He braced himself on his elbows and started a steady rhythm complete with hot and heavy kisses that had her panting and rocking with him after the first few seconds. It didn’t surprise her one bit that this time was every bit as good as the last, but she didn’t dwell on anything but satisfying the deep need inside her body as she finally let go of all the past and trusted her heart and soul to the bad boy on the Lucky Penny.
The last time they’d had sex she felt as if she were in a vacuum where no one else was allowed but her and Blake. This time it went beyond that into a place where nothing, not a single thought or a worry of any kind, entered her mind. She and Blake were on a sexual journey. She could see the strength in his strong arms when he rose up above her. The intensity in his eyes when she looked deep into them kept nothing back and gave her free access to delve all the way to his soul. His weight felt right when he eased down on top of her and then they were rocking together in a world where past and future didn’t matter. Only the present was allowed and it was glorious.
Time stood still. Wandering thoughts didn’t exist. Nothing was more important than satisfying that deep need driving them to the top of a climax. Then with a groan and a final thrust they dived over the edge together, her fingers tangled in his hair, his lips on that soft spot on her neck. Before either of them could stop panting, the soft afterglow folded around them like a warm blanket.
He rolled to one side and pulled her against him until her head rested on his chest. “When I can breathe,” he panted, “I will tell you how wonderful that was.”
“When you can breathe…” she panted between words, “you can kiss me and we’ll start all over again.”
“You are amazing, Allie,” he whispered softly.
Getting enough of Blake Dawson might be a lifetime job. She was up for the challenge if it meant winding up in bed like this several times a week…or a day!
Chapter Twenty-four
Blake and Deke had already gone when Allie let herself into the house and went right to work that Tuesday morning. At noon the ceiling was painted, the walls were finished, and she was working her way around the floor doing the woodwork. The door into the bedroom and the one that hung on the closet had been removed and were resting on sawhorses in the third bedroom. Now that some of the Sheetrock had been cleared out, she used that room to sand and then paint one side of the doors before she had started the ceiling that morning. Her goal was to turn them over and paint the other side before she left that evening. Then the next day she would hang them before she started texturing the hallway and living room ceiling.
She’d really dodged a bullet the day before with the gossip hounds in Dry Creek. The big news in town right then was the grand opening tonight of Nadine’s new café. It had only taken a lot of elbow grease and a big trip to the grocery wholesale store to get the place up and running. Katy had helped her cut through a ton of red tape to get a license and rumor had it that Sharlene and Mary Jo were taking vacation time from their jobs to help out the first week as waitresses and dishwashers.
Of course Nadine’s business venture was only part of what was keeping all the phone lines heated up that week. Sharlene was still thinking about cleaning up the old clothing store for a day care center because she was tired of the banking business and Mary Jo was continuing with plans for putting in a beauty and barbershop combination in the building between the café and the feed store.
Some folks thought those three women should be hauled out of Dry Creek by the boys in the white jackets. Others cheered for the ladies and whispered over the backyard fences that Blake Dawson might be the luckiest thing that had happened to northern Throckmorton County in several decades. He was the only thing that had changed in town the past several years and look at what all was happening.
Allie wished all three of them the best of luck in their ventures and could have personally hugged them for taking some of the heat from the rumors away from her that week. She was picturing three stores on Main Street with clean windows and folks fanning in and out of the new businesses when she came to the end of the baseboards and stood up to paint around the door facing.
She caught a whiff of wood smoke but figured a draft had sent it from the fireplace to her nose. Paintbrush loaded, her hand was headed toward the middle of the door trim when two hands snaked around her waist. It startled her so badly that she squealed, flipped around, and threw up the brush, sending a broad swath of white paint across Blake’s face. White went ear to ear, across his mouth, chin, and below his nose, before she dropped the brush on the toe of his right boot.
He pulled her tightly against his chest, tipped up her chin and kissed her, smearing wet white paint all over her face. She tasted wood smoke, cold winter air, and a hint of black coffee mixed with paint. Who would have ever thought that that mixture could be an aphrodisiac?
She rolled up on her toes and then remembered Deke. Sweet Jesus in heaven! She had to get to the bathroom and wash all that paint off her face before he saw it or else he’d have a million questions and at least that many lectures all ready to deliver.