"You have it memorized?" she asked, holding his eyes.
"We weren't allowed to have porn at Kinsey. This was the closest we could get."
"So you all read it a million times."
"A million or more," he said, holding out the book to her, "dreaming about a girl like you."
She licked her lips and took the book from him, reading, "It was like bells rippling up and up to a culmination. She lay unconscious of the wild little cries she uttered at the last. But it was over too soon, too soon, and she could no longer force her own conclusion with her own activity. This was different, different. She could do nothing. She could no longer harden and grip for her own satisfaction upon him. She could only wait, wait and moan in spirit as she felt him withdrawing, withdrawing and contracting, coming to the terrible moment when he would slip out of her and be gone."
He tore his turtleneck over his head, glad that his T-shirt hitched a ride, baring his chest to her.
"This is," she said, raising her eyes to his, her breathing shallow and audible, "hot."
"I told you," he said.
She dropped her gaze to his bare chest, then quickly reached behind and unfastened her bra. "New rule: two pieces of clothing each time."
"Whatever you want, baby," he said.
"I want you to read," she murmured, handing him the book as her bra whispered down her arms and slipped to the growing pile of clothes on the floor.
Tom's mouth watered, and he had to swallow before dropping his eyes to the text. He took a shaky breath, feeling his cock twitch as she unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans.
"Read, Tom," she said, pushing the denim over her hips.
"Whilst all her womb was open and soft, and softly clamouring, like a sea-anemone under the tide, clamouring for him to come in again and make a fulfilment for her. She clung to him unconscious in passion, and he never quite slipped from her, and she felt the soft bud of him within her stirring, and strange rhythms flushing up into her with a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling till it filled all her cleaving consciousness . . ."
He looked up, and she was lying naked on the bed, her head braced up on one elbow so that she could watch him.
"Jesus," he murmured, clenching his jaw. She was every teenaged boy's-every man's-
erotic fantasy come true. And she was his.
She grinned at him like she could read his mind, then licked her lips, holding out her hand. "Give it to me, husband, and finish stripping."
He placed the book on the bed beside her, then reached for his belt buckle.
Her voice, dulcet and low, thick with passion, picked up where he left off, ". . . and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, till she was one perfect concentric fluid of feeling, and she lay there crying in unconscious inarticulate cries."
She had flipped to her back while reading, drawing her knees up and open, and now Tom knelt between them, his cock standing tall and proud, pulsing and twitching with arousal. He cut his eyes to hers, and found them dark and drugged, soft and waiting.
"Make me cry in unconscious, inarticulate cries, Tom," she said, her lips tilting into a sexy grin as she stared up at him.
This girl.
This woman.
His woman.
How she embraced life. How she rolled with its punches, forever leaning into it and never away. In such a short time, she had become his coconspirator and helpmate, his cheerleader and lover. His friend. His partner. His wife. His . . . beloved.
"Eleanora," he said, savoring her name against his lips as he positioned the tip of his sex at the entrance of hers.
"Mmm?"
"I love you," he said, surging forward to merge his body with hers.
Her lips parted in surprise-half from his unexpected admission and half from the perfection of their joining-and she gasped, her eyes fluttering closed as he pushed forward. When he was fully sheathed within her, his pelvis flush with hers, she opened them again. They sparkled like sapphires, shining brightly amid an ocean of unshed tears.
"Tom," she whispered, reaching for his face and pulling him down to her. "I love you too."
He kissed her madly, rocking into her, faster and faster, promising her with his body that his words were true.
Her cries and moans overtook the squeaking of their motel room bed, the walls of her sex tightening around him, pulsing in waves, until he could barely endure the sweetness. He forced himself to withdraw at the last possible moment to spend himself on her belly.
And then he clutched her to his body, the heat of their lovemaking binding them flesh to flesh, the power of their new love binding them heart to heart.
Chapter 13
Eleanora had worked every New Year's Eve since she was fourteen years old, slinging pitchers of beer at a bar in Romero and, once she'd gotten to Vail, working the all-night shift at Auntie Rose's because she hoped the tips would be good. And they were-last year's New Year's Eve tips had paid her rent through February.
She'd never had someone special with whom to celebrate New Year's, no one to dress up for, no one she'd want to kiss at midnight. The couple of no-account boys she'd dated in high school hadn't been worth losing her tips for, and she'd worked too hard, between Auntie Rose's and community college, to date anyone seriously in Vail.
So this year was new territory for Eleanora: for the first time in her adult life, she was going to celebrate New Year's Eve, and she had someone special to kiss at midnight. And she greeted the holiday with excitement and anticipation.
Tom had been spending every day at the Weston Memorial Library. Eleanora dropped him off at ten o'clock so she would have the car all day, and picked him up when the library closed, at five. He was creating the syllabus for the freshman and sophomore English classes he would be teaching, rereading books and stories to gauge their appropriateness, and coming up with study plans. Every evening, as they ate breakfast-for-dinner, he'd tell her about his progress, and she'd listen with enthusiasm and approval, before telling him which parts of their little house she'd scrubbed clean, and what frugal purchases she'd made to feather their modest nest.
But today, New Year's Eve, she wouldn't just drop him off at the library before heading home. No. Today Eleanora Watters English was on a mission, and it required her sneaking into the library after dropping Tom off, and somehow evading him as she hunted her quarry.
"I love you tons," he said tenderly, leaning over the car bolster to kiss her good-bye, as he did every morning.
Her toes curled as he kissed her. Heat, never absent for long, pooled in her belly. "I love you back."
"See you at five?"
She nodded, grinning at him. "I'll be here. And no flirting with the librarians."
He picked up his satchel off the floor and winked at her. "Didn't you ever hear what Paul Newman said about philandering?"
"Educate me."
"He said, and I quote, ‘I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?'"
She chuckled. "Did you just compare me to meat?"
"You're filet mignon, baby."
"You better believe it," she said, grabbing his neck for one more kiss before letting him go.
He hopped up the steps of the library, but just before stepping inside, he turned around and grinned at her, pursing his lips into one more quick kiss before disappearing inside.
Eleanora sighed happily, pulling away from the curb in front of the little brick building and circling the block. When she approached the building again, she pulled into the rear parking lot and cut the engine.
She took off her coat and threw it in the backseat, then pulled on an old brown sweater and tied a scarf around her hair. Donning Jackie O – style sunglasses she'd picked up at a pharmacy in Vail, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror before heading into the library via the back door.
Walking with her head down, she desperately hoped that she wouldn't run into Tom and ruin the surprise. After a week of breakfast for every meal, she was going to make dinner tonight. A real dinner.
The problem? She had no idea how. Her mission was to find a cookbook, check it out of the library, choose a recipe in the car, and head straight to the Davis IGA and get everything she needed. When she left to pick up Tom, she planned to have the table set, an elegant dinner warming in the oven, and chilled white wine ready to be enjoyed the moment they arrived home.