Not sure what to do while Jase gathered his clothes, Laurel went exploring. The dining area, an ell to the right off the small living room, connected to the left with a tiny, modernized kitchen more up-to-date than the one at Kinkaid House, then led to the back bedroom, which contained a double bed stripped down to its mattress. The hall took her past the bathroom, where Jase was busy packing his toiletries into a leather bag. She moved on to his room, taking a seat on the single bed.
With a clarity etched on her brain for all eternity, she could picture every item that had been in this room sixteen years ago—the football posters and sexy pinups on the wall, the tall bureau with the small mirror above it, the beer cans littering the floor, the tuna tin overflowing with cigarette butts.
Jase came in and took a suitcase from the closet, “Maxie packed everything but the kitchen sink,” he commented as he pulled a vinyl garment bag off the wooden rod. “She even stuck in my old boots. They’ll come in handy when I’m walking property lines.”
Laurel studied his face as he gathered his luggage. He looked different in the brightly lit nighttime room, almost like a stranger. She remembered that she’d had the same apprehension when she’d walked into this room sixteen years ago. Suddenly nervous, she said the first thing that popped into her head.
“Do you still smoke?”
She hadn’t smelled any tobacco on his breath, and she’d certainly been close enough to tell, but for some reason, she wanted him to say something, as if to confirm his identity.
He wedged his Dopp kit into an outer pocket of the suitcase and zipped the bag shut. “No, not for years. Too expensive a habit for a young father, and one I didn’t want my daughter to pick up.” He set his gear next to the door. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” In a strange, unnamable mood, she changed position, languorously stretching out on the bed and leaning back on her elbows, her knees bent, her head flung back. There was a hot running fever in her that had to be appeased, a molten river of desire.
Jase looked over at her, and his eyes narrowed as he remembered the last time she had seen him smoke and the last time she had been in this room. He walked over to the bed slowly, purposefully.
“I don’t usually drink much either,” he said in a deeper voice, anticipating her next question and sitting down beside her on the bed. “Now or then.”
He sat beside her and leaned over to drop little half kisses on her forehead and nose and cheeks. “But, I can’t say the same thing about sex,” he added in a hoarse whisper. “That’s a bad habit I haven’t been able to break.”
She looped her arms around his neck to pull him down to her mouth and kiss him, moving her lips to his mouth and cheeks, tracing his ears with her darting tongue. Her hands slid under his shirt for access to his warm, solid flesh, and she fumbled at his slacks, which he hadn’t bothered to belt.
God, she is dynamite, this sleepy-eyed Southern honey! The back of his mind cycled back to that other time when they had been together in this room, when he had wanted her because she was clean and decent and because he loved her more than anybody else in this world. Now it was her turn to take the lead.
She managed to unbutton the tab of the pants to get them unzipped, but was stymied by his body weight when she tried to move them off him.
“Let me take care of that,” he muttered, rising and turning enough to slide his slacks and briefs off at once.
She fumbled with her own jeans but was too disoriented to figure out how to unfasten them. Jase pushed aside her hands and opened her jeans himself, then pushed them down to her knees.
She was on him like a fury. Her eyes were closed, her color was high, and her moist, searching mouth was half-open. God, she was hungry! He rolled her beneath him, entering hard and fast. She thrashed and moved her head back and forth, arching up against him for deeper penetration.
This was going to be quick. He was already up to warp speed.
Her fingernails clawed his back, and his brain cut out on him. This was it!
She hit first, cutting loose with a long, quivery cry as she bucked up against him.
He arched back in response and groaned as his tension reached its zenith, then released him into shudders of unbearable ecstasy.
They lay in the narrow bed afterward, cuddling and talking. “I want us to sleep here tonight,” Jase said, holding her against him. “In my house, in my bed. This is where it all began.”
*
The next morning Laurel awoke to the world of reality. With Jase’s luggage in the back of the Escort, they returned to Kinkaid House. After dropping his suitcase and garment bag off in the bedroom across the hall, they showered—separately—changed clothes, and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of what Laurel now considered to be her specialty, French toast.
She added a little nutmeg to the recipe to spice it up, then congratulated herself on her cleverness. There was nothing to this cooking business. People made too big a fuss about something that was basically pretty simple.
The first thing on her agenda for the day was a trip to the Waco airport for Jase to pick up his car. Before they left, she placed a carefully packed Meissen clock in the Escort’s backseat.