Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Baker, Fran

  Nick heard the note of tight control in her voice and took her hand. He felt the tremor there and drew her toward him. “Don’t push it, Dovie. This is something they have to work out in their own minds.”

  She started to let him lead her away, then remembered that he’d taken her for granted too. Digging in her heels, she decided she might as well set the record straight all around.

  “And you …”—she jabbed his chest with an accusing finger—“… didn’t even bother to ask me to marry you. You just assumed I would!”

  He burst out laughing and encircled her with arms that gave her the freedom to stay or to go. “Will you marry me?”

  Dovie’s heart soared on butterfly wings as she leaned into his embrace. “I most certainly will.”

  “How I adore you!” Nick’s face changed, grew serious. “There was no light in my life until you loved me.”

  Joy pumped through her body. “Then that light will shine forever, because that’s how long I’ll love you.”

  His lips feathered her cheeks, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. “What now?”

  “Let’s go home,” she murmured.

  When they turned to cross the common room, what remained of the congregation parted ahead of them as the Red Sea must have parted for Moses.

  Nick grabbed his topcoat and tossed it over one shoulder. “Now I know how vulnerable my patients must’ve felt when they put on one of those paper gowns.”

  Dovie laughed as they stepped out into the starry night. “If it’s any consolation, Rebecca and Rachel rank you right up there with Santa Claus.”

  “Ho, ho, ho.” A teasing smile touched his lips as they crossed the parking lot through the crisp new snow. “And have you been a good little girl this year?”

  Stopping beside her car, she tilted her head back and answered in kind. “Yes, but only because the opportunity to be bad keeps slipping through my fingers.”

  Nick started to make a fresh remark, then changed his mind and caught her hand. His voice went husky with emotion. “You’re taking a hell of a risk, loving me.”

  Dovie looked up to the sky and saw a heaven of rippling silver sweeping from horizon to horizon. Shivers of desire raced through her as the pad of his thumb drew circles in the center of her palm. “A love that risks nothing is worth nothing.”

  Nine

  * * *

  The Christmas-tree lights cast a Persian-carpet pattern of gold and red and blue and green across the living-room floor. A black high-heel pump, size six, lay abandoned beside the leather wing chair, while its mate wallowed in a wine-colored puddle of tie just outside the bedroom door.…

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Nick swatted Dovie’s hands away, then slid his index finger into the knot of her scarf and tugged. When it gave, he slipped the lacy fabric off her neck and tossed it over his shoulder. “You steal my tie … I steal yours.”

  Lilting laughter escaped her lips. “So you want to play games, huh?”

  “Yeah.” He turned her slowly and, with only his sense of touch to guide him, lowered the tab of her zipper past her waist.

  Air cooled her flushed skin as he drew the dress from her shoulders and arms, then pulled it down so she could step out of it. But his breath warmed her all over again when he placed his lips to her nape and whispered, “Strip poker.”

  “All right …” In retaliation she turned and reached for the top button of his shirt. As she worked her way down, her fingers took leisurely detours over the crinkly chest hair, the firm muscles, and masculine nipples. The hair tickled; the muscles bunched; the nipples puckered. “You asked for it.”

  “Asked for it, hell.” But honey coated his voice as he hooked his fingers under the straps of her slip and peeled the satiny material down to her dainty, nylon-sheathed feet. “I prayed for it.”

  “Come to think of it”—she stepped out of her slip and kicked it aside, then freed his arms of shirt and suit coat in one fell swoop—“you did look awfully pious for a while.”

  Both of his arms went around her, and she felt her bra go tight, then loose, then fall away. Just as he’d imagined so many times, her breasts filled his hands … and then some. His teeth shone in the mellow light thrown by her bedside lamp. “Glory hallelujah.”

  Tears seemed to gather between her legs when his thumbs grazed her nipples. She moaned his name deep in her throat, begging for more.

  Heeding her plea, he lowered his head and lifted her breasts, squeezing them together with soft pressure. Then lightly, ever so lightly, he flicked his tongue from one fragrant bud to the other.

  “Nick …” she choked out, dying of need.

  He felt the gypsy beat of her heart beneath the heels of his hands as he drew a nipple into his mouth and milked it gently. Moving to her other breast and finding it as aroused as the first, he made a satisfied sound in his throat. “Ahhh, Dovie, they’re so hard.”

  “All I have to do is think of you and they get that way,” she admitted breathlessly. “It even happened in church this evening.”

  Nick raised his head and chuckled softly against her neck, but it was all he could do to keep from tumbling her backward and delving into her, deep and hard and now. He wanted to taste her, smell her, hear her whimper, feel her flesh surround his. But he restrained himself, knowing it would be better for both of them this way.

  “Come here.” In one lithe motion he sat down on the edge of the bed and opened his knees.

  Panic knifed her heart. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Smiling tenderly, he caught her wrist and drew her closer, positioning her between his thighs. “I’m just trying to slow things down a little.”

  “Oh.” Her sigh of relief rustled his hair.

  “I mean, what’s the rush?”

  Dovie stood docilely while he rid her of her plain cotton panties.

  “We’ve got all—” His hands, sliding up her shapely legs, came to a scorching halt at the top of her nylon stockings.

  “Nick?”

  “A garter belt.”

  She closed her eyes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, but panty hose never fit me right.”

  “A garter belt.” He groaned again and placed his mouth on the smooth expanse of exposed skin.

  Dovie’s dormant senses leaped to life, sluicing downward in a grand, liquid rush as his lips penned a line of love up her thigh. She realized then that she need not apologize for her lingerie.

  His imagination, already inflamed by the long months of abstinence, took flight. Then his hands captured her hips and he took her with him, back, back, onto the soft, clean sheets.

  She fell atop his bare chest, but he rolled her over, breathing in attar of roses as he knelt between her slender legs and bent to kiss her breasts.

  “That feels so good.” Heat spread over her in swirling patterns as his talented tongue painted tendrils and grapevines on the swell of her skin.

  Nick circled her nipples with lazy strokes, reveling in the lick of grain upon smoothness, then raised up slightly and whispered, “What color are they?”

  She lifted her head, knowing exactly what he meant, and studied the rigid crests through passion-lidded eyes. “The color of wild strawberries.”

  “Mmm …” He lowered his mouth to the soft indentation where breast met rib, damning the darkness that hid what he could only feel, as he continued downward.

  Her body became liquid fire when he dipped his tongue into her navel as a bee dips into a flower for nectar. “Please …”

  “Tell me what you want, Dovie.”

  She didn’t know.

  “This?” His breath misted her belly.

  She wasn’t sure.

  “Or this?” He kissed the sweet spot just below her garter belt.

  “Yes,” she said at last on a sigh.

  Nick gave to her as generously as she had given to him. His caressing mouth expressed his gratitude for the loan of her eyes. His suppliant lips praised the healing power of her love and laughter. And his nimble tongue p
aid tribute to all that made her woman.

  Dovie twined her fingers in his sable-thick hair, seeking a lifeline as the waves of ecstasy washed over her. The crest came in pure, undistilled sensuality. When it ebbed she lay panting, drained, and yet yearning for the physical union that would sweep them both away.

  She opened her eyes to the sight of him towering over her in the lamplight as he unbuckled his belt and slipped out of his slacks and shorts. Tall and proud and naked, he looked every inch the noble savage she had once pictured him to be.

  “Here …” She sat up and patted the sheet beside her, wanting to learn his secrets, as he had learned hers. “Lie down and let me touch you.”

  “You touch me and I’m gone.” But he realized she wasn’t taking no for an answer when she tugged impatiently at his wrist, so he gave in with a wry laugh. “Ah, but what a way to go.”

  With an instinct born of sheer need, her hands and lips began to play over his hard body. Shy at first, then emboldened beyond belief by his welcoming moans and movements, she explored rippling cords of muscle, combed a dark mat of chest hair, and suckled two ticklish nipples before sliding lower.…

  “That does it!” he declared roughly, rolling over to kneel between her thighs again. Deft fingers removed the garter belt that rode low on her hips. Gentle hands rid her legs of the sheer nylons.

  “But I thought you liked—” When his mouth stole the words from her lips, she tasted a spice that was neither his nor hers but uniquely, wondrously theirs.

  “I like you with …” He leaned down to drop kisses on the newly bared hollows below her hipbones. “… or without.”

  “Now, Nick, please.”

  He raised up, then lowered himself into the warm harbor between her thighs, pressing deep, deeper, until … his whole body went rigid with disbelief when he encountered the barrier of her virginity.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Dovie?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  He remembered all she had told him and realized he should have known.

  She read in his face a lot of passion, a little anger, and a fierce regret. “Love me, Nick.”

  “I do,” he vowed.

  Locking her fingers around his neck, she implored him with a sustained pulling motion. “Then show me.”

  No power on earth could have stopped him now. Their extended foreplay smoothed his way as he delved into her body with steady, unyielding pressure until he was fully embedded in the sweet, snug wetness of her.

  “Oh, dear heaven,” he whispered into her hair. “You feel so good, so right.”

  Tears of happiness filled her eyes. “So do you.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, my love, no.”

  For long moments neither of them moved. They savored the feel of having found each other, of being one, of having survived the pain of an imperfect world to become a perfect whole.

  Her mantel clock chimed midnight as, together, they discovered the magic of Christmas … the one giving to the other, the one taking from the other, with as much joy from the giving as from the taking.

  * * *

  For the first time in her memory, Dovie slept past six on Christmas morning. When she awoke and saw it was almost seven, it saddened her some to remember the patter of feet at dawn … the excited cries that once rent the air … those wide-eyed looks of wonder when someone’s small dream came true.

  But as she lay abed with Nick’s arms around her as though he were already accustomed to holding her close while he slept, she realized she wouldn’t trade all of her tomorrows for a single yesterday. He was her dream come true. And she was glad, so very glad, she had waited for him.

  The steady tide of his breathing tickled her nape. His furnacelike heat bathed her shoulders, back, hips, and the crook of her legs. When his warm hand slid from her stomach to enclose her breast, Dovie smiled and nestled contentedly in his loving embrace.

  Funny, really, how inadequate the sense of sight was where making love was concerned.

  She closed her eyes, recalling the feel of his hair-roughened skin and smooth masculine muscles beneath her palms. The taste of him, like tupelo honey, still lingered on her tongue. His lime-and-clove scent permeated her nostrils even now, while his soft, triumphant laughter …

  Love at first sight? Her smile widened. Remembering the morning they’d met, she realized she’d fallen in love with him at first laugh.

  Dovie stirred finally, slipping out of Nick’s grasp quietly, so as not to waken him. Then she snuggled into her old chenille robe and moved to the window.

  The light came over the hill as if on foot, filling in a hollow here, pushing out a shadow there, working gradually to bring on the colors of a new and glorious day. Snow covered the ground like a clean white blanket, laying the past to rest and making her feel reborn.

  Enough lollygagging, though. This was Christmas morning, and she had a million things to do.

  First on the list was a shower. Last night Nick had asked her if he’d hurt her. But he hadn’t. Not the way he meant, and not that time or the time after, when he had protested it would be too much. She had practically begged him, and when he still refused, she had made it physically impossible for him to say no.

  But as she tiptoed to the bathroom, Dovie knew she’d overdone it. She was thirty-four years old, and some of the muscles she’d stretched last night had never been stretched before. So after she’d soaped and shampooed herself, she stood under the pulsating spray, letting it massage her love-sprung body.

  Nick awakened to the sound of running water and the ache of empty arms. Both were Dovie’s doing. As was this peaceful, easy feeling that filled his soul.

  Contentment flowed through him as he yawned and stretched, then pulled his palms down over his face. On them he smelled the fragrance of her perfume, gathered from her skin like the first roses of summer.

  He lay that way a long time, gathering his thoughts. Dovie’s virginity had been a shock, but her shy caresses had stirred him more than the calculated foreplay of any of his former lovers.

  Memories of the night before kept coming back to stroke him the way her fingers had stroked him to full hardness with her dainty hand. With a groan he kicked off the covers and rolled out of bed, knowing right where to find her.

  Dovie twisted around in alarm when the shower curtain slid open. “Nick …?”

  “Good morning.” He grinned and planted his fists on his naked hips, standing before her in all his glory.

  Having raised five brothers, she was well acquainted with the male anatomy. But her body flushed hotly as her eyes traveled the length of Nick’s lean, bronzed frame. And a welter of emotions, not the least of which was embarrassment, thickened her voice. “Good morning.”

  “I love you, Dovie. Have I told you that today?”

  “Does three o’clock this morning count as today?”

  “Nope.” Bold as brass, he crowded into the small stall with her and closed the curtain behind him.

  In the shower in broad daylight? Dovie shrank back against the cool tile wall, putting the warm stream of water between them as a sudden fit of modesty prevented her from meeting him halfway.

  Sensing her shyness and knowing the reason for it, Nick leaned down and dropped a light kiss on her nose. “I love you.”

  Emboldened by his restraint, she rose up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. “I love you.”

  He reached for the soap. “I’ll wash your back if you’ll wash mine.”

  She ducked her head self-consciously. “I’ve already—”

  “Okay.” He soaped his hands slowly, provocatively. “I’d rather wash your front, anyway.”

  “But there’s hardly room for one in here, much less … ah, Nick …” Dovie’s modesty swirled right down the drain as he began lathering her breasts, the circular motions creating an exquisite friction that left her tingling from scalp to toes.

  “You have beautiful breasts, so soft and full and perfectly formed.”
The massaging action of his strong fingers ignited a fire in her loins. His words fanned the flames. “The morning I pulled you out of the river, it was all I could do not to …”

  He rinsed away the bubbles, then bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, smiling against her skin when it drew up tightly into a ripe, ready berry of arousal.

  She stood awash in sensation. The jetting spray stung her skin like driving needles, while the delicate strokes of his tongue made her ache deep inside. Shamelessly she cradled his head in her hands and moved against his hard body, begging him to fill the void he’d created.

  He did. But not the way she expected. He put his fingers into her, bunched, as though tucking them into the bell of a flower. Then his thumb kneaded that magic key, his touch giving her untold pleasure and asking nothing in return.

  She shuddered against him, soundlessly and breathlessly. But when his hands slid beneath her hips to lift her and lock her around him, she couldn’t repress a small groan of pain.

  “I’m sorry.” He realized what her problem was and eased her feet back to the floor.

  Her eyes flew to his face. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m sorry.” He frowned his regret while his hands rubbed her lower spine in loving consideration.

  A wave of emotion swept through her as Dovie realized that Nick had swallowed his pride and placed her needs above his own.

  “The soreness will go away pretty soon,” he assured her as he patted her bottom.

  She reached for the soap and smiled. “But in the meantime …”

  Dovie started with his hands, soaping and rinsing those blessed fingers one by one before taking them into her mouth. Then she treated his wrist to a lick and a promise. Delicious sensation.

  Her sensitive fingers felt the slight flexing of his biceps as she traveled up his arms. His male perfection made her want to weep when she massaged his muscular shoulders and hair-matted chest, his taut buttocks and flat stomach.