by Nora Roberts
The snifter paused halfway to his lips. Very slowly, very deliberately, he set it down. “I can’t answer that, because I’ve only practiced on women.”
“I don’t know where that came from.” She, too, set the snifter aside, then rubbed her suddenly damp palms on the thighs of her jeans. “I suppose I’m a bit wired.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nervous, excited. Confused.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “Oh, God, Caleb, you confuse me. Even before . . . before all this.”
“We’re even there, Libby.”
She stared at him. He hadn’t moved, but she saw that he had tensed. “That’s odd,” she murmured. “I don’t usually confuse anyone. Nothing seems to be exactly the way I expect it to be with you. I guess I’m a coward, because every time you come near me I want to run.” She closed her eyes. “That’s not true. You asked me once if I was afraid of you, and I said I wasn’t. That’s not true, either. I am afraid. Of you, of me, and most of all of thinking I might never feel this way again with anyone else.” She began to roam the room again, picking up a pillow, tossing it aside, shifting a lamp. “I wish I knew what to do, what to say. I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing. And, damn it, I wish you’d kiss me again and shut me up.”
He thought he could feel each separate nerve in his body stretch. “Libby, you know I want you. I haven’t kept it to myself. But under the circumstances . . . the fact that I’ll be gone in a few days . . .”
“That’s just it.” Suddenly she wanted to weep. “You will be gone. I don’t want to wonder what it might have been like. I want to know. I feel . . . oh, I don’t know how I feel. The only thing I’m sure of is that I want you to make love with me tonight.”
She stopped, shocked that she had said it aloud, stunned that it was perhaps the truest thing she’d ever said. Then the nerves were gone, and the shock with them. She was absolutely calm, and absolutely certain.
“Caleb, I want to be with you tonight.”
He rose. The hands he tucked in his pockets were two tense fists. “A few days ago it would have been easy. Things have changed, Libby. I care about you.”
“You care, so you don’t want to love me?”
“I want to so badly I can taste it.” When his gaze whipped to hers, she could see that he spoke nothing less than the truth. “I also know that you’ve had a little too much to drink and more than too much to deal with tonight.” He didn’t dare touch her, but his voice was like a caress. “There are rules, Libby.”
She took what she knew might be the biggest step in her life when she moved to him and held out both hands.
“Break them.”
Chapter 7
He could hear his own heart beating, could feel the blood pumping to and from it. In the shadowy light she looked mysterious, impossibly erotic in a baggy sweater and worn corduroy. Her hair was mussed, from the drive and from her own restless fingers. He could imagine, all too clearly, what it would be like to smooth it himself. How it would be to slip off all those layers of oversize clothing and find her slim and warm underneath. He took a long, careful breath and tried to think clearly.
“Libby . . .” He ran a hand over his roughened chin. “I’m trying to think like a man you’d understand, one from your time. I don’t seem to be doing a good job of it.”
“I’d rather you’d think like yourself.” She wanted to be calm and confident. This was a decision she’d waited years to make. She was sure. But still there were nerves, brought on by excitement, anticipation and deep-rooted doubts about her own capabilities as a woman. “Time doesn’t change everything, Caleb.”
“No.” He was certain men had felt this stirring since the first dawn. But when he looked at her he was afraid that what he was feeling was far more complicated than basic attraction. His throat was dry, his palms were damp. The harder he tried to think rationally, the less clear his thoughts became. “Maybe we should talk about it.”
She resisted the urge to stare at her feet and kept her eyes on his. “Don’t you want me?”
“I’ve imagined making love with you a dozen times.”
She felt the thrill, and the fear, tangle in a race up her spine. “When you imagined, where were we?”
“Here. Or in the forest. Or thousands of miles away in space. There’s a pond near my house, with water as clear as glass and a bank of flowers my father planted. I’ve seen you there with me.”
It hurt, more than a little, knowing he would go back to that pond, to a place where she couldn’t follow. But they had now. The present was all that mattered, all she would let matter. She crossed to him, knowing that they both needed for her to take the first step.
“Here’s a good start.” She lifted a hand to his cheek. “Kiss me again, Caleb.”
How could he resist her? He was certain no man could. Her eyes were huge and dark, her lips were parted. Waiting. Slowly he lowered his, just brushing, testing. Her soft, yielding sigh seemed to fill him. Need did, a wild, urgent need. Shaken by the scope of it, he put his hands on her shoulders to draw her away.
“Libby—”
“Don’t make me seduce you,” she murmured. “I don’t know how.”
With a strangled laugh, he pulled her hard against him, burying his face in her hair. “Too late. You already have.”
“Have I?” Her arms were around him, holding tight to what she told herself she would release without regret when the time came. A shudder had her gripping harder when he caught her earlobe between his teeth. “I don’t know what to do next.”
Cal plucked her up into his arms. “Enjoy,” he told her before he carried her up the stairs.
He wanted her in the bed where he’d dreamed of her. In the pale light of the rising moon he laid her down. Whatever he had he would give her. What she had he would take. He understood pleasure, the degrees, the depths, the layers. Soon, very soon, so would she.
Slowly he undressed her, drawing out the process for his own enjoyment and for the simple wonder of it. Every inch he uncovered delighted him, the slender ankles, the smooth calves, the curving shoulders. He watched her eyes widen and cloud with confused passions when he touched her, palms skimming, fingers trailing.
Taking her hand, he brought it to his mouth to taste and savor. “I’ve seen you like this,” he murmured. “Even when I tried not to.”
She’d thought she would feel awkward, even foolish. She lay naked in the splash of moonlight and felt only beautiful as he looked his fill. “I’ve wanted to be here with you, even when I tried not to.” She was smiling when she lifted her hands to undress him.
He was determined to be patient, to be thorough, to be very, very gentle. He knew, as he understood she did not, that there were hundreds of varied paths to fulfillment. This time, her first time, it would be sweet. Then her inexperienced hands made his blood leap under his skin. Seduction, unplanned, was potent. Once he covered her hands with his and bit back a moan.
Her fingers tightened under his, and her body tensed. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“No.” He let out his breath on a quick laugh and forced himself to relax. “A little too right. This time.” Shifting away, he slipped out of the rest of his clothes. “Remind me to ask you to undress me like that again later.” He brushed her hair back from her face and began to kiss her. “This first time I have things to show you, places to take you.” He nipped lightly at her chin. “Trust me.”
“I do.” But she was already trembling. The brush of his body against hers, warmth to warmth, was like some strange, exciting dream. His hands roamed over her, whisper-soft, limber as a violinist’s, and a knot of heat built from her center out to her fingertips before she could do more than wrap her arms around him. She melted into the kiss, into the long, luxurious depth of it. Then those clever fingers found a point, some pulse that beat under the
skin near the base of her spine, and sent her reeling.
His mouth muffled her cry of stunned release as her body arched, then went as fluid as water beneath his. Almost experimentally, he eased her up and over again, his own body vibrating from her pleasure.
“Incredible,” he murmured before she dragged his mouth back to hers.
Her response had his blood pounding. She was like a fast fuse, and he held the still-smoking match. He knew that if he had taken her that instant she would have welcomed him, just as he knew desire was only the root of the flower. He wanted to give her the blossom.
Delving deep, he found the control that he needed to prolong passion rather than be commanded by it. She seemed so fragile now, her taste, her scent, the liquid movements she made under him. Like the moonbeams that washed the room, she was pale and beautiful. With his lips against her throat, he could feel her pulse thunder, echoing his own.
No fantasy he had ever indulged in, no woman he had ever pleasured, had been as glorious as the woman who held him now. He linked a hand with hers, knowing he would never find the words to explain to either of them what this night with her meant to him.
But he could show her. He would show her.
One moment she was floating, the next racing. Then she was flying. Love with him was a myriad of tastes and textures, a storm of sensations, a symphony of sounds. His hands were almost unbearably gentle, and the scrape of his beard against her skin was an arousing contrast. As she gave herself the liberty of touching him, of stroking him, she discovered that his body was wire-taut and his muscles were trembling.
She wanted to think, to analyze each moment, but it was possible only to experience.
Soft, so incredibly soft . . . she was almost afraid it was an illusion, his touch, the words he murmured, the glow that seemed to surround her. Then there was heat, stunningly real. She was steeped in it. In him.
He lifted her so that they were kneeling in the center of the bed, wrapped close. Flickers of urgency came through . . . a roughened caress, a quickened breath. A skim of fingers, a press of pulse to pulse, and he had her gasping, her head thrown back, her body curved against his. He groaned and crushed his hungry mouth to her throat.
Her nails bit into his skin. Even that aroused him. Here was passion, wilder, freer than any he had ever imagined. She was open for him, only him. He was half-mad with the knowledge that she would give to him what she had given to no one else.
But gently. Dragging himself back, he eased his possessive grip into a caress. When he lowered his mouth to her breast, the sound of pleasure came from both of them. He used his tongue to tease, his teeth to torment. He could feel her skin hum under his hands and lips.
She was small, delicate. It helped to bring out the tenderness he wanted to show her. But when he laid her back there was a strength and demand in the hands that pressed him against her.
So long. The thought raced in and out of her mind as he did things to her, for her, things she had never imagined. She had waited so long for this. For him. Her response came freely and fully, her loving of him totally instinctive. There was no way for her to know as she spun in the world he had opened for her what she brought to him.
He was skilled, and he used his skill to take her beyond those first flashes of pleasure into the velvet space reserved for lovers. She was innocent, yet, just as truly, just as easily, she took him. He slipped into her. She closed around him.
It was a merging of bodies, and of hearts, and of time.
***
Clouds. Dark, silver-edged clouds. Libby was floating on one. She wanted to go on drifting forever. Her arms had slid from around him, limp, to lie on the rumpled sheets. She couldn’t find the strength to lift them and encircle him again. Nor could she find her voice. She wanted to tell him not to move—not ever to move. With her eyes closed and his body fitted so perfectly against hers, she counted each beat of his heart.
Silk. Her skin was like hot, fragrant silk. He was certain he could never get enough of it. With his face buried in her hair, he felt his system drift back to earth like a feather on the breeze. How could he tell her that no one had ever moved him as she did? How could he explain that at this moment he was more at home than he had ever been in his own world, or in the sky he loved so much? How could he accept that he had found his match in a place, and in a time, where he was a stranger?
He wouldn’t think of it. Cal turned his lips into her neck. For as long as it was possible, he would live from minute to minute.
“You are so lovely.” He propped himself on an elbow so that he could see her face, the paleness of it in the moonlight. It was flushed from the afterglow of lovemaking. Her eyes were clouded with the last dregs of spent passion. “Very lovely,” he murmured, and kissed her. “Your skin’s still warm.” He began to nibble, as though she were a delicacy he couldn’t resist.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be cold again.” Fresh desire began to tingle within her. “Caleb—” Her breath caught on a fast, hot shudder. “You make me feel . . .”
“How?” With his tongue, he traced her parted lips. “Tell me how I make you feel.”
“Magical.” Her fingers curled into the sheets. “Helpless.” And went lax. “Strong.” She gripped his forearms, rocked by a dazzling array of new sensations. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to love you again, Libby.” He crushed his mouth to hers in a soul-wrenching kiss that left them both breathless. “And again, and again. Each time I do, it’ll be different.”
There was a power building in him. It might have frightened her if she hadn’t felt its twin growing in her. Her eyes stayed open and on his as she lifted her arms and rose to meet him.
***
Limbs entwined, they lay together in the deepest part of the night and listened to the wind rising through the trees. He was right, Libby thought. Each time was different, excitingly different, yet beautifully the same. She could, she hoped, live out her life on the memories of this one night.
“Are you asleep?”
She settled her head more comfortably in the curve of his shoulder. “No.”
“I might enjoy waking you.” He slid his hand up to cup her breast. “In fact, I’m sure I would.” He nestled his leg cozily between her thighs. “Libby?”
“Yes?”
“Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“Food.”
She smothered a yawn against his shoulder. “You’re hungry? Now?”
“I’ve got to keep up my strength.”
A quick, wicked grin curved her lips. “You’ve been doing pretty well so far.”
“Pretty well?” When she chuckled, he pulled her on top of him. “But I’m not finished yet. Why don’t I watch while you fix me a sandwich?”
She traced lazy patterns on his chest with her fingertip. “So, male chauvinism survives in the twenty-third century.”
“I fixed you breakfast this morning.”
She remembered the little silver bag. “More or less.”
Had it only been that morning? Could a life change so unalterably in just a few short hours? Hers had. She wondered if that should frighten her, but all she felt was gratitude.
“All right.” She started to push away, but then he gripped her hips and shifted her.
“First things first,” he murmured, and sent her soaring again.
Later, Libby struggled into a robe, wondering if her mind could handle the simple task of slapping some meat between two slices of bread. He’d drained her and filled her, aroused her and soothed her, until her limbs were weak and her mind was mush.
He switched on the bedside light as he rose out of the bed, unabashedly naked. “Got any cookies to go with that sandwich?”
“Probably.” She didn’t want to stare at him. Yes, she did. Though she knew
it was foolish, her color rose as she lowered her eyes to watch her fingers fumble with the belt of her robe. When he walked toward the door, she looked up quickly. “You’re not going downstairs like that.”
“Like what?”
“Without . . . You need to put something on.”
He leaned a hand against the doorjamb and grinned. Watching her blush delighted him. “Why? You should know how I’m built by now.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
Giving up, she gestured to the pile of clothes. “Put something on.”
“Okay. I’ll put on the sweater.”
“Very funny, Hornblower.”
“You’re shy.” A glint came into his eyes, one she recognized very well by now. Even as he took the first step toward her, she snatched up the jeans and tossed them at him.
“If you want me to fix you a sandwich, you’ll have to cover up some of your . . . attributes.”
Still grinning, he struggled into the jeans. If he put them on, she’d just have to take them off him later. Enjoying the idea, he followed her downstairs.
“Why don’t you fill the teakettle?” she suggested as she opened the refrigerator.
“With what?”
“Water,” she said with a sigh. “Just water. Put it on the front burner of the stove and turn the little knob under it.” She pulled out some packaged ham, some cheese and a hothouse tomato. “Mustard?”
“Hmm?” He was studying the stove. “Sure.”
People now had to be very patient, he decided as he watched the electric coil of the burner slowly glow red with heat. Still, there were advantages. Libby’s cooking was a far cry from the quick packs he was accustomed to. Then there were the living arrangements. Though he had always loved the home he’d grown up in and was more than comfortable in his quarters aboard his ship, he liked the feel of real wood under his bare feet, and the smell of it burning when she had a fire going in the main room.