Сандра Браун: Fanta C

Laughing, and feeling wonderfully, naughtily adolescent, they had tiptoed across the cold, damp grass toward his house. Along the way, they stopped several times to kiss and caress. He had suggested that they try out the hammock he'd hung so well between the two trees. Elizabeth had made a bawdy crack about everything he had being well hung and he'd laughed and hugged her and told her she was an adorable, delightful contradiction.

So now they lay in the hammock. They should have been cold, but they weren't. Elizabeth was oblivious to the chill, even though the long skirt of her nightgown was bunched around her waist. She wasn't cold because Thad was lying on top of her… and inside her.

The arches of her feet, they had discovered, fit his calf muscles perfectly. That's where she rested them, when she wasn't reaching down to the ground to give the hammock a gentle push with the tips of her toes. The hammock's rocking motion was lazy, but heightened their sensations of each other a thousandfold.

"I didn't know you could — I mean, it's been — How can you stay — "

"Hard?" he asked. "How can I stay hard for so long?"

"Yes." She groaned as he pressed higher. "It's nothing short of a miracle?"

"It's nothing short at all." He bobbed his eyebrows and grinned devilishly.

She laughed. The delicious vibration caused him to wince with pleasure. "We've been here for… what? Ten minutes?"

"Yeah, but that's nothing," he told her around a kiss. "I've been hard for almost two weeks."

" What? "

"Ever since I put my hands around your waist and lifted you out of that tree. The top of my head wasn't the only thing that nearly blew off."

"My composure slipped too. Even though you treated me with the respect befitting a neighbor widow lady. Nothing at all like the furious man who almost raped me tonight."

"Admittedly, I was furious. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," she replied, touched by his concern. "I wasn't afraid you'd hurt me. But I didn't know you could be so aggressive."

"Only when sorely provoked and slightly drunk."

"Why were you sorely provoked and slightly drunk?"

"Because I couldn't stand the thought of you doing this with Cavanaugh. With anybody but me."

His honesty disarmed her. "Are you always so candid?"

"To a fault."

"I'm glad you don't play games. I admire straightforwardness."

His eyes turned dark with renewed desire. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"So if I wanted something," he said huskily, "you'd rather I come right out and ask instead of beat around the bush?" He dusted her lips with his.

Her heartbeat speeded up with excitement. "Yes."

"Lower the top of your nightgown," he whispered.

She hesitated for only a moment, then slowly raised one hand to the lacy, elastic edge. Her breast swelled creamy and smooth above it as she gradually pulled it down. Thad groaned when the lace skimmed her nipple, caught on it, and drew it even more erect. At last her entire breast was revealed and she made to withdraw her hand.

"No, leave it there. Right there. Oh, God."

Staring fixedly at her hand and the idle movements of her fingers, he began to lightly grind his body into hers. Then not so lightly. The rotations quickened and her hips rose to meet them. Seconds later it ended in a frenzy of simultaneous explosions.

It took a long time for them to garner enough energy to leave the hammock and walk to his back porch. Holding the screen door open, he leaned out for one last, lingering kiss during which his tongue made sweeping, swirling motions inside her mouth. "I wish I could sleep with you," he said when they finally drew apart.

"So do I."

"Let me."

"I don't want the neighbors to see you sneaking out of my house at daybreak. Or let my kids find you in bed with me in the morning."

"No, I guess not."

"Please understand, Thad."

"I do." He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "But I'm inviting myself to breakfast. What time should I be there?"

They looked innocent enough when Matt and Megan stumbled sleepy-eyed into the kitchen and found them sitting together at the table and staring into each other's forgotten cups of coffee.

"Did Thad spend the night here?"

For all their subterfuge, that was the first thing Matt said. To the children's puzzlement, Thad and their mother burst out laughing.

"No, I didn't spend the night," he said. "It just looks that way to you. Your Mom invited me for breakfast."

"Funny, I thought you invited yourself," Elizabeth said to him out of the corner of her mouth as she rose to pour the children their ritual glasses of orange juice. He swatted her on the fanny, something that the kids thought was hilarious.

"Did Thad tell you about Baby's bath?" Megan asked. Elizabeth shook her head no. "He let us give her a bath. Cats don't like water, did you know that, Mom? But we bathed her anyway. She got real clean and fluffy, but we kinda made a mess.

"Only, Thad helped us clean it up or — What is it, Thad? Like in the army?"

"Police the area," Thad supplied.

"Yeah, we policed the area. Didn't he tell you, Mom?"

"No, he failed to mention that." She cast the man, who looked wonderfully good and right sitting at her breakfast table, a sidelong glance.

"As I recall, we had better things to talk about." He looked at her meaningfully and she grew warm beneath his gaze.

"And he let us order a pizza over the phone from the man who brings it to your house."

"Yeah, we told Thad that you said that kind of pizza was junk."

"But he said that you weren't here and so he was in charge and he liked that kind of pizza."

"Can we call the pizza man again, Mom? It wasn't junk, honest."

Placing her hands on her hips, Elizabeth faced Thad. "Thanks a lot. In a few hours you undid years of nutritional indoctrination."

He seemed supremely concerned. "What's for breakfast?"

"Curds and whey," she replied flippantly.

The children shrieked with laughter. To help calm them down, Thad supervised them setting the table while Elizabeth cooked the food.

"Hey, everybody here has to pull KP," Thad called to the children as they headed for the television set in the den as soon as they had finished eating. They didn't give him the argument they usually gave Elizabeth. She watched, her mouth agape, as they obediently returned to the table and cleared their own place settings, carrying the dirty dishes to the sink.

"How'd you do that?" she asked.

"Bribes." He took two packs of chewing gum out of his shirt pocket. "Sugar-free," he told Elizabeth before handing a package of gum to each child. They dutifully said thank you, which endeared them to their mother.

"And what does the cook get?"

"The cook gets a kiss."

Megan and Matt came to an abrupt halt on their way to the door and, as one, turned around in time to see Thad encircling their mother's waist with his arms. He angled his head to one side and kissed her on the mouth.

"Thad's kissing Mom!" Megan exclaimed.

"Ooh, gross!" That from Matt.

As soon as Thad and Elizabeth drew apart, the children started circling them like the attacking Indians around a wagon train. They whooped and hollered and flailed their arms wildly. Relieved and pleased that the two children were so enthusiastic about this sudden turn of events, Thad and Elizabeth started laughing at their antics, which only egged them on.

As usual, Matt's excitement got out of control. The harder Thad and his mother laughed, the more animated he became until on one unbalanced pivot, he crashed into the china cabinet. All the dishes rattled. A wooden bowl of fruit was overturned. Apples and oranges rolled in every direction. A tomato splattered onto the tile floor. Several sheets of notebook paper went flying about like chicken feathers before drifting down one by one.