Chapter 4

 

They were still holding hands when they stepped off the elevator on Daphne's floor. Their palms were pressed tightly, hotly together, their fingers intertwined like two frightened, lovesick teenagers who have finally, irrevocably decided to do something about their feelings for each other.

Only I wasn't this scared the first time, Daphne thought, taking two steps to every one of Adam's as they hurried down the long narrow corridor. I wasn't this excited. And, oh God, I wasn't nearly this hungry.

"Your key card?" Adam said tersely as they came to an abrupt halt in front of the door to her hotel room.

"It's in your pocket," she answered, equally terse, her eyes focused on the curved brass numbers that adorned the door. She was afraid to look up at Adam, afraid to allow herself even one more glance into those burning blue eyes of his before they got into the privacy of her room. She was afraid that, if she did, she'd make a complete fool of herself by melting into a molten little heap of whimpering need right there on the pale gold carpet of the hallway.

Adam, apparently, was no better off. "Your key card?" he repeated, as if he hadn't heard her. His voice was low, strained.

"It's in your pocket. You put my purse in..." Daphne began a trifle impatiently, glancing up as she spoke. The words caught in her throat. I was right not to look at him, she thought, unable to tear her eyes away now that she had.

Adam's expression was slightly dazed, his firm lips full and softer looking than they had been just a minute ago. He was staring at her mouth as if he could barely restrain himself from kissing her senseless.

Daphne's stomach began to quiver, the sensation rapidly moving outward and lower, causing little waves of need to radiate in all directions until even her knees were shaking. "You put my purse in your pocket," she repeated, barely managing to get the words out. "And the key... the key..." she faltered, licking suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

Adam gave a muffled groan and his hands came up to grip her shoulders. He lowered his head, blindly seeking her mouth with his.

"My purse, Adam," she whispered hoarsely, stopping him with a hand against his chest. "The key card is in my purse."

Adam groaned again, in protest this time, but he let her go and reached into his pocket, retrieving the tiny mesh bag. "Hurry," he pleaded, pressing it into her hand.

Silently, her fingers trembling, Daphne took it from him, extracted the key card, and unlocked the door. The room was in shadows, illuminated only by the narrow wedge of light peeking around the edge of the bathroom door. Before Daphne could even begin to grope along the wall for a light switch, Adam pushed her inside, slammed the door with a ferocious bang, and hauled her into his arms.

"Oh, God, Daphne," she heard him say, just before his mouth found hers in the darkness, claiming it with a savage hunger. Her purse fell to the floor as she flung her arms around his neck. She stretched on tiptoe, her mouth answering his, her arms clinging to him like a drowning woman clutching a life preserver.

The thrust of his tongue was almost manic, seeking, searching, as their mouths twisted and turned upon each other. Her fingers threaded through the soft golden strands of his hair, holding his head as if she were afraid he might somehow disappear into thin air. But disappearing was the farthest thing from Adam's mind.

His hands roamed her back while he kissed her, kneading the curves of her spine and shoulders, sizzling over apricot silk as he sought a way to the warm soft skin beneath the dress.

Daphne, too, began seeking bare flesh. Her hands dropped to his neck, whispering over the skin of his nape, and slid under the collar of his evening jacket. With her mouth still sealed tightly to his, she managed to ease the jacket off his shoulders, momentarily forcing him to release his hold on her as she pushed the tuxedo jacket down his arms. It dropped, unheeded, to the carpeted floor.

Her arms circled his waist then, as his went around her, and her hands tugged impatiently at the fabric of his shirt until it came free of his slacks. With a muffled cry, she pressed her palms flat against the smooth bare skin of his lower back, pulling him even more tightly to her.

Obligingly, Adam arched, thrusting his hips forward as he instinctively sought the soft cradle of her thighs. But their heights were too disparate, despite her high-heels, for either of them to feel the pressure where they most wanted it. Adam bent his knee, insinuating it between her parted thighs, and slid his hands down to cup her buttocks, lifting her into his aroused body.

Daphne whimpered softly, deep in her throat, and began to move against him. Her hands flexed rhythmically against the bare flesh of his back, her thighs tight against the welcome intrusion of his.

Adam's tongue thrust deeper into her open mouth, blatantly imitating the more subtle movements of his hips. His hands feathered over her pliant body, frantic now as he looked for a way to get her out of the dress without letting her go. He managed to loosen the belt enough so that it slid to the floor, but that was as far as he could go. His skillful, seeking fingers found neither buttons nor zipper.

He lifted his head, breathing in great, ragged gulps of air. "Wait," he gasped, trying to stop Daphne's hands as she fumbled with the fastening of his cummerbund.

But Daphne didn't seem to hear him. Her fingers continued to struggle under his and the pleated cummerbund fell away. He caught her hands in his as she reached for the zipper of his slacks.

"Daffy, wait," he ordered gruffly, fighting the urge to simply tear the dress from her body.

Daphne stilled, the urgency of his command getting through to her. She tilted her head back to look up at him. She was breathing deeply, a bit raggedly, her breasts resting against his heaving chest. She blinked, trying to focus. "Why?"

"Because I don't know how to get this damn dress off you without tearing it, that's why."

"Damn dress?" She straightened away from him a little and peered down at herself in the darkness, past the two pairs of hands that were still pressed firmly against the waistband of his slacks. "It's a very nice dress," she said inanely, a faint hint of indignation in her tone.

"Very nice," he agreed, sudden reluctant laughter rumbling deep in his chest. "Except that there aren't any buttons or zippers on it. How do I get it off you?"

In answer, Daphne withdrew her hands from under his and, in two quick movements, unfastened the small crystal buttons on either wrist. Then, crossing her arms in front of her body, she grasped the elastic waistline, pulled the dress up over her head and dropped eight-hundred dollars worth of pure silk inside out on the carpeted floor.

"There," she said matter-of-factly. "It's off." She stood before him wearing only a pair of expensive high-heeled shoes, sheer French-cut panty hose, and a strapless bra the color of heavily creamed coffee. Her breasts rose softly above the satin bra, their upper slopes lightly sprinkled with pale golden-brown freckles that seemed to dance and shimmer with each quick breath she drew.

Adam gulped audibly, his sudden laughter stilled as quickly as it had come, and reached for her again.

But Daphne stepped back, shaking her head, her crystal earrings brushing softly against her neck with the movement. At the same time she reached out, grasping the end of his bow tie with trembling fingers, and tugged it loose. It came undone easily and she drew it out from under the collar of his shirt, tossing it to the floor with one hand, reaching for the topmost button on his shirt with the other.

Adam put his hands on her waist then, over the lace band of her panty hose, as if to steady her. His long hard fingers curved around to the small of her back. His thumbs rested against her hipbones, rotating slowly.

Daphne gasped softly but continued with her task. Head bent, intent on what she was doing, she unbuttoned the first button... the second... the third, her fingers becoming a bit more frantic and hurried as each one revealed a bit more of Adam's hard golden chest. At last it was done and she slipped her hands under the shirt, laying her palms ever so gently over the hard curve of his chest.

Adam sucked in his breath, going very still beneath her caressing hands, but she could feel his heart slamming into her palm. Twice as hard, twice as fast as it had been downstairs in the ballroom.

So soft, she thought. So warm. So exactly as her hands remembered him. She had always loved touching him.

She straightened her fingers, threading them up through the tangle of silky hair on his chest and then down again, until she could feel one hard male nipple against the center of each sensitive palm. She sighed deeply, raggedly, eyes closed as she savored the feel of the man she had thought she would never, ever touch again.

Adam's hands slid up her back as she stood there with her hands on his chest, and deftly released the clasp of her bra. Daphne's eyes fluttered open, bright as liquid gold as she stared up into the blue furnace of his. She lifted her arms from her sides, letting the bra fall away from her body. Her breasts were full and firm and aching, the nipples pale cocoa-brown and hard as little pebbles, puckered tightly with desire. She moved forward until her breasts were touching his chest, until the little golden whorls of hair were tickling her sensitive skin.

So exactly as she remembered him, she thought, stifling the excited little moan that rose to her lips.

Adam wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him, his mouth taking hers in a quick hard kiss that seemed designed to brand her lips with his passion and possession. Then he lifted her off her feet and carried her across the gold carpet to the bed.

Daphne retained just enough presence of mind to kick her heels off along the way. They hit the carpeted floor with soft little thumps that neither of them noticed. Then Adam laid her gently on the turned-down bed and straightened up to remove the rest of his clothes. Lying there, watching him peel down to bare skin, Daphne ceased to have any mind at all.

How many nights had she watched him undress? How many times had she lain on a bed, hot and aching and needy as she waited for him to touch her? To come down onto the bed and cover her with his hard, golden body? To make love to her?

She remembered all of those nights. Everyone. And she remembered all the long, lonely nights without him.

Suddenly unable to wait any longer for this night to begin she sat up on the bed, intending to shimmy out of her panty hose. Adam stopped her with a hand on her chest, pressing her back onto the cool white sheets. Then, gloriously naked, he hooked trembling hands in the waistband of her one remaining garment, drawing them past her hips and down her legs. Standing there beside the bed, her panty hose dangling inside out from one hand, he gazed down at her.

His heated gaze traveled slowly up over her body, making a visual feast of her ankles and calves and smooth creamy thighs, leaving ripples of sensation fluttering across the softly rounded belly, and the full, taut breasts that rose and fell with each quick breath.

Daphne, lying so still under his heated gaze, was making a survey of her own. Her eyes, gleaming golden in the dim room, traveled greedily over his body, taking inventory, remembering.

His legs and arms were still corded with the long, lean muscles of a regular runner, still dusted with that sprinkling of soft blond hair that gave him the look of a gilded David. His shoulders were still those of a football player. His chest was still deep and broad, the flat male nipples looking like tiny bronze disks nestled among the silky chest hairs. Avidly, starved for the sight of him, her gaze followed the narrowing arrow of chest hair down the flat-muscled wall of his stomach to where it widened around the base of his penis. He was full and hard and straining eagerly toward her.

Her eyes skittered back to his face and found his eyes waiting for her. They stared at each other, glittering golden eyes burning into blazing blue ones, for a full thirty seconds without saying a word.

"You haven't changed a bit," he said finally, his deep voice betraying none of the trembling that had taken control of his body. "You're still so damned beautiful."

"So are you." Daphne bent her knees, pressing her heels into the matress, opening her body to his. "Come to me," she whispered huskily, lifting her arms to embrace him as he put his knee on the mattress and lowered his body to hers.

His narrow hips settled between her thighs as if it had only been one night and not eleven long years since the last time. His arms slid under her plaint body as hers twined tightly round his neck. He thrust forward, sliding unerringly into her waiting, willing heat and moistness. Daphne's body arched convulsively and they both moaned in wordless satisfaction. For mere seconds only, the space a heartbeat, they pressed tightly together, eyes closed, savoring the sweetness and heat of their union. And then Adam slid his hands up her back to her nape, cradling her head in his big, gentle hands as he lifted her chin with his thumbs.

"Daphne," he said. "Look at me."

Daphne opened her eyes. "Yes," she said. "Now. Please."

And Adam began to move, pressing his hips down and forward in the slow, heavy, measured rhythm she remembered far too well. It was a rhythm meant to drive her to the edge of delirium and keep her there, balanced on the brink of satisfaction for as long as possible. Unwilling, unable, to wait, Daphne wrapped her legs around his waist and thrust her hips upward, frantic for completion.

"Daphne." His voice was ragged, breathless. "Oh, God, baby, slow down. I..." He shifted his hands to her hips, pressing down, trying to hold her still. "I'll be too fast for you if you don't slow down."

"No." She panted the words into his neck. "No, you won't." He had never been too fast for her. Never. She had always been as wild for him as he was for her. She was on fire now, her passion fueled by eleven long years of being without him. She pressed her nails into the hard curve of his buttocks. "Adam, please," she urged frantically. "Please."

Adam slipped his hands under her hips, fitting her body even more closely to his, and matched his thrusts to hers. They moved frantically, wildly, flesh pounding into willing flesh, until finally, inevitably, Daphne's body stiffened like an overstrung bow beneath him. She let loose a low ragged moan of ecstatic pleasure that was echoed a moment later by a deep groan from Adam.

They collapsed into each other, boneless, replete, and utterly drained. It took several long minutes for their breathing to slow to rhythms that even approached normal and several more after that before Adam reluctantly raised his head from the warm, sweet space between her neck and shoulder. He stared down into her eyes for a brief second and the look that passed between them was somehow hesitant, almost shy, as if neither of them knew quite what to say now that the wild storm of passion had passed.

Well, Daphne thought, what do you say to an ex-husband when you find yourself in bed with him after a separation of eleven years?

Before she could come up with a suitable answer, Adam pushed himself up to his hands, lifting himself from her body, and rolled over onto his back. He lay beside her, silent and still, not touching, as if waiting for her to speak first.

Daphne shivered, feeling suddenly cold and almost—almost, but not quite—ashamed of her display of unleashed passion for a man she hadn't seen or spoken to in eleven years. She had fallen into bed with Adam tonight because, despite everything, she loved him. And she believed, wholeheartedly, that love was nothing to be ashamed of.

But why had Adam fallen into bed with her?

His motives hadn't seemed important before the act. Only her need had been important then. But now, after that fierce terrible need had been assuaged and she was lying there beside him feeling absurdly lost and alone, knowing his motives seemed like the most important thing in the world.

She dismissed love—his love—as a contributing factor. She was wise enough to know that it wasn't love that had driven Adam to her bed tonight. He had, after all, been the one to file for divorce all those years ago. Lust, then, she decided. Adam had always been a very physical man, and she'd always been able to arouse him with little more than a look. Lust and, as a recent article in Cosmopolitan had suggested, propinquity, nostalgia and a certain morbid curiosity about what it would be like to have sex with an ex-spouse. On her part, as well as his, she acknowledged, forcing herself to face the plain unvarnished truth.

Because she had wondered, especially during the calm placid years with Miles, if the explosive passion Adam had kindled in her was only a memory that had been exaggerated by time and distance. Well, she didn't have to wonder anymore. No mere memory could make her feel the way Adam had tonight.

Daphne turned her head and found him staring at her in the darkness. His eyes seemed to reflect every bit of the confusion she felt, but in the dim light, she couldn't be sure. His hand moved between them on the bed, his little finger curling around hers.

"Daphne, I—" he began.

His words were cut off by a series of sharp staccato beeps. They both jumped as if a whip had been cracked over their nude bodies. Adam jackknifed to his feet. "Damn beeper." He took three long steps across the room and scooped his tuxedo jacket up off the floor. Hurriedly, he rummaged through the pockets, found the small rectangular box and shut it off.

"I'm sorry." He gestured at the beeper in his hand, his expression registering something that looked suspiciously like relief. Daphne recognized it because she felt it, too. He had been about to say something about the situation they were in, about to utter some banal commonplace to explain away their mutual passion or, worse, offer an apology. Daphne didn't want to hear it, and she was glad the beeper had stopped him from saying it.

"Probably the hospital," he said then, crossing the room to sit down on the edge of the rumpled bed with his back to her. He switched on the squat bedside lamp and reached for the phone. "I have to call my service," he mumbled, glancing over his shoulder at her as he dialed.

Daphne nodded and scurried under the covers when he turned back to answer the voice on the other end of the line. She sat with her knees pulled to her chest, the blankets held under her chin with both hands, and listened to his side of the phone conversation.

"Umm-hmm. When?" he said into the phone. His voice was cool, professional. The unflappable Dr. Forrest, Daphne thought wryly. She wondered what the person on the other end of the telephone would say if they could see him sitting there naked, feeling around on the floor for his clothes.

"How long has she been complaining of the pain?" He found his briefs and, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, used both hands to pull them on. "Umm-hmm. No, I realize she can be difficult to deal with, and I left specific instructions to call me if—No, it's all right, really, you didn't interrupt anything important." He maneuvered his slacks over his feet and up to his thighs. "Yes, fine. Fifteen minutes." He dropped the receiver into the cradle and stood, zipping up his slacks as he did so.

"That was the hospital," he said unnecessarily, looking around for his shirt. He found it lying half under the bedside table. He picked it up, shoved his arms into the sleeves and began fastening the buttons. "One of my patients is experiencing some unusual pain after an abdominal tuck. I don't think it's anything really serious, but I don't want to take any chances." He sat down again to put on his shoes and socks. "I hope you understand."

"Yes, of course. I understand," she said, understanding only that he couldn't get out of the room fast enough.

Dressed now, his cummerbund and bow tie stuffed into a jacket pocket, Adam leaned across the width of the bed and touched Daphne's shoulder through the blankets. She forced herself not to jerk away from him. "I'm sorry about this, Daffy. About leaving you like this right after..." He hesitated slightly, not knowing what to say.

Daphne stopped him before he could go any further. "It's okay," she said woodenly, still hearing those words he had said to the nurse, or whoever it was on the other end of the phone. You didn't interrupt anything important. "I really do understand. Duty calls."

Adam straightened, his expression disconcerted and doubtful, but Daphne wasn't looking at him. She was studying the polish on her left thumbnail.

"Maybe we could get together for lunch tomorrow," he suggested.

Rather halfheartedly, Daphne thought. It was obvious the invitation sprung from his innate sense of obligation. She didn't want any part of any mercy lunch. You didn't interrupt anything important.

"I don't think so," she said, without looking at him.

"But—"

"No, really, I can't." She lifted her head, forcing herself to smile at him. "I have to catch an early plane home tomorrow." She slid from the bed, wrapping the bedspread around her as she rose. "So it's really kind of fortunate that call came when it did." She rounded the end of the bed and headed for the door of her room, the green and gold spread trailing behind her like a train. "I need to get up really early tomorrow." She gave him what she hoped was a casual look as she reached for the doorknob. "And I'm a real grouch when I don't get enough sleep. Remember?" She pulled open the door, shielding her half-clad body behind it. "Well, it's been lovely seeing you again, Adam," she went on, tacitly inviting him to leave. "We must do it again sometime."

Adam hesitated for a moment, irresolute, unsure how to respond. Something flickered in his eyes for a moment, and then he shrugged and forced a smile. Tossing his tuxedo jacket over his shoulder, he strolled toward Daphne. He stopped at the open door and lifted her chin with his free hand. Daphne clutched the bedspread tighter.

"Give me a call next time you're in town and we will," he suggested, dropping a quick, careless kiss on her astonished mouth before he left.