Epilogue
Pleasantly full after a meal of fried chicken and potato salad, Mac lay back on the picnic blanket, closed his eyes and sighed with contentment. No New York traffic, no jackhammers, no jet engines. Only the gurgle of the river, the call of a quail, the rustle of the breeze through the reeds.
He’d visited beaches and riverbanks in many parts of the world in the past three years, but he’d recognize the baked-sand and wet-moss scent of this one blindfolded. The breeze moved over him like a caress. How he loved summer nights in Arizona.
Something tickled his nose, and he swatted it away. The tickling resumed, and he opened one eye.
Leaning over him, Tess brushed a feathery tip of a wild-grass stalk over his mouth.
He gazed up and noticed that when she leaned over, her blouse gaped open quite nicely. Taking the stalk from her fingers, he slipped it down the front of her blouse and stroked it over the swell of her breasts. “They already seem fuller.”
“It’s probably your imagination. I’m barely three months along.”
“I’ll never forget the look on our folks’ faces when we told them.” He could see desire stirring in her eyes as he continued to tickle her breasts with the grass.
She smiled. “I think they were even happier about the baby than when we told them we were home to stay.”
“I’m pretty happy about that baby, myself.” He brushed the grass up the curve of her throat and tickled under her chin. “Think you’ll miss your job?”
“Not once I realized teenage girls in Copperville need someone to listen and empathize just as much as the ones in New York. Thank goodness the school board agreed.”
He chuckled at the memory of her fiery presentation. “They never stood a chance. Will you miss the big city?”
“No.”
“Any adventures you didn’t get around to?”
“We never did it on top of the Empire State Building.”
“We’ll visit someday and do it then.”
She shook her head. “Nah. We don’t have to. Making love to you for the rest of my life is all the adventure I need.”
“You mean that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then take off your blouse,” he murmured. The sight of Tess unfastening buttons was one of the joys of his life.
She obliged him and tossed the garment aside before gazing down at him, a question in her gray eyes.
“Keep going.” His erection strained his jeans as she flipped open the front catch of her bra. In another moment her breasts spilled into view, her nipples already taut. He stroked the grass across them anyway, loving the ripple of desire that went through her, the surrender in her sigh.
His voice grew husky. “Lean down.”
She moved over him and he filled both hands with the weight of her breasts, kneading gently as he began to taste her.
While he feasted, she managed to wiggle out of her shorts, open his jeans and free his erection. He groaned with pleasure as she slid down over his rigid shaft. How miraculous to make love this way, without barriers.
Releasing her breasts, he guided her down for a long, satisfying kiss.
She drew back and gazed into his eyes as she initiated a slow, sensuous rhythm. “I love you, Mac.”
“And I love you,” he said. Above her the cottonwood leaves dappled the twilight sky. Heaven couldn’t be any better than this. “I love you more than life.” His climax was building quickly, and from the way Tess was breathing, she wasn’t far behind him.
“Stop,” she said, panting. “I just remembered.”
His fevered brain wasn’t working. “Remembered what?”
“Hold on a sec.” She reached toward the small picnic cooler near the edge of the blanket.
He squeezed his eyes shut, teetering on the edge. “I don’t know if I can.”‘ He felt the pulsing begin. “Tess, I can’t—"
Something cold pressed against a critical part of his anatomy and he erupted, sensations crashing over him in waves, ripping moans of ecstasy from deep in his chest.
Finally he lay still, spent and quivering, while she sprinkled kisses over his face.
“What... was that?” he asked.
She sounded very smug. “Ice.”
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