“Sounds itchy.”
He laughed, pleased by the matter-of-fact tone of her voice. “Gathering moss was a big industry back in these swamps. Now only a few people still do it, to sell to hatcheries. But years ago, it was used to stuff furniture and mattresses. Didi stuffed this one for me. I’m afraid she got a bit carried away and mixed a few other things in with the moss.”
“What things?”
“You’d have to ask Didi. I only know it smells wonderful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of Cajun charm. Her father was a traiteur.”
“The one who taught you to take away headaches?”
“The same.”
She turned, drawing his arm tighter around her shoulder as she did. “What kind of charm do you suppose it is?”
“A love charm, knowing Didi. She’s been after me to get married for years.”
“Married to whom?”
“You don’ know her yet, cher—” he mimicked the musical cadences of a Cajun woman “—but you will, and when you do, she’ll take your heart and bend it in half that one, and you’ll be left wit’ no thought of tomorrow, heh?”
“I think I’m going to like Didi.”
“You will,” he conceded. “And my family’ll like you. You fit here. I’ve never met anyone else who did, but this suits you somehow, and it doesn’t make sense that it should.”
Antoinette didn’t know what to say. She could tell him that she already felt at home on Bayou Midnight, that the little cabin in the middle of nowhere seemed like the perfect place to be, that she had a strong sense of everything coming together for the first time in her life. But she had learned to be cautious, and instead she just smiled and pulled away to wander to the edge of the porch to watch the storm come across the swamp.
“I can smell it coming.” She took a deep breath and filled her lungs with the sweet scent of clean air and ozone. The trees were swaying as the wind continued to pick up, and as she watched, a flock of brown birds lifted themselves to the sky as if to meet the storm halfway.
“Lie here with me and watch it happen.” Sam was beside her again. They were doing a graceful, time-honored dance. Advance, retreat, advance, retreat. She wasn’t nervous; he sensed no last-minute virginal regrets. It was more that she seemed uncertain that he still wanted her.
It was funny because he had never wanted her more.
He turned her slightly, burying his hands in the hair falling around her face. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. Her lips parted before he reached them, soft and warm and ready for his kiss. Her arms came around his neck, and the fragrance of sweet olive mixed with the smell of the storm.
“Which storm am I supposed to watch?” she asked against his lips.
“Whichever one you want.” He hugged her tight, swinging her feet off the floor.
She was on the bed, and he was beside her. She didn’t even question how it had happened. They were facing each other, their bodies not quite touching now, and she was trying to read the expression on his face. Outside, the wind was beginning to moan a love song.
“This bed has clean sheets.” She turned her face into the mattress and inhaled. “And you were right. It does smell wonderful.”
“Didi was obviously here this morning. I’ve never seen the place so clean, and the sheets aren’t mine.”
“You have Didi, and I have Rosy.”
“Rosy changes your sheets?”
She laughed, turning her face back to his. “Rosy wants to take care of me. For that matter, so does my friend Daffy. If I’d told either of them about this weekend, they’d have broken into my house to sneak a black negligee into my suitcase.” She wanted to touch him, to begin the passion that would rival the peaking fury of the wind, but she couldn’t. Her hands, her whole body, were heavy with a new lethargy.
“Next time I’ll tell them.”
She smiled, wondering if he realized that his joke had been about their future.
Sam couldn’t make himself begin. He knew that one touch, one kiss, would start something that would finish in a burst of sensation he might never recover from. He savored the feelings building inside him just from lying so close to her. Her warmth seemed to seep across the inches separating them, his fingertips could remember the texture of her skin, his memory could replay the soft, sweet noises she made when he kissed her.
Antoinette shut her eyes for a moment, as if seeing something in her memory. “Do you know I hadn’t thought of it for years, but I just realized why it feels so right to be lying here beside you with the storm coming in on us.”
He propped his head on his hand to see her better. “Why?”
She opened her eyes, and her expression was faintly embarrassed. “It’s another childhood story.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Mignon was afraid of storms. Terribly afraid. Whenever we had one, she’d sneak down the hall past my parents’ room and crawl into bed with me. I used to wait for the storms, hope we’d have one….”
He saw her hesitation and it puzzled him. He raised his hand to her hair and began to stroke it. “You liked the storms?”
She smiled sadly. “No. I liked having Mignon sleep with me. It’s one of my few memories of having someone’s arms around me. We weren’t a family who believed in touching.”
He felt a pang of sadness for the little girl who’d been raised by the emotionless robots in the Garden District Victorian mansion. He also understood why reaching out to others was so important to her. Her casual touches weren’t really casual at all. “I can see why you married so young.”
“Yes?” She laughed at herself. “Well, I married a man who didn’t like touching, either. At least, he didn’t like touching me. I was a china doll, the kind you get for Christmas and put in a glass display case. I was someone to dress up and have on his arm at the appropriate social functions.”
“Antoinette…”
She sensed his concern and drew herself back to the present. He had pulled her closer, and she rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s all right,” she reassured him. “It took me a while, but one day I finally understood it wasn’t me at all.”
“How could you have believed it was?”
“Because I may be a psychologist, but inside I’m just like everyone else. Same needs, same fears.” She took a deep breath. “Same desires.”
His hands left her hair, smoothing its way to her neck, then to her back. At her waist he stopped to pull her body completely against his. “Don’t you know what you do to men?” he asked in a half whisper. “They look at you and all they can think about is touching you.”
“I want someone to really touch me. Do you understand the difference?”
He could feel her breath against his neck, and he shuddered. “Are you talking about love?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are.”
“I’m talking about someone wanting me because I’m me. Not because I’m beautiful, not because I’m rich. Because I’m me.” She didn’t want to sound self-pitying. She tried to lighten her words. “You must know what that’s like, Sam. Haven’t you ever wondered if the women in your life saw beyond your body and face?”
“Frankly, I’ve never cared why a woman wanted me as long as she did.” He hugged her hard, feeling the softness of her body against his. “Not until now.”
They both stopped short at his words. He was as surprised by them as she was. Antoinette felt Sam stiffen, and she realized that he wasn’t really ready to make such a declaration of his feelings. She smiled, her lips grazing his neck as she did. “Don’t worry,” she teased, “I know that wasn’t a proposal.”
“I propose we stop talking.” He rolled her over until he was half on top of her, looking down at the face that was so often in his thoughts now.
She let her eyes signal her desire for the same thing. She reached up to savor the feel of his hair between her fingers as he bent to kiss her. He tasted like the storm, wild and heady. Hi
s body over hers held the same leashed passion, and while she admired his control, at the same time she determined to break it quickly.
She pulled his shirttail from his jeans as his mouth moved over hers, finding the heat of his flesh and raking her nails lightly up his back as she parted her lips for the entrance of his tongue. His skin was smooth, the muscles beneath unyielding. She knew he kept himself fit for his job—if for no other reason—but the breadth of his shoulders, the perfect symmetry of his body, were a gift he’d been given. He would age the same way, straight and strong.
She felt his body contract as she continued to explore. He pushed himself up on his elbows, and she smoothed her hands around his rib cage, seeking his chest. She kept one hand there as the other began to unbutton his shirt. His chest was sprinkled with golden hair, a sensuous contrast to his tanned skin. She traced the spot where the golden V disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.
“You’re not the only one who needs to be touched,” he said ruefully. Antoinette watched his eyes close as she smoothed her hands over his chest in light, circular motions. He sat up momentarily to discard the shirt, coming back to rest across her as his hands began a similar path along the buttons of her blouse. She lifted slightly as he slipped the blouse from beneath her. She watched the expression on his face as he unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor along with the blouse.
She waited for his reassurance, dreading a response that would make her feel like a thing instead of the person she was. She didn’t want to be told how perfectly her body was shaped or that he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
Sam leaned over her, his green-gold eyes half-closed. “Just promise me that you’ll drag me off this bed someday,” he said, his voice husky. “Because I’m never going to want to leave.”
She laughed happily, sitting up a little to pull him tightly against her.
The sound of her laughter was all he needed. The feel of her breasts against his chest was sending signals to the rest of his body, a body that was only too willing to comply with his plans for it. He unsnapped her jeans, smoothing them down over her hips along with the wisp of silk beneath them.
Antoinette laughed again, and her laughter cleared away any cobwebs of doubt or caution. “Sam,” she reminded him, “you forgot my shoes. My jeans’ll never come off that way.”
His curse was succinct and to the point. He leaped off the bed and settled at her feet, ripping off her sneakers and tossing them at the foot of the bed. With none too gentle hands he finished stripping off the rest of her clothes.
Then, standing above her, he finished undressing himself.
Antoinette’s laughter caught in her throat. He was all the things she hadn’t wanted him to say about her. Perfect. The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She tried to think of a response. She could settle on nothing original. She only held out her arms and said with a quaver in her voice, “I can’t believe how much I want you.”
How much he wanted her was obvious when he lay back down on the bed. The gathering storm poised over the little cabin, withholding rain but charging the air with bolts of silver lightning. Sam’s body covered Antoinette’s, his mouth settling on at first one breast, then the other as she moved with him, laughter, insecurity, everything gone except the feeling of this man against her.
She was not content to lie still and accept the splendid pleasure of his mouth and hands. She touched him, too, exploring every part of him that she could reach, learning to know him with her fingertips and mouth and tongue. With Sam she knew there would be no rules, no passion too heartfelt, no barriers she couldn’t go beyond. He wanted her as she wanted him. He told her so with every move he made, with every kiss, with every caress.
She felt his mouth slide to her navel and below. Her legs were spread and his mouth was warm, touching her in just one of the places where she had longed for contact. She had known it would take little to build her response, but when the first waves threatened to sweep her away, it surprised even her.
She gasped and tried to move away from Sam’s caress. There was no place to go. He was everywhere, everything, and she could not bring herself to leave him. Instead, she tunneled her hands through his hair and held him away.
“Not yet,” she pleaded. “Sam, not yet. I’m not ready.”
But she was, and he knew it. He lifted himself over her and plunged inside, only to feel the ripples begin. He withdrew and watched her go wild; he felt his own control snap.
On the tin roof above them, he heard the first sounds of rain. There was nothing gentle about the drops beating down. It was a real bayou storm, full of fury and passion and release. He held Antoinette, soothing her, waiting for the moment when he could begin the whole experience again.
“Where are you?” she asked, her voice breaking. “I want you.”
“You have me. You have me now.” He pushed her down against the mattress, his hands beginning to build her pleasure again.
“Why did you leave me?” she mourned. “It won’t be like that for me again.”
“No? Don’t you think so?” His teeth nipped at her lower lip, forcing her to open for him. His tongue found hers, caressing, coaxing. He could feel her tension and knew that tears were just below the surface. He suspected she had a lot to learn about what her body could do if given the chance.
His hand found her breasts, drawing lazy circles around each rose-tipped nipple. She gasped a little as he drew them out with his thumb and forefinger until they were hard peaks once more. He took his time following the path of his fingers with his mouth. When he did, she gasped again.
Antoinette couldn’t believe the sensations flooding her body. He was demanding a response she hadn’t believed she could give twice. She was beginning to believe in spite of herself.
She heard the storm break wide open, the relentless drill of rain on the metal roof above them. She felt Sam poised above her again, and she reached to bring him down on top of her. Lightning flashed, and he was inside her. They were falling through the sky together, rain and lightning and the explosion of thunder. She rose to meet him, retreated, felt the unavoidable sting of tears. She held him tight, following the pace he set, setting her own pace, when miraculously she realized he had been right.
Sam heard her cries and fell against her, giving way to the storm inside him and the profound joy of becoming one with Antoinette. Perhaps he had understood more about the act of love than she, but he knew, even though he didn’t want to know it, that he had never performed the act of love before that afternoon.
It was much later before she stirred. He had reluctantly moved just enough to give her breathing space, but he hadn’t been able to force himself to put emotional space between them, too. He had never liked sleeping with a woman, never liked the feel of a body pressed against his, smothering him with unspoken demands. Now he couldn’t seem to get as close as he wanted. He wanted to be inside her again. He wanted to feel whole.
Antoinette looked up at the man who still held her in his arms. His eyes were closed, his face as peaceful as she’d ever seen it. She wondered what it would take to smooth away all the lines of tension. She doubted it was possible.
The rain was still falling, but gently now, a flourish-filled cadenza after the fury of the storm. The thunder and lightning had moved far away, taking the wind with them. Antoinette stretched a little and felt muscles she’d never felt before.
“If it’s really been six years, I’d better give you a pillow for your seat in the canoe,” Sam mumbled.
“I was just making that up to impress you with my chastity,” she said smugly. “I do this at least once a week. Especially if I can get a cop to take me to his cabin in a swamp.”
“A sucker for a badge and cypress trees.”
She stretched again, wrapping her arms behind him and turning to her side. “Actually, I may need that pillow.”
“Actually, I have no intention of letting you get in a canoe.”
“What about Didi’s dinner
?”
He brushed a strand of hair off her forehead and kissed the spot where it had been. “I have a feeling Didi would understand.”
“I am definitely going to like Didi.”
“I want you again.”
“As long as you have two pillows.”
“That can be arranged.”
Antoinette sat up, aware of the empty space beside her. She noticed that the rain had finally stopped. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she watched the man standing at the porch windows stare out at the late-afternoon sunlight that was just beginning to break through the clouds.
He had covered her with an afghan, which in no way made up for the loss of his warmth, and she pulled it around her before she spoke.
“Hello, Sergeant Long.”
Sam faced her, smiling a little at the picture she made. “Hello yourself.”
He had pulled on his jeans, but his chest and feet were bare, and Antoinette wondered idly how she could find him so sexy and feel so lavishly depleted at the same time. “Is it time for dinner?”
“Do you want to go?”
She weighed a whole evening with just the two of them against the pleasures of meeting his family. Her face puckered in a frown. She felt like a child being given a choice between ice cream and chocolate cake for dessert.
“We’ll go. Tomorrow night we’ll stay here.” Sam made the decision for her.
She brightened. She could have it all. Ice cream and cake in the company of the man she was falling in love with.
He saw her easy smile, read her thoughts with no difficulty. He wanted to tell her to go slowly, to keep a part of her from him because he couldn’t bear to expose her to certain pain. He’d known from the beginning that he was wrong to let their relationship grow. And yet still, with the proof staring him in the face, he could feel nothing except the satiation of his body and the power of her smile.
Sam tried to keep his voice light. “You know, if you keep looking at me like that, we aren’t going to make it out the door.”
Antoinette pulled the afghan tighter around her and slid her feet to the floor. In a minute she was by his side. “Am I allowed to tell you it’s been a beautiful day?”
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