Page 539 of Summer Heat
The night was beautiful. The first snow of the year drifted from a leaden sky, only faintly tinged with pink from the town’s lights. He held up his face to the fat, twirling flakes and rejoiced in the fact that whatever else had gone wrong in his life, at least he was home again. Home where he belonged, where it snowed. He’d missed the hell out of winter in Houston. He’d been longing to come home for three years before his father’s death, but as soon as the telegram came, he’d known, instantly, it was time. People had urged him to reconsider, to think about what he was doing, but Lance didn’t go about life like that. He acted on instinct, and he’d rarely been proven wrong.
He ambled for a long time, walking the perimeter of the town. And it was no surprise to him to find himself on Tamara’s walk, looking at her lighted living room window. She probably had not been home long—her car still ticked as it cooled, and there was only a light dusting of snow on the windshield.
He stood on the sidewalk in the dark, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the glow of lamplight against her drawn curtains. Outside, the snow fell in utter stillness save for the lonely sound of a train whistle crying out in the night.
Inside, he imagined she had brewed a cup of the lemony tea she’d given him once, and sat over her books. Maybe there were waltzes on the CD player. Cody would be asleep in his bed, tucked in and smelling of dampness from his b
ath. Or maybe she didn’t have time to give him a bath on Friday nights. Maybe it was too late when she got home.
In the vague area of his chest was an ache he couldn’t name. The visions of her warm house made him feel things he didn’t know he’d ever felt—at least not since he was a child. His mother had made a warm, safe place for her children, as much as she’d been able to, anyway. His father had not always been the easiest man to please.
But then, his father hadn’t been around much. He came home and raised hell, and went right back out again, and his mother smoothed things as well as she was able, making calm the stormy waters.
Part of him was appalled that he was standing out here in front of Tamara’s house like a lovesick teenager. It wasn’t his style. But then, not much about this whole thing had been his style, had it?
Snow dusted his hair, and his jacket, and still he did not move. Cold began to seep into his thighs through his jeans, and his ears and nose hurt. And he only stood there, staring at Tamara’s neat, warm house.
Was he just grieving, was that what this weird loneliness was about? Was he realizing nothing lasted forever, that sooner or later it came down to the ties you made in your life? It was certainly one of the reasons he’d come back to Red Creek. He’d grown tired of being the alien, had wanted to come back to his own place, to the place where he knew things, knew the sky and the trees and the bugs and the smells.
Maybe his wish for Tamara was just another part of that. She was a hometown girl, the kind of girl a wild boy didn’t notice, but got to wanting as he got older and realized he wasn’t going to be young forever.
Abruptly, her porch light went off. It spurred Lance to action. He found himself moving up the walk, and almost rang the bell before he remembered Cody was sleeping, and knocked instead. There was an urgency in the sound of his hand against her screen door, and he stepped back, appalled. What was he doing?
Then she opened the door, and he knew. Her face was bare of makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore only a flannel shirt and jeans and socks. Ordinary things. And just looking at her took his breath away. It took him long moments to gather enough air to speak. Tamara simply looked at him with wariness and hunger in her big green eyes, a wistfulness on her mouth.
At last he found his voice, though it was a roughened version. “Can I come in?”
* * *
Tamara stared at him with a mingling of terror and joy. His hair was damp with melted snow, and in his eyelashes, some of the thick flakes had stuck, giving his eyes a starry look. There was no smile on his mouth, no gleam in his eye. She might have been able to resist that.
Instead, he wore tonight the same expression that had torn away her defenses the night of his father’s funeral. Lost. Lonely. Adrift. In desperate need of comfort and unable to ask it.
She pushed open the screen door and let him in.
He didn’t even close the door—just flowed to her and gathered her close, so very close, and kissed her. His mouth was cold and his nose nudged her cheek with an icy touch and his down jacket still held the winter night, but it didn’t matter. His kiss was hot, and his arms were enveloping and she sensed he would inhale her like oxygen if he could.
No one had ever wanted her in her whole life the way Lance wanted her right then. And she’d never wanted so much to give anyone like she wanted to give him herself.
Gently she moved away from him long enough to close the door. When she threw the dead bolt, he made a small, pained sound, and reached for her again. And again, she felt a sense of being wrapped, enfolded, truly embraced as he pulled her against his big, long body. He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, Tamara, I want you,” he whispered. “So much. Don’t send me away again. Let me love you.”
She lifted her head and put her hands on his cold face, and pulled his head down to kiss him. “I won’t,” she promised. “I couldn’t.”
With a rough groan, he kissed her. And it was an almost violent kiss—bruising teeth and fierce thrusts and a drawing, hungriness that set her blood aflame. She tilted her head to meet him with the same unfettered passion, pushing his coat from his shoulders. He let her tug it off his arms and let it fall to the floor without breaking the kiss. He touched her body, his hands roaming her back and her buttocks and her thighs and her waist, up to her head and down again, as if he would touch her everywhere simultaneously if he could.
Tamara let everything go. Everything. For this one night, she was free of past or future, of hopes or wishes or dreams. There was only Lance, so beautiful and wounded and lost, needing her like she had never been needed, nor expected she ever would be again. Here was a man who asked nothing but her pleasure, who promised nothing but a full enjoyment of her passion.
And passion she had. Oh, yes. It rushed through her limbs and into her throat and mouth. It swelled in her breasts and between her legs. It made her hands tingle with the need to feel his supple skin.
She let her inhibitions fall away. Let herself feel him, all of him. His muscular back and the broad shoulders and his upper arms, so thick with his work. She kissed his clean-shaven, hard-cut chin and his neck that smelled of pine and snow and night, and the light furring of hair on his chest.
With a sudden, swift move, he picked her up. “I want you in a bed, where it’s warm and comfortable. Tell me where.”
Tamara pointed. “I can walk.”
“Not tonight,” he said, and carried her through the living room and down the hall to her room. It was dark. He put her on the bed, and Tamara felt a strange, pulsing anticipation as he reached for the small bedside lamp.
She had no time to protest. He tumbled her backward and straddled her thighs. The aggressive gesture thrilled her, and her breath caught high in her throat as she reached for him.
