Jennifer Greene - Man From Tennessee

“I only asked you a question. You don’t have to answer it. But don’t tell me I don’t have the right to ask, Tish.”

She drew up the shorts, buttoned them. But when she tried to slip on the emerald-and-navy top, she winced in discomfort.

“You can wear my shirt.” He lurched up stiffly to a standing position, preparing to get his own clothes.

“No, thank you.” Her head was bent, trying to do the halter straps in a tangle of hair at her neck. Her hands were firmly and suddenly pushed away. He did the straps, smoothed the hair free and then pulled her back against his bare chest. His arms enfolded her in a sensual cage, his lips pressing into her hair.

“Jealousy feels like hell, Tish, and I spoke before thinking. Nothing matters right now; it wasn’t the time to say anything. Smile again for me, bright eyes.”

She smiled, and kissed him. But she heard the “right now.” The trip down the steep slope was quick. The sun was setting in the west, reminding Trisha of how many hours they had stolen. And of how much had suddenly changed-and how much had not. Everything was right when he was holding her close, but Trisha was all too aware that they walked the last steps separately. Without his arms around her she felt oddly cold, unsure, and in some incomprehensible way, despairing.

At nine the dishes were done and the sun was fading. Julia had taken center stage from the moment she walked in a half hour before, oblivious to the odd silence between the two younger Lowerys. The patio at dusk was as cool as anywhere, but the stillness at the end of the day seemed only to intensify the heat wave that nestled in the valley.

“Three fish,” Julia repeated for her audience, who were normally more than captive to her every word. “The one fought so hard I found myself in the water, completely ruining my silk pants. I should have worn those horrible jeanish things… I saw some deer and wild turkeys, did I tell you that, Kern?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have you know I even cooked the fish myself! The kitchen in that mobile home-I swear it’s like a doll’s setup, everything in miniature. You know how long it’s been since I’ve actually tried to cook anything, but Mr. Michaels…” Her monologue trailed finally, an irritable note in her voice as she darted impatient looks at both of them. “Well, then. Since the two of you are being entirely uncommunicative, I shall retire to my room.”

Trisha stood up quickly after Julia. “I’m tired, too. Do you need anything before you go to bed, Julia?”

“I was looking for that antiques magazine this afternoon…”

The women’s talk mollified Julia. For Trisha it was an excuse to leave Kern’s presence. Once upstairs she closed and locked the door to the bath and turned the taps on full. The tension between them had escalated in each short, uncomfortable little silence. She could not take any more of it.

She stripped off her clothes and slid into the tepid water, sinking to her neck and closing her eyes with a sound of relief. The sunburn in such mortifying places was soothed, cooled. When she emerged half an hour later, she applied an apricot-scented lotion, brushed her hair until it crackled and drew on an aqua silk nightgown-another of Julia’s purchases-that felt better on her overheated skin even than air.

The night was still warm when she stepped from the bathroom, but the sun was long set. Her room was the color of dusk, and the man on her bed blended in shadow until he stood up the moment she opened the door.

Kern’s hand grasped hers, persuasively firm as he walked her down the hall to his room-to their own room. He only let go of her hand when he had shut the door with both of them inside.

“You’re tired, Tish. So am I.”

A dare to start an argument if ever she’d heard one. His look was granite. He started taking off his clothing in the semidarkness, as if it were settled between them. Obviously he did not intend to sleep alone tonight. She debated for a moment about pitting the wildflower fragility she felt inside to his mountain granite, and came up with the obvious conclusion.

Slowly she unfolded the spread and laid it on the chair and then quietly slid in between the cool sheets. Kern was done with his shirt and removed his pants.

“Were you actually planning on sleeping in the spare room tonight?” he asked finally.

She swallowed the developing lump in her throat. “You didn’t ask me to stay,” she said quietly.

“It shouldn’t need to be said.” His voice grated and then became gentle like velvet teasing her in the darkness. “Tish, you’re sunburned and you’re tired. I know that. We don’t have to make love. I just want you here, sleeping next to me-”

She drew in her breath. “That wasn’t what I meant, Kern. You haven’t asked me to…stay,” she said softly. “This afternoon…” Her pride was battered because she had to ask. At the waterfall, it hadn’t mattered. She had told herself she only wanted that moment, not knowing or caring how he felt about her. She had thought it would be enough. It was a sad lie to have told herself…

He drew back the sheet and slipped in beside her, bolstering the pillow behind him. The scent and warmth of him were suddenly there, clean and male and potent, but he made no move to touch her. His voice was gentle but she could feel fear licking all up and down her spine.

“You’re here, Tish. That’s your choice. I could have come after you when you left the first time, but I didn’t then and I wouldn’t now. I swore I’d never ask you to stay again. It was done the first time, when I gave you that ring still on your finger. That ‘once’ said all I had to say.”

“I hear you,” she said softly, and turned on her side in the darkness. The hurt was sudden, swift and painful.

It never occurred to her that there might be another interpretation of his words. She heard only what she was really expecting to hear. He would never ask her to stay because he had really never wanted her back, not as a wife again. As long as she was here, of course, her own behavior had given him license to make love with her. But as far as her staying…it was not his choice. She was not surprised his love had died. There was no blame for Kern, only the anguished wish that she had never come.

Wet eyes dried in the darkness. A long time later Kern half stirred in sleep, one leg draping over hers, his arm cradled between her breasts. A breeze coaxed in coolness, the special quiet of a mountain night. The last of her mountain nights, she thought fleetingly. She suddenly wished that she’d told Kern how she saw him as a lover. Sensitive, fierce, gentle. It seemed terribly important to tell him that it wasn’t his fault she had not responded a long time ago…it was important, because she knew there would be no other time.

Impeded by the weight of Kern’s arm on her hip, she half sat up in the darkness, pulling off her nightgown. Her breasts felt hot and tender after the afternoon’s exposure to the sun. Crushed against his chest they felt painful, but an erotic pain that she welcomed. Her palm slowly skimmed over his sleep-warmed flesh, down his side and hips, back up over his taut buttocks and spine.

He half turned in sudden restless sleep. She slid lower, so that her lips were on a level with his heart. One of her slim legs tangled between his, holding him close as she sought to give him some of the love he had once so freely offered her. She hadn’t contemplated waking or even arousing him. She only wished to express what she had failed so badly to express before: his body was beautiful to her. She simply wanted him to know. Her lips grazed the warm skin of his chest, from the flat male nipples hidden in a curling matt of hair to the smoother flesh that covered his ribs. His skin was like warm satin.

“Tish…”

She reached up, her fingertips brushing his lips to silence him. His mouth was so soft next to the grainy texture of beard and her fingers explored the angle of his cheekbone, the shape of his broad forehead. Gently, slowly, she kissed each of his eyes closed again, and then crouched over him, trailing patterns of kisses, memorizing his throat and shoulders, his ribs and stomach. A fever started to consume her. A fever brought on by the darkness and silence, the feel and scent of his body. Her breasts burned and she felt light-headed. Perhaps it was just knowing he had wakened, yet when his palm slowly slid from her nape to the curve of her sun-heated breast, she flinched-not in rejection, but in almost painful, intense sensitivity. Not even that afternoon had desire been so compelling, so fierce.

Her hand kneaded restlessly, up and down his thigh. And Kern made a sudden deep growling sound from the bottom of his throat. He had been so obediently still, but no more. He opened his eyes before his mouth touched hers, then he rose and pressed her down onto the cool sheets. His hands felt like fire on her breasts, sweeping urgently down her ribs and stomach. Her whole body contracted as he caressed her thighs. Her hands clutched his hair and from her throat came a long low sound of pain. Love me, Kern, she wanted to cry. I can’t bear leaving you. Not now.

He was inside her before she could draw breath, her startled cry of pleasure blending with his. She wanted to obliterate every other thought but him, lose herself in their lovemaking. It was as if he knew how she felt. He rolled onto his back so she could be on top. He raised his head to lick at her sunburned breasts. But in the next instant she was beneath him again, his hands holding her hair, while his tongue parodied the love-play of their bodies. Finally, side by side, his palms cupped her bottom, urging her legs to fold around him. He whispered low, husky encouragements, urging a wanton response from her she hadn’t known she possessed. She heard Kern’s guttural cry just when the fever exploded inside her body in a long low rush.