Читать книгу A Scandalous Affair - Donna Hill - Страница 9

Simone maneuvered her midnight blue Mazda 626 expertly around the snakelike traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was nearly six-thirty, and rush hour—truly a misnomer—continued in earnest.

A copy of The Washington Post lay folded on the passenger seat. The high school graduation picture of shooting victim Roderick Fields smiled back at her, full of hope and possibility. She could feel the anger tug at her insides and burn her throat. She’d spent the better part of her morning talking with his distraught parents and the families of the two surviving victims. It was a painful process, made more so by the senselessness of it all. Yet even more frightening was that the Roderick Fields case was not an isolated incident. The number of unwarranted police shootings of unarmed black men was making a steady and terrifying rise across the country.

Sighing, Simone tried to push the events of the day behind. She would meet with her staff in the days and weeks to come to discuss a plan of action as well as how best to incorporate her ideas of police reform into her campaign for the Assembly seat.

Right now, what she wanted was to concentrate on the visit to her parents’ home.

Simone checked the time on the dashboard. If traffic held steady at its snail’s pace, she’d probably arrive at the Arlington town house in about forty-five minutes.

A slow smile of unforgotten memories slid across her polished lips. In forty-five minutes, she’d see him again. Chad.

Four years. It felt like a lifetime since the last night she’d spent with him. They’d been together that entire evening, speaking in low, intimate tones, laughing softly, touching often, the way lovers do, even though they’d never crossed that invisible line.

It was perfect. Too perfect almost, Simone recalled; from the gourmet food and exquisite wine, the balmy spring air, perfect starlit sky and most of all, the way they connected that night. It was as if they could read each other’s thoughts, anticipate every need before a word was spoken. A kind of telepathy of the hearts.

She’d had “a thing” for Chad since her early days as a young intern at her stepfather’s law firm. Even then, Chad Rushmore exuded an aura of assurance and total male sensuality that could not be ignored. Combined with his brilliance, good looks and warm personality, Chad was a dream come true for many women.

But their relationship didn’t leap off the pages with the intensity of a romance novel. Rather, they began as friends, he being her support and confidant when she’d discovered the real identity of her mother and the circumstances of her birth. And their relationship remained that way until the eve of his departure that took him out of the States for four years.

The high-arching passion in which they’d found themselves that night stunned them both. Perhaps it was the wine, Simone often thought, the incredible atmosphere, conversation and the knowledge that the moment may never come again.

They’d just finished an incredible dinner in a swank eatery in fashionable Georgetown and were driving aimlessly around town, listening to WHUR. “I know a great place just outside of D.C.,” Chad had said in that rich baritone that caused shudders to run along her spine.

Simone turned to glance at him. He kept his eyes on the road. “Where?” she asked, almost too eager to prolong their time together, she realized.

“It’s called Harvest House…a small bed and breakfast.”

Her heart thumped, then settled into a more reasonable rhythm.

Chad turned to her, his dark eyes roamed over her face. “Only if you want to,” he said gently. “We can have separate rooms. Whatever. No pressure. No strings. I just want to spend some more time with you.”

She thought about it for a moment, contemplated the possibilities—and the consequences. “Sure. Why not?” she answered, simple and direct, the way she was about everything.

When they arrived, Simone was instantly captivated by the Old World charm of the rambling building, which looked to be a converted mansion snatched from the pages of a Civil War history book.

Chad held her hand and led her to the front desk.

“Do you have any rooms available?” he asked the desk clerk.

The middle-aged woman with slightly graying hair smiled brightly and opened an oversized, leather-bound register. “Name?”

“Rushmore, Chad. I…uh, don’t have a reservation,” he added.

The woman frowned for a moment, then her expression cleared like a cloud passing over the hillside. “Well, Mr. Rushmore, you’re in luck. My reserved clients aren’t due until the weekend. I have three rooms to choose from—one facing the garden, one along the side—but very private, and one on the ground floor, which gives you easy access to all of our amenities.”

“We’ll need two rooms.”

“One,” Simone piped in, and squeezed Chad’s hand.

He looked down into her eyes, saw her intentions reflected there. “Are you sure?” he asked quietly under his breath.

Simone nodded.

“One room, please,” he uttered, his voice low and personal, his gaze fixed on Simone’s face.

After checking in and exploring the accommodations, Simone and Chad took a tour of the grounds, then sat for a while in the cozy den, talking about his impending trip and looking into the flames that pulsed in the fireplace.

But the inevitable, the underlying reason for their being there arrived, no longer held back by time and circumstance. And almost as if by tacit agreement, they left the room with the fire and danced to one of their own making.

There was no hesitation, no fumbling moments of embarrassment. It was as if they, this time between them, had always been, only waiting for the perfect moment to expose itself.

Chad walked toward Simone as she stood framed in the moonlit window. Watching him come to her, she imagined him as the dark knight, the virile seducer. Her mouth curved into a smile of invitation.

His right hand, smooth for a man, reached out and tenderly stroked her cheek, cupping her chin, easing her face closer.

A warm breath was all that stood between them and their first kiss, as Simone raised her mouth to taste his. Sweet, shocking sensation rippled through her limbs, the energy, the heat of it pooling in her center. A lightness of being, that’s what she thought through the waves of euphoria.

Chad pressed the full length of his body against her. Every line, every curve, every dip was defined, one fitting within the other. She felt the distinctive pulse of his erection swell against her stomach. She wanted him lower, needed to feel him between the heat of her thighs. But she couldn’t rush this. Tonight was to be taken slow, savored and sipped like a fine wine.

So they toyed with each other, from tender nibbles on exposed necks, to long deep kisses lavished over yearning mouths, to hungry fingers seeking warm flesh. They taunted and played, laughed, sighed and groaned, danced against the moonlight, their beautiful naked bodies gleaming like polished wood sculpture in its glow.

When Chad cradled her body against him and gazed down into her eyes, Simone was certain, at that instant, he had more than entered her body, he’d penetrated her soul, the only thing separating them was the thin sheath of latex.

The exquisite shock of it set her entire being ablaze. She became sensation, gratefully submitting to the push and pull of him. But Chad wouldn’t give himself over that easily.

He slowed his dance inside her until he barely moved at all. The thrust was almost indiscernible, which made it all the more maddening. She felt her walls clamp around the length and breadth of him, demanding that he fill her, complete her, satisfy her.

In turn, she raised and lowered her hips in a slow, sensual spiral and reveled in her power when he groaned in sublime agony, trapped within the deep, wet hollow that made him shudder, advance and retreat, and urge in a hot whisper to give him more of the same.

But still Chad refused to succumb to the temptation that writhed beneath him. Her hot passion spurred him on. He wanted to hear her moans, her sighs, the sound of his name on her lips. And he made it happen over and over again as he dipped deep and long into the honey, then pulled away until only the tip touched her throbbing outer flesh.

Her body trembled, heated. Tighter she gripped her thighs around his waist to capture the pleasure that rose at a blinding speed within her.

“Let go,” he whispered in her ear. “Let go and come to me.” He cupped her breasts completely, capturing her peaked nipples between his fingers. And the heat began, starting at her toes, winding its way along the lines of her strong legs, settling for a moment in her hips, rising to the pit of her stomach, then returning to that hot, dark, damp place where she held him, exploding in a torrent of white light and pulsing, shuddering release.

Chad held her there, suspended, wouldn’t let her go, turned up the heat with a deeper thrust, pulled her closer, sealed their bodies, letting his empty completely into hers.

For several moments they lay there, locked together in the final throes of aftershock, the tiny tremors continuing, their breath pushed out in deep, hot riffs.

And they kissed, touched, slept, still connected.

The blare of a car horn jerked Simone out of her daydream. Blinking quickly and shaking her head to clear the vision, she eased across the intersection.

Her heart was racing and she could feel a distinct wetness between her legs.

Chad.

Sure, there’d been other men in the four years since that single night. Some momentarily took her mind away from him, but generally not for long.

Chad.

Tonight would be the first time she’d seen him since she watched him board the plane to Uganda. Four years. Things changed. People changed. Had he? Had they?

No strings, remember?