Chapter One
Chapter One
Her heart beat as if it were going to run away, tormented, frightened and in anguish, but aroused, all in the same confounding, splendid instant. She lay back on the bare, striped mattress, legs spread like a wide Western vista; skin shiny, venting the incense of s*x. He came toward her for the third time that afternoon, p***s edgy with testosterone overflowing, raw muscled extremities breathing with feral power. He loomed and thrust unrestrained into the succulent sheath between her thighs and she drew him in again, ready for more, for coming again, coming easier this time perhaps, his vigor hardly abated but now laced with exhaustion. Their afternoon had started at one o’clock and would end at five on the same old mattress in the same barren room where they began.
At the window, a thin white curtain fluttered in the breeze.
His body sank into the cushion of her, into sweaty thighs and a satiny bosom flushed with heat, sweat dripping down the sides. He kissed away one salty rivulet. As he f****d her, his firm ass bobbed in and out of the flickering sunshine. He hit deep and clawed for more, always more. Three times was never enough for him.
And what did she mind that he was such a s****l animal? She liked her orgasms long and strong. And plenty of them one after another…after another.
The sound of their skin smacking drove her mad. She thrashed back and forth. His teeth clamped onto her n****e and he sucked it into a hard inch-long bullet of tender sensation.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she seethed, closing her eyes and feeling the wave of pain. “Hard, dammit it, harder!” Grunting, panting, sweat dripping from her brow, she arched her back. Coming again…squeezing down to suck him dry. “Oh, more…” her lilting voice drifted, as the waves of passion rode her body end to end.
Then he finished too, pressing his groin firmly against her center, muscles straining while he moaned for the duration of his climax.
Emerson fell away, naked body bouncing into the mattress.
They stared upwards at the old cracked plaster, watching motionless as the ceiling fan loped a bit cockeyed, stirring the overheated air. Without it one could hardly breathe in the stifling room. Their scent was strong.
“Probably should have the place fumigated when we’re done,” he finally broke the silence.
“Oh, I think the aroma is divine,” Daphne returned with a sigh.
She turned to him, laying her hand on his chest. The hair there had been bleached by the sun, like his close-cropped blond at the top of his head, already white and it was just the end of spring. He could have been a beach bum with his looks, like a West Coast surfer, but he was much more than that, much different. She stroked him affectionately, letting her thoughts swim.
He was often quiet for minutes at a time, as he was now, lost in thought. Then he came back revived enough to announce, “Let’s get married, Daph.”
“What?”
He rolled over, propped on one elbow, looking at her, blue eyes flashing a hard, cold gaze of determination. So like Emerson Gray. “Married Daphne. You and me, like this forever.”
“It can’t be like this all the time,” she said.
“What?” Instantly irked. “You making excuses for not loving me?”
“But I do love you!”
“Then there should be no question about getting married.” Simple as that.
The thought had never occurred to her, since she never thought that Emerson would ever consider marriage. Her boyfriend was brilliant; the most brilliant man she’d ever dated, or knew, for that matter. He was incisive, biting, sexy, charming when he wanted to be, or wanted something. But married? He lived to defy convention. What could be more conventional than marriage?
She shrank back, shivering with nervous heat. “I think you have me scared.”
He looked at her quizzically—he didn’t understand her hesitation—then suddenly smiled, opening up the broad expanse of his peculiar magnetism.
“Oh, Daphne, sweet,” he leaned over her, staring straight into her hazel eyes, curling a lock of her long ash blond hair between his fingers. “You…have…no…reason to be scared,” he enunciated with great care. “I couldn’t ever, ever love anyone like I do you. Ever!” The word was almost tinged with anger. But still, he smiled. He gazed at her in awe. “Don’t make me beg. Please.” He raised his eyebrows with melancholy wanting.
Her cold shivers took on some warmth.
“Okay.” Her voice breathless and small. “I-I…don’t… you say this so suddenly… so get married, how do we do that?”
“Elope, of course. Tonight,” he thought again, “no tomorrow, I need to get some cash. We’ll bring Zack and Penelope maybe, but no one else, unless you just want it to be the two of us. I think I’d like it that way, don’t you? Just you and me. It’s all about you and me.”
“I don’t know,” she returned, still dazed.
“You don’t know what?” he looked concerned again.
She saw a hint of hurt in his eyes. “No, Emerson, I do want to marry you.” She smiled, looking suddenly elated, then giggled like a young girl. She was still young, twenty-three, a graduate student looking for a publisher for her randy poetry and emotionally edgy short stories.
“Oh! We’re going to be quite the pair, huh?” He jumped from bed and climbed into his clothes.
Late the next night, they were married by a Justice of the Peace.
