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He didn’t just kiss her. He claimed her, his mouth ravenous, his hand curled behind her head, his other arm wrapped so tightly around her she had no room for escape. He branded her with his lips and his tongue and his breath, and Dee couldn’t bear the idea of stopping. She raised her arms and wrapped her hands around his neck, and oh, yes, his hair was just as silky as she’d hoped. And fun to wi
For the kiss she’d use vermilion. Hot and sweet and impossible to turn from. Dee dined on that kiss. She let Da
Dee lost track of time and place and propriety in that kiss. She felt him harden against her and envisioned them skin to skin. She didn’t ever want to stop. She wanted to wallow in the sudden glow of her own body. She was nothing but liquid and light, and only one thing could have brought her up short.
Her body warned her. It wasn’t insistent yet, but it was obvious. A hot ember that lodged right behind her breastbone and flared to life. It kept expanding until she thought it would consume her, a pulsing, living lucency that seemed to coalesce in her belly. Her very cells began to hum. She jerked back, pushing at his chest. ‘No…’
Da
‘I’m sorry,’ she said instinctively, giving him another little push.
He let her go without hesitation. ‘You’re not allowed to apologize. Official Feckless rules.’
She shook her head, trying to get her breathing and heart rate back under control. She wanted nothing more than to grab him by the ears and pull him back into that kiss. She wanted to go down on him like a hooker. She wanted. She sucked in a series of calming breaths, and inevitably the glow faded to safety. It made her want to cry again. She wanted to go up the mountain so badly.
Da
She blinked, still trying to pull her senses together. ‘Just like that?’
‘Are you kidding? I’m going to spend every second we’re there fantasizing about what crimes we’re going to commit on that mountain tonight.’
He didn’t just fantasize. He aided and abetted. In Bicksburg he bought her a red feather boa. In Martinsville it was scented warm body oil. Citrus. An odd choice, Dee thought until Da
While Dee was checking out the Burns Bridge B and B, Da
‘Okay, I wanted pearls,’ he told her as they sat in Miss Mamie’s Tea Parlor for di
Dee pulled the beads apart and then reattached them with a lovely, well, popping noise. ‘You want me to wear a necklace of hot-pink pop beads when we make love?’
Da
Dee was sure she was a fluorescent shade of crimson. ‘Oh.’
But oddly enough, it was Xan who furnished the best accessory. After a long day of not even coming close to finding her, Dee gave up and asked Da
She was so hungry. So anxious. So damned ready. No matter what, she was going to walk up that mountain and see this through. She might have a spectacular flameout, but she might actually succeed. The only way she’d know for sure was by taking the chance.
So, Da
Suddenly there was a rustle in the bushes, and Py let out the most incredibly soulful yowl Dee had ever heard. His call set up a veritable glee club from hell all up and down the block.
‘Pywackt?’ Dee called, shoving open the gate.
‘Seems to have quite a following,’ Da
It wasn’t just the cats, though. Dogs howled. Birds chattered and trilled. A veritable squadron of rabbits was suddenly doing maneuvers on the Ortballs’ yard, and the Coxes’ Chihuahua could be seen nuzzling the Nelsons’ Saint Bernard. Dee kept turning in circles, wondering at the sudden heat that was crawling down her spine, at the softening of the stormy air so that it seemed the sun shone anyway. Damn, her flowers were multiplying again, and it was almost dark out.
Her first thought was that Lizzie had had another experiment go wrong. She checked the chimney, but there wasn’t any new smoke. She couldn’t blame Mare. She certainly couldn’t blame herself. She didn’t do that kind of stuff.
‘Is that Frank Sinatra?’ Da
Dee cocked an ear to hear the vague tunes above the caterwauling. And Michael Bolton and Andrea Bocelli and Liza Mi
And the Foleys next door were well into their eighties. But that was definitely their silhouette in their front window.
‘I’m impressed,’ Da
‘Me, too. Mr Foley’s been in a wheelchair for a month.’
Her own senses were heightened. She could hear Da
She was suddenly aching and hot and hungry. She took a look at the oak tree next door and thought how delicious it would be to scrape her back against that bark as Da
‘Dee,’ Da
He wrapped those wonderful long-fingered hands around her breasts. Dee sucked in a desperate breath. ‘Probably not,’ she had to admit. Then she closed her eyes and savored every stroke of his fingers.
‘I’m thinking I might not make the mountain. What are you thinking?’
She sighed. ‘That Aunt Xan’s sent out a libido spell.’
Well, there went his hands. ‘Now, Dee. Everything isn’t from your Aunt Xan.’
‘No, but I can guarantee this is. The Foleys haven’t spoken to each other since he had an affair with her sister fifteen years ago. Besides, they both loathe Sinatra. They listen to polka music’
Da
Py set up another grating racket, making Dee wince. ‘Yeah. When we were younger, we tried a libido spell for me. We hoped it would improve my results. It didn’t. But I know the feeling. Only Aunt Xan’s is much stronger. Either that or it’s just exacerbating the fact that I’m already horny enough to howl.’
‘Uh-huh. Well, what do you plan to do about it?’