hadn’t traveled much. In your letters you said you grew up on the farm, that it was your brother who left the homestead and headed west.”
“Yes. But even a farm boy has to go somewhere occasionally. I’ve taken a few short trips.”
The waiter appeared almost magically beside the table and Travis ordered lemonade and vodka for both of them.
Amanda frowned. “What is vodka?”
“A tonic. It’s a Russian import, very restorative for the constitution and it will help you relax after your stressful journey.” Travis leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, and locked his gaze with hers.
“Please, tell me all about Michigan. I want to hear everything about your life.”
She smiled. “I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t told you in my letters. My life up to this point hasn’t been very exciting.”
“Hearing it from your own lips is like learning all about you for the first time. Besides, I love the sound of your voice. It’s so light and musical. Beautiful…like you.” The word “beautiful” came out low and husky. His gaze lingered on her lips.
Her tongue darted out to lick them and she swallowed. Her musical voice seemed to be frozen in her throat. “Th-thank you,” she stammered.
His compliments made the aching in her breasts and between her legs intensify.
As if aware he was making her too nervous, Travis dropped his gaze to the menu the waiter had handed him. “Are you hungry? It’s early, but we could order something light to keep us until supper.” At his words, her stomach growled. She blushed. “I wouldn’t mind.” The waiter returned with their drinks and Travis ordered biscuits and jam.
Amanda sipped the cold, sweet-tart lemonade. She found she was so thirsty that when she set the glass back down, it was half empty. “That’s delicious. I’ve never had lemonade with such a bite to it.”
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Travis sipped his drink and smiled. “So, tell me more about your family.”
“As I mentioned in my letters, my parents died of influenza when I was eight and I’ve lived with my mother’s family ever since. My aunt and uncle’s home is very close to Lake Michigan in a town called South Haven. My cousins are a bit older than me. Dale and Dennis, the twins, work at my uncle’s hardware store and both are married. Alice just married the son of the Presbyterian minister in town. Rose is attending a ladies’ college. She plans to become a teacher.” Travis looked at her. “You sound wistful. Did you want to go to college, too?”
She dipped her head and rearranged her cutlery. Rose’s admission to college was a sore point and not something she had shared with Travis before. “There wasn’t enough money for both of us to go. Alice is their daughter. I couldn’t ask Aunt Millie and Uncle Ned to pay for me. The money my parents left me was long since used up on my care.”
“No one put it in trust for you?”
She shook her head. “Five children is a lot to raise even with Uncle Ned owning a store. They needed to use the money for my clothes and things.” Travis seemed to be suggesting her relatives had taken advantage of her finances. She frowned. “They love me like their own child. My aunt and uncle did not misuse my inheritance.” Travis offered a conciliatory smile. “Of course not. I didn’t mean to imply that.”
Amanda finished her lemonade and set the empty glass on the table.
“You want another?” Before she could answer, Travis beckoned the waiter again.
Her stomach felt warm and her head light and airy. She suddenly realized they’d been talking almost exclusively about her. She had many questions for Travis about himself, Reederville and the farm. It was time to turn the conversation. “You said you had trouble on the road. What happened?”
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“Wagon broke down. A wheel. I fixed it as best I could, enough to get me the rest of the way here then left it at the livery stable for repair. It should be right as rain for our journey home tomorrow.” Travis leaned farther across the small table. He extended his hand and touched her cheek. “I’m so sorry I kept you waiting. It must have been frightening sitting at the station alone. I hope you never doubted I would come.” His piercing eyes were like deep wells she might fall into and never be able to climb out of. She blinked and tried to focus. “No. I wasn’t worried,” she lied. “I knew you’d arrive eventually.” Another drink was placed in front of her and she picked it up and sipped.
Travis offered her the plate of biscuits with butter and jam.
She took one and bit into the light, flaky, sweetness. It made the lemonade seem sour. Her stomach rumbled and she covered the noise with a question. “What’s Reederville like?”
“Quiet. Small. Reederville isn’t too far across the state line into Kansas.” He shrugged. “What can I tell you? It’s farm country. There’s a lot of…wheat. And, uh, corn.”
His lack of enthusiasm was surprising after the way he’d spoken about the land in his letters. His written descriptions of rich earth and abundant crops had piqued her interest in seeing the fertile plains. And his plans for acquiring more land and expanding his farm had let her know she would have a fine, comfortable home in which to raise their children. It sounded like the perfect place to have a family. Now, Travis didn’t sound very excited about the farm at all. Instead, he told her a couple of stories about unusual characters in Reederville and about how quickly a grass fire could spread across the plain.
“It’s very flat land. You can see both sunrise and sunset and any kind of weather moving in,” he said. “But you’ll see Reederville and the farm soon. Right now I’d like to enjoy this elegant hotel, relax and spend some time getting to know each other. Are you ready to go up to the room and rest?”
She looked down at the plate of biscuits, surprised to find only crumbs. Her lemonade glass was empty again, too. When she looked
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back up at her fiancé, her eyes seemed to move slower than her head.
She must be more tired than she’d thought. “Yes, please.” Travis stood, pulled out her chair and helped her rise. He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and led her to the lobby and up the broad curving stairway. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. There was a mix up about the rooms. I asked for separate rooms, but they put us in a suite. I’ll sleep on the sofa. It will only be for this one night. Tomorrow we’ll be married by the minister in Reederville and no one ever needs to know we had to share a room tonight.”
Amanda was shocked. They might be engaged, but to consider sharing a room, even in platonic innocence, was unheard of. The heat in her cheeks flared again and between her legs it felt as if melted honey had been poured over her privates.
She opened her mouth to protest, but her tongue felt thick and it was hard to form words. “I suppose it will be all right. As you say, no one needs to know and we’ll be married tomorrow.” It was all she could do to keep her balance as she walked up the stairs, clinging to Travis’s arm. She was definitely ready to lie down.
Two flights up, they walked down a short hall and Travis unlocked the door of a room and opened it.
“Just a minute. We have to do this properly.” He put an arm around her back, another behind her legs and swooped her off her feet.
Her head spun giddily.
He carried her into the room, turning sideways so they could both fit through the door. Amanda knocked her head against the frame and they both laughed at the clumsy moment.
Travis set her down on her feet, cradled her head and kissed the side of it. “Sorry, darling.”
Amanda gazed glassy-eyed at the luxurious hotel room, as large as two small bedrooms. There were many fine, fancy homes in South Haven where Chicago people came by train to spend their summer vacations.
But she’d never been inside them. Her uncle’s modest home was adequate to house their large family, but the décor was simple and
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utilitarian. She’d certainly never seen such opulence as this in her entire life. A tall four-poster bed stood at one end of the room. A small sitting area with sofa and chair faced a fireplace, unlit in the August heat. On a table by the divan were glasses and a silver basin with a bottle of champagne floating in half-melted ice water. Two large windows with ornately looped royal blue drapes overlooked the street and let in the harsh, late afternoon sunlight.
Travis led her to the sofa and settled her there. He popped the cork on the champagne and poured two glasses then crossed to the windows and released one side of each drape to dim the room. The windows were open but let in little breeze, only dust. A ceiling fan turned slowly above them, but did little to cut the heat. “I’m sorry it’s so hot. It doesn’t make it very romantic.”
Amanda agreed. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, dampened her armpits and the length of her spine. She felt sweaty and not very beautiful with her hair straggling down from her coiffure.
Sitting down next to her on the sofa, he handed her a glass of champagne. He raised his glass and touched it to hers. “To our union.” She sipped the ice-cold fizz much too fast. It tasted sweet yet dry and felt so cool going down her parched throat.
Travis set his glass aside, loosened his tie and removed his jacket and vest. He unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt.
She watched as if from a distance, feeling too disoriented to react.
The only thought that formed in her mind was how handsome he looked in just his shirtsleeves. His shirt was so clean and white she wanted to reach out and touch it—touch the man beneath it and see what his hard muscles and warm body felt like. Her fingers ached to know, finally, what a man was really like.
Moving closer to her on the settee, Travis reached to cup her face in one hand and bent his head to kiss her lips.
She felt his warm breath on her mouth and then soft wetness. Her eyes drifted closed and her lips parted in a little gasp. It wasn’t as if she’d never been kissed before, she reminded herself. Doug McCray had
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graduated from holding her hand to kissing her before he left for college and she never saw him again. But this felt completely different. The pressure of Travis’s lips was more assertive and considerably less sloppy than Doug’s inexperienced kisses.
Travis stroked his thumb along the side of her jaw and moved his mouth against hers. The wet tip of his tongue brushed her lips.
Amanda started and her eyes flew open. But, as he caressed and kissed her, slowly, seductively, possessively, her eyes fell shut again. She relaxed and allowed the pressure of his mouth to increase and his tongue to slide as smoothly as the brush of fingertips over her closed lips.
When he pulled away, she leaned toward his absent mouth. Her eyes opened once more and met his.
They were hooded, dark with desire. “You’re so beautiful.” She half-smiled, embarrassed and thrilled at the compliment. On occasion Doug had said she looked pretty, but no one had ever called her beautiful. It wasn’t a word she connected with her appearance, but Travis’s intense gaze told her he was speaking the truth as he saw it.
He sat back, took another sip of champagne and pushed a hand through his dark brown hair, lifting it from his forehead. “It’s unbearably hot in here.”
She drank from her glass, too, then set it down and fanned her face with her hand. “Yes. It really is.”
“Perhaps if…” He reached out and unbuttoned the neck of her blouse.
She batted his hand away, abruptly alert and shocked. “Mr. Baxter!” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry for taking such liberty, but you’d be so much cooler in just your chemise.” He nodded at the silver basin that had held the champagne bottle. “And we have all that ice. It would cool your body.”
Her hand went to the front of her blouse, poised over her heart. She stared at the ice then at his ice-blue eyes that made her hotter instead of cooling her. Her heart beat between her legs as well as in her chest,
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pounding fast and erratic. “I suppose we are to be wed tomorrow. Maybe it would be all right…just because of the heat.” She unbuttoned the top button of her high-necked blouse. Then the second…and the third, her fingers trembling and her flesh going simultaneously hot and cold as she exposed it.
She was frightened, yes, but she also incredibly excited in a way she’d never felt before in her life. Taking off her blouse in front of her fiancé was more thrilling than the time she’d ridden Cousin Dale’s bicycle down the big hill near their house and nearly crashed at the bottom. She felt anything might happen now as she careened out of control and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do a thing to stop it.
Amanda’s gaze never left Travis’s face while his stayed riveted on her moving fingers and the increments of flesh revealed to him.
Blood rushed through her veins and roared in her ears. She couldn’t believe her audacity in disrobing for a stranger, prospective husband or not. And yet her hands kept moving until the entire row of buttons on the front of her blouse was unfastened. She grasped the open front of the blouse and the little lilac jacket and slid both down her shoulders and off her arms.
Travis gazed at the pale swell of cleavage rising above her corset then his eyes returned to her face. “It’s a wonder you don’t pass out wearing that thing. Turn around and I’ll loosen it for you so you can breathe. The idea of corsets is ludicrous, don’t you think?” As if in a trance, she turned her back to him. In a moment she felt his hands working at the ribbons harnessing her into the corset. Her eyes closed and she breathed in, intimately aware of his proximity and the heat of his hands moving near her back. She felt the ties loosen and her rib cage expanded as she drew a deeper breath. She caught a whiff of Travis’s cologne underlain with his own male scent. Another wave of arousal swept through her at the basic masculine odor that awakened the femininity in her.
His hands moved around her sides, removing the corset from her body. “There. That’s better. It’s much too hot a day for propriety.” Warm
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laughter percolated in his voice. His breath puffed against her bare shoulder as he spoke.
That was when she fully realized she was sitting in nothing but her thin chemise, her breasts unbound from the restraining corset. Her back was still to him. He hadn’t seen her yet and she felt both dread and excitement at the prospect of turning around. He would be able to see the shape of her breasts and even her nipples through the sheer fabric.
He moved in front of her, dropping to his knees at her feet, not letting his gaze linger on her chest. “Shoes, too.” He bent his head, concentrating on working the long row of shoe-buttons out of their holes.
She gazed down at the crown of his head. His hair grew in a neat circle from a central point, but there was also a counter swirl an inch to the right, making an endearingly boyish cowlick. The sight of him bowed over her feet was entrancing. Amanda held her breath, waiting for him to take a shoe off and actually touch her foot, her stomach fluttering at the prospect.
Travis looked up at her with a grin. “Lots of buttons.” He turned back to his task, fighting the buttons until he finally released her feet. He tossed one shoe then the other on the floor and caressed her stockinged feet.
She shivered at the foreign touch where no hands but her own had ever been before. She feared her sweating feet might be aromatically indelicate, but he didn’t hesitate to fondle them. His fingers rubbed the bottoms of each foot and squeezed her toes. He grasped her ankles and smoothed his hands up toward her calves, kneading and pressing her flesh.
Her body quivered with desire. Her hardened nipples pressed against her chemise. She wanted his hands to go higher still, to roam farther up beneath her skirt. What would it feel like to have him touch her there—
right where the throbbing ache between her legs yearned for a touch?
Her lips parted and her breathing was ragged.
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Travis released her legs and sat back on his heels. Smiling, he looked up at her flushed face. “Will it offend you if I take off my shirt and vest, too? This room really is stifling.”
Beyond words, she nodded then gazed in fascination as he unbuttoned his shirt and shucked off both shirt and vest. Beneath them, he wore a sleeveless undershirt that displayed his muscled biceps.
