by Mallory Rush
Rand came to a decision, a manipulative decision, but one her love meant enough for him to make: He'd bind her to him with the senses so thoroughly she'd keep coming back for more. He'd use that to solidify the love she professed, let her touch that part of him that retained a tattered nobility, the ability to love her back as much as she deserved. By the time she saw him in all his unglory she'd be in too deep to retract the love he ached to have.
Nobility. Honesty. He called on it now.
"You love me," he whispered. On his bare knees he was, flinging her sandals away and taking a soft bite from the interior of her uppermost leg. "Even the unlovable, you love."
She seemed too busy grabbing at his hair and urging his face against her then arching back with a tormented wail that might have been his name to grasp the importance of what he was demanding to be reassured of.
Rand gritted his teeth and forced himself to rise. Soon, he told himself. Soon he'd lose himself inside her and hopefully find that part of his soul that continued to play hide and seek. But not until he had a reassurance, a promise from her that more than ever he craved to return.
He backed her against the cool mahogany wall and stilled her thrashing head with his forehead pressed against hers while he made a soothing noise and stroked her hair.
"You want me."
"Yes, yes," she chanted.
The hot silk of her panties contacted with his fingertips; unable to stop himself, he slid around the thin barrier and rotated her cleft as he repeated himself in terms that left no room for margin.
"If you do love me, Rachel, God help you because I can't help what I am. You said once that you wanted it all, but damn, I want it too. Joshua can make love to you, hold you, and be what you deserve. Rand can screw you until you can't walk, hurt you without blinking an eye, and manipulate you like his stock and trade. You asked who I was, and there's part of the answer. But you have to want them both. There's no having one without the other. Tell me you understand."
Her eyes were so glossy she might have been close to a faint. But there was a spark of cognition that had grasped the essence of his bare bones.
"Can you can love me like that?" he demanded. "Choose your words carefully, angel, because I won't let you take them back in a saner moment."
"I meant what I said. I love you. I've never said those words to a man before." Her palms rubbed, pressed and slid from his cheeks to embrace his neck. "Much less to two men sharing the same body."
Her kiss was severe. It was the sweetest heat he'd ever taken, given back, or staggered against with the totality of the acceptance she offered. She, a woman who'd left herself so vulnerable to him he could easily destroy her. And yet he felt he was the one being destroyed, torn apart and put back together with her touch.
Her hands didn't have the practiced feel of expertise, but held an urgent and emotional sincerity that was so much sweeter, so much better, and infinitely more arousing than anything he'd ever experienced before.
He wanted to tell her that he loved her and tried to push the rusty words past his lips.
"Rachel, I..." Stuck. The words hurt, echoing the rigid hurt of his groin. She made it worse by tilting herself against the remaining barrier of the thin pants he wore.
"Walk with me, Rand. Lead me through the dark side."
With a groan he dropped to his knees and urged hers a generous distance apart. Against her panties, his mouth breathed the heat of promises he longed to make. His tongue bathed them until they were wet, or perhaps it was her own arousal he could taste through the silk. The intrusion of soaked cloth became untenable and he slid them off, then hooked the leg openings over his wrist. A medal of sorts they seemed; her relinquishment, his claiming of it.
Each darting lick was a message, incisive suckles of loving sensitivity transmitted from his heart to her nub.
She screamed. He had no mercy left to give her. Her body was a vessel for words he flicked out and murmured, saying all the things he ached to make true but needed time to make a reality. But he was making it so now, wasn't he? With each second that passed that he thought only to give he created a new reality in himself.
Her cries of two different names fluctuated between his nursing suction and the gathering of his many fingered thrusts. He made her weep for more. He gave it to her and felt her rippling thrill as though it were his own.
She climaxed against his mouth and as she did he heard his own tortured sounds mingle with a rush of release from emotions dammed up too long.
"I... love," he murmured into the wet haven of her juncture. Then with an ease he hadn't expected, he liberated the rest, whispering against the shudders from her womb, "I love you."
Without further prelude, and with his vow and her sobs of dual names still singing in his ears, he rose and sloughed off his pants. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably and he caught her as they gave way.
He absorbed the remnants of ecstasy contorting her tear streaked face and lapped the salty liquid with his tongue. It occurred to him then that he had triumphed, given for once without taking. And he felt wonderful, better than he believed possible with his own body gripped with this grinding ache.
She covered his face with kisses, whimpering as she did as though she were distraught. He'd never seen a woman so—he searched for something to describe what he was seeing, that touched him because it was a stunning insight that he'd never witnessed before in a woman. Fragmented, that was it. She seemed fragmented. While never had he felt so whole.
"Are you all right?"
"No... yes." She sniffled and he wiped her nose with the panties dangling at his wrist. "I don't know."
"You're beautiful standing there like that. All flushed and weepy. I can still hear you screaming my name. It was sweet. Moving." His kiss was tender. "Orgasmic."
"You were listening." She cast her gaze down. "God only knows what I said. It's frightening, losing all control. I had no idea. I feel—I feel like I'm in a thousand pieces."
"I wish you'd look at me." He lifted her chin and he saw into the eyes of woman. Discovering, awed by the discovery, and coming to terms with the enormity of passion's price—the total forsaking of reason and self. But the discovery wasn't hers alone. A possessiveness, so intense that his vision momentarily blurred, gripped him, and he knew he'd die before ever letting her go.
"It's powerful, Rachel. People have killed in the name of passion. We haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg—" He smiled slightly, for once enjoying the thaw. "Already I know there's a part of me that wouldn't hesitate to kill any man I found daring to touch you like this."
His palm fit over her mound and he cupped her, using their mingled moisture to prepare her for the discovery yet to unfold. Sensitive. Sure. Svelte slides of seductive pursuit.
Rachel gripped his wrist. She was panting; her eyes were wide and uncertain. Her reaction thwarted him; it created a determination to go on and not stop, to trample down whatever the hell was holding her back, cement his feet to the floor if that's what it took, and bind her to him for good.
"What's wrong?" he quietly demanded. "I gave you a taste of what's to come. It's time for the feast, and I'm starving."
"I'm scared, Rand."
"If it's the pain, I'll ease it. I want this to be good for you. Trust me."
"Not the physical pain. I'm shattered and it terrifies me to think of how deep it can go after we make love."
"I see. Fear of the unknown. Don't worry." He kissed her in reassurance. "I'll know when you fall and I'll be there to catch you when you do."
No, Rand, she wanted to say, you don't see at all. His windows were open and he was waving her inside, but the courage she'd found earlier was deserting her when she needed it the most. Nothing could have prepared her for this, binding her to him more completely than she'd ever dreamed. She quaked with the knowledge he could hold her there, and then return her outside as soon as Sarah was found.
How she wanted promises. Promises that he would never do that because she
wouldn't be able to survive. At least she didn't think so and she had no heart to find out.
"What happens after we go to bed, Rand?"
"Maybe take a bath together, rub each other with oil."
"But what happens to us? Once we're out of Zebedique?"
His eyes were dark with his wanting of her, sharp with the sudden grasp of her question.
"We are talking forever, aren't we? As in—" He cleared his throat as though the word wouldn't come. "Marriage?"
She nodded, the short jerk cutting off the air in her throat. At least he'd gotten the word out, which was more than she'd hoped for.
"You want a commitment from me that I'd sever my right arm to make. But the truth is, you're going to have to be a little more patient. I'm close, Rachel. Closer than I ever imagined was possible for me." His face clouded. "And too, you deserve time to learn some things about me before you make such a long term commitment yourself. Now enough about that. We've got plenty to deal with here as it is."
He wrapped her fingers around him and she felt the jerk of his hips, the sheath of her hand about sleek, turgid flesh.
"We can do this one of three ways," he whispered. "You can help me out here however you like and I'll be grateful even if it's a compromise. Or, we can make love, which is an act you can never take back." He took a deep breath. "And last is an offer I'm already regretting: You can tell me to leave. But if that's what you want, you'd better tell me quick before I lose what little control I've got left."
Rachel was stunned that he would still offer the choice. It told her a lot about him as a man, his principles. It told her that he might return her love, though he hadn't spoken it.
The silence lengthened and she felt his hands fan over her buttocks, his intimate strokes as he lifted her up, wrapping her legs about his hips. The wood hit her back and she so wanted to feel it against her while he pressed deep inside. The image of him entering her begged to be embraced, to forget any promise but his body's offering.
"Think of my letter," he urged. "Think of me doing all that and more to you." He pressed himself lightly to her entry. His touch was flirtation and tantalizing temptation. "Does thinking about it make you hot, make you want me now?"
"You're manipulating me." She knew it, accepted it, and found she wanted more of the same.
"You're right, but it's not manipulation the way I could take this. I could tell you that if you pressed me into you, I'd give you that commitment you think you want. Or I could seduce you and after it was over remind you that you wanted it as much as me and promises weren't part of the bargain. But I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm offering you the truth: I want forever and it's just beyond my grasp. Take me inside and it might help me get there a little quicker. My fear is that once I'm there you might have decided you don't want me."
Her breasts rode against his chest, urging her to mate their nipples, to bear down and plunge him inside. Courage.
"Love me," she pleaded. "Say it. Just say it once."
"I... I lo—" His breathing was shallow, aggravated and struggling. "I love you." The words spilled from his lips in a tearing rush. And then he said them again, slowly, with feeling. "I love you, Rachel. Now choose."
"There never was a choice, Rand. Even if you hadn't said it, I'd want this. But hearing the words makes the risk a lot easier to take." Her fingers were unsteady as she closed the tiny gap and sought to fit him against her. The minor breach was not unlike a sprung cork seeking to reenter a wine bottle's mouth. "Rand." His name was a gasp. "Help me?"
She expected him to bang her against the wall. She expected his immediate and forceful invasion. What she hadn't counted on was his withdrawal, the feel of his arms scooping her up and holding her against his chest as he carried her to the bed with haste and decision.
He knelt over her there, his palms bracing her knees apart, his phallus positioned to enter what begged to be entered, and his face in hers. Dark passion was illuminated by a spark of light. He appeared to be not only in the throes of heat, but... happy? Pleased with himself.
"I want to practice," he said. "I love you. There. I said it. And it didn't hurt one bit. In fact it felt so damn good, I'm saying it again. I love you, Rachel Tinsdale."
"And I do love you, Rand. Both of you."
"Don't ever try to take that back. I won't give it up."
His hands began slowly working her over, finding erogenous zones she had no idea even existed.
Do you like this?
God, yes.
Touch me this way, angel... ah, perfect... Your eyes, what are they saying? Tell me what you want... just say it.
I'm hurting. Please make the hurting stop.
I don't want to hurt you. Let me do this... there, isn't that good? And you do feel so good to me, angel. Relax... relax... that's my girl. Damn, you're tight. Wet. Now feel me just this little bit inside you.
You're making it worse. You're teasing me.
I'm not teasing. I'm caring. And I'm loving you enough to go slow. But... stop that. Did you hear me? Dammit, Rachel, be still. Quit—Oh God, here we go. Hold tight to me.
Her cries he took within his mouth. So soothing, his murmurs of possessive consolation. So sheltering, the arms that gathered her in ultimate possession.
Pain became a memory and then all she knew was bliss. Rachel returned his careful thrusts, her improvisations meeting with his whispered approval, delighting her and giving her an ample taste of what it meant to be a woman with power, heady with the knowledge that she pleased her man.
Then patience fled and digressed to a primal rutting. She should be shocked, came the distant thought, yet she found it stunning. Their coupling was beautiful because it was who they were, the guts and the grit of what they felt for each other. She lost all thought of caring about promises she was more desperate than ever to have, what sounds she made, or whether she was losing all pretense at dignity as they rolled and wrestled and mated without any manners at all.
She was hanging half off the bed when he begged her to come, to meet him in that dark place where he would catch her if she would please, now please, just fall. She shattered like cinema glass, her body battered and lush, as she felt the liquid of his release. It was tingling and hot and not where it should be because it was upon her belly. They slid over each other, covered with sweat and bay and combined ecstasy.
For a long time their murmurings made no sense and all the sense in the world. When she shivered, he pulled the tangled covering about them, stopping to scowl as his hand searched the bottom sheet for human, not lamb's, blood.
Rand groaned. "I was rough. I'm sorry, angel."
"I'm not." She exhaled a languorous sigh, that of a woman who was well loved and bedded. "No matter what happens, I'll always remember this as one of the most amazing moments of my life." She touched his cheek, feeling a wondrous bonding, a deep and abiding affection that nothing he could ever do would steal. But he was frowning, concern etched in his brow. "What's wrong?"
"A couple of things. You weren't protected." He rubbed his hand over her belly. "I've never skated so close to the edge before, tempting fate like that. I promise to be more careful in the future."
A promise. One that signified his wish to protect her. One that raised a question that she hadn't considered.
"After what happened to you, Rand. Has it made you turn against ever having children?"
"I've never wanted children. I'm not sure I'd exactly be a good role model."
"But what if—what if...?"
"I didn't pull out in time and you're pregnant?"
She nodded. Children she wanted. Though that wasn't really the issue, was it?
"I get the feeling you want to know if I'm the kind of man who'd get you pregnant, push for an abortion, then if you wouldn't go for one salve my conscience with an offer of money instead of assuming the responsibility."
"I didn't mean to imply—Don't look at me that way."
"Like I'm angry, hurt? The fact that you had to a
sk just goes to show you still have a lot to learn about me." He stroked back the hair clinging to her face and she saw a depth in him that was honor, a refusal to shirk duty. It was a surprise slide of Rubik's Cube. His unscrupulous reputation might be valid, but he held to some very traditional values.
"I'm sorry, Rand. I didn't mean to offend you or question your principles. I wish I could take it back."
"We're learning, that's all, angel. But your question does bring up something else that's bothering me." His kiss was lingering, persuasive. "I want you to leave. It's not likely that you're pregnant, but if you are I don't want to risk our baby. If you're not, I don't want to risk you. Go home with this memory, and wait for me to come back."
Our baby. He might think he didn't want to be a father, but that one word told her how far a commitment from Rand would reach. It told her that the future boded well and children could be negotiated in time. It strengthened her resolve to stay, to lessen his and Sarah's risks, even if her own was increased.
"No, Rand. The answer is an unequivocal, flat-out, no."
"Trust me to come back."
"This isn't about trust. You have mine, won with a vial of blood." She traced his lips, lips she wanted to touch when they were surly and tight, soft and open, old and drawn. "What it comes down to is this. Even if you can't commit yet, I have. For me, that means we're in this together and there's no way I'm leaving when you, and your sister, need me the most."
"I don't like it."
"I'm not asking you to." She offered him a smile which he didn't return. "Take me shopping tomorrow and show me Sarah's house. We will succeed, Rand. This time, trust me."
"You're a hard headed woman, you know that?" He sighed heavily, giving in ungracefully. "All right. We'll do it your way. After I have mine with you." The sure glide of his palm from breast to cleft moved on to the bedside drawer. He slipped on a sheath and without further ado he was inside her.
"I love you," he said, matching the gentle rock of his hips. "Strange, how it gets easier to say every time."
