“‘Item fifteen, clause B. I find the wording here too vague. As we discussed, my client feels very strongly about her rights and responsibilities as a new mother. The nanny will accompany the child to the set, at my client’s expense. However, she will require regular breaks in order to feed the infant. The trailer provided by you must be equipped with a portable crib and…’” For the third time during her dictation, A.J. lost her train of thought.
“Diapers?” Diane suggested.
“What?” A.J. turned from the window to look at her secretary.
“Just trying to help. Want me to read it back to you?”
“Yes, please.”
While Diane read the words back, A.J. frowned down at the contract in her hand. “‘And a playpen,’” A.J. finished, and managed to smile at her secretary. “I’ve never seen anyone so wrapped up in motherhood.”
“Doesn’t fit her image, does it? She always plays the heartless sex bomb.”
“This little movie of the week should change that. Okay, finish it up with ‘Once the above changes are made, the contract will be passed along to my client for signing.’”
“Do you want this out today?”
“Hmm?”
“Today, A.J.?” With a puzzled smile, Diane studied her employer. “You want the letter to go right out?”
“Oh. Yes, yes, it’d better go out.” She checked her watch. “I’m sorry, Diane, it’s nearly five. I hadn’t realized.”
“No problem.” Closing her notebook, Diane rose. “You seem a little distracted today. Big plans for the holiday weekend?”
“Holiday?”
“Memorial Day weekend, A.J.” With a shake of her head, Diane tucked her pencil behind her ear. “You know, three days off, the first weekend of summer. Sand, surf, sun.”
“No.” She began rearranging the papers on her desk. “I don’t have any plans.” Shaking off the mood, she looked up again. Distracted? What she was was a mess. She was bogged down in work she couldn’t concentrate on, tied up in knots she couldn’t loosen. With a shake of her head, she glanced at Diane again and remembered there were other people in the world beside herself. “I’m sure you do. Let the letter wait. There’s no mail delivery Monday, anyway. We’ll send it over by messenger Tuesday.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have an interesting three days planned.” Diane gave her own watch a check. “And he’s picking me up in an hour.”
“Go home.” A.J. waved her off as she shuffled through papers. “Don’t get sunburned.”
“A.J.—” Diane paused at the door and grinned “—I don’t plan to see the sun for three full days.”
When the door shut, A.J. slipped off her glasses and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t seem to concentrate for more than five minutes at a stretch before her attention started wandering.
Overwork? she wondered as she looked down at the papers in her hand. That was an evasion; she thrived on overwork. She wasn’t sleeping well. She was sleeping alone. One had virtually nothing to do with the other, A.J. assured herself as she unstacked and restacked papers. She was too much her own person to moon around because David Brady had been out of town for a few days.
But she did miss him. She picked up a pencil to work, then ended up merely running it through her fingers. There wasn’t any crime in missing him, was there? It wasn’t as though she were dependent on him. She’d just gotten used to his company. Wouldn’t he be smug and self-satisfied to know that she’d spent half her waking hours thinking about him? Disgusted with herself, A.J. began to work in earnest. For two minutes.
It was his fault, she thought as she tossed the pencil down again. That extravagantly romantic dinner for two, then that silly little bouquet of daisies he’d sent the day he’d left for Chicago. Though she tried not to, she reached out and stroked the petals that sat cheerful and out of place on her desk. He was trying to make a giddy, romantic fool out of her—and he was succeeding.
It just had to stop. A.J. adjusted her glasses, picked up her pencil and began to work again. She wasn’t going to give David Brady another thought. When the knock sounded at her door a few moments later, she was staring into space. She blinked herself out of the daydream, swore, then called out. “Come in.”
“Don’t you ever quit?” Abe asked her when he stuck his head in the door.
Quit? She’d barely made a dent. “I’ve got a couple of loose ends. Abe, the Forrester contract comes up for renewal the first of July. I think we should start prodding. His fan mail was two to one last season, so—”
“First thing Tuesday morning I’ll put the squeeze on. Right now I have to go marinate.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Big barbecue this weekend,” Abe told her with a wink. “It’s the only time my wife lets me cook. Want me to put a steak on for you?”
She smiled, grateful that he’d brought simpler things to her mind. Hickory smoke, freshly cut grass, burned meat. “No, thanks. The memory of the last one’s a little close.”
“The butcher gave me bad quality meat.” He hitched up his belt and thought about spending the whole weekend in bathing trunks.
“That’s what they all say. Have a good holiday, Abe. Just be prepared to squeeze hard on Tuesday.”
“No problem. Want me to lock up?”
“No, I’ll just be a few more minutes.”
“If you change your mind about that steak, just come by.”
“Thanks.” Alone again, A.J. turned her concentration back to her work. She heard the sounds of her staff leaving for the day. Doors closing, scattered laughter.
David stood in the doorway and watched her. The rest of her staff was pouring out of the door as fast as they could, but she sat, calm and efficient, behind her desk. The fatigue that had had him half dozing on the plane washed away. Her hair was tidy, her suit jacket trim and smooth over her shoulders. She held the pencil in long, ringless fingers and wrote in quick, static bursts. The daisies he’d sent her days before sat in a squat vase on her desk. It was the first, the only unbusinesslike accent he’d ever seen in her office. Seeing them made him smile. Seeing her made him want.
He could see himself taking her there in her prim, organized office. He could peel that tailored, successful suit from her and find something soft and lacy beneath. With the door locked and traffic rushing by far below, he could make love with her until all the needs, all the fantasies, that had built in the days he’d been away were satisfied.
A.J. continued to write, forcing her concentration back each time it threatened to ebb. It wasn’t right, she told herself, that her system would start to churn this way for no reason. The dry facts and figures she was reading shouldn’t leave room for hot imagination. She rubbed the back of her neck, annoyed that tension was building there out of nothing. She would have sworn she could feel passion in the air. But that was ridiculous.
Then she knew. As surely as if he’d spoken, as surely as if he’d already touched her. Slowly, her hand damp on the pencil, she looked up.
There was no surprise in her eyes. It should have made him uneasy that she’d sensed him there when he’d made no sound, no movement. The fact that it didn’t was something he would think of later. Now he could only think of how cool and proper she looked behind the desk. Of how wild and wanton she was in his arms.
She wanted to laugh, to spring up from the desk and rush across the room. She wanted to be held close and swung in dizzying circles while the pleasure of just seeing him again soared through her. Of course she couldn’t. That would be foolish. Instead she lifted a brow and set her pencil on her blotter. “So you’re back.”
“Yeah. I had a feeling I’d find you here.” He wanted to drag her up from her chair and hold her. Just hold her. He dipped his hands into his pockets and leaned against the jamb.
“A feeling?” This time she smiled. “Precognition or telepathy?”
“Logic.” He smiled, too, then walked toward the desk. “You look good, Fields. Real good.”
Leaning back in her chair, she gave herself the pleasure of a thorough study. “You look a little tired. Rough trip?”
“Long.” He plucked a daisy from the vase and spun it by the stem. “But it should be the last one before we wrap.” Watching her, he came around the desk, then, resting a hip on it, leaned over and tucked the daisy behind her ear. “Got any plans for tonight?”
If she’d had any, she would have tossed them out the window and forgotten them. With her tongue caught in her teeth, A.J. made a business out of checking her desk calender. “No.”
“Tomorrow?”
She flipped the page over. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Sunday?”
“Even agents need a day of rest.”
“Monday?”
She flipped the next page and shrugged. “Offices are closed. I thought I’d spend the day reading over some scripts and doing my nails.”
“Uh-huh. In case you hadn’t noticed, office hours are over.”
Her heart was drumming. Already. Her blood was warming. So soon. “I’d noticed.”
In silence he held out his hand. After only a slight hesitation, A.J. put hers into it and let him draw her up. “Come home with me.”
He’d asked her before, and she’d refused. Looking at him now, she knew the days of refusal were long past. Reaching down, she gathered her purse and her briefcase.
“Not tonight,” David told her, and took the briefcase to set it back down.
“I want to—”
“Not tonight, Aurora.” Taking her hand again, he brought it to his lips. “Please.”
With a nod, she left the briefcase and the office behind.
They kept their hands linked as they walked down the hall. They kept them linked still as they rode down in the elevator. It didn’t seem foolish, A.J. realized, but sweet. He hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t held her, and yet the tension that had built so quickly was gone again, just through a touch.
She was content to leave her car in the lot, thinking that sometime the next day, they’d drive back into town and arrange things. Pleased just to be with him again, she stopped at his car while he unlocked the doors.
“Haven’t you been home yet?” she asked, noticing a suitcase in the back seat.
“No.”
She started to smile, delighted that he’d wanted to see her first, but she glanced over her shoulder again as she stepped into the car. “I have a case just like that.”
David settled in the seat, then turned on the ignition. “That is your case.”
“Mine?” Baffled, she turned around and looked closer. “But—I don’t remember you borrowing one of my suitcases.”
“I didn’t. Mine are in the trunk.” He eased out of the lot and merged with clogged L.A. weekend traffic.
“Well, if you didn’t borrow it, what’s it doing in your car?”
“I stopped by your place on the way. Your housekeeper packed for you.”
“Packed…” She stared at the case. When she turned to him, her eyes were narrowed. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Brady. Just where do you come off packing my clothes and assuming—”
“The housekeeper packed them. Nice lady. I thought you’d be more comfortable over the weekend with some of your own things. I had thought about keeping you naked, but that’s a little tricky when you take walks in the woods.”
Because her jaw was beginning to ache, she relaxed it. “You thought? You didn’t think at all. You drop by the office and calmly assume that I’ll drop everything and run off with you. What if I’d had plans?
“Then that would’ve been too bad.” He swung easily off the ramp toward the hills.
“Too bad for whom?”
“For the plans.” He punched in the car lighter and sent her a mild smile. “I have no intention of letting you out of my sight for the next three days.”
“You have no intention?” The fire was rising as she shifted in her seat toward him. “What about my intention? Maybe you think it’s very male and macho to just—just bundle a woman off for a weekend without asking, without any discussion, but I happen to prefer being consulted. Stop the car.”
“Not a chance.” David had expected this reaction. Even looked forward to it. He touched the lighter to the tip of his cigarette. He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much for days. Since the last time he’d been with her.
Her breath came out in a long, slow hiss. “I don’t find abductions appealing.”
“Didn’t think I did, either.” He blew out a lazy stream of smoke. “Guess I was wrong.”
She flopped back against her seat, arms folded. “You’re going to be sorry.”
“I’m only sorry I didn’t think of it before.” With his elbow resting lightly on the open window, he drove higher into the hills, with A.J. fuming beside him. The minute he stopped the car in his drive, A.J. pushed open her door, snatched her purse up and began to walk. When he grabbed her arm, she spun around, holding the pastel-dyed leather like a weapon.
“Want to fight?”
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.” She yanked her arm out of his hold. “I’m walking back.”
“Oh?” He look a quick look at the slim skirt, thin hose and fragile heels. “You wouldn’t make it the first mile in those shoes.”
“That’s my problem.”
He considered a minute, then sighed. “I guess we’ll just carry through with the same theme.” Before she realized his intention, he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her over his shoulder.
Too stunned to struggle, she blew hair out of her eyes. “Put me down.”
“In a few minutes,” he promised as he walked toward the house.
“Now.” She whacked him smartly on the back with her purse. “This isn’t funny.”
“Are you kidding?” When he stuck his key in the lock, she began to struggle. “Easy, A.J., you’ll end up dropping on your head.”
“I’m not going to tolerate this.” She tried to kick out and found her legs pinned behind the knee. “David, this is degrading. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but if you get hold of yourself now, I’ll forget the whole thing.”
“No deal.” He started up the steps.
“I’ll give you a deal,” she said between her teeth as she made a futile grab for the railing. “If you put me down now, I won’t kill you.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“Okay.” With a quick twist of his body, he had her falling backward. Even as her eyes widened in shock, he was tumbling with her onto the bed.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” she demanded as she struggled to sit up.
“You,” he said, so simply she stopped in the act of shoving him away. “You,” he repeated, cupping the back of her neck. “I thought about you the whole time I was gone. I wanted you in Chicago. I wanted you in the airport, and thirty thousand feet up I still wanted you.”
“You’re—this is crazy.”
“Maybe. Maybe it is. But when I was on that plane flying back to L.A. I realized that I wanted you here, right here, alone with me for days.”
His fingers were stroking up and down her neck, soothing. Her nerves were stretching tighter and tighter. “If you’d asked,” she began.
“You’d have had an excuse. You might have spent the night.” His fingers inched up into her hair. “But you’d have found a reason you couldn’t stay longer.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Why haven’t you spent a weekend with me before?”
Her fingers linked and twisted. “There’ve been reasons.”
“Yeah.” He put his hand over hers. “And the main one is you’re afraid to spend more than a few hours at a time with me.” When she opened her mouth, he shook his head to cut her off. “Afraid if you do, I might just get too close.”
“I’m not afraid of you. That’s ridiculous.”
“No, I don’t think you are. I think you’re afraid of us.” He drew her closer. “So am I.”
“David.” The word was shaky. The world was suddenly shaky. Just passion, she reminded herself again. That’s what made her head swim, her heart pound. Desire. Her arms slid up his back. It was only desire. “Let’s not think at all for a while.” She touched her lips to his and felt resistance as well as need.
“Sooner or later we’re going to have to.”
“No.” She kissed him again, let her tongue trace lightly over his lips. “There’s no sooner, no later.” Her breath was warm, tempting, as it fluttered over him. “There’s only now. Make love with me now, in the light.” Her hands slipped under his shirt to tease and invite.
Her eyes were open and on his, her lips working slowly, steadily, to drive him to the edge. He swore, then pulled her to him and let the madness come.
“It’s good for you.”
“So’s calves’ liver,” A.J. said breathlessly, and paused to lean against a tree. “I avoid that, too.”
They’d taken the path behind his house, crossed the stream and continued up. By David’s calculations they’d gone about three-quarters of a mile. He walked back to stand beside her. “Look.” He spread his arm wide. “It’s terrific, isn’t it?”
The trees were thick and green. Birds rustled the leaves and sang for the simple pleasure of sound. Wildflowers she’d never seen before and couldn’t name pushed their way through the underbrush and battled for the patches of sunlight. It was, even to a passionately avowed city girl, a lovely sight.
“Yes, it’s terrific. You tend to forget there’s anything like this when you’re down in L.A.”
“That’s why I moved up here.” He put an arm around her shoulder and absently rubbed his hand up and down. “I was beginning to forget there was any place other than the fast lane.”
“Work, parties, meetings, parties, brunch, lunch and cocktails.”
“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, coming up here after a day in the factory keeps things in perspective. If a project bombs in the ratings, the sun’s still going to set.”
She thought about it, leaning into him a bit as he stroked her arm. “If I blow a deal, I go home, lock the doors, put on my headset and drown my brain in Rachmaninoff.”
“Same thing.”
“But usually I kick something first.”
He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever works. Wait till you see the view from the top.”
A.J. leaned down to massage her calf. “I’ll meet you back at the house. You can draw me a picture.”
“You need the air. Do you realize we’ve barely been out of bed for thirty-six hours?”
“And we’ve probably logged about ten hours’ sleep.” Straightening a bit, she stretched protesting muscles. “I think I’ve had enough health and nature for the day.”
He looked down at her. She wasn’t A. J. Fields now, in T-shirt and jeans and scuffed boots. But he still knew how to play her. “I guess I’m in better shape than you are.”
“Like hell.” She pushed away from the tree.
Determined to keep up, she strode along beside him, up the winding dirt path, until sweat trickled down her back. Her leg muscles whimpered, reminding her she’d neglected her weekly tennis games for over a month. At last, aching and exhausted, she dropped down on a rock.
“That’s it. I give up.”
“Another hundred yards and we start circling back.”
“Nope.”
“A.J., it’s shorter to go around this way than to turn around.”
Shorter? She shut her eyes and asked herself what had possessed her to let him drag her through the woods. “I’ll just stay here tonight. You can bring me back a pillow and a sandwich.”
“I could always carry you.”
She folded her arms. “No.”
“How about a bribe?”
Her bottom lip poked out as she considered. “I’m always open to negotiations.”
“I’ve got a bottle of cabernet sauvignon I’ve been saving for the right moment.”
She rubbed at a streak of dirt on her knee. “What year?”
“Seventy-nine.”
“A good start. That might get me the next hundred yards or so.”
“Then there’s that steak I took out of the freezer this morning, the one I’m going to grill over mesquite.”
“I’d forgotten about that.” She brought her tongue over her top lip and thought she could almost taste it. “That should get me halfway back down.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“Thank you.”
“Flowers. Dozens of them.”
She lifted a brow. “By the time we get back, the florist’ll be closed.”
“City-oriented,” he said with a sigh. “Look around you.”
“You’re going to pick me flowers?” Surprised, and foolishly pleased, she lifted her arms to twine them around his neck. “That should definitely get me through the front door.”
Smiling, she leaned back as he stepped off the path to gather blossoms. “I like the blue ones,” she called out, and laughed as he muttered at her.
She hadn’t expected the weekend to be so relaxed, so easy. She hadn’t known she could enjoy being with one person for so long. There were no schedules, no appointments, no pressing deals. There were simply mornings and afternoons and evenings.
It seemed absurd that something as mundane as fixing breakfast could be fun. She’d discovered that spending the time to eat it instead of rushing into the morning had a certain appeal. When you weren’t alone. She didn’t have a script or a business letter to deal with. And she had to admit, she hadn’t missed them. She’d done nothing more mind-teasing in two days than a crossword puzzle. And even that, she remembered happily, had been interrupted.
Now he was picking her flowers. Small, colorful wildflowers. She’d put them in a vase by the window where they’d be cozy and bright. And deadly.
For an instant, her heart stopped. The birds were silent and the air was still as glass. She saw David as though she were looking through a long lens. As she watched, the light went gray. There was pain, sharp and sudden, as her knuckles scraped over the rock.
“No!” She thought she shouted, but the word came out in a whisper. She nearly slipped off the rock before she caught herself and stumbled toward him. She gasped for his name twice before it finally ripped out of her. “David! No, stop.”
He straightened, but only had time to take a step toward her before she threw herself into his arms. He’d seen that blank terror in her eyes before, once before, when she’d stood in an old empty room watching something no one else could see.
“Aurora, what is it?” He held her close while she shuddered, though he had no idea how to soothe. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t pick any more. David, don’t.” Her fingers dug hard into his back.
“All right, I won’t.” Hands firm, he drew her away to study her face. “Why?”
“Something’s wrong with them.” The fear hadn’t passed. She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest as if to push it out. “Something’s wrong with them,” she repeated.
“They’re just flowers.” He showed her what he held in his hands.
“Not them. Over there. You were going to pick those over there.”
He followed the direction of her gaze to a large sunny rock with flowers around the perimeter. He remembered he’d just been turning in their direction when her shouts had stopped him. “Yes, I was. Let’s have a look.”
“No.” She grabbed him again. “Don’t touch them.”
“Calm down,” he said quietly enough, though his own nerves were starting to jangle. Bending, he picked up a stick. Letting the flowers he’d already picked fall, he took A.J.’s hand in his and dragged the end of the stick along the edge of the rock through a thick clump of bluebells. He heard the hissing rattle, felt the jolt of the stick he held as the snake reared up and struck. A.J.’s hand went limp in his. David held on to the stick as he pulled her back to the path. He wore boots, thick and sturdy enough to protect against the snakes scattered through the hills. But he’d been picking flowers, and there had been nothing to protect the vulnerable flesh of his hands and wrists.
“I want to go back,” she said flatly.
She was grateful he didn’t question, didn’t probe or even try to soothe. If he had, she wasn’t sure what idiotic answers she’d have given him. A.J. had discovered more in that one timeless moment than David’s immediate danger. She’d discovered she was in love with him. All her rules, her warnings, her precautions hadn’t mattered. He could hurt her now, and she might never recover.
So she didn’t speak. Because he was silent, as well, she felt the first pang of rejection. They entered through the kitchen door. David took a bottle of brandy and two water glasses out of a cupboard. He poured, handed one to A.J., then emptied half the contents of his own glass in one swallow.
She sipped, then sipped again, and felt a little steadier. “Would you like to take me home now?”
He picked up the bottle and added a dollop to his glass. “What are you talking about?”
A.J. wrapped both hands around her glass and made herself speak calmly. “Most people are uncomfortable after—after an episode. They either want to distance themselves from the source or dissect it.” When he said nothing, only stared at her, she set her glass down. “It won’t take me long to pack.”
“You take another step,” he said in a voice that was deadly calm, “and I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. Sit down, Aurora.”
“David, I don’t want an interrogation.”
He hurled his glass into the sink, making her jolt at the sudden violence. “Don’t we know each other any better than that by now?” He was shouting. She couldn’t know it wasn’t at her, but himself. “Can’t we have any sort of discussion, any sort of contact, that isn’t sex or negotiations?”
“We agreed—”
He said something so uncharacteristically vulgar about agreements that she stopped dead. “You very possibly saved my life.” He stared down at his hand, well able to imagine what might have happened. “What am I supposed to say to you? Thanks?”
When she found herself stuttering, A.J. swallowed and pulled herself back. “I’d really rather you didn’t say anything.”
He walked to her but didn’t touch. “I can’t. Look, I’m a little shaky about this myself. That doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly decided you’re a freak.” He saw the emotion come and go in her eyes before he reached out to touch her face. “I’m grateful. I just don’t quite know how to handle it.”
“It’s all right.” She was losing ground. She could feel it. “I don’t expect—”
“Do.” He brought his other hand to her face. “Do expect. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need right now.”
She tried not to. She’d lose one more foothold if she did. But his hands were gentle, when they never were, and his eyes offered. “Hold me.” She closed her eyes as she said it. “Just hold me a minute.”
He put his arms around her, drew her against him. There was no passion, no fire, just comfort. He felt her hands knead at his back until both of them relaxed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It was just a flash. I was sitting there, thinking about how nice it had been to do nothing. I was thinking about the flowers. I had a picture of them in the window. All at once they were black and ugly and the petals were like razors. I saw you bending over that clump of bluebells, and it all went gray.”
“I hadn’t bent over them yet.”
“You would have.”
“Yeah.” He held her closer a moment. “I would have. Looks like I reneged on the last part of the deal. I don’t have any flowers for you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She pressed her lips against his neck.
“I’ll have to make it up to you.” Drawing back, he took both of her hands. “Aurora…” He started to lift one, then saw the caked blood on her knuckles. “What the hell have you done to yourself?”
Blankly she looked down. “I don’t know. It hurts,” she said as she flexed her hand.
“Come on.” He led her to the sink and began to clean off dried blood with cool water.
“Ow!” She would have jerked her hand away if he hadn’t held it still.
“I’ve never had a very gentle touch,” he muttered.
She leaned a hip against the sink. “So I’ve noticed.”
Annoyed at seeing the rough wound on her hand, he began to dab it with a towel. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ve got some Merthiolate.”
“That stings.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I’m not.” But he had to tug her along. “It’s only a scrape.”
“And scrapes get infected.”
“Look, you’ve already rubbed it raw. There can’t be a germ left.”
He nudged her into the bathroom. “We’ll make sure.”
Before she could stop him, he took out a bottle and dumped medicine over her knuckles. What had been a dull sting turned to fire. “Damn it!”
“Here.” He grabbed her hand again and began to blow on the wound. “Just give it a minute.”
“A lot of good that does,” she muttered, but the pain cooled.
“We’ll fix dinner. That’ll take your mind off it.”
“You’re supposed to fix dinner,” she reminded him.
“Right.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ve got to run out for a minute. I’ll start the grill when I get back.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to be chopping vegetables while you’re gone. I’m going to take a bath.”
“Fine. If the water’s still hot when I get back, I’ll join you.”
She didn’t ask where he was going. She wanted to, but there were rules. Instead A.J. walked into the bedroom and watched from the window as he pulled out of the drive. Weary, she sat on the bed and pulled off her boots. The afternoon had taken its toll, physically, emotionally. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to feel.
Giving in, she stretched out across the bed. She’d rest for a minute, she told herself. Only for a minute.
David came home with a handful of asters he’d begged from a neighbor’s garden. He thought the idea of dropping them on A.J. while she soaked in the tub might bring the laughter back to her eyes. He’d never heard her laugh so much or so easily as she had over the weekend. It wasn’t something he wanted to lose. Just as he was discovering she wasn’t something he wanted to lose.
He went up the stairs quietly, then paused at the bedroom door when he saw her. She’d taken off only her boots. A pillow was crumpled under her arm as she lay diagonally across the bed. It occurred to him as he stepped into the room that he’d never watched her sleep before. They’d never given each other the chance.
Her face looked so soft, so fragile. Her hair was pale and tumbled onto her cheek, her lips unpainted and just parted. How was it he’d never noticed how delicate her features were, how slender and frail her wrists were, how elegantly feminine the curve of her neck was?
Maybe he hadn’t looked, David admitted as he crossed to the bed. But he was looking now.
She was fire and thunder in bed, sharp and tough out of it. She had a gift, a curse and ability she fought against every waking moment, one that he was just beginning to understand. He was just beginning to see that it made her defensive and defenseless.
Only rarely did the vulnerabilities emerge, and then with such reluctance from her he’d tended to gloss over them. But now, just now, when she was asleep and unaware of him, she looked like something a man should protect, cherish.
The first stirrings weren’t of passion and desire, but of a quiet affection he hadn’t realized he felt for her. He hadn’t realized it was possible to feel anything quiet for Aurora. Unable to resist, he reached down to brush the hair from her cheek and feel the warm, smooth skin beneath.
She stirred. He’d wanted her to. Heavy and sleep-glazed, her eyes opened. “David?” Even her voice was soft, feminine.
“I brought you a present.” He sat on the bed beside her and dropped the flowers by her hand.
“Oh.” He’d seen that before, too, he realized. That quick surprise and momentary confusion when he’d done something foolish or romantic. “You didn’t have to.”
“I think I did,” he murmured, half to himself. Almost as an experiment, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her softly, gently, with the tenderness she’d made him feel as she slept. He felt the ache move through him, sweet as a dream.
“David?” She said his name again, but this time her eyes were dark and dazed.
“Ssh.” His hands didn’t drag through her hair now with trembles of passion, but stroked, exploring the texture. He could watch the light strike individual strands. “Lovely.” He brought his gaze back to hers. “Have I ever told you how lovely you are?”
She started to reach for him, for the passion that she could understand. “It isn’t necessary.”
His lips met hers again, but they didn’t devour and demand. This mood was foreign and made her heart pound as much with uncertainty as need. “Make love with me,” she murmured as she tried to draw him down.
“I am.” His mouth lingered over hers. “Maybe for the first time.”
“I don’t understand,” she began, but he shifted so that he could cradle her in his arms.
“Neither do I.”
So he began, slowly, gently, testing them both. Her mouth offered darker promises, but he waited, coaxing. His lips were patient as they moved over hers, light and soothing as they kissed her eyes closed. He didn’t touch her, not yet, though he wondered what it would be like to stroke her while the light was softening, to caress as though it were all new, all fresh. Gradually he felt the tension in her body give way, he felt what he’d never felt from her before. Pliancy, surrender, warmth.
Her body seemed weightless, gloriously light and free. She felt the pleasure move through her, but sweetly, fluidly, like wine. Then he was the wine, heady and potent, drugging her with the intoxicating taste of his mouth. The hands that had clutched him in demand went lax. There was so much to absorb—the flavor of his lips as they lingered on hers; the texture of his skin as his cheek brushed hers; the scent that clung to him, part man, part woods; the dark, curious look in his eyes as he watched her.
She looked as she had when she’d slept, he thought. Fragile, so arousingly fragile. And she felt… At last he touched, fingertips only, along skin already warm. He heard her sigh his name in a way she’d never said it before. Keeping her cradled in his arms, he began to take her deeper, take himself deeper, with tenderness.
She had no strength to demand, no will to take control. For the first time her body was totally his, just as for the first time her emotions were. He touched, and she yielded. He tasted, and she gave. When he shifted her, she felt as though she could float. Perhaps she was. Clouds of pleasure, mists of soft, soft delight. When he began to undress her, she opened her eyes, needing to see him again.
The light had gone to rose with sunset. It made her skin glow as he slowly drew off her shirt. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t stop his hands from touching, though he had no desire to be quick. When she reached up, he helped her pull off his own shirt, then took her injured hand to his lips. He kissed her fingers, then her palm, then her wrist, until he felt her begin to tremble. Bending, he brushed her lips with his again, wanting to hear her sigh his name. Then, watching her, waiting until she looked at him, he continued to undress her.
Slowly. Achingly slowly, he drew the jeans down her legs, pausing now and then to taste newly exposed skin. Pulses beat at the back of her knees. He felt them, lingered there, exploited them. Her ankles were slim, fragile like her wrists. He traced them with his tongue until she moaned. Then he waited, letting her settle again as he stripped off his own jeans. He came to her, flesh against flesh.
Nothing had been like this. Nothing could be like this. The thoughts whirled in her brain as he began another deliciously slow assault. Her body was to be enjoyed and pleasured, not worshiped. But he did so now, and enticed her to do the same with his.
So strong. She’d known his strength before, but this was different. His fingers didn’t grip; his hands didn’t press. They skimmed, they traced, they weakened. So intense. They’d shared intensity before, but never so quietly.
She heard him say her name. Aurora. It was like a dream, one she’d never dared to have. He murmured promises in her ear and she believed them. Whatever tomorrow might bring, she believed them now. She could smell the flowers strewn over the bed and taste the excitement that built in a way it had never done before.
He slipped into her as though their bodies had never been apart. The rhythm was easy, patient, giving.
Holding himself back, he watched her climb higher. That was what he wanted, he realized, to give her everything there was to give. When she arched and shuddered, the force whipped through him. Power, he recognized it, but was driven to leash it. His mouth found hers and drew on the sweetness. How could he have known sweetness could be so arousing?
The blood was pounding in his head, roaring in his ears, yet his body continued to move slowly with hers. Balanced on the edge, David said her name a last time.
“Aurora, look at me.” When her eyes opened, they were dark and aware. “I want to see where I take you.”
Even when control slipped away, echoes of tenderness remained.