Again the Magic

by Lee Damon

  "It's over," O'Mara whispered in her ear, and she knew he meant all of it—the long years of fear and pain, the struggle to cope with the ugly memories, the fight to become a healthy, well-balanced, loving woman again, and the ultimate need to face that final, unbelievable memory.

  She lifted her head and looked at him serenely with a quiet, accepting smile. "It's over," she agreed softly.

  He held her face gently between his hands and brushed a light kiss across her lips. "And our time is about to begin," he promised.

  His hands dropped to her shoulders, and he held her away from him. "Now, Ez and I are going to escort Portman to his car and see him on his way. We'll also take Hero for a short run. It would be very nice if you gals had some fresh coffee for us when we get back," he said coaxingly.

  "But—"

  His mouth stopped the rest of her protest. "Later," he murmured against her lips.

  Kitt looked at him intently, seeing the promise in his eyes and noting that his mouth had a particularly sensual softness to its usually firm contour. After all the hours she'd spent imagining what making love with him would be like, this was all she needed to turn her insides warm and hollow with desire. Only his firm hands on her shoulders kept her from sliding her arms around him again and pressing her body against his.

  He not only read the desire and need in her eyes, but he could feel the heat of it reaching out and touching him. "Later," he said again, his voice husky with promise and an answering need. He turned her around and gave her a light slap on the bottom to start her on her way to the kitchen.

  "On your feet, Portman. Don't worry about him," he said as Portman flinched away from Ez. "He's not going to touch you again as long as you do just what you're told."

  O'Mara opened the door and motioned Portman through ahead of him. Ez followed them, with Hero tagging at his heels.

  Chapter 22

  Kitt stood by the breakfast bar, staring at the closed door and listening absently to the receding voices. Her knees felt strangely weak and her body seemed to be full of warm bubbles. That husky "Later" drifted around in her mind, first loud, then soft, flowing like a tide. Listening to it, feeling it, she knew it was the goal, the climax, the new birth that she'd been reaching for with increasing eagerness. "Later," and it was a promise that parted her lips expectantly. It was as inevitable as moonrise that tonight was "Later"—it was at last the right time, and she felt only anticipation and a yearning excitement. No more fears. No more questions. No more shadows of the past. Just a rapidly increasing urgency to be with O'Mara, alone, naked, enveloped in each other. "Later," and she would know at long, long last the meaning of fulfillment, the oneness that they had denied themselves so very many years ago.

  She would probably still have been standing there with slumberous eyes and a face flushed with sexual arousal if

  Midge hadn't pushed her down onto a stool and forced her attention back to practical matters.

  "Ye gods, Kitt," she laughed, "if O'Mara walks in and sees that look on your face, you'll never make it as far as the bedroom!"

  "What?" Kitt slowly focused on Midge and then, in an instant replay, heard her last comment. The light flush deepened to fiery red, and she tried desperately to think of something innocuous to say.

  "Oh, Kitt, that man had better do something about you right quick, before you start howling at the moon," Midge chortled.

  "Yes, well, Ez said much the same thing this afternoon, and I rather think he's going to. Do something. O'Mara, I mean. About me. Oh, damn!" Kitt was completely flustered and suddenly felt as if she had an excess of hands and feet and didn't know quite what to do with any of them. She jumped up, exclaiming distractedly, "Drat! I forgot the coffee."

  Midge pushed her back down onto the stool. "Never mind. I've already made it, and you'd better have a cup before you deteriorate into a heap of crumbs."

  Between the strong coffee and Midge's bantering, Kitt managed to control her definitely overheated imagination and to regain her normal count of hands and feet. Although part of her concentration was devoted to listening for returning footsteps, and she had a tendency to see blue eyes wherever she looked, she did make an effort to pay attention to Midge's speculations about what Laura would say when Portman reported to her. She glanced at the kitchen clock every few minutes, wondering if it were slow.

  "Where did they say they were going? Shouldn't they have been back by now?"

  Midge adopted a look of extreme patience and spoke with exaggerated simplicity. "They are sending that creep on his way. Then, they are taking Hero for a run. Then, they will be back. Be calm. Be cool." She flung her arms wide and declaimed at the top of her voice, "HE WILL RETURN!"

  When Ez and O'Mara walked in a minute later, they found both women rocking with laughter. Midge finally managed to gasp, "You guys want your coffee now?"

  "No," answered Ez, taking her hand and leading her toward the door. "The coffee was to keep you two busy." He slid back the door and paused, turning Midge around. "Say goodnight to Kitt and O'Mara now."

  "Goodnight, Kitt and O'Mara," she echoed obediently, with a twinkle in her eyes and an impish smile.

  Ez winked at O'Mara. "Enjoy yourselves," he murmured with a smug grin at Kitt.

  She stood up, looking questioningly from the closed door to O'Mara and then, in alarm, she scanned the room. "Hero! Where is he?"

  "Waiting in Ez's car," he said, smiling faintly, an intent, heated quality in his darkening eyes. "Come here, love, and stop worrying about Hero or anything else." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her lightly, his lips cool and salty from the night air. "Hero and Ez are going to sleep at the Rock tonight. Gus will be ecstatic when he wakes up in the morning. You, my love, are going to be ecstatic a good deal sooner than that."

  "Oh." It was a breath against his cool lips, warming them. Her arms rested across his shoulders, and her long, supple fingers played in the soft thickness of his hair.

  "Oh, indeed. Also ah and hmmmm." He was in no hurry now. He kept his mouth a breath away from hers, his lips barely brushing hers when he spoke. Slowly, he moved his hands downs her back until he could slide them under the edge of her sweater. "Midge is going to open up in the morning so we can sleep late."

  "We can?" Dreamy, abstracted. Words were only half-comprehended. They were far less real than the warm hands gently memorizing the contours of her bare back. Under their light pressure, she swayed closer until her breasts just touched his chest. "If we took off some of these clothes, this would be even nicer."

  "Hmmm. Why didn't I think of that?" She could sense his smile and delicately outlined his lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She felt as if clouds of tiny butterflies were swirling through her. Every square inch of tissue, every nerve ending in her body was pulsing and quivering with sweet tension. Vaguely, she heard him whisper, "Happy birthday, my lovely Kitt."

  "It's tomorrow." She was muzzily aware of faint surprise; with so much happening, she'd forgotten all about her birthday until he mentioned it.

  "I know, but tomorrow arrived ten minutes ago." His voice was becoming as slow and dreamy as hers. Without conscious thought, his hands dropped to her hips, spreading over their firm curves and pressing her belly against his. "You're right," he murmured huskily. "This would be much, much better without all these clothes."

  "Why don't we take them off, then?" she whispered, trailing her fingers down to start unbuttoning his shirt. He interrupted her after three buttons to pull her sweater off. "Finish what you started, love. Why do you persist in wearing these silly bras? You don't need them."

  "If you're trying to tell me I'm too small, I already know that," she muttered. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and tugged it down over his arms.

  He shook free of the shirt to let it drop to the floor and brought his hands up to cover her breasts. "Sweet idiot. Where do you get these strange ideas? Your breasts are just right. They fill my hands very nicely, or hadn't you noticed?"

  His tongue was burn
ing patterns down the side of her neck. Its heat flashed through her, and she wriggled against him, fitting her hips to his hardening contours. She could feel the growing pressure of his aroused manhood against her belly, and then his spread fingers gripping her buttocks to hold her tightly against him.

  "You beautiful witch," he groaned as his mouth opened wide against hers and his urgent tongue sought, found and tempted hers into an erotic, twining, sliding duel. They swayed on their feet and Kitt's knees were buckling, when O'Mara lifted his mouth, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

  "I think... it's definitely... time for us to... go to bed. Believe me... you'll enjoy it much... better than the floor." He pressed his palms against her hipbones to move her half a dozen inches away from him. He was almost undone by the darkly luminous message in her exotic eyes, and his hands tightened on her for a long moment before they glided softly up her naked torso, briefly caressing the taut breasts, and closed over her shoulders.

  "Wait right there. Don't move." Reluctantly, his hands dropped from her and, with a visible effort, he turned away to move swiftly around the room, locking the door and switching off lights. Finding his way by the dim glow of the hall light, he returned to catch her hand and lead her willingly down the hall to her moonlit bedroom.

  Dazed with arousal and anticipation, Kitt paused uncertainly in the bedroom doorway. For a few seconds, her wandering attention focused on the shifting light and shadow playing over his bare skin, and she didn't hear his "What is it?" until he tapped her cheek with one long finger and repeated it a second time.

  "Oh... ah... I've got to... I'll be back... just a minute." The room seemed unaccountably airless, or perhaps it was just that she kept forgetting to breathe. She hovered in the doorway, and one hand drifted up to slowly stroke the thick fur on his chest.

  His teeth flashed white in the shadowed darkness of his face as he teased gently, "You were about to go in the other direction. And the sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back here." His voice dropped to a husky seductiveness. "Then we can both play as long as we want."

  She was naked when she floated back into the bedroom, but couldn't remember having taken off the rest of her clothes. Somehow, she knew she'd find him naked, too. He was. The lean, beautiful, muscular body and long, sinewy legs were silhouetted against the moon-washed window where he waited for her. She never felt the soft carpet under her feet as she drifted across the room and into his arms.

  It was all so natural, so inevitable. Something that had always been meant to be, that had been waiting and had now come to its proper time. There was no awkwardness, no fumbling, no hesitation. Her arms lifted to slide around his shoulders as his hands smoothed gently down her back, exerting just enough pressure to mold the full length of her naked body to his. Her parted lips were against the warm, smooth skin of his neck. She felt his breath on her ear as he whispered, "My beautiful Kitt, I love you so much and I've waited so long for you."

  "O'Mara." It was an exhalation. He sensed it more than he heard it, and knew it was all she had to say. It wasn't a name; it was a one-word summation of all she knew about love and loving and all she would learn with this man. It was every term of endearment, every loving plea, and all the myriad ways of saying "I love you" refined and reduced to their ultimate essence in one three-syllable word. It was the answer to all her questions and, understanding that, she had nothing left to ask. She had gone beyond thinking or feeling in terms of hands, skin, arms and all the other elements that create separate sensations. There was only the one overwhelming sensation. "O'Mara." All of existence was, for this time, encompassed in "O'Mara."

  Rising passion and building need blazed and flowed between them until they became one undeniable force. They were without words, without thought. In lazy, loving midnight reminiscences in later years, neither of them would ever recall moving across the silvered room to the bed, or even the details of their first joining. It all happened with the inevitability and naturalness of dawn. Standing together by the window, they had become one emotionally, and in moments they were lying on the wide bed completing their oneness.

  This was the end of waiting. The beginning of total togetherness was now. No time for kisses and strokings. No need for further arousal. She was on her back, neither knowing nor caring what was supporting her, only aware of his descending body. As she felt his weight pressing on her, she opened to him, and with one strong, slow thrust of his hips, they were complete. He filled her last emptiness, and she enclosed him lovingly in her tight, heated sheath. Eyes closed, totally concentrating on each other, they could feel not only their own sensations but each other's. She didn't need his guiding hands; she knew how he wanted her to move as he knew just what she needed.

  They made their journey together to the heart of a nova, bursting with its brief, brilliant blaze, and falling slowly back through space in a soft silver glow.

  Neither of them moved for a long, long time, except for the instinctive relaxing of muscles. Her arms slid down until just her hands rested lightly on his hips. Her head fell back against his arm. When his taut neck muscles loosened, his head sank onto the pillow of her hair, turning slightly so that his mouth touched her neck. Slowly, their hearts and lungs regained their even rhythms. For several minutes, he could feel the tiny aftershocks of climax from deep inside her. They lay, still joined, sharing the sweet, drugged euphoria and an unexpected sense of homecoming.

  "Love?" A soft whisper. She felt his breath feathering on her neck.

  "Why didn't you tell me it was like that? I never imagined..." Her whisper trailed off as she lost the thought in remembered wonder.

  "How could I describe it? You had to be here." His fingers stroked the silky skin of her shoulder, and he kissed the sensitive hollow below her ear. "I always knew we'd be special together, but I never dreamed just how special."

  Her hands drifted over his back in tactile exploration of the ridges of his spine and the curving lines of muscle. "It's like being in a whole new world. Or a different dimension of the old one." Her voice was slow, soft, dreamy. "It's beautiful. You're beautiful. And I love you."

  "Couldn't you call me handsome instead of beautiful?" She could feel his smile against her neck.

  "Handsome is for looks. Beautiful is for heart and soul and all of it together. You're beautiful." She shifted her head so she could look at him. "My mind is only semi-functional right now, and I don't think I'm explaining things too well."

  "You're doing just fine. I know exactly what you're trying to say, because I feel the same way about you." His eyes were intent on her face for several moments, reading the fulfillment, seeing signs of the growing confidence of a well-loved woman. His smile combined love and deep satisfaction, and it stopped her breath.

  "Happy birthday, my Kitt," he murmured, a wicked glint in his eyes. "Did you like your first present?"

  "I loved it." Her answering smile was deliciously seductive, and her eyes smoked at him. "Did you say 'first'? Are there more?"

  He shifted to lean over her on his elbows, both hands cupping her face. He moved his mouth over hers in a touch as light as the brushing of moth wings. "Oh, yes, my birthday girl, there's more. In a little while. And much more later. And tonight you'll have your ring." He flicked the corners of her lips teasingly with the tip of his tongue. Tensing, preparing to lift his weight from her, he said contritely, "I must be heavy for you. Sorry, love, but I didn't want to move."

  She wound her arms around his waist and shifted her legs slightly to cradle his hips more comfortably between her thighs. "No. I'm not exactly fragile, and I like you where you are."

  He relaxed again on her, sliding his hands under her shoulders and burying his face in her neck, whispering, "If I stay here, my seductive witch, 'a little while' is going to be a damn short while."

  "Why do you—Oh. Ohhhhh... oh, yes. Please...."

  Always, afterward, they would remember that night as the most enchanted and incredible of their special collection of magic-and-moonlight
nights. A new world opened to them, and they were eager to test it, taste it, feel it, touch it. He led the way and she followed. He urged her to explore and experiment, and she stretched her wings and flew. He offered her delights, and she accepted and learned to give him pleasure. They melded passion and love and laughter and lust, and they found themselves in ecstasy.

  The sky was glowing golden with incipient sunrise, and they were stretched on their sides, half-asleep, facing each other. Their long legs were still entwined, and his arms were relaxed around her. She tilted her head back against his arm to look up at him with sleepy eyes.

  "O'Mara?" Her voice was husky in the aftermath of passion. The words came softly, a marvelous discovery of the impossible being possible. Her gift to him.

  "O'Mara... it was the first time."

  She caught her breath as his face was transformed with joy and wonder, and she saw the sapphire eyes glisten with tears and felt them mingle with her own as he pressed his face against hers.

  Chapter 23

  Kitt wriggled backward on the flat rock, and swung her feet up to sit cross-legged. The sun was bouncing off the water in eye-dazzling flashes, and she had to squint to watch the big power boat forging along well offshore on its way down the coast. Relaxed, enjoying the light breeze cooling her sun-heated skin, she wasn't thinking very strenuously about much of anything. It was the kind of afternoon when the height of ambition was to be a lazy lizard sunning on a rock.

  In the distance, off to her left around the base of Crest Rock, she could hear Gus and Midge laughing and calling to each other. When she'd left them on the low-tide beach a while ago, they were discussing the merits of various tricks they wanted to teach Hero and arguing over commands and methods. Hero thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention, and was adding his own variations to their efforts when Kitt had ambled away to explore the ledges at the base of the Rock.