Delilah's Weakness (24 page)

But I need you.
The thought came in a flash of self–awareness.
I need you so much.

And he no longer had any excuse to stay.

He took a deep breath and said, "My hearing’s next week."

"Oh?" Her voice was soft and breathy. "And what happens then?"

He shrugged and turned to face her. "Either we get a permit to continue exploration or we don’t."

"I see. And if you don’t?"

"The crew moves on to another area of high seismic activity. There are promising sites all through the Sierras, the Rockies, the Cascades. Even Alaska."

"Alaska?" Her breath seemed to stop. "And…will you have to go with your crew?"

"I don’t have to stay with the crew," he said quietly. "But I probably will." He tried a smile. "Lambing’s over. You don’t need me here anymore. You have all the help you need from the ag kids, and you’re getting around pretty well by yourself." He spread his hands ruefully. "I guess I’m fresh out of plausible excuses."

The silence stretched. "I can think of one," Delilah said.

The silence became thick, almost palpable. Luke couldn’t think of anything to say. The tension in him hummed and crackled like a high–tension power line.

Finally, with a catch in her voice, she said, "What about my bathtub?"

"Bathtub?" he echoed, feeling obtuse.

"You told me," she said patiently, "that you could hardly wait to see me in it. In bubbles up to my chin."

He swallowed a peculiar dryness in his throat. "I did say that, didn’t I?"

"Uh–huh. And I don’t see how I can manage to get into that tub until I get this contraption off my leg, do you?"

"No," he murmured. "S’pose not."

"Well, then. There you are. You’ll have to stay at least until my cast comes off." Unexpectedly, she yawned. Then she stretched, like an indolent cat. Luke watched the way her throat moved, and the way her breasts pushed against her T–shirt. For the first time in days he let himself wonder what she was wearing under her shirt this time.

"Hmm," she murmured, touching her lips with her fingertips. "Luke, could you help me? I think I’d like to go to bed now."

His first reaction, unbelievably, was:
Bed? It’s the middle of the afternoon!
But he wasn’t really
that
obtuse.

He walked slowly toward her, wondering how it was that he could feel both vulnerable and invincible at the same time.

Her eyes never left his face. When he finally stood beside her she reached out her hand and shyly, hesitantly, touched his thigh. He felt as if she’d branded him.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt sure.

He smiled down at her, teasing, and murmured, "It’s the middle of the afternoon."

She shrugged, smiling back. "Well, at least it’s not morning."

"Someday," he said with a growl, scooping her up into his arms, "I’m going to have to cure you of that particular prejudice."

"Soon, I hope," she growled back as he kissed her.

He placed her on her bed with infinite gentleness. She kept her arms around his neck, and after a long look of confirmation, he carefully stretched himself alongside her.

She laughed huskily, touching his face with her hands. "I won’t break, you know."

"Be patient. This is a new experience for me." His hand moved slowly down over her throat, her breasts, lifted the bottom edge of her T–shirt, and lay warmly on her soft stomach.

"What is? Making love to someone with a broken leg?" Her voice was breaking up into shivering fragments of speech.

"That too. No, I meant being seduced."

"Seduced!" She slapped at his hand in mild outrage. "I did not! What a thing to say. I’d never—"

"‘Lilah," he said. "Don’t argue."

Her voice deserted her when he put his mouth where his hand had been.

** ** **

"Isn’t it strange, the way things happen?" Delilah’s voice was a fuzzy purr in his ear. He was lying on his stomach, with his head pillowed on her stomach, listening to her body sounds…  an unbelievably pleasant and reassuring intimacy.

"Like what, love?" he murmured, moving his head to touch a kiss below her ribs.

Her fingers stirred in his hair. "I don’t know. Fate, I guess."

"Thought you didn’t believe in fate."

"I didn’t used to. But…" Her voice caught and took on the subtle tensions of fear. "Oh, Luke. Do you know how close I came to throwing this away? That morning—remember?—when you hung my things on the line, and I was going to take you to town, but the pickup wouldn’t start? Just think, if it hadn’t been for that stupid pickup, you wouldn’t have stayed. And it never had done that before, and it’s never done it since. If that isn’t some kind of fate, what is it?"

Luke was silent, and very still. After a moment she prodded him, rocking his head impatiently back and forth. "Luke? Isn’t that something to make you think?"

"No." He pressed his face into the golden velvet of her stomach and sighed, then resolutely pushed himself away and propped himself on one elbow. "It makes me… Uh, I have a confession to make."

Delilah raised herself on her elbows, and said with a dark foreboding, "Oh, no."

"Yes. I’m afraid fate had nothing to do with the pickup not starting. I, um, sort of made an adjustment in the engine."

"A what? Luke, what did you do?"

"I took out the rotor. You know, from the distributor…"

She gave a fierce, incredulous stare, while his heart hung in delicate balance. Then  she flopped back onto the pillows and began to shake with laughter.

He watched her quizzically, still not certain enough of her, or familiar enough with her moods, to risk joining in.

"Oh, Luke." She sighed, wiping her face with both hands. "You really are devious."

"No," he said. "Just determined. Forgive me?"

Her hand touched his arm, then slid across his rib cage to rest like a tender blessing right over his heart. "Of course," she said simply. "I love you. And besides…" Her fingers curled abruptly and withdrew. "I sort of have a confession to make too."

"Oh?" He made a valiant effort to sound stern. "What’s that?"

She propped her head on one arm and regarded him somberly. "I’m not really allergic to cigarette smoke. I just don’t like it." Her voice rose with alarm as he slowly sat up. "And I was just being contrary, I guess. But if you really, really have to smoke, I don’t mind. I mean––well, I do mind, because it’s so bad for you, and it gives you wrinkles and yellow teeth, and I know I said you were too beautiful, but Mara Jane was right, I have gotten used to it, and it seems such a shame—
Luke––"

His name was a breathless squawk as he caught her to him and held her hard against his chest. He felt the softness and warmth of her breasts meld with the hair–roughened contours of his body. He barely had breath enough to growl, "You talk too much," before he kissed her.

After a while he sighed and tucked her head into the hollow of his neck and shoulder. "Oh, ‘Lilah…" he whispered, taking a breath. "How I love you."

It was amazing how easy it was to say it at last—as natural and right as drawing a breath.

–END–