but hormones didn’t explain that welling in her throat, the way her eyes felt tight, the sensation of soft sweetness spreading through her in lazy tentacles.
“Not there. It hurts there.”
“Does it?” But she worked specifically around that vertebra where he was obviously sore.
“Zoe. I’ve been to Vietnam. I spent a month camping in freezing weather on a mountain in the wintertime. I was in China during the earthquake. I really don’t have a major problem coping with the elements.”
“I know you don’t.”
“So how could two small four-year-old boys-”
“I really think it’s time you took me to bed,” she said gently.
“-completely reduce a man to-” He stopped talking abruptly. His eyelids flew open, and he rolled over onto his back.
In time, his right hand languidly reached out and captured her wrist. He tugged her down, slowly, as if terrified of setting off a box of TNT. Just as carefully, he leaned over her, pinned her legs with one of his and cleared his throat. Such machinations might have been enough to make Zoe smile, except that she couldn’t.
A groove of a frown marred his forehead, and his eyes searched hers, roaming with intense concentration over her fragile features. He wrapped a strand of her hair around his fingers, then let it spring free…then did it again. “I must have heard you wrong,” he said finally.
No man should have such blue eyes. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”
“So am I.”
“Of course, you could have it checked tomorrow. There’s a doctor in town-”
“Look at me, Zoe.”
But what she saw in his eyes made her heart pound and her hands feel shaky. He wasn’t going to settle for a light and breezy tone from her, and she suddenly didn’t know how to tell him that she was afraid. His lips brushed hers with the tenderest of kisses, just one. And then he lifted his head, looked at her and reached for her hand. “Come on.”
The hallway that led back to the bedrooms was really very short. Just then, it annoyingly lengthened into a long mile and a half. Still holding her hand, he popped his head into the kids’ bedroom for a minute and closed their door. By then he must have been able to tell she was having a sudden attack of nervousness, because her palm was damp, but he didn’t let on. In her room, without releasing her hand, he punched the lock on the door and pushed a chair in front of it. He was making so sure the kids couldn’t interrupt them that she tried another smile.
All smiles seemed to be locked on the other side of her head. Her heart had been suddenly replaced by a trapped butterfly, her lips were parched enough to crack, and air was having a problem getting in and out of her lungs.
The room was dark, and that helped, but then he switched on her bedside lamp. The soft glow illuminated him as he carefully pulled down her spread and blankets. When he tossed the pillows on the floor, she felt heat travel slowly up her cheeks. The white-sheeted mattress looked too bare. And then he turned to her, and she saw those blue eyes again.
Gently, he unfastened the first button of her blouse. “So…are we going to be nervous?” he murmured softly.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do we want to change our minds?”
She shook her head, but she certainly didn’t look down. All of her blouse buttons seemed to be undone. Firm, callused fingers pushed the garment off her shoulders.
“Are there two of us scared witless here, or is it just me?” he asked patiently.
“Blast you, Rafe,” she said helplessly. “Would you stop being so darned reassuring and just kiss me?”
His brows shot up in an expression of comical surprise. That relaxed her as even his touch couldn’t have. Her nervousness reflected how long it had been since she’d made love, but she felt no unwillingness. This was Rafe, a man she loved and trusted. A man she could be honest with, a man she could even be nervous with.
A man she wanted very much to make love to, and his first kiss was dangerously delicious.
His palms skimmed her shoulders, her spine. She felt the clasp of her bra being opened, and then that barrier was gone. Air rushed from his lungs when he felt her bare breasts crushed against him. He murmured something. If she didn’t catch the exact words, the intimacy of his tone was enough to make her knees quake.
His knuckles brushed against her tummy when he unsnapped her jeans. His palms slipped inside to bare flesh, and he learned her with his hands as he languidly pushed down the denim fabric. His lips wandered from her throat to the tips of her breasts, and by the time she lay outstretched on the bed, she had no clothes on and neither did he.
When she felt him trace the scar below her navel, her fingers burrowed in his hair. He must have felt that sudden tension, because his head lifted. For a moment, he just looked at her, and then his head dipped down. He branded her right breast with a kiss, then placed another just over her heartbeat; he counted her ribs with more kisses, but that caressing trail aimed relentlessly lower. Her eyes squeezed closed when she felt his mouth on the thin silver ribbon.
The scar had no feeling; she could have sworn it had no feeling, yet when his tongue traced the line of it, she felt a shattering inside, like color exploding, like a fierce ache that was more compelling than pain.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He heard her. He climbed back up her body, kiss by kiss, and when he was face-to-face with her, he leaned up on an elbow. As if his heart weren’t pounding nor need tearing through him, he played lazily with a strand of her hair. The thick, low whisper came from the back of his throat. “
Her skin glowed like ivory under the lamplight. He was aware-too aware-that Zoe was only sure for the moment that she wanted him. Whatever had changed her mind, he didn’t want to know. His conscience pricked him for not asking. It seemed more important-he hoped it was more important-to show her how it could be between them. He kissed the tips of her fingers, then the palm of her hand.
“I read somewhere you should never bring frustrations to bed,” he murmured. “I always thought that was dead wrong, Zoe. This is the worst place I can think of to fake anything. Know that you can bring frustrations to this bed. Or fear. Or old hurts, or a damned rough day. Your scars are mine when I make love to you. I want who you are
She touched his cheek, mesmerized by the thick fringe of black lashes that softened his eyes. The strain on his features, the sapphire sheen in his eyes, was so clearly for her. She answered him in the only way she knew how, by lifting her head and touching her lips to his.
He offered her honesty. He offered her the intimacy and allure of yielding to a man who needed her, just her. He offered her the fragile sensation that she was precious to him. He offered her the irresistible promise of being wanted without boundaries, beyond sense, above thought, past right and wrong.
She took what was hers. The right to love and be loved. She matched urgent touch for urgent touch, kiss for kiss, the heat of her body with his. Heartbeats clashed and skin kneaded skin, and she’d known from the beginning he wouldn’t be a careless lover. He was never that.
When he finally claimed her body, he filled her up, engulfed her with him, with wanting, with long, lean hands and lips and the fierce cadence of heat and desire. Rafe showed no interest in basic satisfaction. He wooed her with abandon, with giving, with the uncontrollable force of an avalanche, with speed and fire and ice. He wooed Zoe, all of her, cells and pores and fingertips and toes. And even when that diamond brightness of release glowed through her on one fierce, sweet cry, she held on to those rights of loving. To that wonder of feeling loved by him, to the awe of loving him. There was the treasure.
Silent as a cat, she’d nearly reached the door when she heard Rafe’s groggy “Where on
“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “It’s three in the morning, Rafe. I’m just going out to the couch.”
They’d both napped after making love. She’d wakened to a second fantasy of swift, strong passion, but then
