Page 137 of Shame the Devil
No fancy positions. No acrobatics. Just Harlan lifting her off him, then moving on top of her. Holding himself up on his palms as he entered her, then shifting position somehow so the friction got even more intense, and her eyes opened wide.
He said, “Yeah. That’s it. That’s what we’re doing.” And she lost her breath.
Her hands on his chest, his arms, exploring him, greedy for him, until it got better and all she could do was slide her hands down his back and hold his hips to try to pull him harder into him. Hearing his breath catch, feeling the strain in his body, and starting to go up again herself. The way he groaned when she did, the sounds she’d pulled out of him when, finally, he was spilling into her, and the way he held her afterwards. Brushing her hair back from her face. Kissing her cheek, her forehead.
Telling her that today had been beautiful. That seeing their son for the first time had been the most intense moment of his life. And that he loved her.
And the next day, a deliveryman had brought flowers to the office.
Twenty stems of delicate, deep-blue orchids, tinged with purple. A rare color, like sapphires. The most fragile blooms imaginable, every blossom paper-thin, tiny, and perfect. And a little white envelope stuck into the midst of them. She’d opened it with trembling fingers to find a white card.
Blue for our son. Thank you. I’m going to try hard.
He just took her heart and twisted it. Her hands were shaking so badly, she had a hard time putting the card back in the envelope. She had to go to the ladies’ room, read it again, and cry.
Good thing Blake hadn’t seenthat.How did you explain that you were crying from happiness? From tenderness so strong, it hurt? From love so deep, it could only come out in tears?
She was going to cry again if she kept on like this. Dyma’s graduation. The baby. Harlan. It was all welling up inside her. She was going to think about this morning instead. About dessert. That was the only way she’d make it to Idaho without becoming a soggy mess.
No. Wait. She needed to have this conversation with Harlan first. She’dmeantto have it this morning, but she’d been distracted. She was out of time. She needed to have it now.
* * *
Jennifer looked sosoft and pretty in that dress, all he wanted to do was cuddle her. Which was alarming, maybe. He was never going to win the tough-guy sweepstakes like this.
On the other hand, shallow was no way to go through life. The deep end of the pool might be scary, but it sure did make you feel.
Jennifer looked away from the window, which she’d been staring out of like there was something to see out there, and said, “Could you come talk to me a minute in the back?”
“Sure,” he said, and got a twist of anxiety low in his gut, because that expression was serious.
Then you need to know,he told himself. If it was about this morning … he needed to know.
He’d checked. He’d asked. She’d sure seemed like she’d been enjoying it. But was she still thinking she had to go along with something she didn’t want? He needed to have a talk with her about that. Anexplicittalk about boundaries and limits and consent, no matter how embarrassed that made her.
Because … yeah. This morning. Her birthday.
She’d woken up in his bed, the same place she’d been waking up all week. She had a toothbrush in his bathroom now, but her clothes were still at the other place, which was driving him crazy. Possibly why he’d bought her some new clothes this morning.
She woke up slowly, the way she always did, but without an alarm clock. Jennifer waking up was at once disciplined and anything but. Exactly the same time every morning, even on a day like this when she didn’t have to go to work, but like the woman she was underneath, all stretching, sighing, and sensual pleasure.
She saw the flowers first, because he’d stolen out early to put them on the dresser. The prettiest arrangement the florist had been able to come up with, when he’d asked for something soft and romantic and just as extravagant as possible. It turned out to be a whole bunch of roses and other … rose-looking flowers in ivory and the palest pink, along with lavender and eucalyptus and some other deep purple and green items stuck in there to make it look nice. He’d wanted to do thirty-five stems, but the florist had said no, so he’d settled for two dozen. It was still a pretty good display.
Jennifer thought so, anyway, because she said, “Oh,” on a breath, and then got out of bed to smell them and exclaim over them like he’d done some huge thing, not just call a florist. Then she said, “Sorry. I want to kiss you, but I have to go to the bathroom,” like you could have predicted, because whatever else Jennifer was, she was always real. Which gave him a chance to grab things out of the closet, so when she came back, there were a few boxes on her pillow.
Shopping for women was fun. Of course, it probably depended what you were shopping for.Hewas having fun, anyway.
She stopped halfway across the floor when she saw them and said, “Oh.”
“Yep,” he said. “Happy birthday, baby.”
She said, “I’m probably going to feel bad that all I got you was whiskey stones,” and he laughed.
“Nope,” he said. “I love my wolves. And as I recall, we also had some smokin’ sex that day. That’s worth a present or two.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Makes it sound hardly at all like a commercial transaction,” but she was laughing, too. “Which one do I open first?” On her knees on the bed now, dressed in the short black nightgown with the little dots, her hair messy and tumbled, her curvy mouth unpainted. Already a pretty good day, as far as he was concerned.
“This one.” He handed her the medium-sized box. “This one reflects my higher powers, you could say. My, ah, better nature.”
