Madness. It was all madness …
It was only seconds later that her back arched off the blanket, her arms sliding around him to pull her to him.
He cried out and collapsed on top of her.
“You screamed.” He was gasping for breath as he lifted his head. “Did I hurt you?”
She’d screamed? She didn’t remember making a sound. But then she hadn’t been thinking, only feeling. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“You’re sure? I’ve never had a virgin. You were … tight.”
“Yes, I was.” She was gasping, too. “But it was okay. Did it bother you?”
“Hell, no.” He flexed within her at the memory. “It was fantastic.” Then he was getting off her and lying beside her. “But I should have been more careful. I thought about doing it, then it was gone, swept away.”
Everything had been swept away but the act itself, Eve thought.
And it was still here. The urgency was gone, but her body was still tingling, warm, vibrantly alive. No one had told her that the aftereffect would be like this.
John was pulling her close again, cuddling her in his arms. “Thank you,” he said softly. “It was good, the best, Eve.”
“Yes, it was.” She rubbed her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. “I don’t see how it could be better. Do you?”
He was silent. “Don’t be hasty. There’s always a way to make anything better. Let me think about it.”
She nodded. “I’m willing to listen. You know best … for now.”
He chuckled. “But you think that may be temporary?” He smoothed her hair. “You may be right.” He was silent. “You’re sure that you’re protected?”
“I’m sure. I wasn’t going to go into this unless I knew I was safe.”
“And you didn’t trust me to do it. I meant it, Eve. I wasn’t going to let you run any risk.”
“It’s my body. I take care of it.” She lifted herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “This way I don’t have to trust you. Isn’t that what you really wanted? No strings. That’s what you said.”
“Yes, that’s what I said.” His finger traced the curve of her upper lip. “But I’ve been known to be unreasonable now and then. Maybe I’m hurt that you didn’t trust me.”
“I don’t think so.” She frowned. “But it’s too dark to see your face. I can’t tell if you’re— Where are you going?” she asked, startled, as he jumped to his feet and was heading back to the car. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t like it dark? Let there be light.” He flipped on the headlights.
She inhaled sharply as she was illuminated in the intensity of the headlights. She scrambled to her knees, staring at his dark shadow near the car. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Sometimes the unexpected is exciting.”
“I feel … naked. Somehow, I didn’t before.” She had only been aware of textures, scents, sensation.
“I like you naked.”
“I’m too thin.”
“You’re perfect.”
“Liar. Why did you turn on the lights?”
“I felt your burn. I wanted to see it.” He was coming toward her out of the shadow. Lord, he was beautiful. Olive skin that looked darker in contrast to the clear light. Muscular stomach and thighs. And the expression on his face … Full lips, white teeth, and glittering dark eyes that were sensuality itself. “While I was feeling it.” He fell to his knees in front of her. His fingers tangled in her red-brown hair, and he tilted her head back. “The light is turning your skin golden as if it was sunlight.” He bent his head, and his lips enveloped her nipple. “Do you feel the heat, Eve?”
“Yes.” It was happening again. This time the sensation was so erotic that the intensity was almost painful. Her nails dug into his shoulders. “What are you going to do?”
He was kneeling there, ready, tense. Both of them caught in the brilliant spotlight. She had a sudden hazy memory of the moment in the hospital the first night she’d met him.
Ready to perform …
“It’s what you’re going to do.” He lifted his head and moved her legs on either side of his hips. Then he was raising her, bringing her to him. He whispered. “Let me feel the heat. Come burn me, Eve…”
CHAPTER
5
IT WAS ALMOST DAWN WHEN they left the reservoir.
“You’re quiet.” John shot her a glance. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“Why?” She looked at him. “It would be a little late, wouldn’t it?” She didn’t know how many times they’d come together in ways that she hadn’t even known existed. “And it was my choice.”
“I could have left you alone.”
“You said it was going to happen sometime, and it might as well be you. You were right.” She gazed out the window. “You were right about a lot of things.”
“What things?”
“Chemistry. You said it didn’t happen very often like this. I don’t see how it could. Too intense. But that’s good in a way. Because it can’t happen like this very often. I’m not going to have to worry about being pulled into another … situation like this. Once you go away, I’ll be able to go back to the way things were.”
“Will you?”
“Yes, and so will you. That’s what we both want. That way this won’t hurt us, it won’t interfere.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “You have it all worked out.”
“You exploded into my life like an atom bomb. I had to find a way to make sure that I wouldn’t be destroyed by it. How do you expect me to behave?” She looked him in the eye. “You’re the one who was hunting me, telling me how we deserved it. Well, you convinced me. As long as we don’t hurt anyone else or ourselves, then this could be a good thing. I’m going to make sure that we don’t.”
“I guess I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”
“Did you think that I was going to give you some kind of guilt trip? That I was going to beg you to tell me you loved me?” She shook her head. “That isn’t what this is about. I don’t even know what love is all about.” She shrugged. “I don’t even know if there is such a thing. I’ve never seen it. There’s a lot of talk, but it seems to go away pretty fast; and then there’s a lot of arguing. Maybe it’s only something in the movies. What do you think?”
“I think maybe there could be a lot of different kinds of love. And there are people we’re supposed to love and people we do love. I couldn’t stand my mom and dad. I love my uncle. As for the movie kind of love…” He smiled. “I’m a guy. Sometimes we think with our dicks.” He met her gaze. “There were a few moments back there that if you’d asked me, I would have said I loved you.”
And there were a few moments that he had been the giver of a pleasure so intense that she had loved everything about him, his body, his skill, the way he had made her feel part of him. She had wanted to keep him with her forever. “But I didn’t ask you. I promise I’ll never ask you.”
“I suppose I should feel relieved. I guess I do.” He glanced back at the road leading to the reservoir. “Sure I do. You’ve just made me a little dizzy. You’re right, this is what’s going to work for us.” He paused. “As often as possible. When?”
“Tonight.” She looked at him. “Every night. Until we decide we don’t want it anymore.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“It might.” But it didn’t seem possible to Eve, either. She had thought she was satiated when they had left the reservoir, but she could feel a stirring as she gazed at him. She knew his body so well now. It was a beautiful body, sleek and tough and strong. He could lift her, move her, hold her, with no effort. Yet he didn’t make her feel helpless. She’d learned she could stop him with a touch, make him shudder just by a movement. She hadn’t realized she’d have that power. He’d always been so dominant and forceful that it had amazed her that she didn’t have to take power, it had been given.
He pulled up in front of the development. “You’ll only h
ave a few hours to sleep. Are you going to go to school today?”
“Of course.” She got out of the car. “School is important. I told you, I can’t let this hurt me.” She started across the street. “It probably won’t be like this every night.”
“No?” She heard the car pull away from the curb. “Don’t count on it.”
She couldn’t count on anything, she thought as she unlocked the door of the apartment. Everything was new territory. She just had to keep on with her usual routine and try to keep her head straight.
Shower, first. Then set the alarm.
Even the drops of warm water falling on her body felt different. Her breasts were taut, and there was a tiny mark. A bruise? Strange. She hadn’t been aware of any roughness. But at times they’d been like two wild animals. She remembered his mouth … It could have happened then.
Don’t think about it. Her breasts were swelling, and she was feeling her body tingling, readying. All it had taken was the memory, and the heat was returning.
She wanted him again.
She leaned her forehead against the wall of the shower. It was all crazy and mysterious and sometimes a little frightening. If this was what sex was like, what would it have been if there had been love between them?
But she understood love even less, and its potential could be even more dangerous. Hadn’t both she and John agreed that it could be deceptive and was to be avoided? She didn’t know enough about John Gallo even to explore the possibilities. Yet when they had been talking, she had felt a curious sadness.
No, she did not love him. She would not love him. The only thing of which she could be both certain and secure was that she loved his body.
That would be enough.
* * *
“I LIKE THE RESERVOIR BETTER.” Eve turned over in bed and gazed at the sheets of rain pounding the window. “I felt strange coming here.”
“I couldn’t control the weather.” John drew her closer. “And this isn’t a bad motel. It’s clean and not seedy. I made sure of that.”
“It just made me think of—” She broke off and pushed away from him. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She swung her legs to the floor and stood up. “I’ll be back.”
“You sound like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.” He put his arm behind his head, watching her as she went toward the bathroom. “Though you don’t look anything like him.”
“Thank heavens.” She closed the bathroom door. A few minutes later she was washing her face and hands and stopped to stare into the mirror. She was naked, her cheeks were flushed and her hair tousled, her body ripe and glowing. She looked like she’d been doing exactly what she had been doing.
She turned and went back into the motel room but didn’t go right back to bed. She went over to the picture window and drew back the curtains and looked out onto the parking lot. “I can’t see anything. It’s raining rivers…”
“What’s wrong?” John asked quietly. “Did I do something you didn’t like?”
“No.” She always loved everything he did to her. Even though she had been a little uneasy when they’d come there, it hadn’t changed her response. She was wondering if anything could. For the past three weeks, they had been together every night and every other spare moment they could steal. Those hours had been as sensual and hazy as a harem dream. She had only been aware of touch and scent and coming together. Her body had become so attuned to his that all he had to do was look at her, hold out his hand, touch her hair, and it started. “It was kind of … exotic. Where did you learn to do all that?”
“That’s a question you shouldn’t ask.” He stood up and walked toward her. “I figured if I liked sex, I should do it well. And I didn’t wait until I was sixteen like you to start.” He grinned. “I was trying to avoid coming home as much as I could, and I had to have something to keep me busy.” He pushed her hair aside and pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “And then I found the Kama Sutra.”
She shivered and whispered, “I think you wrote the Kama Sutra.”
“At any rate, I thought you were ready for a little distraction. You were acting pretty stiff when I mentioned the motel.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “You’re never stiff. You bend.” He delicately licked her ear. “You open…”
“And I did. Again and again.”
“Yes.” He went still. “But not right now.” He pushed her away from him. “I think we’ll have a little downtime.” He crossed the room to his duffel on the floor. “I brought you a present.”
“What?” She stared at him in astonishment. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to do it. You must have noticed that’s all the reason I need.” He reached in the duffel and brought out a tissue-wrapped object. “My uncle brought it back from Japan years and years ago. He meant to give it to his girlfriend, but she jilted him. So he gave it to me and told me to make a kite of it. I never got around to it.” He tore off the tissue and unfurled a length of gold silk. “I was thinking how pretty it would be against your hair.”
She put out a tentative finger and touched the silk. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not a scarf, John.”
“It is if I say it is.” He draped it over her hair. “Beautiful. Sun on fire.” Then he arranged the rest of the cloth over her shoulders and breasts. “There, you look like a harem girl.”
She smiled. “That’s odd. I was just thinking that these past weeks have been like a harem dream.”
“Is that good?”
“It’s … erotic.” She slipped the length of gold off her hair to pool around her shoulders. “Thank you. But it’s not really my style. I’m too…” She remembered Teresa’s description. “Serious.”
“I like serious.” He was drawing her over to the easy chair in front of the window. “But I like erotic better.” He dropped down in the chair. “It’s a good thing it’s raining so hard that no one can make out anything through this glass. The office would be getting complaints about those shameless nude people in 2A.” He reached up a hand to pull her down on his lap.
Instead, she dropped down on the carpet in front of the chair and linked her arms around her knees. “Why did your uncle’s girl jilt him?”
“Another guy. He was overseas a lot on missions. He didn’t blame her.”
“But you did.”
“Yeah, I wanted to kill her. But I was only twelve, so that would have been difficult.” He leaned forward and began to rub her shoulders beneath the silk. “And I got over it. Why were you stiff tonight?”
She was silent. “Motels remind me—Sandra spends a lot of time at hotels and motels.”
He cursed softly. “Why didn’t you say no? I knew you didn’t want to have me come to your apartment. You’ve made that clear. But I’d have found somewhere else.”
“Because I’m not Sandra, and I’ve got to get over letting things like that bother me.” She was silent a moment, then said jerkily, “She’s not really a prostitute, you know. She just likes to have a good time and is willing to be paid for it. I think she has a good heart. When I was little, she acted as if she cared about me … when she wasn’t stoned.”
“How kind. And did you care about her?”
“Yes, she was pretty and she laughed a lot. Later things changed…” She shook her head. “I was confused, then I guess I changed. She stayed the same.” She was gazing out at the rain. “You said you couldn’t stand your parents. Was it always like that, or did it come later?”
“Always. They never wanted a kid. I was in their way. When I got too much in their way, I ended up with burning cigarettes being put out on my back. My father particularly liked that form of discipline.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I thought so, too. I tried to push him down the steps once. I didn’t do it right, and he only fell against the wall. He beat the hell out of me. After that, I just tried to stay away. Unless my uncle was home from overseas. Uncle Ted took the heat off.” He smiled. “Unintentional pun.”
How could he
joke? “I can see why you’d love your uncle.”
“I was lucky. If I hadn’t had him around, I would have ended up in reform school. I’ve always been pretty wild, but he taught me to channel the violence. Thanks to him, I’m going to have a good life.”
“In the Army.”
“Only a means to an end.” His hands slipped down and began to slowly rub her breasts beneath the silk. She gasped. It was unbearably erotic to feel the rough warmth of his palms alternating with the cool texture of the silk against her nipples. “I’m always going after the big score.”
The sensation was causing her to lean her head back against him and arch beneath his hands. “Is that … what you’re after now?”
“With your cooperation.” He tore the silk away from her and tossed it aside. “And I believe I’m going to get it.” He lifted her onto his lap and made the adjustment. “Aren’t I?”
She groaned, and her nails bit into his shoulders as he started to move. She couldn’t breathe. Fullness. Heat. The sensation was building quickly to an indescribable pitch.
She closed her eyes and let it take her over the top.
* * *
“EVE.”
She was being shaken.
Then lips were on her nipple.
She knew those lips, that tongue …
She opened her eyes to see him above her in bed. He was dressed already.
“It’s time we left,” John said. “You said that you wanted to be back by five.” He used his teeth in a last teasing kiss and lifted his head. “Now or never.”
She sat up and shook her head to clear it of sleep. “I must have been sleeping hard.”
“It was the rain.” He smiled. “And other things.” He pulled her from the bed and sent her to the bathroom with a slap on her derriere. “Ten minutes.”
She was out in seven and carefully packed the silk wrap in her bag. “Thank you again for this.”
“Oh, I enjoyed it.”
She remembered the feel of the silk against her breasts. “So did I.” She moved toward the door. “Let’s go.”
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