Thunder In Her Body (8 page)

“You can say that again,” Lynette responded.  “My knee problem was caused by an old football injury,” she added, and waited for the usual response.

“A what?” Blaze queried looking absolutely astonished.

“Now, this isn’t gonna be another of your tall Texas tales, is it,” Aaron asked, frowning.

“No, it’s true.  I tore my knee up pretty badly when I was in 8
th
grade.  We had asphalt playgrounds, and the boys and girls played together.  A classmate stuck his foot out as I was running full force with the ball.  It sent me airborne.  I crashed pretty hard onto the asphalt, coming straight down on my knee.  Knocked the kneecap sideways and laid the knee wide open.  My mother took me to the emergency room.  They sewed me up, I guess as best they could, but I continued to have a problem, and as you say, as I got older, and a bit heavier, the knee became a problem.  I had surgery a couple of years ago though, and its fine now.”

Clare added that she had to be careful of what she ate because of her somewhat delicate stomach.

“I can eat for weeks and have no problems.  Then all of a sudden something gets in there and I’m miserable for days,” she admitted.

“Blaze can eat anything he wants, but he’s trying to keep that school boy figure for you ladies,” Aaron chided.

“Lots of ladies?” Lynette asked, looking at him with a guileful smile.  It was the same kind of question he’d asked the evening before - if
she
was still with the other guy.  Surely, she thought, there were dozens of women all around the state who reacted to this virile man the way she had.  The response would save a lot of time and misunderstandings.

“No.  He’s puttin’ you on.  There’s no ladies.  Like I told you last night, I’ve been divorced for several years.  For some basic, and obvious reasons, you might say, I date around from time to time but nothing ever comes of it, on purpose,” he was careful
to admit.

“What about you, Aaron?” Clare asked abruptly.

“My wife died of cancer about the same time Blaze divorced his wife,” he answered.  “I’ve twirled a lady or two around the dance floor since, but…,” there was a pause, “him and me, we like it the way it is,” he responded a little uncomfortably.

“So you live in this big house alone?” Lynette queried Aaron.

“Oh heavens no.  Blaze and I live together…”

And that’s all Lynette heard of the remaining sentences. 
Oh good Jesus no!  Not gay.  Tell me Blaze is not gay.  He couldn’t be.  He’d been hard as a rock against me all evening.  I’m a woman; he’s a man and he’s been hot to trot with me.  Oh, Jesus tell me it’s not so!!  No, no, no.  Not this one, not gay…Maybe he’s bi-sexual.  No, shit  don’t want that either.  Can’t deal with that.   Oh God…”

“Lynette, where’d you go?” Blaze’s voice broke into the screams in her mind.

“I…I was about to get something caught in my throat, and I was trying not to cough.”  She tried to sound convincing.

His hand went up to his mouth, with one finger resting on his nose.  He broke into a full-on gut laugh as Clare and Aaron looked amused.  Then Aaron caught on.

“Oh shit!  Did you think we really
lived
together?” Aaron asked in shocked amusement.

Now was her chance to lie or tell the truth.  Now was her time to reconfirm that she was basically an honest person.  Now was the time for Blaze to begin to trust her.

“Ahhh…yes,” she sputtered as she grabbed for her tea.  “It kinda came out that way and I…,” she sputtered again, and then just looked down into her plate and shook her head.

Still chuckling, Blaze was emboldened now.

“Would it have really mattered?” he asked.

Lynette cocked one eyebrow, sat up straight in her high back Mexican chair and looked at both men.

“Well…, yes, it would,” she admitted, a bit embarrassed.

“Why,” Blaze asked, knowing he had her in a really awkward position.  He was toying with her, and definitely enjoying it, but he didn’t expect the answer he got.  Clare, knowing her friend all too well, intervened to save Blaze.

“Don’t let her answer.  I know her.  There’s a wicked, wicked woman in there,” she warned.  “Don’t let her answer that!”

“Why?” Blaze asked again, clearly amused and smiling at her in a sly, cunning way.

Lynette cocked her head to one side and stared him right in the eye.

“’Cuz sweetie, you tried to let the barrel of your gun out of the holster last night, and it was so hard it left a bruise on my hip!” she said defiantly.

The brash, unexpected retort caught Aaron off guard.  He lurched forward, knocking over his tea.  He started to choke.  Clare jumped up to get paper towels as his tea ran all over the table and streamed onto the red terrazzo tile floor. Blaze smirked gleefully, and knew right then and there that he had his hands full.  She was bold, brassy, unabashed, but with a classy air that was not diminished by her straight-forwardness.  He had the answers to all of his confusion from the night before when he paced the floors.  He knew what he wanted.  It wasn’t just to get her into bed; it was to get her into his life.  It was her.  He wanted this complicated woman for his own, if she would have him.  Call it foolishness, he thought to himself.  I’ve known her less than 24 hours, but it’s her.  I recognize her.  I want her.

Lynette took her linen napkin and slapped it in a puddle of tea in front of Blaze so it wouldn’t run into his lap.  She could’ve let it drip onto his lap and pretend to soak up the moisture,
that’s what she really wanted to do,
but that would have been ridiculously obvious!  She took some of the paper towels from Clare’s hand and squatted down to sop up the tea that had splashed onto the floor.  Blaze rose, then bent over and helped clean up the splatters of tea then gallantly extended a hand to assist Lynette back into her chair.

“I warned you. I warned you.  Didn’t I warn you?” Clare admonished Blaze as she slapped Aaron on his back.  “Don’t ever pin her into a corner.  She’ll come out fighting,” she continued.

“I’m a bad person.  I apologize y’all.  Blaze I apologize, but…,” Lynette tried to say when Blaze cut her off, reached over and kissed the back of her hand.

“You’re gonna pay for that statement lady,” he laughed, in a fun and suggestive way.

Having regained his composure, Aaron looked over at Blaze and shook his head in that way that one man warns another.

“You better chinch up your saddle son, ‘cuz you’re in for a hell-of-a ride,” he cautioned his buddy.  Blaze had the most pleasant expression on his face.  It was as if a big door had swung open, and he was stepping into a bright light.
Aaron began to explain his earlier statement.

“Lynette, Blaze and I are brothers…well sort of,” he smiled. “It’s kinda complicated.”

“My daddy married his stepmother a few years after my mother died.  I was just a little tyke when she passed.  Blaze’s mother was a pure-blood Apache.  His daddy was Indian too, but he went back to Mexico after Blaze’s mother passed.  He married again to the lady who my father eventually married.   Word came that he had been killed.  She and my father raised Blaze like their own.  We grew up as brothers even though we don’t share the same blood.  We shared the same parents and that made all the difference in the world.  After my wife died, and Blaze was free again, we decided to ranch together and it didn’t make any sense back then for us to build two separate houses, so from this wall,” he pointed to the outer kitchen wall, “over to the far end of this side of the house, was the original house I built for me and my wife.  This is my wing over here.  From that wall again, over to the other end of the house was all added on, and that’s Blaze’s side of the house.  He didn’t want as much room over there, so the house isn’t completely balanced.  All this common area, living room, family room, kitchen, etc., we simply share and it’s worked out real well so far.  I can be over in my side of the house and not even know when he’s here.  It’s real private,” Aaron said, looking right at Lynette.

“The house is well insulated so noises don’t carry, if you know what I mean,” he winked at her.  “If Clare would like to stay over sometime, I’d hope she’d stay in my wing,” he said with a bit of a plea in his voice.
  Clare blushed before he said, “There’s my master bedroom and two pleasant guest rooms with their own baths on this side.  On Blaze’s side, there’s another master suite and a large guest room with its own bath, plus he has his own office over there and I have mine over here,” Aaron explained.

“Ho
w many square feet is your home?” Lynette asked curious because of its vastness.

“It’s a little short of 4000 square feet, give or take a foot or so, not counting the garage,” Aaron replied.  “Matter of fact, come on.  I think we’re through with this meal, let’s give y’all a tour of the house.”

Blaze rose immediately and pulled Lynette’s chair back for her, as did Aaron for Clare.  The men showed the ladies around this magnificent home and the dogs trailed along behind, waiting for the first available hand to pet them.  Obviously, a decorator had been employed, but there were also a number of personal items collected by both men, well-placed in the home.

The various bathrooms were all tiled in either smooth beige granite or tumbled cream-colored terrazzo with both a tub and enclosed glass shower in each.  Instead of plain cabinets, the face bowls sat on real pieces of furniture, more like a dresser than a bath cabinet with either multi-colored slate, or black marble counter tops.  The light fixtures were exquisite; some made of hand pounded, punched copper.  Other fixtures were crafted of wrought iron, and there was one huge antler chandelier in the family room.  The home was elegant without being ostentatious.  It was completely furnished in fine Southwestern decor with authentic Indian rugs hanging here and there on the stucco walls.  The tinted walls turned various shades from beige to bronze, changing color with the movement of the light. When the sun was obscured, the Spanish sconces turned the hallway walls a deep orange-gold.

Blaze showed Lynette the large guest suite on his wing first with its en-suite bath, then he guided her into his master suite.  It was manly, with a large king-size bed covered in a faux suede coverlet of various shades of tan, brown, black and beige.  The spacious room was decorated in Navajo-like colors with a heavy touch of black.  Lynette, being highly tactile, gently rubbed her hand across part of the coverlet, while Blaze leaned against the hand-made Mexican armoire.  With arms folded across his chest, he watched her touch the fine woods of his bed and the smoothness of the bed covers .

“What a beautiful place you have here, Blaze.  Very tasteful, very welcoming,” she complimented.  She didn’t know what else to say.  It was exquisitely done with a gorgeous Kiva fireplace on the wall opposite the huge bed.  “I love a fireplace in the bedroom,” she said.

“You can lay up on the bed if you’d like,” he suggested softly, without moving from his position against the armoire.

She was silent for a moment before she spoke.

“That would be a bit dangerous, don’t you think,” she said looking away from his stare.  The sexual tension between them was palpable.  It was clear that he wanted her.  It was plain that she wanted him, but this was not yet the time.

As she started to exit his bedroom door, he reached for her, turned her and pinned her against the wall.  He kissed her as if that kiss was the only thing that would save his life.  She grasped at his shoulders, squeezed his neck and ran her hands into his hair, pulling hard at it.  He held the back of her head with one hand and the other forced its way between her and the wall and he caressed the fullness of her behind through her jeans.  She thrust her tongue into his wide open mouth and he bit it and suckled it and he breathed deeply, inhaling the essence of her.  He tasted her mouth, swallowed her sweet breath.  She ran her hand down the front of his blue jeans and clutched what had been there the night before. It was again firm and moving.  She squeezed first hard, then easy. She alternated the pressure.  He moaned quietly, kissing her lips softly, two, three, four times before he pulled away.  He stepped back a half pace.  With both hands he held her face close to his.

“What is this?” he asked as if she knew the answer.  She closed her eyes, and kissed him again, long and passionately, enjoying the taste of him.  He held her close and whispered in an agonized tone.

“What is this?” He was being swept away on a wave of something he did not understand.  He wanted an answer; he needed an answer, because what had overtaken him only minutes after he first met her, had swelled like a monsoonal surge, and it was carrying him to places he’d believed no longer existed.

“I don’t know,” she responded in hushed words.  “You scare me.  What you make me feel scares me.  You’ve taken me out of my comfort zone and it frightens me.”

“Me too.  Me too.  Lynette, what’s happening here?”

She laid her head against his firm chest.  Again she said, “I don’t know,” and she rested against his body.  He wrapped his arms around her in a way she’d forgotten a man could hold her.  It was powerful, yet tender, and he gave no indication of letting go.  They were quiet together, just standing their clinging to each other; experiencing a kind of surrender, long forgotten, that both understood.