tasted his salty-sweet skin. She shivered at the tickle of his beard on her cheek. Grew hot inside at his thundering heartbeat, the soft intake of his breath. Her fingertips found his beard…played in its softness…then moved on to his lips, stroked them lightly, teasingly, sensitizing them…preparing them for hers.
Hot all over inside, she heard his intake of breath become a growl, and then her name.
He knew what was happening, of course he did. Knew that what she was doing was filling a fundamental human need, obeying an instinct as old as time-attempting to vanquish death by creating new life. And he had no thought at all of denying her. Sometime later, he thought he might feel ashamed of himself, but just then it seemed to him the only possible thing to do. That was his last rational thought before her lips touched his.
A moment later he knew how desperately he’d been craving the taste of her. He knew she must have been in his dreams, when he’d woken up itchy and feverish and swollen with unfulfilled desire. Knew she’d been just behind his thoughts every waking moment, like a sprite playing peekaboo, playing havoc with his concentration, popping up unexpectedly to give him a breath-stopping vision of her lush, sensual mouth, lips curved in a sardonic smile…
So, he opened to her…felt her lift herself and with one hungry surge, come inside him. She wanted the lead and he gave it to her with all the generosity of spirit that was his nature, holding nothing back. His breath scalded his throat; groans that formed deep in his belly somehow fought their way through his chest to mingle with her tigerish little growls. Desire exploded inside him and scattered sparks through all his muscles. His skin ignited.
The towel fell away, forgotten. His hand found and filled itself with her breast…but at the first brush of his fingers on her cold-tightened nipple she gasped…first arched against him, pushing into his hand…then tore her mouth from his and instead pulled his head down, her fingers weaving themselves though his hair as she lifted herself to meet him.
The sound she made when he lowered his mouth over the jewel-hard tip was heart-wrenching-a whimper, sharp and bright as crystal breaking. Hearing it, love and passion came together inside him for the first time in memory, forming a tenderness so intense and so vast it filled every corner of his being, and his throat and eyes with tears. Quaking inside, he held himself still…save for his tongue, which gently…so gently laved her nipple to melting softness. And for his hand…which, usurped, went searching, skimmed down the sensitive sides of her waist, her hip, the gentle concavity of her stomach, to find the nest of damp curls between her thighs. Lightly, he rubbed her legs with long, easing strokes until she opened to him…then brushed the silky insides of her thighs with his fingertips…nested the damp mound at their apex in his palm.
At first, as before, she gasped and pushed into his hand, hungry…demanding…shivering in anticipation. Then, as before, she twisted away from him with an inarticulate little cry. Her hands clutched at his shoulders with an urgency he heard a moment later in her hoarse and guttural “No!”
Before the meaning of that could penetrate the delirium of his thoughts, it came to him that she was tearing frantically at his T-shirt, trying to pull it over his head while at the same time pushing on him, bearing him down. Understanding came. Laughing softly, he drew off his shirt in one swift motion and lay back on the bed, drawing her with him.
She was amazed by the way he seemed to know just what she wanted-and gave it to her. And touched beyond measure by the easy unselfishness of his giving. As impatient as she was, as brittle with desire, the quick but careful way he prepared himself for her was a revelation. And as she came astride him and felt the first bright shock of penetration…then the slow, sweet filling…that hard and shiny ribbon of desire inside her somehow became entangled with something softer…a delicate fluttering streamer of feeling, gossamer as spiderwebbing, lovely as a butterfly’s wing. As she moved over him, rocking her body with his, the two coiled and danced through her consciousness, becoming so inextricably knotted she couldn’t tell, finally, one from the other. Hopelessly tangled, she began to feel clumsy, shaky, out of control.
“Easy…” he murmured, smiling up at her. His hands ran up and down her sides…then around to her back, dipping under the wet-silk fall of her hair to cup her buttocks as he set himself deep inside her.
She felt her body coiling…bracing…and tears rushing up in her throat. She gazed at him, defiance of the tears blazing hot and fierce in her eyes…
It came so suddenly…her eyes bright as chips of sky one moment…the next dissolving in misty rainbows. She swayed, and he drew her down onto his chest, her body wrapped in the webbing of her hair, quaking and trembling, release mixing with sobs. Swiftly then, while she clung to him, her body still hot and pulsing, he drove himself into her and gave her his own completion like a gift…a sweet shuddering rapture that was like nothing he’d ever known…
Gradually, he understood that she was crying. Not the sobs of reaction to overwhelming climax, but deep, wrenching, grief-stricken sobs. He didn’t try to stop her tears, nor did he feel any remorse, understanding that tears were a necessary antedote to grief, and a prerequisite for healing. Instead, he wrapped her in his arms and warmed her with his body while he stroked her back and murmured reassurances into her damp hair.
“Sorry,” she croaked, when the weeping had subsided into exhausted snuffles, sounding grumpy in her self- disgust. “I thought I was done with that. I really
“Why shouldn’t you cry?” Ethan said matter-of-factly-a trifle gruffly. “You’ve lost someone you care about very much.”
She didn’t say anything for several minutes. Then, in a careful whisper, lest she bring forth the lurking sobs again… “He was…the only person in this world who loved me. Now he’s gone. And now there’s…no one.”
“That’s not true.” He paused, his hand still moving up and down her back. And then he softly said it. “
He couldn’t have been more surprised when she rolled away from him, as suddenly and violently as if he’d turned into something monstrous and vile right there in her embrace. Crouched on her knees just beyond his reach, she snatched up the forgotten towel and drew it jerkily around her.
“Well,” Ethan said mildly, as his heart banged without mercy against his ribcage, “I had hoped for a little different reaction.”
She snorted, but said nothing, concentrating instead on knotting the towel above her breasts. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see the hurt in his eyes that he tried so hard to hide with that quiet, gentle way of his.
“I do, you know. I shouldn’t think that would come as much of a surprise. Men must fall in love with you all the time.”
She did look at him then-as penance, perhaps, for the pain she was causing him. “They do,” she said evenly. “I suppose I just never cared before what happened to any of them. I guess I thought they got what they deserved.”
“Oh-” and his lips twisted into a droll little smile “-and what’s the terrible penalty for loving Phoenix? Do I turn to stone? Oops-no, that’s Medusa.”
She snorted and looked away again. Turning sideways to him, she settled herself cross-legged and began to gather her hair into her hands. “You just…shouldn’t,” she said, mechanically twisting it into a rope. “I’m not very loveable.”
“Don’t you think you should let me be the judge of that?” His voice sounded almost amused…but she hadn’t missed the burning brightness of his eyes.
“You don’t know who I am,” she mumbled, hating what she was doing to him. Hating herself.
“I know you better than you think I do,” he said, and something in the softness of his voice made her turn to look at him. Her heart lurched…stumbled and ran away from her, leaving her cold…cold as ice. Her face must have gone sheet-white, but he went on anyway, in that same gentle way. “Your mother’s name was Rachel. You had a twin brother named Jonathan, and a little sister named Chrissy. They died in an apartment house fire when you were nine.”
Chapter 14
Her lips felt as if they’d been sculpted of ice. Numb. “How did you…how long have you-”
“I just found out yesterday. I went to your studio to talk to you, but you weren’t there. Doveman told me…a little more. We put it together, where you must have gone. That’s why we were both there…at The Gardens…the
