Beneath Southern Skies Read online

  “So was Miss Merlene, but she had central air,” Tressie came back. “And I don’t care how small this town is, it should not take an hour and a half to deliver a pizza. God, I can’t wait to get back to New York. The crime rate there is horrendous, the smog and pollution are awful, and the people aren’t the nicest you’ll ever meet. But at least you can get a decent latte.” She slipped out of her chair at the other end of the rectangular table and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned a few seconds later with two bottles of cold water and tossed him one. Hers was already half-empty by the time she sat back down. “How in the world have you survived here for so long?”

  “Easy,” Nate said and drank deeply. “In the six months that I’ve been here, I’ve actually only been here for about a third of that time. And when I am here, I spend most of my time in my darkroom.”

  “Ma’Dear told me that you lived in Seattle.”

  “When I’m not on assignment, I do. But when my mother got sick, I started coming here more often to be with her. After she died, the eminent domain situation came up and I couldn’t see myself just selling off her house and turning my back on the town. She probably would’ve haunted me for the rest of my life if I had.”

  Tressie’s smile was lightning quick and teasing. “You always were a mama’s boy.”

  “To the core and I refuse to be ashamed of it.” He stood and walked the length of the table, coming to stand directly behind her chair. “I’ll sell the house when the time is right. Maybe. What are you working on?”

  “I’m almost done compiling a chronological history of Mercy, Georgia,” she said as her fingers flew over the keyboard. “We know that the town was founded by freed slaves right after emancipation and that there was a white benefactor who sponsored the settlement. But I’ve only been able to go so far back before I start hitting dead ends. The original town charter mysteriously disappeared years and years ago, and no one seems to know the identity of the benefactor. Not that it matters much at this point, I guess, but still. It would be nice to know what the terms of the original charter were, wouldn’t it?” She threw up her hands in defeat and let them fall noisily to her lap. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”

  “I can imagine.” From where he was standing, he had a perfect view down the front of her sundress and he didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about enjoying it. Incredibly frustrated—hell, yes—but guilty? No. He sucked in a deep breath and forced himself to look away. “You’ve been at it for too long,” he decided suddenly. “Let’s go out and get some fresh air, find something to eat. I’m half-starved.” And ready to pounce, he thought as a smile lit up her face and shot a healthy dose of lust straight to his groin.

  “Okay, but aren’t you worried about people seeing the two of us together and jumping to conclusions?” Tressie teased. “You know how people here like to gossip.” She fluffed out her hair as she stood, then straightened her sundress, dimpling up at him innocently the whole time.

  If it hadn’t been for the provocative neckline of her dress, her glossy red lips and the knowing gleam in her eyes, he thought as she flitted past him in search of her purse, she might’ve pulled the look off. And he might’ve saved himself from conceding a measure of personal defeat when he said matter-of-factly, “I’m more worried about what I might do to you if we stay cooped up in this house together for too much longer.”

  “Oh, well, then I guess we’d better get going.” She slung her purse strap over her shoulder and gave him a look that clearly said, Unless you’ve changed your mind and you want to...

  “Go,” Nate barked with more force than he’d intended. Ushering her through the living room toward the door, he swung it open and stepped back so she could take the lead. “After you.”

  Okay, so maybe they were both nutty and unstable.

  Two hours later, Nate reluctantly admitted to himself that there was no maybe about it. She was definitely unstable and so the hell was he. At least that’s what he would tell the police when they came to arrest the two of them for trespassing on private property.

  At after eleven o’clock on a weeknight, Moira Tobias had probably been asleep for hours, but that didn’t mean that the household staff had also retired for the night. Any one of them could look out a window or wander outside for a breath of fresh air and spot them. There was also the possibility that Moira had installed a security system that no one knew about, in which case they had either already tripped it or were about to any second now. But neither scenario was compelling enough to stop him from hauling Tressie over the fence and racing her across the freshly mowed grass.

  The tiny creek that was nestled in a hidden cove on Moira’s property was far enough away from the main house that, once they found it, the chances of their being discovered were minimal. But as still and quiet as the night was, the chances of Tressie’s cheerful, high-pitched voice carrying significantly increased the risk.

  It was bad enough that she had come up with the bright idea to scale the privacy fence surrounding the rear perimeter of Moira’s property and go for a midnight swim in the woman’s creek, and even worse that he had allowed himself to be talked into going along with her harebrained plan. The last thing they needed was to be caught red-handed, wearing matching silly expressions and muttering lame excuses. Moira would probably have a heart attack, thinking that her home was about to be invaded by maniacs, and the rest of the town, once word got out, would have a field day with the gossip.

  Tressie didn’t seem concerned, though, and, watching her, Nate couldn’t really say that he was, either. This wouldn’t be the first time that he had sneaked onto Moira’s property and gotten caught, so what the hell. Kicking off his leather sandals, he chose a spot in the grass near the creek bank, well away from the in-ground landscape lighting, and sat down to wait Tressie out.

  She dipped her toes in first, testing the water temperature. Finding it cool, she gathered her sundress in her hands and waded into shallow water. When she was done squealing with delight because the water was chillier than she’d thought it would be, she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

  “You coming in?” she called out, moving slowly toward the center of the creek where the water was deeper. Slowly, it rose to her thighs, and so did her dress.

  “You go in much farther and that dress is going to be in trouble,” he said, secretly wishing that she would take pity on him and take it off. Being so close to her this past week and having to look but not touch had been hell on him. The least she could do for a dying man was put him out of his misery.

  “So will my panties,” she quipped. “But then again, they’ve been wet pretty much since I saw you again, so it really doesn’t matter. Does it?”

  Or not, he thought as he sucked in a sharp breath. Just like that, he was hard as a rock. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “Why? Because you don’t want to hear it?”

  “No,” he said, rolling up from the grass and pulling his T-shirt over his head as he stood. “Because it makes me hard.” To prove his point, he unsnapped his jeans and stepped out of both the constricting denim and his underwear at the same time. Suddenly free, his penis tightened, expanded and then bobbed in the night air impatiently.

  As hot as he suddenly was, Nate barely felt the chilly water when he waded into the creek. He kept his eyes on hers and watched them grow wider and wider with every step that he took in her direction. “I told myself that we wouldn’t do this,” he said, walking slowly. “I can think of a million reasons why we shouldn’t.”

  “We can’t stand each other,” Tressie put in helpfully, and he smiled.

  “There’s that. Plus, you’re not my type.” He thought about it for a second, visualized himself sliding inside her and swallowed the lump in his throat. He was and always had been a sexual man, and he’d been with his share of women in his adult years. But right now he couldn’t thin
k of a woman in his past, present or future that he’d ever wanted more than he wanted Tressie. What the hell was she doing to him? “You shouldn’t be, anyway.”

  “But?”

  “But I still want you.” Close enough to reach out and touch her, he searched her eyes. “What is this? What are we doing?”

  Now it was Tressie’s turn to smile. “Calling a truce.” She took a moment to slip her dress over her head and toss it up on the creek bank. The moment her heavy breasts bounced free, her nipples puckered and his mouth watered.

  “Jesus, your breasts are beautiful.” Unable to stop himself, he reached out and smoothed the pad of his thumb across a swollen nipple. She shuddered and it was all he could do to keep from scooping her up by her round, juicy ass cheeks and sitting her down on him. Soon, he promised himself. Soon.

  As if she were reading his mind, Tressie smiled a secret smile as she closed the distance between them, stood on the tip of her toes and flicked her tongue across his nipple. She moaned when it hardened instantly and moved in to enjoy the other one, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “No, sugar,” he whispered, “it’s my turn now.”

  * * *

  What happened next almost blew Tressie’s mind.

  She forgot to breathe when Nate grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into him.

  She flattened her hands against his chest to steady herself as her head rocked back and a long, kittenish meow worked its way up her throat and out her mouth.

  Her next breath was sucked into Nate’s mouth, along with her tongue, and from that moment on she was lost. The kiss was wild and urgent, wet because their mouths were wide-open and fused together hungrily, the most erotic moment that Tressie had ever experienced. She didn’t think it was possible for her nipples to get any harder, but they did. She didn’t think it was possible for her inner walls to get any slicker with honey, but they did. She was practically dripping by the time he fisted a hand in her hair and broke the kiss.

  A sharp cry shot out of her mouth when he tugged on her hair and moved her head even farther back, exposing her neck. Like a vampire, his mouth fastened onto the skin there and feasted. His lips glided, his teeth nipped and his tongue stroked, and she heard herself making noises of delight that she had never heard before. Loud, unintelligible sounds that she didn’t know she was capable of making.

  “Shhh,” Nate whispered in her ear. Then his hands began gliding over her skin and his mouth got busy again, and the warning slipped right out of her head. She tried to touch him the way he was touching her, but she was almost limp with excitement. The best she could do was brace herself and hope the water didn’t carry her off.

  He palmed her butt and squeezed, separated her buttocks and kneaded expertly, then slipped a finger inside her from behind and destroyed her. “Oh, God,” she choked out just before an orgasm rolled through her body from head to toe and buckled her knees. Her inner walls spasmed, craving something hard and solid to grip, and her honey flowed hot and thick. She reached between them and wrapped a hand around his length, squeezing gently and sighing wistfully when his hips surged forward and a low growl lit the air.

  Swearing viciously, Nate banded an arm around Tressie’s waist and lifted her out of the water. Her breasts bounced and swayed in the air in front of his face for all of two seconds before his mouth captured a nipple and began sucking it greedily. He was still sucking when he laid her on her back in the grass and braced himself over her. His mouth roamed from one breast to the other, licking and nipping Tressie into a frenzy. This time, the sensations were so intense that she couldn’t have made a sound if her life depended on it. Her mouth was frozen into a delighted O of pleasure as his tongue drew patterns on her skin. The fingers on one hand lost themselves in his mane of silky hair, while her other hand cupped her breasts and fed them to him eagerly.

  “I don’t have anything with me,” Nate tore his mouth away from her breast long enough to hiss. His expression was mixture of regret and tenuously banked passion. “Dammit.”

  Dammit was right. But Tressie wasn’t quite ready to put out the fire that had started between them just yet. Once again, her hand found his jutting erection and squeezed, coaxing a strangled moan from his throat.

  “Tressie...”

  “Lie down,” she told him and helped him do just that with a gentle push to his chest. When he was right where she wanted him, lying back in the grass with his hair fanned out around his face and shoulders, she slanted her body across his and tried, very nearly with success, to swallow his penis whole. He was long and thick, and she was something of a neophyte, but what she lacked in skill she more than made up for in intensity.

  A shocked, hoarse, feral cry shot out of his mouth and, encouraged, Tressie’s head began moving up and down his length. His hips rotated in time to her ministrations, slowly at first, and then picking up speed. Soon he was pumping into her mouth wantonly, moaning erratically and threading his fingers through her hair. The sounds he made urged Tressie on, until she was moaning herself, on the verge of another bone-melting orgasm.

  As if he was reading her mind, Nate slipped a hand between her thighs and homed in on her nub. The second he pressed the pad of his finger against the slick, rigid bud, Tressie’s body jerked as if she’d been hit with a live wire. Her mouth popped off

  Nate’s straining flesh and she threw her head back to sing a long, shaky, a cappella note to the sky. Her impending orgasm sent electric vibrations through her body, stealing her breath and lulling her into a sense of euphoria. She was so caught up in the feelings overtaking her that she didn’t physically register Nate’s intentions until she felt his warm hands palming her butt and she felt herself being lifted into the air. A few seconds later, he was settling her on top of him so that she could take his length deeper into her mouth and he could introduce his mouth to her most intimate place.

  “Oh, God,” Tressie panted. Was she coming again? It wasn’t possible, was it? Nate’s tongue uncurled between her nether lips, and the answer to her questions keened out of her mouth in one long wail. “Yessssss.”

  * * *

  She opened up for his tongue like a flower, and his eyes slid closed on a shuddering breath. Her honey was sweet to the taste, like a Georgia peach, and just as juicy. Addictive, he thought as he gripped her ass and tongue-kissed her most sensitive spot mercilessly. He lapped at it, sucked it out of its hiding place and flicked the tip of his tongue back and forth, around and around, until she was riding his mouth with urgent thrusts. When he sensed that she was about to come again, he withdrew from her hot button and let his tongue dance up and down the length of her slick divide.

  Her mouth was still latched on to him, matching his rhythm stroke for stroke, and pushing him closer and closer to the edge. He had held back for as long as he could, but with those soft, silky lips sliding up and down his shaft, rhythmically tightening on the head and sucking his soul out of him with lightning speed, he was fighting a losing battle.

  His tongue sought out her button just as her thighs starting shaking and her breathless pants became high-pitched moans. His grip on her ass tightened when she tried to escape his lapping tongue, and his strokes, long and deep, quickened until he swore he could feel the back of her throat. He released his hold on her just long enough to slip a trembling hand between them and take control of his pulsing penis, snatching it from the tight suction of her lips mere seconds before he came like a geyser. Then he gripped her again and buried his face in her slippery folds while she rode out a seemingly endless spasm.

  Neither of them moved for several seconds, and then Tressie slid off him and stretched out in the grass next to him. He would’ve been content to lie there for a little while longer, at least until he caught his breath, but it wasn’t to be.

  “Last one in the creek is a rotten egg,” Tressie said, jumping to her feet and taking off down
the creek bank toward the water.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” One eye opened just in time to see Tressie hit the water with a loud splash and disappear underneath its surface. She resurfaced on the far side of the creek and slicked her dripping hair back from her face, smiling from ear to ear. He stared at her for several seconds and then released the breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  It’s just a summer fling, he told himself as he got to his feet and strolled toward the water. A mutually satisfying summer fling.

  So why was he reaching for her as soon as she was close enough to touch, craving yet another taste of her even though her taste was still on his tongue?

  “Come here, sugar,” he said, though the command was unnecessary because she had already waded into the circle of his arms. “Put your tongue in my mouth.” She did and he began to suck on it.

  Then it all came to a screeching halt.

  “Who’s out there?” a voice called out.

  Tressie reared back, looking around wildly. “Uh-oh,” she croaked and took off running.

  Chapter 5

  Tressie was in the lead, stomping through the water loudly and splashing it in every direction as she scrambled for the creek bank. She heard Nate behind her and felt his hands at her waist, urging her out of the water.

  “Where’s my dress?” she asked as she wrestled with the dress in question, trying to wriggle it up and over hips. Instead of sliding on smoothly, it clung to her wet skin and irritated the hell out of her. The fact that she’d slung her purse around her neck first and now it was dangling in front of her and getting in the way wasn’t helping. Cursing under her breath, she twirled the thing around her neck to her back like a hula hoop.

  “You’re putting it on,” Nate hissed, yanking his shorts on. He stuffed his underwear in one pocket and their flashlight in another, and he snatched her panties up from the grass. “Here,” he said, tossing the lacy pink bundle at her. She caught it on the fly and then snatched up her sandals. Shoes in hand and T-shirt half on and half off, he checked the perimeter of the creek and then motioned silently for her to head for the fence.