Charlaine Harris
Page 30
She put her arms behind his neck, drew his mouth down to hers. “It would be a lie,” she murmured, “for me to say anything else. I love you.”
His hands smoothed the bare skin of her belly and sides, stroked her back when she unfastened the heavy, jeweled bra. Her own hands parted his shirt, slipped over the heavy muscle, the washboard bones of his ribs, slow music from below spiraling through the red velvet curtains, mingling with the sound of their breath.
He lifted her, carried her to one of the divans, her hair spread out over the pillows as he stood above her, looking down. “You’re so beautiful.” He knelt and stretched out at her side. His hands cupped her breasts, gently exploring, then slid up under the silken clouds of skirts. Maddie arched her back, moving like a cat with his caresses, her world and her consciousness narrowed to the rough friction of his hands, the scent of his body, and widened, it seemed, to take in all of night, and all of life.
She took her time, endless time in the crimson gloom, as if she were dancing to the music down below. Her fingernails scraped lightly across his back and arms, and later his butt and thighs, teasing and sampling, in no hurry. Later they locked together, tighter and tighter, as if their bones would meld. He was patient, exploring the secrets that differ from woman to woman, and sometimes in the same woman from night to night. Maddie groaned and clung to him, guiding sometimes, sometimes taken by surprise at sensations she’d never guessed she could feel—later she was not the only one with bite marks on her neck and arms.
She thought as he entered her, Why did I wait? But she knew she hadn’t been waiting for a man, but for this man. And for the healed woman that she was only now becoming. The Dancer at the Heart of the World.
Afterward they lay together panting on the dusty velvet, listening to the voices of Josi and Tessa in the corridor outside, to the quiet in the dining room downstairs. The music had ceased. The chatter had turned desultory.
Hobbsie’s voice drifted up from below, “Anybody seen him? I said I’d give him a ride back to my place.”
Phil started to sit up; Maddie laid a hand on his back. “Tell him you’re coming home with me.”
He lay down again at her side. Maddie felt she could have spent the whole night that way, the whole winter, close to his warmth. Relearning what it was to spend nights alternately talking and dozing, and sinking into loving like young animals mating in spring.
“I meant what I said, about not wanting to become something you get sick of seeing. I don’t want…” His fingertips stroked her palm. “I don’t want it to turn into that. I don’t want us to turn into that. In a couple of months I’ll have the money to get my own place—I never planned to spend longer than that sleeping on the studio floor. Rather than risk losing what I think we can have, I’ll couch-surf until then.”
Drowsily, Maddie reached across to touch his face. “Now who doesn’t trust who?” she asked. “Do you think we’ll lose what I think we’re going to have?”
“No.” There wasn’t a trace of doubt in his voice. “I don’t think anything in the world can touch us. Or in any other world.”
Maddie smiled. “Nor do I.” She felt very calm as she said it, lifted out of herself, beyond the shadows of a haunted past. As if more than a building full of ghosts and memories had burned down the other night, releasing those imprisoned within. “Do you want to move in?”
He sighed. “I should be a sensitive New Age guy and say no, no, you need your space…. But ever since I met you, I’ve been wondering what it’s like to wake up next to you in the morning.” He brought her palm to his lips. “And I want to be next to you when I fall asleep at night.”
“We can’t know the future,” said Maddie softly. “We can only know ourselves. And maybe, if we’re lucky, each other.”
He leaned over her, pressed his lips to hers. “Then I think you’ve got yourself another roommate.”
They rose from the divan and dressed, then went down to join their friends, afterward walking to the subway together through the icy January night.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3755-5
NIGHT’S EDGE
Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
DANCERS IN THE DARK
Copyright © 2004 by Charlaine Harris Schultz
HER BEST ENEMY
Copyright © 2004 by Margaret Benson
SOMEONE ELSE’S SHADOW
Copyright © 2004 by Barbara Hambly
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Contents
DANCERS IN THE DARKCharlaine Harris
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
HER BEST ENEMYMaggie Shayne
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
SOMEONE ELSE’S SHADOWBarbara Hambly
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN