9781631050183CrossingBoundariesValiereNC (3 page)

“My family lives in Albuquerque, which is where I spent most of my childhood, although I was born in Schenectady, New York, and lived there till I was four and a half.”

“How in heck did you wind up in Indian Springs?” Todd asked.

“Early on I had literary aspirations. I was working on a book and needed to interview Gareth Solomon, the artist. If you know the name, you know he retired to Indian Springs some years ago. I came here to spend a day talking to him and was charmed by the town. I was living in L.A. and didn’t like it at all, and on a whim I picked up and moved to Indian Springs.”

“You’re an adventurer.”

“I suppose, although I don’t think of myself that way,” Cassie said.

“You’re bold, daring.”

“Nah, I just didn’t like L.A. I’d be a fool to stay in a place I wasn’t happy in.”

“So tell me what you like to do when you’re not working,” Todd asked.

“I like to go over to Marshalltown to the art museum or the zoo a few times a year at least. I paint and draw. I create word puzzles. Not crosswords but other types of word games. Actually I recently started selling them, so maybe to you that counts as work, but for me it’s very relaxing, like a hobby. It’s only in the last eight months that I started trying to sell them. And they don’t bring in that much. It’s just pin money, nothing I could support myself on. What about you?”

“I’m into art too, but not painting or drawing. I work with clay. This is a two-bedroom apartment, but my supposed second bedroom is my studio. Sometimes in the evening I go hang out at the jazz club. I play sax, and sometimes I bring it along and sit in with the band, although mostly I just listen. Do you like jazz?”

“Yes. Jazz, classical, and soft rock,” Cassie said.

“Good. I’ll take you to the jazz club one night. Well, I hope I get to take you more than just one night, but I meant one night soon. Oh, hell, you know what I meant.”

“You’re planning ahead again. We’re just beginning our first date, and you’re already planning for the third one.” Cassie laughed at his audacity, then took another sip of her drink.

“Ready for a refill?” Todd had finished his and was headed to the dining room for another. He stood up and waited to see if Cassie wanted more scotch too.

“Not quite. But thanks.”

“Let me check on the dinner while I’m up. I’ll be back shortly.”

By the time he returned, Cassie had finished her drink. “If it’s not too much trouble,” she said, holding out her empty glass.

“Glad to oblige,” he replied, taking the glass and returning to the dining room.

“Dinner should be ready in about twenty-five minutes,” he said, when he came back with a fresh scotch for Cassie. “Want to spend part of that time telling me more about yourself? For example, ever been married or engaged?”

“Married, no. Engaged? No, but I had a boyfriend who was very serious about me and kept talking about the future as if we were going to be married one day.”

“What happened?”

“I liked him. In a way, I guess I even loved him. But I wasn’t
in love
with him, and I just couldn’t see myself married to him for the rest of my life. The thought was frightening. Finally I broke it off. He was heartbroken. I missed him afterward, but yet I knew I had done the right thing. Marrying him would have been such a mistake.

“He stalked me for a while. He sent me so many emails, and he kept ‘running into me’ at various places. He knew my routine, and he’d be lurking outside my building or waiting for me when I went to the supermarket or be standing in front of the building where my yoga class was held when I came out of the class. Finally I told him if he didn’t stop I’d get a restraining order against him. That threat was enough to
almost
stop him. I still got occasional emails from him but not nearly as many, and he stopped ‘running into me’ when I went places. Eventually he gave up altogether, but it took almost half a year.”

“Wow! I promise you I’m not like that. If we ever break up I will absolutely not haunt you or make your life miserable. I’ll just quietly throw myself in front of a bus.
Not!
I am not the suicidal type either. You’re safe with me.”

“That’s good to know.” She patted his hand, which was resting on the sofa between them. He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. When he relaxed his squeeze, though, he kept her hand in his.

After a while, as they sat and talked and got to know each other even better, he let her hand go and put his arm lightly around her shoulders. “I like you,” he said. “I think we’re going to go well together.”

“I like you too, so far,” she replied, “but it’s still way early. One of us could have a habit that would bug the other one terribly. Or—do you have a bad temper? I broke up with a guy once because he lost his temper easily.”

“You’ll find me to be the most even-tempered guy you’ve known,” Todd said. “Kind, loyal, brave, reverent, and a brother to every other Scout. Or something like that. But right now I need to go scout in the kitchen. My suspicion is that dinner’s ready.”

“You’re suspecting stuff. Were you a detective at one time?”

“Not guilty. I have never been a private eye, ear, nose, and throat. But I will be judged a poor chef if I don’t serve dinner timely. Come—let’s eat.”

The dinner was delicious. Cassie offered sincere compliments to the cook. She offered to help clear the table and load the dishwasher, but Todd would hear nothing of it. So she stayed in the dining room to keep Todd company while he did all the work. When they returned to the living room, Cassie was as full as a tick, and when Todd said, “Now, about dessert,” Cassie cut him short with “Only if you have an auxiliary stomach to provide me with. I haven’t got room for so much as a blueberry.”

“Now about dessert,” Todd repeated patiently, “we can wait till our dinners settle, and then we have two choices. I have butter pecan ice cream and fudge ripple ice cream in the freezer, and butterscotch syrup in the fridge, or we can go around the corner to Java Jive, where they not only have every variety of coffee known to humankind but also sell the most marvelous cannoli and a killer tiramisu.”

“Ohhhhhh! It all sounds good! Butter pecan with butterscotch is a wonderful combination, but both cannoli and tiramisu sound divine too.”

“The decision is yours, my dear. I’m happy either way. But remember Java Jive sells coffee of all sorts, whereas all I can offer is a basic hazelnut coffee.”

“Well, coffee doesn’t tempt me at this hour, unless it’s decaf. I do treasure a good night’s sleep, and coffee after dinner is definitely not conducive. But choosing between the sundae or two of my all-time fave bakery products? You do know how to make it tough on a gal, don’t you?”

“Call me the torturer,” said Todd with a fake sneer on his face as he twirled an imaginary moustache, old-time movie villain-style.

While their dinner settled, they sat and talked some more, getting to know each other better. Cassie still had misgivings about entering into a relationship with a man she would have to continue to work with even if they broke up. Wouldn’t it be smarter to let this evening be a stand-alone event and not the first of a series of dates, such as Todd already seemed to be planning? Wouldn’t it be brighter to end it with this one admittedly enjoyable evening and keep things on a strictly business level from here on out?

That bothered her even more than the interracial aspect of their relationship. Nonetheless, she was hardly blind to the fact that, even in the twenty-first century, and certainly in a relatively small town such as Indian Springs, which called itself a city but was no metropolis, there was still a lot of opposition to black girls involving themselves romantically with white guys.

But when Todd turned his face toward hers and softly pressed his lips to hers, she found herself responding to his overtures despite all her misgivings. When his tongue slithered purposefully into her mouth, she felt her body respond with a surge of passion as she sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth and shamelessly pressed her lips more fervently to his. His hands reached for her shoulders and then stroked their way down her arms, and she reached for his face and palmed his cheeks, then placed one hand on the back of his head and pulled his face even tighter to hers as their passionate liplock continued.

Todd’s right hand stole to her breast and cupped the delicate mound. His fingers stroked her nipple lightly till it stood up stiff and straight, jutting out despite the confines of her bra and blouse. The electricity from his touch traveled a direct path from her nipple to her cunny, causing it to quiver and moisten. Cassie shifted her position on the couch as the sensations grew within her cleft. She stole a quick glance at Todd’s crotch and saw an impressive bulge there. His tented pants were testament to his obvious desire for the woman whose eyes were feasting on the sight of his clothed yet clearly swollen organ.

Todd removed his lips from their happy entanglement with her lips. “Why don’t we go inside?” he suggested in a voice thick with lust.

A corner of Cassie’s mind held fast to the thought that it would be smart to avoid getting in any deeper with Todd, but even while her common sense argued in favor of getting up and going home, her body overruled that thought. When she stood up from the couch it was not for the purpose of heading to the apartment door but with the intention of accompanying Todd into his bedroom.

As they stood beside the bed, Todd reverently unfastened the buttons of Cassie’s blouse and drew it off her, revealing her lacy demi-bra. He gently eased one breast out of its lace protection, exposing the cocoa-colored swell of flesh capped with a cinnamon nipple, stiff with excitation. Todd bent to that nipple and carefully latched on to it with his teeth, grazing hungrily yet taking evident care to be gentle. Cassie squirmed under this sensory assault and felt her cunny growing wetter the more his teeth toyed with her nubbin.

When Todd finally stopped grazing the nipple it was so he could draw her entire breast into his mouth and suck on the resilient flesh. Cassie looked down at his face juxtaposed with her chest and once again was made aware of the pale color of his face against the deep brown of her own skin. Once again she wondered if she was getting into a situation that would be more trouble than pleasure. Then her nipple touched the back of his palate as he sucked deeply on her responsive breast, and all she could think of was how much she wanted Todd inside her.

To hell with the problems of the future. Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself now?

Even as he continued to suckle at the swell of her boob, one of his hands found its way to the zipper of her pants, and the top button, fumbling to release the closure so he could draw the pants down. Her panties followed. “Let me get this bra off you,” Todd said, unfastening the bra’s closure and totally denuding Cassie. She fell backward to the bed, lying atop the bedspread, and watched as Todd hastily shucked his own clothes. His dick was formidable, pale with a crimson head, curved noticeably, impressively thick and no slouch in the length department either, and already oozing pre-cum.

Cassie reached out and encircled Todd’s wrist with her hand, pulling him down to the bed next to her. But he quickly repositioned himself in the vee of her legs and burrowed into the folds of her cunny with his face. Extending his tongue, he flicked it rapidly across the pointy flesh. Cassie’s butt zoomed upward off the bed as Todd’s tongue repeatedly scraped across her promontory. She reached down for his head and grabbed it on either side, holding on to his blond locks and the skull beneath them as his tongue scraped enticingly over her pleasure button.

Todd reached up with one hand and latched on to one of Cassie’s nipples, rubbing and pinching it while he continued his sensory assault on her clitoris. Cassie’s fever rose swiftly, and her butt bounced on the bed as she thrust upward repeatedly, shamelessly striving for the climax she so urgently needed.

Todd speeded up the flicking of his tongue, rapidly assaulting Cassie’s throbbing clit as she bounced wildly on the bed in urgent need of release. Finally she felt the beginnings of her climax growing within her. “Don’t stop!” she urged Todd, although he had not in any way indicated that he was even thinking of abandoning his delicious depredation.

Cassie began grunting as she worked her way up to her climax. Her grunts and groans grew louder and more feral as she drew closer and closer to a massive explosion. Finally her orgasm burst within her, centered in her clit but spreading throughout her entire body, making her quiver and vibrate and tingle all over. Todd stayed right with her, licking and lapping till Cassie couldn’t take any more and called out, “Stop! Enough! I’m too sensitive now.”

Wasting no time, Todd got up and opened the night table drawer, extracting a foil packet. When he was properly latexed, he got back between the legs of the still-quivering Cassie and, taking careful aim, slid home. He entered her readily. Her love lube had slicked her up amply, and as she felt him slide up her thoroughly relaxed tunnel she tightened her inner muscles so she could put a righteous squeeze on him.

“Can you come again?” Todd asked her urgently as he pumped in and out of her.

“Sometimes. Let me see,” she answered breathlessly, beginning to pump her own butt up and down in rhythm with Todd’s strokes. Reaching up between them with one hand, Todd grasped Cassie’s right breast and began demandingly thumbing the nipple, which caused Cassie to squirm in ever-escalating heat. “Ah, yes, you’re getting hotter. I can tell,” Todd growled. “Come on, come for me, come for me, let me have it. You can do it.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Cassie squealed breathlessly as she spiraled upward toward another climax. “Make me come! Get me off! Do it! Do it! Do it!”

Sweat dripped from Todd’s furrowed forehead onto Cassie’s face. Then he brought his lips down to hers and kissed her deeply, his tongue plunging into her mouth in imitation of his dick’s motions in her cunny. She started gasping as her exertions to attain her orgasm began to bear fruit.

“I can’t hold off much longer,” Todd warned her.

“I’m there! I’m almost there!” Cassie replied, throwing her body upward against Todd’s straining body as she strove to get off again.