An Indian Affair (14 page)

She faced him again, her anger rising to meet his. “And just how do you figure that?” She shook her head incredulously. “You gave me the gate not one week ago, and now here you are grilling me like a suspicious husband. You wanted to stop seeing me; that whole scenario was your idea. Where do you get off pulling this interrogation number?”

“I did not give you the gate,” he enunciated clearly, his fists clenching and unclenching reflexively.

“Oh? What would you call it?”

“I did what I thought was best for both of us.”

“Fine. You should be happy. Then why are you here?”

“You know why I’m here. I didn’t like the looks of that guy.”

Cindy couldn’t help laughing. Richard might be mistaken for an earnest intern or a fledgling minister, but never a cloak-and-dagger type. Fox was really reaching.

“Don’t be absurd. That guy, as you call him, is my thesis advisor. He’s already on his way home to Pennsylvania.”

Fox looked mollified. “Oh. Then it wasn’t a date?”

“I had dinner with a friend. Can we leave it at that? Now unless you have something further to say, I suggest you get out of here before Paula’s remaining patience runs out.”

He remained motionless, staring at her stubbornly.

“Did you hear me?” Cindy asked.

He exhaled sharply and dropped his eyes. She waited as he shifted restlessly, obviously trying to say something that was difficult for him.

He looked up again, and she felt the impact of his eyes with an almost physical jolt.

“Look, can we start over again? I’ve been missing you, and I think I made a mistake last week, saying what I did. Maybe we should give it another try.”

Cindy’s pulses leaped, but she maintained the outward appearance of calm.

“I don’t know if that would be such a good idea, Drew,” she replied carefully.

“Why not?”
 

“Because I don’t think you’ve really changed your mind about us. You just saw me tonight and you’re reacting emotionally. The basic problem remains.”

“Aren’t we the sensible little miss?” he said acidly. “As logical as a computer. And just as cold.”

“Logic is better than runaway romanticism.”

“Oh, come on, get off it. You’re just trying to punish me for last week. I hurt you and you want to hurt me back.”

“I don’t operate that way, Drew,” she answered quietly. “But I can’t help it if you think I do.”

“So your answer is no?”

She wanted to agree, but found that she couldn’t. She needed to be with him so badly that it overrode caution and reason.

“What did you have in mind?” she hedged.

Encouraged, he said eagerly, “I play on a semi-pro jai alai team in Ocala. We have a game Friday night. You could watch me play and then we could go out afterward. Does that sound okay?”

She couldn’t resist his childlike enthusiasm. He had missed her. He must have, to be so thrilled at her hint of acceptance.

“Okay,” she said, and he grinned.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, heading for the door.

“Drew?” she called, as he reached for the knob.

He looked at her over his shoulder.

“What’s jai alai?”

He laughed.

“You’ll see,” he answered, and left.

* * * *

Watching jai alai proved to be an enlightening experience. A game invented by the Basques of Spain, it resembled handball, except that the players didn’t hit the ball with their hands. They caught it in a mitt called a
cesta
and then threw it back. Fox’s game was being played in an arena called a
fronton
and was the subject of mass betting among the spectators. Fox got Cindy a front row seat, and she didn’t care that she couldn’t understand a thing going on in the court. Her eyes glued to Fox, she watched his lightning moves throughout the game, leaping to her feet and screaming with the other fans every time it was clear that he had scored. His team won, and afterward they went out with a group of players and their dates, or wives, until Fox took her aside during a lull in the music.

“Let’s blow this joint,” he said. “The dining room set we ordered arrived. Do you want to go over to my place and see it?”

This was clearly a pretext to get her alone, but Cindy wanted that as much as he did. She nodded, and he made their excuses to the group.

They went to his apartment and looked at the new furniture. They looked at the view. They looked at the newly installed carpeting in the hall. They avoided looking at each other. Finally Fox came and stood next to Cindy at the window. He touched her arm and she jumped.

“Yeah,” he said huskily. “I know exactly how you feel.”

Cindy turned to look at him. His hair was still slightly damp from his post game shower, and it clung together at the ends in shiny tufts. He wore a green pullover that heightened the color of his eyes, and his tan deepened the dusky shade of his skin to sepia. He was beautiful, exotic, infinitely desirable to the woman who saw in him the culmination of centuries of struggle and endurance. Maybe he wasn’t perfect, maybe he wasn’t even right for her, as Paula said, but she loved him and that was all she knew.

Fox reached out and gently tucked her into his arms. “I can’t fight this anymore,” he murmured. “I want us to make love, Cindy. Do you still feel the same?”

Cindy’s throat tightened with unshed tears, and the right words would not come. He misinterpreted her silence and released her, his face shadowed with a disappointment so deep he was unable to conceal it.

“No, huh?” he said, making an attempt to dismiss it lightly. “I guess I blew it. You should have told me that it was a one-time-only offer.” He couldn’t quite pull it off, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry,” he added quietly. “I’ll take you home.”

Cindy stepped forward and slipped her arms around his lean waist. With a sigh of complete surrender, she put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

He understood and enfolded her once again. “Oh, princess,” he said, in a voice that was not quite steady, “all those years in school and you still don’t know what to say at a moment like this.”

“I’ve never had a moment like this, Drew,” she whispered. “I want to share it with you. Only with you.”

“And you will,” he said fiercely, his grip tightening. “After I brought you home the last time you were here, I thought, if I’m not the first some other man will be. The idea drove me crazy. And then when I saw you with that guy in the restaurant…”

Cindy raised her head to look at him. “You have no rival in Richard, Drew. You have no rival in anyone.” She saw him draw a breath, and then he kissed her so urgently that she had to clutch his arms to keep from rocking back on her heels. He shifted position, clasping her with one arm and slipping the other under her knees. Cindy’s feet left the floor as he picked her up and strode with her into the bedroom.

Fox set her gently on the bed, kneeling before her on the floor. Cindy had picked out the spread, the curtains and the rug, but everything looked new, as if she were seeing it for the first time. When Fox reached up to undo the buttons of her blouse, she shivered. His hand fell away and he moved to sit next to her.

“Come here,” he said.
 

She relaxed into his arms.
 

“Your teeth are practically chattering,” he said into her ear. “It can’t be the climate controlled temperature in this computerized apartment, so it must be me.”
 

Cindy managed a small laugh.
 

“That’s better,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”
 

“Fox,” she corrected, and he chuckled.
 

“Look,” he said, sitting up and cupping her chin in his hand. “Nothing will happen if you change your mind. Just say the word and we’re both out of here.”

Cindy met his eyes. “I don’t want to go...it’s just that...” She looked away. “Virgins are so much trouble, aren’t they?”

“You are no trouble at all,” he answered. “Listen to me now. We’ll take it easy and go slow. If at any time you want me to stop, just tell me and I will.”

“You will?” she said.

“Of course. I’m not a machine that can’t be stopped once it’s set in motion, and I don’t want to rape you. I want to
love
you. It won’t be any good for me unless it’s good for you, don’t you understand that?”

“I understand,” she replied meekly, and he grinned.

“Now let’s try this again,” he said, and undid her buttons one by one, watching her face. She sat placidly and let him do it. He removed her blouse, and then her light cotton slacks. His eyes moved over her slowly when she was wearing nothing but her lace bra and panties.

“Your skin is beautiful,” he whispered, bending to run his lips along her bare shoulder. “Like porcelain. I’m glad you don’t have a tan.”

“I can’t get a good tan,” she answered, her voice wobbling as his tongue probed the hollow of her throat. “I’m so fair I always burn.”

“You are fair,” he said huskily. “The fairest of them all.” His mouth moved lower and found the swollen nipple that strained against its silken covering. The heat of his lips penetrated the cloth with such intensity that Cindy felt as if she were wearing nothing.

He sat up abruptly, pulling off his thin knit sweater. The sight of his naked torso brought back vivid recollections of seeing him working at his grandfather’s house. Then he had been too far away for her to appreciate him fully, but now he was close enough for her to see the pulse beating strongly at the base of his throat. She reached out and touched it, feeling the life coursing beneath her fingers, life as precious to her as her own. His skin glowed with a soft patina of health, and the perfectly proportioned muscles it covered contracted as she stroked him. Her fingers trailed over his flat stomach, ribbed with years of conditioning and etched with a random pattern of faint and newly healed scars.

“Don’t hold back,” he whispered, his lambent eyes resembling those of the sleek animal for which he was named. “You can trust me, princess. Do what you feel. Do what you want.”

With a strangled sound, half sigh, half moan, Cindy put her arms around him and kissed his chest lingeringly, luxuriously. She rubbed her cheek on the smooth surface of his shoulders and ran her hands down his spare, sculptured back, surrendering herself to the experience.

“So many people have hurt you,” she murmured, gliding her lips over a thickened weal of pink scar tissue. “So much pain. Drew, how can you bear it?”

“It’s my life,” he responded softly, holding her to him. “I am Indian. I accept.”

Cindy pressed her mouth to one of his nipples, sucking gently. He gasped and his hand tightened on the back of her neck. She set her teeth on him, nipping lightly, and he pushed her backward on the bed, looming above her. He twined his fingers with hers and raised her arms above her head.

“You’re a fast learner, Miss Warren,” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth.

“First time lucky,” she answered. “Lucky to be with you.”

“I hope you’ll always think so, princess,” he said quietly, kissing her nose, then her brow. His lips returned to hers, and he kissed her deeply, moving to lie against her. Cindy explored the textures of his mouth: softness of lips, smooth wetness of tongue and slick hardness of teeth. He slipped his hands under her and unhooked her bra, pulling it off and tossing it on the floor. He pressed his face to her breasts instantly, closing his fingers around one and taking the hard peak of the other into his mouth. He groaned with satisfaction, and Cindy realized, through the drugged haze of her own pleasure, what it had cost him to approach her so cautiously.

He gave careful attention to her breasts, and then moved lower, kissing her abdomen. Cindy’s shyness receded before a rolling wave of intense feeling that obliterated every other emotion. She lay supine as he caressed her ever more intimately, nudging her toward the fulfillment they both wanted, but sensitive to her least indication of resistance. When he slid his forefinger under the waistband of her pants, she stiffened automatically. He withdrew his hand immediately, shifting to cuddle her, switching moods to become the unthreatening protector once again.

“Relax,” he murmured soothingly, rocking her to and fro. “There’s no rush. We have all the time in the world.”

He kissed her gently, and she sighed, unwinding visibly. He waited until he could feel that her desire was stronger than her anxiety and then set her back down, bending to kiss her thighs, the swell of her hips, the soft dimple of her navel. Before she knew what was happening she was lifting herself off the bed to help him strip away her last defense.

Cindy lay naked, and Fox’s lips parted as he drank in the sight of her, his eyes moving greedily over every lovely inch.

“I wish you could see how you look to me,” he whispered. “I’ll never, never forget.” In a gesture of homage, almost of worship, he stretched out next to her and pressed his burning cheek to her bare belly. His body radiated heat, and the flush staining his skin made him look more primitive than ever. His eyes were closed, and the curve of his lashes swept his cheeks like tiny black webs. Cindy rested her hand on his head, moving her fingers through the thick mass of his hair. He inhaled sharply, and then exhaled in a long breath. She heard it catch in the middle like a sob.