Demon Lover (16 page)

"One…" Chayne intoned.

Swearing bitterly, Julie skinned off the stiff wet denim, taking her panties with the rest. Better to get it over with. And now she waited, shivering, buttocks clenched.

A blanket came around her—wool, thick, warm and scratchy.

"Here, wrap up." Chayne’s arms came with it, crossing over her front, pulling her back against his chest. A hand came up to ruffle through her damp hair. "You look like a drowned kitten. Quit shivering." A gust of laughter stirred across her ear, making her tremble even harder. His hand pressed her head back into the hollow of his shoulder, and his lips found the pulse spot behind her ear. He probed the indentation behind her earlobe with his tongue, then teased at the lobe before nipping it gently with his teeth.

Julie said, "Don’t," in a very small voice.

"Why not?"

"Because… I don’t want you to."

"That’s not true, and you know it. You want it…and this…and this—" His mouth trailed fire down the cords of her neck, defined her collarbone, then closed on the nape of her neck in a love bite that sent shock waves of seismic intensity through every nerve in her body. Her neck wilted like a week–old rose, dropping her chin onto her chest.

"Please don’t," she said brokenly. "You don’t understand. I hate this. I hate you. I hate myself."

"Julie…" It was a sigh, whispered against her temple. He turned her to face him, taking her head between his hands and wiping tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. "Poor little cop." He lowered his lips to her upturned face, tasting the salt moisture on her lips, her nose, her eyelids. "Don’t cry, Julie. Don’t you know that it’s all right? You can’t help this. Somebody made the rules a long, long time before there were cops or criminals. Way, way back, when there was just man…and woman. That’s all we are, Julie. Just a man and a woman. It’s okay to feel the way you do when I touch you here… When I kiss you. Kiss me, Julie.
Trust me.
"

She looked up into his eyes. The look in them stopped her breath, twisted something in her chest and belly, a pain so acute she nearly cried out. She couldn’t have defined that look. She only knew what it did to her.

"You
are
a demon," she whispered, awed.

"No, not a demon; just a man. But…" A twinkle of irony flared briefly in his eyes. "It must have been a devil that put you in my path, Julie Maguire. Here and now, of all possible times. God help us both!"

He turned off the lantern and thick darkness enveloped them. Phantom light, temporarily seared on her retinas, darted about in the void as she strained to see, rebelling instinctively against the totality of her blindness. She made a sound, the beginnings of panic, and put out her hand.

"I’m here, Julie."

His hands were on her shoulders, guiding her, pushing her gently down. He had made a bed with blankets on the sandy floor of the cave, with mounds of sand for pillows. Julie dropped to her knees and gave a gasp of surprise at the pain that stabbed through her knee.

"What is it? Did I miss a rock?" Chayne was there beside her in the dark, his hands still supporting her, his presence holding fear at bay.

"No, it’s my knee. I think I must have hurt it on the rocks."

"Let me see."

He was speaking figuratively. He didn’t turn on the lantern, but eased her firmly back onto the blankets, drawing the one that enveloped her aside. "Which one?"

"The left."

Chayne’s warm hand was inserted behind her knee, lifting it. His fingers explored with a feather’s touch…and then, incredibly, his mouth.

Julie caught at her lower lip with her teeth and shifted uncertainly. "Chayne, what are you doing?"

"Bathing your wound. Hush, Julie. Forget everything except that you are a woman. Let me soothe you with my mouth."

"But it’s not—please." She was squirming, pushing ineffectually at his head. It was so personal, more intimate, somehow, than anything he had ever done to her before.

"It’s all right, Julie. It’s natural. The first thing any warm–blooded animal does with an injury, if it’s possible, is put it in its mouth." He caught her hand and held it against her thigh. She lay back with a little moan of defeat.

"That’s right, Julie. Relax."

His mouth and tongue gently laved her lacerated knee, cleansing and soothing. There was almost no pain. In fact, that warm, liquid stroking was producing some very pleasant sensations in other parts of her body. She barely noticed when his lips and tongue abandoned the site of the injury and moved down the inside of her knee, but when he darted his tongue into the sensitive hollow behind it, just where his hand still held it, a gasp of surprise burst from her, and she reached again to push him away.

"Julie…"

The breathy sigh was close to her ear; she could feel the heat of his body spread out alongside hers. His arms lifted her, settled her against him, cradling her head in the hollow of his neck. Her legs touched warm satin; she realized with a small shiver of fear and excitement that he was naked. Words began to stir through the hair on her temple—husky, hypnotic words, like liquid amber, as intoxicating as brandy.

"Julie, you have a wonderful body, a beautiful body. I’ll bet you think you know all about your body, don’t you? You think because you’ve developed it and cared for it and kept it in perfect condition that you know everything it can do, don’t you? But you don’t. You’re like a newborn babe with a whole new world to discover. Sweet Julie… I’m going to help you find that new world…show you what your body is capable of giving you."

She was shivering again—not with cold but with a deep–down inner trembling. Chayne’s hand had been stroking lightly over her ribs; now it moved up to cup her breast while his thumb and forefinger gently rolled the nipple between them.

"This, now," he murmured against her ear. "This could  mean you’re cold…but these beautiful, sensitive breasts don’t ache because you’re cold, now, do they? What happens when I do this, Julie?" He drew his fingertips lightly over her taut belly skin. A convulsion shook her, and her nipples contracted to hard, painful pebbles. The palm of his hand brushed them—first one, then the other—and she winced and made a tiny whimpering sound of need. He laughed softly and pulled her over onto his chest, folding her close. Her aching breasts flattened against the furnace heat of his chest, but if anything, the constriction in them only tightened while the pressure within them grew.

"You see? It doesn’t help to warm them, does it, Julie? They hurt you, don’t they? But they only hurt because you aren’t listening to what they’re telling you—that you’re a woman, beautiful, soft, made for loving. Listen to your body, Julie, and that pain becomes pleasure…joy. Listen…and let me show you."

How can he know? How can he know so well what I’m feeling? How can he know my body better than I do?

Very gently, but as inexorably as a landslide, he bore her over onto her back. Very gently he lowered his mouth over one throbbing nipple and drew it deep, deep into his mouth, exerting a rhythmic pressure that tugged at something way down in the center of her body. She moaned softly, drawing up her leg and arching against his mouth. He released that breast and took the other, but this time his hand stroked down over the concavity of her stomach to cup the small, moist mound at the conjunction of her thighs. Just cupped it in the warmth of his hand and held it.

She gave a sharp gasp and pushed against his hand. Softly, against her breast, he whispered, "Easy… relax now."

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. A deeper, more compelling need throbbed beneath his hand, and her body knew instinctively where fulfillment could be found.

His fingers lay between her thighs, gently stroking, while his mouth resumed that deep, rhythmic pulling on her nipple. And then, slowly, slowly his fingers parted her.

Julie drew in her breath in a long, open mouthed gasp. Chayne’s arm tightened reassuringly around her shoulders as his fingers probed deeper and the heel of his hand began to exert a slow, rhythmic pressure. She heard Chayne’s hypnotic murmur. "Open up, sweet Julie…relax and feel. Don’t fight it."

And then her world spiraled off into a breathtaking kaleidoscope of sensation. The vortex carried her higher and higher and then hurled her, shattered, into Chayne’s arms.

"Sweet…sweet Julie," he crooned, stroking the damp hair on her temple with his lips. His hand still housed the moist, pulsating part of her, shielding it from the cold. He understood that to withdraw too soon would be to leave her bereft. He held her there until her shaking had subsided into a tremulous, effervescent peace, and then cuddled her close, caressing her hair, her back, her legs with long, calming strokes.

Her hand found its way to the warm, vibrant column of his neck. Shyly, hesitantly, she traced the outline of his jaw until he caught her hand and brought it to his mouth. His moustache brushed her palm, and then his lips, and finally his tongue, making slow, languorous circles.

"Chayne," Julie whispered, "I don’t understand. Why don’t you…" Her voice trailed away, squeezed off by the growing ache in her throat. She was bewildered, confused, undone by his tenderness. It was the last thing she would have expected from him. Why had he done that? He seemed to demand nothing of her. His only purpose had been to give her pleasure. Even though she could feel the full, heated strength of him against her, there was no urgency in him. He seemed content to share her sensual lethargy, his tongue making little feathery explorations between her fingers, quivering like a captive moth against her palm. Her fingers curled, responding to the tiny, shimmering currents that radiated from that spot like the ripples on a pond. He chuckled softly and took them one at a time into his mouth, tickling and teasing the sensitive pads with his tongue, pausing between each sally to murmur words of mystery and magic.

"Sweet Julie … we’ve hardly begun. You are so soft… so beautiful, so responsive. You need to be loved, every part of you. This, and this…" His tongue found the pulse in her wrist and flattened against it. "I’m going to love you, Julie. I’m going to taste…and touch…and know every part of your body. And you are going to learn with me every secret place…  every sleeping desire. Come with me…trust me. There’s just you and me. No sight, no sound…just loving."

His words poured warm oil over her troubled mind as his mouth trailed liquid gold down her arm, pausing to explore the sensuous possibilities of the inside of her elbow, the ridge of her collarbone, the underside of one breast.

"So soft… That’s the second–softest place on a woman’s body, did you know that, sweet Julie? Shall I show you the softest place?"

Her bones were marshmallows, her muscles warm molasses. So lost was she in the web of enchantment he was weaving, she didn’t mind when he drew her legs apart and kissed the silky inside of her thigh. He held her thighs parted but made no move to violate her femininity; instead his hands stroked her belly, her legs, played with tightly curled tendrils of hair, circled her navel oh, so lightly… always coming close but never quite touching her there. His tongue described slow, exotic patterns over her skin, the liquid heat of his mouth only teasing, suggesting… never fulfilling the throbbing emptiness at her core.

She began to arch her back beneath his hands, languorously at first, like a cat being petted, but gradually becoming more and more frustrated, tormented by that mushrooming ache. She writhed and squirmed, whimpering in desperation, unable to voice her terrible need.

Chayne’s whisper came through the darkness like shivering velvet. "Do you want me to kiss you, Julie? Sweet, beautiful Julie…do you want me?"

"Ye–es!" she cried, almost sobbing. "Please, I can’t—I want…you!"

"All right, Julie…all right."

She went rigid when his lips touched her, but he waited patiently, lightly stroking the insides of her thighs, her belly, her breasts. Waited…a warm, melting pressure…until she gave a little sigh and relaxed, opening to him like the petals of a flower.

Chayne…

The night became a sensual fantasy. Julie Maguire ceased to exist. She had no memory, no dreams, no aspirations. In the all–enveloping darkness there was only Chayne. He possessed her, mind, body and soul, with his hands, his mouth, his voice, and finally with his body, filling her, filling the night, filling her whole world.

* * *

Julie opened her eyes and knew that outside it was light. The darkness had a transparent quality—it no longer felt like something thick and heavy covering her face. The long warm presence beside her had form and substance she could see as well as feel. And except for the quiet breathing of untroubled sleep, it was absolutely still; the storm—the chubasco—was over.

It was hard to pull herself away from the warmth of Chayne’s body, but even harder to stay. She was wide awake and full of a kind of eager anticipation, like a child on Christmas morning. She couldn’t lie still.

Careful not to wake Chayne, she slipped out of the blankets and groped for her clothes. They seemed as wet as when she had taken them off, and the thought of putting all that cold clamminess next to her sleep–flushed skin was revolting, but the alternatives were either nakedness or robbing Chayne of his blanket. She didn’t know why she balked at the thought of waking him. There was something—a compulsion, almost—that made her want to go alone into the morning. She was like a child with a secret treasure. She wanted to get herself to a private and well–lighted place and take a good look at what she’d found, to see if it could possibly be as wonderful as she thought it might be.

Julie emerged from the cave to confront a scene of almost stunning beauty. The air was cool and the light a pale, effervescent gold, like champagne. The gulf was an improbable turquoise gilded by sunlight streaming through holes in billowy piles of clouds on the horizon, all that remained of the night’s tempest. And in all that vista, from the purple rocks that enclosed the debris–strewn cove to the hazy blue of the offshore islands, there was not a single sign of humankind. Julie might have been the very first woman, emerging from her cave to a prehistoric dawn.