Blind Tiger, page 41
No one answered, but one asked, “Wha’d he do?”
Thatcher said, “If anyone hears anything from him, or about him, come get me. Sorry to have woken you up.” He jogged down the stairs and out the front door.
Five minutes later, he stood dripping rainwater in the waiting room of Dr. Perkins’s clinic, explaining to Bill what he’d learned. “Landry had prepared to run even before the ambush.”
“Leading you to believe he may have been instrumental in that?”
“He might have planned it, but he didn’t participate.”
In unison Thatcher and the sheriff turned toward Laurel, who’d spoken from the chair that Patsy Kemp had occupied days before. Laurel looked small and defenseless, with shoulders hunched, hugging her elbows.
She said, “He was at my back door when the shooting started.”
Bill walked over to her. “What was Chester Landry doing at your back door?”
She was about to answer, when Dr. Perkins came out of the interior room. His lab coat was bloodied. Laurel shot to her feet. He didn’t keep them in suspense. “My nurse and I successfully removed two bullets. The third went through his lower left abdomen. I’ve done what I can. He’s still with us.”
“Is he out of danger?” Laurel asked.
“No, Mrs. Plummer. He survived the surgery, but he’s not in the clear.” Seeing her distress, he said, “But he’s young and strong. His vitals are good. If he can stave off infection, he has a good chance of recovery. Men with far worse wounds have recovered.”
Laurel covered her mouth and took a deep breath. “Does he know about Davy?”
“He demanded that I tell him,” Bill said to her. “It was just before he lost consciousness, so it may not have sunk in.”
“It did,” Dr. Perkins said, looking bleak. “He came to and was most fretful over it before we sedated him.”
Laurel gave a soft sob. “Can I see him?”
Dr. Perkins looked her over. Her dress, shoes, and stockings were spattered with mud and streaked with Mike’s blood. “He’s still out cold, Mrs. Plummer. He won’t know you’re there. And, uh, infection is a major concern. Tomorrow would be better.”
Only then did she seem to realize how bedraggled she looked and the reason for the doctor’s hesitancy to let her near his patient. But she stood proud and composed. “I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”
“I need to get back.” Dr. Perkins retreated and shut the door.
The three of them filed out of the waiting area, Laurel leading the way. Bill and Thatcher had conferred briefly at the scene of the ambush before Thatcher had gone in search of Landry. At the time, the sheriff had dispatched men to comb the woods on both sides of the road in search of clues. They recovered dozens of shell casings from numerous weapons, but nothing else.
Bill had remarked then that he hoped the rain would hold off until daylight tomorrow when a more thorough search could be made of the woods and the road on which the getaway car had sped away.
Thatcher could tell how disheartened Bill was when they reached the exit of the office building to see that the lightning and thunder had moved east, but a hard rain was being driven sideways by a strong wind.
“So much for tire tracks and footprints,” Bill said as he motioned Laurel and Thatcher toward his car. They dashed through the rain and piled in.
When they reached Laurel’s house, it was in total darkness. “Thank you for the ride.” She opened the backseat door herself, got out, and ran toward the house.
Thatcher watched her go inside, then turned his head and looked at Bill.
Bill gave him a knowing smile. “Busy day in store for tomorrow. Gabe Driscoll. Now this ambush with one man dead. You’re only a reserve, Thatcher. I’ve got no claim on you. But I’d sure appreciate your help.”
“I’ll stop by the stable and see if Fred can spare Roger to tend to the horses tomorrow.”
“Early then.”
Thatcher nodded, got out, and ran through the torrent to Laurel’s door.
Fifty-Five
The electricity was out in Laurel’s house. When Thatcher entered the kitchen through the back door, she was lighting a kerosene lamp. She blew out the match and situated the glass chimney.
She said, “You know what’s funny?”
He propped Barker’s rifle against the wall and hung his dripping hat on the wall peg. “I can’t think of a thing.”
“Davy would’ve been the first to laugh over being killed for a truckload of pies and fruit fillings. It was his and Mike’s idea. They’d cooked it up even before I told them about Mayor Croft and Chester Landry visiting today. I was—”
“Hold on. The mayor and Landry came here?”
“To try to coerce me into joining their…I don’t know the word. Syndicate? Did you know the mayor is a bootlegger? Anyway, they showed up at my front door this afternoon.”
In a thready voice, she pieced together broken sentences to relate what the pair had proposed. Thatcher wasn’t surprised by any of it except for Bernie Croft’s brashness. “Who did the talking?” he asked.
“The mayor.”
Up till now Croft had used his political office as cover. If he was stepping out from behind it, he must be feeling damned confident that he couldn’t be touched. That was a troubling prospect.
“When they left,” Laurel was saying, “I had the shakes. I knew I hadn’t seen the last of them. But I didn’t think their reprisal would come this soon or be so…deadly.”
Tears filled her eyes. “When I told the twins about that visit and the reason behind it, they admitted that a truck had been hijacked just a few days ago.” She described the incident to Thatcher.
“I suppose the only reason they let that Johnson man live was so he could put his family and the rest of us on notice. Nevertheless, the twins were keen on going tonight.”
“But without whiskey.”
She nodded. “They weren’t selling just my whiskey. They had been dealing with another moonshiner, who’s up closer to Ranger. They’d bought several crates from him and had hidden them someplace accessible, so the product would be on hand when they needed it.
“In view of this recent hijacking, they had counted on selling what was in that stockpile, but would continue to make the trip from here to there with pies only. In the event they were intercepted, the joke would be on whoever had stopped them.
“Their thinking was that after they were caught with only pies as cargo, they would be left alone. You see? Isn’t that just like a prank the two of them would pull?”
She gave a dry, forced laugh, and she began to quiver like a shell-shocked trooper on the verge of cracking.
He spoke her name quietly, and when she’d blinked him into focus, he asked about Landry. “Tell me what happened with him.”
“He must have been watching the house, because he came to the back door almost immediately after the twins left. He said Mayor Croft had been overbearing and tactless, and that he didn’t blame me for turning them down. He said he had come, not at Croft’s behest, but on his own, to make me a better offer. I don’t know what he was going to propose, because that’s when the shooting started. The instant I heard the gunfire, I had a premonition, a sick feeling.”
She touched her stomach. “I took off running. Landry came after me, and caught up. From there, you know. You saw.”
“The coward ran and got away.”
“Mike was lying in the street, and Davy was dead. They made such easy targets as they came out of the curve in the road.” She appeared to want to say more, but her throat seized up. She had difficulty swallowing.
“Laurel, it wasn’t lawmen who ambushed them.”
She looked down at the floor, but he didn’t think it registered with her that the puddle around her muddy shoes had been formed by her dripping clothes.
“Sheriff Amos called it sabotage,” she said. “Moonshiners mistaking the twins for rivals. And they were. They were. For me.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “I let them go tonight, knowing the danger.”
She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “Irv kept telling me it wasn’t a lark. You warned me. But, no, I was conceited and stubborn, and thought that I was above the fray, that I couldn’t be touched. And because of that vanity, Davy died.”
Sensing that she was about to collapse where she stood, Thatcher crossed over to her and enfolded her in his arms. “The O’Connors knew they were playing a dangerous game. They knew the risks.”
“But it’s my fault.”
“No, Laurel. They loved the thrill. With or without you, they would have become part of this trade.”
“I tried my best to talk them out of going tonight. Honestly, Thatcher, I did. But they were bent on it. If Mike lives, he will never get over losing his brother. Never.” Her forehead dropped against his sternum and she began to sob harder. “I can’t do this anymore. Even if I wanted to continue. I can’t. I can’t risk another life.”
“You’ve got to stop risking your own.” He scooped her up into his arms and headed for the staircase.
Feebly, she pushed against his chest. “Let me down.”
“You’re sopping wet. Your teeth are chattering, and you’re about to drop.”
He carried her into her bedroom, set her on her feet, and propped her against the wall. He went around the room pulling down the window shades and lit the lamp on her dresser, keeping the flame low. He folded back the bedcovers.
She hadn’t moved from where he’d left her. For the longest time, they stood facing, staring into each other’s eyes.
“You’re fragile right now,” he said. “I promised I would never take advantage of you, and I meant it. I’m putting you to bed. If you don’t want me in there with you, say so now.”
She didn’t move or speak.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he reached down and untied the thong holding his holster against his thigh, then unbuckled the gun belt and set it in a chair. His coat was wet. It clung, but he worked himself out of it. He flipped his braces off his shoulders, opened several buttons of his shirt, then impatiently pulled it over his head. Shoes and socks went next. He unbuttoned his fly but stopped there.
He knelt in front of her and slipped off her shoes. Sliding his hands up her legs under her skirt, he found her garters, rolled down her stockings, and peeled them off her chilled feet.
When he stood up, he reached behind her head, pulled out what few pins remained in her hair, and dropped them to the floor. As her hair tumbled down her back, he combed his fingers through it.
“Thatcher, I—”
With abject misery, he moaned, “Please don’t shy from me, Laurel.”
“I’m not. It’s just…” In a purely feminine, self-conscious gesture, she touched the tear tracks on her cheeks, then moved her hand down to her collar, which she drew closed over her throat. “I’m not very tidy.”
His heart thumped with restored anticipation. Her voice was husky from weeping, and so seductive he wanted to trap it inside her mouth and taste it. “I don’t need you tidy. I need you now.”
He placed his hands flat against the wall on either side of her head, lowered his, and used his nose to nudge open the collar she’d closed. He pressed an open-mouth kiss on the side of her neck, nibbled up the slender column of it to her ear where he breathed, “I won’t hold back.”
“Please don’t. Make me forget.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
That sighed consent unleashed a primal urge in him to claim, possess, mate. He came up against her and covered her face with kisses, then slanted his mouth over hers. He ate from it, unable to draw as much from it as he was yearning for, greedy for. He went back and back and back for more. He slid his hands from the wall to her breasts. There was no corset to prevent him from massaging and reshaping them. She leaned into the caresses in unshy offering.
Somehow he managed to keep their mouths fused as he pulled her blouse free of her waistband and unbuttoned it. The buttons were small and round and devils to work free of the wet material, but at last he got them undone, and her blouse was off.
He skimmed his hands over her front, feeling the warmth of her skin through her chemise. He compressed the tips of her breasts between his fingers and heard her breath flutter around his name as she sighed it.
After two failed attempts, he found the fastening of her skirt and undid it. The skirt, weighted with rainwater, crumpled to the floor. Laurel stepped out of it, leaving her in only her chemise and underpants.
He took her hands and tugged her forward as he backed up to the bed and sat down on the side of it, then wrapped her in his arms and pressed his face into the giving softness of her middle. Hands splayed over her back, he held her there and breathed her in.
Then he drew her down onto the bed, turned her to lie on her back, and, following her down, half covered her body as he kissed her. She clasped his head, digging her fingers into his hair.
His hands moved over her, charting the dips and swells of her body until he reached the hem of her chemise. He bunched it to her waist, pushed it up over her breasts, and pulled it over her head. She lifted her hair free of it, tossed it over the side of the bed, and lay back, drawing him back down to her.
He kissed her breasts, suckled them in turn as he stroked the plain of her stomach with the backs of his fingers, moving a little lower with each brush of skin over skin until he encountered the row of tiny buttons on her underpants. He toyed with them, plucked at them, then popped them free. He worked the garment over her hips, down her thighs, past her knees, and off.
The hair in the vee of her thighs was soft against his palm as he cupped her. Sliding his fingers deeper, he dipped into her and caressed, then rolled onto his hip, opened his fly, and made the head of his cock slick with the moisture his fingertips had collected.
He levered himself above her. Her thighs hugged his hips. His first probe found her tight, but yielding. He pressed inside, barely breaching but snugly securing himself in silky heat. He forced himself to hold there. But Laurel was looking up at him with lambent eyes, puffing soft and rapid breaths through her lips. Her fingers linked behind his neck. So he rocked into her incrementally, inch by intoxicating inch, until he was gloved by her.
His breath soughed loudly in the otherwise silent room. He bracketed her upper body with his forearms, leaving his hands free to touch her eyebrows, cheeks, lips. He kissed her gently. At least it started out that way, but her tongue tangled with his, and he resumed the hungry kisses of before.
She angled herself up against him, rubbing belly to belly, restlessly grazing her nipples against his chest. Her hands coasted down his spine to the small of his back, then into his loose trousers and onto his butt. For hands so small, they squeezed him with surprising strength, insistent on pulling him closer, deeper.
He heard the primal growl that came from his own throat as he began to move. Slow, penetrating glides. Near withdrawals before sinking deep, deeper. Shallow, rapid strokes that appealed to his carnal instinct to come. To come now.
He didn’t. But he tilted his hips just enough to change the point of friction, to enable a prolonged grind against that elusive little bead that he had acquainted her with. Her first climax had alarmed her. She had resisted and rejected it. Now she was arching up in want of another.
He’d had wet dreams about just this, about Laurel’s desperate reaching for the abandon he could give her.
His control slipping, he groaned her name in a plea, a prayer.
Her breath turned choppy, then stopped altogether as her body bowed and went taut. She gave a soft, startled cry, then began milking him with such perfection, he almost waited too late to pull out.
* * *
Really not since Derby had come home from Europe had Laurel felt completely at rest. This must be the way it felt when a beguiling narcotic channeled through one’s veins, replacing distress, anger, grief, all things horrid with a honeyed peace. The languor was lovely. She had no wish to move.
Not until Thatcher did. And then she opened her eyes to watch as he walked over to the dresser and took off his pants. His tall frame was spared lankiness by wide shoulders, defined muscles and tendons, and a perfectly formed, firm backside.
“You mind me getting naked?”
She sought his eyes in the mirror above the dresser from which he’d obviously been watching her watch him.
A worry line appeared between his eyebrows. “Are you embarrassed now by what we did?”
“No. Only embarrassed that you caught me admiring the view.”
The line faded and he grinned as he poured water onto a cloth and washed himself, then filled the bowl from the pitcher, got a fresh cloth off the towel rack, wet it, and brought it back to the bed. She couldn’t keep herself from admiring the front view, too. He was generously apportioned.
He sat down on the side of the bed and washed her stomach with the cloth, then passed it to her. Reaching beneath the sheet, she cleaned herself between her thighs.
“I’ll get some Sheiks,” he said. “But, except for the flu, I didn’t catch anything over there.”
Derby had explained to her why servicemen had been encouraged to use prophylactics. He’d assured her that he had.
Thatcher got back in the bed and stretched out beside her on his side, his elbow on the mattress, his fist supporting his cheek. He pulled back the sheet that she had draped over her hips and surveyed her with frank interest. His absorbed gaze made her turn rosier than she already was.
“You are embarrassed,” he said.
“Bashful.” She lowered her eyes and addressed his chin. “I’ve only been with Derby. I don’t know how to act with you.”
“Don’t act at all. Just be you.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Something good, I hope.”
“An admission.” She reached out and placed her hand on the meaty part of his chest. Her fingers lightly stroked the dusting of hair. “I wanted to see you without your undershirt.”
“What?”
“The night you brought Irv home. You’d used your shirt to stanch the wound and were wearing only a Henley. It fit so tight that I got some idea of what you must look like under it. I couldn’t stop looking, imagining, and wishing I could see your bare chest.”
Thatcher said, “If anyone hears anything from him, or about him, come get me. Sorry to have woken you up.” He jogged down the stairs and out the front door.
Five minutes later, he stood dripping rainwater in the waiting room of Dr. Perkins’s clinic, explaining to Bill what he’d learned. “Landry had prepared to run even before the ambush.”
“Leading you to believe he may have been instrumental in that?”
“He might have planned it, but he didn’t participate.”
In unison Thatcher and the sheriff turned toward Laurel, who’d spoken from the chair that Patsy Kemp had occupied days before. Laurel looked small and defenseless, with shoulders hunched, hugging her elbows.
She said, “He was at my back door when the shooting started.”
Bill walked over to her. “What was Chester Landry doing at your back door?”
She was about to answer, when Dr. Perkins came out of the interior room. His lab coat was bloodied. Laurel shot to her feet. He didn’t keep them in suspense. “My nurse and I successfully removed two bullets. The third went through his lower left abdomen. I’ve done what I can. He’s still with us.”
“Is he out of danger?” Laurel asked.
“No, Mrs. Plummer. He survived the surgery, but he’s not in the clear.” Seeing her distress, he said, “But he’s young and strong. His vitals are good. If he can stave off infection, he has a good chance of recovery. Men with far worse wounds have recovered.”
Laurel covered her mouth and took a deep breath. “Does he know about Davy?”
“He demanded that I tell him,” Bill said to her. “It was just before he lost consciousness, so it may not have sunk in.”
“It did,” Dr. Perkins said, looking bleak. “He came to and was most fretful over it before we sedated him.”
Laurel gave a soft sob. “Can I see him?”
Dr. Perkins looked her over. Her dress, shoes, and stockings were spattered with mud and streaked with Mike’s blood. “He’s still out cold, Mrs. Plummer. He won’t know you’re there. And, uh, infection is a major concern. Tomorrow would be better.”
Only then did she seem to realize how bedraggled she looked and the reason for the doctor’s hesitancy to let her near his patient. But she stood proud and composed. “I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”
“I need to get back.” Dr. Perkins retreated and shut the door.
The three of them filed out of the waiting area, Laurel leading the way. Bill and Thatcher had conferred briefly at the scene of the ambush before Thatcher had gone in search of Landry. At the time, the sheriff had dispatched men to comb the woods on both sides of the road in search of clues. They recovered dozens of shell casings from numerous weapons, but nothing else.
Bill had remarked then that he hoped the rain would hold off until daylight tomorrow when a more thorough search could be made of the woods and the road on which the getaway car had sped away.
Thatcher could tell how disheartened Bill was when they reached the exit of the office building to see that the lightning and thunder had moved east, but a hard rain was being driven sideways by a strong wind.
“So much for tire tracks and footprints,” Bill said as he motioned Laurel and Thatcher toward his car. They dashed through the rain and piled in.
When they reached Laurel’s house, it was in total darkness. “Thank you for the ride.” She opened the backseat door herself, got out, and ran toward the house.
Thatcher watched her go inside, then turned his head and looked at Bill.
Bill gave him a knowing smile. “Busy day in store for tomorrow. Gabe Driscoll. Now this ambush with one man dead. You’re only a reserve, Thatcher. I’ve got no claim on you. But I’d sure appreciate your help.”
“I’ll stop by the stable and see if Fred can spare Roger to tend to the horses tomorrow.”
“Early then.”
Thatcher nodded, got out, and ran through the torrent to Laurel’s door.
Fifty-Five
The electricity was out in Laurel’s house. When Thatcher entered the kitchen through the back door, she was lighting a kerosene lamp. She blew out the match and situated the glass chimney.
She said, “You know what’s funny?”
He propped Barker’s rifle against the wall and hung his dripping hat on the wall peg. “I can’t think of a thing.”
“Davy would’ve been the first to laugh over being killed for a truckload of pies and fruit fillings. It was his and Mike’s idea. They’d cooked it up even before I told them about Mayor Croft and Chester Landry visiting today. I was—”
“Hold on. The mayor and Landry came here?”
“To try to coerce me into joining their…I don’t know the word. Syndicate? Did you know the mayor is a bootlegger? Anyway, they showed up at my front door this afternoon.”
In a thready voice, she pieced together broken sentences to relate what the pair had proposed. Thatcher wasn’t surprised by any of it except for Bernie Croft’s brashness. “Who did the talking?” he asked.
“The mayor.”
Up till now Croft had used his political office as cover. If he was stepping out from behind it, he must be feeling damned confident that he couldn’t be touched. That was a troubling prospect.
“When they left,” Laurel was saying, “I had the shakes. I knew I hadn’t seen the last of them. But I didn’t think their reprisal would come this soon or be so…deadly.”
Tears filled her eyes. “When I told the twins about that visit and the reason behind it, they admitted that a truck had been hijacked just a few days ago.” She described the incident to Thatcher.
“I suppose the only reason they let that Johnson man live was so he could put his family and the rest of us on notice. Nevertheless, the twins were keen on going tonight.”
“But without whiskey.”
She nodded. “They weren’t selling just my whiskey. They had been dealing with another moonshiner, who’s up closer to Ranger. They’d bought several crates from him and had hidden them someplace accessible, so the product would be on hand when they needed it.
“In view of this recent hijacking, they had counted on selling what was in that stockpile, but would continue to make the trip from here to there with pies only. In the event they were intercepted, the joke would be on whoever had stopped them.
“Their thinking was that after they were caught with only pies as cargo, they would be left alone. You see? Isn’t that just like a prank the two of them would pull?”
She gave a dry, forced laugh, and she began to quiver like a shell-shocked trooper on the verge of cracking.
He spoke her name quietly, and when she’d blinked him into focus, he asked about Landry. “Tell me what happened with him.”
“He must have been watching the house, because he came to the back door almost immediately after the twins left. He said Mayor Croft had been overbearing and tactless, and that he didn’t blame me for turning them down. He said he had come, not at Croft’s behest, but on his own, to make me a better offer. I don’t know what he was going to propose, because that’s when the shooting started. The instant I heard the gunfire, I had a premonition, a sick feeling.”
She touched her stomach. “I took off running. Landry came after me, and caught up. From there, you know. You saw.”
“The coward ran and got away.”
“Mike was lying in the street, and Davy was dead. They made such easy targets as they came out of the curve in the road.” She appeared to want to say more, but her throat seized up. She had difficulty swallowing.
“Laurel, it wasn’t lawmen who ambushed them.”
She looked down at the floor, but he didn’t think it registered with her that the puddle around her muddy shoes had been formed by her dripping clothes.
“Sheriff Amos called it sabotage,” she said. “Moonshiners mistaking the twins for rivals. And they were. They were. For me.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “I let them go tonight, knowing the danger.”
She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “Irv kept telling me it wasn’t a lark. You warned me. But, no, I was conceited and stubborn, and thought that I was above the fray, that I couldn’t be touched. And because of that vanity, Davy died.”
Sensing that she was about to collapse where she stood, Thatcher crossed over to her and enfolded her in his arms. “The O’Connors knew they were playing a dangerous game. They knew the risks.”
“But it’s my fault.”
“No, Laurel. They loved the thrill. With or without you, they would have become part of this trade.”
“I tried my best to talk them out of going tonight. Honestly, Thatcher, I did. But they were bent on it. If Mike lives, he will never get over losing his brother. Never.” Her forehead dropped against his sternum and she began to sob harder. “I can’t do this anymore. Even if I wanted to continue. I can’t. I can’t risk another life.”
“You’ve got to stop risking your own.” He scooped her up into his arms and headed for the staircase.
Feebly, she pushed against his chest. “Let me down.”
“You’re sopping wet. Your teeth are chattering, and you’re about to drop.”
He carried her into her bedroom, set her on her feet, and propped her against the wall. He went around the room pulling down the window shades and lit the lamp on her dresser, keeping the flame low. He folded back the bedcovers.
She hadn’t moved from where he’d left her. For the longest time, they stood facing, staring into each other’s eyes.
“You’re fragile right now,” he said. “I promised I would never take advantage of you, and I meant it. I’m putting you to bed. If you don’t want me in there with you, say so now.”
She didn’t move or speak.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he reached down and untied the thong holding his holster against his thigh, then unbuckled the gun belt and set it in a chair. His coat was wet. It clung, but he worked himself out of it. He flipped his braces off his shoulders, opened several buttons of his shirt, then impatiently pulled it over his head. Shoes and socks went next. He unbuttoned his fly but stopped there.
He knelt in front of her and slipped off her shoes. Sliding his hands up her legs under her skirt, he found her garters, rolled down her stockings, and peeled them off her chilled feet.
When he stood up, he reached behind her head, pulled out what few pins remained in her hair, and dropped them to the floor. As her hair tumbled down her back, he combed his fingers through it.
“Thatcher, I—”
With abject misery, he moaned, “Please don’t shy from me, Laurel.”
“I’m not. It’s just…” In a purely feminine, self-conscious gesture, she touched the tear tracks on her cheeks, then moved her hand down to her collar, which she drew closed over her throat. “I’m not very tidy.”
His heart thumped with restored anticipation. Her voice was husky from weeping, and so seductive he wanted to trap it inside her mouth and taste it. “I don’t need you tidy. I need you now.”
He placed his hands flat against the wall on either side of her head, lowered his, and used his nose to nudge open the collar she’d closed. He pressed an open-mouth kiss on the side of her neck, nibbled up the slender column of it to her ear where he breathed, “I won’t hold back.”
“Please don’t. Make me forget.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
That sighed consent unleashed a primal urge in him to claim, possess, mate. He came up against her and covered her face with kisses, then slanted his mouth over hers. He ate from it, unable to draw as much from it as he was yearning for, greedy for. He went back and back and back for more. He slid his hands from the wall to her breasts. There was no corset to prevent him from massaging and reshaping them. She leaned into the caresses in unshy offering.
Somehow he managed to keep their mouths fused as he pulled her blouse free of her waistband and unbuttoned it. The buttons were small and round and devils to work free of the wet material, but at last he got them undone, and her blouse was off.
He skimmed his hands over her front, feeling the warmth of her skin through her chemise. He compressed the tips of her breasts between his fingers and heard her breath flutter around his name as she sighed it.
After two failed attempts, he found the fastening of her skirt and undid it. The skirt, weighted with rainwater, crumpled to the floor. Laurel stepped out of it, leaving her in only her chemise and underpants.
He took her hands and tugged her forward as he backed up to the bed and sat down on the side of it, then wrapped her in his arms and pressed his face into the giving softness of her middle. Hands splayed over her back, he held her there and breathed her in.
Then he drew her down onto the bed, turned her to lie on her back, and, following her down, half covered her body as he kissed her. She clasped his head, digging her fingers into his hair.
His hands moved over her, charting the dips and swells of her body until he reached the hem of her chemise. He bunched it to her waist, pushed it up over her breasts, and pulled it over her head. She lifted her hair free of it, tossed it over the side of the bed, and lay back, drawing him back down to her.
He kissed her breasts, suckled them in turn as he stroked the plain of her stomach with the backs of his fingers, moving a little lower with each brush of skin over skin until he encountered the row of tiny buttons on her underpants. He toyed with them, plucked at them, then popped them free. He worked the garment over her hips, down her thighs, past her knees, and off.
The hair in the vee of her thighs was soft against his palm as he cupped her. Sliding his fingers deeper, he dipped into her and caressed, then rolled onto his hip, opened his fly, and made the head of his cock slick with the moisture his fingertips had collected.
He levered himself above her. Her thighs hugged his hips. His first probe found her tight, but yielding. He pressed inside, barely breaching but snugly securing himself in silky heat. He forced himself to hold there. But Laurel was looking up at him with lambent eyes, puffing soft and rapid breaths through her lips. Her fingers linked behind his neck. So he rocked into her incrementally, inch by intoxicating inch, until he was gloved by her.
His breath soughed loudly in the otherwise silent room. He bracketed her upper body with his forearms, leaving his hands free to touch her eyebrows, cheeks, lips. He kissed her gently. At least it started out that way, but her tongue tangled with his, and he resumed the hungry kisses of before.
She angled herself up against him, rubbing belly to belly, restlessly grazing her nipples against his chest. Her hands coasted down his spine to the small of his back, then into his loose trousers and onto his butt. For hands so small, they squeezed him with surprising strength, insistent on pulling him closer, deeper.
He heard the primal growl that came from his own throat as he began to move. Slow, penetrating glides. Near withdrawals before sinking deep, deeper. Shallow, rapid strokes that appealed to his carnal instinct to come. To come now.
He didn’t. But he tilted his hips just enough to change the point of friction, to enable a prolonged grind against that elusive little bead that he had acquainted her with. Her first climax had alarmed her. She had resisted and rejected it. Now she was arching up in want of another.
He’d had wet dreams about just this, about Laurel’s desperate reaching for the abandon he could give her.
His control slipping, he groaned her name in a plea, a prayer.
Her breath turned choppy, then stopped altogether as her body bowed and went taut. She gave a soft, startled cry, then began milking him with such perfection, he almost waited too late to pull out.
* * *
Really not since Derby had come home from Europe had Laurel felt completely at rest. This must be the way it felt when a beguiling narcotic channeled through one’s veins, replacing distress, anger, grief, all things horrid with a honeyed peace. The languor was lovely. She had no wish to move.
Not until Thatcher did. And then she opened her eyes to watch as he walked over to the dresser and took off his pants. His tall frame was spared lankiness by wide shoulders, defined muscles and tendons, and a perfectly formed, firm backside.
“You mind me getting naked?”
She sought his eyes in the mirror above the dresser from which he’d obviously been watching her watch him.
A worry line appeared between his eyebrows. “Are you embarrassed now by what we did?”
“No. Only embarrassed that you caught me admiring the view.”
The line faded and he grinned as he poured water onto a cloth and washed himself, then filled the bowl from the pitcher, got a fresh cloth off the towel rack, wet it, and brought it back to the bed. She couldn’t keep herself from admiring the front view, too. He was generously apportioned.
He sat down on the side of the bed and washed her stomach with the cloth, then passed it to her. Reaching beneath the sheet, she cleaned herself between her thighs.
“I’ll get some Sheiks,” he said. “But, except for the flu, I didn’t catch anything over there.”
Derby had explained to her why servicemen had been encouraged to use prophylactics. He’d assured her that he had.
Thatcher got back in the bed and stretched out beside her on his side, his elbow on the mattress, his fist supporting his cheek. He pulled back the sheet that she had draped over her hips and surveyed her with frank interest. His absorbed gaze made her turn rosier than she already was.
“You are embarrassed,” he said.
“Bashful.” She lowered her eyes and addressed his chin. “I’ve only been with Derby. I don’t know how to act with you.”
“Don’t act at all. Just be you.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Something good, I hope.”
“An admission.” She reached out and placed her hand on the meaty part of his chest. Her fingers lightly stroked the dusting of hair. “I wanted to see you without your undershirt.”
“What?”
“The night you brought Irv home. You’d used your shirt to stanch the wound and were wearing only a Henley. It fit so tight that I got some idea of what you must look like under it. I couldn’t stop looking, imagining, and wishing I could see your bare chest.”
