Conquer the Memories (7 page)

A neighbor suddenly pitched a ball into the pool, splashing both of them. “Hey, you two! How about a game of volleyball?”

***

Dinner was absolute chaos, with adults running helter-skelter, kids dropping their plates on the grass, dogs cavorting in search of scraps. Sunburned faces grinned while butter dripped down chins from the roasted sweet corn.

After dinner, the children did their usual vanishing act, undoubtedly to prevent their parents from whisking them home before they’d finished playing. The grownups changed into grown-up clothes and settled on the chaise longues around the pool with glasses of June’s lethal punch. Sonia was stretched out between her mother and sister, holding her second glass of punch, her other hand shielding her eyes against that last brightness of daylight. Craig was standing with a group of ranchers that included her dad.

The sky was filled with puffy clouds, slowly moving across the horizon. Listening absently to her sister’s gossip, Sonia kept seeing whimsical pictures in puffs. One looked like the trunk of an elephant, another distinctly like the face of a man. Another, if she observed it just so, looked exactly like a man and a woman in an embrace…

“Where’d you get your skirt, Sonie?”

Sonia glanced at her sister, then down to her white cotton ankle-length skirt with its hem of embroidered orange flowers. The orange matched her camisole, both whimsical purchases for a summer evening a long time ago. “Marina’s, I think,” she said. “You haven’t said how Matt’s doing.”

“Terrific. I thought at first we’d never get used to living in town, but it’s nice. Having neighbors and stores so close…I miss my morning rides, though.”

Sonia loved her older sister; she really did. Both her mother and sister filled a very special niche in her life. Craig had become her world with their marriage; her priorities had changed, but there was still occasionally the urge to indulge in simple gossip and chitchat, and her sister was an expert at both. At the moment, though, Sonia couldn’t seem to concentrate. She found herself staring at the tiny cubes of ice in her punch glass. Ordinary ice cubes. Two clung together and they looked remarkably like an upturned bottom, naked and smooth.

Good Lord!
Would you stop this?
Restlessly, Sonia stood up, feeling her breasts pushing against the soft camisole material. She was sex-obsessed this evening. “Anyone want some more punch?”

An unfortunate question. Everyone wanted more punch, and they were all too lazy to get up and fetch it themselves. Smiling, Sonia started serving.
The problem,
she told herself silently and severely,
is that out of nowhere you suddenly don’t have enough to do.
Since they’d been home, Craig had shielded her from his work instead of involving her in it. She didn’t mind. Marina had been calling consistently, enticing her with a job she really wanted to do…only the next minute all she could think of was how much she wanted a child. It was a perfect time; they were finally settled…Except in the meantime, she seemed to have little to do but think too much. She wasn’t used to inactivity.

She finished serving punch, refilled her own glass and carried it back with her to the kitchen. Her mother hired help to clean up after the barbecue every year, but the total chaos of the kitchen reached out to Sonia like salvation. Just get busy, she told herself.

In a restless spurt of energy, she tossed out napkins and paper plates and cups, filled the sink with soapy water, washed the empty serving dishes and started covering what food remained uneaten. People would still come by to pick and nibble, but covering things would at least prevent the food from drying out. See? All better, she told herself as her hands moved with the speed of blades on a fan, picking up, cleaning up, sorting through, covering.

Her lemon meringue pie was gone; she washed the pie pan, then searched for her potato-salad dish. The potato salad, too, had been all but devoured. Just a tiny smidgen was left, a little hump in the corner that remarkably resembled a certain portion of the male anatomy…

She dropped the bowl and wearily brushed her fingertips against her temples.
Phallic symbols in potato salad, Sonia. How nice. The men in the white coats are going to come to put you away.

***

Craig scanned the cluster of women by the pool, his eyes resting idly on the empty chaise longue when he failed to find Sonia. Some inner network inevitably broadcast an announcement when she wasn’t close by.

He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her all day. A dozen things had captivated him. First, the look of her long legs swinging around the poolside, then her laughter as she talked with people, and last the loving softness in her eyes as she played with the children.

He’d watched her moving through the pool, a graceful darting fish in the red maillot bathing suit, her hair sleek against her scalp, her face turned up to the sun. Later, in that quiet time after dinner, she’d moved ever so softly in the long skirt that swayed around her legs. She was always his softer, quieter Sonia when she dressed that way…

He was going to have to get over his habit of falling in love with his wife over and over again on a daily basis. In the meantime, he missed her. Excusing himself from the other ranchers, he wandered toward the house. The sun had just set, and a glow of scarlet and violet bathed the ranch yard and pool in a sensual glow.

He knew all about sensual glows. Sonia had been radiating them all day with that certain look in her eyes—like Eve, pelting him with apples. Like Adam, he could only be so strong.

Desire had been tearing through him for more than a month. He couldn’t think of a time in their marriage that they’d gone more than a few days without making love.

He was the reason for their abstinence; his physical health, Sonia believed. Only that wasn’t the reason at all.

Silently, he pulled open the screen door and let it close quietly behind him. No one was in the old ranch house; he wandered through the living room and hall, pausing only when he reached the doorway to the kitchen.

Her skin was slightly damp, glowing and golden from the heat; her camisole was molded to her high, firm breasts. The white skirt swayed around her hips as she fussed around the kitchen, her face still turned away from him. She’d lost her shoes somewhere, and her bare toes peeked out from beneath the skirt hem. She looked sensual and sexual and beautiful and totally touchable, every texture that was Sonia soft and vibrantly warm and all woman.

“Craig!” She flushed still deeper at the sight of him and then quickly turned her eyes away, as if embarrassed, as if afraid he might guess what she’d been thinking.

“Ready to go home?” he asked her. He knew exactly what she’d been thinking. And it was past time to go home and take care of his wife, in the way he knew she needed taking care of.

“Didn’t think for a minute there.” Charlie’s voice came from an enormous distance. “You want me to help carry the gear into the house?”

“Thanks, Charlie, but it’ll all wait until morning.”

“Well. Sleep tight, then.”

Sonia half heard Charlie’s exaggerated yawn, then the door opening next to her ear. “Come on, little one,” coaxed Craig’s soft whisper.

Sleepily, Sonia opened her heavy eyes, and was immediately enfolded in strong arms pulling her out of the car. It was the same as sleep, that dark, still world. Her feet touched ground, but her head simply wanted to lie in that curve of his shoulder. “I didn’t really fall asleep. I’m just resting for a minute,” she murmured.

She heard his chuckle but didn’t pay any attention. Winding her arms around his waist, she nuzzled her head under his chin and closed her eyes again.

In her dream, she was in motion, cradled close and moving through darkness. Lips pressed on her forehead, warm and smooth, once, and then again. The swaying motion didn’t stop until her back sank onto a firm, cool surface. She was alone, bereft. Sliding sounds came from somewhere, then muted snaps, then…a zipper?…from a million miles away.

She forced her heavy eyes open, but that seemed to be part of the dream as well, because Craig was bending over her in that darkness, naked, his skin white in the moonlight. Only he couldn’t possibly be naked; they were still driving home.

Always, once Sonia had fallen asleep, she slept as if drugged, waking only slowly and with reluctance. Half smiling, Craig gently grazed her breasts with his knuckles, as one finger searched her camisole for a tiny pin. He found the pin and undid it, then silently pulled at the satin ribbons that held the camisole together. Her breasts strained free, all warm and heavy, pearl-smooth.

He sank down to the bed, leaning over her, his hands gently chasing up the material until the satiny flesh was freed for him. In slow, silent motion, his lips dipped down and rubbed velvet-soft kisses in that warm pocket between her breasts. She stirred restlessly. “Don’t wake,” he murmured soothingly. “Don’t wake, honey.”

He ached from just that touch of her. She stirred again as he pulled off the camisole. “Craig?”

“Everything’s fine,” he whispered, and heard a rush of a sigh escape her lungs. He had to lift her hips a little to slide down the skirt. Her panties were little wisps of silk, so fragile; his hands glided them down over long thighs and slim calves.

“Cold,” Sonia murmured.

He dropped the panties over the side of the bed, and when he turned back to her, she had rolled to her side, one leg bent at the knee, her arm unconsciously reaching for the empty spot on his side of the bed.

He didn’t move for a moment. Didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t think. He didn’t want to wake her. And he didn’t want to stop looking. Moonlight rubbed silver on her bare skin; his lover was sprawled wanton in innocence, lovely in vulnerability.

She couldn’t possibly know how much he loved her.

His heart ached with it; his head ached with it. His body, so aroused he felt on fire, burned with it. No one could ever understand what he’d felt when that slimy blond bastard had attacked her in Chicago. The explosive rage that anyone would dare hurt her…the splintering frustration that he couldn’t stop them…the searing guilt that he had been responsible…his failure as a man to protect his woman.

Somewhere, a long time back, he’d almost been amused at how hard love had hit him. For Sonia, he’d wanted to run rapids, climb mountains, battle foes, slay dragons.

Obviously, there were no dragons, and Craig had never considered himself a romantic man. He was a realist, a man of action, no poet. And in the darkness he reached for her, his touch so tender that at first she barely wakened.

***

Something smooth and warm and as light as a whisper brushed on the soles of her feet, then her ankles and calves. The very lightest pressure increased up the long expanse of her thighs. Lips trailed farther, furrowing sensual roads over the soft white flesh of her bottom, to the base of her spine and up her vertebrae, one by one. All nine million vertebrae. Fingers combed into her hair, followed by more kisses, and then the trail started down again.

Sonia stretched, murmuring sleepily. The lap of a tongue feathered down all those vertebrae again, such soft, secret licks that she felt all warm inside, warm and cuddly and sleepy. The faint dampness traced the curve of her hip with an intimacy that far surpassed any fantasy or any dream.

Her lashes fluttered open, to a room that was dark. Pitch-dark. Though the moon was full in the windows, her eyes could not adjust that quickly. And before they’d had that chance, fingers splayed on her thighs, gently urging her back flat to the mattress. Like a whisper of promise, she felt lips stealing down on hers, soft, elusive…and with all the taste and familiar warmth of Craig. Lazily, her arms lifted to snare her thief in the night, but his head had already moved down.

His cheek was beard-roughened, buried between her breasts. His hands cupped her breasts, and that stubbly cheek grazed against them, the tender nuzzle of a lover, his breath warm on her bare skin. Roused from sleep, Sonia felt her breath caught somewhere between the dream and the reality. Her nipples tightened and swelled for his tongue, so warm-wet, so unbearably tender. A calloused fingertip gently played with the tips, then his tongue again, then his fingertips. He hurt her. Really, he was hurting her terribly; the sweet, precious ache was both conscious and unconscious, spreading through all of her, engulfing her with intolerable longing.

“Easy,” he whispered.

“Craig—”

His mouth sealed hers in a silent, soft kiss that disarmed with its gentleness. Teeth gently pulled at her lips; she parted them. A firm, smooth tongue immediately took advantage, assaulting hers in a tender, soft battle of tastes and textures and exploding senses.

Her lungs hauled in air when his lips finally lifted. Blackness had lightened to charcoal; the only color in that chiaroscuro was the liquid blue of his eyes, more intense, more heated, than she’d ever seen them before.

“Lie there,” he whispered fiercely.

Lie there? She hadn’t the strength of a kitten. Long, sinewed arms cuddled her up; she felt all the hypnotizing massage of lips and fingertips trailing down. Her breasts first, but then he switched to the inside of her forearm, her elbow, her ribs—parts of her body that had never felt like erogenous zones. They did now.

From sleep to sheer wanton insanity was a miraculous transition. She’d made love with Craig a thousand times and never felt the lustful awareness of her own flesh that her lover was now engraining, inch by inch, so slowly. Her hands reached out, her fingers raking through his hair, wanting to draw his face up to hers, his lips up to hers again. A most familiar heat was pressing against her abdomen, then her thigh. Craig was in motion, and the feel of his arousal ignited restless fires in her bloodstream. He wanted her. He
wanted
her!

She wanted him. Now! Her fingers curled over firm, hot, smooth flesh—his hand covered hers, drew her away from his thighs. Her leg rose to encircle him, to draw him intimately closer, and another hand smoothed down her thigh in a caress, stopping her. The man was an expert at frustrating her.

So was the lover. His fingertips rushed over smooth skin that receded beneath his palms, arched for his touch. His tongue followed his fingertips, laving her breasts again, trailing to her navel, shifting down to the ticklish, curling hair below.

She shifted in a tangle of limbs and hands and lips, a flush tainting her skin that only the moonlight could see. “No,” she murmured. A certain kind of touch and she always turned shy.

“This time,” he whispered back. “Easy. Easy, little one…”

Inhibitions had no part in her relationship with Craig; they never had. It wasn’t inhibitions that lessened the pleasure of a certain touch, but an inexplicable loneliness at one being pleased and not the other. She wanted her mate inside her, safe, warm,
with
her. She didn’t like
alone.
Her pleasure was irretrievably linked with his, and her fingers reached again for the firm, hard evidence of exactly how much he wanted her.

He brushed her seeking fingertips aside and bent lower, his hands parting her thighs. Her muscles convulsed in sudden, unwilling tension. Craig surged back up the length of her to press a kiss on her lips. A long, lazy, slow kiss, sensual…scolding her for that brief denial of her response.

He was most unreasonable, her lover. She gave in, offering him exactly the response he wanted, her flesh brazenly arching for him again. Only then did his lips leave hers and wander down.

His tongue slowly traced soft, private skin; his palms pressed against the insides of her thighs. She surged up for him, an angry rush of a sigh escaping her lungs. She couldn’t fight both him and herself, not in this delicious war.

Her skin grew damp and hot and pliable under his hands, his tongue; in a sweet, warm rush she dissolved for him, crying out in the darkness. And again, yet again…Spun crystals exploded behind her eyes, and moments later she clung to him, exhausted, exhilarated, unbearably replete. And yet lonely…

Craig gently pushed back her dampened hair, his touch soothing her until her heartbeat again quieted. “You are my incredibly beautiful lady,” he murmured.

She had the terrible urge to bury her face in his shoulder in shyness. “No.”

His lips brushed her cheek. “Yes. So responsive. So lovely. So special,” he said softly. “And your body always gives me this foolish little argument when I want to love you a certain way. It’s sheer pleasure for me just to watch you, little one, don’t you know that? I’m here. I’m with you…There’s nothing wrong, Sonia.”

“I never thought anything we did was wrong,” she whispered back, and sighed, her eyes closing as she snuggled against his chest. “Craig?”

“Hmm?” He pulled the sheet up to her chin, then slid lower to curl more closely around her.

“You’re a very special man,” she remarked.

His lips curled in a smile.

She reached up, sharing a kiss of smiles before curling close to him again. Her eyes closed. Her mind was in a desultory presleep haze after being so very thoroughly loved. Lingering sensations of pleasure floated all around her, not just from his lovemaking but from now simply being held and stroked before she fell asleep.

Part of that sleepy euphoria was the intimate feel of his hardness against her abdomen. It was his turn, she thought groggily, and fought to stay awake. Her hand reached out to caress him.

His hand laced loosely into hers and tucked it in a warm, secure embrace…and she fell asleep.

***

Squinting, Sonia bent forward until her face was an inch from the bathroom mirror.
There.
Right there at the outside corner of her eye. A wrinkle was definitely settling in. Particularly when she squinted with that determined expression.

When you were worried about finding flaws, it was amazing how fast they all jumped at you. One sunburned nose, one cracked toenail, knobby knees…and when Sonia turned around and held a hand mirror to the light, she saw a single white hair in the middle of her crown. Her fingers raced to pluck it out.

She lost it.

Wiggling her towel-clad bottom, she frantically combed through the curls on her crown again. The damn thing was elusive, but she knew it was there. She plucked the nasty thing, wincing.

“Sonia?” Two sharp raps echoed on the bathroom door. “You’re actually up? You still want to go for a ride this morning?”

“Just give me five minutes,” Sonia sang out, her cheerfulness volubly denying that it was unusual for her to be up at six in the morning. Actually, she’d been awake since five. Worrying.

At the speed of sound, she rushed back to the bedroom, drew on old pink jeans with a pastel plaid blouse, riding boots and belt, and then lingered another few seconds in front of the dresser mirror. She would not have been surprised to see some drastic signs of deterioration. A single white hair didn’t count.

The last she knew, her husband had been attracted to her—wildly so. Nothing had
seemed
wrong between the two of them even yesterday. Nothing had
seemed
wrong in a month. And there was nothing drastically unusual if a husband and wife didn’t share equal pleasure during a single night’s encounter. For heaven’s sake, it couldn’t always be even-Steven. The next night simply made up for that. It was part of a marriage, a give and take.

Always, Craig had been an inventive, giving, passionate lover…maybe with a slight inclination toward insatiability. Since he’d built up that same slight inclination in her, they’d just never had a problem. Well. Some slight problems
controlling
themselves occasionally…

Sonia chewed absently on her lip, staring at the mirror, and then hurried from the room. Last night…Her cheeks flushed as she waved a good-morning to Charlie in the kitchen and headed out the back door. Last night her husband had proved to be a most tender, erotic lover, forcing unexpectedly uninhibited responses from her, all but demanding the most incredible, intense pleasure…

And yet he hadn’t taken his own. Craig had never been a selfish lover, but after more than a month Sonia had been frankly expecting…a quickie. A rather explosive quickie. Followed by long, leisurely “seconds.” Sonia knew her lover quite well.
Abstinence
was not in his vocabulary; he’d probably never even heard the word, and she suddenly saw that for a month he’d been…different. Very small things, really. The P.I.’s receipt he’d kept from her, the occasional withdrawn look in his eyes, the way he’d all but handcuffed her to his side at work…

You’re making far too much of it,
she chided herself as she strode outside. In the distance, she could see the two Andalusians pawing the ground. Craig was holding them by the reins, murmuring to them with his back to her. He wore old jeans that fit snugly around his hips, and his checked shirt rippled over his shoulders as he moved. The look of the man was downright erotic even in the broad light of day. When he turned to her, his smile would have aroused sexual feelings in a nun.