been there like a promise five years ago, and she craved it now. She perched on a flat oblong rock with her knees tucked up and her eyes closed, willing the sun to melt away the chill of heartache Julia had invoked.
An invitation from Kern for a renewal of commitment-no, there hadn’t been one. Julia’s busy eyes had interpreted physical desire as something else in Kern, but Trisha had never expected more. She was the one who had failed him in the past and she could not blame him for not offering second chances. And for just this moment she was not even going to let herself believe how painfully she wanted that second chance. There would be time for that when she was home again, time for despair and a twisting, sharp sort of anguish that even now was trying to shred and tear inside. She opened her eyes.
Not now. Not this moment. This moment is just…free, she told herself. She stayed absolutely still until the peace of the haven penetrated past mind and heart and skin, as if the sun could heal soul-and like a gift, the peace was there.
The rock was hot, and restlessly she uncurled to stand, her canvas-shoed foot slipping into the chilling stream as she did so. It was delightfully cold. In a moment she had both shoes off and then with increasing speed all the rest of her clothes. The pool was only three feet at its deepest, ideal for cooling off if not swimming. She stepped precariously from rock to rock with her arms raised for balance, the sun hot and vibrant on her flesh, the icy water lapping at her knees. The waterfall drew her irresistibly.
There was no one around to hear her startled laughter as the weight of icy water streamed through her hair and over her slim body in torrents. She stood as long as she could stand it, until finally, with her skin tingling fresh and pink, she breathlessly struggled back again over the slippery round rocks of the pool to the flat rock at the edge. The heat of the smooth stone felt good and she perched with her toes stretched to the water, raising her face to the sun.
The sun dried and pearled a luster to her skin in minutes. The lush primitive landscape seemed to reflect inside her; she felt herself a creature of the senses, uninhibited and free, the sun’s touch an erotic warmth on her bare breasts, the whisper of a strand of hair on her cheek a tickle of the sensual. She closed her eyes again to the glare of sun on water, not asleep and not quite awake, feeling the delicious warmth flood over every inch of her.
She stirred at the sudden cry of a startled bird.
Kern was standing across the pool from her, staring over the rippling silver of the water. His hands were on his hips, his shirt clinging damply to him in the heat.
Dirt was caked on his boots, patched on his jeans; a sheen of sweat glistened in the sun on his forehead. Disheveled, hot, dusty, the bronze of his skin glowed around the physical power of the man, the sheer sexual magnetism only intensified by the moisture on his skin and his disheveled appearance.
She didn’t move. Caught and naked beneath his gaze, she felt a vibrant rush of response in her body, a response that only intensified inside as she watched him as he must have watched her.
The shirt was stripped, a broad expanse of golden chest uncaged to the sun. Belt and boots, jeans and briefs…she drew in her breath. He waded in the water, and she saw that
He reached out a hand while his legs still shimmered in water. “You want to talk, Tish?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. It was all said the moment she took his hand, a sweet whisper of laughter escaping from her at the renewed shock of icy water against her sun-warmed skin. He drew her close, damp hands gliding over her heated body, his mouth blocking out a too-bright sun.
He was wet and shivering cold all over to her baked skin, but the blend was shockingly erotic. His cool lips suddenly heated, claiming hers with a pressure that stole her laughter. The shape of her mouth molded to his, open to the slow curl of his tongue inside, the taste of him filling her until the blend of tastes was the same, no longer hers or his. His palms stroked a silken touch from the nape of her neck down the taper of her spine, down the gentle round of her hips until his fingertips touched thigh. The second time his hands were less teasingly soft, more deliberately arousing in texture and sensation, and the third time he was kneading her skin to his, forcing her swelling breasts to mold to his chest, forcing her hips to the cradle of his.
The kiss ended when he lifted his head to look at her. Her face was still raised to his. Like smooth warm silk his palms cupped her breasts, his thumbs gently rubbing their tips until she closed her eyes in restless need. Gently the palms smoothed their way up, fingering the delicate arch of collarbone, the hollow of her throat. His kiss followed the same trail as he picked her up.
The pool, the rocks, were brilliant with sun, blinding. The stretch of moss held sun-dappled shade, cool on her back, a grazing sensation that fired new primitive sensations within. The smells were invasive-the sweet white flower she’d never named, the rich pungent moss, Kern’s smell of earth and man…and her own.
There was fear-of the power of the man which she saw in his smoke-colored eyes. He would possess her. It was the choice she had made, but there was a different flavor knowing she could not take it back. His touch aroused her like the heat and excitement of danger, but the very old fear came with it. What she craved was in his keeping, and her hands suddenly clenched his shoulders, desperate to feel held, protected. And his hands were gentle, soothing, loving, promising. It seemed so easy suddenly.
His flesh was luscious in her hands, filled with vibrant warmth, blood, life. The beard tickled at her breasts when his mouth loved the hollow of her throat. She writhed, small sounds escaping from her throat. She knew where he wanted touching; she had always known. There had always been a fear of not doing it well, but that fear had no place when everywhere she touched invoked an answering trembling in Kern, an odd pitch in his breathing, his need so sweet, so potent. The song was racing through her veins, out of control. God, Kern, now… “Please…”
“Tell me, Tish,” he ordered roughly. “I need to hear you say it’s different. I want you to say you couldn’t pretend if you tried, couldn’t walk away…”
“Please…”
But he was insistently slow, the brush of his beard sweeping her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. He kissed her from her toes to her lips. And it seemed to take a lifetime. The fire kept building inside, lapping at every sense, and there was now a new fear, an almost frantic fear that it would not subside. When his body shifted over hers she clutched at his shoulders, to force him closer.
“Easy, Tish…”
“Love me, Kern.”
“Come with me,” he murmured. “Come with me, come with me…”
Perhaps the pain was imagined when he pierced through her private core, a sweet pain of promise. Like a virgin’s, this one moment was irretrievable. This erased the past. His body controlled hers, taking her higher, closer to flame. Tears burst from her eyes at the same time her body seemed to explode in pleasure…
For an hour they lay together, hands quietly soothing each other after the avalanche of lovemaking. A red squirrel popped from a corner of the thicket to scold, making them laugh. They shifted then-Kern with his back to a tree and Trisha half reclining, her head against his chest and her eyes half closed. A sleepy lethargy seemed to have overtaken her body, yet she was soaring still in the most gentle way from the explosive emotions she’d found for the first time in loving.
“We’re going to have to get up, you know.” Kern was threading his fingers through her hair in hypnotic fashion.
“Hmm.”
“Although if you continue to lie like that without a stitch on…”
A shy smile touched her lips, but she neither moved nor opened her eyes.
“You know…the Tish I married would never have sun-bathed nude, never have explored such off-the-beaten paths to find a place like this. Five years…” he murmured. “You were loving then and I thought in time the passion would grow. You were so inexperienced, so young…but I never guessed at this kind of hidden fire, at this kind of sexual abandonment.”
The words were sweet but Trisha’s eyes flickered open, uncertain suddenly at his tone.
“How many have there been, Tish?”
Her head lifted from his lap. “Pardon?”
“Men.”
