Isn't it Romantic?

by Ronda Thompson

He lifted a dark brow. “Take me, I’m yours’?”

  “Oh.” Katrine cringed. “Overused, huh? Sorry, I–I’m a little nervous.”

  In response, he took her hand and placed it against the hard desire she’d felt pressed against her a moment earlier. Slowly, he brought her palm up the flat planes of his stomach to his chest. His heart beat strong and erratic.

  “I’m nervous, too. Part of me desperately wants you, but the other part, the part you feel beneath your palm, is scared to death of loving you.”

  “Afraid? Of me?”

  Trey nodded. “I’m not sure I can give you one part, without giving you the other. I want to know who you are before I know what making love to you feels like. Separate the waters and let me see inside your soul before I drown in mere desire. Tell me about yourself, about your past, your family, your dreams.”

  What he asked sounded so simple, but it was too painful. Tears formed behind her eyes. Her body could be his without protest, but he wanted more. Never had she created a hero who would demand so much when a woman could be his for so little. Katrine wasn’t ready to tell him about her past. “What if I can’t share that with you right now?”

  “Then we have no business going into the bedroom together. That’s what makes the twentieth century unromantic, Katrine. A society comfortable enough to go to bed with someone they don’t really know. Is sex all you want from me?”

  “No,” she answered, outraged. “I’m not that type of person. I–I’m not experienced. After John, there was only Carl, and that was only one night. John and I were both virgins. We didn’t get a chance to experiment much before he left me.”

  “You mean, before he died,” Trey corrected.

  “I mean before he left me!” She pulled away. “I think John’s accident was no accident. He’d lost his parents shortly before we met. I guess he was in denial until after we married, then suddenly the impact hit him, and along with it, the responsibility of a wife. A wife who’d just told him she was pregnant. He left after I broke the happy news, and he never came back. What could I assume, but that John would rather die than spend the rest of his life fled to me?”

  “Assumptions can get a person into trouble,” Trey said quietly. “You were both young. I’m sure John was feeling overwhelmed when he left, and because he wasn’t paying attention, lost control of the car. Did you meet him in high school?”

  Katrine shook her head, spilling teardrops down her cheeks. “His parents were killed in a boating accident shortly before he turned eighteen. Because he had no living relatives, he ended up in a foster home. That’s where I met him.”

  “Your parents fostered children?” Trey asked in surprise.

  “No.”

  “But…”

  The past had been bottled inside Katrine for so long, she couldn’t stop the flow of words, the release of her pain. “I don’t remember having a father. I suppose I’m illegitimate. My mother pinned a note to my dress and left me on the steps of the social service building when I was five. I can’t recall her face, but I remember what she said to me. ‘I’ll be back soon, Honey. I won’t be gone long. Mommy can’t take care of you right now. Don’t ever forget … I love you’.”

  It amazed Katrine she could even remember that day. How clearly the picture had been imprinted on her young mind. Recalling the panic she’d felt, the fear, caused pain to rip through her, then Trey’s arms pulled her close.

  “I’m sorry, Katrine,” he whispered, thinking of all the times he’d imagined her a spoiled, coddled child. “I’m so sorry.”

  She drew strength from his touch, allowing pent up emotions to seep from her soul. Unashamed, she wept, accepting the comfort denied her when she’d been a five-year-old child, lost and alone in a world where no one took the time to explain.

  How long Katrine stood there, clinging to his solid frame in desperation, might have been a minute or an hour, she wasn’t certain. Slowly, she lifted her tear-stained face to Trey’s. Tenderness shone in his eyes, so pure, her fear of loving, of losing, drowned within a need to share more than pain.

  Cleansed of the darkness, her gaze sought the light shining in his eyes. She ran her fingers over the solid shape of his lips, down his neck, and paused at the top button of his shirt. Trey’s hand closed over hers.

  “Maybe now is not the time,” he said. “You’re vulnerable, upset and probably not thinking straight. I don’t want you to have regrets later.”

  Rationality was the last thing Katrine wanted from him. “I gave you what you asked for. Don’t try to back out of your end of the bargain. Dammit, Trey, you know as well as I do why we’re here tonight!”

  He sighed. “Katrine, you’re still a virgin by twentieth century standards. I just want you to be sure.”

  Frustrated, fearful Trey wouldn’t allow her to express with her body what she couldn’t yet say with words, Katrine gathered the material of his shirt between her fingers and ripped it open. “I’m sure!”

  His eyes widened slightly. Trey glanced down at his gaping shirt. “I suppose you sew about as well as you cook and do laundry?”

  “Worse,” she admitted, then leaned forward to taste his skin. When she ran her tongue around the copper circle of his nipple, he groaned and pulled her away. Trey tilted her head back. Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  He took her lips gently, tenderly exploring the moist recesses of her mouth until the urgency of their hands on each other, turned gentleness into throbbing, uncontrollable desire. Roughly, Trey pulled her against his hardness.

  The deep thrust of his tongue in Katrine’s mouth brought a longing for comparative pleasures. She pressed closer, moaning his name between wine-flavored kisses.

  “I can’t stand anymore,” she broke from him to whisper. “I want to feel your skin against mine. I want—”

  “Wait,” he said, sweeping her up in his arms. “Wait until I unveil your beautiful body inch by inch. Until my hands are on you, my mouth, then tell me what you want.”

  Wait? The door Katrine supposed led to his bedroom appeared a long distance away. Scooping her up in his arms had certainly been romantic. Still, they’d have made faster time if Trey had let her walk, or more to Katrine’s impassioned way of thinking ‘run’! “Hurry, Trey,” she pleaded against his neck. “Hurry.”

  In his haste to obey, Trey tripped over a box. His shoulder made a popping sound as he landed against the doorframe. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “You didn’t break anything, did you?” Katrine asked fearfully.

  “Nothing we’ll need,” he assured her, then charged onward. Once inside the darkened bedroom, he tripped over a second obstacle. Thankfully, the bed broke their fall.

  “Trey,” Katrine snapped. “How is it a man who can balance himself on two thin blades and race around an ice rink, can’t seem to walk and chew gum at the same time if he’s trying to make love to me?”

  “Maybe he’s trying to be romantic so he doesn’t get a bad review,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  “Maybe he’s trying too hard.” Katrine wiggled uncomfortably beneath his weight.

  The feel of her body wiggling seductively beneath him reminded Trey the last thing he wanted to do with Katrine was argue. “Katrine, let’s not talk to one another. When we talk, we get in trouble.”

  A thoughtful pause followed.

  “All right,” she agreed. “We won’t talk.”

  “Unless,” he stipulated. “It’s passion-related.”

  “What do you mean?”

  In answer, he moved down her body, gathering the sweater over her stomach to trace a lazy circle on the flat surface of her abdomen. “Do you like that?”

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  “That’s what I mean.” He trailed kisses up her stomach, inching the sweater up as he went. When his mouth met with the lacy fabric of her bra, Trey steeled himself for battle.

  “I consider this passion related,” Katrine said softly. “I took your advice. It hooks in the front.”
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  To Trey’s surprise the bra offered no resistance when he undid the clasp. He pulled Katrine’s sweater over her head, peeled back the lace of her bra and worshiped her perfect breasts—a perfection that filled his hands nicely, if he couldn’t see her in the darkness.

  “I’m going to pull the drapes on the balcony door. There’s a full moon tonight. I want to look at you.”

  Katrine grabbed him by the collar. “Don’t go out there.”

  He paused in his attempt to rise. “I’m just going over to the balcony. I’ll be right back.”

  “Trey, if you hurt yourself,” she started, then said nothing.

  “Are you suggesting I can’t walk across my bedroom without doing myself bodily harm?”

  “We’re talking,” she reminded.

  “Oh, right.” Trey eased his weight from her and cautiously approached the far side of the room. When he banged his knee against something, he held the curse word between his teeth and limped the rest of the way.

  He’d opened these particular drapes countless times over the past six years. Tonight, he couldn’t find the damn draw cord. Trey fumbled around for several seconds before locating the nuisance. With a swish of cloth, pale moonlight filtered into the room.

  His gaze traveled over boxes to find Katrine, a marble work of art sprawled across his bed. How many times had he imagined her there, waiting for him to love her? And he suspected he did love her, despite a rational vow he’d made to never give his heart again, he had. Twice over the past few weeks.

  “Come here,” Katrine whispered to him. “But … take your time. Don’t hurry.”

  Slowly, he moved toward her, his eyes feasting on the flat indention of her stomach and the full rise of her breasts. He heard Katrine giggle when he stubbed his toe on a box. Luckily, he still had his shoes on.

  “Do you think that was funny?” he asked, staring down at her.

  “That wasn’t a passion-related question,” she answered. “But if you must know, it was a relieved reaction to your making it all the way across the room and back without damaging anything we, ah, need.”

  Trey took her hand and pulled her up. “Maybe you’d better check me for injuries.”

  Katrine rose off the bed to stand before him; all traces of humor vanished. Bravely, she pushed the shirt from his shoulders and reveled in the warm, smooth texture of his skin. The sleeves proved bothersome, she’d forgotten to undo the cuffs and couldn’t get the shirt past his hands.

  “I’ve noticed Kat Summers doesn’t devote much detail to undressing her characters. In the space of seconds, they end up conveniently naked. Why is that?”

  His teasing tone brought a smile to her lips. “Maybe because Kat Summers doesn’t have much experience at undressing men. Why don’t you give me a few pointers.”

  He shrugged. “What’s two more buttons. Rip it off.”

  “The bodice ripping days are over,” she informed him flatly. “But I guess it’s all right to rip the hero’s shirt off.”

  With two or three good tugs, Katrine managed to remove his shirt. Her hands strayed to the fastening of his jeans.

  “Shoes,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “Shoes next or we’ll have the same problem, only worse.”

  Removing a man’s shoes and socks wasn’t in the least romantic, but Katrine viewed the task as a means to an end. When she rose from her chores, she took a steadying breath.

  “Now?”

  “You can have the button, but I’m not trusting the zipper to a novice. Especially not under current conditions.”

  She laughed. “This conversation doesn’t sound passion-related.”

  “It’s very passion-related,” he insisted. “That zipper stands between you and me and something we need. A very uncomfortable something. Undo the button, Katrine.”

  With trembling hands, she obeyed. Trey took over, carefully unzipping his jeans, then pushing them down the length of his legs.

  Katrine swallowed loudly. “My God,” she whispered. “You’re beautiful.” As she ran a heated survey over his muscular thighs and corded hamstrings, she circled him, unaware that she did so. His backside was nice. Damned nice indeed.

  “I have a scar on my knee,” he informed her proudly. “All us hero types are supposed to be scarred, aren’t we?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have more than one.” She touched the smooth skin on his back, trailing her nails down the center before tracing the muscled curve of his tight hindquarters. He sucked in his breath sharply.

  “I’m not clumsy by nature,” Trey said. “For some reason, when I’m around you, I become a bumbling idiot. And, the least you can do is not insult me while I’m standing here buck-naked. You clearly have me at a disadvantage.”

  “Maybe you should even the odds,” Katrine suggested, walking around to face him.

  An expression of anticipation accompanied his smile. “For an almost virgin, you’re a brazen wench.”

  ———

  Flat on her back a short time later, Katrine acknowledged that Trey knew her nature far better than she. With the tool of his tongue, he’d reduced her to a panting, clawing, she-cat. Her fingers twisted in the thick silkiness of his hair. Her thighs were trembling. He’d kissed every inch of her while removing her jeans, then turned his attention toward a taboo Kat Summers persistently avoided while writing sex scenes; mostly because having never experienced such, she could only imagine the act as repulsive and embarrassing.

  She closed her eyes and let the strangeness wash over her the gathering sensation that had gripped her the night she and Trey almost made love in the basement. Her fingers tightened on his scalp as the first spasm took her. She gasped, then arched, floating up to a place she’d never been. A place of death, but not death—of Life, but not life—another world in itself. She hovered there, brought down to earth by the feel of Trey’s mouth on hers, the taste of herself on his lips.

  “Katrine,” he groaned. “You’re so beautiful. You’re beautiful everywhere.”

  “I’m dead,” she whispered.

  “I know how to bring you back. Let me take you there again.”

  “Can you?” she asked skeptically. “My bones have dissolved. I’m limp as a dish rag.”

  His lips traveled to her ear. “I have the opposite problem. Touch me, Katrine.”

  Suddenly shy, she willed her hand to move, her fingers to close around his arousal. Her pulse quickened at the feel of steel wrapped in hot velvet. His fingers found her wet, willing, receptive to his touch and when Katrine arched against his hand, the ache began to build again.

  “I want you inside me,” she whispered.

  Trey groaned in answer, wedging her knees farther apart before grasping her hips. Katrine held her breath, waiting for his hard length to appease the ache. Instead, poised upon the brink of completion, he swore loudly and released her.

  “Dammit. You drive me so crazy, I almost forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” she panted.

  “Protection. It won’t take but a minute.”

  “Hurry, Trey,” she bit out.

  He rose in all his godly splendor, glanced around the room and cussed again.

  “Now, what’s wrong?” she asked. “I packed the damned things.”

  “Just unpack them,” she suggested rationally.

  His gaze lifted to the ceiling, she supposed in appeal. “I don’t know which box they’re in.”

  Katrine groaned. “Didn’t you label them?”

  “Oh sure, I wrote ‘neckties and condoms’ in big letters for the movers to snicker over. Which, come to think of it, would be fitting. They both strangle a man.”

  “Don’t get short with me, Trey,” Katrine warned. “I’ve had my ‘burst of ecstasy’. You haven’t. Now, where did you keep them?”

  Moonlight allowed her to witness the sarcastic twist to his mouth. “Getting short with you is what I’m desperately trying to avoid. I had them in the top of my closet, which means, they co
uld be in any of the six boxes marked ‘closet’.”

  She sighed. “I guess we can always wait until you move.”

  After Trey ran a lengthy survey over her naked curves, he said, “I’ll get a knife.”

  A knife? Katrine wondered, for the briefest of moments, if he’d succumbed to his earlier confessed desire to kill her.

  “For the tape,” he specified, as if reading her thoughts. “I’ll be right back.”

  Watching him walk away was bliss. Katrine snuggled deeper into the soft comforter on his bed, already missing his warmth. He returned a moment later, made an animal sound and set to work. The sight of his muscles rippling as he tore into the first box set her blood on fire. Clothes flew, shoes, belts, and unfortunately, something that made a shattering noise when he flung it against the wall. Katrine began to squirm after two more boxes met their doom.

  “Hurry, Trey,” she whispered huskily.

  He paused, glanced her direction, then renewed his efforts with greater vigor, slashing into the fourth. “Hell, I’ve scattered the contents of four boxes with no relief in sight.” He rose and kicked an empty box from his path.

  “Trey?” Katrine thought to question. “That night in the cab, and then in my basement, what were you planning to do about protection?”

  Knife raised, he froze. “I keep a couple in my wallet.”

  “Oh.” Silence. “Then—”

  “Don’t,” he warned softly. “Don’t ask me why I didn’t think to get my wallet from my jeans and save myself the hell I’ve just inflicted on this room. That would have been too easy, too—”

  “Why don’t you get one, now,” Katrine suggested, strangely impassioned by his sacrifice. Watching a man raid and pillage was a definite turn on. “And why don’t you hurry.”

  Violently, he buried the knife in a box and strode toward her. Trey bent, retrieved his jeans then pinned her with a hot stare. “I don’t intend to hurry.”

  Obviously not, Katrine realized shortly after he settled beside her, touching, stroking, kindling a smoldering fire into a blazing inferno of mindless desire. Katrine moaned and writhed beneath his skilled torture, bravely exploring him as he explored her. Every inch of him was magnificent.