Jackie's Beanstalk Excerpt

Jackie's Beanstalk, modern-day fairytale...

His tongue slid wetly along the gentle slope of her neck as his
mouth moved lower to nip her collarbone. Her skin warmed as his tender
mouth touched her body with tiny kisses that were more whispers
than touch.

As his lips circled her hard nipple, pulling it into his heat and
stroking it with his tongue, she arched her body, pressing herself to his
touch. She felt the delicious sensations, the tingling that began somewhere
deep within her and would spread—she knew—to enfold her
fully. She longed for the feel of his touch lower…much lower.
A moan escaped from her body. It was a long, long sound filled
with remembrances of passion shared and the promise of delights yet to
come.

When his mouth danced along the flat planes of her abdomen,
traveling toward what could only be—
* * * *
“Shit!”

She felt the tremors fill her body as the riding mower
bounced off the trunk of a spreading maple. Her jaw snapped
shut, trapping her lower lip between her teeth and she tasted
blood.

It took only a second to back the John Deere from its position
against the tree, about the same amount of time that it
had taken to collide with the maple. She climbed off the
machine and strode to the front of the little tractor. There were
scrapes in the green paint and a good-sized dent in the front
by the right tire.

“Shit!” She swore out loud as she left the tree behind and
headed for the rest of the large yard. Swearing out loud on a
hot July day didn’t seem particularly unusual. After all, there
wasn’t anyone to hear her, anyone to mind whether or not she
swore or sang church hymns.

Jackie Wallace lived alone in the large farmhouse that had
been her parents’ home. When they moved to Sarasota they
left Jackie the keys to the house, the keys to their old Caddy
and the key to the cupboard where they stored the economysized
bags of dog food for their old dog, Lady. Jackie’s parents
had been gone for a year and Jackie and Lady were falling into
a lifestyle that, if not exactly adventurous, was at least comfortable.

She’d been especially thankful for the house—and
Lady—to come home to when her boyfriend of two years
tossed her out of his townhouse. He said he needed to “find
himself” when in actuality what he planned to find was the recently
divorced woman who had purchased the townhouse adjacent
to his.

Jackie knew she had to stop thinking about Troy. It was
driving her crazy, thinking about him and the things they once
did together. Besides, if she hit that damn tree too many more
times she was going to kill it. And what would she tell her father
when she spoke with him on the phone? “Oh, by the way,
I killed the tree you planted when I was born. How? Oh, I
keep smashing into it when I mow the lawn. Why am I crashing
into the tree? Oh, I just keep thinking about Troy and his
incredible lovemaking talents, that’s all.”

Yeah, I’d better keep my mind off of Troy—his tongue, his cock,
his talents—all of it. It was too dangerous to think about him
when she was—

“Shit!”

Jackie looked over the dented front fender of the tractor.
If she stood up in the seat and stretched her neck out far and
to the left, she could just make out the edge of what remained
of her mailbox. But just barely.