Once in a Lifetime (32 page)

“His sharp tongue is working fine,” Russ said. “Sorry I interrupted you two, Telford, but—”

Telford lifted his shoulder in a slight shrug. “What else would you do?” He opened his cell phone. “I’m going to call Doctor Jenkins.”

“Yeah. An ounce of prevention…”

“He shouldn’t be alone,” Alexis said. “If one of you will wait till I make a pot of mint tea, I’ll sit with him till the doctor comes.”

Later, he walked up the stairs along with Russ. “Try to straighten things out with Alexis. I…I don’t want to see you split up.”

“We’ve got some work to do.”

“But you can do it. You have to, Telford. She belongs with you. With us.”

“I know.”

“A lot of fuss about nothing,” Henry said the next morning, as he sat in the kitchen with Alexis. She got there early to relieve him of the job of preparing breakfast, but as long as he could walk a few steps, he’d be in that kitchen.

“Indigestion, is what the doctor said. If I’d remembered I ate them Belgian endives, I could’ve saved y’all a lot of trouble.”

“You said we’re all family, Henry, so how could taking care of you be trouble?”

“It sure gave me a good scare. Like I said, I’d better start watching what I eat.”

She made biscuits, cooked the grits, country sausage and scrambled eggs and cut up a large bowl of mixed fruit for Henry, Tara and herself.

“I see you flipped yer lid,” Henry said at breakfast when she
served him the fruit. “I wants me some good old buttermilk biscuits and country sausage. Now,
that’s
food.”

“Me, too. I want some of everything,” Tara said. So much for that ploy.

Russ drained his coffee cup and went to the stove to refill it. “I have to do some research in the museum in Frederick this afternoon. Mind if Tara goes with me, Alexis? She’ll enjoy it, and with school closed for the holidays, it’s a convenient time.”

“Can I, Mummy? Can I?”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea. You love galleries and museums.”

“Good. Tara and I can have lunch in Frederick.”

“Can I dress up, Mummy?”

Tara looked up at Henry, her face beaming, when he patted her shoulders. “Well, I’ll be switched if she ain’t a chip off the old block. Got a date, so she’s dressing up. Humph. I never put on a tie till I was twenty.”

Alexis watched Russ drive off with Tara and counted her blessings. Jack wasn’t all a father should be, but the child had wonderful adopted fathers who loved her and took care of her.

“Come with me.”

She looked around to see Telford with one foot on the first step of the stairs and his right hand extended to her. He said nothing more until they were in his bedroom and he’d closed the door.

“Last night, I thought I was losing Henry,” he began, “and I hurt something awful. On top of it, I faced the prospect of losing you. Then you came to me, in tears for Henry, and I felt how deeply a part of me you are. I knew I had to find out why you won’t commit to me. Why it’s so hard for you.”

“Oh, Telford. There’s so much.”

He took her hand and walked over to the bed. “Let’s sit down. We’ve got nothing but time. Russ and Tara won’t be back till suppertime. I want us to stay up here till we know whether we’re going to make it or split up.

“For starters, on Thanksgiving Day, when we watched Howard University’s homecoming football game with Russ and Drake, why didn’t you say you were a Howard University graduate, that you, Russ, Drake and I are fellow alumni?”

Her stomach clinched as fear rioted through her. The moment she’d dreaded, and she couldn’t back away from it. But she refused to hang her head and looked him in the eye. “There’s more to it. If it had been simple, I would have happily acknowledged my Howard degree.”

“But think how great it would’ve been, an added bond, if we’d learned we had that in common.”

“You’re getting at something, aren’t you?”

He didn’t intend to spare her, because he meant to clear it up, to know where he stood. “You bet I am. When Drake and Russ pointed me out as Big Tip, you knew who I was, and you didn’t open your mouth. Why, Alexis?”

“I was scared you’d remember that awful time when I…when—”

“When you lied? Why did you?”

Her eyes widened as she experienced the shock of the truth she dreaded. So he knew. “Because I didn’t think a big shot like you, the most popular man on campus, could like me. I wasn’t a glamour girl. I hadn’t had one date since I arrived at Howard.”

He plowed on, ruthless perhaps, but he had to know. “Then why did you write that letter? My best friend was walking behind you when you dropped it. It was addressed to me, so he gave it to me. When I went to you, riding on a cloud that you quickly ripped open, I knew you were lying when you denied writing it, and it hurt. I never forgot it. I was so shy, and I didn’t know how to tell you I liked you. I read that letter, and it was as if heaven opened up.”

“You? Shy? Every girl was after you.”

“I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t see them. I saw you.”

She was staring at him, eyes wide and lips parted. Open. Vulnerable. He wanted to… He told himself to remember his goal.

“You liked me? You’re kidding,” she said in a voice tinged with awe. “I had a dozen pictures of you hanging in my dormitory room and a scrapbook filled with your exploits as Big Tip, the quarterback with the bullet arm. I was crazy in love with you.”

“What a mess,” he said. “All that pain for nothing. You changed so much I didn’t recognize you, though once in a while, you seemed familiar in some way.”

“At school, I wore gray contact lenses, thinking that would make me more attractive. But you. Telford, you’re as different from Tip as wine is from water.”

He got up and began to walk from one end of the room to the other. “Talking about plural ignorance. Now, I want to know your reason for not committing to me. Give it to me straight.”

She walked to where he stood and faced him. He had to know that every word she said was true. “When I met you, I had decided that I never wanted another man within twenty feet of my body. I’d been used and psychologically abused, and I’d promised myself never again. You changed that, but I was still afraid to trust without reservation.

“Then I learned about Melanie, and I figured that if you knew I’d flunked Melanie and prevented her graduation, you’d walk away from me. You’re straitlaced, and you don’t forgive easily, and I couldn’t forget that fact. At your reception, Melissa Roundtree greeted you as Big Tip, and the bottom dropped out of my life. I didn’t believe you’d forgive me for lying to you and sticking my nose up to hide my embarrassment.”

“So that accounts for your freezing me out at the reception. Well, I’ll be. After the way we loved each other in Cape May, you didn’t believe I loved you? Honey, everything else we’ve said up here is trivial by comparison.”

She wanted to get close to him, to let his arms, his loving, make her live. Soar. “I never felt loved until you loved me, and I couldn’t risk losing it.”

“Are you still afraid?”

“I’m…I don’t understand what I’m feeling. Maybe I’m scared to death, and maybe I’m excited and relieved that it’s all out in the open.”

He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her. “Is there anything else between us?”

She shook her head. “Just too much air and too many clothes.”

Passion leaped into his eyes, a blazing banner of desire that sent currents of heat plowing through her body. He stepped away from her, and she saw the war he waged with himself. His fists curled into balls and hung at his side, and his Adam’s apple worked furiously in his throat as he widened his stance, commanding from her all that she would ever be. Why didn’t he do something? The hazel-brown eyes that she adored darkened, and he took in his breath through parted lips. Drunk on his mesmerizing masculinity, she closed her eyes and laid back her head to hide the hot feminine want that she knew he could see.

“Telford, don’t do this to me.” She wanted to run to him and wrap herself in his body.

At last, he said, “I’m yours. If you are committed to me and no other man, I need to know it.”

“You’re my man, Telford. You. Nobody but you.” She didn’t know how it happened, but she was tight in his arms, locked to his hard body.

“This is it for me, too, baby,” he whispered in deep guttural tones and plunged his tongue between her parted lips. Preparing her for the prize that awaited them, he anointed every millimeter of her mouth, stroking, teasing, plunging in and out of her in a demonstration of what was to come. His hand squeezed her buttocks as he moved against her, short-circuiting her senses, and electrifying her insides. She heard her moans and didn’t care as she rocked against him. His heat encircled her, arousing in her the need to have him inside her, and she felt the blood coursing through her like a rushing river of steam. He lifted her and fitted her to him, pressing his
bulging promise against her portal of love. She quivered as the musky sent of him furled up to her nostrils. Her telltale nipples began to ache and she rubbed them shamelessly until he dipped his hand into her dress and brought the gleaming aureole to his mouth. Hungry. He went at her like a man starved, and she cried out as she undulated wildly against him.

“Honey, I’m going mad,” she said.

“I want you mad. Mad for me.” He moved to the other breast, kissing, pulling and sucking until he stripped her of her inhibitions, and she grabbed his belt buckle, unhooked it, unzipped him and tried to take him inside her.

He lifted her and put her in his bed. Within seconds he’d strewn their clothes in every direction.

“Now,” she begged, “now,” but he knelt above her and began kissing his way down her body while his fingers skimmed the insides of her thighs, wandering upward to stroke the damp folds of her treasure, and she thought she’d fly out of her mind. When his tongue swirled over her belly, her hips began to rock.

“That’s it, sweetheart, let me know you want me.” He kissed her inner thighs at her vee, and she stilled.
Lord, if he’d only…
He hooked her knees over his shoulders, parted her inner folds and kissed her until a keening cry flew from her lips. He went at her then, kissing, nibbling, pulling and sucking until she couldn’t hold back the scream that poured out of her.

“Telford, I can’t take any more of this. I… Honey, if I don’t explode I’ll die.”

He kissed his way up her body and she sheathed him and brought him to her. He stared down into her face. “You’re mine. Do you understand that? And I’m yours. Take me in, sweetheart.”

She raised her body to him and he drove home. Immediately the swelling and clinching began and with her legs locked around his hips, she swung with his rhythm. She grabbed his buttocks and, as if that were his cue, he gripped her to him, increased the pace, driving powerfully, demanding and claiming her for his own. He found the nerve guaranteed to
drive her insane and stroked until heat seared the bottom of her feet. Her whole being fixated itself on her love canal, tremors streaked through her and her body clutched him, pumping and squeezing until she tumbled into a swirling vortex of ecstasy.

“Telford. Telford. Oh, Lord, I love you! I love you. Honey…”

He shouted her name—“Yes. Yes. Alexis, my love”—gave her the essence of himself and came apart in her arms.

He let his elbows take his weight as he stared down into her face. How could one human being give so much to another one? He thought his heart would burst with joy.

“I’ve never loved a woman other than you. I haven’t even imagined I did. And believe me, Alexis, I do love you.”

“I can say the same. I realized within weeks of my marriage that I’d made a mistake, that I had married in haste to get away from my battling parents. I was looking for peace, but I didn’t find it until I came here. Don’t ever doubt that I love you.”

“I don’t doubt it, because I feel it. Have for a long time. Excuse me.” He got up, opened a drawer, took out a box and got back into bed. “I want to read something to you.”

“‘Dear Tip, Saying dear Big Tip doesn’t sound right. It’s too impersonal. Everyone calls you that. I wish I knew your real name. I think about you all the time. You’re different from most of the other fellows here, quiet, scholarly and genteel. And you never use bad language. Being a hero doesn’t seem to go to your head. When you picked up my books that day, I almost had convulsions. I couldn’t even say thank you. I think you’re very special, and I like you an awful lot. A. Brighton.’”

“Did you write this?”

Her smile lit up his world. “I sure did. I can’t believe you kept it all this time.”

“Oh, yes, and sixteen years is a long time to remember a woman you think you’ll never see again. When can we get married?”

She sat up. “Is that all the proposal I’m getting?”

“Baby, I’ll get on my knees, if it will make you happy.”

“Honey, I don’t need that. Give me a month.”

He kissed her nose. “Can I tell Tara we finally worked it out?”

“Tell the world, honey. I feel like posting it on the internet.”