by Nora Roberts
He’d fed her soup—yes, that was clear, but then things started to become hazy again. She knew he’d been angry, though she couldn’t remember why. At the moment, it was more important to her that she could put events in some sort of sequence.
As she lay in the dark, fully awake and finally aware, she heard the sound of quiet, steady breathing beside her. Turning her head, Kate saw Ky beside her, hardly more than a silhouette with the moonlight just touching the skin of his chest so that she could see it rise and fall.
He’d said he would stay, she remembered. And he’d been tired. Abruptly Kate remembered there’d been fatigue in his eyes as well as temper. He’d been caring for her.
A mellow warmth moved through her, one she hadn’t felt in a very long time. He had taken care of her, and though it had made him angry, he’d done it. And he’d stayed. Reaching out, she touched his cheek.
Though the gesture was whisper light, Ky awoke immediately. His sleep had been little more than a half doze so that he could recharge his system yet be aware of any sign that Kate needed attention. Sitting up, he shook his head to clear it.
He looked like a boy caught napping. For some reason the gesture moved Kate unbearably. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she murmured.
He reached for the lamp beside the bed and turned it on low. Though his body revolted against the interruption, his mind was fully awake. “Pain?”
“No.”
He studied her face carefully. The glazed look from the drug had left her eyes, but the color hadn’t returned. “Kate.”
“All right. Some.”
“Bailey left some pills.”
As he started to rise, Kate reached for him again. “No, I don’t want anything. It makes me groggy.”
“It takes away the pain.”
“Not now, Ky, please. I promise I’ll tell you if it gets bad.”
Because her voice was close to desperate he made himself content with that. At the moment, she looked too fragile to argue with. “Are you hungry?”
She smiled, shaking her head. “No. It must be the middle of the night. I was only trying to orient myself.” She touched him again, in gratitude, in comfort. “You should sleep.”
“I’ve had enough. Anyway, you’re the patient.”
Automatically, he put his hand to her forehead to check for fever. Touched, Kate laid hers over it. She felt the quick reflexive tensing of his fingers.
“Thank you.” When he would have removed his hand, she linked her fingers with his. “You’ve been taking good care of me.”
“You needed it,” he said simply and much too swiftly. He couldn’t allow her to stir him now, not when they were in that big, soft bed surrounded by memories.
“You haven’t left me since it happened.”
“I had no place to go.”
His answer made her smile. Kate reached up her free hand to touch his cheek. There had been changes, she thought, many changes. But so many things had stayed the same. “You were angry with me.”
“You haven’t been taking care of yourself.” He told himself he should move away from the bed, from Kate, from everything that weakened him there.
He stayed, leaning over her, one hand caught in hers. Her eyes were dark, soft in the dim light, full of the sweetness and innocence he remembered. He wanted to hold her until there was no more pain for either of them, but he knew, if he pressed his body against hers now, he wouldn’t stop. Again he started to move, pulling away the hand that held hers. Again Kate stopped him.
“I would’ve died if you hadn’t gotten me up.”
“That’s why it’s smarter to dive with a partner.”
“I might still have died if you hadn’t done everything you did.”
He shrugged this off, too aware that the fingers on his face were stroking lightly, something she had done in the past. Sometimes before they’d made love, and often afterward, when they’d talked in quiet voices, she’d stroke his face, tracing the shape of it as though she’d needed to memorize it. Perhaps she, too, sometimes awoke in the middle of the night and remembered too much.
Unable to bear it, Ky put his hand around her wrist and drew it away. “The wound wasn’t that bad,” he said simply.
“I’ve never seen a stingray that large.” She shivered and his hand tightened on her wrist.
“Don’t think about it now. It’s over.”
Was it? she wondered as she lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Was anything ever really over? For four years she’d told herself there were joys and pains that could be forgotten, absorbed into the routine that was life as it had to be lived. Now, she was no longer sure. She needed to be. More than anything else, she needed to be sure.
“Hold me,” she murmured.
Was she trying to make him crazy? Ky wondered. Did she want him to cross the border, that edge he was trying so desperately to avoid? It took most of the strength he had left just to keep his voice even. “Kate, you need to sleep now. In the morning—”
“I don’t want to think about the morning,” she murmured. “Only now. And now I need you to hold me.” Before he could refuse, she slipped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.
She felt his hesitation, but not his one vivid flash of longing before his arms came around her. On a long breath Kate closed her eyes. Too much time had passed since she’d had this, the gentleness, the sweetness she’d experienced only with Ky. No one else had ever held her with such kindness, such simple compassion. Somehow, she never found it odd that a man could be so reckless and arrogant, yet kind and compassionate at the same time.
Perhaps she’d been attracted to the recklessness, but it had been the kindness she had fallen in love with. Until now, in the quiet of the deep night, she hadn’t understood. Until now, in the security of his arms, she hadn’t accepted what she wanted.
Life as it had to be lived, she thought again. Was taking what she so desperately needed part of that?
She was so slender, so soft beneath the thin nightshirt. Her hair lay over his skin, loose and free, its color muted in the dim light. He could feel her palms against his back, those elegant hands that had always made him think more of an artist than a teacher. Her breathing was quiet, serene, as he knew it was when she slept. The light scent of woman clung to the material of the nightshirt.
Holding her didn’t bring the pain he’d expected but a contentment he’d been aching for without realizing it. The tension in his muscles eased, the knot in his stomach vanished. With his eyes closed, he rested his cheek on her hair. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d known the pleasure of quiet satisfaction. She’d asked him to hold her, but had she known he needed to be held just as badly?
Kate felt him relax degree by degree and wondered if it had been she who’d caused the tension in him, and she who’d ultimately released it. Had she hurt him more than she’d realized? Had he cared more than she’d dared to believe? Or was it simply that the physical need never completely faded? It didn’t matter, not tonight.
Ky was right. She knew the rules this time around. She wouldn’t expect more than he offered. Whatever he offered was much, much more than she’d had in the long, dry years without him. In turn, she could give what she ached to give. Her love.
“It’s the same for me as it always was,” she murmured. Then, tilting her head back, she looked at him. Her hair streamed down her back, her eyes were wide and honest. He felt the need slam into him like a fist.
“Kate—”
“I never expected to feel the same way when I came back,” she interrupted. “I don’t think I’d have come. I wouldn’t have had the courage.”
“Kate, you’re not well.” He said it very slowly, as if he had to explain to them both. “You’ve lost blood, had a fever. It’s taken a lot out of you. It’d be best, I think, if you tried to sleep now.”
She felt no fever now. She felt cool and light and full of needs. “That day on the beach during the storm, you said I’d come to you.” K
ate brought her hands up his back until they reached his shoulders. “Even then I knew you were right. I’m coming to you now. Make love with me, Ky, here, in the bed where you loved me that first time.”
And the last, he remembered, fighting back a torrent of desire. “You’re not well,” he managed a second time.
“Well enough to know what I want.” She brushed her lips over his chin where his beard grew rough with neglect. So long…that was all that would come clearly to her. It had been so long. Too long. “Well enough to know what I need. It’s always been you.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, her lips inches from his. “It’s only been you.”
Perhaps moving away from her was the answer. But some answers were impossible. “Tomorrow you may be sorry.”
She smiled in her calm, quiet way that always moved him. “Then we’ll have tonight.”
He couldn’t resist her. The warmth. He didn’t want to hurt her. The softness. The need building inside him threatened to send them both raging even though he knew she was still weak, still fragile. He remembered how it had been the first time, when she’d been innocent. He’d been so careful, though he had never felt the need to care before, and hadn’t since. Remembering that, he laid her back.
“We’ll have tonight,” he repeated and touched his lips to hers.
Sweet, fresh, clean. Those words went through his head, those sensations went through his system as her lips parted for his. So he lingered over her kiss, enjoying with tenderness what he’d once promised himself to take ruthlessly. His mouth caressed, without haste, without pressure. Tasting, just tasting, while the hunger grew.
Her hands reached for his face, fingers stroking, the rough, the smooth. She could hear her own heart beat in her head, feel the slow, easy pleasure that came in liquid waves. He murmured to her, lovely, quiet words that made her thrill when she felt them formed against her mouth. With his tongue he teased hers in long, lazy sweeps until she felt her mind cloud as it had under the drug. Then when she felt the first twinge of desperation, he kissed her with an absorbed patience that left her weak.
He felt it—that initial change from equality to submission that had always excited him. The aggression would come later, knocking the breath from him, taking him to the edge. He knew that too. But for the moment, she was soft, yielding.
He slid his hands over the nightshirt, stroking, lingering. The material between his flesh and hers teased them both. She moved to his rhythm, glorying in the steady loss of control. He took her deeper with a touch, still deeper with a taste. She dove, knowing the full pleasure of ultimate trust. Wherever he took her, she wanted to go.
With a whispering movement he took his hand over the slender curve of her breast. She was soft, the material smooth, making her hardening nipple a sensuous contrast. He loitered there while her breathing grew unsteady, reveling in the changes of her body. Lingering over each separate button of her nightshirt, Ky unfastened them, then slowly parted the material, as if he were unveiling a priceless treasure.
He’d never forgotten how lovely she was, how exciting delicacy could be. Now that he had her again, he allowed himself the time to look, to touch carefully, all the while watching the contact of his lean tanned hand against her pale skin. With tenderness he felt seldom and demonstrated rarely, he lowered his mouth, letting his lips follow the progress his fingers had already begun.
She was coming to life under him. Kate felt her blood begin to boil as though it had lain dormant in her veins for years. She felt her heart begin to thump as though it had been frozen in ice until that moment. She heard her name as only he said it. As only he could.
Sensations? Could there be so many of them? Could she have known them all once, experienced them all once, then lived without them? A whisper, a sigh, the brush of a fingertip along her skin. The scent of a man touched by the sea, the taste of her lover lingering yet on her lips. The glow of soft lights against closed lids. Time faded. No yesterday. No tomorrow.
She could feel the slick material of the nightshirt slide away, then the warm, smooth sheets beneath her back. The skim of his tongue along her ribcage incited a thrill that began in her core and exploded inside her head.
She remembered the dawn breaking slowly over the sea. Now she knew the same magnificence inside her own body. Light and warmth spread through her, gradually, patiently, until she was glowing with a new beginning.
He hadn’t known he could hold such raging desire in check and still feel such complete pleasure, such whirling excitement. He was aware of every heightening degree of passion that worked through her. He understood the changing, rippling thrill she felt if he used more pressure here, a longer taste there. It brought him a wild sense of power, made only more acute by the knowledge that he must harness it. She was fluid. She was silk. And then with a suddenness that sent him reeling, she was fire.
Her body arched on the first tumultuous crest. It ripped through her like a madness. Greedy, ravenous for more, she began to demand what he’d only hinted at. Her hands ran over him, nearly destroying his control in a matter of seconds. Her mouth was hot, hungry, and sought his with an urgency he couldn’t resist. Then she rained kisses over his face, down his throat until he gripped the sheets with his hands for fear of crushing her too tightly and bruising her skin.
She touched him with those slender, elegant fingers so that the blood rushed fast and furious into his head. “You make me crazy,” he murmured.
“Yes.” She could do no more than whisper, but her eyes opened. “Yes.”
“I want to watch you go up,” he said softly as he slid into her. “I want to see what making love with me does to you.”
She arched again, the moan inching out of her as she experienced a second wild peak. He saw her eyes darken, cloud as he took her slowly, steadily toward the verge between passion and madness. He watched the color come into her cheeks, saw her lips tremble as she spoke his name. Her hands gripped his shoulders, but neither of them knew her short tapered nails dug into his skin.
They moved together, neither able to lead, both able to follow. As pleasure built, he never took his eyes from her face.
All sensation focused into one. They were only one. With a freedom that reaches perfection only rarely, they gave perfection to each other.
Chapter 8
She was sleeping soundly when Ky woke. Ky observed a hint of color in her cheeks and was determined to see that it stayed there. The touch of his hand to her hair was gentle but proprietary. Her skin was cool and dry, her breathing quiet but steady.
What she’d given him the night before had been offered with complete freedom, without shadows of the past, with none of the bitter taste of regret. It was something else he intended to keep constant.
No, he wasn’t going to allow her to withdraw from him again. Not an inch. He’d lost her four years ago, or perhaps he’d never really had her—not in the way he’d believed, not in the way he’d taken for granted. But this time, Ky determined, it would be different.
In his own way, he needed to take care of her. Her fragility drew that from him. In another way, he needed a partner on equal terms. Her strength offered him that. For reasons he never completely understood, Kate was exactly what he’d always wanted.
Clumsiness, arrogance, inexperience, or perhaps a combination of all three made him lose her once. Now that he had a second chance, he was going to make sure it worked. With a little more time, he might figure out how.
Rising, he dressed in the shaded light of the bedroom, then left her to sleep.
When she woke slowly, Kate was reluctant to surface from the simple pleasure of a dream. The room was dim, her mind was hazy with sleep and fantasy. The throb in her leg came as a surprise. How could there be pain when everything was so perfect? With a sigh, she reached for Ky and found the bed empty.
The haze vanished immediately, as did all traces of sleep and the pretty edge of fantasy. Kate sat up, and though the movement jolted the pain in her leg, she stared at the emp
ty space beside her.
Had that been a dream as well? she wondered. Tentatively, she reached out and found the sheets cool. All a fantasy brought on by medication and confusion? Unsure, unsteady, she pushed the hair away from her face. Was it possible that she’d imagined it all—the gentleness, the sweetness, the passion?
She’d needed Ky. That hadn’t been a dream. Even now she could feel the dull ache in her stomach that came from need. Had the need caused her to fantasize all that strange, stirring beauty during the night? The bed beside her was empty, the sheets cool. She was alone.
The pleasure she awoke with drained, leaving her empty, leaving her grateful for the pain that was her only grip on reality. She wanted to weep, but found she hadn’t the energy for tears.
“So you’re up.”
Ky’s voice made her whip her head around. Her nerves were strung tight. He walked into the bedroom carrying a tray, wearing an easy smile.
“That saves me from having to wake you up to get some food into you.” Before he approached the bed, he went to both windows and drew up the shades. Light poured into the room and the warm breeze that had been trapped behind the shades rushed in to ruffle the sheets. Feeling it, she had to control a shudder. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.” The awkwardness was unexpected. Kate folded her hands and sat perfectly still. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’ve already thanked me once. It wasn’t necessary then or now.” Because her tone had put him on guard, Ky stopped next to the bed to take a good long look at her. “You’re hurting.”
“It’s not bad.”
“This time you take a pill.” After setting the tray on her lap, he walked to the dresser and picked up a small bottle. “No arguments,” he said, anticipating her refusal.
“Ky, it’s really not bad.” When had he offered her a pill before? The struggle to remember brought only more frustration. “There’s barely any pain.”
“Any pain’s too much.” He sat on the bed, and putting the pill into her palm curled her hand over it with his own. “When it’s you.”