Lightning That Lingers (15 page)

He was on his side by her, so close that his breath anointed her skin, his fingertips drawing tingling patterns on her throat. Someone had put her smile on crooked.

“It’s eerie,” she said, “this process of losing my innocence.”

His cheek rested on her hair. “I want to make
love to you—I’d never want to take your innocence. I want to give you things. Good things.”

He curved her shoulders into his arms and covered her mouth with his, staying with her while he laid her down on her back, drawing the gown lower to bare her shoulders and the soft white curve of the top of her breasts. He pulled back and found her looking up at him, the dense burnt-honey eyes wide and bright. And petrified. And love-flushed. As an experiment, he picked up her wrist and poised it in midair. He let go and it stayed there. Her earnest expression didn’t change. Hmm, he thought. This is going to take a little imagination. Inside he was melting with laughter and sympathy. He disciplined his face and observed in a soft tone, “You seem a little tense, love.”

“I do?” Her chest heaved with the effort of breathing.

He reached out a forefinger to her wrist and gently pushed down the stiff arm. His hands on her waist brought her up to sit cross-legged, and he sat in front of her, their knees contacting like a current. Her breasts pushed against the delicate lace, and he imagined her softness arching into his chest while he loved her. Thoughtfully, he peeled back her gown to uncover one bare curving foot, and he ran a lazy finger along her instep.

“Do you know how screech owls mate?” he murmured, watching her face.

She shook her head.

“You’ve seen Chaucer. He’s a screech owl—those funny little owls about the size of a beer can. You can find them all over the country.” He took one of her immaculate pink toes and wiggled it affectionately.
“It usually takes a male owl two or three days of studying a female from afar before he has the nerve to approach her. On the big day, he looks more and more nervous as dusk falls. He spends time making sure his feathers are just so—fluffing them up, preening them back into place. Then he’ll begin to call her. It’s a haunting call, melodious and a little plaintive; kind of a trill with an upward inflection at the end, like a question.”

“What does the female do?”

“Looks like she wishes he’d drop dead.” He touched his fingers to her lips, and then to her toes, and covered them up again. “He keeps calling, circling from a barn roof, to a fence, to an oak tree, to a hay stalk, each time closer to her. The closer he gets, the sillier he acts, bobbing his body like a jack-in-the-box, swiveling his little head. Sometimes when he lands on her branch—as far away as he can get without toppling off the limb—he’ll wink at her in this comical way, one eye at a time.”

She smiled, imagining Chaucer.

“By then, her expression is priceless—kind of a variation on ‘what have I done to deserve this?’ The more she ignores him, the more frantically he’ll bob and swivel. Sometimes if he gets too close, she’ll chase him away crossly, flapping her wings. Then he’s crushed. He squats on the outermost edge of the limb and sinks his head way down into his fluffed breast feathers until his beak has all but disappeared, and moans disconsolately.”

She knew her smile was on crooked again.

“The female either decides she doesn’t want him,
and glides away into the night, or she decides she does. If she does, she’ll sweep her head sideways and look right at him, and then mosey over closer to him.” His body turned on the bed and he sat beside her, sidling closer, crowding her and making her laugh.

“What does the male do then?”

“Cheers right up. His eyes brighten, and his head comes up.”

Her stomach tightened as he brought his hand to rub softly and beguilingly on the small of her back.

“They have very touching love play.” His breath disturbed a wisp of hair, making it flutter against the inner configuration of her ear. “Sometimes they touch beaks.” His mouth touched hers with light humor. “He strokes her with his beak … on her nape … shoulders …” His lips were following his words, making her smile, sending crisp shivers through her. “Her breast plumage …” Through the fabric, his mouth discovered a turgid point and he teased it to aching fullness with his tongue. “They mate for life.” His breath, cooling the fibers, rushed her senses with another tumult of shivers.

His mouth left her and he lay down at her side, his length relaxed and inviting like his smile. “She can fly away any time she chooses. So can you. You see? It’s natural to think about it first. It’s natural to be cautious.” He rolled onto his back, his blue eyes fetching, his smile sensual. “Maybe you should set the pace. What would you like to do to me?”

The luster in her eyes became a glow as she studied his face. Then she delighted him by saying,
“Hadn’t you better be careful? What if it was something truly debauched?”

“I’d count my blessings. Go ahead. Debauch me.”

She looked at him again, then blushed and laughed. “I want to. But you’d better hint me in the right direction.”

His mouth was good-natured, his eyes full of sexual heat. “Pull up my sweater. Lay your hands on my bare chest.”

Shaky but eager, her fingers pushed his sweater upward to expose his chest, and he arched his back to help her. Her fingers spread wide open over his chest, her warm palm nestled in his light, springy hair. His breath came in long slow swells, deepening at her touch. A drowsy look came into his eyes.

“Run your fingers over my skin, Jenny … just lightly.” His eyes closed, the full sensual lids with their straight dark lashes seemed to decorate the perfection of his cheekbones. “Like that. Let your fingers wander over me.”

Shy as a trespasser, she followed his chest, his throat, the angles of his jaw and face. The shyness left, drifting off, and she laid her hand on his flat muscled stomach where it lifted and lowered with his relaxed breathing. She slipped her hand lower and he stirred, his breath quickening, and she realized that he wasn’t as relaxed as he looked. A strange excitement quivered through her with the knowledge. She lifted her hand again and laid it tentatively on the heat pushing against the cotton of his jeans.

He took a sharp breath, the corners of his wide mouth curling upward. “
Very
widely read.”

“Body parts that change size …”

His eyes opened into the mischief in hers, and he gave her a thick grin. “I know. It’s disgusting, but I can’t help it.”

“It’s not disgusting,” she whispered slowly, and laid her head on his lap, savoring his deep warmth through the cotton, the heat that felt so right to her. Time moved like a slow river.

“That’s nice,” he breathed. “Better than nice.”

Her lips touched him in a light hesitant kiss that flickered upward to the sweet-tasting skin stretched tightly on his stomach, feeling it contract involuntarily. Pulses sang everywhere inside her as she glanced soft kisses up and across his chest, reaching his mouth, lowering her lips to his in a voluptuous open-mouthed kiss.

His strong hands sought her hips, raising them, pulling her to straddle him. “Come up.”

The gown spread around them like a dazzling pale lily pad. Underneath, her nakedness got a warm shock as she contacted the faint roughness of the pliant fabric between her thighs. His hands on her hips, supporting her, felt its echo and the answering fire in his body. Love ran through him, a vibrant erotic babble, a demand, a plea.

Her desire pressed in her throat, inside her thighs, and she braced her palms giddily against his shoulders. His hands left her sides and slipped under the dress hem, caressing their way up her legs, inflaming the bare delicate flesh, curving over her bottom and gathering her into his hands. Gently she was pressed into him, against him, in a skillful motion that kindled a soft cry from her, and a spreading flame in her nerve centers.

“Philip—”

“I know.” His head lifted. His tongue caressed the jumping pulse in her throat. His voice was soft, husky. “I understand. Alien me—vulnerable you … It’ll be all right. It’s just love. Me loving you; you loving me. That’s all.”

She was breathing in quick shallow exhalations, luxuriating in the slow path of his hand trailing upward, disarraying her gown so that it fell back, exposing her leg in a pretty white arc. His fingers curled and held her breast. With the barest pressure, the tip of his little finger traced the tiny crescent of areola that rimmed above the fabric.

He felt her thighs tighten convulsively around him as his hand slipped under the fabric, curving on the underside of her breast, pushing upward on the dainty heaviness. His fingertip uplifted her nipple. A rapid shudder took her, and him, and he dragged her close, one hand cupping her nape, the other the softness of her bottom so that her breasts were near his mouth.

She was like a leaf, drifting downward into heady delirium, riding the upcurrents, lightheaded and liquid in her arousal. For a spinetingling second his breath warmed her nipple; then his mouth warmed her, his tongue gently probing. Flushing everywhere with a light, odd heat, she felt his body shift and his upper thigh rose to support her fleecy nakedness, the pressure direct and coaxing.

After a swooning moment, she whispered, “If I flew away now, would you moan disconsolately?”

“I’d set records.” His smile shaped against her breast. “Stay. I’ll probably moan anyway.”

His hands altered, bringing her mouth to his, pressing her full swollen lips into extended kisses,
his tongue slipping into her in a deep hard motion. Slowly, they changed positions, their mouths remaining in tantalizing contact. He was on top of her, her sweetness brushing his body, her eyes passion-drenched and lustrous. Gasping, he pulled away, burying his head in the arch of her neck. His hair, tipped with dampness, heightened the caress on her skin.

“Do you—” He drew an unsteady breath. “Do you still want to go for a walk?”

She shook her head weakly.

His thumb made a soft shaken path across the satin wetness of her bottom lip and he watched it glisten with a shining crimson glow.

“You … want this … to happen now?”

“Yes.” It hardly sounded like her voice. It was a wonderful voice, a rich, lyrical ballad of a voice. Her body was a fiery rhapsody.

He stood and shed his clothes, a simple matter-of-fact act, graceful but without art. Everything came off in a heap on the floor. She smiled.

He drew the dress gently over her hips and down, freeing her from the rippling folds. His hands, warm as sunlight, found her, and her sharp inward breath lifted her ribcage, thrusting her breasts into the exploration of his palms. His lips followed where his fingers led, his silken-gold hair was a heady caress on her hot body. He returned to her lips, concentrating his attention there, playing his tongue gently in and out of her mouth. His palm found her inner thigh and his fingers tangled smoothly in her tiny springy curls, letting the slight warm weight of them work their subtle magic, her body moving in unthinking rhythm against the heel of his hand.

His brain filled with a fire of enchantment, and he encouraged her with adoring disjointed phrases and the deepening pressure of his hand. They were drifting together in a storm of sunlight, dancing molecules, the stuff life was made of. He couldn’t give her enough, pleasure her enough. His love was open and flowing to her, and he wanted to give and give. His senses registered each shiver of her body, every pulse.

She shuddered lightly, her clenched muscles resisting the slow penetration of his finger, and his breath was soft and moist, flooding the chamber of her ear.

“It’ll be all right, Jenny. Let me.” His tongue traced small circles on the violent pulse in her throat. His voice was a barely audible whisper. “Let it happen, Jenny. It’s love … just love.… Close your eyes and let it happen.”

Thought shut down for her, and she felt only the updraft of her ascent. Icy wires of feeling immersed themselves in her nerves, hot waves spun through her muscles. Her flesh blazed. Her hands submerged in his thick, soft-textured hair, and it pushed buoyantly against her fingers. Then the ascent spiraled, and her temperature pitched, plummeted, and then leaped upward in a devastating fluctuation. The sunlight came inside.…

He prolonged her ecstasy with kisses, nourishing it, until she came to rest beside him in a state not unlike sleep, as blank, as quiet, but conscious and sublime. Paradise. The world faded into a dream.

Presently he began to rouse her with love words and kisses. His flesh had a warm, new-cream taste to her, and carried a pungent intoxicating scent,
like crushed lilac petals. Her own flesh was covered with a faint sheen of perspiration that warmed the path of his hands, making his touch ride her skin until her need became turbulent again. Her thighs had opened around one of his. Her mouth, glazed in moisture, received the thrust of his tongue. Her heartbeat thundered in her arteries, higher, harder, uneven, like his voice as it bathed her.

“Are you ready to feel me inside you, love?” His voice was soft, thick with passion.

She nodded and his hands brushed gently, shakily on her brow, soothing back her damp hair. He blew softly along her hairline, and slowly entered her.

The first sensation was pain. Her tight flesh stung and pulled, resisting him. His hand stayed on her forehead, stroking and stroking, and his hips coming against her were slow, so slow.

When he was all the way inside her, filling her completely, his whisper shivered against her moist lips. “Oh Jenny … oh darling … this feels so good.…”

Watching his face above her, she saw his eyes focus in a blurred way, as though the sound of his own voice woke him slightly. He smiled down at her, the wide mouth breathtakingly sensual.

“Sorry …” he breathed. His eyes had become hypnotically bright. “Sorry … that I’m not … not more eloquent.”

Headily, she eased herself deeper around him. “One small step for man …”

His laughter was a ragged shiver. His tongue passed between her parted lips and played lightly along the uneven line of her teeth.

“Why do you like to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, pressing his lips low on her throat. “I love you. I love you.” And his hands were gentle on her body, guiding her sweetly as they had in their dance, and again, together, they saw dreams.