Eden Burning / Fires of Eden

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Yes,” she whispered as she twisted slowly against him, wanting more, not even knowing that she was describing aloud the need growing in her. “Harder. Yes, like that. Yes.”

  Her husky words and her nails flexing into the muscles of his back were like fire burning through him. He swept his palms beneath her shoulder blades and arched her body to meet his hungry mouth. With barely controlled force he suckled her, tugging and tasting and tugging again.

  She clung to him, knowing nothing but the currents of fire pulsing through her, fire created by the man who held her imprisoned between his hands and his mouth, freeing her from years of sensual doubts.

  After a long time his hands slid from her back to her hips. He kneaded her hungrily, deeply. She moved in unconscious response, seeking him. With languid, teasing strokes, he smoothed her full hips and curving thighs. His mouth followed his hands, biting gently down the length of her body until she shivered and called his name.

  “Do you like that?” he asked, kissing the silky flesh of her inner thigh.

  Her answer was a broken laugh followed by a gasp as his mouth moved higher, finding and caressing her with shocking intimacy. Instinctively her hands moved between their bodies, shielding her softness.

  “Mmm, hide-and-seek,” he said, kissing her fingers. “I’m glad you like to play the same games I do, Pele.”

  Nicole tried to speak, to explain that it wasn’t a game. The words backed up in her throat at the first caressing touch of his tongue between her fingers. He nuzzled and bit delicately on her fingers, silently proving how very gentle he could be. He kissed and tenderly touched, whispered her own beauty against her skin until shivers of need coursed through her, a helpless trembling that shouted the fires burning inside her, demanding release.

  “Come to me, Pele.” Lips and teeth tugged at her fingers, teasing and reassuring. Hungry. “Dance for me.”

  Long before her hands gave up the sensual contest, her hips were moving in slow, liquid rhythms. His hands caressed her in the same deep rhythms, urging her to release the hot currents seething inside her. He called to the passion he knew waited within her, seeking the bursting, incandescent moment of release.

  Gently he nudged aside the last barrier, leaving her open to him. He heard his name as a trembling sound on her lips and breathed her own name back to her. He touched her with exquisite care, taking her to the edge and holding her there until she was shaking and crying his name with every breath she took. He lifted slowly, memorizing the picture of her totally yielded to him in the moonlight.

  Then he bent down to her again, all teasing gone. Now, finally, he would know her. And she would know herself.

  The feel of his caressing, searching mouth took the world away from Nicole. She tried to say his name, to ask what was happening to the body she thought she knew so well.

  She couldn’t speak.

  She couldn’t even breathe.

  All the hot, fierce currents that had gathered in her burst free, tearing her body from her control. She burned wildly, deeply, and she burned for him, his name a broken cry on her lips as wave after wave of pleasure shattered her.

  Chase gathered her against his body and held her until the sweet burning began to ebb, leaving her dazed and breathless within the strength of his arms. Finally she managed a full breath as her body slowly began to become her own once more. She held his face between her hands and blindly, softly, kissed him again and again, trying to tell him how beautiful it had been.

  “I didn’t know—” she began, only to have her voice break on an unexpected aftershock of pleasure.

  He smiled and kissed her gently, ignoring his own hunger surging violently against the lavalava he still wore. His skin was as hot as hers, as slick with sweat, and his breathing was as broken, but he didn’t seek his own release. He had promised himself that he would simply pleasure her and then let her go, taking no more from her than the knowledge that he had given her something to balance the agony of that morning at his brother’s house.

  He knew that was a way of running, of protecting himself from making the kind of memories that would haunt him to the grave—sliding into her, joining them, completing them.

  He didn’t know how he could walk away after that. He didn’t even know how to try.

  “I’m glad it was good for you,” Chase said, his voice dark, deep. “Very, very glad.”

  He smoothed back the thick, silky mass of her hair and kissed her forehead. Silently, slowly, he stroked her back, gentling her, bringing her wholly back to herself after her wild flight. When he felt the long sigh of her breath against his neck, he brushed his lips across her cheek and simply held her.

  She made a rippling sound of contentment and nestled closer, savoring the peace of lying with him as much as she had savored the sweet violence of ecstasy sweeping through her. Both the fire and the peace were wholly unexpected, miraculous. She couldn’t absorb them fully enough.

  For a long time they lay quietly in each other’s arms and watched the silver spirals of blossoms drifting down from the moonlit sky. The petals touched her hair, her cheek, the womanly curve of waist and hip. Fragile flowers settled on the tousled midnight of his hair, on the muscular swell of his shoulder, and brushed sweetly over the mat of hair on his chest.

  Nicole fell asleep, giving herself to Chase in another, deeper way, trusting him with her sleeping body. He savored that gift to the last bittersweet drop.

  It was time to release the velvet woman who had trusted him enough to drink both sweetness and fire from him.

  “Wake up, butterfly,” he whispered. “It’s time for you to fly away.”

  She slept on, wholly relaxed, utterly at peace.

  He picked up her long lavalava and dressed her, wrapping her in black silk, trying to control the fine trembling of his hands as they inevitably brushed her warm flesh. Slowly he smoothed her unbuttoned blouse over her arms. So slowly. Too slowly.

  But it was so tempting to hold on to the excuse to stay near her.

  He told himself that he could dress her without caressing her. He was still telling himself that when his hand accidentally brushed across one breast. The nipple pouted up at him in instant response. Pulled against his will, he bent over and brushed the nipple just once with the tip of his tongue. Just once.

  And then twice. Three times. Then his mouth opened over her, cherishing and tasting and loving her responsive flesh. Smiling, she half opened her eyes and yielded her body to him without hesitation.

  Forcing himself to sit up and stop caressing her was the hardest thing Chase had ever done. He had to close his eyes, shutting out the vision of her proud nipple glistening from his mouth. With hands that trembled he began to button her blouse.

  Her hands moved behind his, unbuttoning.

  “Nicole,” he said, his voice gritty, “this is hard enough as it is.”

  One of her hands smoothed up the length of his muscular thigh, sliding beneath the lavalava, finding and testing his hunger.

  “Yes, it is hard, isn’t it?” she said. Her smile was as sultry and sweet and intimate as her hand cradling his rigid flesh.

  Chase shuddered and made a sound deep in his throat. “Oh, God, butterfly,” he said hoarsely, capturing her hand. “Don’t.”

  “I didn’t know that you liked to play keep-away, too.”

  Deliberately she moved her fingers beneath his, pressing and rubbing over the hot male flesh.

  He knew he should pull away, stand up, run, do anything but what he was doing—sweetly, hotly teaching her how to please him, guiding her hand beneath his until he was shaking and there was nothing left for her to learn.

  “You once said we would fit together very well,” she whispered, pulling aside the folds of black silk that wrapped her hips. “You were right. Fit yourself to me, Chase. Slow and hard and deep. Deep most of all.”

  The thought of it sent fire raking through him all over again. “You don’t have to, butterfly. It won’t be any better for you that w
ay than it was with my mouth.”

  She gave up trying to make him understand with words alone. Threading her fingers deeply into his hair, she tugged his head down toward hers.

  In one last instant of self-preservation he pulled back.

  Her surprised, hurt look defeated him. With a groan of surrender, he let her take his mouth while he slid his hand between her thighs to take the softness between her legs. His fingers moved slowly, finding and stroking the sultry heart of her desire until she came undone, melting over him.

  Only then did he come completely to her, fitting his aching flesh slow and hard and deep inside her. The cry of pleasure she gave when he filled her was more exciting to him than her curious, caressing hand had been.

  Suspended in an agony of pleasure, savoring every instant of her trembling beneath him, he held himself utterly still. When he could stand the sweet pain no longer, he began to move fully, deeply. He let her measure him again and again, felt her eager acceptance in her soft cries and in the satin flesh closing slickly around him.

  She began to dance in slow counterpart to the man inside her, stroking him with every sinuous motion of her hips. He groaned as the sweet pressure of her around him shifted and changed, tugging at him, caressing every bit of him. He held on to the languid, deeply sensual dance for long, long moments, until the coil and shift of her body stripped away his control.

  Then he came to her without reservation, moving powerfully, feeling his own violent tension echoed in her body. When he felt his own strength slamming into her, he tried to hold back, afraid of hurting her—and then it was too late to do anything but thrust into her while ecstasy exploded savagely through him, blinding him, shaking him to his soul.

  Feeling his climax sent her over the edge, a long, spinning fall into pure fire. Her nails dug into the clenched muscles of his buttocks as she burned out of control, crying her wild pleasure against the rigid muscles of his neck, as blind and shaken as he was.

  “You were wrong,” she managed finally, her voice ragged. “It was better this time. You were inside me.”

  He groaned and held her even more tightly, more deeply, letting her heat and sweet, sultry flesh caress him. The feeling was so silky, so exquisite that for a moment he couldn’t even breathe. Never had a woman taken the world away from him. He couldn’t fight it. He couldn’t even think why he should fight it. He could only yield as she had yielded.

  Completely.

  She felt him change inside her, stretching her, filling her. Her breath caught and fire welled up again, consuming both of them.

  The moon was setting before they could bring themselves to undo the sweet tangle of arms and legs and gently caressing hands. It was even longer before they slowly walked up the trail to her cottage. They shared a languid, slippery shower that ended abruptly when she discovered ways not only to please him but to drive him over the edge of his control.

  This time when he lifted her urgently and told her to wrap her legs around him, she didn’t hesitate. She wanted it as much as he did, aching to have him inside her while the shower poured hotly over their joined, straining bodies.

  As dawn came, he was locked deep inside her again, drinking the wild cries from her lips, coming apart even as she did, sharing the ecstatic burning. When he could breathe again, he bent and licked drops of moisture from between her breasts. She smiled dreamily and caressed his thick, tousled hair. He nuzzled the full breasts he had come to know so well during the long, consuming night.

  “Do you have any last doubts about your ability to please and be pleased?” he asked, kissing first one nipple and then the other.

  Her hands paused in his hair. She laughed softly and moved her hips against his body, glorying in his growl of response.

  “Not a single doubt,” she said, sighing and drifting downward into sleep even as she spoke. “If either of us pleased any more, we’d die of it.”

  He smiled sadly, thinking what a sweet death it would be. But she didn’t see his smile, didn’t feel him withdraw, didn’t understand that the pain of knowing he had to leave turned in him like knives.

  “Spread your wings, butterfly,” he whispered very softly as she slept. “I’ll keep my word and set you free. And I’ll pray every second I’m alone that someday you’ll understand, forgive, and fly back to me.”

  36

  “Li-sa soon?” Benny asked.

  Despite the emotions twisting through her, Nicole smiled down at the wistful boy.

  She couldn’t think of Lisa without thinking of Chase. Thinking of him brought confusion and anger and regret and a kind of pain she had no defenses against. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw again the note that Chase had left three weeks ago on her kitchen table, dark words surrounded by sketches of swollen buds and volcanic deserts.

  If I stay, I’ll ask more from you than a butterfly should have to give. Your body, your mind, your future, your love. I would give you the same in return.

  I know you don’t want that. Not from me.

  You’ve found your wings, and what beautiful wings they are. I don’t blame you for wanting to fly to a man you can trust all the way to your soul.

  I regret hurting you more than I can say. It cost me more than I thought I had to give—a chance to love.

  Then why didn’t you stay? Nicole asked silently.

  Uselessly.

  She knew the answer. She just didn’t like it.

  All or nothing at all.

  And that was what she had now. Nothing at all.

  She had tried to imagine herself with another man, touching and tasting and sharing the wildfire and peace she had shared with Chase. Her stomach had turned over at the thought of such intimacy with anyone else. She didn’t want another man. She wanted Chase.

  And she was terrified of that wanting.

  She had barely survived Ted’s massive insensitivity to her mental and physical needs. If Chase ever tired of her or misused her as Ted had, she wouldn’t recover.

  Ted hadn’t been able to destroy her because she hadn’t given enough of herself to him. If she gave any more of herself to Chase, she would be lost. Already he was part of her, as deeply embedded in her as her own heartbeat.

  It had happened so quickly, so completely. She had trusted Chase instantly, instinctively.

  And she had been wrong.

  No. Not wrong. Just too quick. If I’d waited, he would have known I wasn’t hunting Dane. Then there would have been no morning after, no need to fear trusting Chase.

  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. There was a morning after. I am afraid.

  And I miss Chase. God, how I miss him!

  Nicole realized that Benny was watching her, waiting patiently for her answer to his question. With an effort she pulled her mind away from the warring emotions that had all but paralyzed her since she had awakened and found Chase’s note.

  “Lisa’s coming in on the afternoon flight,” Nicole said. “Didn’t your father tell you yesterday morning?”

  Benny nodded.

  She forced herself to smile again. “Nothing has changed since then. Dane will pick Lisa up at the airport, and she’ll go hiking with us tomorrow.”

  “Kamehameha Iki?”

  “I don’t know. That depends on the reports from the observatory. Kilauea has been pretty lively the last two weeks.”

  He shrugged. To him active volcanoes were like weather, a part of life. “Kamehameha Iki,” he said firmly. “Li-sa like much-much. You Pele. We safe.”

  She smiled and ruffled Benny’s hair affectionately. “What a lot of words. You must miss Lisa.”

  “Li-sa mine,” he said matter-of-factly, and turned toward the garden doors.

  She stared after him. Even Bobby had remarked on the attachment between the two children. They enjoyed a mutual-admiration society that had begun instantly and deepened every day. It had given both Lisa and Benny a confidence in themselves as people who delighted the adults as much as it bemused them.

  The co
ttage seemed very empty without Benny.

  Why isn’t Chase coming back to Hawaii with Lisa?

  Doesn’t he miss me at all?

  How can he ask me to marry him, make love to me as if I was truly Pele, and then just walk away?

  There were no answers but the ones implicit in the note he had left behind. He cared enough for her to want her to be happy. He believed she couldn’t be happy with him because she couldn’t trust him, really trust him, all the way to her soul. So he had showed her that she could trust herself. And then he had left her to find a man she could trust.

  Could love.

  It was all there in the note, along with Chase’s regret and pain and loss. She had all the answers. She just didn’t like any of them.

  Especially the certainty that in the end she had hurt Chase as badly as he had hurt her in the beginning.

  The thought of it went through Nicole like a torrent of molten lava, searing her until she wanted to scream or cry. But she couldn’t do either. All she could do was ache to be with Chase, to hold him, to comfort him and herself.

  Chase, I didn’t mean to hurt you!

  But she had. Badly.

  With a feeling close to desperation she looked around the cottage and tried to think of all the ways there were to kill time until the picnic tomorrow. Everywhere she looked, sketch paper lay crumpled, thrown in frustration at the corners of the room. She was afraid that the day and night to come wouldn’t be any better.

  Grimly she grabbed a sketch pad and began to draw. Even as she lifted her pen, she knew that tomorrow morning there would be an even bigger mess of rejected sketches littering the cottage.

  37

  By the time Benny and three other Kamehamehas appeared at Nicole’s door the next day, wadded-up sketching paper studded the cottage from the highest shelves to the farthest corners. Failed watercolors torn to confetti added color and variety to the litter.

  Benny took one look at Pele’s smoldering amber eyes and decided that even one word on the subject of her housekeeping would be one too many.