For Now and Forever

by Diana Palmer

  “You’re so strong,” she whispered shakily.

  “And you’re very soft,” he whispered back, his lips smiling as they touched hers. “Want me?”

  “Yes,” she said honestly. Her fingers brushed against his mouth. “Saxon...”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight.” He kissed her once more and sat up, refastening her bra, tugging her shirt back in place with slightly unsteady fingers.

  “Why?” she asked softly.

  He drew her into a sitting position and brushed a kiss against her forehead. “Because what happened in my bathroom was an accident—something I never meant to happen. The next time we make love, it won’t be on the spur of the moment or because I happened to lose my head. It’s going to be because we both want it, and with my ring on your finger.”

  “You really didn’t mean it to happen?” she asked quietly, curious.

  He let her go long enough to light a cigarette, and drew her beside him as he leaned back to smoke it. “No,” he admitted. “At first I was teasing. Then, when I felt you against me, I lost sight of everything except how much I needed you. And from there, my darling,” he laughed gently, “it was all downhill. I couldn’t even manage to get you out of the tub first. I couldn’t wait.”

  “Neither could I,” she admitted on a sigh. “It was so beautiful, even like that... I hadn’t realized that people could go so crazy all at once. I wasn’t even thinking, I was only feeling, and it was so delicious that I couldn’t stop.”

  “It’s always going to be like that,” he told her. “As long as we live.”

  She looked up at him with quiet, adoring eyes. Yes, she thought, they’d always be good together in bed. But how would they survive without love? Would her love for him be strong enough to keep the marriage together? Perhaps when there were children...

  “Get Sandra to go shopping with you tomorrow and find a wedding gown,” he said suddenly.

  “I suppose I’d better,” she sighed, nestling closer. “It isn’t that far away. I thought something beige...”

  “White,” he corrected shortly, tilting her face up to his darkening eyes. “You came to me a virgin. White, Maggie.”

  Her lips parted on an intake of breath as she looked up at him.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” he said softly, “the marriage ceremony is a formality after the fact. When I took you, that was the beginning. I feel just as wed to you right now as I will when we put our signatures to the license and I place the ring on your finger.” He took her left hand in his and kissed it. “What kind of ring would you like? A diamond?”

  “I’d like an emerald,” she replied. “A small one, set in white gold, with a band to match. How about you?”

  He smiled. “You want me to wear a band?”

  “Well, if you don’t want to, I don’t mind.” She was lying, and avoided his gaze. “Some men would rather not, I know.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  She shifted restlessly. “It’s up to—”

  “I said,” he whispered, making her look at him, “do you want me to?”

  She drew in a slow breath. “Yes,” she admitted, throwing caution to the winds. “Yes, I do, I want those swooning women to know that you belong to me.”

  His fingers spread out against her throat, easing her head back on his shoulder while something dark and wild kindled in the eyes looking down into hers. “Say that again...”

  “What?”

  “That I’m going to belong to you,” he murmured.

  She flushed and tried to hide her eyes, but he wouldn’t let her. “You’ll...belong to me,” she managed as his penetrating gaze made her knees feel weak.

  “And you’ll belong to me,” he whispered back. “Body and heart and soul?”

  “Body and heart and soul,” she breathed. Her fingers reached up hesitantly to touch his face, his broad forehead, his eyebrows, his nose, his mouth. “All of me.”

  “Do you know the words of the marriage ceremony?” he asked against her forehead.

  “Love, honor and cherish...”

  “And with my body I thee worship,” he whispered fervently. His hands brought her against him, and he folded her into his body, his big arms swallowing her against his still bare chest, so that her hands were crushed into the thick mat of hair over the warm muscles. “Did I please you that morning?” he asked huskily. “Did I give you the kind of pleasure I meant to?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, clinging. “Oh, yes, Saxon. You gave me pleasure.”

  “And if there wasn’t the possibility of a child,” he continued quietly, “if I hadn’t lost my head...would you still be marrying me at Christmas?”

  She hesitated. He was asking her to make an admission that she was afraid to make. She could bear loving him in silence, but could she bear his pity if he knew the truth? She hesitated, frozen against his warm body.

  He tipped her chin up, watching her quietly, intently. “I need to know,” he said. “I have to know. Am I blackmailing you into a relationship you don’t want?”

  “I—I want you very much,” she said.

  “I know that. But it isn’t what I asked.” He pushed the wild hair away from her cheeks, her temples. “Maggie, I can force it out of you. You know that, don’t you? All I have to do is strip you and start touching you. You’ll tell me anything then, won’t you?”

  She swallowed. “Probably,” she admitted. “But I’d despise you.”

  “Then don’t goad me into it. Answer me.”

  Her eyes closed. “Are you going to strip me of pride too?”

  “There isn’t much room for pride in a good marriage,” he reminded her. “Marriage is a compromise. It takes two people and an equal amount of give and take on both sides. Come on, Maggie, tell me. If you weren’t afraid that I’d made you pregnant, would you still marry me?”

  “Would you want to marry me if you weren’t concerned about the possibility of a child?” she threw back.

  He bent and touched her mouth very gently with his. “I would want you,” he said in a deep, harsh tone, “if you were barren forever. I would want you if you were blind and deaf and helpless.” His arms tightened. “I want children with you, but they don’t have anything to do with the reasons I want to marry you.”

  She caught her breath at the tone of his voice. Her fingers speared into the hair over his broad chest and tangled there, pressing and pulling sensuously as the words began to penetrate her mind.

  “Why do you want to marry me?” she asked.

  “I asked you first.”

  She reached up and pressed her lips softly, warmly to his, opening them to coax his mouth into following suit. Her tongue traced the thin upper lip, the slightly fuller lower one, and his hands dug in at her waist under the tormenting pressure.

  “What are you doing, you little witch?” he growled huskily.

  “I’m showing you why I want to marry you,” she murmured impishly. “I adore you. I love your body. I love your eyes and your nose and this little frown between your eyes. I love the way you look without clothes and the way you kiss...”

  “Say the words, Maggie,” he ground out. “Oh: God, say the words... I need them so!”

  “I love you, Saxon,” she breathed into his mouth, feeling with wonder the tremor that ran through his big body, the surge of possession in the arms that swallowed her completely. “I love you until I ache with it.”

  “Baby,” he breathed, bending. His mouth opened against hers, fitting itself exactly to the bow of her parted lips, taking slow, sweet possession of them.

  She felt him move, laying her down on the couch, his body following hers, melting down over it as they kissed slowly, tenderly, in a way they never had before.

  “You only call me baby...when we make love,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “I can find other words,
if you want me to,” he whispered back. “Darling, honey, my heart, my own...my love.”

  “I—I like that last one,” she murmured.

  His nose rubbed against hers. “Do you want to hear it too?” he whispered. “That I love you?”

  “Do you?” she breathed, barely able to breathe as she looked up at him, waiting, hoping against hope, needing.

  “Hopelessly,” he admitted softly, searching her eyes as everything he felt began to glow in his own. “Helplessly. Like a boy of fifteen. Since the day I opened my office door and found you standing outside almost a year ago.”

  “Oh, Saxon,” she ground out, closing her eyes as she pressed against him, hiding her face in his throat.

  “I haven’t had a woman since that day,” he whispered into her ear. “Not until that morning in the tub. I didn’t even try, Maggie, there was nobody for me but you. Nobody. I’ve loved you for so long...”

  “And I’ve loved you.” She groaned. “I went through the motions of living, but all the while I thought you were hating me. And when I found out that you were Randy’s stepbrother, I was convinced that you’d gotten me here for revenge.”

  “When I found out that Lisa was your sister, I went crazy trying to think of ways to get you here,” he confessed, holding her closer. “When I finally got Randy to think of asking you up here with Lisa for a visit, it was all I could do to sound indifferent. But I encouraged him every step of the way. I wanted you with me until I could taste it. And then, pretending to want revenge was the only way I could think of to keep you. Blackmail, intimidation, guilt...my God, the underhanded things I’ve done to stop you from leaving me!”

  “Seducing me,” she added with a sigh.

  “I didn’t plan that,” he said, laughing. “But it seemed so completely natural at the time, so right. You were my first virgin, did you know?”

  She shifted, drawing back to look up at him with smiling eyes. “I don’t know whether to be jealous of all those women you got your experience with, or grateful to them. You made it so incredibly good for me.”

  “It was the same for me,” he said, smoothing back her hair, “I’d never made love to a woman I was in love with, until then.” He laughed softly. “I could have protected you, but I didn’t. I wanted the threat of a child, I wanted a child with you. So I thought, What the hell, and just went ahead. I hoped that the risk might coerce you into saying yes when I asked you to marry me. And it did.”

  She shook her head. “No, it didn’t,” she corrected. “If I hadn’t loved you, I’d have said no in spite of that risk. But you were offering me paradise. How could I have refused?”

  His big hand went to her stomach, flattening out on it possessively. “Will you mind being pregnant so soon?” he asked gently.

  “We aren’t sure yet,” she reminded him.

  He brushed her mouth with his. “I’m afraid that by Christmas we will be,” he whispered sensuously, moving against her so that she was made blatantly aware of his hunger. “I could stay away when I wasn’t sure of you. But now that I am, I want you more than ever. And you already know that I’m not going to take no for an answer, don’t you?”

  Her breath caught in her throat as he eased her shirt back up, and began to remove it. “The door...”

  “I locked it when we came in here,” he murmured against her parted lips. “Relax, darling. This time it’s going to be everything either one of us could want. It’s no spur-of-the-moment thing, no impulse. You’re going to be mine for the rest of our lives.”

  While he was whispering, her shirt was being gently pulled over her head, leaving her bare from the waist up. He looked down at her with frankly worshipping eyes, learning every line of her, every curve in the static silence that followed.

  “The lights...” she protested, flushing at the intensity of his gaze.

  “Do you remember that I once told you I’d never made love in the dark?” he murmured, bending to brush his mouth slowly, agonizingly against the soft slow sweep of her breasts.

  Her hands tangled in his hair, and she caught her breath at the new sensations, the slowness that hadn’t been possible that wild morning.

  “And I’d never made love at all,” she whispered.

  “And I couldn’t wait,” he recalled with faint amusement. “I was so hungry for you, so much in love with you. I used to lie awake thinking about how it would be, how I’d draw it out and make it so sweet for you the first time...”

  She nuzzled against him, loving the thickness of his hair against her chin as he traced patterns on her bareness with his lips, his tongue. Her body lifted invitingly.

  “It was sweet,” she whispered. “Even though I had bruises all over.”

  “So did I,” he murmured. “Help me. Here.”

  He moved her fingers to his belt and watched her flush and fumble with wicked eyes.

  “On the sofa?” she whispered unsteadily.

  “It’s softer than the floor,” he observed. “Unless...” He glanced toward the thick rug in front of the fireplace and cocked an eyebrow suggestively. “Well?”

  The thought of that softness under her bare skin made her tingle all over. She caught her breath, and he read the answer in her eyes. He got up, shedding the rest of his clothes before he eased her out of her own and carried her to the rug.

  She sank down into it, moving sensuously as she felt the furry thickness surround her, and watched him as he moved to poke up the fire in the fireplace before he came to her.

  He smiled, half amused at the open curiosity in her gaze, the pleasure revealed in her misty eyes.

  “Another first?” he murmured as he eased down beside her to prop himself up on an elbow, his body touching hers gently, making her want more than the light contact. “I gather that nude men weren’t on your list of familiar things.”

  “I thought I mentioned that once before,” she murmured. “Oh, Saxon, you have to be the most magnificent man...”

  “You could pass for a particularly lovely Greek statue yourself,” he replied, looking at her long slender body with a lover’s eyes. “Maggie,” he breathed, lifting his hand to run it slowly, lingeringly, down every soft inch of her, “I want you more than I can find words to tell you about it. I want to grow old with you. I want your children to be mine. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, cherishing you...”

  “I feel the same way about you,” she replied. Her legs moved as she pressed her body softly against his, smiling at his involuntary response, the sudden tautness under the warmth of powerful muscle. “Make it last...a long time,” she whispered softly, lifting her hands to tangle and tug gently at the mat of hair over his chest. “Make it last forever this time.”

  His breath came harshly, jerkily. One powerful leg insinuated itself across both of hers, and his hand flattened on her belly before it began to move in new, unfamiliar ways on her body.

  She cried out involuntarily, trembling, her wide, awed eyes meeting his as her nails bit into him.

  He smiled slowly, triumphantly. “Suppose I tell you exactly what I’m going to do to you,” he whispered, bending to nip at her mouth with a slow, teasing pressure. “And how I’m going to do it,” he added, laughing softly when she arched and moaned wildly. “Oh, yes, darling, it’s good, isn’t it? And this is just the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Saxon,” she bit off, her hands clinging, pulling, her eyes pleading, her body on fire from head to toe as he teased and tormented. “I love you, I love you!”

  “I love you,” he whispered back. “I love every inch of you, every curve, every line. With my body I thee worship. This is where our marriage begins, here, now, as surely as if the marriage contract were already signed, the rings in place, the vows spoken. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and this is our time.”

  “To love and to cherish,” she breathed brokenly, her eyes wild and
blazing with ardor. “In sickness and in health...all the days of my life. My darling. My darling!”

  He soothed her, gentled her, drew her back from the summit, and when she was calm, he began all over again, his voice deep and slow and ardent, his eyes almost black with passion and love as he whispered—explicitly—what he was going to do. And then, with incredible patience and aching thoroughness, with his hands and mouth and his body, he brought her to the point of utter madness, to completion. And she felt her body lifting, rising, flying into the naked sun as the room and the world and reality all exploded into the joy of loving and being loved.

  Minutes later, still trembling, she clung to him, her cheek pillowed by his warm, damp chest; his arm holding her; his mouth gently soothing her as it brushed her eyes, her nose, and the curve of her smiling lips.

  “I never understood total commitment until you came along,” he murmured lazily. “Now it all makes sense. One woman. Children. A home. All of it.”

  “Don’t they say that good girls usually get pregnant the first time?” she asked drowsily, stretching.

  He laughed. “You’re good, all right,” he muttered, turning to loom over her. “Damned good. Come here...”

  “But you can’t—” she began, until he moved, and she realized that he most certainly could.

  “I don’t know what kind of books you’ve been reading, honey,” he murmured as his mouth broke hers. “But yes, it’s most certainly possible—as you’re about to find out. Touch me...yes, just...like...that! God, Maggie!” he ground out, and she yielded immediately as he guided her, prepared her, teased and tormented her in a long, leisurely loving that drove even the time before right out of her mind, until she could do nothing but cling and bite back the urgent cries that whispered hoarsely into his demanding mouth. And she understood finally why the French called it the little death—the most beautiful death imaginable...

  The double wedding was a fantasy of white and lace and candlelight, with the church’s gorgeous Christmas tree to the right of the altar when Maggie stood with Saxon’s ring on her finger, and her sister and new brother-in-law beside them. Tears streamed down her cheeks unashamedly as she acknowledged her husband before the world, her fingers clinging warmly to his, her eyes adoring him.