Page 136 of Shame the Devil
“Jennifer.” He made it a little stern, and she jumped.
Oh, yeah.
He said, “Are you telling me you want to go home and let me have kinky sex with you, instead of having a tender moment? Also, you didn’t tell me your birthday was in four days. Dyma’s graduation day, huh. Let me guess—putting her first. That’s pretty naughty, though, don’t you think, not to even give me a chance to buy you a present?”
She glowered at him.“Me?I didn’t do this! I wasn’t the one asking all those questions! Or … or saying all that!”
He laughed. He also kicked the tender moment to the curb. They’d have the tender moment later. Right now, he had a woman who needed kinky sex. Starting with getting herself undressed by a pair of hands that knew how.
Nice and slow.
He’d promised to take care of her, after all. And he was a man of his word.
57
Thirty-Five
So.A few things were happening. For one thing, she was officially thirty-five years old. “Also,” she’d told Harlan this morning,“fouryears older than you.”
“Good thing we don’t play by no rules,” he’d said, and slapped her butt. It was accessible, because she’d been lying half on top of him at the time. Still dressed in black lingerie, because let’s just say it was the kind you didn’t have to take off.
Wait. She wasn’t going to think about that now. That was distracting. That memory was dessert.
Where was she? Oh, yeah. It was Friday, it was her birthday, and she was on her way to Wild Horse, because her baby—herfirstbaby—was graduating from high school. They wereallon their way, because Harlan, of course, had chartered a jet. They hadn’t picked Owen up this time, though. Owen had flown up on his own and was meeting them at the school, and afterwards, they were going out to dinner. On the lake, the same place Harlan had taken her that night when he’d shown up and bossed her around about moving. And had kissed her hard up against her hotel door, and she’d nearly lost her resolve.
Ahem. So, yes. They were going to graduation, and then to dinner. She and her grandpa, and Harlan and Annabelle, and Dyma and Owen.
Which, yes, brought her to the third thing. She was coming back to Wild Horse, to a publiceventin Wild Horse, at thehigh schoolin Wild Horse, as an unmarried, pregnant woman. Again. But with a major difference.
The difference, of course, was Harlan. Should she not feel good about that? Was that unfeminist of her? Unevolved? Petty? Too bad. She was showing up with Harlan, and they were staying overnight at the resort. She was wearing the most beautiful dress, too, with a knot front and a soft watercolor print of purple and green flowers, made of the kind of knit fabric that made you sigh from pure comfort. She was wearing that dress with the prettiest pair of white sling-back pumps decorated with leather bows, and, yes, they were Louboutin.
“Because,” Harlan had said when she’d objected, “they’ve got those red soles. You know you want to flash every single person in that auditorium with those red soles. All those women are going to know what brand that is.”
“You know too much about me,” she’d said, and he’d grinned and said, “I know. Isn’t it great?” Which had made her laugh, and had also made her want them more. And when he’d come home with not just the shoes, but also with the most beautiful bag she’d ever seen, in snow-white calfskin with metallic embellishments … well, she hadn’t exactly saved the receipt. In fact, that bag was next to her seat right now.
“I asked them for a Louboutin one that women would recognize, from magazine ads or whatever,” Harlan had said. “This one’s called the Paloma Mini Tote. The saleslady thought I was shallow, I could tell. Nouveau riche, I think that’s the word. New money. Crass.”
“The saleslady did not,” she’d answered, laughing and pulling his face down for a kiss. “She gave you her card and told you to call her anytime.”
“Well, yeah,” he’d said. “But I figured that was just my good looks.” And she’d laughed some more and thought,Oh, yeah. Suck on that, Wild Horse.About the rudest thing she’d ever expressed, even in hermind.She was embarrassed, honestly.
But she was still wearing the shoes. And carrying the bag. And walking into that auditorium holding Harlan’s hand.
The Viking. That was his media nickname. His first commercial for that company, for cologne or whatever it was, had been teased on one of the entertainment shows just the other day. The one with him coming out of the waves with his surfboard, his blond hair wet and his trunks riding low over the best-defined abs a woman could dream of touching.
And he was hers.
The day he’d shown up with the shoes and the bag had been the day after the sonogram. After the day when he’d brought her home, and they’d sneaked up to her apartment so the girls wouldn’t know, laughing and giddy, like they were in high school. A high school she’d never experienced.
Whatever he’d said, he hadn’t done anything crazy, not that day. He’d taken her dress off at the door, cupped her belly in his hands, and said, “You’re beautiful.” After that, he’d taken her into the bedroom, laid her across the bed, taken the rest of her clothes off so slowly that time seemed to stop, and set in to please her.
The summer sun had shone outside on the darkness of cedars, on the undulating swell of hills, on the dramatic cone of Mt. Hood. And on the bed, in this little world they’d made for themselves, Harlan’s hands and mouth were all over her. Taking it slow. Taking it easy. Bringing her to one long, rolling orgasm after another, and finally, pulling her on top of him and letting her take her own pleasure.
He hadn’t closed his eyes. He’d watched. His hands now on her breasts, now on her belly, then going back to cup her bottom while she found the best way, the way that ground the ring into her as she ground into him. The way that made her gasp. Pulling her down to kiss her, his tongue in her mouth as hard and insistent as he felt inside her, his fingers twined in her hair. And when she got tired, asking her, “Want me to take over now?”
“Yes,” she’d said, her chest heaving with her breath.
He’d smiled, slow and sweet and sure. And then he’d done it.
