A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [50]
“We should go. Someone may not want us here.”
“Soon. Not now.”
I found myself chuckling. “Everything is ‘soon-not-now’ with you.”
She smiled at me. “Now is everything. There is nothing else.”
“What’s your name?”
“Why?”
“I want to know.”
“Does it change how you feel?”
I shook my head. I didn’t care if her name was Pippy Longstocking. I just wanted something I could call her.
“Then why wonder?”
“I want to know. I want something to call you.”
“Call me yours.”
I laughed. “That’d make for interesting looks in public, don’t you think?”
She moved into a graceful ball and lowered her head into it. Like a swan, tucked beneath its wing, she held the pose a moment before she spiraled to her feet again, and continued her writhing hypnosis. Her hands lowered and stroked my chest, then my abdomen, then lower. I shuddered at her touch.
“We should go home,” I said, my jaw bordering on slack. Every muscle turned jelly-soft. “You’re driving me crazy.”
She laughed, and the sound was godly. “Patience. First the dance. Then you can take me home.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I want you to.”
“You do?”
She nodded again. “I want to be with you. Don’t you know? I want to share forever with you. And we will. Soon.”
I tried to speak, to say something, but nothing happened. I could only watch her grind and pulse, my mind saw only sexual images of her and the indescribably delicious things she would do to me again.
Chapter 3
She held me entranced for hours. I sat on the sand and watched her until I was certain it was near dawn.
She finally smiled at me. “Do you live far from here?”
I was surprised. I expected her to know where I lived, just as I believed her when she said she knew my name.
“No,” I said. “Nothing in town is far from the ocean.”
She looked relieved. “We should go now. Before the sun—”
“Comes up, I know,” I finished for her. “Don’t you like sunshine?”
“I like the water more.”
She took my offered hand and I led her across the beach, over the dunes, up the gradual slope toward the trees.
“What’s this?” She tugged the bookstore bag draped on my wrist.
“I bought a book while I was waiting for the food.”
She peered into the bag. “Ooh, lighthouses. Are you as fascinated by them as you are by the ocean?”
My head tipped as I considered. “No, but they’re interesting.”
“This book is very old,” she said.
“It’s a used book store. I thought some of the stories would be interesting. There was one in particular, about a lighthouse keeper’s daughter that vanished. I thought it might be fun to read that one.”
She smiled and rubbed her hand on my thigh. It was very hard to concentrate. Very hard.
The short trip to my tiny bungalow was normal. There was no sexual play between us, no groping or fondling. But I don’t know if I’ve ever been more aroused.
Her hand on my thigh was cold through my jeans at first, but warmed fast with contact. She didn’t rub me or move in any way, but something went from her to me through the fabric and settled directly on my libido. She stared into the distance while we wound up the narrow streets of the tiny fishing village.
My Cape Cod bungalow sits on a street atop the first hill after the ocean. It’s tiny, windswept, aged by salt mists and sea storms, but I love it.
The neighborhood is quiet and still. From the porch we heard the distant surf, steady and pulsing. She smiled at the house and smoothed her hair back over her head. She took my outstretched hand, and I unlocked the front door and pushed it open, reached in to turn on the weak table lamps, and let her in. For a moment, I thought she’d ask me to carry her over the threshold. I would have.
Instead she looked around at the wooden plank floors, plaster walls