One Summer’s Knight

The breadth of a whisper away from her lips, he paused. “Can’t what?”

“Can’t do this,” she gasped. And she could already feel his mouth, and the kiss she couldn’t allow to happen. She could taste him-his breath was in her mouth, his heat and energy already part of her, already inside her, running through her veins. “No matter how much I want to.” Her lips twisted, she’d never known such pain. She felt engulfed by it…made hopeless and exhausted by it…like a starving person denied all hope of food. “I have…the children…”

He made a sound so full of frustration and sorrow she wondered if he might be feeling the same pain, or at least understood hers. For the space of a few dozen heartbeats neither of them spoke, while the truths they couldn’t bring themselves to utter vibrated in the hairbreadth that was left between them. Yes, the children, Riley. We both know there is no place in your life for my children.

“Just once in your life,” he grated as he released her, the warmth of his exhalation settling on her face like a veil, “just once…have you ever done anything…that was just for you?”

She shook her head, half numb now with loss and regret, and mumbled, “When you become a parent…” One step above her he paused to look back. His head was high, and she could see his eyes glittering down at her through the curtains of his lashes. She swallowed in a futile attempt to ease her aching throat and finished in a whisper, “You forfeit the luxury of thinking only of yourself.” And then it was she who turned and continued down the stairs on legs she couldn’t feel, knowing his eyes would follow her all the way.

Sheer will carried her as far as the kitchen, but she didn’t stop at the refrigerator or the cupboards as she’d planned. It would take a lot more than a cup of warm Postum to soothe her now. Instead, she wobbled on through and into the morning room, where she pulled out a chair, sank into it and laid her head down on the table, pillowed on her folded arms, the way nursery school children do during rest time. After a time, Peggy Sue came padding in, climbed up the trailing skirt of the yellow dress and into Summer’s lap, and the gentle rhythm of her kneading paws and ratchety purr became like an anesthetic to her mind. blocking out thought.

Riley knew he wouldn’t sleep. And of the several alternatives available to him, he knew the only one that carried with it any real hope of surcease for the turmoil inside him was to swim himself to a state of exhaustion. He seldom swam these days; it wasn’t often that he found himself in need of that distraction. His pool was more decorative than functional, designed more to feed the senses and relax the mind than exercise the body. But there were still occasionally nights, like this one, when some new stress drove him to the water as old demons once had, and he would find in the humid darkness, in the caress of warm water on his naked body, in the churning of his arms and legs and the burning in his lungs…in the memory of nights when those things had meant actual physical, not just mental, escape, a strange comfort.

He’d been at it for a while-had no idea how long, or what time it was-when he felt the crawling sensation along his spine that told him he had company. He halted and sank in midstroke, heart pounding more with adrenaline than exertion, then surfaced cautiously, eyes first, like a cruising gator. And just barely did get his nose and mouth out of the water before his gasp of shock would have had him inhaling half the pool.

It was Summer. She was standing there on the deck near the shallow end, a pale, almost ghostly form with her golden hair, golden skin and the yellow dress lit to a silvery glow by the house security lights.

He growled, “What’re you tryin’ to do, scare me to death? Damn near…” But his voice faded to nothing as she unbuckled her belt and let it drop to the flagstones near her bare feet.

Now her fingers were on the topmost button of the long row of buttons that ran from chest to hem down the front of the dress. Very slowly, Riley let his feet sink to the bottom of the pool. His mind was full of thoughts and questions, all of them zooming around and flaming out like bugs in an electric zapper, none of them living long enough to give rise to coherent speech. In that bemused state he watched her hands… her strong, nurturing hands…work their way down that row of buttons to a point several inches below her waist…watched her slip her arms from the sleeves, then skim the dress down over her hips and let it fall in a creamy puddle around her feet, leaving her standing before him in a pair of the panties he’d bought for her…and nothing more. And then those, too, were peeled off, rolled down, abandoned like an old chrysalis…

He wondered if he could be dreaming, hallucinating-some fever of the brain, perhaps, a by-product of the fire in his loins. But no-his heart was pounding too hard, rocking the water where it lapped against his sternum. He could feel his blood surging through his body, feel himself growing hot and hard. Barely breathing, he watched her move away from the puddle of her clothing and step over the edge of the pool, her legs long and graceful, one foot reaching for that first step down into the water, slender arms extended out to her sides just a little for balance. Her body was like sculpted marble in the dim light. He’d never seen anything so lovely. A modern-day Venus, he thought, rendered by the hand of an Old Master.

And then she was in the water and moving toward him, the dark water sluicing over her breasts like oil. Incredibly, he felt her hands on the sides of his waist, her touch cooler than the water-felt them slide around him, fan across the ridges of muscle that cushioned his spine, then down over his buttocks.

A bolt of desire shot through him, so intense it was like pain. His eyes closed of their own volition, and he groaned aloud. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask her-meaning to ask her-what in the hell this was all about, and did she have any idea what she was doing to him! But his arms were full of her, his hands-both hands-were tangled in her hair, and his mouth was filled with her mouth…her lips…her tongue Standing in water up to his middle, he felt as if he were being consumed by flames.

This was madness…insanity. He knew she’d been right to stop him, there on the stairs, right to remind him of all the reasons they shouldn’t do this. He knew that, and surely she did, too. But though he knew it he didn’t care. There was a wildness in him-yes, and she’d called it the wild lonelies!-that he remembered from long, long ago. A terrible emptiness. She-this woman in his arms-could fill it; he knew that, too, in the very depths of his soul. And yet the slippery friction of her body against his, and the panting heat of her mouth, seemed only to taunt and torment him, while his mind screamed Yes! But not like this…not like this!

The sound she made when he tore his mouth from hers was like a sob. With his fingers tangled in her hair he held her head ruthlessly still, upturned so he could look into her face as he demanded in a harsh, guttural cry, “Why? What… is…this?”

She answered him the same way, her head thrown back and defiant, while her eyes glittered with a fierce, pale light. “This is for me. For me!” She shook her head free of his grasp. “It came to me that I’ve been too proud to admit-” she was panting, out of breath, as if she’d been swimming long and hard “-that it wasn’t the children I was protecting…it was me.” Her laughter was like moonlight on water-it touched only the surface. “My kids aren’t going to be hurt by this-how can they be? They’ll never know. I’ll find the right man for them-for us-someday. I’ll find someone who’ll be the father to them they deserve… need.”

“My God, Summer-” It was torn from him, a groan of anguish.

“No, I will-I must.” Her hands slid up his back and pressed against his shoulder blades with a strength that shamed him for all the times he’d thought her vulnerable and weak. “And when I do, the only one who’ll ever know about this…about us…is me. I’m the one that has to live with it. I’m the only one who can be hurt. So…this is for me.”

No-not the only one! “God, Summer…” He felt the emptiness yawning before him, felt as though she were the only thing keeping him from being swallowed by it Like an animal in a trap, pain-racked and dazed, he growled, “What if I don’t want to let you go? Maybe-”

She stopped him there with a shake of her head and a finger touched gently to his lips. “My children deserve more than just to be taken on as part of my…baggage. It’s okay, I understand. I don’t expect happily ever after. This is enough-for as long as I’m here, okay? It’s enough…” The last was a whisper, rough as sandpaper. And so were the words that followed. “Please, Riley…just close your eyes and…kiss me.”

He’d never felt so conflicted, so torn. He was on fire with passion, but there was a heaviness inside him; he trembled with fury, but ached with tenderness. Never in all his life had he wanted a woman as much as he wanted this one, but the thought of taking her made him feel one good breath away from crying. He wanted to lift his head and cry out from the depths of his soul, scream to the heavens his rage at fate, which had given him his demons, the demons that would not let him give her all she deserved, and take from her what he needed.

Instead, he simply did as she asked, and kissed her.

And in the end, for that moment at least, it was what he needed; she was a healer, after all.