“Mark,” she whispered, and that one word held all her confusion, all her wanting.
In slow, methodical motions, he took away her slip and bra and panty hose and laid her, naked, on his bed. “So beautiful,” he said hoarsely, and Carly raised her hands over her head in unconscious surrender as she watched him shed his clothes in the shadows.
“I’ve never—”
He interrupted her with a soft, reassuring kiss. “I know, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.” And then he lay on his side on the mattress, caressing her breast with his strong hand, toying with the straining nipple, tracing the lines of her waist and hip.
“Mark,” Carly moaned. He had kindled a blaze within her that night in her apartment, and now it burned so hot that it threatened to consume her.
He bent to suckle at her breast, and she whimpered in welcome, entangling her fingers in his rich, glossy hair. He allowed her to fondle him for a time, then caught both her wrists in his hand and lifted them above her head again, making her deliciously vulnerable.
With his other hand he made a light, fiery circle on her belly, sweeping lower with each pass until he found the core of her womanhood.
Carly’s flesh pulsed against his palm as he made slow, steady rounds, and she felt herself grow moist in response. She arched her neck, her breath coming in shallow gasps, and instinctively spread her legs.
And still Mark suckled her breasts, first one and then the other. Her nipples were taut and wet from his tongue, and she was sure she would die if he didn’t satisfy her.
She began to plead, and he left her breasts to position himself between her thighs. As he had once before, he clasped her ankles and set her feet wide of her body, holding them firmly in place.
By the time he burrowed through to take her into his mouth, the rest of her body was as moist as her hard, jutting nipples. She pressed her heels deep into the mattress and gave a lusty cry as he feasted on her womanhood, and her hips writhed in concert with the teasing parries of his tongue that came later.
She flung her hands wildly, first clawing at the bedspread, then gripping his shoulders, then delving into his hair. The short tendrils around her face were dewy, clinging to her forehead and her cheeks as she strained for the relief only nature could provide.
Passion racked her violently, and her body quivered as she thrust it upward to meet the teasing strokes of Mark’s tongue. “Finish me,” she pleaded without breath. “Oh—Mark—finish me!”
He complied fiercely and wrung a sobbing shout from her, cupping his hands under her bottom, holding her high, supporting her until the storm raging inside her body subsided. When the tempest had ceased, he lowered her gently to the mattress, where she lay trembling and filled with wonder.
“Mark,” she wept.
Slowly he kissed her moist forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. He drank from her breasts again, sleepily at first, and then with growing thirst. When he mounted Carly, parting her legs first with a motion of one knee, she welcomed him, though she knew he was about to change her forever.
She moved her hands up and down his muscle-corded back while he drew at her nipple and, finally, she could wait no more.
She clasped his buttocks in her hands and pressed him to her, and he submitted with a groan.
His entry was slow and careful, and every inch he gave Carly only made her want more. There was a brief, tearing pain as he passed the barrier that had sealed her depths to all but him, but in some strange way it made the pleasure keener.
Moaning when he was inside her to the hilt of his manhood, Mark dragged the pillows down from the head of the bed and stuffed them under her so that she was raised to him, in perfect alignment for pleasure.
His second thrust was gentle, but when she urged him with soft, fiery words, he delved deeper.
Carly encircled his waist with her legs and clenched as if to crush him, and the coupling became a tender battle. Near the end, when they were both wild with need and trembling with exhaustion, he caught hold of her hands and thrust them high above her head. While she cursed him with words of love, he held himself still inside her for a long moment, then made a final lunge.
Carly flung back her head and gave a low, guttural wail as her body spasmed around him. He answered with a shout of amazed ecstasy and filled her with his warmth.
They lay like stone for a long time, neither able to speak or move, and then Mark got up from the bed and lifted a still-befuddled Carly into his arms. He carried her into the bathroom and set her, dazed, on the edge of a deep marble tub.
His body was lean and agile as he adjusted the spigots and fetched two enormous white towels from a shelf. He set them close at hand, then eased Carly gently into the water. When it reached a certain depth, he flipped a switch, and powerful jets made the warmth swirl and bubble around her.
Mark turned off the faucets, then got into the tub behind Carly, his powerful legs making a boundary for hers, his arms resting lightly around her waist. He bent to kiss her bare shoulder.
She tilted her head back and looked up at him, only then able to speak. “If I’d known it felt that good, I’d have been promiscuous,” she said.
Mark laughed and then nibbled at her nape. “Me, too,” he said, and that made Carly twist to look up at him, a broad smile on her face.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re not going to tell me that was your first time. Even I’m not that naive.”
He shook his head, and his wonderful eyes were sparkling at her naïveté. “No, babe—you were the only virgin in attendance. But I can honestly say I’ve never felt exactly that way before.”
Carly settled deeper into the water, leaning back against his hairy chest. “I bet you say that to everybody.”
He chuckled and moved his lips against the back of her head. “Wrong again,” he replied, and then he dipped a hand into the swirling, soothing water and bathed Carly’s breasts, one by one.
It was another beginning.
Soon he was caressing her, and she was surrendering, wanting to melt into him again.
When she had to confront him with her need or perish from it, she shifted so that she was facing him and kneeling between his legs.
“You like being in charge, don’t you?” she crooned, taking a fresh bar of soap from a brass dish, dipping it into the water, turning it between her hands until they were slick with suds.
Mark leaned back, resting his head on the edge of the tub, and grinned insolently. “You didn’t seem to mind it a little while ago. In fact, my guess would be that it beat twirling a flaming baton all to hell.”
Slowly, sensuously, she began to lather his broad chest, making soapy swirls in the down that covered it, teasing his nipples with a mischievous fingertip. “There must be some symbolism in that,” she conceded huskily. “But I don’t quite see it.”
He tilted his head even farther back and closed his eyes with an animal sigh of contentment, and it struck Carly that even surrender required a kind of confidence.
“Think, Barnett,” he teased. “Think.”
Carly didn’t want to think. She wanted to bathe this man, and then turn him inside out, just as he’d done to her. And because of the things he’d taught her, she had a pretty good idea how to go about it.
She took her time washing him, and he submitted, but then he claimed the soap and everything was turned around. Soon every inch of Carly was scrubbed to a delicate ivory pink, and she was limp as the cloth Mark had used to cleanse her.
He got out of the tub, lifting her after him, and flipped off the jets under the water. Then he pulled the plug and wrapped one of the huge towels around Carly like a sling, using it to draw her close to him.
She felt his staff rising hard and insistent between them.
“Oh, Mark,” she whispered sleepily, “I can’t—not again.”
“That’s wh
at you think,” he replied, his lips against her forehead. And he took her back to his bed, where he dried her and laid her out on the sheet like a delicacy to be enjoyed at leisure.
He joined her beneath the covers, knelt between her legs so she couldn’t close them to him, and slid his hands under her bottom to lift her to his mouth.
“I mean it,” she whimpered as he placed her legs over his shoulders. “I can’t—”
He disciplined her with a few flicks of his tongue, and she moaned as heat surged through her tired body, giving it new life.
Mark chuckled against her hardening flesh. “That’s what I thought,” he said, and he held her firmly in place while she rode helplessly on his lips, her head twisting from side to side in delirium.
He was ruthless. Carly was drenched with perspiration within minutes, and she locked her heels behind his head when he brought her to climax.
After that she begged him to take her and then let her sleep, but he wouldn’t. He put her in a new position and made her perform again, and he granted her no quarter until the last shuddering tremor had been drawn from her and her cries of pleasure had died away in the darkness.
Finally she gathered the strength to take revenge. She fell to him, like a starving woman would fall to food, and began to consume him.
At last, Carly had found the way to prevail in the age-old war of lovers, and she was no more merciful to Mark than he had been to her. He groaned like a man in fever, and the sound aroused Carly as much as his caresses and kisses had.
When he could bear no more, he lifted her head and held it from him, gasping as he struggled to catch his breath. Then, ever so gently, he pressed Carly back onto the mattress and took her in a long, slow stroke.
Because his pleasure had excited her so much, she immediately began to convulse, the lower part of her body buckling wildly as he made love to her. Through a sleepy haze she heard him rasp her name, and she felt him stiffen upon her in final release. Then they both were still, and the night rolled in like folds of black velvet and claimed them.
In the morning Carly awakened to the sound of a man whistling. Her aquamarine eyes flew open in alarmed chagrin as she remembered where she was and how she’d behaved in Mark Holbrook’s arms.
She sank her teeth into her lower lip. It was morning, and she was going to have to go home in her slinky pink evening dress.
Just then Mark came out of the bathroom. He was wearing a towel around his hips and there was a toothbrush jutting out of his mouth. He gave Carly a foamy grin, opened a drawer, took out a striped pajama top and tossed it to her.
She scrambled into it, using the blankets to hide behind, and he laughed and went back into the bathroom.
Carly needed a shower, but she wasn’t about to pass Mark to get one. Knowing a house that large must have at least one more bath, she hurried out of the room. She found what she sought at the opposite end of the hall and, after locking the door, stepped hastily under a spray of hot water.
When she was clean, she put on the bra, panty hose and slip she’d worn the night before. She was about to shimmy into the dress when a knock sounded at the door.
“It’s early, Carly,” Mark said cheerfully, as though this were a perfectly ordinary morning. “I’ll go over to your apartment and get your things if you’ll give me the key.”
She pressed her cheek to the door panel, embarrassed to be sending a man for such personal items as clothes and underwear and makeup, but she named off the things she wanted. When she was sure he was gone, she stepped out into the hallway, only to find Mark leaning against the opposite wall, grinning at her.
He moved his gaze slowly, possessively, over her figure. “Like I said,” he told her in a voice that was as effective as a kiss or a caress, “it’s early.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CARLY DODGED BACK into the bathroom and slammed the door, and Mark responded with a laugh.
“Regrets?” he asked.
“Yes!” Carly shouted back. She shoved both hands through her hair. “Go away and leave me alone.”
“Cranky,” he observed in a resigned tone. “Maybe I should have tried the spanking.”
Carly turned the lock, then went to the sink and started the water running full blast. She hummed loudly to let Mark know she wasn’t paying any attention to anything he was saying—if he was saying anything.
Fifteen minutes had passed before she dared peer into the hallway again.
Mark was gone then—the house seemed to echo with his absence—and Carly put his pajama top on over her underthings and stepped out of the bathroom.
On her way to the kitchen, where she hoped to find coffee perking, Carly passed through the living room. Once again the computer caught her eye. Since Mark wasn’t around to see, she ventured over to the desk, sat down in the chair and squinted at the words on the screen.
Excitement brought her to the edge of the chair as she read backward through what was apparently a stage play. The story centered around the painful demise of a marriage, and it was so gripping that Carly forgot her quest for coffee, rummaged through her purse for her glasses and read on.
She didn’t stop until she heard a car door slam in the driveway. The sound brought her back to the present with a jerk, and it suddenly occurred to her that Mark might not want her reading his play. Her heart beating double time, she pressed her finger to the “Page Down” key and held it there until the original material was back on the screen.
She was in the kitchen, pouring coffee into a mug, when Mark came in carrying her garment bag and beauty case. He gave her a curious look, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was picking up on her guilt.
It’s a good thing you’re not a spy, Barnett, she thought, reaching out for the things Mark had brought her. “Thanks.”
He gave her a light kiss on the forehead. “You’re welcome,” he answered, and the words had a teasing quality to them.
Carly took another sip of her coffee, then set it aside. If she was going to be at work on time, she’d have to get a move on. “How long have you been up?” she asked idly, remembering that Mark’s computer had been on when they came in the night before.
He’d poured coffee for himself, and he grinned at her over the rim of the mug. “A couple of hours. I do some of my best writing before the birds get up.”
Carly hesitated in the kitchen doorway. She felt strangely at home in Mark’s house and his pajama top, and that was disturbing. “Your piece on the crack-house raid was good,” she conceded. The article had had top billing in the Sunday edition, and Carly had marveled as she’d read it.
Mark opened the refrigerator and took out eggs, bacon and a carton of orange juice. “Thanks, Barnett,” he said briskly. “I’d love to stand here listening to praise all day, but I’ve got things to do, and so do you.”
Carly felt rebuffed. Until he’d spoken, there had been a certain cautious, morning-after closeness between them. Now there was an impassible force field.
Carly turned around and headed back toward the bathroom.
When she came out, ready to leave for the newspaper office, Mark was at his desk. The play was gone from the screen, replaced by some kind of colorful graph, and he was leaning back in his chair, talking on the telephone.
He dismissed Carly with a wave of his hand—the way he might have done the paperboy or a meter reader—and she was stung. Apparently, she thought glumly, I’ve served my purpose.
She gathered up her purse and the clothes she’d worn the night before and went out to get into her car. Her spirits lifted a little when she found a single yellow rosebud lying on the seat.
At the office, another mailbag full of letters awaited her, as well as three frantic messages from Janet.
Sipping the cup of coffee Emmeline had brought to her, Carly dialed her friend’s work number. A secretary put her right through.
&nbs
p; “You didn’t come home last night!” Janet said, dispensing with the usual “hello.”
Carly smiled, even though there was a heavy place in her heart because she’d given herself to the wrong man. “Are you moonlighting for the FBI these days, or what?”
Janet let out a sigh. “I was just worried, that’s all. I mean, you’re new in town, and there are some real creeps out there—”
“I’m fine, Janet,” Carly insisted moderately, getting out her glasses with one hand and slipping them onto her face. Judging by the bulges in the mailbag sitting on her desk, it was going to be a long day.
“You were with Mark Holbrook!” Janet cried, obviously excited at having solved the mystery.
Carly was annoyed. “Janet—”
“I don’t mind telling you, I’m impressed.”
“Good. I’d hate to think I wasn’t living up to my image,” Carly said a little stiffly.
Janet made Carly promise that they’d go out for pizza and salad that night after work, then rang off.
Carly immediately set herself to the task of reading and sorting her mail, and her brow crumpled into a frown as she scanned letter after letter berating her for telling “Frazzled in Farleyville” to get a divorce. It was beginning to seem that the public heartily agreed with Mark’s assessment of her advice.
She was still reading and disconsolately munching on Cheeze Crunchies from the vending machine in the lounge, when Mark popped into her office at one forty-five that afternoon.
By then she was really feeling cranky. She’d been writing her column for less than two weeks, and everybody in Portland hated her. “What do you want?” she snapped.
Mark grinned in a way that reawakened some of the perturbing feelings she’d had the night before, when they’d somehow gotten past their many differences and visited a new part of the universe. “I came to see if you’d like to go out for lunch, then maybe take in a matinee or something.”
Carly took a sip of diet cola and set the can down with a solid thump. “Some of us can’t come and go as we please,” she replied, glaring at him through the big lenses of her reading glasses. “Or take off to a movie in the middle of a workday.”
Forever and a Day Page 5
