Page 23 of Silver Lining
Feeling the men of Piney Creek pushing from behind, he crossed the living room and walked into the bedroom. She had pulled the shades and the draperies and extinguished the lamps. He couldn't see much of anything.
Maybe that was best. Stepping out of the shadowy light spilling through the doorway from the living room, he took off his jacket and vest and removed the studs from his shirtfront and cuffs, then looked around for the bureau.
"The dresser is right behind you."
She was watching. Frowning, he placed the studs on top of the bureau, then peered toward the bed. All he could see was a pale blur that might have been the sheets or might have been her nightgown. She'd seen him stark naked when he was ill, so why undressing in front of her made him uncomfortable was a mystery, but it did. Before he stepped toward the bed, he removed his tie and his trousers but decided to leave on his shirt.
"Damn it!" Grabbing his toes, he hopped around on one foot, cursing.
"What happened?"
"I stubbed my toe on the bedpost," he said between clenched teeth. His next thought was the memory of Preacher Jellison promising God's retribution if the men didn't do right by Low Down. His stinging toe felt like a warning.
Stumbling to the side of the bed, he sat heavily on the edge, massaging his toe and wishing he were a hundred miles away. At length, he pulled back the sheets, plumped up the pillow, then slid into bed and sat against the headboard. Now she had her back to him and was curled into a ball.
"I'm not taking off my nightgown, so if you were thinking I would, forget it," she stated in a muffled voice.
She'd crunched down and pulled up the sheets and all he could see of her was the back of her head.
"Do you plan on helping things along any?" he asked, exasperated. It would have been more conducive to the moment if she'd taken down her hair, and if she didn't feel so strongly about removing her nightgown, and if she'd at least face him.
Her answer was so long in coming that he began to hope she'd fallen asleep. "Why do you need help?
Can't we just get this over with?"
"Contrary to some women's belief, a man needs a little stimulus to make things work." The back of a woman's head wasn't the most alluring view he could think of.
"Well, what kind of help do you have in mind?" came the muffled question. "This sure sounds like dawdling to me."
"Well, I'm sorry, damn it, but sometimes poking requires a little buildup. If that seems like dawdling, that's just too bad, because there's nothing I can do about it!" Anger was not going to improve the situation. After drawing a breath, he ground his teeth together, slid under the covers, hesitated, then curled around her body. She made a hissing sound between her teeth, and he inhaled a whiff of whiskey fumes and the strong scent of kerosene.
On the positive side, her warm firm buttocks pressing against his groin caused an involuntary stirring that was powerfully encouraging.
"It would help if you'd try to relax," he said against the nape of her neck. Her hair, at least, didn't smell like kerosene. The silky coil beneath his nose smelled clean and soapy.
"Now, how can I relax?" She spoke into her pillow and held herself rigid. "I don't know what you're going to do next."
He didn't know either until he heard his answer. "I'm going to reach up under your nightgown and touch your skin. Think of it as preparation, not as dawdling."
Placing his hand on the nightgown covering her thigh, he paused to let her get used to his touch, then he moved his fingers and began to inch up her nightgown in what he intended as a provocative and hopefully seductive act for them both. He inched at the material, kept inching at it, pulling at it, tugging on it, until a sizable wad had bunched up between his hand and chest. What the hell? "How big is this thing?" There was no end to the nightgown, no hem that he could find and heaven knew he was trying.
"The big one was the cheapest."
Throwing back the covers, he blinked and tried to see what he was up against. At once he realized the nightgown was a hugely voluminous tent with a drawstring tied at her throat. Where he'd gone wrong was pulling sideways instead of straight up, and that was not going to work. He'd still be inching along when the call to judgment sounded. "There must be thirty yards of material here." He'd never seen such a voluminous nightgown or even suspected such a thing existed.
She rolled on her back inside the nightgown and heaved a sigh. "I can see that I'm going to have to take a hand in this or we're never going to get it over with."
"Well, thank God. A little help would be greatly appreciated," he said, staring down at her. "Could you start by taking that damned thing off?"
"No," she said emphatically. "Get back under the covers."
Her stubbornness about the damned nightgown meant he'd be working blind. All right, if that's how it had to be, he'd cope. Once he was alongside her again, he felt her hands tugging at the nightgown under the sheets and thanked heaven for small favors. Then she rolled back on her side and sort of wiggled, which he interpreted as an invitation to curl around her and begin again.
This time her bare buttocks pressed against him and his reaction to skin and heat and curve was immediate despite the huge wad of material bunched at her waist. Closing his eyes, he tentatively stroked a hand over her bare hip, surprised by the taut smoothness of her skin. On the upward stroke of his palm, he continued tracing the curve of her waist, then slid his hand up under the cursed nightgown almost to her breasts.
"This feels very much like dawdling," she whispered in an oddly breathless voice. But she didn't shove his hand away as he'd given her an opportunity to do.
Seizing on the lack of protest, he continued his exploration, amazed that he had ever supposed she had no curves. Her hips narrowed to a small waist and farther up he found the swell of her splendid breasts.
