by Sandra Brown
She unfolded her legs and put her stockinged feet on the floor as though preparing to run. “I’ve got one more exam to grade,” she said tremulously.
“It can wait. I can’t. I’ve already waited ten years.”
He stood in front of the deep easy chair which had been her station all night. The reflection of the flames danced in the depths of his eyes as she lifted her head to look at him. He brought his hand up to brush a vagrant strand of dark hair from her brow. His fingers cupped her jaw; his thumb stroked her cheek, which was unusually warm and rosy.
Her eyes closed when his thumb brushed over her mouth. Her lips parted under his gentle persuasion and the pad of his thumb ventured between her teeth to touch her tongue. Wet with the nectar of her own mouth, his thumb bathed her bottom lip.
Her breath caught in her lungs when his hands moved down her throat to rest against its base. He pressed each fingertip into the hollow triangle there while his thumb paid homage to the delicacy of her collarbone.
A delicious lethargy seemed to seep into her body through his fingers and she luxuriated in it. How could she be held responsible for what might happen when his touch rendered her helpless?
But the languor was dispelled when his index finger began to trace the collar of her blouse to its deep “V.” She opened her eyes wide to meet his. One look into his face and all caution, restraint and inhibition were forgotten.
His face was a study of desire. His eyes glowed with passion. Through his lips, his uneven breath whispered like a love tribute to the woman his hands were honoring. One was gently supporting the back of her head as she gazed up at him, while the other was marveling over the silkiness of her skin.
Her heart stopped beating only to begin racing when his hand paused at the first button on her blouse. He waited, savoring the moment, the firelight, the rain, the transported look on her face. Then his fingers released the fabric-covered button from its loop. He pressed her heart, as if to catch each throbbing beat in his palm.
The second button fell away under his deft manipulation, yet neither of them moved. Each was transfixed as they continued to stare at each other.
At first it was only the tip of his index finger that glided along the lace border of her gray satin slip. Then three others joined it, charting the swell of her breasts beneath the lace. His harsh breathing matched her own. She smiled tentatively, and he returned the smile, but it relieved none of the intensity on his face.
He feathered the side of her breast with trailing fingers that curved to the underside. He tested her fullness in the palm of his hand. Even though his other hand still held it, her head fell back and her throat arched. A low moan of pleading escaped her lips. He kept her waiting no longer.
He maneuvered the satin strap of her slip down into her sleeve far enough so that he could pull away the lacy fabric covering her. For a long while he looked at her— ivory infused with a glowing life of its own. His soft exclamation of delight brought her eyes open again.
With infinite care he touched her, marveling over the round plumpness that was deceptively small beneath her clothes, but which filled his hand. He circled the swollen nipple, then aroused her still further by tenderly rolling it between his fingers. A sound that was half sigh, half sob came out of her throat and she leaned forward. Frantically she groped for a handhold to keep her on the world, to keep her from flying out into space.
Her hand buried itself under his sweater and four fingers dug past the waistband of his jeans, gripping the denim between them and her thumb on the outside. She rested her forehead against his stomach and moved it back and forth as he performed his sweet torment on her breast. His hand, cupped behind her head, pressed her closer.
“Grant, Grant,” she repeated in a sexual cadence matching the tempo of his caressing fingertips. Her slip had worked down beneath her breasts. His hand roamed seemingly without direction, yet touched her in such a way that wave after wave of pleasure washed over her. “Please …” she panted. Her hand tugged, trying to pull him down.
Finally he knelt beside her. He held her face between his palms and drew it close to his. “Shelley, I love you.” His sweet, hot breath struck her lips. “There’ll be no stopping me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to stop.”
With hands sure and eager, she clasped his head and drew him down to her breast. He kissed the lush, fragrant flesh with abandon, dropping ardent, damp kisses at random. When his mouth fastened on her nipple and suckled gently, she arched her back instinctively. His hand slid around her, found the groove of her spine and urged her upward and forward.
When his primary, savage hunger had been satisfied, he finessed her more tenderly, plucking at her softly with his lips, then laving her with his tongue. Her hands gloried in his thick dark hair, weaving it between her fingers. She stroked his temples and cheekbones with her thumbs.
He kissed his way up to her mouth and made love to it. Tongues battled, conquered, submitted.
“May I undress you?” he asked against the velvet spot beneath her ear.
“Yes.”
He pulled the tangled blouse from her shoulders and brought the slip to her waist. Slowly he stood and raised her with him. He unbuttoned her skirt, undid the zipper, and both skirt and slip drifted to the floor. He helped her to step free of them. His eyes traveled down her torso and his hands followed their lead.
He closed them over her breasts, not with passion, but with reverence, and kissed her sweetly on the mouth before he lowered himself to his knees again. Her panty hose were tinted gray and had a sheer lacy panty. He kissed her through the lace.
When he lowered the garment, he placed his lips directly against her skin and his longing increased to such a pitch that he nearly shredded the hosiery getting it down her legs and off her feet.
Reining in his desire, he treated himself to a visual feast. She smoothed his brows with loving fingers as he took in every inch of her flesh, touching her at will, kissing, tasting. He leaned forward and nuzzled the delta of her womanhood.
“Grant,” she gasped softly. He stood at once and lifted her in his arms, navigating the spiral staircase with ease.
He set her down next to the bed and flung back the covers. Smoldering lust and tender love combatted in his eyes as he laid her on the bed. With a brazenness she didn’t know she possessed, for it had never manifested itself before, she propped herself up on one elbow to watch as he rid himself of his clothes.
As his brief underwear was peeled down his muscled thighs and calves she stared in fascination at his bold virility. He came to her slowly, not rushing, not wanting to frighten her.
Thus he was surprised when she said, “You’re beautiful, Grant. Beautiful.” Shy fingers reached out to touch his hard thigh. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, tentatively at first, then with an aggression that robbed him of breath, of thought, of life.
“My God, Shelley.” Falling on the bed to lie beside her, he cradled her against him. The pressure of his hand on the small of her back urged her against him. The softness of her belly absorbed the strength of his desire and they pulsed together.
He stroked down her thigh with a leisure that brought a murmur of entreaty to her lips. He captured them with his own as his hand lovingly separated her thighs and touched the heart of her femininity.
His caress was tender and adoring. As it became more curious her arms tightened around his neck. Her breath was a soft wind in his ear as she sobbed joyfully, “I can’t believe this is happening. Is it just another dream? Oh, God, don’t let it be.”
“It’s real, my darling. You’re real. Dear and precious and so very much a woman.”
A gasp tore through her throat when he touched her in a way she’d never been touched before. Her heart and soul and mind expanded until they burst into a sparkling shower of light. “Grant—” she called, trying to pull him on top of her.
“No, my love,” he whispered against her neck. “We share everything equally from
the beginning.”
His words meant nothing to her fogged brain then. All she knew was the glory of his hand sliding under the curve of her hips to bring her upward to receive his loving thrust. She took all of him, lifting her thigh over his and pressing him into her innermost self. She was washed with his fire. And what had happened but once in her life only seconds before, happened again, more sublime, more meaningful than the first time because he was inside her.
With their bodies still fused together, they lay in breathless repletion. Her hair was a damp silken skein that blanketed his chest. His hand idly caressed the contours of her back.
“Grant,” she whispered, hesitant to interrupt this moment of bliss, “do you believe in fairy tales?”
He breathed deeply and she felt him awakening again, stirring within her body. “Not until tonight.”
CHAPTER 7
Grant studied the bite of scrambled egg on his fork and said contemplatively, “You haven’t ever asked.”
Shelley cocked her head to one side and looked at him quizzically. “About what?”
He chewed slowly for a moment, swallowed, took a sip of coffee, then said, “You’ve never once asked about Missy Lancaster and me.”
She glanced down at her own empty plate. She didn’t remember when food had tasted so good or when she’d been so hungry. After they had shared a shower, she’d wrapped herself in his royal blue velour robe. The garment, which hit him mid-thigh, came to the top of her knees. She’d prevailed on him to dress only in pajama bottoms.
Now, lifting her eyes to him across the first breakfast they’d shared, she was again awed by how handsome he was. His hair was still damp from the shower. His cheeks were smooth from the recent shave. The hair on his torso curled and swirled in a pattern that continued to intrigue her though she’d traced it time and again during the night with slumbrous eyes and languid fingers. She recalled vividly the salty taste of the fine sheen of perspiration that covered him each time they made love. Her tongue had lifted it off his skin with dainty licks while he murmured love words and threaded his fingers through her hair.
The look she greeted him with now was warm and drowsy with remembrance. “It wasn’t important to me to know. Nothing you did or could have done would have changed the way I feel about you. I thought that if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me without my having to ask.”
He set his ironstone coffee cup in the matching saucer and reached across the table to cover her hands with his. “I have no idea what kind of lover Missy Lancaster was. I was never—never, Shelley—her lover. She was in love with someone else.”
She digested this slowly. “Were you in love with her?” A ribbon of jealousy wound around her, squeezing her tight. She didn’t want to know, but she had to know.
He smiled slightly and shook his head. “No. We were never more than friends. I’ve wished a thousand times I hadn’t been such a good friend. Maybe if I hadn’t been, she’d be alive.” At her bewildered expression, he said, “Let me clarify. Missy was having an affair with a congressman. He was young, handsome, prominent, politically visible … and married, with three young children.”
Shelley’s frown revealed her opinion of the unnamed congressman.
“Exactly,” Grant said, interpreting her expression correctly. “I thought her affections were misplaced, but she was crazy about this guy. Anyway”—he sighed—“when I joined Senator Lancaster’s staff and met Missy, we developed a friendship. Grudgingly I consented to escort her to a reception where she was to meet her lover. After he’d commissioned someone to drive his wife home because ‘something urgent had come up,’ he sneaked Missy off to their rendezvous.”
“And that first time set a pattern,” Shelley said intuitively.
“Precisely. I found myself squiring one of Washington’s prettiest young unattached women for the convenience of her lover. Either I’d pick her up at their rendezvous and take her home in the wee hours, or she’d get a cab. Either way, people drew the conclusion that it was I she was seeing and not the congressman with the lovely wife and three children.”
Grant’s disgust with the congressman was apparent. Obvious also was his disgust over his own culpability. “What happened?” she asked softly. “Why did Missy commit suicide?”
“The usual. She was pregnant and the congressman was furious when she told him. All along she’d foolishly expected him to leave his wife for her. I’d warned her for months that she was whistling in the dark, but she refused to listen. She called me from their secret apartment. When I got there she was disconsolate. He’d told her he’d arrange for a quiet abortion but that was all she could expect from him. When I dropped her at home, I advised her to go to bed and sleep on it. The next morning, she was dead.”
She laid her hand on his. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this when you were unjustly accused and fired from your job? If you’d gone to the senator quietly and told him, wouldn’t he have believed you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. If I hadn’t named the guilty party, he might have thought I was making the whole thing up to protect myself. And if I had told him who the other man was, the senator might very well have confronted him. I would have enjoyed seeing the congressman get his comeuppance, but I didn’t want to destroy his wife and kids. They were the only true innocents in the whole mess. Even Missy was old enough to know that you have to pay the piper.”
“Few men would have done what you did, take the blame for something you didn’t do.”
He laughed harshly. “Don’t pin any medals on me, Shelley. At that point my actions were guided by apathy, not integrity. I was fed up with the duplicity, the backbiting. If my colleagues believed I could be so callous, then I wanted no more to do with them. They were ready, even eager, to believe me guilty of destroying that girl’s life. I just didn’t give a damn anymore what they thought of me.” He paused, and his vulnerability touched her heart.
“I went to Washington with stars in my eyes, with an almost fanatical respect for the government and the men who ran it. I found out in a short time that they’re just men like the rest of us, with all the frailties of human nature. I came away feeling I was above all that.” He fixed her with his gray-green eyes and said softly, “But I’m no better than any of them.”
He pulled her to her feet and guided her around the small table until she stood in front of him. He clasped both her hands in his. “If you had come into my class a married woman, I doubt if it would have made any difference to me. Seeing you after ten years of separation, mature and more beautiful than ever, I wouldn’t have let a husband stand in the way of my wanting you. I’d have done anything, said anything, to bring about what happened between us last night.”
She touched the silver hair at his temples. Her voice vibrated with emotion. “You wouldn’t have had to try very hard. Thank heaven I wasn’t placed in the dilemma of having to choose between you and a husband. I’m not sure morality would have entered into my decision either.”
“Your husband didn’t appreciate the woman you are, Shelley. I know. I could tell by your surprised responses last night.”
She smiled fondly at his male vanity. “If you mean he didn’t love me well, you’re right. He never loved my breasts with his mouth. He kissed them sometimes, but never as much as I wanted and never like you do.” She never knew where this streak of uncharacteristic boldness came from, but she felt no self-consciousness about saying such things to him. “He didn’t tickle the backs of my knees with his tongue, or talk to me when we were making love or snuggle afterward. He wasn’t able to bring me to fulfillment, and he never forgave me for that. You did. All through the night.”
He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the palm fervently. “Thank you for telling me that, Shelley. God, I wanted that to be the case. By your startled reaction, it seemed so. I hoped so. I’m a selfish bastard, but if I couldn’t have your virginity, I wanted that.”
She outlined the sculpted lines of his mouth with a lovi
ng finger. “The taking of my virginity meant nothing. It was painful for me, an act executed without love or tenderness. Last night was …” Her eyes searched the walls of the tiny kitchen as though she’d find the abstract idea she was searching for emblazoned on the walls. “Birth. I became a woman.”
His eyes were filled with emotion. “I love you.”
“I love you.” She repeated his words softly. Then, because they had been withheld for ten years, she repeated them with more emphasis.
He drew her toward him and laid his head heavily on her breasts. Her arms enfolded his head and held it against her. For long moments they maintained that position, savoring their spoken avowals of love. When he raised his head his eyes issued an open invitation. “All this talk of knee kissing, etcetera, has made me … ah …” With deft hands, he untied the belt of his robe from around her narrow waist. The sides of the garment fell free, giving him an unrestricted view of her nakedness.
His hands stroked up the backs of her thighs beneath the robe while he lowered his head again and opened his mouth over her navel. His tongue delved into the soft indentation and he muttered, “Think you could get in the mood?” Were she not already quivering with desire, his mouth, hot and wet and urgent on her stomach, would have been strongly convincing. His hands cupped her derriere, lifting, tilting.
“I have a confession,” she mumbled. “I thought of it before you did.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“Let’s go upstairs.”
“Let’s stay here.”
He caught her off guard and before she knew what had happened, he had drawn her onto his lap. “Grant,” she breathed, wide-eyed. “I’ve never …”
He winked mischievously, quite pleased with himself, as he yanked free the knot of the drawstring at his waist.
“You’ve always been … ah, Shelley … an excellent student, a fast … yes, that’s it … learner,” he strained to say through clenched teeth as she demonstrated an uncanny aptitude for innovation. She sheathed him with her dewy warmth and moved wantonly.