Scarlet Butterfly (11 page)

She
was
a virgin.

Then he felt her response, the slow, subtle beginning of a body ready to soar. But there was to be nothing subtle about Carolina’s passion, or her need.

He tried to hold back, to think, to tell himself that he was losing control. But his mind whirled in a storm of desire. And then he was inside her, surrounded by tight heat and moisture, pushing against the barrier and holding back while he tried to allow her body time to adjust.

Every part of his mind was in tune with his desire in a way that he’d never experienced before. Carolina was more than desire, more than sex, more than a vessel for release; she was none of the women he’d ever made love to and yet she was all the women he’d ever wanted. And then he was past the barrier.

If there was pain, she didn’t feel it. There was wonder, the beginning of a ripple that increased by the second, turning into a force that was frightening in its intensity. Her little screams had turned into a breathless moan that built and built and exploded
into something that she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

Sean was stunned by the enormity of what they shared. He fell against her, still joined to her, still feeling little aftershocks, shuddering one last time as he let out a ragged breath.

For a long time he just lay there, supporting his weight on his arms, reluctant to pull himself away.

“Damn!” He rolled over and slapped the side of the bed. “Do you realize what I’ve done to you, Carolina Evans?”

“Not entirely, but I’m sure I will after I get a little more experience.”

“No, I mean I didn’t protect you.”

“ ‘Protect’ me?”

“Babies, darling; that’s what happens when you make love without protection. I don’t suppose you’re taking birth control, are you?”

“Oh, that. No, I’m not taking anything. But you don’t have to worry. My doctors have already told me that I’ll never conceive. Too much medication, too much radiation. One side effect is that women don’t conceive.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

What the doctor had really said was that it was most unlikely. And that if she did conceive, she wouldn’t be able to carry a child to term. At the time that had been the least of her concerns, but now, basking in the warmth of what she’d just shared, she allowed herself to regret her inability to conceive.

Loving Rogan was only a temporary moment in her life. She understood that. He was the now, not the
forever. She’d stay as long as he wanted her, then she’d go. She didn’t dare plan for more. The thought of a future that included a child was incomprehensible. All she’d ever hoped for was this. She’d stay in his arms for as long as he’d hold her. And nothing would stop her from loving it.

And loving him.

“Is this wonderful feeling going to last, Rogan?” She felt a wave of new longing sweep through her, and she reached out, just to touch his hair, to convince herself that it had been real.

“I don’t know. Once I might have said that it was great, and maybe we might try it again sometime. But hell’s bells, you’ve still got me floating in some kind of magnetic field.”

“I have? How can you tell?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m already hard again.”

“You are? Good.” There was a satisfied whisper in her voice, a wonder that she gave reality to as she reached down and touched him. He throbbed beneath her touch, hot and moist and velvety.

“How long can you stay like this?”

“Good question. Normally I’m good for about fifteen minutes, maybe longer, if you don’t do anything to hasten the process.”

“You’re good for fifteen minutes and after that you’re bad? I think I want to know about the bad.”

“Carolina, another few minutes of your touching me, and you’re never going to find out about the bad. I won’t last that long.” He jerked her hand away, pulling it to his lips, where he planted a kiss in her palm.

“Is there a name for this, for what I feel now?”

“It’s called afterglow.”

“ ‘Afterglow.’ I like that. I feel as if I’m glowing. Are you glowing too?”

“I went past glowing when you touched me. I’m churning. I’m boiling. I’m just plain hurting, darling.”

“Oh, Rogan, I never want you to hurt. What can I do to help?”

He moved over her again, studying her beautiful eyes in the shadows. They were a deep blue now, clear and trusting. She smiled as her body closed around him, taking him inside her, slowly and without hesitation.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, it hurts wonderfully. I like the thought of us taking away each other’s hurts.” She slid her legs around him, holding him inside her. Her lower body began to vibrate, and he felt the beginning of his own tremors. His mouth found hers, his tongue plunging inside her.

Rogan clutched her shoulders, moaning softly as she arched against him, meeting every thrust with growing tension. He heard her short gasps of pleasure and felt the coil of tension begin to unravel in a shattering heat that caught and built to a crescendo of feeling.

“Oh, Rogan,” she whispered. “I never knew.”

“Now you do, Carolina,” he said as he turned over, pulling her with him so that she was tucked into the space over his heart. “And so do I.”

Outside the ship, the water stilled. The sun slid behind the trees and the marsh came to life with the movement of night creatures.

He watched her sleep, watched and thought about another Carrie who might have loved her captain in that same bed. He thought about other golden hair across the pillow, someone else’s innocent trust, two other people’s growing love. Even the memory was confusing. He didn’t know where it had come from or why.

But he felt pain.

Carolina woke to gentle movement and silence. She lay there, eyes closed, allowing the wonderful memories to settle comfortably around her.

She moved gingerly, expecting to feel different, and she was rewarded with a heavy, satisfied fullness. Her legs felt languid, not with the unfocused emptiness that she’d felt for so long, but as if there was a resonant singing in her veins, resting, waiting to surge back to life.

“Now you’ve done it, Carrie.”

Glorying in the sound of his voice, she didn’t open her eyes. Instead she stretched, twisting wantonly under his gaze as she felt the sheet slide down to her waist.

“Oh, yes, Rogan. I’ve finally done it, and magnificently. I think being bad is just about the closest thing to heaven a body can feel.”

“Or hell.”

“Why don’t you come back to bed, Rogan? I’d like that.”

“Not again, Carrie. I’ll not allow this to happen again.”

“But you brought me here.”

“I know, and I can’t seem to go back and change anything. But it’s wrong. No good can come of this. I learned that lesson well.”

Carolina felt a sudden coldness sweep across her. “Why are you acting this way, Rogan? This was meant to be.”

“Aye, sweet Carrie. It seems so. And I curse the fates that intervened. I made a promise once, a promise I couldn’t keep. Perhaps I’ve been given a second chance.”

Carolina felt a brush of coolness across her lips and a quick little breath of air. The silence that followed was colder than any hospital ward during the hours before dawn.

Carolina sat up. “Rogan?”

But he was gone, along with the afterglow that had cushioned her waking.

She came to her feet. Despite buying all those things the day before, they’d forgotten a robe. Suddenly she felt a great urgency to go topside. Grabbing the sheet from the bed, she tucked it around her and climbed the stairs. The sunlight was so bright that she was blinded for a moment. Then she saw him, swimming in the lake, his strong arms reaching for the water and pulling it behind him in a sleek show of fury.

She sat at the edge of the vessel, swinging her feet over the side, and watched. The sun was warm, the
day unfolding like a precious blossom for someone who’d never before seen a flower.

Brilliant blue and black dragonflies hovered just over the water, dancing like the prickles of light behind her lids when she closed her eyes. Rogan was working off his uncertainties in the lake, which was clearly defined now that the water level had dropped. Carolina was content to sit quietly and absorb the wonder of the morning. There were no doubts in her mind, no questions to be faced, and no decisions to be wrestled with.

Watching Rogan slice the water like Poseidon in the Aegean Sea was enough. Rogan was right: Now she’d done it. But in spite of his frantic pace, which clearly spoke of his misgivings, she knew that he’d felt something special too.

Carolina could understand his confusion. He’d alienated himself from the world, and she’d intruded. She understood alienation; she’d had many lonely moments of pain and separation herself. The reasons had been different—he’d chosen and she hadn’t—but the end result was the same. Still, he was wrong about one thing:
It
would happen again.

And then he turned and was swimming back to the boat. He pulled himself to the dock and stood in the sunlight, totally nude, allowing the water to drip from his body.

“Good morning, Captain.”

Rogan, who was slinging the water from his hair, looked up and stopped. She was wrapped in white, her lovely head and face silhouetted like an angel’s against the sun. She leaned forward, smiling, and he felt all the regrets he’d wrestled with for the last hour melt away.

“Good morning, Carolina.”

“My, how formal. What happened to ‘my darling Carrie,’ or even ‘Goldilocks’?” she teased, but the question in her voice gave away her uncertainty.

Rogan let out a silent groan. Above him, Carolina held out her hand and smiled, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had some inner serenity that his gruffness didn’t touch.

She gave him another tentative smile, stood, and spun away, clasping her sheet like a sarong. “Are you feeling strong enough to give my cooking a second try? If not, we could eat peaches.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said, and began to climb again. “I have to go into town and consult a practicing attorney. I’ll just get something there.”

“May I come too?”

“No!” he snapped, and knew he was overreacting. Her puzzled expression was erased from her face, leaving a protective mask in its place.

“Rogan, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But ever since that first night you brought me here, I’ve known this had to be, that we had to be. Why do you insist on fighting it?”

“Carolina, I didn’t bring you here. I don’t know why you keep talking like that.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any experience in how I’m supposed to act the morning after, but somehow I thought it was the woman who had second thoughts, not the man.”

Rogan walked up the ramp and reached for a towel that was hanging on the rail. With little bashfulness, he dried himself thoroughly before wrapping the towel around his lean hips in such deliberate motions that she realized he was delaying his response.

“Carolina, I apologize for what happened. I was angry that anybody had made you feel inferior, that your own father had suggested that you were less than a woman. What I did was simply to show you that you are desirable, that any man would be proud to have you.”

She flinched. “Any man but you?”

“It isn’t that. I just don’t make commitments anymore.” But he had, he thought as quickly as he’d said it. He’d promised to take care of her.

Carolina’s tongue rimmed dry lips. Her heart was hammering so loudly that she knew Rogan must surely hear it. “But you have,” she whispered, recalling a different promise. “You promised to teach me to cook, and in return I would paint the
Scarlet Butterfly
.”

He felt a deep pain in his chest, a hurt that rose up and almost choked him. With every stride he’d made in the water, he’d told himself that what he’d done was wrong. Carolina was vulnerable. She’d expect more than he could give. She’d expect magic, and all he had to give was the illusion. One night of awakening in his arms wouldn’t last a lifetime, and he’d been wrong to promise her more.

Still, as he glared at her, and saw her lips quivering and her proud chin jutting out in defiance, he felt his resolve crumble.

“Besides, Rogan,” she went on, “you told my father that you’d take care of me. I don’t think I could be so wrong about what happened between us last night. It was special to you too. I’m not asking for forever—just this, for now.”

As moisture gathered in her eyes, he gathered her in his arms, burying her face against his chest. The
trembling left her body as she leaned against him. And Rogan knew that he’d never had a choice.

“Please, make love to me again, my knight in shining armor. We don’t know,” she added impishly, “there may be demons in the woods who will try to take my Sir Galahad prisoner, and I may never see him again.”

There were demons, all right, but they weren’t in the woods—they were in Rogan’s mind. There was no fighting them; the temptation being offered was too strong. Involuntarily he slid one arm around her back and the other beneath her thighs and laid her on the deck. “Why are you doing this? How can you be sure?”

“I’m very sure. I want you to make love to your lady, here on deck in the sunlight, so that she can remember you in the long years of your imprisonment.”

“This isn’t ‘Once upon a time,’ Carolina, some fairy tale in a book.”

“For me it is, Rogan. Don’t spoil the fantasy.”

He released his towel and flung it away, leaving nothing to hide his desire. And then he kissed her, hard, with urgency, his hand holding her nakedness to the rough thrust of his body.

This time he wasn’t gentle, but this time she didn’t want gentleness. She accepted and welcomed his desire as he branded her body with playful nips, reveling in the knowledge that she could bring this taciturn man to such a loss of control. When she was finally writhing in agony, he lifted himself and plunged inside.

She vaguely understood that he was responding with his emotion, allowing his need to carry him past
reason, past control. He was loving her, but he would not give in to the admission. She understood. And if she could make him see how right they were together, his fear would change with time. She had found her way out of despair, and so would he.