by Amii Lorin
"No, he never came home." Being very careful not to tug painfully, Adam put both hands to work arranging her hair into a fiery aureole around her head. "My mother brought me home when I was ten." Dipping his head swiftly, he rested his face against hers and murmured, "You have very beautiful hair, Jennifer." Lifting his head with obvious reluctance, he went on softly, "My father and brother remained in Japan. I've been back and forth like a swinging door since then."
"Your parents are divorced?" Jen stirred restlessly at the gaspy sound of her own voice. He was too close— much, much too close. Her movement brought his eyes to hers. A flame as bright as any in the fireplace blazed in their dark depths.
"No, they are not divorced."
"But—" Jen began, then paused, a frown betraying her confusion.
"Within the last twenty-five years they've seen each other approximately twenty-five times," Adam said quietly, steadily.
"But how can a marriage like that survive?" Jen asked in astonishment, visualizing the close, comfortable relationship her parents shared.
"Why shouldn't it?" Leaning back away from her, Adam shrugged. "They genuinely like and respect each other. How many couples do you know, married over thirty-five years, that can truthfully say they still have those feelings? Some quietly hate each other. Others are merely bored to numbness with each other. And that includes a lot of people married one hell of a lot less years. The only reason most of them stay together is their innate fear of change or being alone."
Jen felt chilled, both by his sudden withdrawal and the cool superiority of his tone. Perhaps that happened to some couples, but surely not the majority. Her own parents were proof of that. On the defensive, Jen plunged into the role of advocate for tradition.
"But without the day-to-day sharing, both of good and bad, there is no real marriage. There is no real communion, not only mentally but—" Jen broke off, the argument dying on her lips at the stonelike quality that had replaced the velvet warmth in Adam's eyes.
"Do you actually believe two people have to live together, endless day in, endless day out, to share that communion?" Adam asked austerely. "Believe me, they do not. My parents have shared the important things, including my brother and me."
"But that was so unfair to you!" Jen cried indignantly.
"In what way?" Adam replied coldly, moving even farther away from her. Before she could speak he answered for her. "By not being subjected to the petty jealousies most parents indulge in? I can assure you neither my brother nor I feel deprived about that. We had the best of both and of each other."
In one smoothly executed movement he turned away from her, leaned forward to scoop up his glass, rose with feline grace to his feet and, walking to the table, asked softly, "Would you like more wine?"
His sudden action, his soft tone, following so swiftly after his taut stillness and his cold voice, left Jen feeling disoriented and confused. Moving with much less grace than he had exhibited, she sat up, murmuring a hesitant "Yes, please."
He filled the glasses and handed one to her, then stood watching her as he drank half the contents of his glass in a few deep swallows.
Jen withstood his penetrating gaze as long as she could before protesting softly, "Why are you angry with me?"
"I'm not angry, Jennifer," he denied with a brief shake of his head. Sighing softly, he refilled his glass again before dropping onto the sofa beside her. "What I feel is impatience. Over the years I've become accustomed to the questions concerning my parents' life-style but"—he shrugged—"from you those same questions generate impatience in me."
"But why?" Jen's widened eyes mirrored her deepening confusion. "I'm very much like other people."
"You've just answered your own question." Adam's smile held self-mockery. "If you're honest you will admit that from the moment we met, something—I don't know what, but something—happened between us." His eyebrows rose, and she answered his silent query with a nod. "Yes," he said softly, "and I guess I expected too much." Adam shrugged again. "I don't even know what I did expect exactly." A wry smile curved his lips. "Automatic understanding plus a deep sense of simpatico, I suppose." The wry smile turned sad. "Very unrealistic, I know—but the hope was there."
"Adam—I—" Jen paused, groping for the words that would banish the sadness from his eyes. She didn't even understand why his obvious disappointment in her should hurt her so much, but it did. And so, making no attempt to hide the hurt, she said wistfully, "I'm sorry, but I am very much like other people. I had a very ordinary upbringing. I have never even heard of the kind of relationship you have described to me." She bit her lip, pleading, "Help me to understand."
Adam's eyes studied her broodingly for long seconds before, sighing deeply, he leaned to her and kissed her mouth very gently.
"I'm sorry, too," he murmured against her lips. "Okay," Adam said briskly as he sat up, "I'll make it as brief as possible. My parents do love each other. But they are both very independent people. My mother's a feature writer for a Philadelphia newspaper—has been since she graduated from college. She took a leave of absence when my brother, Luke, was born, and resigned when Dad decided to make the move to Japan. She worked for a while on a small English-language paper over there, but it didn't satisfy her." He paused to drink deeply from his glass before explaining, "She writes articles on vacation spots and places of interest on the East Coast. Places accessible, financially and timewise, to people limited to one or two weeks vacation."
"What is your mother's by-line?" Jen asked when he paused again to sip at his wine.
"Janet Elliot," Adam answered, one brow arching. "Have you read her articles?"
"I never miss them!" Jen exclaimed. "In fact it was because of an article she did on the ski lodge we were headed for that I decided to go on this tour."
Adam was nodding his head before she'd finished speaking. "I was headed for the same lodge." He laughed softly. "She is very good at what she does, and you can be sure if she claims a place is interesting, and worth the money, it will be. Anyway"—he shrugged—"as I said, she lasted ten years in Japan and then told my father she was going home, and back to work. Both Luke and I were present at that discussion. There were no accusations, no bitterness. If anything, my father seemed grateful for the ten years my mother had remained with him."
"Grateful?" It was impossible for Jen to hide her surprise and shock at that word.
"Yes, grateful." Adam's rough tone underlined the words darkly. "People can't own each other, Jennifer."
"I know that!" Jen exclaimed in protest. "But if there is real love between two people then surely—"
"Surely, what?" he interrupted harshly. "One should be willing to sacrifice all ambition, all personal dreams, to the other? Subjugate themselves at whatever cost?"
Wincing, Jen shrank back, away from his lashing tongue. The look on her face drove him to his feet. Breathing deeply, his back to her, he placed his now empty glass on the table, then stood as if collecting his thoughts, one hand absently rubbing the back of his neck. When he turned back to her it was so sudden Jen's body jerked.
"Dammit, Jennifer—" Adam stopped abruptly as his eyes caught the movement of her trembling hands. With an impatient grunt, he plucked the glass from her hand with a terse "Give me that before you spill it all over yourself."
Biting her lip, Jen watched him warily as he set her glass beside his own. When he again turned to face her, all signs of his impatience were gone.
"How can I make you understand?" He sighed softly, shaking his head. "If they had remained together they would very probably hate each other today. As it is, they still genuinely love and respect each other."
"But you said they've only seen each other about twenty-five times in the last twenty-five years."
"That's right," Adam replied quietly. "So?"
"Well—?" Jen paused, searching for words, then she blurted baldly, "Adam, you reminded me earlier that the sex drive is the strongest of all. I don't see how—" Jen faltered, again sea
rching for words.
"They have both had 'friends' over the years," Adam informed steadily.
"Friends?" Jen stared at him blankly a moment before, eyes widening, she asked faintly, "You don't mean—?"
"I mean exactly that," he inserted flatly.
"But—but that's—" Words failed her, and feeling her face begin to burn, she lowered her eyes.
"That's what?" Cradling her head with his hands, Adam forced her to look at him. "Immoral? Disgusting?" Bending over her, he stared directly into her eyes. "How do I make you understand?" he murmured. "I knew, and liked, every one of their 'friends.' There were only a few, on both sides. Their current friendships, or lovers, have been constant for several years now. My mother's 'friend' is a very prominent industrialist." His eyes grew soft, pensive. "My father's 'friend' is a gentle, exquisitely lovely young woman."
Jen was not so innocent or naive that she didn't know of the extramarital activities some people indulged in. But never had she heard of a situation quite like Adam had just explained to her. To Jen, it sounded cold-blooded and thoroughly selfish. In no way could she ever imagine herself loving one man while accepting another simply to appease the demands of the body. And she knew, without a shred of doubt, that the knowledge of the man she loved, and who supposedly loved her, performing that act of appeasement with another would be an unbearable reality she could not live with. Jen shook her head sharply in negation of the idea.
"I can't understand it, Adam," she whispered raggedly. "I don't even want to understand it. The thought that two people who claim to love each other could—" Jen's voice diminished to nothingness, and again she shook her head sharply inside the loose confines of Adam's hands.
Those hands, gentle till now, tightened, long fingers digging through her hair into her scalp. Holding her still, he grated, "I know it could not work for everyone. Ideally, each individual should be able to choose his own way, his own life-style. Females as well as male. But it usually comes down to one giving way to the other."
"But that's what marriage is all about, isn't it?" Jen cried. "The give and take of two individuals learning to live together?"
Why did she suddenly have the very uneasy feeling they were no longer talking about his parents? Jen wondered despairingly. And why did his opinion have the power to inflict the pain now clutching at her chest? She had no time to search for answers, for Adam, propping one knee on the cushion beside her, leaned very close to whisper harshly, "I should not have started this. I should have waited until we knew each other better." His digging fingers stilled a moment before beginning a sensuous massage down the back of her head. By the time his trance-inducing fingertips reached her sensitive nape, Jen was experiencing that all-over melting sensation again. Shivers skipping down her spine from quivering nerve endings, she was barely aware of Adam's words or the rueful tone of his voice.
"What I should have done is taken you to my room, bound you to me—at least physically—before attempting an explanation."
Jen's body grew rigid as the full context of his words registered on her bemused mind.
"No, you couldn't have." She moved her head restlessly from side to side in a useless effort to shake off his hands. "I would not have gone with you."
"Oh, Jennifer." Adam's voice had lowered to a caressing murmur. "Lie to yourself if you must, but don't try to lie to me. For while the words of denial whisper through your lips, the response of your body to my touch cancels them."
While he was speaking his hands moved as if to underscore his assertions. Trailing twin lines of fire, his fingertips followed the columns of her throat, paused a moment to explore her suddenly leaping pulse, then came together at the top button of her blouse. The small pearl button slipped neatly through the hole, and his fingers moved down to the next one in line, and then the next.
"Adam—stop—"
Adam's parted lips silenced her protest, his probing tongue crushed the meager remnants of her resistance. The pressure of his mouth on hers drove her head back against the soft cushion. The searching tip of his tongue drove all reasonable thought from her mind.
Although Jen was sitting down she had the oddest sensation of dropping through space. Reaching out blindly she grasped Adam's hips and hung on. Her mouth was released then caught again, teasingly this time.
While Adam's lips played games with hers, his hands slid inside her blouse and around her waist. The warmth of his palms sliding over the bare skin on her back drew a soft moan through her parted lips. The moan changed to a weak murmur of protest when his fingers deftly released the catch on her bra. Tearing her mouth from the drugging enticement of his, Jen gasped, "Adam, no!"
"I want to touch you." Adam's mouth moved along the curve of her neck to her shoulder with maddening slowness as his fingers examined her spine. His lips covered her shoulder, her collarbone, with moist, hungry kisses. "Touch you and taste you," he added huskily. "And I want you to do the same to me."
"No! Adam, I can't—" Jen's denial died as she realized the contradiction between her words and actions. As if she had no control over their movement her hands had slipped under and inside his sweater to his waist and were urging him closer.
His tongue probing gently at the hollow at the base of her throat, Adam lowered his body next to hers. Sliding his right hand around her rib cage, he drew a shudder from her by outlining the curve of her breast with his long finger. When, finally, his hand cupped the aching mound, Jen released a sigh that swiftly changed into a moan of surrender.
Beyond caring about the consequences, Jen tentatively stroked Adam's smooth, warm-skinned broad back. Feeling his muscles tauten and grow hard in response to her lightest touch shattered the last of her reserve, and she let her hands roam freely.
Head flung back, eyes closed, trembling in response to the breath-stopping sensation radiating through her entire body from the hardening bud Adam's fingers gently caressed, Jen whispered a soft protest when he lifted his mouth from her throat. The next instant the protest became a murmur of delight as his lips brushed hers.
"Lie with me, Jennifer." Adam's wine-scented breath feathered over her lips deliciously. "Now," he urged, "here on the sofa."
"Here!" Jen's eyes flew open, became enmeshed in the hot velvet depths of his. "Adam, there's a clerk at the desk in the lobby. What if he should walk in here?"
The flame that leaped in Adam's eyes brought full awareness of her own words, left no doubt of his own understanding. Although she had not actually said yes, her question had betrayed her compliance. What had become of all her strong moral standards? she wondered sickly, her eyes shifting guiltily from the bright flame in his.
"Adam—I—I—" Pausing to search for words of repudiation she really didn't want to speak, Jen ran her tongue over her dry lips.
"I asked you earlier if you'd consider wetting my lips like that," Adam whispered, bringing his mouth to within a breath of hers. "Will you do it now?"
"Adam, please—" Jen groaned.
"Do it," he ordered softly, touching his mouth to hers. His fingers, for the last few moments stilled into a firm cup over her breast, began a sense-heightening stroking motion.
Hesitantly, using the very tip, Jen slid her tongue along his lower lip. Adam's low groan of pleasure instilled a boldness Jen had never felt before. Extending the tip almost imperceptibly when she reached the corner of his mouth, she started the return trip. When she paused to outline the center dip in his upper lip, his mouth opened.
"Enter, darling," he urged hoarsely. "Explore, go crazy. Make me crazy too."
His mouth crushed hers, forcing her lips wide. Slowly, with much trepidation, Jen slipped her tongue into the moist warmth of his mouth, then, growing brave, joined into a game of tag with his.
Without knowing quite how he had done it, Jen found herself flat on her back again, Adam's hard chest pushing her into the sofa's soft seat cushions. Giving in to demands and urgings from deep inside, she dug her nails convulsively into his back.
The following minutes were the wildest Jen had ever experienced. Adam's mouth, opening wider, consumed hers, filling her with desire, while his thrusting tongue drove her to acts she'd never contemplated.
Arching her back, she pressed her throbbing breasts against his possessive hands while her hands tugged at his sweater to bare his chest.
"Oh, God."
The harsh groan sounded as if it were torn from deep within his throat as Adam tore his mouth from hers. His sudden withdrawal chilled and frightened her.
"What's wrong?" Jen cried in confusion. "Adam, don't you want me?"
Adam was on his feet, moving away from her. The tremulous note of fear in her voice stopped him in mid-stride. Swinging around, he came back to her, the expression of astonishment on his face answering her question before he opened his -mouth.
"Not want you?" He laughed harshly. "Jennifer, I've got a hunger for you growing in me that will very likely take fifty years to appease." Bending over her, he grasped her shoulders and sat her up. Then, sitting beside her, he turned her so he was facing her back. His touch now coolly impersonal, he reached around her and expertly adjusted the lacy bra over her breasts before fastening the hook in back.
"Adam?"
"Shush, Jennifer." Lifting her hair to one side, Adam bestowed a tender kiss on the nape of her neck, then ordered softly, "Turn around, darling."
Obeying silently, Jen shifted around. Eyes lowered, she sat meekly while he buttoned her blouse.
"Look at me, Jennifer." His softly coaxing voice drew her eyes, shimmering with the threat of tears, to his. Now that her inflamed senses had cooled, sharp pangs of shame jabbed at her conscience, and as if that wasn't discomfiting enough, a deep feeling of rejection was poking holes in her confidence. The threat became the reality when two tears escaped to roll slowly down her cheeks.
Taking her face gently into his hands, Adam drew her to him with a murmured "Oh, my beautiful darling, don't cry. I want you so very badly but not here, not on this sofa. When I finally make love to you I want everything perfect for both of us." His mouth touched her lips as tenderly as it had touched her nape moments before. Then rising, he drew her to her feet.
