His body was bronze and silver in the faltering light from the window. Addie splayed her hands over his back, explored down to the loosened waist of his Levi's, then stopped in sudden shyness. Ben murmured something indistinguishable and spread the edges of her robe, easing it down her arms. It dropped to the floor with a soft rustle.
She stood motionless, her fingers resting at his waist as he undid the tiny button at the top of her high-necked gown, then the next, following the trail of fastenings down to a spot just beneath her breasts. His lips brushed against her cheek, catching the last glimmer of a forgotten tear.
Unhurriedly he peeled the nightgown off her shoulders and let it drop in a circle around her feet. Their fingers tangled together as he took her hands and led them to his shoulders. She left them there and let him look at her, shivering slightly as his eyes traveled over her slender body. Impossible to look at his face, for fear of what she might see written there. She wanted to be everything for him. She wanted to be perfect for him. His gaze moved down her, returned slowly to her face, and his eyes darkened with passion.
'I knew you'd be beautiful,' he whispered. 'I knew I'd want you. But nothing close to this.' He picked her up and carried her to the bed, his feet making no sound on the floor. Helplessly she clung to him, her feet dangling as his arm hooked under her knees. The whole world seemed to tilt as he settled her on the bed. He stripped off his jeans and bent over her. Biting her lower lip to hold in a moan, she closed her eyes as his mouth descended to her breasts.
Restlessly she twisted underneath him, craving the weight of his body on hers, and he slid his hand down to her stomach, pressing her against the mattress. 'Slow,' he murmured, his fingers skimming the curve of her hip. 'Slow and patient… Addie. love… '
'I want to be yours-'
'You are.'
'I want you inside me.'
'Not yet.' His tongue feathered along the indentation of her midriff, causing her to quiver. 'Not yet… we have time.'
She stroked his hair, loving the feel of him, the freedom of touching him. In this moment he belonged to her… he was hers. Slowly her thoughts were drowned out by his gentle hands and his whispering. Random whispers, praising her, encouraging her to respond, heightening her pleasure.
'Your hips fit my hands…you're so smooth here… and here. Move closer let me touch don't be shy with me. I love the smell of your skin like flowers… what do you want?… take my hand and show me… yes, like that… '
He was intent on knowing her better than she did herself. All secrets were stripped away from her in the darkness, everything that was private and intimate revealed. She refused -him nothing, answering silent questions she had never dreamed he would want to ask. The need to know him in the same way, to understand his body, was a scourging fire.
Ben caught his breath as her hands moved down to his hips. Her fingertips grazed the edge of the coarse hair that feathered low across his abdomen. She hesitated, her fingers hovering near the pulsing, aroused length of him, and he knew she was uncertain. He ached for the feel of her hands on him, small, feminine hands that needed to be taught how to touch a man.
'Addie…' His hand slid to the back of hers, and she pulled away as if touched by fire. 'No, no…let me show you,' he said, and it was difficult to keep his voice gentle when his body was shaking with eagerness. 'Make me ready for you,' he urged, taking her hand in a stronger grip and shaping her palm to his aroused flesh, showing her how to pleasure him. She blushed in the darkness and followed the intimate lesson awkwardly, spurred on by the tremor of his fingers, the racing of his heart. Up and down her hand traveled, clasping loosely, pausing to test the silky texture of his skin. His breath rushed in her hair as she became bolder, and he let go of her, allowing her to touch him without guidance. She dared to whisper the same questions that he'd asked her, about what felt good, what he liked, and she was rewarded by his soft laugh.
'You're an angel,' Ben murmured, kissing her possessively, lifting her hands up to his face and pressing her palms against his cheeks. '… angel…' His fingers searched through the damp tangle of hair between her legs as he continued to kiss her. Slowly, slowly, she felt the intrusion of his finger into her body, and she started, her thighs tensing.
'Don't tighten,' he said huskily. 'Relax. Let me inside, darlin’.” And she tried to release the inner clenching as she felt his finger slip even deeper. His touch was agile and sensitive, sliding and stroking until she arched up to him and froze with a faint sound, gripped in a surge of pleasure. The heel of his hand ground gently against the softness between her thighs, drawing out her ecstasy as long as possible.
Exhausted, Addie lay trembling in his arms, not knowing if minutes or hours passed before she lifted her lashes. He rose to his elbows above her, staring down at her face with burning green eyes. Languidly, greedily, she wrapped her arms around his neck and urged him closer, and he spread her legs with his knees, pressing into her.
The long, invasive thrust caused her to flinch in pain, but she surrendered to it instead of fighting, striving to accept the fullness of him inside her. Ben stroked the hair away from her forehead, kissed the salt scented dampness of her skin. His lungs expanded with corrugated breaths as the depths of her body held him in a velvet grip. He moved in a careful, steady rhythm. Before he could teach her more, she lifted her hips in response.
Her eyes gleamed smokily as they searched his. 'What does it feel like to you?'
His dark hair fell over his forehead as he looked down at her, momentarily silent as he tried to find the words. Then he swallowed hard and shook his head. 'I can't describe it,' he said huskily. 'What about you?'
'I feel like you're part of me,' she whispered. 'We're one person. And I don't want to be separate from you again.'
Suddenly fierce, he pulled her hips up with his hands and drove into her. Driven by the rhythm he had set, they sought a deeper joining, loved, enchanted, until the world was shredded around them. He found her mouth with his and buried his final groan in her throat, finding the same burst of fulfillment that had just contracted her flesh around his. And then they lay together in exhaustion, suffused with wonder.
Addie was the first to move. Sleepily she threw her arm across his shoulders and pulled herself on top of him until she was lying across his chest. With her bright eyes and ruffled hair, she looked so much like a curious kitten that Ben's mouth twitched in amusement. He trailed his fingers down the curve of her back.
'Ben?'
'What?'
'Do you still visit that woman in Blue Ridge?'
He smiled ruefully and framed her face in his hands. 'God knows why I should be surprised by anything you ask.'
'Well?'
'I haven't seen her in a long time. I haven't been with anyone since I first realized I wanted you.' Absently he played with her hair, winding it through his fingers, brushing the ends across his face, enjoying the softness of it. 'You've absorbed all my interest and desire for weeks. There wasn't enough left for anyone else. '
Addie hated the thought of his being with another woman. In spite of his reassurance, she couldn't help feeling jealous. She didn't want him to have memories of other women and the pleasures they had given him. Did he think of her in a different way than he thought of them? Had making love with her been the same? Her thoughts wandered back to the woman in Blue Ridge.
'Did you care about her?'
'I didn't know her enough to care about her.'
'But you and she-'
'We enjoyed each other's company in bed. But there's more to knowing a person than being familiar with her body. '
She'd never pondered deeply what it must be like to make love with someone you didn't care for. 'Did you even like her?'
