Twice Loved (copy2) by Lavyrle Spencer Page A

his hands along the exposed skin of her back, which was the only bareness he could reach.
    He tore his lips away and spoke with savage emotion. “Laura—my God, woman, does it give y’ joy to torture me?” He raised one hand and slid it along her arm, capturing one of her hands from the back of his neck, carrying it down, and placing it on his swollen body. “I’ve been five years at sea and this is what it’s done t’ me. How long would y’ make me wait?”
    Shock waves sizzled through her body. She tried to puli free, but he held her palm where it had too long been absent, the heat of his tumescence insistent through the cloth of his trousers. Clutching the back of her neck, he drew her wildly against him once more, kissing her, his hot, demanding tongue stroking rhythmically in and out of her mouth, reminding Laura that it was he who had taught her these things in a boathouse loft years ago. Her hand stopped resisting and conformed to the shape of him, and he thrust against her caress, still pressing the back of her wrist and knuckles and fingers.
    Against her will, she again compared him to the man who waited at the house for her now. Her palm moved up, then down, measuring, remembering, while Rye begged her with the motion of his body to seek the touch of his satin skin if she would not allow him to seek hers.
    The fog curled its tendrils about their heads, and the seductive scent of blossoms filled the night. Their breathing scraped harshly with desire, like ocean waves rushing upon sand, then retreating.
    “Please,” Rye growled into her mouth. “Please, Laura-love. It’s been so long.”
    “I can’t, Rye,” she said miserably, suddenly withdrawing her hand and covering her face with both palms, a sob breaking from her. “I can’t ... Dan trusts me.”
    “Dan!” he growled. “Dan! What about me?” Rye’s voice trembled with rage. He grasped her arm and jerked her almost onto tiptoe. “I trusted you! I trusted y’ t’ wait for me while I sailed on that ... that  miserable  whaleship and floundered in the stink of rancid oil and rottin’ fish and ate flour with the weevils sifted out of it and smelled men’s unwashed bodies day after day, and one of them my own!” His fingers closed tighter, and Laura winced. “Have y’ any idea of how I longed for the smell of y’? I nearly lost my mind at the thought of it.” But now he thrust her away almost distastefully. “Lyin’ there adrift in the doldrums, at the mercy of a windless sky, while days and days passed and I thought of the wasted time when I could’ve been with you. But I wanted t’ bring y’ a better life. That’s why I did it!” he raged.
    “And what do you think I was going through?” she cried, her shoulders jutting forward belligerently, tears now coursing down her cheeks. “What do you think I suffered when I watched you stuffing clothes in your sea chest, when I saw those sails disappear and wondered if I’d ever see you alive again? What do you think it was like when I discovered I was carrying your baby and I got the news that that baby would never know his father?” Her voice shook. “I wanted to kill you, Rye Dalton, do you know that? I wanted to  kill  you because you’d  died on me ! ”  She laughed a little dementedly.
    “But y’ certainly wasted no time findin’ someone t’ take my place afterward, did y’!”
    She clenched her fists and shouted. “I was pregnant!”
    “With my child, and y’ turned to him!” They stood almost nose to nose.
    “Who else could I turn to? But you wouldn’t understand! When’s the last time your stomach swelled up like a baloon-fish so you couldn’t even walk without hurting or ... or shovel a walk or carry wood or lift a water pail! Who do you think did all those things while you were gone, Rye?”
    “My best friend,” Rye answered bitterly.
    “He was my best friend, too. And if he hadn’t been, I don’t know what I’d have done. He was there without