Amanda's Blue Marine (29 page)

Mandy watched him covertly, her attention riveted as she lay studying him, tracing every shadow and indentation on his flesh with her eyes. She had never seen him so closely at such length, and she ran her gaze avidly over the smooth expanse of his skin, the working muscles of his back, the savage scar which curved into his hip and under the towel loosely knotted at his waist. She especially liked the flat, indented muscles which ran down his abdomen on either side and slipped easily into his groin, just visible at the top of the towel and below his waist. They were as prominent on him as they were on the classical statues she admired, and she found herself wishing that the towel would slip to the floor and give her a better view. She didn’t speak because she didn’t want to disturb her contemplation of his secrets, but he turned suddenly and saw that she was looking at him.

From her entranced expression he knew that she had been watching him for a while. Her eyes were heavy lidded and sultry, her lips were parted. Her face was flushed and dewy and he could see a pulse beating in her throat.

Kelly crossed the distance between them in two long strides. Mandy watched as he came closer and she unconsciously yearned toward him, her hands pulling the linens away from her body.

Kelly’s eyes were fixed on hers and it seemed to take forever for him to get to her. She saw his breathing escalate as he loomed over her and she waited for his touch. It was the most powerful presexual experience of her life.

She would have clawed anyone who tried to stop him.

He tore off the blanket as he embraced her and lifted her bodily from the bed. Her exposed skin, superheated from the cocoon of the sheets, blazed against his chilled torso as he picked her up in one movement. He gasped aloud from the shock of the contact. She wound herself around him and they fell together to the mattress. He supported himself with his arms and looked down into her face.

He didn’t ask questions. He knew what she wanted. He pulled off her remaining clothes rapidly and lifted her against him. He kissed her luxuriously, stroking her back and her limbs until she was clinging to him so tightly her fingers ached. He entered her fiercely as she wound her legs around him and closed her eyes, digging her heels into the back of his legs. She sank her fingers into his hair and arched her back reflexively, helpless before the tide of pleasure that encompassed them when she joined with him. He read her mood and didn’t bother with niceties; she was rapacious and he met her move for move. The rain pounded on the roof, blending with their sounds of pleasure as he pushed her toward a swift conclusion. It was short and explosive and left them both collapsed on the pillows, panting.

Mandy said nothing; she merely lay against him with her head on his shoulder. Kelly thought she had fallen asleep until she turned to wrap herself around him more closely, rubbing her nose on his bare bicep and clutching him, her mouth opening against his skin.

“And I waited so long for this to happen and I thought it never would. I had dates and boyfriends and lovers for fourteen years and I finally decided to settle for Tom because I thought there was nothing else for me. I just wasn’t going to find the one, the only, and I might as well make everybody else happy if I couldn’t make me happy. And then you….” she stopped.

“What?” he said gently.

“You made me see what I’d been missing, and I wasn’t going to settle for less, even if it meant upsetting the apple cart for everybody.”

“So you did something selfish in hooking up with me?”

“Yes.”

“Well its about damn time, is what I say. You’ve been living for your parents and your brother and Tom and everybody else for years. Live for me now, will you please? Live for us.”

Amanda planned to do just that.

* * * * *

Mandy lay curled against Kelly’s side, her head on his shoulder, one arm raised with her hand flat against his waist. She was fast asleep, her lips closed, her hair spread out on his chest like a scarlet flag. He looked down, studying the swell of her hips, watching the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed.

He loved her skin. It was smooth and creamy and, for a redhead, nearly flawless. He would never say so, paying compliments always made him feel inadequate, as if he could never really communicate what he felt. But her lightly speckled ivory skin reminded him of the eggnog served at Christmas, the tiny freckles scattered across the creamy surface like the nutmeg or cinnamon floating on the top of the drink. That comparison sounded farcical and he kept it to himself. He kept a lot of what he wanted to say to himself. She was so articulate that she often made him feel like a tongue tied hillbilly, but he was learning. She was patient, and he would grow bolder and say more when her acceptance increased his confidence.

He loved her so much that he didn’t know what he would do if he lost her.

That’s not going to happen, he told himself. She had turned her back on all of her plans with Henderson in order to be with him, why would she leave him now?

But the little leprechaun in his head whispered that he wasn’t this lucky, to have the perfect woman fall for him as if he were her heart’s desire and then stay with him in spite of everything. What did she see in him anyway? Her privileged past excluded him and her job baffled him, especially when he overheard her conversations about estoppel and plenary motions and respondeat superior. She was beautiful and smart and wealthy and when the sex tsunami passed she would discover what a dolt he was and head for the nearest exit.

The voice of reason reasserted itself as he turned slightly and she snuggled against him, coming half awake and kissing his chest before sliding back into sleep. Sometimes in life a windfall came your way, and Amanda was his. You didn’t question it, you just rolled with it. He had to believe that. He had certainly been shorted enough in other areas, was it so impossible that fate had dealt him a winning hand at last?

He silenced the sheelagh, the sniggering bad luck fairy who sat on his shoulder and talked trash in his dreams, and closed his eyes.

* * * * *

Mandy awoke to the sound of diminishing rain and the knowledge that both of them had to get back to work in a few hours. It was the very early morning and she lifted Kelly’s arm from her waist to slip out of the bed. She went out to the living room, where items of clothing lay scattered about like leaves after a storm. She gathered them up and dressed, feeling grungy in her mother’s castoffs and planning to get home and change before she went to the office.

She didn’t want to leave Kelly. Ever. Not to go to work. Not to go to church. Not to go to the grocery store for food. It was ridiculous but staying holed up with him in this sparsely furnished apartment was the most appealing notion she had considered in a long time.

She had always been able to keep romance in perspective, but maybe that was because she had never had an all consuming relationship like this one. Everything else paled by comparison with it.

She found messages on her phone from her mother and from Karen. She answered them briefly and then picked up her purse to go back to her condo to change. When she turned to leave she saw Kelly standing in the doorway to the bedroom, watching her.

“Don’t go,” he said. “Stay with me.”

“I don’t want to go, but Sam won’t feel sorry for the stalking victim forever. I’ve already missed so much time, I need to get back there and show him I can still cut the mustard. Just sending material through e-mail isn’t the same thing as appearing personally and I want him to remember why he needs to keep me employed.”

She didn’t argue that point. “Are you sure you’re all right for me to leave you? I didn’t exactly let you rest after your illness,” she said, shamefaced.

“Are you kidding? Best medicine I ever had. I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to screw up your job any more than I have already. Go to work. I’ll see you tonight.” He kissed her briefly, pushed her in the direction of the door, then pulled her back to kiss her again.

Amanda drove home to change and then went directly to the makeshift offices where the DA’s business was being conducted. She hadn’t been assigned anything yet so she did grunt work for the other assistants. She pored over files that had been damaged in the fire, supplementing their research by rifling through the half soaked, ash tinged boxes of paperwork saved from the inferno. Whatever hadn’t melted with the computers had to be examined and stored or discarded. No one mentioned that she was responsible for the mess since she had been Cameron’s target, they just plowed through the morass of smoky documents and accepted her assistance gratefully. Still the time dragged on interminably as she waited for the day to end. She tried not to fantasize about what she would be doing at five PM but still found herself staring into space several times, caught in a reverie about the hardness of Kelly’s body or the softness of his mouth. She felt herself go weak in the knees as she thought about the well defined muscles of his lower abdomen, an area which had commanded quite a bit of her attention the previous night while he gasped and moaned and held her head against him. This image caused her to sit down hard on the folding chair in her temporary office and close her eyes.

She had to get a grip. She was behaving almost as wildly as she had in the ballroom the night of Kelly’s award, and that had been an all time low. This knowledge didn’t stop her from fleeing the office as soon as it was decently possible and driving recklessly back to her condo to get ready for Kelly’s arrival. She ordered food delivered and assembled the brown bags on the dining room table. Then she showered and dressed sparely in a skimpy bathrobe and was waiting for him when he came through her door, trying to unbutton his shirt and unbuckle his belt at the same time.

They fell on each other without so much as a greeting and got no further than the Oriental rug in Amanda’s front hall. He ripped off her robe and his pants as she wrestled him into position, climbing on him impatiently and sighing deeply as he drove into her

without preliminary. The only sounds were muted and involuntary until they fell apart in exhaustion. Kelly lay silently next to her, one arm still thrown across her shoulders.

“That was mature, Brendan,” Mandy finally said quietly, as her respiration slowed to a trot. “We should at least have tried to make it to the couch.”

“What’s wrong with the floor?” he asked, pulling one of the wool fibers from the rug out of his hair. “A little scratchy, but serviceable.”

Mandy started to laugh. “I have never behaved like this in my life,” she said. “I used to be so demure and ladylike. This is all your fault. You have turned me into a ravening beast.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he announced, looking toward the dining room and eyeing the bags on the table. “Think you ordered enough food there, Butch? Who’s joining us for dinner? The Philadelphia Eagles?”

“I didn’t know what you would want so I just got everything. I know you must consume something besides Mama’s burgers.”

He got up and then reached down to help her stand, pulling her into his arms as she rose. She slipped away from him to put on her robe and go into the bathroom, and when she returned he had donned his pants again.

“I missed you so much today that I almost went to your temp office and made up an excuse to see you,” he said to her. “I don’t even know what I was going to say but I was on my way when I realized that I would be getting you into trouble if I just showed up and grabbed you.” He went over to investigate the contents of the takeout containers. “Chinese,” he said. Then, “What is this? Greek?”