That burned him up. He took her chin in one hand, not caring that it wasn’t quite a gentle grip. “I don’t lie. I’ve wanted you since the day I walked away. But it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You were too young, our families were an added complication, I wasn’t planning on settling down.... Looking back, I was damn stupid. I should have married you and dragged you along to every grubby little jungle town I went to. At least you wouldn’t be able to accuse me of not wanting you.”
Her nose was pink and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. And her mouth was hanging open.
His hand on her jaw gentled and he gave her a sheepish smile. “Don’t look so shocked.”
She gathered herself and finally managed to speak. “You thought about marrying me?”
He nodded. “It wouldn’t have been fair to you.”
“I would have gone, you know.”
He released her chin and released her, too, stepping back to save his sanity. “I know,” he said grimly. “That’s exactly why I didn’t ask.”
“I thought it was just a convenient excuse. I thought you really didn’t want me.”
“Jeez. You thought I didn’t want you? Couldn’t you tell what I was thinking? God, Sophie, I’ve never felt about another woman the way I felt—feel—about you.”
“Meaning?” She spoke carefully, studying him as if he were some new species of animal that might be dangerous.
Suddenly he realized this conversation was getting way too deep. He had hardly thought about these feelings himself, and he definitely wasn’t ready to share them. Abruptly, he shut his mouth. He took her hand and walked with her to the door. “Meaning that you need to think about that for a while. I’m not interested in having a quick round of sex with you. But I’m leaving now because my body is arguing loudly with my reason, and I’m not sure which one will win if I don’t get out of here.”
“Oh.” She looked dazed.
He dropped a hard kiss on her lips but had to linger for a moment and let her tongue greet him again. When he forced himself to lift his head and fumble for the doorknob, he was breathing hard. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
And when he’d shut the door of her apartment behind him, he had to lean against the wall for a minute until his knees quit shaking and his body accepted the fact that it wasn’t getting what it wanted. Yet.
He had a feeling he’d leaped in over his head here, and who knew how deep the water was. But since there was no way in hell he was going to be without Sophie ever again, he’d tread water until he worked it all out.
He called her at work the next day and asked if she would have dinner with him, then look at his apartment. She nearly invited him to come over and eat at her condo, but common sense prevailed. Sparks flew too wildly when they were alone together, they were much too apt to start a fire that couldn’t be quelled.
She was ready when he amved, and they went directly to a small Chinese restaurant that had been around for years. In fact, they’d eaten here together before, she was sure. When Marco escorted her in, the sense of déjà vu was even stronger, and she turned to him.
“We came here before, didn’t we?”
He was grinning as they were led to their table. “Yeah. I wanted to see if you remembered.”
“The food’s fantastic. I remember that.”
And it was. He ordered soup and they spoke of little things until their main course arrived. When the waiter had left them, he reached across the table and took her hand, holding up the glass of rice wine in a toast. “To us,” he said.
Sophie hesitated a moment before gently clinking her glass against his. “To us,” she repeated, and they drank. But when she had set the glass down and picked up a fork—no way was she going to humiliate herself with chopsticks, she had informed him—he could see her thoughts turning like a carousel of horses moving incessantly up, down and around, time after time after time.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
She paused in the act of lifting a bite to her lips, then continued, chewing slowly and swallowing the crisp vegetable before she answered him. “A week ago, there was no ‘us.’ Now, I feel as if you have a road map of this relationship all plotted and I’m just a passenger along for the ride.”
“There was always an ‘sus,’”he corrected. “We just didn’t have time to plan the trip until now.”
She frowned. “And you’ve mapped out the whole route already, I presume.”
“I’m not sure what that means.” He eyed her warily. “Is it a crime to want to be with you?” He spread his hands. “That’s all I want, Sophie. Time for us to get to know each other again.”
She thought about it while she finished another bite. “Okay. Let’s get to know each other. Who goes first?”
“Goes first?”
“Asking the questions,” she said. “That’s a normal way for two people to get to know each other.”
“Seems to me we already know each other pretty well,” he protested.
“Then why,” she asked, “do we need time to get to know each other?”
“It was just a figure of speech,” he said. “I didn’t mean to open up a can of worms here. Look, since you don’t like the way I’ve been doing things, why don’t you make the moves for a while?”
“What if I don’t make any?”
He grinned, and her heart skipped a beat at the primitive, piratical expression. “That’s the only move that’s not allowed.”
She gave up. There was no getting around Marco once he’d made up his mind about something. Hadn’t she learned that lesson the hard way years ago?
They finished the meal in an uneasy peace and he paid the bill, then led her back to the car in the warm spring evening. “I want you to see this apartment,” he said. “I don’t need a lot of space. I think it’ll do.”
He drove her to a set of duplexes less than five minutes from her own home. After knocking on the door of the end unit, he returned with a key and helped her out of the car. “The landlady lives here as well,” he said. “Which is good, because it seems to be kept up nicely, on the outside, at least.”
He led her to one of the middle units and unlocked the door, then ushered her in and relocked it behind them. “There’s a laundry room, a spare room for an office, and garage down here,” he told her, showing her each area. “And the main living space is upstairs.”
The place had one bedroom with a private bath, a kitchen, living room and dining room and another half bath. A brick wall with a gas fireplace and mantels on each side separated the dining and living areas, and the kitchen was efficient without being cramped.
“This is really nice,” she said, as he showed her into the single bedroom. “You haven’t signed a lease yet?”
“No.” He was busy opening closets. “I wanted you to see it.”
She peeked into the bath, then turned to smile at him. “You have my blessing, for what it’s worth. Go sign the darn lease before somebody else snaps it up.”
He crossed the room to grab her by the waist and dig his fingers into her ribs. “All right, smartie.”
She shrieked, evading the tickling and darting to the other side of the room. “Truce, truce. You know I’m completely helpless when someone tickles me.” When they were much younger, her brothers had held her down and tickled her endlessly; she had distinct memories of Marco coming to her rescue more than once.
He nodded. “I remember.” Then the lightness faded from his expression, replaced by a taut, hungry look that communicated itself to her instantly as he slowly crossed the room. When he reached her, he set his hands at her waist They were so big his fingers nearly met around her torso; she was acutely aware of how small and vulnerable she was compared to his effortless strength.
“Sophie,” he said, and his voice was a growl of need. “Kiss me.”
Seven
His eyes were dark and full of a wordless appeal as he held her gaze. The tension in him quivered like a finely drawn wire, and an ans
wering excitement stirred deep in her womb. Slowly she slipped her arms up, over his wide shoulders and around to clasp the back of his neck as she lifted herself on her toes. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach his mouth; she merely rested against him with her face tilted up in invitation, and after a still, silent moment of anticipation, he lowered his head.
“Just a kiss,” he murmured before his lips claimed hers.
But for her, there was no “just” anything. Once he touched her, she was his to mold and shape and use as he willed. When he parted her lips and sought her tongue, she answered eagerly, pressing herself against him as he slanted his mouth over hers, holding her head in the hollow of his shoulder and gathering her to him. His hands moved restlessly up and down her back, then widened their search, streaking over her petite frame with easy, burning familiarity.
Her whole body tingled. Her breasts drew tight and when his palm slid possessively over one full mound, she gasped at the sensations that raced through her. Everywhere he touched her, he lit small fires of arousal that all went straight to her throbbing woman’s channel, leaving her panting and breathless in his arms, twisting with desire unfulfilled, arching against his stroking hands until the long, hard bulge of man pushing at her belly gave her the answer she needed, the means to end the torment.
When his mouth moved from hers to cruise along her jawline and worry at the sensitive shell of her ear, she shivered with sexual delight and pulled her hands down from their clasp at his wide shoulders. Her small fingers wedged between them, finding the buttons of his shirt and hastily unfastening them until the garment hung open to his lean waist, and she slipped her palms inside, over hot male flesh and rough curling hair, seeking out flat male nipples and rubbing small circles over them until he groaned and his fingers clenched on her flesh.
Then his hands mirrored her motions, swiftly dealing with the buttons of her blouse, discovering the bra she wore and sliding beneath her armpits and around her back to unfasten the lingerie with one smooth action. He drew off her blouse and bra and leaned back away from her, and she could see his chest rising and falling with his labored breathing as his eyes took in her feminine shape.
“God, you’re beautiful.” It was a whisper of a prayer as he bent his head to her shoulder and slowly, slowly began to kiss his way over her silky bare flesh, framing one breast between his thumb and index finger so that it thrust forward, and she shivered with anticipation as his mouth neared the taut crest, whimpering in frustration when he bypassed the nipple to trace a long, slow path around the fullness with his tongue.
Unable to wait, she took his head and guided it to the stiff, aching crest, pushing herself at him in invitation. And when he accepted, she cried out in mingled shock and delight as his mouth closed over her, streamers of stunning sensation racing through her and weakening her knees until she hung in his arms like a doll.
He held her to him as easily as if she really was a child’s toy, cradling her in one big arm as he suckled while the other hand explored her soft feminine contours, cruising over her body as if he had never learned her curves before. He stroked and petted, gradually working his way down to the hot, aching flesh of her woman’s mound, and when he finally pushed his hand between her legs and clasped the full, pouting flesh through her jeans, she jerked in unbearable pleasure.
“Easy, baby, easy,” he murmured. “Let’s get out of these clothes.”
She had a moment’s awareness of their surroundings, standing in an empty bedroom of a rental unit, but as his big, blunt fingers released fastenings and removed garments and cool air washed over her body, she ceased to notice where she was.
All she noticed, all she knew, was Marco.
When he had her bare but for the tiny triangle of her lacy panties, he stripped off his own clothing, laying his shirt on the floor and drawing her down to lie with him. Willingly, she let him push her onto her back. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. For so many years, she’d dreamed of him loving her again ... now that it was happening, she couldn’t quite believe it was real.
She swallowed as he tossed his briefs aside, baring his body to her gaze. She hadn’t seen him before...it had been dark, and she’d been far too shy to stare, in any case.
But now...now she was staring. Black curls arrowed from his breastbone down to his groin, where a thick dark cloud of soft hair surrounded the hard man flesh that thrust from his loins. He pulled himself close against her and she could feel the hot, throbbing length against her hip. She couldn’t resist the impulse to touch him as intimately as he had touched her, and she slipped her hand down over the silky black trail of curls, past his navel and down between his legs to cup the soft weight of his male sac in her palm. But it wasn’t enough, and as she stroked upward, finding him full and satisfyingly firm, his body jerked against her and a shudder rolled through him.
Her small hand closed over him, learning the silky texture of his male flesh, testing his inflexible strength, and as she experimentally ran her palm from the full tip down to the joint of his body, he groaned. His hand grabbed her wrist in a clasp that wasn’t entirely gentle.
“Stop,” he rasped, and before she could answer, he moved over her, slowly letting her have his full weight, easing his straining erection between her legs in a snug contact that made them both gasp. He ran a hand down her hip, then slipped it to the inside of her thigh, pulling it wider and settling himself more closely. Then his hand closed over her soft flesh, and her body reacted involuntarily at the searing flesh-to-flesh contact, arching up against his hand as if to trap the teasing temptation he offered.
He sent a single finger gently searching her tender folds, rubbing small patterns of liquid heat as he steadily probed deeper until the digit was within her, but before she could move he withdrew his hand, and she felt the heavy pressure of his hard, demanding staff at the portal of her body, inexorably pushing forward.
“Open your legs more,” he commanded, and she did, bending her knees and placing her heels on the floor so that she could help him. He groaned as the very tip of him penetrated her, but she was too involved in the hot, sliding wonder of his possession to wait, and she shifted her buttocks off the floor, offering him her deepest secrets, imploring him with her body to give her his in return.
He lifted himself on his elbows and looked down at her as he pressed forward, eyes blazing and hot color racing up beneath his cheekbones as he took her fully.
For a long moment there was silence. Their bodies, joined in the intimacy she’d yearned for half her life, quivered; their eyes met and held.
“I’ve done this in my dreams,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice, “but this is better than anything in my head could ever be.”
She wanted to respond, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was a quavering sob. Her legs relaxed and his weight bore her to the floor as he cupped her face in his hands and caught the tears that rolled from the corners of her eyes with his thumbs. “Baby,” he pleaded, “Sophie, baby, don’t cry. I thought—I hoped this was what you wanted, that it would make you happy.” He paused, and even through the overwhelming emotion roiling within her, she felt his uncertainty.
“It does,” she reassured him. “It does. It’s only—You left and I thought...” Another sob escaped and she stopped, pressing her lips together in frustration and humiliation.
There was a long moment of silence, and he wiped away more of her tears. He said quietly, “You thought we’d never do this again.” He still didn’t move within her. Then he dropped his head and sought her lips with his, kissing her sweetly, with passion but also with a new tenderness that made her heart leap.
But her body was growing impatient, and as she responded to him, the kiss quickly caught fire again, growing hotter and bolder until her hips began to rock in response. He withdrew, filled her, withdrew, and returned again, establishing a steady, ever-increasing rhythm. Instinctively she matched his pace, meeting him thrust for thrust, faster and faster, feeling a taut wire drawi
ng to an unbearable tension within her.
And then it snapped.
Her head fell back as her body jerked wildly against him, spasms of fulfillment tightening her inner muscles around him so strongly that he gave a shout and fell into his own final moments of ecstasy, his powerful body moving hard and sure. He increased his pace to a boiling cauldron of movement, and then his back arched, pushing him to the very entrance to her womb, and she felt the hot pulses of his release as his teeth clenched and he fell heavily on her, his body slowly emptying itself as he shuddered and strained against her.
She could still feel his heart racing as they lay motionless. His chest heaved and he gulped in air. Slowly his body relaxed, increment by boneless increment, until he covered her like a living blanket. He was so much bigger and heavier than she that she couldn’t get a deep breath, and she feebly pushed at his shoulders.
Immediately, he rolled over, keeping his arms tight around her so that she rolled with him, until she was sprawled over him. “Sorry,” he said. “I forget how little you really are.”
“It’s all right.” Her voice was husky with satisfied passion. She moved to sit up and slide to his side, but the muscles in his arms tightened, holding her in place.
“Don’t move.” He pressed her head to his shoulder and tears pricked at the backs of her eyes again when she felt him press a kiss into her hair. “I want to stay like this forever.”
The sentiment was so exactly her own that she started in surprise. Then she realized that while she might want to stay next to his heart for the rest of her life, Marco merely was referring to the fit of their bodies. The pain that shot through her was stunning.
She lay atop him, his body still sheathed within her, and she faced the unbearable truth. She still loved Marco. Still loved him as much, no, even more than she had when he’d held her heart in his hand years before.
And he still desired her.
Lovers' Reunion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 10
