She was delicious; he tasted and stroked and teased until her mouth turned greedy and tried to devour him, too. The sounds she was making—low moans, whimpers, incredulous gasps—drove him up too high, much too fast. Using his teeth on her jaw, he took voracious bites along the way to her ear; he opened his mouth wide and sucked it in, giving it a sharp, darting tongue bath. Carrie squealed and shuddered and tried to squirm away, but he held on, burying a heady laugh against her neck. “I’ll stop,” he promised, panting. She was driving him crazy.
“When you kissed me before,” she finally managed to say, “those two times before you knew I could talk do you remember?”
“Mm, yes, I seem to remember.”
“I was so scared.”
“Scared? Why?”
“I thought I’d make a sound—a noise! I wanted to. I came so close, especially when you … you know.”
“What?” He smiled, knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it.
“Touched me,” she whispered.
“Touched you? Where?”
“Here.” She made a vague gesture at her chest.
“Where?”
A dawning smile replaced the consternation in her beautiful face. His own smile faltered and froze as he watched his shy, innocent Carrie cup her left breast with her hand, and then slide the hand away in a slow, uncannily knowing caress, uncovering a pert and very erect nipple. “Here.”
He’d never been offered a more tantalizing invitation. He accepted it instantly, using the flat of his tongue first, then the edge of his teeth, and finally the rough-soft tug of his whole mouth, while Carrie arched upward and clutched at the sheet. Still suckling her, he shoved the bunched-up nightshirt past her hips, and she wriggled the rest of the way out of it herself.
He raised up over her, to see her. “Ah, Carrie, look at you. You’re so … lovely,” he said, inadequately. She had long, fine bones and smooth, feminine flesh and muscle under skin the color of clean sand. Gently curving hips—nothing boyish about them after all—and perfect breasts with pink-tipped nipples, one of them rosier now than the other. Dimpled knees and long, elegant shin bones, gleaming like white blades through the satiny skin. Delicate ribs, a shallow, enticing navel, reddish curls set in a seductive triangle between thighs the shade of sunlight on snow—
“I am?” she quavered.
“You are. Very, very lovely.”
It amazed her. Lovely. Would he say that just to be kind? Yes, certainly—but she almost believed him anyway. It was a marvelous possibility, and it filled her with a shivery, tentative joy. Lovely. It would be enough. Oh, it would last her forever.
Tyler stood and stripped off his clothes, swiftly, with no wasted movements. When he was naked, he stood still, waiting for her to look up at him. Finally she did—but only his face; it was as if the rest of him had been chopped off at the neck. He put one knee on the edge of the mattress, tipping it, and her, a little toward him. “Look at me, Carrie. It’s just me. My body won’t hurt you. Artemis hurt you, but I never would. Never could.”
“Oh, Ty, I know that.” She pondered for a moment how she knew it, and why what her stepfather had done hadn’t poisoned her against all men for good. Because it was Ty, of course. But part of it might also be because of her real father, whose memory was still strong, who had loved his women—her and her mother—and been a gentle man until the day he died.
“Then look.” He smiled to reassure her, careful to come no closer; and at last, with an air of valiant fatalism, she sat up and faced him. He expected a shy peek or two, just to break the ice, accompanied by a lot of maidenly blushes. She might be blushing, he couldn’t tell, but what started as a shy peek turned very quickly into something else entirely. She studied him minutely and intently, taking her time, missing nothing. “Well?” he finally had to ask, breathing unsteadily. Her fascinated scrutiny unnerved but didn’t unman him. In fact, quite the opposite.
“Well,” she echoed. She finally raised her wide gray gaze to his eyes. “My goodness, Ty, aren’t we different?”
He threw back his head and laughed, an easy, solid, real laugh. “By God, we are,” he agreed heartily. Tugging the covers out of the way, he lay down beside her.
“All right,” she said after a few quiet seconds.
He turned his head on the pillow they were sharing. She had her arms at her sides, chin pointed to the ceiling. “Hmm?”
“I’m ready, Ty. Go ahead.”
He turned on his side, propping his head on his hand. He mustn’t laugh again, but her fearful bravery tickled him. “Well, you know, I’m not quite ready,” he confessed softly. That seemed to surprise her. He could understand why; he’d warrant he looked ready enough to her, He traced her tense profile with a finger, forehead to chin and back up again. Her nostrils were thin and fine, like porcelain, and her nose ended in a sharp but elegant point. It was her mouth that captivated him, though. The sensitive lips quivered when he caressed them, from nerves and desire and self-consciousness. He kissed the corner nearest him, working his way across the dainty arch to the center. Her pink tongue was lying in wait, and flickered out at his when he got there. She bit his lips, both of them and then one at a time, without a trace of shyness. She was learning very quickly.
He let his slow hand drift to her stomach, pressing and kneading her there until she groaned, head turning on the pillow. But she went still when he twined his fingers into her soft pubic hair. “Open your legs, Carrie,” he breathed against her mouth. Her thighs were trembling; for all her brave words, she was afraid. Petting her, softly squeezing the firm flesh of her mons pubis, he waited.
It was what she wanted. It was all she wanted. But she held back, constrained by a lifetime of propriety. To—to open her legs so a man could touch her there went against everything she’d ever been taught or instinctively guessed about proper female behavior.
But this was Ty. And—God help her—he’d just stretched out one of his long, sensitive fingers and touched a tender spot on her that reacted like a switch: it turned her mind completely off. But it left everything else humming and alive. Shuddering, whimpering his name, Carrie spread her thighs wide.
She was slippery and hot—so small—sleek as a wet silk glove. He fingered her softly, ardently, eyes shut tight. He pictured her: dark and swollen and slick with wanting, her lips pulsing softly around the two fingers he had inside her. He spread them a little, stretching her; a sound like “Nunh” burst from her throat. He could take her over the edge now, he realized. Right now. Was that the way? No. Selfish—maybe, but he wanted to go with her the first time. With excruciating reluctance, he withdrew his hand.
Carrie put both of her hands over her heart. “Oh, Ty,” she breathed in a high, frustrated quaver. “That was wonderful.”
She thought—it hit him hard, and once more he had to swallow euphoric laughter—she thought it was over. “Darling,” he muttered, “oh, sweet, sweet Carrie,” kissing her cheeks and her eyes, her pretty nose. He reached for her far shoulder to pull her onto her side, facing him. “Your turn,” he whispered, watching her drugged eyes clear quickly and then widen in apprehension. “Touch me, love.”
“Oh,” she said, the word rising and falling with false enthusiasm, “would you like me to?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I’d like it as much as you did.”
That got her. “Well, then. All right,”
She was trying mightily to hide her distaste for this job, and clearly preparing for the worst. He wished he could help her, ease her into it gradually—but he was fast losing his capacity for finesse. He caught her fluttering hand and led it directly to his jutting, rock-hard member, wrapping her fingers around it and urging her to move in the basic, uncomplicated way that pleased him best.
After a few aghast seconds, Carrie had to admit to being pleasantly surprised. Well, what did you think, silly, she scolded herself, a—a snake! She didn’t really know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this warm, silky stalk, th
ick as a tree limb and throbbing with life. Then she looked at Ty’s face. She softened her hand instinctively and stroked him as she would any wild creature she wanted to gentle—a bird, a fawn. “Is it right?” she whispered. “Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
Even she could tell that this was an understatement. He had an expression she’d never seen, half rapture and half torture, his heavy-lidded eyes following the slow movements of her hand as if she was hypnotizing him with it. She smiled, and all her trepidation vanished. The big dread—which she hadn’t even known was there, not for sure—was suddenly gone. This was Ty’s body, and this amazing part of him could be touched by her in a way that thrilled him. What had she been afraid of? It was only him, and her, loving each other with their bodies. So simple! She’d known it already on some deeper level, and now she knew it straight out, bone deep and wholehearted.
“Oh, Ty, I do love you,” she had to tell him. “I love you so much.”
He came out of his trance and stopped the provocative slide of her hand with his. The thought crossed what was left of his mind that he ought to stop everything now. It was humbling to discover that he couldn’t. “Sweetheart,” he began, some fraudulent, grandiose sentiment taking shape on the tip of his tongue—
“Oh, you don’t have to say it back,” she assured him hastily, winding her soft arms around him. “That’s not necessary.”
God, she meant it. She was offering her lips to him, generous as always, still slightly too shy to kiss him first. His heart turned over. Covering her, he took her mouth in a rapacious kiss designed to deprive her of reason, and him, too. Lost, blind, his heat-seeking fingers found her again. “Carrie, darling, let me—”
“Yes—”
But he could feel the tension quivering in her stomach muscles, and it gave him the grace to enter her carefully.
Alive to everything, intent on every nerve ending in her body, Carrie got another surprise: it didn’t hurt. He’d said it wouldn’t, and she’d believed him—until the last second. Then the perverse memory of her stepfather’s battering cruelty had come swimming up out of nowhere, soaking her with anxiety. Ah, but this, this was Ty and he was her lover; he rode high inside her, swelling and filling and completing her. And yet how amazing!—already she was almost used to him there. When he moved in her, just a little, she couldn’t keep from crying out from the unbelievable pleasure, coming from a place in her own body she hadn’t even known existed. Minutes ago she’d imagined she would lie quiet and passive in his arms when this moment came, while he did something to her vaguely resembling this, after which they would be “lovers.” But it wasn’t like that at all. She was in on this, the most intimate and intense experience of her life; every tiny movement, every beat of his pulse sent sparks of exquisite sensation glittering through her. Just then he pushed his hand beneath her thigh, pulling it up and then pressing her knee out to open her even more, make her feel even more—possessed. How could he know what she wanted before she knew it herself? She gasped out her all but unbearable pleasure, clutching at him with clumsy hands, hardly able to return his slippery, ravenous kisses. Flexing both knees to brace her feet, she arched up at him, frantic.
The effect was electric, and he was perilously close to the brink already. Slow down, he commanded his body. But she was so very tight, and her hot sheath nipped the tip of him in an innocent but incredible way he associated with women who took money for this and knew everything. Muttering fervent endearments, he buried his hands in Carrie’s wild hair and tried to hold her still, stroking her shallowly to regain control, kissing her to divert her.
Carrie didn’t know anything about control. Subtlety was lost on her. She writhed and twisted, pressing his buttocks, the small of his back, wanting him deeper, lost in the urgency, so close, so close. Something intense and inevitable launched her striving body out into space; she floated there weightless, saturated in perfect pleasure. It was excruciating, it was too much—it was over. Too soon she slid over another edge and toppled into a different space, a black one shattered in pulses with brilliant bursts of light. Each one lifted her up for a second, then dropped her gently down to the next. Everything thrummed and vibrated; when her body came back to her, her blood was singing.
The exquisite contractions tapered away; she felt herself softening, going liquid all around him. She felt Ty’s mouth on her closed eyelids, and the sweetness of it almost made her cry. She might have—but he hooked his hands around her shoulders then and rasped against her cheek, “Carrie, hold tight.” She did, and felt him surge and plunge inside her. He went still for an unending moment, buried deep; everywhere she touched he was hard and tense and straining. His breath came out in a whoosh and a second later his body convulsed, driving into her with a force that ought to have been painful but wasn’t. And now she did weep, because her impossible love was too big to hold inside. Offering herself, arms and legs banded tight around him, she took what he could give, and counted it enough.
But in the sweet, whispering aftermath, while he rested in her arms and gave her his slow, lazy kisses, the shadow of a fear ghosted across Ty’s heart—that he would never have enough of her.
Carrie was singing. Ty finished shaving his top lip before letting himself smile at the novel sound, a gravelly but lovable contralto not perfectly on pitch. “What is that?” he asked, glancing at her in the mirror over the sink.
She leaned back in the bathtub and stuck her big toe inside the spout of the cold water spigot. “It’s called ‘Wild Mountain Gal.’ ”
“I’ve never heard it before. It’s very …” He searched for a polite word. “Soulful.”
“It was one of my father’s. I think he made it up. He liked to make up tragic songs, but he couldn’t sing any better than I do. My mother was the one with the beautiful voice in our family. Ty?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you, um—” She paused, sitting up to study her knee. “Have you done what we did with lots and lots of women before me?”
The razor nearly nicked his jaw. He took a long time swishing it around in the basin, considering how to answer. “Lots” was such a relative word. Compared to Carrie, he was a veritable Don Juan. “Why would you want to know something like that?” he asked, delaying.
“Oh, well, you know. I was just wondering.”
“No,” he decided to say. “Not lots.” And certainly nobody like her. There had been prostitutes and “loose girls” in college, and in medical school he’d had affairs with women who were in “the arts”—actresses and opera singers, and a woman who’d fancied herself a sculptor. But the young, single women in his own social set were usually too respectable—or too discreet—to jeopardize the brilliant marriages their families had been planning for years, certainly not for anything as frivolous as mere physical passion.
Carrie listened to the silence after his answer and assumed he was remembering an old favorite. Well, you had to ask, didn’t you? she jeered herself. And then came another question she ought not to ask, bubbling up like a spring in March. “How do you … Why don’t you …”
He turned his head to look at her. “What?”
“I was just thinking, since you see ladies all the time and sometimes they’re naked and you have to, um, you know, look at them and touch them and everything, how do you …” She squinched all her toes, exasperated with herself because she just couldn’t seem to get past that.
“Keep myself from ravishing them?”
Glancing up to see him grinning, she put her hands over her face and giggled.
“I’ll tell you, it’s not easy. A man needs nerves of steel.”
“Really?”
He sent her a mock disgusted look and went back to shaving.
Oh, he was joking. “No, but really,” she prodded. “Why isn’t it the same? I’m sure it’s not, but why isn’t it?”
“The same as what we did? Oh, Carrie.” He shook his head at her in the mirror. “Think about it.”
She didn’
t have to think for long, the answer was so obvious. But now she wanted to hear him say it.
Tyler set his razor down and came to sit beside her on the edge of the tub. The bath towel around his waist slipped; he retied it absently, his mind on the alluring spectacle Carrie’s bobbing breasts made, her nipples just breaking the top of the sudsy water. Her long, lithe, angular body inflamed him now; he wanted her incessantly. But she was soaking away her bruises and soreness in hot water and epsom salts on doctor’s orders, and it would be unprofessional, not to mention ungentlemanly, to interrupt the treatment solely for the doctor’s pleasure. Not for a little longer, anyway.
“How did you get this?” he asked, tracing an old, double-sided white scar at the top of her trapezius muscle.
“I’ll tell you,” Carrie said softly, after a little pause. “But you didn’t answer my question yet.” She was thinking how beautiful he was, like a statue of a god or a king in a book. He had a gentleman’s occupation, and yet he was strong and muscular—not brawny like Artemis or Eugene, but fit in a refined, athletic way that suited her much better than beefy strength would have.
“Move your feet,” he warned, reaching for the faucet nozzle and turning the hot water on again. “Well, if you must know, I’ve never had a lady patient as beautiful as you are.”
She laughed gaily, genuinely amused.
“If I did, I’d probably lose control and take her right there on my examining table.”
“You would not.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She beamed at him. “Because you’re strong. And honest.” She searched for the right word. “Ethical. But what makes you not even want to ‘take’ a pretty patient on your examining table?” she persisted.
“Because one thing has nothing to do with the other. A patient’s body doesn’t even look the same as a woman’s body to me.”
“No?”
“No.” He rested his forearm on his thigh, leaning in. “When I look at you, Carrie, what I see is silky skin and soft, luscious breasts. Tasty little nipples that pucker up when I kiss them. A flat belly to press mine against, thighs—such long white thighs, and they open for me with such lush, feminine eagerness.” Her lips were parted; she’d gone pink in the face, eyes wide and rapt on his. His hand went to her bent knee and rocked it softly—No, enough of that.
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