Temptation Road Read Free

and
pulled her body hard against his, tangling a hand in her hair while
the other held her waist. She heard a feral noise and when she knew
that it had come from her own throat, she blushed all the more, but
she was beyond caring. His mouth consumed hers and her hands rested
for only a moment on the hard muscles of his chest, then moved
under his shirt to feel his burning skin.
    The kiss went on and on and she knew she had
never experienced such an immediate sensation of not only raw
passion and desire, but connection with a man. His very smell was
intoxicating and drew her to him, her mind flashed with scenes she
couldn’t quite hold onto and she thought she heard his deeply
melodic voice whisper, “mine.”
    She was sure he must feel it too, that sense
of discovering your other half, of stumbling blindly in the
darkness only to bump into someone who was meant to be the truest
love of your life.
    At last he broke their kiss and let his
fevered cheek rest against hers. His hands tenderly moved over her
back and circled her small waist holding her body firmly to his, as
if he refused to let her go.
    She let her hands discover the elegant planes
of his face and he kissed the tips of her fingers when they
lingered on his lips. Her eyes searched his, desperate to know if
he was consumed with the same life-altering emotions that had her
heart and mind reeling. In the hazy half-light and shadow she
couldn’t be sure if they registered any feeling at all. With
trembling voice she whispered, “Who are you?” and although she
waited, he didn’t say a word. So she closed her eyes and drew a
long, deep breath, then went inside, and up the stairs to her room,
all alone.
    *
    When she woke after only a few hours of
restless sleep, she dressed quickly in jeans, boots, a loose knit
pullover and parka. She worked her thick hair into two braids that
hung over her shoulders, then she drove up Temptation Road to find
the house she couldn’t live without. It was as wondrous as she’d
imagined, just long neglected and a little down on its luck, kind of like me, she thought and smiled. It loomed above her
as she stood at the end of a crooked brick walkway and it was most
assuredly a fantastical Victorian whimsy lost in the woods. The
paint had faded but the house was still awe-inspiring with turrets
and gables and gingerbread trim and latticework and lighting rods
with milky glass balls for decoration as they pointed skyward from
a multitude of roof peeks.
    She walked to the porch along a path covered
with pine needles and up a broad set of wooden steps that were
surprisingly sound. The porch was what all front porches should be,
wide and sweeping around the sides and curling out into fanciful
circular open-air seating areas at the corners of the house. Wicker
chairs, tables, plant stands, wide low rockers and two porch swings
were scattered about, stolidly waiting. They begged for a fresh
coat of paint and cushions, but otherwise they were sturdy and it
was all Rae could do not to sink into a chair and stare out at the
majestic mountains and forest that seemed to cradle the house and
its wide patches of lawn and arbor and riotous garden.
    The front door was tall and solid with an
extravagantly romantic stained-glass window, it depicted a man and
a woman caught in a passionate embrace surrounded by an audience of
animals from the forest that loomed in the intricate background.
The door was locked tight so she moved from window to window trying
to get a glimpse of the interior. The glass panes were filmy,
coated with soot and dust on the inside and so whatever was within
was hidden from her.
    As she turned to retrace her steps back down
the path she stopped in her tracks, it was as if every creature
from the panel of stained-glass had come to life around her. There
among the pine needles were red and grey foxes, raccoons,
squirrels, possums, and all manner of birds of every size and
color. A family of White-tailed deer wandered close to her