by Diana Palmer
Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly manage speech. “Was it…because you wanted her?” she whispered.
His intake of breath brushed his chest over her sensitized breasts. “No, it was because I wanted you.” He pulled away from her and looked down into her wide, silvery eyes. Slowly his hand went to the buttons of her lacy black dress and he began to unfasten them. He was still joined to her, and the movements were stimulating, erotic.
“I’m going to strip you,” he whispered huskily. “Right down to your silky skin. And then I’m going to take my own clothes off, and enjoy you all night long. When morning comes, there won’t be an inch of you that I don’t know, that I haven’t touched or kissed or nibbled with my teeth.” As if to emphasize the words, his mouth went down hard over her soft breasts, right through the fabric, and she felt his teeth bite softly into a hard nipple. She gasped.
He moved, laughing deeply when she shivered; her eyes widened as he looked into them. “Yes, you’re still ready for me, Claire.” He moved again, catching his breath as the movement brought him totally back to life. “And I’m more than ready for you!”
CLAIRE LAY AWAKE in the darkness, sick at her own shameless response to the ways John had touched her, the places his mouth had invaded.
She lay under a single white sheet, completely nude, thankful that the light was finally out so that she didn’t have to see, again, the cold triumph in her husband’s face. He’d used her, she thought furiously. He’d used her like a woman of the night—and she’d not only let him, she’d wrapped herself around him like a snake and whimpered with pleasure. She’d whispered things to him that she couldn’t bear to remember.
Gingerly she moved the sheet and started to sit up. A steely hand caught her arm and jerked her down onto a warm, still-aroused male body.
“No, you don’t.” He breathed roughly. “I’m not finished.”
“John, please. I can’t!”
“Are you sore inside?” he whispered against her mouth.
She flushed. “No, but—oh!”
His fingers had found her, touched her, eliciting again that mindless delight that stiffened her softness against his hair-roughened nudity.
“You are the sweetest taste of heaven I have ever had,” he whispered as his touch grew bolder. “The sweetest honey on earth. I could die trying to get enough of you. I want you more than I want to breathe, little one.” He drew her mouth down to his and, while he kissed her, he moved her slowly, exquisitely impaling her. “Yes,” he whispered tenderly. “Yes, take me inside you and caress me, hold me, make me mad with pleasure. Forget the things old women have told you about this and be a woman with me.”
“I don’t…understand,” she whimpered as he moved her.
“Yes, you do. Sit up and take me, Claire.”
He threw off the covers and half lifted her until she was above him, over him. His hands supported her hips, and his lifted up to meet hers, teaching her the rhythm. Her breasts rose sharply with the vicious pleasure he kindled in her.
“Yes,” he said ardently. “Yes, Claire. Now, darling. Now, darling. Yes, move on me. Move on my body. Claire. Move, move—” He gasped as her slow, sinuous motions made him shiver. He laughed, deep in his throat, and then groaned. His hands contracted, demanding as he brought her to him and lifted her away in a rhythm that brought the ecstasy flying back.
Her fingers were on his, holding them to her thighs; her body seemed no longer to be under her control. She laughed, too, fiercely, as the pleasure bit deep into her body. She looked down at him in the moonlit room, her breath rasping as she saw him helpless, powerless, totally at the mercy of her body and his need of it.
She moved again, deliberately this time, teasing, her eyes glittering with the fever of what she was doing to him. He cried out as she quickened the darting motions of her hips; she held his hands, pulling them into closer intimacy as the spiral began.
The springs were loud. The slats moved. She didn’t care.
“Darling, take me.” He groaned. “Take me!”
“Yes.” She shuddered, pushing. “Yes, all of you. All…of…you!”
She felt the explosions to the very tips of her toes. She wept harshly, groaning, as her body riveted itself to his and convulsed. Under her, he arched up high, a ragged sob tearing out of his throat. She saw his face contort even through her own heated delirium, and she thought, He is mine!
She wept because it was so brief and so beautiful, and so quickly gone. She lay against the damp vibration of his chest and wept bitterly.
“Why can’t it last?” she bit off. “Oh, why?”
His hand smoothed her long, tangled hair; he held her hips to his, where they were still joined. “I don’t know,” he whispered unsteadily. His mouth searched for hers and kissed it languorously, tenderly. “I’ve never let a woman mount me,” he breathed into her mouth. “I love the way it feels.”
She buried her face in his throat. “Don’t!” she whispered, embarrassed.
His hands swept down her back and up again slowly. “Can you still feel me?” he whispered, pressing down on her hips. He shivered. “I can feel you…all around me, like a soft, warm sheath.”
“It is shameful…to speak of it,” she whispered.
“You are my wife,” he replied gently. “Nothing I do to you is shameful. No way I touch you or kiss you should be embarrassing. I am part of you, and you are part of me. We are one person when we love like this, Claire. One flesh, one heart, one soul.” He took an unsteady breath and held her closer. “Dear God, I never knew such pleasure as you gave me tonight! I can barely get my breath—and still I want to bury myself in you and have, again, that fierce, mad completion.”
She clung to him, shocked and yet sympathetic. “I am…a little sore,” she confessed.
“That is hardly surprising,” he said. “Forgive me. I was far too demanding.”
“No. I…wanted it.”
His hand smoothed her hot cheek. “A madness we shared.” He drew in a slow breath. “Go to sleep now, little one.”
She opened her eyes and stared across his chest. “Like…this?”
“Yes. Like this. Joined as intimately as man and woman can join.” His arms wrapped around her. “I can’t bear to pull away from you. Unless it hurts too much…?” he asked quickly.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered back, as profoundly moved as he sounded. She relaxed against him, feeling again the wonder of the intimacy they were sharing. Her breasts sank against the warm hardness of his chest and she laughed secretly, because even that faint movement aroused her.
He seemed to understand, because he laughed, too. “Yes,” he whispered above her head, “we find all too much pleasure in each other’s nakedness. But we must sleep now.”
“I suppose so.”
She forced her body to relax again and closed her eyes. Amazingly she fell asleep.
SHE FELT COOL AIR ON HER BODY. It was uncomfortable and she was sore. Light streamed in the curtained windows, touching her swollen eyelids.
She opened her eyes and found a pair of dark, intent eyes staring down at her. She blinked and came awake. She was lying nude on the sheets. John had lifted the cover away; he was looking at her nudity as if he’d never seen a woman without her clothing.
It should have embarrassed her, but it didn’t. Not at all.
Her nipples went hard under that intent stare and she shivered.
“Your body is exquisite,” he said quietly. “Even after the long night, I can look at you and become aroused all over again.”
She did flush, then, at the desire that darkened his lean face. She was ashamed of what she’d given away in the darkness, and desperate not to let him see how enslaved she was, physically as well as emotionally. “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said icily. “Did you have fun pretending that I was Diane?”
The insult hit him right between the eyes. “Is that what you thought?” He laughed coldly. “Or is that what you’d like to believe?�
� He didn’t understand how the passionate lover of last night had become this mocking stranger.
“Of course. You were kissing her in the kitchen—and as soon as she left, you carried me in here. I’m sure it wasn’t overpowering love that motivated you,” she said, with mangled pride. “You said yourself that you only married me to spare Diane’s reputation. Why pretend that last night was anything other than misplaced lust?”
His temper flashed fire. He glared at her with his hand in his pocket. “Lust is an appropriate description. We went at each other like animals in heat. Although,” he drawled, “I have to admit that I’ve never had such a night, not even with a sporting woman. You’re hot, Claire. Hot and ripe and even more sensuous than Diane,” he added, with deliberate cruelty, because her words had hurt him.
She sat up, holding the cover to her breasts. “You can say that with certainty?”
“Of course I can. I’ve seen Diane without her clothes. You aren’t that naive, surely?”
The color drained out of her face. “You’ve…made love?”
“We were engaged,” he replied, with glittering eyes, avoiding a direct answer.
Her heart was beating furiously. She couldn’t see the faint apprehension in his dark eyes for her own pain. It didn’t occur to her that her harsh words had wounded him, or that his realization that he cared for her had left him defenseless and that he was trying to retain his pride on the heels of her insulting accusations. As if he could pretend that she was Diane!
“I have to go to work. I assume that you’ll invent an appropriate excuse to stay with me after last night?” He taunted her softly. “You can have me as often as you want me, Claire. I’ll make love to you every night, if that makes you happy. And eventually, I may even be able to stop pretending that you’re Diane, in the dark,” he added, hating himself as he said it.
There couldn’t have been a greater insult. She stared at him with ice in her heart. She was numb. Without feeling. Without hope.
He watched her, waiting, hoping that the wall might come down and that she’d admit she still cared for him, that she’d loved him the night before. But she didn’t.
“That was a despicable thing to say,” she said finally.
“No more despicable than your accusation to me. As if I could use you to alleviate what I feel for Diane. The two emotions are as different as night and day.”
“You did use me,” she said huskily.
“And you loved it. You wrapped your legs around me and threw your head back and screamed with pleasure when I drove deep into you!”
She went scarlet.
He leaned forward, one hand propped over her head on the brass railing of the bed. “I didn’t force you last night. You wanted me. You still want me, even now. Look, Claire.” He jerked the cover away and traced a hard nipple before she squirmed her way beneath the sheet.
He stood erect, his narrowed eyes watching the expressions play across her face. “You went running to your childhood friend the minute my back was turned,” he said coldly. “Well, run to him now, my dear, and see if he can make you claw his back in the darkness.”
“I did not—”
He unfastened the collar of his shirt and drew it away from his shoulder to show her the deep red scratches she had made.
She gasped as he refastened it.
“There are more,” he informed her. “Several are…lower down. You were quite demanding, at the last.”
She put her face in her hands and shivered with embarrassment.
“Oh, good God! Stop looking like you’ve been damned!” he bit off. “Women scratch in the throes of passion. Sometimes they even bite. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Passion is violent. Lovemaking can bring pain as well as pleasure, especially when two people feel that kind of desire for each other.”
“How could you?” she moaned.
“How could I what? Make love to you or make you face how you acted with me?” he asked. He tilted her face up to his. “Sex is fun. I enjoyed you and you enjoyed me. We’re married. There’s no reason we can’t enjoy each other for as long as we’re together.”
“You don’t want to be married to me.”
He chuckled. “There are times when I love being married to you. Last night was one of them.”
She glared at him.
He lifted an eyebrow. “When you have your bath, you might take a look at your hips,” he said. “I imagine you’ll find bruises, if not a few scratches that match those on my back. You weren’t the only one who completely lost control.”
She swallowed, a little less ashamed. He seemed to find it easy to talk about. Of course, he was experienced.
“It will all work out,” he said as he turned toward the door. “I’ll stay away from Diane and you’ll stay away from your friend Kenny, and every night I’ll give you ecstasy. Eventually, maybe I’ll even give you a baby. That should be enough for both of us.”
Lust, she thought. Mindless desire. Two bodies in a bed while he thought of Diane, wanted Diane, lived for Diane. And a baby…what sort of life would it have with such parents as they would become?
“Nothing to say?” he asked mockingly.
“Nothing at all.”
His eyes went over her bare shoulders above the sheet. “Then I’ll see you tonight, Mrs. Hawthorn,” he said huskily. “And even if I can’t make love to you, I’ll strip you out of your gown and feast my eyes on you until I’m mad with desire.”
“The devil you will!” she snapped.
He cocked an eyebrow and chuckled at her high color. “Oh, you’ll let me,” he said confidently.
He smiled smugly and went out, closing the bedroom door behind him.
“Just you wait and see what I’ll let you do,” she muttered. She got out of bed with a furious thud and started to pick up her gown when she saw her body in the oval full-length mirror.
Her breasts were faintly red from the hunger of his mouth. There were more marks on her belly and her white thighs. She colored as she saw the bruises he’d alluded to on her slender hips.
She looked…sensual. She lifted her hands and put them under her breasts, supporting them.
The door opened; he looked at her, all her secrets revealed as her smoky eyes met his.
His jaw clenched. “If I thought you could take me, I’d have you right there in front of the mirror, and we could both watch.”
She flushed. Her wide, sensuous eyes searched his as he looked at her.
“God, Claire!” He breathed roughly. “God!”
He moved forward and pulled her against him, bending to find her mouth in a frenzy of desire.
“I can’t,” she whimpered. “I want to, so badly—”
“Here!” He caught her hands and pulled them to his body, moved them, taught them while he kissed her. But a few seconds were enough to make the hunger unbearable. He put her away from him with one helpless shudder and swallowed down his need.
“No,” he said unsteadily. “We can’t.” He was barely able to speak. Her eyes were wide, curious, almost frightened. He held her by the shoulders fiercely, thinking he might scream from frustrated desire. Bit by bit, he let go of her, and, without a single glance, he went out the door.
He’d never known such desire. He didn’t know if he could live with it on a daily basis, without ravishing his wife nightly.
And what of Diane, who loved him, whom he loved? He felt unfaithful, dirty, ashamed—of his behavior with Diane, not with Claire.
He felt the lowest of the low, sick with himself and furious at Claire for being indifferent to him except in bed. She could have repulsed him if she no longer cared for his opinion of her. Why hadn’t she?
The answer was the most painful realization of all. It was because she wanted him, of course. She couldn’t deny him anything, because she was as much a slave to her desire as he was to his own. That didn’t mean that she loved him. Never once, during the long, exquisite night, had she whispered words of love. He hadn’t realized how desper
ately he wanted to hear them, from her. His pure, innocent wife had suffered for so long, loved him unselfishly, and all she’d had for her pains was his indifference. He remembered when she’d offered her love with both hands and he’d rebuffed her because of Diane. He couldn’t recall now how he’d felt about Diane in the first place, because his hunger and need and deep affection for Claire had completely overshadowed it.
It was a pity, he thought, that he never drank spirits. Right now, he could have used something to numb his mind.
He sat at his desk at the bank, weary of the emotional turmoil that seemed to be the hallmark of his life of late. Absently he thought about what Calverson had said last night about the bank, and he got up and started toward the office of the head bookkeeper.
But on his way, a loud voice arrested his movement.
“I heard there was money missing from the bank,” an old man was saying to Eli Calverson. “My friend has a hundred thousand dollars here. He tried to draw it out and he was told there were insufficient funds!”
Eli was flustered and nervous. He was actually wringing his hands. “Sir, we lend money as well as take it in,” he explained. “At times, we have to depend on our deposits to make up the difference. We have just added a huge sum to our assets—”
“You’re lying!” the old man said accusingly, his cane lifted as he flared at the bank president. “You can’t cover your deposits. This bank isn’t solvent. I want my money! I want it all! Right now!”
Other people in the bank were looking at the elderly man, whom John recognized as one of their major depositors. He moved toward the man, just as more loud murmurs were heard and the crowd began to line up at the clerks’ windows.
“I want my money, too,” a woman said firmly.
“So do I,” a younger man said. “I won’t risk my life savings here!”
“Wait!” John said, holding up his hands. “You can’t start a run on the bank. If you withdraw your funds, there will be an imbalance and nobody’s money will be safe.”
“Did you hear him? He said it himself—there’s not enough money to cover our deposits! Give us our money!” the younger man raged.
