"Foreplay?"
"Foreplay. What else would you call it when you lay your hand on the inside of my thigh and rub it up and down? Oh, you're careful to make it look wifely and casual, but you know it's there and I know it's there and we both know what's going on about four inches up from there.
"And if you don't like having me place my arm across your shoulders, you shouldn't snuggle up against me. If you don't like my offering you my jacket, don't make sure I notice through your blouse that you're chilled. While
I've got my hand on your knee, you've got
your foot moving against my calf. Now if that's not an invitation, I don't know what is."
The building flames in the grate were reflected in his eyes, flashes of passion and anger that fed each other. "I didn't see you pulling your head back when I was fiddling with your hair. Oh, no. Instead, you nuzzled the palm of my hand. I felt your tongue. It left a damp spot.
"You laughed because I dripped coffee into my lap. And I dripped coffee into my lap because you jostled my elbow with your breast.
And I laughed back because you blotted up the drips with your napkin, and then it was either laugh or moan. Now which would you rather I do in my mother's dining room while you're mashing your hand against my crotch, laugh or moan?
"So don't preach to me about how to conduct myself. I'll be more than glad to put a stop to this sexual charade if you will. Because if this playacting we do every Sunday makes you crazy, you can imagine what it does to me!"
After his shouting, the quiet in the room was sudden and intense. Marcie took a step nearer to him and in a sultry voice asked,
"What does it do to you, Chase?"
He reached for her hand, yanked it forward, and pressed it open against his distended fly.
"That."
Her fingers closed around his steely erection.
"Why do you stop with the foreplay,
Chase? Why don't you do something with
this?" With each slow, milking motion of her hand his breath grew louder, harsher. "Are you afraid you won't like it? Or are you afraid you will?"
She released him and raised both hands to his head, sinking her fingers into his hair and cupping his scalp. "Kiss me. Kiss me right."
Stretching up so that her lips were just beneath his, she added in a seductive whisper,
"I dare you."
The sound that issued from his throat was feral. The manner in which his lips swooped down on hers was savage. So brutal was his kiss that at first her lips were benumbed by it. Gradually, however, she was able to separate them. Then she felt the swift and sure thrust of his tongue. Madly, rampantly, rapaciously, it swept her mouth.
Like her, he buried his fingers in her abundance of hair and held her head in place for the plundering mastery of his kiss. He drew on her like a man starved, as though he wanted to suck her entire mouth into his. He pulled away to catch his breath. Even then, his tongue was flicking over her lips, tasting her.
Unappeased, he came back for more. And more.
And more.
Marcie reveled in the carnality of his kiss.
She loved the texture of his tongue, the taste of his saliva, the firmness of his lips, the rasp of his beard against her chin and cheeks. Her senses wallowed in the pleasure of smelling his skin and feeling his hair—Chase's skin,
Chase's hair. Chase's hardness gouging her middle.
As one, they dropped to their knees on the plush rug in front of the hearth. Their mouths went on feeding frenzies over each other's face, indiscriminately moving their lips over cheeks, chins, eyelids.
When their mouths fused again, he sent his tongue deep, penetrating her mouth and saturating her with desire. His hands smoothed over her back, moved to her sides, rubbed the crescents of her breasts with the heels of them. Then, exercising no subtlety, he covered her derriere and pulled her against him.
Marcie didn't even consider being coy. She allowed him to push suggestively against her cleft. She even gloried in the obvious strength of his desire and ground her middle against it.
Groaning, he wrapped his arms around her so tightly she could no longer move and whispered fiercely,
"Stop or it'll be all over."
"Not yet. Not yet."
She put enough space between them to peel his sweater over his head. Next she attacked the buttons of his shirt. When it had been cast aside, her fingertips roved over him in an orgy of discovery, like a blind person who was seeing for the first time.
With a hungry whimper she leaned into his chest and pressed her open mouth upon it. He cupped her head, but allowed it to move freely from spot to spot. Her lips found his nipple in a spiral of dark, crinkly hair. Shyly at first,
then more aggressively, she caressed it with her tongue.
Swearing in whispered agony, he set her away from him. "Take off your clothes."
"You take them off," she challenged huskily.
They stared at each other a moment. Marcie held her breath until he took the hem of her sweater in his hands. He removed it over her head. His eyes became fixated on her breasts.
Reaching behind her, Marcie unhooked her bra and let it fall. Chase's chest rose and fell in one quick, tortured gasp. She saw his stomach muscles contract, but he didn't touch her.
At least not intimately.
Pressing her shoulders, he guided her down to lie on her back on the rug. Without ceremony he unfastened her skirt and pushed it down her legs. He wasn't quite so detached when it came to removing her panties, because he had to reach beneath her garter belt to get hold of the waistband.
Once they were removed, he slid his hand between her thighs. They groaned in unison.
The fingers that probed her were thorough, yet gentle. His thumb nimbly separated the folds and found that supersensitive tissue.
He only had to stroke it a few times before her blood began to bubble inside her veins and she saw lightning sparks in her peripheral vision.
"Chase!"
That was all the invitation he needed. He unfastened his fly and shoved his trousers past his hips. Marcie boldly assessed him, but for only a second before he mated their bodies.
She gave one sharp, glad cry. Chase murmured either a profanity or a prayer. They remained like that for several tense moments.
Then, bracing himself above her, he withdrew partially and looked down into her face.
Eyes locked with hers, he slowly penetrated her again. She felt him deep, so deep that the immensity of his possession swept over, stealing her breath, seizing control of her senses.
His dark hair hung over his forehead, mussed and wild. His eyes glowed with the firelight, adding to his animalistic attractiveness. The muscles of his arms and chest bulged with masculine power.
She wanted to concentrate on how gorgeous he was, but he withdrew and sank into her again. He held her breast in one hand, circled the stiff nipple with his thumb. She shuddered.
Her eyes closed involuntarily. Her thighs gripped his hips. He slid his hand between their bodies, stroking her externally even as he pressed ever deeper inside.
And her love for him, which had remained unfulfilled for decades, finally culminated in a splintering, brilliant climax.
He let her savor it, experience all of it, even the shimmering afterglow, before he began moving inside her again. But Marcie surprised herself and Chase by clutching him and raising her hips to meet his thrusts.
By the time his crisis seized him, she had
reached another. They clung to each other, gasping, grasping, dying together.
Marcie was grateful for the knock on her inner office door that came around eleven o'clock the following morning. The couple who had arrived at ten sharp for their appointment were about to drive her mad.
Of course, on this particular morning, her threshold of sanity had been lower than usual.
"Come in," she called.
"Pardon the interruption, Marcie," Esme said. "Mr. Tyler is here to see you."
Reflexively Marcie rose from her desk chair.
"Mr. Tyler? Which one?"
"The one you're married to. The tall, dark, and handsome one."
Then Marcie saw his hand reach beyond her assistant's head and push open the door.
"Can I see you for a minute?"
Chase was the last person she had expected to call on her this morning. Her knees almost buckled. Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak.
"Of… of course. I'm sure Mr. and Mrs.
Harrison won't mind if I step out for a while.
You may continue looking through the listings book," she suggested as she rounded her black lacquered desk.
The man sighed and came to his feet, hiking up his trousers importantly. "We're finished anyway. She's not ever going to find anything she's happy with."
"Me? I liked that four-bedroom on Sun
shine Lane," his wife retorted. "You said we didn't need that much space. You said the yard was too big.
You turned down a beautiful house because you're too lazy to mow the lawn. Which is just as well, I guess. You wouldn't do it right anyway."
"Chase, this is Mr. and Mrs. Harrison."
Marcie said, interrupting. "Ralph, Gladys, meet my husband, Chase Tyler."
"Pleased to meet you." Ralph shook hands with him.
The same.
"Well, come on, Ralph. Can't you see they want their privacy?" Gladys practically pushed her husband through the door.
Esme, rolling her eyes ceilingward, followed them out and closed the door as she went.
Chase and Marcie were left alone. They faced each other awkwardly, but didn't meet each other's eyes.
"Are those the clients you told me about?"
"Real prizes, aren't they? I don't think they'll ever settle on a house. Looking is just a hobby with them. It gives them a break from fighting.
Unfortunately it costs me valuable time and more patience than I've got."
"Hmm. Uh, these are for you."
He stuck out a bouquet of pink tulips, and confused by the gesture, Marcie took them. In effect, she caught them. Chase seemed anxious to get rid of the flowers once he had called her attention to them. If Marcie's reflexes had been any slower, the bouquet would have fallen to the floor.
"It's not my birthday."
"No special occasion," he said with a laconic shrug. "I had to go to the grocery store this morning to pick up some supplies for the office. I spotted them there in one of those little water buckets by the checkout.
Thought you might like them."
She gazed at him with perplexity. "I… I
do. Thank you."
"You're welcome." His eyes made a slow survey of the room. "Nice office. Fancy. Nothing like Tyler Drilling Company headquarters."
"Well, we have different needs."
"Right."
"Did you hear anything about your contract?"
"No."
"Oh. I thought maybe the flowers were part of a celebration."
"No."
"Oh."
He coughed. She tucked a strand of hair back into her bun. He sniffed. She fiddled with the green cellophane cone around the tulips.
"Did you come here to talk about offices?" she asked after the lengthy silence.