Texas rich (12 page)

"Would it help you to know that you cause the same feehngs in me? The very same, Billie."

"I do?" She turned her head, looking up into his face, and saw the truth of his words in his eyes.

"You do. I've never been a husband before, either. I want things to be exactly right. I don't want to disappoint you, Billie. We've been together before, but it was different then, wasn't it? I was Moss Coleman. You were Billie Ames. Now we're married, Mr. and Mrs., and there's a whole life ahead of us. But we're still the same people, Billie. And we can grow together, can't we?"

His words released her fears. He understood. Billie felt such a rush of love for him that she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, pouring out her emotions in the sweet contact between them. His hand caressed her shoulder; his arm tightened about her waist. "Oh, yes, Billie," he murmured against her mouth, "I want everything to be perfect for you. You do things to me, Billie, in here." He pressed the flat of her hand against his heart.

Billie melted against him, giving herself up to him, rejoicing in the feel of his lips brushing against hers so gently, so very gently. He kissed the curve of her chin, traced the length of her throat and the cleft between her breasts. The ribbons at the bodice of her nightie gave way to his fingers, baring her for his kisses and the easy caress of his hand.

She shuddered with the first wave of passion, closing her eyes and welcoming the sensation. He left her for a moment and when he returned he was naked, the strength of his long legs and firm thighs pressing against hers. He helped her remove her nightie, seeing how she kept her eyes lowered and averted. Tenderly, he lifted her chin, willing her to look into his eyes, to see him, to find what she most wanted to see. He smiled, that slightly askew grin that could turn her heart over in her chest. "My Billie," he whispered, "my beautiful, adorable Billie."

He lay down beside her, drawing her into his arms, kissing her again and again with a passion that was answered by her own. He traced delicate patterns over her face and brow, nibbled at her ears and lowered to the hollow of her throat and

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across the fullness of her breasts, circling but not touching the taut rosy crests, before returning again to her mouth. He savored the young clean scent of her and sampled the sweet taste of her skin. His hands stroked the velvet of her thighs and belly but refrained from going further.

Moss sensed that he was breaking through the barrier of Billie's insecurity. It would be so easy to sweep her over the edge with him, but somehow he knew it wouldn't be enough. Passion was never enough. It was hollow and meaningless unless it was accompanied by some deeper emotion, a lasting commitment, a joining of hands before taking that leap together. He almost laughed at himself; with other women passion had always been its own reward, but not with Billie. He wanted, no, needed her to love him. "Do you want me, Billie? Do you love me?"

He waited for her answer, wanting to hear her commit herself to him. He hadn't wanted to rush her; he didn't want to reveal his own burning need for her that could leave him feeling vulnerable and uncertain. But a deeper need made him insist. *Tell me, Billie," he whispered against the beating pulse of her throat, sending little tremors vibrating through her.

"Yes, I want you. Yes, yes, I love you. I'll always love you," she told him, her gaze melting into his, willing him to know how much she loved him, how much she needed him. "I want you to make love to me," she said in a hungry, husky voice she hardly recognized as her own. "I want you to teach me to make love to you."

Moss was excited by her admission, all sensation heightened. He captured her mouth with his own, evoking a low, sensual groan. He placed her hand on his body, teaching her the rhythm, and he became helpless beneath her touch, awarding to her the power and the control over his desire. He invited her caresses, inspired them. He wanted to please her, to have her fmd him pleasing.

Billie's eyes shone victorious at this new conquest. His tremors and shudders echoed her own. She smoothed the flat of her palms over his body, delighting in the comparison between the silky thicket of hairs on his chest and the rougher coat surrounding his sex. Her mouth found the pulse at the base of his neck and the ruddy flesh of his nipples that responded just like her own, forming into hard litde nubs that teased the tongue and invited her suckling. She tasted and licked, following her whims, excited by her explorations of

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the flatness of his belly and the firmness of his thighs. He gave himself over to her, reveling in the feel of her mouth on his body and rejoicing in the fire that burned in her eyes.

Billie exulted in the power of her sensuality, delighted in the dominion of her femininity. She sought him with fevered lips, possessed him with seeking hands, her own passions erupting and overflowing with the realization that she could give him this pleasure. The unfamiliarity of his sex intoxicated her, beckoning her caress, revealing its strength and yet evoking tenderness with its vulnerability. She wanted td find each hollow of his body, trace every line with her fingers and lips. She wanted to possess him, to make his body as familiar to her as her own.

Moss gritted his teeth to retain control of himself. It would be so easy to give in to this driving need for release. But he wanted to make love to her, to prompt her own driving ambitions for satisfaction. With a groan of regret, he seized her haunches and brought himself on top of her. He returned her caress, answered her hungry kisses. His hands never left her body, smoothing, tempering, yielding, following her sensations and silent demands.

He kissed her eyes, her nose, her mouth, before pulling himself fi-om her embrace to position himself between her parted thighs. His eyes devoured her as she waited for him. Her tumble of soft golden hair shone against the pillow; her skin was bathed in a sleek sheen that silkened the contact between them. She trembled uncontrollably. Fire flickered through her as his mouth moved down her body, and then the fire raged from the most intimate of kisses. Billie felt herself flying upward, like a cinder in an autunm breeze, floating toward the sun. Suddenly the sun was within her, bright and glowing, consuming her reserve and making her part of the universe.

Her body opened to him, needing him, knowing that only he could fill this vast space within her that had once been the sun. His body became a part of her own, completing her.

He watched her face as he moved within her, seeing the passions that he had ignited and that were now consuming him. Sheath and shaft embraced as he drove himself deep within her, thrusting harder, faster, blindly seeking the far side of passion and holding her fast as he tumbled them over the edge.

Billie fell asleep in her husband's arms. The last vestiges of girlhood had been shattered and broken and she had been afraid she would never be whole again. But the fragments had

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fallen away to reveal the warm, loving woman who lived beneath. This, then, had been her first step into womanhood and Moss had led her to victory.

{{{{{{{{{ CHAPTER SIX )}})}))}}

"I don't know, Moss." Billie pulled back on his hand, feet dragging as they crossed the tarmac to the little plane straining in the wind against the wires that anchored her to the ground.

"Come on, Billie. I want to take you up. It's important to me," he insisted, urging her forward. "Look at her sitting out there, just waiting for us. You'll love her. I promise you will."

"No, Moss, please," she pleaded. "Can't I just wait here?"

"No, Billie, you can't wait here. I want you up there with me. You're married to a flyer and I want you to know what it's like. Don't you trust me?"

There was such hurt in his eyes that Billie would have done anything to assuage it. She could never bring herself to cause him pain or disappointment, especially in herself. "Of course I trust you. It's tiiat machine I don't trust. Mother says if God meant for us to fly. He would have given us wings."

"But He did, Billie. Only He didn't attach them to our backs. Those are the wings He gave us. Now, will you stop being a silly little girl and take to the air with your man?"

Billie followed behind Moss as though she were being led before a firing squad.

"She's a beauty, isn't she? She's a PT nineteen, a trainer, and safer than Ivory Soap."

The craft's fuselage was painted a dark meridian blue and her wings, carried low under the main body, were painted a garish yellow. Billie saw nothing of beauty here, only that the cockpit was open to the sky. She knew a terrible fear. "Moss! There's no roof! I'U faU out!"

"Not roof," he corrected, "canopy. And no, you won't fall out. You'll be safely strapped in. You'll love it, Billie. You will."

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Moss was already involved in his ground check. His hands smoothed over the wafer-thin edge of the wings, testing the elevator flaps and trailing beneath to some unseen gadgetry. Billy watched him, eyes focused on those sensitive fingers as they ran over the skin of the aircraft. It was the way a man would caress a woman; delicately, worshipping, exploring.

The hot wind blew relentlessly across the tarmac, ballooning Moss's shirt and ruffling his dark, crisp hair. Her own slacks were flapping violently against her legs and the sun was already burning the tip of her nose. But Moss was oblivious to everything but the craft. He checked something near the tail, and as a fmal gesture he kicked one of the balloon tires.

"She's in great shape," he declared. "C'mon, Billie, up you go!"

Showing her where to step. Moss placed his hands firmly on her neat little bottom and shoved as she gracelessly climbed onto the plane and then down into the front seat.

"Now tuck your hair up onto your head and put this on." He handed her a leather helmet. "Without a canopy the wind*ll blow you to kingdom come. Be sure to pull it down firmly over your ears and watch out for that wire—it goes to the headset and plugs into the instrument panel.'*

Her fingers frozen with terror, Billie fumbled with the wind-tangled strands of hair, pushing them beneath the leather helmet. Moss was spitting on the inside lenses of the goggles and wiping them v/iih the sleeve of his shirt. "Can't have them fogging up, want you to see what it's all about," he said, handing them to her and instructing her to pull the band at the back of her head to secure them.

She didn't want to do this—she hated it already—but most of all, she hated Moss's condescending tolerance. The excitement lighting his eyes wasn't for her. It was for this garishly painted aircraft that could offer him something she couldn't.

Billie watched with dread as Moss released the guide wires holding the craft to the ground. The space inside the cockpit was small and narrow with barely enough shoulder room for herself, much less a man, but the space beneath the instrument panel was deep and long, built to accommodate long legs. Billie's feet fell far short of the interior bulkhead, where they could have found purchase and helped to brace her against the motion of the plane. She felt as though she were dangling on her seat, frail and vulnerable.

Moss slapped the fuselage twice at Billy's left elbow before

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climbing into the seat behind her. The few inches of bulkhead separating them seemed miles wide, robbing her of his much needed closeness. When the sudden spurt of engine power turned the prop, slowly at first and then with the alarming speed and thrust of a turbine, Billie's fingernails bit into the palm of her hands. The soft balloon tires bounced them down the runway as they gathered speed, jostling her in her seat, feet reaching for purchase to steady herself. She was unaware of a crackle in her ears until she heard Moss's voice coming over the headset. "Take it easy, Billie. We're almost up and then the going is smooth."

Billie squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of the tarmac speeding beneath the wings. A sudden burst of power, a last bounce, and they left the ground. "Atta girl," Moss was saying, "easy now, easy." Billie hung on to the sound of his voice, taking the reassurances deep inside her. It was the only contact between them and she clung to it. "Give the Uttle lady a nice ride; it's her first time up. Easy, sweetheart, easy."

Billie's eyes popped open behind the protection of the goggles. Moss was sweet-talking the plane! That familiar loving note in his voice wasn't for her at all, but for this damn piece of machinery with her bumpy riveted skin and whorish paint!

"We're going up, Billie. Hold on!" And the nose of the little trainer plane shot upward vertically. Billie gulped, swallowing past the painful lump of fear. Her eyes squeezed shut again and she decided not to open them again until she was once more standing on God's own earth. She feh the wind against the exposed portions of her face, whistling past her ears. The engine vibrated, sending shivers through her body. She held a white-knuckled grip on the edges of her seat, praying that she would Uve past this moment into the next and the next until she was once again on the ground. A terrible heart-squeezing fear iced her veins and stole her air.

"That's my girl! You're a beauty! A real beauty!" Moss cried, exhilarated.

They were up for more than an hour, Billie clutching fii-riously to the sides of her seat, her stomach heaving. When Moss finally set the craft onto the runway and taxied to her reserved space on the tarmac, Billie had to pry her stiffened fingers loose, pressing them against her legs in order to work them out of their clawed posture.

She had hated it, every minute of it. Worse, she now under-

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stood fiiUy that airplanes were her rivals for Moss's affection. An acid jealousy stirred in her at the realization ,* as though airplanes were flesh-and-blood women.

After reattaching the guide wires. Moss came to help her out of the cockpit. His face was beaming, wreathed with smiles. "God, I can't tell you how good that was. Every day I don't fly I only feel half-alive!" His hand reached out beyond Billie to once again appreciate the sweep of the wing tip. "You're a sweet little thing," he said. "And you're a sweet little copilot." He threw his arms around Billie's shoulder to hug her against him, leading her with long strides across the tarmac back to the hangar.