Gwynne Forster - Sealed With a Kiss

Naomi’s contemplations of the day’s events as she dressed hurriedly that evening for an emergency board meeting at OLC was interrupted by the telephone. Linda’s voice triggered a case of mild anxiety in her; the girls at OLC were not allowed to call their tutors at home.

“What is it, Linda?”

The unsteadiness in the girl’s voice told her that there might be a serious problem.

“I hated to call you at home, but I didn’t know what else to do. My mama says I can’t go on the retreat. I won a scholarship, and it won’t cost anything, but she says I can’t go.”

Naomi sat down. Maude Frazier and OLC would wait. “Did she say why?”

“Yes. She said I’ll do more good here at home helping her and working in the drugstore than I will wasting two weeks with a gang of kids drawing pictures. She said she never wants to see another piece of crayon. What will I do?”

Naomi pushed back her disappointment; how would the girl ever make it with so little support? “I’ll speak with your principal. Don’t worry too much. We have two months in which to work out a strategy and get your mother’s approval, but I’m sure the principal can handle this. Why didn’t you tell me that you won a scholarship? How many were there?”

“One. I didn’t tell you, because I figured Mama wouldn’t want me to go.” Naomi beamed, her face wreathed in smiles. She wished that she could have been with Linda to give her a hug. She doubted the girl received much affection; she certainly didn’t get the approval and encouragement that her talent deserved.

“Just one scholarship for the entire junior high school, and you won it? I’m proud of you, Linda, and I’m going to do everything possible to help you get those two weeks of training. I’ll see you in a couple of days?” The conversation was over, but it had an almost paralyzing effect on Naomi. What was her own child going through? Were its parents loving and understanding? Did they encourage it? It! God how awful! She didn’t even know whether she’d had a girl or a boy.

She hurriedly put on a slim skirted, above the knee dusty rose silk suit with a silk cowl necked blouse of matching color, found some navy accessories, and left home having barely glanced at herself in a mirror. She knew that color always set off her rich brown skin, and when she wore lipstick of matching color, her only makeup, as she did now, the effect was simple elegance. She arrived precisely on time and was not surprised when, at the minute she seated herself at the long oval table, Maude Frazier, the board’s president and arbiter of social class among the African American locals, lowered the gavel. “Now that we’re all here, let us begin our work.”

Naomi considered Maude’s philosophy, that if you weren’t early, you were late, autocratic, and unreasonable. One morning, either in this life or the next, Maude was going to wake up and discover that she really wasn’t the English queen. Naomi got immense pleasure from the thought.

Maude’s announcement that they had a guest brought Naomi’s gaze around the table until she found Rufus Meade sitting there looking directly at her. Her reaction at seeing him unexpectedly was the same as always. Tension gathered within her and her heartbeat accelerated when he dipped his head ever so slightly in a greeting and let his lush mouth curve in a half smile. She knew the minute he responded to the fire that she couldn’t suppress, that the tension pulsing between them was a sleeping volcano ready to erupt. She felt her heart flutter madly and shifted nervously in her chair as Maude opened the discussion.

She would not have anticipated that the talks would become so heated. The meeting ended, and she realized from Rufus’s facial expression that he was furious with her. She believed her argument—that One Last Chance existed to be a buffer between distressed girls and the cruelty of society—was the correct one. And she was amazed when Rufus took the position that what she really wanted was for the foundation to be a shelter for delinquents. She hoped he wasn’t a poor looser; several board members sided with him, but the majority supported her.

She was wrong, and he would straighten her out, he vowed, forcing himself to remain calm while, oblivious to onlookers, he ushered her to the elevator and on to the little office where she tutored. “I know there are special circumstances, but we have to be very careful when we’re deciding what they are.”

“I’m already familiar with your brand of compassion,” she told him, with what he recognized as exaggerated sweetness; “it doesn’t extend to females. It does cover cute little replicas of yourself, naturally, but it amazes me that you allowed your perfect self close enough to a woman to beget them. I don’t suppose it was the result of artificial insemination, was it?” He wanted to singe her mouth with his when she looked at him expectantly, as if deserving a serious, friendly answer, though she knew she’d irked him.

He surprised himself and figured that he probably shocked her as well when he broke up laughing. When he could stop, he looked down at her and, in a playful mode, shook his head from side to side, his single dimple on full display. “Naomi, I refuse to believe that you are so naive as to issue me that kind of challenge. Don’t you know better than to tell a man to his face that you doubt his virility? Are you nuts?”

Her intent regard amused Rufus. If she had been aware of the look of fascinated admiration on her smiling face, ten to one she would have banished it immediately. Her answer riled him. He wondered whether her attention had strayed when she asked provocatively, “How far off was I?”

Abruptly, he stopped smiling, forgot caution, and felt his face settle into a harsh mask. He pulled her close to him and absorbed her trembling as he lowered his head and brushed her mouth with his lips. He drew back to look at her, to gauge her reaction, but fire raced through him when she braced her hands against his chest in a weak, symbolic protest and whimpered, and he knew he had to taste her. Her soft, supple body offered no resistance, and as he sensed the giving of her trust, a warm, unfamiliar feeling of connection with someone special gripped him. She burrowed into him, giving herself over to him, pulling at something inside him. Something he didn’t want to release.

He fitted her head into one of his big hands and gently stroked her back with the other, trying to temper their rapidly escalating passion. But her gentle movements quickened his need. He nearly bent over in anguish when she wiggled closer, caught up in her own passion. Capitulating at last and in spite of himself, he captured her eager mouth in an explosive giving of himself, his body shuddering and his blood zinging through his throbbing veins.

He sensed a change in her then—a feminine response to his own burgeoning need—and altered the kiss to a sweet, gentle one, easing the pressure before asking for entrance with the tip of his tongue. Her parted lips took him in, and he felt her tremble from the pleasure of his kiss as she wrapped her arms around his neck in sensual enjoyment. He didn’t wonder that she returned his kiss so ardently, that she was caressing his arms, shoulders, and neck, that she was loving him right back. His only thought was that she felt so good in his arms, tasted so good, responded to him hotly and passionately, that she fitted him, that she belonged right where she was. He didn’t remember ever having had such a passionate response from a woman nor even having had one excite him as she did. He wanted her and he was going to have her even if she was… He jerked his head up and looked down into her passion-filled eyes. Not in a million years. Never! He told himself as he put her gently but firmly away from him.