Maggie felt Hank relax, heard his breathing turn slow and steady. He was asleep. This was something else she could easily get used to, she decided. She liked this quiet part of sleeping with a man. She liked the warmth and security, the silent companionship. She was an extravagant personality, but she enjoyed the small pleasures of life the best. She liked to watch her cat stretch, liked to lick the beaters when she made whipped cream, liked the way Hank’s arm felt as it possessively draped across her.
She lay there for a while longer, absorbing the plea sure of Hank’s nearness, and little by little a different sort of plea sure stole into her. Little by little desire pushed the contentment aside and wanting took over. The wanting burned behind her skin and ached deep in her loins. She had never wanted like this before. Not with this unrelenting intensity. Not from simply being next to a man.
She moved against him; pressing her lips to his heated flesh. Her hand slid along the muscle-hard plane of his belly. Her breasts weighed heavy on him. She felt him stir, sensed a change in his breathing.
“Hank,” she whispered in the darkness, her lips skimming lower. “About this hero thing…”
He groaned.
Her hand was splayed over his navel, and she could feel the muscles tense under her palm. Her own stomach responded with an equally strong contraction. So this was what it was all about, she thought. She’d never understood before. She’d never before been caught in the undertow of desire, never felt the pull of it.
His hands tensed at her back. “Maggie, what are you doing?”
“I think I’m seducing you. Is it working?”
Another groan.
“I’ve never actually seduced anyone before.”
“Maybe you’d better think about it.”
“Oh Lord, am I doing it wrong?”
“No! I just want to make sure this is what you want.”
What she wanted? She was beyond wanting. At the moment loving Hank seemed crucial to her existence. Loving Hank seemed as essential as breathing air. She answered by wriggling out of her nightshirt and tossing it to the floor.
Neither moved. Nothing was said. Their breathing was shallow and silent. And then suddenly there was only passion. It roared through them like a flash fire.
He yanked his jeans off and came to her needing more than he’d ever before needed from a woman. He kissed her hard and deep, sweeping the length of her body with his hand. Loving words and tender exploration were saved for other times. There was an urgency and a ferocity to this first lovemaking that was more exciting than slow expertise.
She arched her back and cried out.
Mine, he thought. My woman, my wife, my love. He put his mouth to her and brought the fever back to her body.
He was a man who gave freely and took hungrily. He felt her move under him, heard her cry out at the intensity of the plea sure, felt her contraction tighten around him.
“Maggie.” He could hardly say it, hardly breathe for the fire that consumed him. He thought his heart would leap from his chest, and then they came together with an explosion of passion that left both of them gasping. When it was over, they clung together, trying to assemble their thoughts.
She was the first to find her voice. “Wow,” she said.
Hank couldn’t top that, so he picked her up with shaking arms and carried her across the hall into his bedroom. “Clean sheets,” he offered. “This next time is going to be slow and thorough, and I don’t want you to be distracted.”
“Oh my God,” she half-moaned, “you mean there’s going to be a next time already?”
Chapter 7
Maggie stood in front of the bathroom mirror and took stock. Her hair was impossibly tangled, her eyes were bleary from lack of sleep, her cheeks rosy…and she had a foolish grin plastered to her face. Stop smiling, she told herself. You look like an idiot!
Five minutes later she emerged from the shower, squinted into the fogged mirror and rolled her eyes. She was still smiling.
“They’re going to know,” she murmured. “They’re all going to know. And he’s going to know.”
That was the worst part. Hank Mallone was going to know he’d just given her the best night of her life. She wasn’t quite sure why that bothered her so much, but she felt like a cat with its hackles raised. Defense mechanism, she guessed. The more she loved him, the more wary she became. Weird. Definitely weird, she decided.
She pulled a comb through her curls, dropped a T-shirt over her head, put on a pair of black jogging shorts, and checked the mirror one last time. The smile was still there.
Hank was stapling a new piece of screen across the door when Maggie came into the kitchen. He looked up from his work and chuckled when he saw the smile on her face.
The heat rose from her shirt collar and burned in her ears. Wonderful. Now she was blushing. She made a frustrated sound and took out a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator.
Elsie put a plate of scrambled eggs on the table. She stepped back and took a good look at Maggie.
“That’s some smile you got on your face. Shame on you. You two hardly know each other. I tell you, in my day we didn’t go around smiling like that until after we were really married.”
“It’s only a smile, for goodness sakes,” Maggie shouted.
“Well at least you’re finally getting some exercise,” Elsie said. “I guess there’s something to be said for that.”
Maggie slanted a look at Hank. He was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms loosely crossed over his chest, and he had a grin on his face that was even sillier than hers. She cleared her throat and concentrated on her eggs.
Elsie added an English muffin to Maggie’s plate. “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got an appointment to get my hair done. I’ve got a date to night.”
“Sounds serious,” Maggie said. “You better watch out you don’t wake up smiling some morning.”
“It’s different for me,” Elsie said. “I can’t wait around. Men my age are dying like flies.” She straightened her dress and took her purse from the kitchen counter.
“That’s a pretty big purse,” Hank said. “It looks heavy.”
“It’s not so bad,” Elsie said. “Keeps me in shape. All the young women today go to them expensive spas with those fancy machines. I just carry a good-sized purse. I’ve got muscles in my arms those women only dream of.”
Hank poured himself a cup of coffee and listened to Elsie gun the Caddy down the driveway. “There’s only one thing I can think of to make that purse so heavy.”
Maggie grimaced. “You checked her references, didn’t you? I mean, she doesn’t have a criminal record or anything, does she?”
Bubba opened the newly repaired screen door. “Howdy,” he said. “Am I too late for breakfast?”
Hank looked at the kitchen clock. “Over sleep?”
Bubba cracked six eggs into the frying pan and poured himself a cup of coffee. “It’s Saturday. I’ve been fishing. Ruben Smullen told me Goose Creek below the trestle bridge was doing real good, so I went out first thing this morning.”
“Catch anything?”
“Got a mess of trout. They were just about standing in line to get on my hook. I got them in a cooler on the back porch. I’ll split them with you.”
He found leftover meat loaf in the refrigerator and added some slices to the pan. When it was cooked to his satisfaction, he turned the eggs and the meat onto a plate and covered it all with ketchup.
“That’s a lot of breakfast,” Hank said. “Even for you.”
“I’m a man with a problem. I’m lacking essential gratifications. So I’m substituting food.”
“Does it work?”
“No.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Peggy wants to get married. Says there’s not going to be any more…you know, until we get married. I blame you for this. You did it. It’s like a disease. An epidemic. A plague. Ever since you got married, every woman for fifty miles is out to get a ring put on her finger.”