Tempting Faith (Indigo Love Spectrum)

by Hubbard, Crystal

  Their descent was faster than the climb, but Zander’s timing was off. The wind picked up, bringing heavy, dark clouds that emptied their contents all at once, drenching them by the time they dashed through Zander’s front door. Breathing heavily, Faith slammed the heavy door closed behind them, slumping against it as though the wind and rain were attempting a home invasion.

  Whether from fear, cold or a combination of the two, Zander couldn’t tell which rattled drops of rain from the tip of Faith’s nose as she leaned on the door, her forehead pressed to it.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I just…”

  “I know.” Zander thought of a hundred ways to comfort her, but a gentle touch to the back of her head was the one he settled on.

  The rain had completely restyled her. Rain saturated the fibers of her sweater, weighing it down so that it clung to her breasts and arms while hanging loose at her hips. Before Zander’s eyes, her hair was springing back into the curls he’d so loved when they were teens. The curls that had tickled his chin the last time he’d seen her, the first time he’d kissed her.

  “It does that when it gets wet,” Faith said without looking at him, in response to the faint tug at one of her curls.

  Zander let it spiral around the tip of his finger. The texture of her hair was the softest substance he’d ever known, something between silk and air. His nostrils flared slightly as he took a long whiff of it, the scent so familiar and welcome that it infused him with the blissful rush of a narcotic.

  “I always liked your curls,” he said. “When I saw you at the press conference, I didn’t recognize you right away because your hair was straight. But when I got a good look at your eyes…”

  “The eyes always reveal who you are.” She turned to face him, once again composed now that she was safe from the storm. “Who are you?” she asked, intently searching his eyes for the answer. “I know you, but you’re a complete stranger.”

  “I’m someone who got caught in an early spring rain and now I’m freezing. I need to change.”

  You’ve done enough of that already. With that disquieting thought, Faith watched him retreat to his bedroom.

  * * *

  Faith stood at the windowed wall, mesmerized by the artistry of the storm in the growing darkness. Thunder echoed through the mountains, prefacing silver-white flashes of lightning that fractured the heavens, which healed themselves instantly. Peculiar grey-bright light illuminated heavy clouds the same shade of purple-black as a two-day old bruise. Rain angrily spattered the surface of the lake, sizzling on contact.

  Two inches of polarized, bulletproof glass separated her from the fury of the storm, but Faith still trembled. She was far from phobic about storms, but they still made her uncomfortable. This one in particular brought back memories she had repressed for a long time. She crossed her arms over her chest, tightly hugging herself.

  So focused on the storm, Faith was unaware of Zander’s presence when he came to the studio. Two wine glasses in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, and a black T-shirt draped over his left shoulder, he stood in the wide doorway, stopped dead in his tracks by her reflection in the glass.

  His arms dropped heavily to his sides, the weight of sudden emotion filling his chest. He had changed, selected the T-shirt for Faith and, thinking that it would help warm her up, he’d gotten the wine. His tasks hadn’t taken more than a few minutes, but it was all the time needed, upon seeing her again, to free the feelings he had kept deep within himself since leaving Dorothy.

  Love and desire were too feeble to name what he was feeling for Faith as he studied her in the warm golden glow of the muted track lighting.

  The lively chestnut, auburn and sienna curls and the delicious brown skin that had drawn him to her in Dorothy continued to do so, only now his longing had grown stronger. Either because of the years they had spent apart or his renewed intimacy with her, his feelings, achingly potent, poisoned his ability to think and behave rationally. He took a few steps into the studio, and he realized that everything he had done in the past ten years hadn’t been for himself, to escape his past or to escape Dorothy.

  It had all been for her.

  For Faith.

  For her approval, her respect. For her love.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Faith whirled around with a start. His command, the croak of his voice as he issued it, the intensity in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw left her shivering, and not from the chill of her wet clothing.

  He seemed taller, broader, certainly more imposing as he came toward her, presumably to enforce what had seemed like a practical directive. There was nothing menacing in his demeanor, which encouraged her to dare a step in his direction. And to obey him.

  Zander had no delusions that what had initially been a practical concern was now something far different. Her clothes were surely uncomfortable, but once her soggy top was in a heap on the floor, he acknowledged the bare truth: After years of dreaming and wanting, he wouldn’t wait another minute to have her.

  Faith unsnapped and unzipped her pants as she moved to the center of the room. Keeping her eyes on Zander’s in his reflection, hips shifting right, left and right again, she peeled off her jeans and stepped out of the pool of white.

  Standing against the rear wall, Zander appreciated her dexterity in unhooking her pretty bra. The ivory garment glowed against the darkness of her skin, and Zander momentarily envied the way the damp lace briefly clung to her flesh before she drew it away from her body.

  Out of habit, Faith’s hands went to her breasts, lightly massaging them now that they were free of constraint. Zander remained motionless, but he made a sound, something between a grunt and a groan. Her back to him, Faith bent over to slide off her sheer cotton panties.

  His hand tightened around the neck of the wine bottle as his gaze moved over her. Individually, her attributes were lovely, but collectively her beauty overwhelmed him. Responding to her touch, his gaze or both, her nipples tightened, the plum-dark buds inviting him to lick his lower lip.

  Further down, below her toned stomach and abdomen, he noticed the absence of the strip of floss with which he’d familiarized himself at Venus Adonis; the only curls on view now were the ones on her head.

  Zander let the wine bottle thunk to the floor, and Faith’s entire body responded when he came at her. He took her by the waist, roughly tugging her in to kiss her. Faith’s arms went around his neck, her fingers into his hair. Zander’s fingertips dug into the meat of her right thigh as he pulled her even closer, bringing her leg around his hip.

  His kisses, as tumultuous and fierce as the storm still raging outside, wandered over her face, laying claim to her eyes, her lips, her chin, her lips, her cheeks and her lips once more before sampling the soft skin of her throat and the hollow of her neck. Following a path delineated by her abdominal muscles, he kissed her wherever his lips happened to land, moving lower until he rested on one knee. Clutching the firm rounds of her backside with both hands, his tongue traced the crease joining her right thigh to her pelvis as he guided her right leg over his shoulder.

  His domineering tone and posture gone, he succumbed to his hunger for her. The taste of her sweet sweat met the tip of his tongue as it sought the precious pearl nestled within her bare folds. Faith’s knees weakened, the moist heat of Zander’s mouth and the forceful probing of his tongue sending her to a place of mindless need.

  His left hand supported her, clamping her bottom almost painfully while the fingers of his right hand opened her to more fully enjoy the tasty target peeking from its delicate hood. Grasping handfuls of his hair, Faith gasped in time to the intense, minute measured pumps of her hips, which met the actions of his tongue and teeth. Firm yet gentle, insistent yet leisured, Zander generated sensations that both weakened and strengthened her.

  Zander’s right knee folded under him when Faith’s legs gave out, and her weight drove her off balance. Curling his arms around her thighs, he sank onto his back, refu
sing to separate his mouth from her. Faith’s forearms caught the brunt of her weight, sparing her knees painful contact with the hardwood floor.

  She wouldn’t have noticed a couple of cracked patellas, not with Zander’s fingertips softly moving through the valley between her buttocks, coaxing her legs wider.

  Reaching and pulling, lapping and suckling, Zander kept her prisoner to his greed, even tightening his grip when she tried to straighten her arms in push-up position to give him more breathing room.

  An upward stroke of his nose followed by the pinch of his lips trapped her breath in her lungs. Faith’s hands clenched, her limbs stiffened, her backside flexed as her hips rode Zander’s head into the flooring. Her air left her in a loud, gasping cry of relief and pleasure, which climbed even higher when Zander coated two fingers with her liquid silk and added them to the work of his mouth. Slumping helplessly over him, Faith allowed him to roll her onto her back. Unwilling to give her a respite, he moved his fingers precisely, slightly curling them upward while drawing them forward and back an inch at a time.

  Faith took her breasts in her hands, her back arching, her knees nearly drawn up to her shoulders. Her incoherent sounds of pleasure eventually formed words, and she begged Zander to join her.

  To Faith, there was nothing better than anticipation. Too often, waiting for a thing was more titillating, more exhilarating, than the actual receipt of the thing she wanted.

  Not this time. Zander was touching places she never knew she had, taking her to levels of physical delight that she had only fantasized about. When Zander slid along her body to bring his face even with hers, she met him with a smile before cradling his head.

  “I want this,” she told him, wrapping her legs around him. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

  His jaw hardened and his eyes searched hers for a moment. The past and the present seemed one as he wrestled with desire and responsibility. There was no tension in her body, at least none born of apprehension. But there was plenty of tension in his. He wanted her in a way he hadn’t dared imagine back in Dorothy.

  Her body was ready for him. He’d seen to it. His was ready for her, too, judging from the pressure and pain behind his zipper.

  Framing her right breast in his hand, he brought his mouth to it, bedeviling it with the same skill he’d shown between her legs. “I won’t hold back,” he mumbled between teasing tugs and kisses. “I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.”

  She nodded, her breathing coming harder.

  He raised his head. “Are you sure?”

  She answered by way of a kiss that sent fire straight to the ache in his groin. Scooping her into his arms as he got to his feet, he raced downstairs to his bed. Faith spread herself languorously, moaning in contentment. “I could live in this bed,” she purred.

  “I’d like the company,” Zander said.

  The Savoir bed had been a housewarming gift from Brent. The hand-built, horsehair-stuffed mattress had extra padding, and had been built to specification with Zander’s height, weight and lower-back problems in mind. The bed was one of Zander’s favorite places to spend time when he was alone, and now he couldn’t wait to share it with Faith.

  She belonged there.

  The flat gray-blue of the stormy sky left the room in cool shadow. Zander pressed a wall switch, and soft golden light warmed the room. Faith nestled deeper into the bed, the heat of Zander’s gaze insulating her from the bleak chill of the storm.

  Faith inhaled deeply as Zander slipped off his shirt and stepped out of his jeans.

  “Wait,” Faith said abruptly, stopping his progress toward her.

  He had appeared topless in Burn, and he had been beautiful. Too beautiful.

  Zander’s torso looked as if it had been carved from flesh and bone with the skill of a Renaissance master, and Faith suspected that Burn’s digital arts team had erased the imperfections she now saw. Burn scars from his years working at Red Irv’s striped his left forearm, and slash marks and jagged, raised scars of unknown origin dotted his torso. His right hand self-consciously went to a thick band of mottled scar tissue under his left collarbone, although he kept his eyes on Faith’s.

  He had been walking her home from Red Irv’s the night his father had stormed out of Buzzy’s Tavern after losing a week’s pay betting on Mountaineers baseball. Catching sight of his son, Orrin Brannon had called him aside, demanding money. Accustomed to taking his frustrations out on his boy, Orrin responded to Zander’s empty pockets by striking him with his half-empty beer bottle. The bottle broke against Zander’s collarbone, and the jagged edge ripped through his black T-shirt and the underlying flesh.

  Zander had shoved his father hard into Buzzy’s brick front, so hard that Orrin never lifted a hand against him again. But Orrin’s last act of violence had been his worst, leaving Zander with a four-inch gash over his heart. The combination of night and Zander’s black T-shirt had camouflaged the blood flowing freely from the wound, and he had assured Faith that the dampness she saw was splattered beer.

  He had seen her safely home before returning to the diner in time to give Red Irv a good scare. If he hadn’t been in such pain, he would’ve enjoyed Red Irv’s look of horror at the way the fluorescent lights and blood loss had turned his complexion bluish-gray. Red Irv, a former butcher, had smelled the blood on Zander before he’d seen it, and he’d locked up the diner to take him to the Raleigh County Medical Center. An eager young physician’s assistant had given Zander a row of neat stitches, a tetanus shot and a prescription for an antibiotic.

  He had never told Faith how seriously he had been hurt, but she knew now. All of his secrets were now exposed as she opened her arms and beckoned him into her embrace.

  Her lips sought his scars, blessing them. There were so many, and he needed them. They were all that made him look truly mortal, and all the more beautiful. Her attention pacified his emotional scars, and helped him ignore the physical ones, and he wrapped her up in him. His left thumb teased and stroked her right nipple, his mouth found her parted lips while his right middle finger glided into her to work her once more.

  Granted freer access to him, Faith slipped a hand between them and took hold of the rigid velvet pressing into her abdomen. Her heart thumped hard and she made a high-pitched grunt of surprise when she loosely wrapped her hand around it.

  “How many double-As does this thing take?” she asked.

  Zander raised his head, a modest smile between his crimson cheeks. “You’re not…you’ve…I assume you’ve been with—”

  “I’m not a virgin, Alex,” she said. “I had a life in the time I thought you were dead.”

  He nuzzled her cheek, two fingers stroking the slick, hot flesh between her thighs. Faith closed her eyes and drew a deep breath through her nose, moaning in pleasure as he massaged and gently stretched her, readying her.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he assured her. “I promise.”

  Faith wasn’t so sure. His length and weight were daunting, and combined with the fact that it had been months since her last relationship, she was even more grateful for the time and skill Zander spent preparing her. He suckled her earlobe, the heel of his palm kneading her sweating pellet; he flicked his tongue over her nipples in turn, his fingers delving deeper, widening her.

  With maddening patience, he brought her close to the edge of release and then pulled back, until she was ready to weep.

  Zander quickly snatched a condom from the top drawer of his night table. In his eagerness to put it on, he poked his thumb through the lip of it. His hands trembling now, he retrieved another one, carefully slipped it on, then covered Faith with his body.

  All of him felt hard and strained against her, from his elbows, which framed her head, to his feet, which had separated hers. There was nothing he could say that she hadn’t already read in his eyes, and with a whispery kiss to her forehead, he raised his hips and angled himself into her.

  Faith curled her pelvis upward to meet him, her back and neck
arching, her mouth opening in silent protest at his initial, shallow invasion. Her chest and abdomen rose and fell with the deep breaths she took to help acclimate herself to his entry. Zander worked just as hard to stop himself from driving as far into her as he could.

  Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and upper lip, his biceps quivered from the strain of taking their union so slowly. Sympathetic to his discomfort and craving the fulfillment of her own pleasure, Faith locked her legs around his middle and used her feet to urge him forward.

  All at once all of him filled her, and for a second she clutched at his arms as if she could push herself from beneath him. A tear trickled from her right eye and Zander kissed it away as he stroked her hair from her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, holding completely still but for the kisses he dotted on her face and ears. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, nodding. “Really.”

  Zander pressed the tip of his fingertip to a tear welling in the corner of her left eye. “Then why are you crying?”

  Explanations eluded Faith, for all her talent with words. So many wishes, so many prayers had led to this moment. His fullness within her, his weight upon her, his arms around her, his gaze locked with hers, Faith slowly exhaled, and she felt as if he were melting into her, that they had finally, truly and completely reunited.

  She took his face in one hand and kissed him, answering him the only way she could. Cradling her head, Zander’s sweat-dampened hair cloaked their faces as he began a slow, steady rhythm meant to erase her discomfort and ready her for the very best he had to give.

  Faith began smiling through their kisses when he shifted his hips a bit, just enough to alter the points of slippery friction between them. A low growl of sexual delight crawled from Faith’s throat, and with renewed gusto she moved her hips to greet each thrust of Zander’s.

  She opened herself to him completely, her abdomen tightening as she crunched forward to take his backside in her hands. The powerful working of his buttocks gave her an additional thrill as she urged him on, craving a deeper union.