The Lioness Read online

  “Then grab it Rose, take a hold of it and don’t let go, go with it, let it flow.” He took a plunge and licked her hard, thrusting his finger in at the same time, thrusting, feeling her tightness and the hot, wet feeling of her. She sunk her nails into his scalp and jumped up with his strokes. He looked up, he saw her bite her lip and then she grabbed a pillow. Taking it she screamed into it. One hand on the pillow, the other holding him, knitting into his scalp. She came hard, letting his finger feel the muscles of her orgasm as she let go in wave after wave.

  He licked her, letting his tongue take her again and again as he heard her moans, and incoherent words. She thrashed and bucked till they became less and then she slowed. He looked up and she was coming down. He pulled away and heard her whimper. “Just a minute then we’ll be together.” Leaning off the bed he caught hold of one of the foil packets. Getting up, his erection was at attention. Ripping open the packet, he was about to put the condom on when Rose reached for it and took a hold of him, took him and brought the condom down over him. “I wanted to do that, wanted to touch you.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. She took his mouth like it was honey. God, she was a turn on. He had just been down on her and she kissed him like there was no tomorrow, licking into his mouth, tasting him and her.

  “I’ve always wanted to touch you, here,” he let his hand touch her breast, “and here.” His fingers grazed her belly. “and here” His finger stroking her. He watched as her eyes became unfocused again. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long, and tonight is a dream come true.” He sank his finger in deep. “This will be better, this is the ultimate touch.” He brought his cock to her and slid into her. God she was tight, so tight. “Yeah, the ultimate touch. So close, so personal, the most personal touch that a woman and man can have,” he said as he stroked her slowly. He looked down and saw her eyes really unfocused. “Are you ok, do you feel any pain?”

  Rose shook her head and then pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “No, no pain, only pleasure.” She pressed hard and with each thrust she got closer again. She had always had a hard time letting go but if she was able to have one then she could usually come a second time. This time she was so close and it was going to be so good. She looked up at Ty. “Oh Ty, cum with me, please.” She held on, trying to wait and she could see it in his eyes that he was close. She let him ride her, ride her harder than ever. Harder then he would have but she knew he was caught up in it too. The wonder of them, the two of them, together as one. She reached up and touched his face. “Ty?”

  He looked down and saw her eyes, saw her as she was and the sweetness of it. “I’m here baby, right behind you all the way,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She felt his urgency, saw his eyes dilate and she let it flow like he said, let it go hard and she screamed. Feeling his mouth cover hers in a kiss. She let go all the way and was gone.

  He thought the whole world must have heard that scream, but he covered up her mouth with his. Thrusting his tongue in hard and deep, thrusting and tasting until he became blinded with it, the intenseness of the orgasm, and he let go, following her in the moan.

  He gathered her up in his arms, feeling the scars of her wounds on her arms and remembering their first time like it was yesterday. Knowing their time now wasn’t their last, it was only the beginning. They had a lot of talking to do this next week before he returned to Iraq.

  Chapter 5

  Rose woke first and felt Ty’s warm breath on her back. She stretched and felt his arm come around her tighter and draw her in. Smiling, she turned into his arms and saw his slow sleepy smile break on his face.

  “God you look good in the morning. I forgot what it was like waking up with you. Do you always wake up this good natured?”

  Ty pulled Rose in tight. Looking down into her smiling face, he thought he could wake up good natured every morning if she was with him. Their mornings had always been good, after nights like last night. Dining, dancing then making love. Mind blowing, meltdown love where the two of them were so sated after, they fell asleep rapidly in the other’s arms. “If you’re with me, and after a night like that, how could I not be good natured?”

  “Mm, I’m gonna make sure your nights are good this week so you have happy mornings.” She said as she pulled in tighter to his body. She wrapped her arms around Ty’s neck, kissing his lips, savoring the feeling. “Mm, maybe this morning will be a repeat of last night.”

  “It can be, baby.” He captured her mouth and kissed her deep. A good deep morning kiss to go with the way he was feeling. “I think I’d like to capture our mood from last night.”

  **********

  Later, Rose walked up and wrapped her arms around Ty’s neck as he sat on their balcony. “How do you like the view?”

  He turned and looked down into Rose’s tank. “I like the view just fine. Would you move a little to the left?”

  “You’re fresh, Mr. Madison.”

  “Better to be fresh than stale. Didn’t notice any complaints a while ago. Seems I heard nothing but encouragements, like ‘oh Ty, like that. More, more.’” He laughed as she slugged him. He caught her off her feet and pulled her down on his lap.

  “God I’m glad I have you, Ty. I’m so glad you found me last night.”

  “I was about to say the same thing. You know life’s not so good alone. I couldn’t continue working, not knowing how we stand. The suspense was killing me, almost did two times. I was getting sluggish, not quick. My mind was in other areas. I need you in my life, on a permanent basis, always.” He held her tight and breathed in her fresh, just showered scent.

  “I want to wake up like this every morning, holding you, making love to you first thing. I need that, I need you. That’s what we need to talk about this week, besides other things.”

  Rose couldn’t believe it. She was so happy, happy to have Ty back. She had been so stupid, stubborn. She should have caught the first copter back to where he had been. The weeks of separation had worked their magic. She knew as soon as she saw him playing the piano, hearing the notes to that song. She knew then that he cared about her more than anyone, aside from her family. He had done a lot to just get there.

  “I want that, Ty. I don’t care where we’re at, as long as it’s together.”

  “Go get your tea and come sit. We can sit here and finish our tea and then go get a bite to eat.” He watched as she got up off his lap and walked over to the table where the tea pot was. It was a far cry from what they had in Afghanistan, even Pakistan when they had gone for a week of R& R.

  They walked hand and hand and watched the people who passed them. She held his hand tight walking along, looking at the paintings that hung in some of the shops on the street they were at. “What street is this?”

  She looked up, a smile on her face. She was really relaxed, enjoying herself, playing the relaxed tourist. They had never had this before and it was a nice change of pace from all that they had gone through back in Afghanistan. She tried not to think of after the Tsunami.

  Rose looked around and saw the street address on one of the buildings. “Street 178. This is one of the streets around the Palace and Silver Pagoda that is supposed to have the nicest shops. I always get this one confused with Street 240. That’s our next stop.”

  They walked on till Rose stood still. “Look at those watercolors. Do you like them?”

  Ty looked and had to admit he did. It seemed they had more in common as they went on. “What’s your place decorated as, all feminine and frills?”

  She looked up at him. “No, flea market finds from all over the world. Quilts, lots of them, water colors, books all over. Plants when I am home to take care of them. They’re all at my folks’ house so they won’t die off. My apartment is hardwood floors and white walls. I need light. I missed that in Afghanistan, but since we were out a lot it didn’t affect me much.”

  Ty pulled her into him and tilted her chin. “So you say you decorate in early hodgepodge.”

  Rose
could feel herself get nervous. Would this cause a rift? Some men liked their house to look a certain way. Was his apartment really masculine, modern? Would he think her apartment a decorator’s nightmare? She loved comfort. She had been brought up that way. She had some friends who had these apartments that looked like they were show places for magazine shoots. The couches pristine white, everything cold, uncomfortable. She felt ill at ease when she went there. They always said relax, but she couldn’t. At her place she could curl up and kick back, put her feet up if she wanted.

  “I guess you could call my apartment that. I have a place that I can call home, that I’m comfortable with, it’s me. When you see it, you know it’s my place.”

  “It sounds like a place I would be comfortable in.” He turned to look at the paintings. “Do you see any besides that one you’d like? We could purchase now and send back, have them framed and waiting for us.”

  Rose looked up at him. “Are you serious? What’s your place like?”

  He looked down at her and smiled, oblivious to the passersby who stopped and stared. “Well let’s see. You know in ‘You’ve got Mail’, well Meg Ryan’s apartment, that’s like mine almost to a tee. So you see, we’re pretty close. There won’t be any arguments over designs to give up. I’ve never been big on having a decorator come in to do my place. I had a friend once who said I should. That was a mistake.”

  “Was the friend a male or female?”

  “Female, we were trying to live together, she was after something else, a man that I wasn’t. I went along with the redecorators to a point but when it got out of hand I put a stop to that. Then she wanted a round of parties all the time. I’d come home from Timbuktu and she’d want to throw a party that night when all I wanted to do was have a quiet night, have supper, relax and….”

  Rose put her head down, she understood and she felt so jealous. To think he shared.... Well that was stupid, of course he did. He wasn’t a virgin when they met but he also wasn’t the party animal that the press painted him out to be, the wild playboy journalist who threw parties all the time when he was home.

  Ty sensed a change in Rose, probably because he’d mentioned Tiffany, though he hadn’t mentioned her name. Rose was too good to be told all the details.

  He pulled her off to the side, under a tree, and held her close. “She never meant what you do to me. I thought I had the woman of my dreams. She turned out to be the woman of my nightmares. She was all surface. She never was anything deeper than a minor scratch. You are perfect for me, my soul mate, without trying to sound cliché, you really are. I don’t know what I’d do without you. That’s why I came all this way to find you. I knew you were real, knew that despite the fact that you have quite the little Irish temper, you have a heart down there and I knew you cared. I also knew you were running on no fuel. That wasn’t you who spoke back there in Banda Aceh, the woman I cared for, loved.” He looked into her eyes and saw them get big and round. He hadn’t said the love word yet. Saying it that way kinda shook her up, he could see that.

  “You and I fit, everything about us, you me, our time together, we fit together like two peas in a pod, like my mother would say. It’s scary how well we get along, how well we match, right down to the paintings we like.” He looked at the painting and then back at Rose.

  “So are we going to get a couple? So we’ll have them for our place when we decide where we’re going to live.”

  Rose reached up and kissed him, right there, right on the side of Street 178, for the whole world to see. “Mm, that’s why I love being with you, you are so up front, so honest. You always let me know how you feel, whether it be in song, or poetry or just talking.”

  She took his hand. “Let’s go pick some paintings and etchings out for our place, our own place, our home.”

  “You’ve got that right baby.” He laughed as she led him into the studio.

  Chapter 6

  Rose sat in the candlelight waiting for Ty to come for the night. They were trying to be discreet. Noori knew they were becoming close but Hasina would have a cow if she knew what was going on. They read together, did crossword puzzles together or typed at their laptops but they were together. That’s what was important. They did little human interest stories but in actuality it was the war, they were getting things that you didn’t get in the everyday newspaper. It wasn’t front line war stories, it was the result of the front lines. Lives that were forgotten, whether it be soldiers or the wives and children they left behind. They dug and talked and interviewed and felt like at the end of the day they had accomplished something. Rose was setting up an NGO for widows and orphans of this war. She was having her parents start things up so she could take over when she got back. Something needed to be done for these women who for years had been oppressed by the Taliban. Some of them didn’t have basic skills to find a way to eek out a living for their families. She wanted a training center. If it succeeded then she would set one up in the other bigger cities. Most couldn’t even read, but the few that could, she wanted to help them, as well as the ones that couldn’t. She even found widows who now were trying to get back into the world, some had been teachers or worked at the hospitals. She needed them too. She was looking at a big project. A training facility plus housing for the ones coming from the countryside. Ty supported her and was tapping his own friends to find help. So she waited for him to come to her tonight. She held his copy of Hafez, the translation by Bell that she especially liked, and thumbed through it. She heard the gentle knock and looking up looked into Ty’s beautiful eyes. God, they were beautiful and when he smiled at her, her stomach did flip flops. She was going into meltdown mode real fast. He did that to her every time when he smiled.

  “Busy?” He walked in and after closing and locking the door he sat down on her bed.

  “No, just thinking what life would be like, a normal life, back in the states.”

  “I don’t know if anyone has a normal life, well maybe my Mom. She does the same thing, day in, day out but she’s very happy and has her grandkids nearby so she can cook for them and bake. I just never wanted to live back down in Georgia after College.” He brushed back Rose’s hair and saw she still looked a little tired from her ordeal. The doctor guaranteed her wounds would heal. She seemed to be fine, though she had some real nightmares the last couple of nights. Enough to waken him from a sound sleep. He was glad he was with her so he was able to hold her and talk her out of them. Always the same thing. The man and the little girl and her losing her grip on the little one’s hand. She would lay in his arms for what seemed forever, sobbing, holding him tight till they either made love or she fell back to sleep. Either way he was happy he was there. Happy to be able to hold her while she was sleeping and dreaming. He always left before Hasina got up for the morning, though he kept his door locked.

  “Do you think about us?”

  Rose looked up. “Yeah, about us, back in America, figuring how we would handle a commuter relationship, you in New York City, me in Boston.”

  “Would it have to be commuter? Why couldn’t it be, either me coming up your way or you coming down my way? We don’t work for any one place, since we freelance. Our life is really easier than most, though I’ve had some offers, one from CNN, the other from the New York Times.”

  “Would that mean you’d be in one place? Could you live like that?”

  “I’ve done enough traveling, eating and sleeping in sand, wondering if I was going to be blown up, not that living back in the states is a piece of cake, but it has its benefits. Maybe a certain someone would be there….” He looked over at her and smiled his smile he knew melted her heart.

  Rose scootched in close, glad for the contact because as soon as she did he pulled her in. “Maybe we could talk about it more, later after….” She didn’t get the rest of the words out, he covered her mouth with his, silencing her, bringing out the moan in both of them.

  Chapter 7

  “So how many rooms does your apartment have?” Rose asked,
looking up into Ty’s face.

  They walked out of the Post Office after mailing the artwork. Ty took her hand and signaled for a Cyclo. Getting in, he pulled her in close. He couldn’t get enough her. “Two bedrooms, a small kitchen, but it’s sunny and well equipped. A large sunny dining and living area. My bedroom is large with a large window. The other is my guest room but doubles as my office for the moment. I re-did the bath, I think you’d like it, large tub, plenty of room for you and me. The floors are all hardwood, except for the bath and kitchen.”

  “Can you have pets?” She was thinking of her older cat. Her dog Gigi would be fine if she had to leave her with her mom, but her cat, she had a hard time without Rose.

  “Pets are ok, if they are small. I had a cat but he died. I miss not having a pet.”

  “I have two, a small dog and my older house cat. She’s the one I’m concerned for.”

  Then it sounds like we’re the makings of an American family, all we need are the kids.”

  Rose craned her neck to look up at him. “Do you want children?” She had always wanted at least a couple but never gave it much of a thought with Ty.

  “I always did, but the last couple of years I didn’t think I’d even find someone to share my life with, never mind making babies.” He laughed ruefully. He was warmed by the pressure her hand gave to his.

  “How about you?”

  “Mm, I’ve always wanted a family. I come from a happy one so I hoped to some day find that with someone.”

  “I think we are on the same page.”

  They told the Cyclo driver to just take them around town. “I was planning on going down to the coast after spending a day or two here in Phnom Penh. Would you like to do that?” Rose asked as she leaned into Ty’s body.