Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness Read online

  He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “At last!”

  She felt his breath through the whorls of her ear, rippling down to all her extremities, and some interesting places in between. She sighed and moved in closer. In her four-inch heels, he still had several inches on her, but they were pretty much chest to breast, belly to belly, groin to groin. Tongue in groove, in more ways than one.

  She moaned.

  He did, too.

  And so they danced, and danced, and danced. If it could be called dancing. She couldn’t say what songs were played, or whether they were fast or slow. It was magic, and it was reality, and it felt so good.

  She was a woman. He was a man. It was as if they were meant to be. For now, anyway.

  Thus, when Merrill leaned back and looked at her and said in a voice raw with emotion, “Let’s get out of here,” she didn’t protest.

  She was in way, way over her head and not a life buoy in sight. Who knew drowning could be so wonderfully delicious? Or was it surrender that was so sweet?

  Ah, the pains and perils of dating! . . .

  Merrill was drowning in his need for Delilah, and it took every bit of his strength and skill to fight the overpowering waves of passion. One of the first things a Navy SEAL learned in BUD/S training was drownproofing. Piece of cake for an old vet like him!

  Ya think?

  Not when you’re drowning in testosterone, like I am.

  Not that drowning of a certain type doesn’t hold some appeal. In fact, I want to dive right in with Delilah, and I will, but I need to slow things down. The worst thing that could happen would be for her to wake up tomorrow and feel that I seduced her into something she didn’t really want. No regrets, that’s my goal.

  But, man, it is fucking hard.

  And speaking of hard . . .

  It didn’t help that he had imprinted on his brain her words of last week that she’d been celibate for more than five years. What guy didn’t consider that a challenge?

  Didn’t help that when she’d been eating, Merrill had recalled a time a few years back when he’d been sitting in the Wet and Wild with the guys, and he’d expounded on his theory about the way women eat correlating to the way they would act in bed. For example, women who licked their lips when eating tended to be screamers. Those who took small bites were repressed nymphos. That kind of crap. Being perpetually horny, the men had sucked up his ideas like beer, which they’d been consuming in large quantities.

  It was a good theory, nonetheless, but, luckily, he hadn’t shared it with Delilah. Women tended not to have the same sense of humor about sex that men did.

  For the record, Merrill had noted that Delilah did both: took small bites and licked her lips.

  Can anyone say “Hoo-yah!”?

  But now, Delilah walked ahead of him through the restaurant, out the front door, and into the side parking lot toward his pickup truck. Which gave him a bird’s-eye view of her white, Marilyn Monroe halter dress, all bare back and swishy skirt that molded her hips and backside as she moved. While her hair was silver blonde, her skin—from shoulders to waist and on both arms, not to mention mile-long legs—was golden hued after a week out on the ocean. In fact, despite the constant slathering of sunscreen, everyone had gained or enhanced their tans this week, whether they wanted to or not.

  Had to be a guy back in the day who designed that dress, or a woman with a sadistic inclination to torture men. The dress design was ageless, though, he had to give him, or her, credit for that. A hundred years from now, some Space Age hot mama will be donning some version of this creation, turning her future male admirers to puddles of horniness.

  While his mind was wandering, he wondered, not for the first time this evening, what would happen if he untied the knot at the back of her neck. Besides being an expert in drownproofing, he excelled in Knots 101. Hoo-yah!

  And, hey, with that backless wonder, she must not be wearing a bra. Double hoo-yahs!

  “Merrill,” she said, turning when they arrived at the car. “Can we talk? I just want to tell—”

  But he didn’t want to talk now. He wasn’t taking a chance that she would say, “This is a bad idea,” (when, in fact, it is good, good, good), or “Yeah, you’re cute and all that,” (kiss of death) “but I’m not interested in you that way,” (What other way is there for a man and woman?), or “Let’s be friends,” (Yuck! Another kiss of death) or the worst-case scenario, one she’d hurled at him one of the first times they’d met, “Get lost, sucker.” Or something to that effect.

  So, to forestall what she was about to say, he pressed her up against the car and put a fingertip to her lips. “Shh,” he said, and kissed her. No touching—he didn’t dare touch her—but kept his arms braced against the car on either side of her head. That was enough. For now.

  Her lips!

  Luscious.

  Soft.

  Moist.

  Parting.

  Welcoming.

  Sucking on my tongue, like . . .

  Too soon.

  Gotta stop.

  Sinking.

  Want more.

  Wait.

  Oh, damn. Damn, damn, damn.

  Somehow, he raised his head, which was light as air and weighed about fifty pounds. Could she hear his heart pounding? He was panting like a race horse after the Preakness.

  She stared at him with glazed eyes and glistening lips. In shock, no doubt.

  With mumbled self-flagellation, he managed to open the car door and help her inside. Once he was behind the steering wheel, and before he turned on the ignition, he turned to her. “Sorry if I came on too strong.”

  She shook her head. “No, it was me.”

  Oh, no! She’s going for the “It’s not you, it’s me” line.

  “I like kissing,” she went on.

  Oh, okay.

  “I haven’t had much, for a long time, kissing, that is, but . . .” She shrugged, and though it was darkish in the car, he would bet she was blushing. “Anyhow, I wanted to talk to you about—”

  No, no, no. Not the talk. Besides, you don’t tell a guy that you like kissing if you don’t mean it as a cue. He leaned over and kissed her. Again. One long unending kiss in which he licked and nipped and sucked and thrust, never wanting to break the kiss. Mouth sex, for sure. Somehow, they ended up half reclining across the bucket seats before they heard the loud honking of a car horn, and some teenagers driving, yelling out, “Get a room!”

  He was the one who was probably blushing now. Shiiit! He hadn’t made out like that since high school.

  They each straightened their clothing, and Delilah sat staring straight ahead as he drove out of the parking lot. It was only a short distance to her motel/diner property. He drove through the town proper with its hokey brass bell streetlights, a commemoration of the bells that were the foundation of Bell Cove. Didn’t matter that Bell Forge was floundering as the demand for finely crafted bells went the way of telephones and vinyl records. It was still a town that celebrated bells. The stores on the square were closed, the bells having just rung the eleven o’clock hour, and only a smattering of people could be seen on the sidewalk, probably tourists doing a little window-shopping before returning to their rentals, of which there weren’t very many in Bell Cove.

  “Can I talk now?” she asked finally.

  He was pretty sure there was a grin tugging at her lips, which was odd, but they’d already passed through the lighted portion of town. He couldn’t be certain. Besides, if she was having a good yuck, it was over his pathetic horniness.

  “Sure,” he said, regretfully. At least he’d gotten in two good kisses and some slow dancing that felt a lot like foreplay. That was more than he’d expected when he’d started this date tonight. He had to keep reminding himself that this was Delilah. Baby steps.

  “I’ve decided . . . well, I’d like to make love with you.”

  Whoa! Merrill had just pulled into the diner parking lot, and he was so shocked by her declaration that he almost
ran over Elvis. Swerving at the last second, he came to a screeching halt on the gravel driveway beside the motel driveway.

  Carefully, he turned off the engine and turned to stare at her. He thought of a dozen things he could say to her but couldn’t manage to form the words to any of them.

  “Would you repeat that?” was one possibility which he rejected right away. He wasn’t taking a chance that he’d heard wrong.

  Or “After all these weeks of me chasing my tail over you, now you want my tail?” But, no, she might take his attempt at humor the wrong way, like he was mocking her.

  Or “I thought you’d never ask,” which was a lie because never in a million years had he thought that she would ask.

  Or “This isn’t some kind of payback, is it? Like you feel you owe me?” Nope. He couldn’t say that. It would be setting up a negative. And what if she did feel beholden to him. Would he reject her offer?

  Glancing toward the end unit of the motels, the one he intended to claim as his own, and then toward her living quarters behind the motel office, he smiled at her and went for that old standby, “Your place or mine?”

  Chapter 11

  Moonlight becomes you . . .

  They were halfway across the backyard when Merrill stopped abruptly and said, “I can’t wait.” His voice was raw with emotion—probably lust. She was feeling a bit lusty herself.

  Reaching behind her neck, he untied the double knot in her halter dress, with a mere flick of his fingers, indicating an expertise that was surprising. He was usually so awkward around her, fumbling for words. She should have known better because she’d seen how smooth he could be when Bonita, and other women, flirted with him.

  She stood in the moonlight now, bare to the waist. She was bigger than she’d like to be on top, especially when her waist was small and her hips flared out. She was saved from being overtly voluptuous by her long legs, which seemed to balance out her top-heaviness, or what she liked to call her upper bimbo.

  At least, that’s how she’d always viewed her own body, uncomfortable from a young age with dubious assets that attracted the attention of males. Yes, even in middle school. But not that many males had ever seen her like this. In fact, just one. Davie, from age sixteen on, till his big betrayal. How pathetic was that? What a waste of all those good years!

  She should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. Not when Merrill was gazing at her with such appreciation.

  “Why am I the only one half-naked here?” she said, and flicked her fingers at him. “How about a little show-and-tell?”

  He laughed. “Because I’m not as pretty as you are.” But he already had his jacket off and tossed to a nearby patio table. His shirt soon hit the mark, too.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You look awfully pretty to me,” she said, and that was the truth. His face might be that of a teenager, but his sun-bronzed body was that of a man. Broad shoulders, a patch of dark curls, muscles, sinfully narrow waist and hips. Later, she would like to explore the scars she saw here and there. She stepped forward and was about to put her hands on his chest.

  But he was having none of that. He picked her up by the waist and lifted her high, feet dangling off the ground, putting her breasts in front of his face. Which was kind of startling—and alarming. Delilah was no lightweight.

  He licked one nipple, then the other, the abrasiveness of his tongue acting like tinder to a match. Sparks of intense pleasure ignited in her there creating twin aches that literally throbbed. Until—oh, my!—until he took the tip of one breast, nipple and areola together, into his mouth and sucked on her. Rhythmically.

  She put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself and arched her back.

  He put one big hand under her buttocks to hold her in place. The other hand was doing remarkable things to her other breast.

  The boy—man—must have incredible strength. He certainly was a master multitasker. She could only think, WOW! Then, Please don’t let me have said that out loud.

  The throbbing in her breasts moved lower and she pressed herself against his belly to relieve the ache. But wait. Her legs had somehow wrapped themselves around his hips. And that now-vulnerable part of her, protected by a mere scrap of silk, was undulating against his hardness. Which caused her inner muscles to start slow-pulsing with the start of an orgasm. With a gasp of surprise, she began keening in counterpoint to the rise and fall of her spasms, each guttural sound rising in pitch. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!” An orgasm. Then a whimpering trail of smaller sighs, “Oooooooooh!”

  She wasn’t sure how it happened, but they were in her bedroom, where he’d presumably carried her. The low light from a bedside lamp gave a golden hue to the room, which was thankfully cool from the window air conditioner. Thankfully, because she was raging hot, every inch of her skin feeling the heat of Merrill’s scrutiny as he set her in the middle of the room and removed the rest of her dress, including her thong. Then, he helped her sit on the edge of the bed where he undid the buckles on her high-heeled sandals.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered as he leaned down to kiss her quickly, then stood to take off his own clothing.

  She wanted to tell him to slow down, to let her savor every little thing. The toeing off of his loafers to reveal bare feet with surprisingly sexy toes. The movement of his long fingers on the buckle of his belt. The rasp of the zipper. The shrug of his hips to let his pants fall into a pool at his feet, which he kicked aside. Then two hands slipping into the sides of his boxer briefs, pushing them down, down down. Showing . . .

  “Oh, my!” she said.

  He arched his brows. “Now am I pretty?”

  “Not exactly pretty. More like . . . amazing.”

  “Why amazing?” he asked, leaning down to take his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants and removing a strip of foil packets, which he lobbed onto the mattress behind her.

  “Amazing that you must want me that much,” she said with a giggle, pointing at his turgid penis—really turgid penis!

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea. That’s only the half of it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then picked her up by the waist once again and tossed her up onto the mattress. He followed after her, spread her legs, then knelt between her knees.

  She held out her arms for him.

  But he didn’t move, just looked her over, closely.

  “I’m ready,” she prompted, in case he didn’t get the message.

  “Well, I’m not.”

  Whaaat? She glanced toward his happy place and arched her brows in disagreement. “Really?”

  “Sweetheart, I have been wanting you for so long that I intend to enjoy and prolong every bit of this encounter. More than one encounter, if I have my way. And by encounter I mean . . . well, I don’t want to be too graphic. Yet.”

  “How do you know I haven’t been wanting you, too?”

  “Maybe. I hope so.”

  In truth, it was only between the appetizer and the entrée tonight that Delilah had decided to go all the way with Merrill. And isn’t that an indication of my lack of experience that I would think in such a high school-ish way? All the way? Next I’ll be thinking in terms of first base, second base, and home runs. Jeesh!

  Bottom line: Merrill was an attractive man. She liked him. He’d made it more than obvious that he liked her, or lusted after her.

  He was single. She was single.

  And she did have—not exactly needs, but—wants. Long-suppressed wants.

  More than anything, she was damned tired of being different from other women. Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself without looking over her shoulder?

  As if sensing her thoughts, Merrill chucked her under the chin. “Tell me what you like.”

  Whoa! Blunt much, buddy? “I don’t know what I like.” At the look of disbelief on his face, she disclosed, “I’ve only been with one boy . . . man . . . ever.”

  “And where is he . . . never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  Actually, you really don’t. Prison
is not a subject to be brought up in the midst of lovemaking. Talk about a killjoy!

  “Let’s discover what you like . . . and what I like . . . together.”

  And they did.

  This wasn’t a game to him, not that kind of game, anyway . . .

  Delilah was a feast for the senses, and he didn’t care how crazy-ass hokey that sounded.

  Not that I’m going to say it out loud. I’m not dumb. Sometimes my Mensa brain does come in handy.

  Looks, smell, taste, feel, sounds—yep, Delilah had it all. In one nude, sexy body. And she was all his!

  Happy birthday to me! Three months early.

  —She looked sensational, naked. Not all women did. Take it from me. Whoo-boy! You know that country song about all the girls looking prettier at closing time. Ask a few SEALs about their experiences with beer goggles. The things that Spanx and makeup can hide!

  With Delilah, all that creamy skin in a curvy package spelled Male Fantasy #1. Not a diet-conscious hip bone in sight. Nor signs of a surgeon’s enhancement or reduction.

  And, hey, he now knew she was a true blonde. Hubba hubba!

  —As for smell, there was some sweet scent about Delilah all the time. Was it perfume? Or maybe, with all the baking she did, the vanilla or cinnamon had infused her skin.

  —Would she taste like her luscious pastries? He already knew how sweet her lips were. Strawberry sweet. And cherry hued. Like her nipples. Man, those oversensitive buds and the mounds they crested were definitely going to be retasted. Over and over again.

  —He already knew from his brief strokes of her back when they were outside that her skin was smooth as silk to the touch, and soft. No muscle-toned body for Delilah. Not that she was fat. Not at all. Just supple. I can’t wait to see if she’s malleable all over. Especially—well, you know where.

  —The topper on this sensual cake for Merrill was the sound that Delilah made when she was coming. Manna to a starving man’s ears!

  “If you don’t start pretty soon, I might just fall asleep,” she said, knocking him from his reverie.