The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11)

“Only as a student. She’s not my type.”

She was nearly having to run to keep up with him. “Prove it,” she said daringly.

Hank paused for a moment and looked at her in the moonlight. Her makeup was too heavy and the dress she wore was cheap and he doubted if she had any idea what was going on in Servia but, at the moment, she was appealing. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him for a quick, perfunctory kiss. His mind was totally on finding Amanda.

“I think we’ve lost him,” Amanda said, breathless from running to escape Hank.

“Is he your watchdog or somethin’?” Sam asked.

“Something is right. He thinks he owns me.”

“But I heard you were engaged to some guy that lives with you.”

Maybe it was the wine, but Amanda’s memory of the humiliating scene with Taylor in the library came back vividly. If he was a red-blooded normal male, maybe it was just she who nauseated him. Dr. Montgomery didn’t seem to find her physically repulsive but then he seemed to like all women. He flirted with Lily Webster in the park, he took Reva to a dance. There didn’t seem to be a woman he didn’t like.

She leaned a little bit toward Sam. “Tell me, did you ever notice me when we were in school together?”

“Sure. You were Caulden’s daughter. You were the richest kid in school.”

“Oh,” she said flatly. “Is that why you came up to me at the dance? My father’s money?”

Smiling, he took her hand in his and led her to the edge of the road. “I didn’t know who you were at first. I just thought you were the prettiest girl I’d seen in years.”

“Really?” she whispered up at him, eyes wide. If she was pretty, why didn’t Taylor want to touch her? She wondered if Sam would be repulsed if she kissed him. She put her face up toward his and she was pleased to hear his breath taken in sharply.

“Let’s go look at the hop fields in the moonligh

t,” he said and pulled her behind him. When they came to the fence, he swept her into his arms and lifted her over.

The sudden movement made Amanda feel a little dizzy, but the moonlight, this big, handsome man, the wine and his obvious interest in her were making her skin glow. She watched as he climbed over the fence and she saw a big muscle outlined in his thigh. When she looked up at his face, she saw he had seen her look.

“Come on, sugar,” he said softly and caught her hand and began leading her under the overhead curtain of hop vines.

Amanda followed him, feeling good about herself, feeling that she, for once, wasn’t a freak. Here was a man who liked her, a man who didn’t want to teach her anything or give her a test. Here was a man who wasn’t angry because she was displeasing him.

Suddenly, Sam turned and pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her. It felt so good to be kissed. He wasn’t Taylor, who hated her kisses; he wasn’t Dr. Montgomery, who only kissed her when he was proving something to her.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him back, her arms going around his neck.

His lips went to her cheek, her ear, her neck. His hands began to roam all over her body, clutching her buttocks and jamming her hips against his.

“Oh yeah, honey, give me,” he murmured, his mouth moving down to her shoulder.

She felt his hand on the filmy shoulder of her dress, then she heard a little tear.

“Sam,” she said, pushing at him, but he didn’t budge. His mouth was making her shoulder wet and the grinding of his hips into hers was beginning to hurt. “Sam, please let me go.”

“Not yet, honey. Not till I get what you been promisin’.”

Amanda was beginning to get concerned. His arms were tightening; his hands were moving. One big hand grabbed the side of her breast.

“No!” she cried, but he put his mouth over hers again. She didn’t like his kisses. They weren’t nice like Dr. Montgomery’s kisses. She moved her head away. “Stop it! I want to go home.”

“You are home, girlie.”

He put one arm under her knees and lifted her as he sank to the ground.

She was frightened now and she began to struggle in earnest, but she was half his weight and she had no effect on his strength. “No!” she screamed, pushing at him, pummeling any part of his body she could reach with her fists.