Jennifer Greene - Conquer the Memories

“The Gulf gets sudden rains.” Sonia’s eyes nervously sought Craig’s lean form in the crowd. “Lots of them. You’d be surprised.”

“That’s a shame,” Charlie commiserated.

“It was,” Sonia agreed.

“Nothing to do on a boat in the rain.”

“We played,” Sonia assured him, “a lot of chess.”

Charlie’s most undignified guffaw startled her. Craig shot her a questioning glance as he returned with their two small bags. Charlie grabbed both, adjusted them with the flight bag he’d already claimed and stumbled ahead of the two of them, still chuckling.

“I’ve missed him,” Sonia remarked to Craig as he steered her toward the exit with his palm at her back. “I could kill him, but I always miss him when we’re away.”

“Pardon? I can’t hear you because of that hat.”

She lifted her head, holding the hat in place again, an amused smile softening her lips. “That doesn’t make rational sense, Mr. Hamilton, that you can’t hear because of a hat. Give us another.”

“All right.” He took advantage, bending down again to test his lips against hers. The taste was not appreciably different than it had been moments ago. Delicious. The taste of her wasn’t any different, and the feel of her wasn’t any different, but after four days of seeing Sonia naked most of the time, he was having trouble adjusting to his lady fully clothed. The cherry-red linen dress and absurd hat and red-and-white shoes, the flick of mascara on her lashes again, the lingering hint of perfume…he liked it all. And wanted it all off again as soon as possible.

His lips lingered, until Sonia pulled back with a sassy frown. “You will behave yourself in the airport. That’s the second time in five minutes.”

“Then let’s get home.”

But arriving home was so complicated. Charlie talked continuously; the pups demanded attention; Craig had ninety-nine phone calls to return; they had to eat; her mother called; Charlie talked some more…Charlie refused to stop talking. Sonia had to give him three lemonades and tell him countless stories about rainy afternoons before he finally got up to leave around nine, still chuckling.

“What is wrong with him tonight?” Sonia demanded irritably.

“He’s on to us.” Craig switched off the light in the kitchen, then trailed Sonia through the hall. “It might have helped if you hadn’t handed him that cock-and-bull story about rainstorms.”

She unzipped her dress as she walked down the dark hall. “He seemed to expect us to have caught five million fish. What was I supposed to do? Tell him what we really did for four days?”

In their bedroom, Craig flicked on the dresser lamp, and Sonia savored for an instant the feeling of being home. The Wyoming sun, the car ride through dusty hills, the coming home and the look of the ranch and the feeling of total relaxation didn’t seep through her until her eyes lit on the familiar beamed ceiling and corner fireplace and familiar furnishings of their bedroom.

Her dress slipped to the floor. She picked it up and wandered toward the closet, her slim form clad in a pale blue satin slip. Behind the closet door, she slipped off her heels and pantyhose, and then peered unobtrusively around the edge of the door.

Craig’s shirt was already draped over a chair, and he’d removed his shoes and socks. He was still wearing pale gray pants and his eyes were waiting for her and she loved him totally. They’d had four days to renew loving. They hadn’t wasted a single moment.

“Come out of there.”

“You’re exhausted and you know it. Quit sounding…impatient,” she ordered him.

“I am impatient.”

“You couldn’t be. We were darn near late for the plane because of you!”

“That was hours ago.”

“Honestly. A teenage boy at a drive-in movie has more control than you do.” Sonia emerged from the recesses of the closet wearing her best prim and proper expression.

It was difficult to hold the pose when Craig all but tackled her. His arms snatched her high, like booty; an instant after that her spine bounced on the mattress and Craig followed, his weight unmercifully heavy on top of her.

“Up, you oaf,” she ordered breathlessly.

Craig shifted his leg, the one that was in danger of cutting off the circulation in her thigh. His head dipped down, his lips nuzzling at her throat. Just between her collarbones was a little private hollow where her pulse beat out a rhythm when she was aroused.

She was aroused. He was aroused.

It was all her fault. He thought he’d had it all. He hadn’t, obviously. Sonia had turned into an irresistibly uninhibited, wanton vixen the past few days. He had the feeling she’d planned some farfetched seductions when she’d signed on for that little cruise, but there was no real explaining the explosive lovemaking that had erupted between them. There was something faintly sinful over falling in love with his wife again after all this time. Particularly when he’d never fallen out of love with her to begin with.

His teeth nipped at her shoulder. “You called me an oaf. Sweetheart, you’re going to pay for that.”

“Darn,” she said with mock unhappiness.

“You’ll be sorry,” he assured her.

He uncurled one leg from her, simply because he couldn’t get her slip off otherwise. He hadn’t seen her so burdened with clothes in days. There was still more. One lacy pale blue bra that was see-through, he noted as he held it up to the light. Then one pair of pale blue panties that were also see-through, and had a ribbon in the silliest place.

Sonia snatched the panties from him and tossed them on the floor. “They were on sale.”

“An X-rated sale.”

The only way to wipe the smile from his lips was to unsnap his pants. He darned well made the zipper impossible to undo. He just refused to get out of the way; his lips were pressed full on hers and both his palms were trying to claim her breasts, and those breasts were already painfully swollen…

There was something sinful about falling in love with one’s husband again when one had never fallen out of love with him to begin with. Sin was so nice.

And Craig was the devil. He’d always been an imaginative lover; somehow he’d managed to drag out of her the most liquid, new, almost frightening responses…

His lips tugged on one nipple, and then he left her. Standing next to the bed, he shrugged off the rest of his clothes. He took endless more seconds crossing the room to turn off the light.

“Craig-”

He turned the light back on. “All of a sudden, you have to see every little thing,” he complained. “Who’s going to have the energy to turn off the light afterward?”

“You will.”

“We won’t argue about it,” he said amicably.

He dropped back on the mattress, but it was a big mattress, and for the moment he didn’t touch her. For the moment he just took in the fevered brightness in her eyes, the glow of lamplight on her bare skin, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. Those breasts tapered to such a tiny waist. Legs stretched endlessly from there.

He knew every inch of the territory. He knew the quiver that touched her spine when his lips pressed against her thigh; he knew the sudden restlessness that ached through her body when he held her against him, length to length. He knew the tension that gripped her like strange fever when he pressed his arousal against her, announcing his intention. His intention was to take her. To claim her. To possess her. Hard and fast.

When he got around to it.

Sonia was perceptive, and gentle and passionate and loving. The past few days he’d willingly forgotten the ghosts that had haunted him. Sonia was a delightful ghost chaser. Whatever had possessed him to think he could not make love with his wife hadn’t stood a chance.