Beneath the Apple Leaves(105)

With the touch, Andrew’s heart sped, the veins in his neck throbbing. Lily bent forward, placed her lips upon the scars, kissed each gently, loved them as if they were individual beings, loved them as she would an injured wing on a butterfly.

Andrew’s body shuddered, softened from granite, and he watched her now, bided for any sign of discomfort or pity or revulsion. But she smiled up at him—smiled as a pond shines under the sun. And Andrew kissed her—kissed her gratefully and hard—kissed her as a sentenced man kisses freedom.

He pressed against her body until her head settled back upon the downy pillow. He unclipped the clasps of her dress, urgently but with care. Her body arched to open them faster and her thighs stretched wide to fit the strong hips pushing against her pelvis. He opened the dress and kissed the breasts, slid her slip off her shoulder and kissed her hard nipple.

The sensations in her breasts tingled, hardened them to points. She reached down and slid his pants over his hips and down his legs until he kicked them to the floor. He pulled at her slip again until it was off, her cotton drawers sliding off with the flood of flowing clothes. Without the impediment of clothing, the rush to remove it, time settled slowly. She stared at his figure, chiseled out of marble yet pliable and soft and warm. Alive.

He looked at her, all of her. The small body at once fragile and strong in lithe womanhood. And the face, the curve of lips, the pink cheeks that glowed with desire. The white shoulders and silky hair that draped like that of a goddess from an ancient time.

She touched his neck and advanced him closer. She reached for his hips, pressed her nails gently into the flesh and beckoned him between her legs. His breath was warm against her cheek and agitated with self-control. “What about the baby?” He halted, the concern arching his eyebrows. “I don’t want to hurt it. Or you.”

“You won’t hurt it.” She grinned into his cheek, kissed his chin and lips. “Or me. I promise.”

His body still struggled, stiffened with debate. “Please,” she begged as she raised her hips. “Make this baby yours, Andrew.”

He entered her then. Slowly and carefully, a small moan leaving his mouth with the warmth and the wetness that surrounded him. He pressed farther, each thrust sending his nerves to fire. She writhed beneath him, a small noise coming from her throat.

He stopped. “Did I hurt you?” he gasped.

“No.” She laughed and pulled his hips to her again, arched her back to take him deeper. “God, no!”

Every cell of his body throbbed and trembled. He tried to hold out, prolong a bit longer, but the wanting, the sensations, were too much and he came, smothered his mouth into the pillow next to her ear to keep from yelling. His heart thumped straight through the mattress, loud and defined in his ears. His back glistened with a light sweat. He kissed her face, beaming and smiling. Then remembered his lesson in Pittsburgh. “I want to make you feel good, Lily.”

“You already did.” She smiled serenely.

“No.” He glided his fingers between her legs. “I want you to do what I just did.”

She gently pulled the inching hand up from her thigh and kissed the palm, laughed sheepishly into it. “I meant, I already did.” She touched her belly. “Things feel different down there since I got pregnant. I had mine as soon as you entered, when you thought you had hurt me.”

“Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair so the strands stood up in wisps. “Well, you could have told me. I nearly bit my lip off trying to hold out.”

She giggled into his chest and he laughed. He wrapped his arm around her, held her tight, the warmth held in one combined body.

“You’re the only one, Andrew,” she promised into his chest. “I need you to know that. There was no one before you. This is my first time.” She glanced at him. “Do you know what I mean?”

And he did. He kissed her and he knew just what she meant. Nothing ever existed before this moment.





CHAPTER 53

Andrew waited in the empty stalls of the Morton barn. The cow, chickens and horse had disappeared the day Lily and Claire left, evaporated into the unknown while Frank dreamed in a drug-induced reverie. The man would have let the animals starve, let the cow’s udder swell with unattended milk until pained and ill with mastitis. There was no sign of the animals that Lily had made arrangements for. But if one had visited old man Stevens and his wife, Bernice, in their tiny shack deep in the woods one would find the couple smearing new butter on their warm bread and with more eggs in their basket than their few teeth could eat in a week.

Andrew leaned against the rotting wood of the ramshackle barn. Mounds of blackflies loitered in the straw-and dung-filled corners. The chicken coop had lost its fence long ago and the remnants of old corn and feed sprinkled the compact dirt along its edges. Indignation seized, left him wanting to hit the old barn wood with a tight fist. This had been his Lily’s life and he wanted to hack the stench and blackness away as he had the apple tree, burn her past in a rubble of ash and sweep it into the wind.

After they had made love, Lily told him everything. Told him of life with her father, of what Claire had endured, told him with quivering abasement that Claire was more than just her sister. He had held her in silence as the torrents of her suffering cracked from her slight body, left her shaking and whimpering against his chest. She told him of the babies Claire lost, of the teas Frank would make her drink whenever she was pregnant. And she told him about what she had been forced to do. The first time at fourteen. The second time leaving her pregnant. There would never be a third time.