Fancy Pants (Wynette, Texas #1)(92)

“Please...” she whispered. She arched against his palm. His breathing sounded heavy and strangled in her ear, his hips moved rhythmically against her thigh. She didn't think she could stand it any longer. Over the past two months, their petting sessions had grown heavier and heavier until they could think of nothing else. But still they held back— Holly Grace because she didn't want him to think she was fast, Dallie because he didn't want her to think he was like Billy T.

Suddenly she crumpled her hand into a fist and hit him behind the shoulder. He jerked away, his lips wet and swollen from kissing her, his chin red. “Why'd you do that?”

“Because I can't stand this anymore!” she exclaimed. “I want to do it! I know it's wrong. I know I shouldn't let you, but I just can't stand it anymore. I feel like I'm on fire.” She tried to make him understand. “All those months, Billy T made me do it. All those months he hurt me. Don't I have the right, just once, to choose for myself?”

Dallie looked at her for a long time to make sure she was serious. “I don't want you to think— I love you, Holly Grace. I love you more than í ever loved anybody in my entire life. I'll still love you even if you say no.”

Sitting up, she pulled off her blouse and slipped her bra straps down over her Shoulders. “I'm tired of saying no.”

Even though they had touched each other everywhere, they'd made it a rule to keep most of their clothes on, so it was the first time he'd seen her bare from the waist up. He looked at her with awe and then reached out and stroked a gentle finger down over her breast. “You're so beautiful, baby,” he said, his voice choked.

A surge of wonder shot through her at the emotion in his expression and she found that she wanted to give everything she had to this boy who treated her with so much tenderness. She leaned forward, thrust her thumbs into the tops of her knee socks, and stripped them off. Then she unfastened the waistband of her skirt, lifting up her hips to slip it down. He pulled off his T-shirt and his jeans, then slid down his briefs. She drank in the beauty of his thin young body as he lay down beside her and tenderly wound his fingers through her hair. She lifted her head off the crumpled pillow to kiss him and slid her tongue into his mouth. He groaned and accepted it. Their kisses grew deeper until they were moaning and sucking on each other's lips and tongues, their long legs twisting together, their blond hair dampened with sweat.

“I don't want you to get pregnant,” he whispered into her mouth. “I'll just—I'll just put it in a little bit.”

But of course he didn't, and it was the best thing she'd ever felt. She uttered a low moan deep in her throat as she came, and he quickly followed, shuddering in her arms as if he'd been shot through with a bullet. The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

By graduation day they were using rubbers, but by that time, she was already pregnant and he refused to help her find the money for an abortion. “Abortion is wrong when two people love each other,” he shouted, pointing his finger at her. And then his voice had softened. “I know we planned to wait until I graduated from A&M, but we'll get married now. Except for Skeet, you're the only good thing that's ever happened to me in my life.”

“I can't have a baby now,” she cried. “I'm seventeen! I'm going to San Antonio to get a job. I want to make something of myself. Having a baby now will ruin my whole life.”

“How can you say that? Don't you love me, Holly Grace?”

“Of course I do. But loving's not always enough.”

As she saw the agony in his eyes, that familiar helpless feeling closed around her. It stayed with her right through the wedding in Pastor Leary's study.

Dallie quit humming in the middle of the chorus to “Good Vibrations” and came to a stop on the free-throw line. “Did you really tell Bobby Fritchie you'd go out with him tonight?”

Holly Grace had been performing an intricate harmony, and she continued singing for a few measures without him. “Not exactly. But I thought about it. I get so aggravated when you're late.”

Dallie let her go and gave her a long look. “If you really want a divorce, you know I'll go along with it.”

“I know.” She walked over to the bleachers and sat down, stretching out her legs in front of her and putting a small scratch in Coach Fritchie's new varnish with the heel of her shoe. “Since I don't have any plans to get married again, I'm happy with things just like they are.”

Dallie smiled and walked forward along the center court line to sit on the bleachers beside her. “I hope New York City works out for you, baby. I really do. You know I want to see you happy about more than I want anything in the world.”

“I know you do. Same goes for me.”

She began to talk about Winona and Ed, about Miss Sybil and the other things they usually discussed whenever they were together in Wynette. He only listened with half his mind. The other half was remembering two teenagers with troubled pasts, a baby, and no money. Now he realized that they hadn't had a chance, but they had loved each other, and they had put up a good fight....

Skeet took a construction job in Austin to help out as much as he could, but it wasn't union work so it didn't pay too well. Dallie worked for a roofer when he wasn't in class or trying to pick up some extra cash on the golf course. They had to send Winona money, and there was never enough.