The Vibrant Years(21)

Beneath her, his thighs didn’t feel fragile. They felt solid and strong. The erection pressing into her butt most definitely didn’t feel like it had seen seventy summers.

The mint clearly wasn’t the only thing he’d slipped into his mouth. And yes, she was just as glad for that too, dammit!

He made a growling sound and took his kisses down her throat, even as his hands pushed her dress off her shoulders and found her breasts over the cutlet-stuffed bra. The man really did know what he was doing. Her nipples thanked him heartily for it by peaking against his caresses.

“I don’t think I’ve ever made love to a more exquisite woman.” Oh yes, he knew exactly what to do with those words.

Welcome back, Richard. Just keep it simple.

Pulling away, she skipped—yes, skipped—to the kitchen and pulled a tube of lube from a drawer. Thank you, Jane!

Richard grinned at the offering and pulled her onto his lap again. Yes, he most definitely knew what he was doing, and soon somehow she was straddling him, their hands in each other’s hair. His was thick and lush. She pushed away the memory of Rajendra’s scalp on her fingers under his thinning hair.

She kept her mind here, on the fire between her legs, the sparks tingling across her breasts, the warmth stroking her skin like feathers.

How he had her underwear pushed aside and found his way inside her with such deft speed she’d never know, but he was panting and shuddering, and she was right there with him. It had been so long. Good Lord, it had been too long.

With another heavy grunt he spasmed with almost youthful force, and she looked into his eyes. For one endless moment they filled with such intense pleasure, she forgot where they were. Then his eyes rolled up, and rolled up, the black pupils widening even as the blue irises disappeared into his lids. With another massive shudder his hands slipped off her, and his body slackened and went limp under her.

Things started to move in slow motion. He slid to one side, his back slipping against the couch, the fabric bunching under him as he slumped over. Then, with one last shudder, he went as still and heavy as a corpse.





CHAPTER EIGHT


CULLIE


At first I thought I was the flame to her moth. But the burning came when I lost her. I can only hope that the people who got to be in her life knew what they had.

From the journal of Oscar Seth

What do you mean, Binji killed someone?” Cullie was used to her mother and grandmother bickering since Binji had moved. But they would both basically throw themselves in front of bullets for each other.

Her mother never sounded so . . . what was the word she was looking for? So . . . bewildered, knocked off her feet. It was Mom’s voice from when Cullie had dropped out of U of I’s computer engineering program.

“I didn’t say Binji killed someone,” Mom said. “I said she might have caused someone’s death.”

“Oh, that’s totally different, then.” Sometimes having a journalist for a mother was the most annoying thing.

“Cullie, is this really the time for cheekiness?”

“Cheekiness? Now you sound like Granny Karen,” Cullie said before she could think better of it.

“There’s no need to hit below the belt,” Aly said before she could think better of it apparently. Then she cleared her throat. “Let’s focus on Bindu and not my mother, okay?”

Oh, you don’t have to ask me twice, Cullie wanted to say. But Mom would feel the need to lecture her about respect and all the reasons behind why her mother’s mother was such an inflexible, bitter grouch. Strange, because a constant state of bitterness pretty much defined Mom’s relationship with Granny Karen. Fortunately, Mom’s parents had packed up and moved back to India a few years ago, and it had stopped the day-to-day onslaught of Granny Karen’s constant criticism and Mom’s resulting blue mood.

“Tell me what happened. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be sounding so calm if Binji had actually committed homicide. Wait, is Papa back in America?” The only person Cullie’s grandmother was angry enough with to kill was her one and only child, Cullie’s father.

Aly groaned. “Dear Lord, I don’t know what I did to raise such a cynic. That’s your father you’re talking about.”

“I know he’s my father. And you’re my mother. And Binji is my grandmother. That’s why I know how badly Binji has wanted to kill Papa since the divorce.”

“Cullie, can we please not make jokes right now. This is serious.” She sounded serious enough. Then again, Aly Menezes Desai, anchor wannabe, always sounded serious, far more serious than Aly, Cullie’s mom, who was probably the one Cullie had inherited her ill-timed humor from, not that she didn’t work hard to hide it.

“You do sound like someone died,” Cullie said, and her mother made a frustrated sound. “Fine, sorry. Tell me who died and why you’re blaming the mother-in-law you secretly adore for it?”

As it turned out, Binji’s “hot date” had just keeled over and died. “During sex. Or after sex,” Mom explained in a tone that made it obvious she couldn’t believe the words she was having to say.

“Was it during sex or after sex?”

“Cullie!”

“You’re right. Both of those scenarios are equally horrifying. But it feels like an important distinction.”