Sealed With a Kiss

by Gwynne Forster

  She shook her head to blot out the confusion she felt, but then he said, “Oh, sweetheart, I can’t make it like this,” and pulled her to him. He swallowed her protest into his mouth, and she trembled against him as his tongue brushed her lips, begging for entrance into the sweet haven of her mouth. She opened to him, and when he thrust into her deeply and possessively, she whimpered and capitulated, pulling his tongue into her mouth and sucking it voraciously until his whole body quivered. She felt him hard against her and held him closer, and when he spread his legs, she moved quickly into the cradle he’d made for her.

  Remembering that she never gave a thought to the consequences once her libido got possession of her, he warned her huskily, “Sweetheart, if you’re going to stop me, please do it now.” If she heard him, she didn’t make it evident, but reached up and pulled his head down, captured his mouth, and took what she seemed to need.

  “Naomi, for God’s sake. Think about what you’re doing. I want you. I want the sweet warmth of your body, and I want it badly. I need it. I need you!” She brought both hands to his buttocks and pressed him tightly to her. Close to exploding, he pulled up her pajama top and tossed it across the room, picked her up, and fastened his mouth on her nipple. Her uninhibited cry of passion excited and thrilled him, and he lay her on the bed and stood looking down at her, getting himself under control for what was to come. For the pleasure that they would give to each other.

  She gazed up at him, silently, searchingly. How could he make her feel as if she were half a person, needing him and him alone for completion? He turned away, and she sat up quickly, suddenly self-conscious and wary.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she exploded. “You don’t do this to me again. You started it, and you’re going to finish it…if you can, that is.”

  Rufus turned toward her, plainly shocked. “You really thought I was going to walk out of here, away from you? And even if I had intended it, don’t you know how to make sure that I don’t leave this room if you don’t want me to?”

  She shook her head, embarrassed. Now he knew that she’d had practically no experience. “Where were you going?”

  “To hang my jacket on the back of that chair.” He pitched the jacket toward the leather-covered wing chair, walked back, and stood in front of her. Gazing deeply into her eyes, he kicked off his shoes, methodically removed his shirt, belt, and pants, letting them fall, and reached for his shorts. Her lips parted, seemingly of their own accord, and her eyes widened. With trembling fingers, she stilled his hand. She had never seen a nude man, and she hadn’t dreamed that the male body could be so beautiful and enticing. In a dreamlike state, she licked her lips, reached for his shorts, and began slowly to peel them off him. He jumped to full readiness, and as if charmed by a beautiful snake, she leaned forward and quickly kissed him. His groan sent a hot ache to the seat of her passion, but she slid away when he reached for her and stood to gaze at his male beauty.

  “Naomi, love, for God’s sake.” Her frank, open adoration of his maleness seemed to make him proud and to excite him almost beyond control. Looking at him, tendrils of heat snaked through her, and she reached for the headboard to steady herself as arousal weakened her.

  “Baby, come here to me.” She didn’t move. And it wasn’t fear that held her rooted in the spot, but riveting, searing passion. She tried to raise her lead-heavy arms, but they remained dangling at her side. “Come here,” he growled unsteadily. “If you want me, sweetheart, come to me.” She took one shaky step, and he reached out and pulled her into his arms, into the first skin-to-skin embrace that she’d ever experienced. Her erect nipples caressed his hard chest, his full arousal pressed against her belly, and she responded like a leaf in a violent wind, trembling uncontrollably. She felt him hold her closer to steady her and then, enthralled by his nearness and his tenderness, she only sensed his fingers grip the elastic top of her pajama bottoms and ease them below her hips, dropping them to the floor. At first, she gasped at the sudden intimacy of their total nakedness, but when he shifted his hips and undulated against her, she eagerly returned the suggestion, lifted her arms to his powerful shoulders and her gaze to the shimmering love in his fawnlike eyes, and gave herself to him.

  Her responsiveness had always excited him, and it was balm to his ego that she seemed to think of nothing but him and her feelings whenever he touched her. But her action now told him that she had always held something back, or perhaps what she felt now was different, more powerful; he only knew that she was different. It was as if she was no longer in a hurricane, but had become the hurricane. He lifted her, removed the pajamas from her ankles, and lay her in his bed. Then he leaned over her and brushed her lips in a kiss that was merely a promise.

  “I’m going to lock the door,” he told her, remembering how she had reacted earlier when he had turned away. “The boys walk in here whenever they like. You’re the only woman who’s ever been in this bed, and I don’t want them to grow up too fast.”

  In seconds he was back. “Are you sure?” She nodded. “Tell me that you will never be sorry. Say the words, Naomi.”

  She raised her arms to him in a gesture instinctive to every woman, welcoming him to her. “I’ll never be sorry. It’s what I’ve wanted and needed since the first minute I saw you.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked one final time. “Tell me now.”

  She gazed at the tender, loving smile that glowed on his face, leaned forward, and pulled him down to her. She might be sorry for a lot of things, she thought, but never this; it would probably have to last her for life. “I’ve never been more certain of anything. Come to me, now.” He climbed into bed and clasped her to him, molding their bodies from shoulder to knee. She felt him strong and hard at the portal of her passion and tried to urge his entrance, but he refused to relinquish control.

  “You’re not ready for me, love. Just relax; we’ve got plenty of time.” Her breath quickened and her eyelids fluttered closed with the weight of passion at the light brush of his lips and the gentle stroke of his fingers on the inside of her bare arms. Heat surged through her and she felt herself sinking deeper into a spiraling rush of desire as his big hand feathered down her hip and teased the inside of her thigh. She thrashed about as passion overcame her, and fissions of fire burned her wherever the dancing, stroking electric rods that his fingers had become singed her. Unashamedly frantic for his possession, her undulating thighs trapped his hand between them, signaling her readiness for more. He put his left hand beneath her head, covered her mouth with his in a hard, passionate kiss, and found the core of her with his talented fingers.

  The intrusion caused her to jerk upward, but her deep sigh of pleasure immediately followed, and she gave herself up to his double assault on her senses. With his bold tongue, he let her know what he planned for her, all the while stroking her to full passion, driving her to frenzied madness, out of her senses. Oh, Lord, where was her anchor? She was a rudderless boat tossing in a raging storm far from shore. She grabbed his hips.

  “Rufus, please.”

  “Please what? Tell me what you want, love. I want to please you.”

  “I want to please you, too, and make you feel like I feel. Help me.” She damned her innocence, her lack of experience, because deep in her heart she wanted to bind him to her and she didn’t know how. He stroked her faster, and she lifted her hips, frantic for completion.

  He took her hand and closed her fingers around him. “You are pleasing me, and you will. Just relax, love, we’ll get there; I promise.” A wave of exquisite pleasure washed over her, and her nerves tingled as if wired to electric current when he bent his head to her breast and suckled her slowly and rhythmically while his fingers worked their magic. She cried out and pulled him over her.

  “Rufus,” she moaned. “Oh, darling, please. I need you.”

  And she did, he realized, as the warm love liquid flo
wed over his fingers and she spread her legs in eager anticipation. He thrust into her, but she winced visibly, muffling a cry, and he paused and looked down at her searchingly, trying to curb his passion.

  “What happened?” he asked urgently. “Did I hurt you? Talk to me, Naomi. Is this your first time?”

  She shook her head. “No, there was one other time, but that was a long, long time ago. I’m all right.” Fourteen years ago? he almost asked, and caught himself. He didn’t doubt that any such question would have ended it immediately, so he banished the thought and kissed her, holding himself back with difficulty; his control tested to the limit by the loving clutch of her velvet warmth.

  He knew that she feared he might end it because he’d hurt her and watched her carefully. She smiled and held him tightly to her while her body adjusted to him.

  “Love me, Rufus,” she pleaded. “I think I’ll die if you don’t.” Then she reached down and stroked his buttocks lovingly. He trembled in her slim arms, gathered her to him, and began to move. Strong. Possessive. With every powerful stroke, he branded her. You’re mine, he told her wordlessly, and I’m claiming what’s mine. Instinctively, she wrapped her long, silken legs around his waist and let him lead her.

  He wanted to give her everything, to wipe out whatever had been hurting her for fourteen years. He put his hand between them, stroking her, adding the pressure until she begged him for relief. His heart raced joyously and his body shook when he felt her sweet quivers as she tightened around him. With all the control he could muster, he quickened his pace and drove masterfully within her. Stunned by the intensity of her passion, he raised his head and looked down into her emotion-charged face as she cried out his name over and over and fell apart in his arms. Never before had a woman given herself to him so completely, relinquishing all sense of self. It shattered him, and helplessly he gave her the essence of himself in a thunderous release.

  Still lying above her, locked within her, he gazed down into her face, looking for some sign that she felt for him what his heart held for her. But he wasn’t going to press it; he didn’t need to make another mistake. And he hoped to hell that love didn’t turn a man into a fool, because if it did, he was ripe for it. He nudged her nose gently with his, wanting to see into her tightly closed eyes.

  “Look at me, baby.” He tried unsuccessfully to control his gruff, unsteady voice.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and risked looking into his beloved face, risked exposing her heart and soul to him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, that he was air and breath to her, but if he then asked for a commitment, no matter how small, she wouldn’t be able to follow through. She’d done it up this time; not having him was going to be living hell, but she wasn’t sorry. She had known the consequences, so she locked her feelings in her bursting heart and merely smiled at him.

  “Any regrets?” he asked her hoarsely, with the urgency of one awaiting sentencing. Naomi looked at him and frowned.

  “How could I regret it? I feel as if I’ve just come alive.” Then she realized that he was also asking something more.

  “It was wonderful,” she added quickly. “I never dreamed that a person could feel like that, I…I hope it wasn’t one-sided.” She eyed him anxiously.

  Rufus laughed. “Sweetheart, I have never felt that way before in my life, either. Ah, baby, that was pure soul mating, and it will only get better.” He separated from her and reached out to gather her to his side. She was leaving the bed.

  “Where are you going?” His voice was calm, she noted, but he was not. She wouldn’t let that deter her; she couldn’t yield to her feelings.

  “Home,” she answered casually. As soon as he’d alluded to a future relationship between them, she’d questioned the wisdom of what she’d done. After the cherished way he’d made her feel, she couldn’t expose herself, and she couldn’t risk a deeper involvement with him without telling him everything; it would be unfair. She had to go, and she had to go right then, before she weakened and crawled back into his arms, back to his warm, strong body that she already craved again—feverishly. “I have to be getting home,” she emphasized, wondering how her voice could be so strong.

  Rufus couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing. He lay there with both hands locked behind his head, fear coiling in the pit of his belly. “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly in a low, controlled voice. “You make love to me the way you did just now, rocking me out of my senses, then coolly tell me that it was wonderful and you’ve got to get home. Just like that. As if I was…as if what we did here was just a quick…” He bit his tongue and said it: “Just a quick lay.”

  Naomi didn’t answer him. He jumped off the bed and grabbed her shoulders, feeling them stiffen at his touch when only minutes earlier everything about her, all of her, had been soft and supple, in complete submission.

  “Talk to me, Naomi. Is what you had here with me a one-night stand? Something that means so little to you that you can shut me out and just walk off?” He started to squeeze her shoulders in a quest for warmth, for any kind of reaction, but he dropped his hands instead. She still hadn’t spoken, and from the set of her chin, and her closed expression, he could see that she was determined to leave. He went into the bathroom to control his temper and to deal with his anguish. Who was she? What was she, and why had he thought that because he’d fallen in love with her she’d be different?

  When he came out, she was walking slowly down the spiraling stairs with her small bag. He slipped quickly into a pair of jeans and his shoes, grabbed his short shearling coat, and caught her at his front door. “What will I tell my sons, Naomi? That you’ve finished with them? That you’ve taught them to love you, but you’re sorry if they mistook what you felt for them as love? What about that? And what about me? Why in God’s name did you get into that bed with me?”

  She reached for the doorknob, and he could see her lips quivering in spite of her obvious effort to control her emotions. He stopped her.

  “Look at me, woman. I am not just so much refuse that you can accumulate and discard at will. You felt something for me, felt it deep down, and you’ll never convince me otherwise. What is this all about? Look at me!”

  He forced her chin up and looked into her eyes. “My God! What is it?” He shuddered. What in heaven’s name could be responsible for her ashen face and the gut-searing anguish that he saw mirrored in her eyes before she snatched the door open and slipped away?

  He stood silent, arms akimbo, while the noise from her car engine faded until he could no longer hear it. Twenty minutes. Just twenty short minutes earlier, he’d had it all. The woman he loved, who loved his children, and who had thrashed wildly and helplessly in passion beneath him, his name spilling over and over from her trembling lips. She had no control, had been totally at his mercy, and he knew it. Gone!

  “Daddy, I had a bad dream.” Rufus turned to see Sheldon at the top of the stairs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He mounted the steps slowly, taking in the drawings and clay sculptures that were his children’s presents to him. And he could see Naomi’s loving hand in it as she’d taught his sons to write, “I love you, Daddy”; “Welcome home, Daddy”; and “Kisses, Daddy.” Wearily, he took Sheldon back to his bed and soothed him until he fell asleep.

  He sat for a long time near his children’s beds, thinking about Naomi and the strange way in which she had behaved. Try as he might, he couldn’t be angry with her, because he couldn’t forget the tortured look in her eyes when she’d left him. He was certain that some demon was riding hard on her; she hurt, and hurt badly. He wondered…what was it Judd had said? My Naomi spends a lot of time hurting. He couldn’t let her go. He loved her. Oh, God, how he loved her! To have known at last what it meant to share his body with a woman whom he loved…he swore softly. Naomi cared deeply for him, or she wouldn’t have made love with him after fourteen years of abstinence
. And for her, abstinence had definitely been by her choice.

  He walked slowly down the winding stairs to his office. Reminders of her were everywhere. He dialed her number and got a busy signal, not even her answering machine, he thought in frustration. After repeated attempts, he decided that she’d disconnected her phone. And disconnected him from her.

  Naomi hardly remembered how she got home. She threw her bag into the hall closet and made it to her bed by willpower alone. Disconsolate. Shattered. She hadn’t known that she could hurt so badly, and she had hurt him, too. She had wanted to make it right, to tell him that it was killing her to leave him, but she knew that if she offered a single word in her defense, all that pained her, every wish and every secret, would flow out of her in an unbridled torrent. She wanted him to call her, to tell her that he could forgive anything, but the phone didn’t ring and she wondered why she had even hoped it would. Hours later, she showered and got ready for bed. Looking in the mirror, she laughed mockingly at her ashen face and haggard eyes.

  “Rufus, you’re not only the lover that women dream of, you’re a magician,” she said aloud. “I haven’t fallen apart like this since Grandpa left me at that private clinic all those years ago.” She went to the kitchen, got some ice, and held it to her forehead. She climbed into bed, reminding herself that she’d never let anybody or anything demoralize her. I might lose it all, she told herself, but not without a good fight. As she dozed off, she remembered that she had transferred her calls to Rufus’s number and that if he did call her, he would only get a busy signal from his own number. Seven-thirty the next morning found her knocking on Judd Logan’s front door.

  Chapter 12

  Judd was obviously taken aback by Naomi’s sudden appearance; she hadn’t rung the bell as was required, she wasn’t smiling, and she’d barely murmured a greeting. As though sensing that something was wrong, he clung anxiously to his usual manners and routine.