Part 9 (2/2)
The back yard was full of patio tables and chairs. ”We cleared the neighborhood of lawn furniture and liquor,” Boone confessed, ”so if anyone calls the police-”
Tom Simc.o.x spoke from behind Micah. ”It won't matter, because I'm already here.”
Lucy was busy hugging people. ”I still don't see how you got it all past me.”
”I had to keep grouching at you earlier to keep you away from the kitchen windows,” Sims complained. ”It was a stretch for me, I'll tell you,” he added, provoking laughter from the whole crowd.
She'd never had a birthday party. Johnny always baked her cake, and the restaurant staff sang to her and gave her presents, but then they all went back to work and it became just another day.
”Do you want to play croquet?” eight-year-old Lindsey St. John asked. ”Or can you still play? My dad says you're really, really old now. Almost as old as Mr. Sims.”
”But still not as old as your dad,” Lucy said into the laughter that followed. She hooked an arm around Lindsey's neck. ”Let's play.”
She lost, as she always did, but won at horseshoes. She danced, stood in a circle with other women and drank wine and talked about men, then danced some more. When she jitterbugged with Tom Simc.o.x, they cleared the ”dance floor,” at least until Crockett swung past them with Gert on his arm.
She blew out what seemed like hundreds of candles, cut her cake, and opened more gifts than she'd had if you added all thirty-three of her other birthdays together. She sang karaoke and was booed off the makes.h.i.+ft stage. She laughed all night-the kind of laughter that made her hold her stomach and wipe her eyes, the kind she made into a memory to save for later.
People began to drift away at ten-thirty or so, and by midnight, the back yard was empty. Gert and Sims had hugged Lucy and gone to bed. Boone went in a few minutes later to see if Sims needed anything, leaving Lucy alone in the yard.
She sat at a lacy wrought-iron table that usually lived on the front porch, sipping coffee and playing with the bangles on her arm. They'd been a gift from Eli and Jessie St. John, which Lindsey a.s.sured Lucy she'd be glad to wear if Lucy didn't like them. She had on a musical-sounding charm bracelet too, which had been sent by Andy, the chef at Dolan's, and two of the waitresses who'd gone to work at the same place he had after the fire. A necklace which should have been gaudy but wasn't fit the curves of her neck, its pendant resting just below her collarbone.
”You never wear jewelry except for your earrings,” Landy said when Lucy opened it, ”and everyone needs a little artificial light sometimes.”
Lucy fingered the peridots in her ears. They'd been her mother's, and she never took them out-it was a way of not letting go of Siobhan Dolan.
Boone came into the yard, reaching back inside the sunroom to turn off the outside lights so the only ones remaining were solar ones in the flower beds and a citronella candle that burned on the table where Lucy sat. ”Happy birthday, Lucy.”
”Thank you.” She smiled. ”I'm glad to see you, by the way. It was quiet around here while you were gone.”
He pulled her up and into a loose embrace. ”I missed you,” he said.
She curved her arms around his neck, relis.h.i.+ng his touch. She wanted him to kiss her in the worst way. ”I've been happy at times in my life,” she said. ”Especially before my mother died and then for a long time before Dad got sick, but never more so than tonight.”
”That's good.” His lips hovered over hers. ”So, what do you want to do now?”
”I'm tired,” she murmured, rising-just a little-on her tiptoes so he could reach her mouth more easily. This wasn't a night for playing hard to get. ”It's been a long day.”
”Has it now?” He held her closer with one arm and lifted his other hand to shape her face, his thumb rubbing lightly over her bottom lip. ”I love your mouth.” His face was so close to hers she felt his breath on her cheek.
”Same goes,” she said, and closed the distance.
Growing up in a restaurant kitchen, Lucy was well acquainted with ”sizzle.” However, kissing Boone Brennan in the back yard gave the word a whole new connotation. His hands slipped down her sides as they kissed, doing a little foray over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that had her nipples pebbling up against the fabric of her bra. He held her hips, fitting her to him so she knew she wasn't the only who was being aroused.
His voice was uneven when he spoke against her mouth. ”What would you say,” he said, ”if I invited you upstairs?”
It was as though her entire body was reaching for his. ”I watch lots of old movies.” Her voice hitched as his hands moved over her. ”I'd probably say, 'Your room or mine?'”
”Yours,” he answered immediately, and stepped away to snuff the candle on the table. ”It's closer.”
They were quiet going up, using the front staircase because it didn't have as many creaky spots as the worn treads on the steps from the kitchen. Lucy's room was in the back, with its own miniature sitting room, balcony and bathroom. The suite was a mirror image of Kelly's on the other side of the stairs.
Lucy was glad she'd remembered to make her bed that morning, although that didn't do much to calm her nerves. ”It's been almost an embarra.s.singly long time. I don't know...” Her voice faded away as whatever it was she didn't know lost importance in the overall picture of things.
She was about to get naked with a man. Oh, G.o.d.
But first she was going to go on kissing him for a while. One of her favorite things about Boone Brennan was the way he kissed.
And touched.
And stroked.
And made her feel like she was in one of those movies where the camera lens cruised around the perimeter of the room while sounds of panting and sighs of satisfaction came from its center.
”I love that you wear dresses,” he said as he lifted hers over her head and draped it carefully over a chair.
It was to her credit that she didn't dive under the covers. Even in the late night, her room wasn't that dark. She could see the glint of his eyes, his smile when he gazed at her, the brightness of the bracelets on her arm. She started to remove them, but he stopped her, sliding the metal up and down and kissing the inside of her wrist, lifting the chain from her neck and kissing the hollow at the base of her throat.
”Dresses are cooler,” she said in a humiliatingly wobbly voice, though she didn't know if she'd ever feel cool again. His touch-and he seemed intent on touching everywhere-left heat in its wake. Undulating, liquid heat. When she unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt-at least, she guessed she unb.u.t.toned it, because it was open and sliding off his shoulders-the heat became more intense, the tingle between her legs a steady throb. He freed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s from the silky confines of her bra, and she marveled at the heaviness of them as he kissed and shaped them in his hands and teased the tight buds of her nipples with his teeth.
She wasn't sure how they came to be lying down, but she was glad they were, because it was a definite that her legs wouldn't hold her up any longer.
He was already naked, and when he slipped her panties down her legs, following their progress with his lips and tongue and nipping teeth on the insides of the thighs, she was, too.
It had been so long.
She stroked the long muscles of him, thinking of the beauty there-he was darkly tanned, but it was a careless tan, his left arm a deeper color than his right, his legs having lines that coordinated with the lengths of different shorts and swimming trunks. His skin was soft beneath the roughness of the hair on his chest and legs, and she delighted in the feel of it. Her fingers trailed-ever so lightly-down his belly and into the vee of his legs, finding what they searched for and circling and stroking.
His breath drew in, quick and sharp. ”Careful,” he murmured, though he didn't pull away even a little bit. ”We'd like this to last at least a few minutes.”
He kissed her, his hands slipping down her sides, shaping her hips, laying her on her back and teasing her knees apart so he could reach the throbbing core of her. His fingers found all the creases-behind her knees, between b.u.t.tocks and thighs, inside the nest of curls-and stroked them lightly, causing her skin to shudder in response. When one finger slipped inside and his thumb began a rhythmic little rub near the entrance, she gasped and arched against him.
”Boone?”
”I'm right here.” He moved on top of her. ”Show time?”
She laughed, a gasping little sound, feeling the delicious pressure of his chest against her sensitized b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and welcomed him inside. Nothing had ever felt so good.
But a few minutes later, when he said, ”Oh, h.e.l.l, come with me, Lucy,” and she heard a silvery, s.h.i.+very moan that had to have been her, something felt even better.
Happy birthday. Oh, yes, happy birthday, indeed.
Chapter Ten.
<script>