After the ceremony Sam drove Beth to her grandpa and grandma Gentry's, where she would spend the remainder of the weekend, which was all the honeymoon Tommy Lee and Rachel were to have at present. It was the busiest season of the year in the retail business and impossible for Rachel to leave before Christmas. But as soon as the holiday rush ended, the Gentrys and their daughter were planning a family cruise together. Rachel didn't mind putting off the trip. There was really only one place she wanted to be on her wedding night…
The Cadillac pulled to a stop near the venerable 150-year-old magnolia tree in
Tommy Lee's front yard. The key 453 was switched off, and the chain swung silently from the ignition. Tommy Lee slipped his arm around Rachel's shoulders and drew her against his hip.
'Mrs. Gentry… we're home.'
'Yes… at last.'
He kissed her ear, then pressed his lips warmly against it while they both gazed at the house for a minute.
'It was a long road, getting here,' he said quietly, the words stirring the hair at her temple.
'But we made it.'
'Yes, we made it. Would you care to go inside and see what's in store for you for the rest of your life?'
She turned to brush a thistledown kiss on his lips. 'I thought you'd never ask.'
They smiled-brown eyes into brown eyes-with a look that spoke of unending love. Then Tommy Lee got out of the car and waited while she slipped under the steering wheel and joined him. With their arms around each other they strolled slowly across the gravel drive and up the wooden ramp to the twin doors leading to the home they'd planned when they were
too young to realize all it would entail to build and take possession of it.
He pulled open one shining black door, swung her up into his arms, and said against her lips, 'This time we do everything according to the book- right?'
'Right,' she agreed, looping her arms around his neck.
Inside, he did an about-face, and Rachel kicked the door shut with a delicate mauve high heel. He mounted the stairs with her in his arms, all the way to the top level of the house, where he finally halted in the middle of a blue bedroom with a fireplace, a balcony, and a view of the lake.
Setting her on her feet, he reached immediately for the single button at the waist of her mauve wool suit jacket. 'Once upon a time,' he began, 'there was a little girl named Rachel who lived next door to a boy named Tommy Lee. Right from the beginning he had eyes for her-from the day they first sat together in their birthday suits in a little plastic swimming pool.'
'In their birthday suits? Tsk, tsk, tsk.' Rachel played along as he turned her around and took the jacket from her shoulders, then
tossed it onto a chair before swinging her 455 to face him again, pulling the waist of an ivory silk blouse out of her skirt.
'Uh-huh. That's when it all started, I believe. Then, when they were about seven, eight years old, he had second thoughts-you see, the girl of his dreams lost all of her front teeth. Oh, she was quite a sight then! Nothing at all like the little doll he'd always known.' The wrinkled tails of her blouse hung free, and he raised his hands to the top button and worked downward at a leisurely pace that matched his story.
'But things got even worse. She got freckles, and a shape like a bean pole, and he didn't know what in the world she was going to turn into. But along about this time he started thinking that even though she wasn't much to look at, she wasn't so bad to have around. After all, she was just like one of the boys-liked to climb trees, punch, wrestle, build tree forts. Yup, he decided, this tomboy was for him!'
Rachel's face was bright with suppressed laughter while her husband grinned into her eyes, lazily reached for one ivory cuff, and
unbuttoned it without ever dropping his eyes.
'But you'll never guess what happened,' Tommy Lee went on, while she docilely offered him the other cuff, her amused eyes locked with his. 'One day, out of the clear blue sky, he looked at her and did a double take. Lord a'mighty'-the blouse flew toward the chair, missed, and slithered to the floor-'she'd grown up.'
Rachel was growing warm and tingly at his leisurely seduction, but he took his own sweet time with the story. 'Her tousled hair was all combed neatly and pulled into this cute little corkscrew of a ponytail…' He drew her hair back from her temples and held it tightly somewhere behind her head. 'And the freckles seemed to dissolve into peaches and cream'-he dropped her hair, brushed a knuckle over her cheek-'and she started wearing lipstick'-he touched her lips-'and he began to be fascinated by it, and by her mouth. Until one day he decided to kiss her, just to see what it'd feel like.' He leaned forward lazily and brushed his lips to hers, breathing warmly against her mouth after the kiss ended. 'It felt absolutely wonderful. He
decided he wanted more of that.' And 457 Tommy Lee took more, slipping his tongue into Rachel's mouth with a sinuous invitation she immediately answered. Her heart beat crazily, just as it had that first time. But all too soon he drew back and the story continued.
'It was about that time that she started getting curves.' His hands clasped her shoulders, kneading them gently while she went loose and malleable and let his motions rock her on her feet. 'A waist'-his hand slid down over her arms and clasped her waist-'and hips…' His hands dropped lower. 'And pretty soon she gave up blue denims for skirts and sweaters, and that's when he realized she not only had a waist and hips, but breasts, too.'
His hands rode up her silky slip to cup both lace-bound breasts, thrusting them sharply upward while finding their points with his thumbs, drawing circles that sent rippling sensations through Rachel's limbs. When her nipples were hard and erect, he drew back only far enough to bestow that lazy grin on her. 'And the first time he touched them he knew it wasn't going to end there.'
He released her breasts and freed the button
at her waist. 'They learned a lot together, these two.' The zipper snicked open and the skirt fell to the floor.
As Rachel stepped out of it, she reached for his suit jacket and forced it back over his shoulders. 'It must have been scary,' she said, 'all those firsts.' His jacket joined hers on the chair and she reached for the knot of his tie.
'Yes, it was. But by this time they realized they'd fallen in love, and there was no way they could stop themselves.'
His tie slipped free and she went to work on his shirt buttons. 'And…?was she prompted.
'And so one day he got brave and undressed her in the back seat of his Chevy.' Rachel's slip slid up her body, covered her face, and disappeared over her head as she raised her willing arms in the air.
Standing before him, half undressed, her heart doing a wild dance in her breast, she asked innocently, 'And did she undress him?'
'No, she was too scared.'
Rachel raised sultry eyes to his, letting her fingertips flutter over his shirtfront.
'Dumb girl… there's nothing to it,' she
murmured against his lips, before removing his 459 glasses, setting them carefully aside, then turning her attention to his shirt, which she skillfully slipped off to caress his naked back.
She felt his hands at the catch of her bra. 'Mmm, I see… nothing to it.' And a moment later it, too, was gone.
Their warm skin touched, her breasts flattened against the silvered hair on his chest, and suddenly the game fell away.
'Oh, Rachel… remember how it was?' he uttered against her lips.
'Yes,' she breathed. 'Just like now… we couldn't hold back… and then we couldn't get enough.'
'And I'll never get enough of you… never,' he vowed, covering her face with kisses, then stepping back, the better to see her eyes while clasping her head in his wide hands. He drew her up on tiptoe, placed one hard kiss on her mouth, then deftly slipped the last of her clothing down her legs, stood, and reached for his belt. But she brushed his hands aside and took over the welcome task, divesting him of trousers, briefs,
stockings, and shoes, dropping to one knee before him, then pausing on her way back up to kiss his hard thigh, his staff of masculinity, his stomach, his chest, the soft hollow of his throat. Joining her fingers behind his neck, she kissed his mouth last, lingering there longest while gently rolling from side to side, catching him high
