by Diana Palmer
“I can’t stand up in the shower alone, much less prop and bathe with only one hand,” he added, indicating the stump of his left forearm. Actually he could, but he had ulterior motives.
She blinked. “Well,” she hesitated.
“You’ll have to climb in with me. If it’s not too much trouble,” he added with downcast eyes. “I realize that a man in this condition might be repulsive to you.”
Her heart twisted. “Of course you’re not!” she protested at once.
He felt lighter than air. “Well?”
She cleared her throat, hesitating.
He got up from the toilet seat and moved toward her. “Tell me.”
She swallowed hard. “I haven’t taken off my clothes in front of anybody except my doctor in my whole life. Not even with you, that time. It was in the dark.”
His face softened magically. “I haven’t, either,” he confessed. “Perhaps you don’t remember that Apaches are inherently modest. I swam in trunks even as a boy, when I played in the river with other boys during the monsoon season.” He smiled, recalling how rarely the rivers actually contained water, on the reservation.
Her strained expression lightened a little. But she was still hesitant.
He moved closer, his dark eyes quiet as they looked down into hers. “I hate feeling grungy,” he coaxed. “Besides, I’ve got nice clean sheets. Wouldn’t it be a pity to climb back into them like this?”
She managed a smile. “I guess so.” Her heart was beating double-time. She wondered if he knew.
He traced a path down her cheek. “We were married,” he reminded her. “You gave me a child.”
She drew in a fatalistic sigh. “Okay. Try not to notice how red I get.”
He chuckled, reaching inside the shower stall to turn on the flow and check the temperature. He unsnapped the boxers and let them drop, climbing in under the water, with his hand propped on the tiles and his back to her. “Don’t take long,” he said. “I’m pretty wobbly.” Which was true.
She took off her blouse and slacks and shoes, hesitating. But he swayed and cursed huskily, and she became more concerned than embarrassed. She dropped her lingerie along with her clothes on the vanity. She pulled two dark blue washcloths from the towel holder and climbed in with him.
He glanced down at her, his dark eyes fascinated with the pink perfection of her body, from her high, taut breasts with their dusky crowns to the indentation of her small waist and the flatness of her stomach. Dark color flooded along his high cheekbones and he hoped that he was too weak to let his upsurge of desire for her show.
It was a forlorn hope. He’d been too long without a woman.
Sarina’s gaze dropped shyly from the heat of his eyes and encountered the major physical difference between them. Color flooded her face as she averted her eyes to the muscular wall of his hair-roughened chest.
“You must have seen a centerfold from time to time,” he chided gently.
She swallowed as she handed him the washcloth. “Not like you, I haven’t.”
He chuckled, delighted. He laid the washcloth over one broad shoulder while he popped open the lid on the bottled body wash. “It’s a more masculine scent than you’re used to, I’m afraid,” he indicated. “But we’ll manage. Can you soap my cloth for me and do my back?”
“Of…of course.” She took the body wash and the cloth and got to work. His back was broad and heavily scarred. She winced as she drew the soapy washcloth over the taut muscles. “You carry the story of your life on your back,” she said sadly.
He’d forgotten the scars. His body tautened. “Are the scars distasteful?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly, Colby,” she said quietly. “You know they’re not.”
He relaxed. The lacerations made him self-conscious. “That’s something, I guess,” he said heavily.
His insecurity made her feel funny. It was such an odd quirk, in such a very self-confident and masculine man. She smiled as she drew the cloth down to the taut line of his buttocks. Her hand hesitated.
“Chicken,” he teased.
She sighed. “Anatomy was never one of my best subjects.”
“This is a perfect opportunity to pick it up,” he mused.
She laughed. She drew the cloth down the backs of his legs. It was like touching wood, the muscles were so hard. “You must still work out every day,” she commented.
“I have to. Even if I’m in a different line of work, much of what I do is still physical. When I worked for Hutton, I had to go after thieves and even terrorists a time or two. We had a firefight with a group of would-be assassins barely three years ago, right outside Washington, D.C.”
She gnawed her lower lip. “I didn’t realize it was that risky.”
“It’s only risky if you let down your guard,” he commented. “I drank heavily in the old days. I forgot several doses of quinine when I was in Africa, which is why I got malaria there. It’s also how I lost my arm.”
“But you didn’t take a drink at all after you found out about Bernadette.”
His chest expanded on a long breath. “I couldn’t do that to her,” he said huskily. “I’m not much of a father, Sarina, but I’m never going to take another drink and put her at risk in any way at all. Her, or you.” He turned around, his eyes dark and somber as they met hers with the shower spray all around them. He took the cloth from her. “My turn,” he said huskily, and went to work on her own body.
Her breasts tautened instantly, from the brush of his hand and the abrasion of the cloth against her skin. She flushed as well.
“You aren’t used to being touched,” he said softly.
“I’m not,” she agreed in an unsteady tone.
He smiled slowly. “The poor liaison officer. No wonder he has such a lean and hungry look.”
The flush worsened as he worked his way down her flat belly. “I don’t…feel like that with Rodrigo.”
The cloth hesitated. He met her eyes. “Ever?”
“Ever.”
“You feel like that with me,” he added quietly.
“You’re sure about that, are you?” she mused, trying to make light of it.
His hand moved again, spreading soap and scattering nerves as he watched her face. “Yes. I’m sure.”
He turned her gently to do her back. The feel of him behind her, the spray of the water, the intimacy of what they were doing made her feel swollen all over. She wanted so badly to turn around and press her body hard against his. The desire was almost painful.
He was experienced enough to know it, but he wasn’t going to risk rushing her. He handed her the washcloth, so that she could rinse and hang it, and he reached for the bottle of shampoo.
He eased her back into the shower spray and, holding the bottle cap in his teeth, squeezed shampoo directly into her hair. He replaced the bottle cap and began to work the shampoo into her long, wet blond hair with his fingers.
“You manage that very nicely,” she commented.
He chuckled. “You learn how to cut corners with a disability.”
“Of course.”
He guided her back into the spray to rinse her hair. Then he exchanged places with her and drenched his own hair. “Your turn,” he said.
She squeezed shampoo into her hand, replaced the bottle, and then realized that she’d have to stand on tiptoe to get to his hair. He was much taller than she was. She found that it involved an intimacy they hadn’t shared since the night they’d created Bernadette.
His reaction was a little disconcerting. The second her breasts touched his chest, as she lifted against him to shampoo his hair, he went taut and groaned audibly.
She froze in position, her hands in his hair, her eyes faintly surprised as they met the glitter of his own.
“I haven’t had a woman in a long time,” he ground out.
She still hesitated. “Is this…painful?”
His hand slid to the base of her spine and pulled her hard against him. “This is,” he said huski
ly as the threat of his body pressed hard into her belly.
Her lips parted. She shivered at the blatant capability that was just faintly threatening.
“You had Bernadette normally, didn’t you?” he asked in a strained tone.
She nodded.
His cheekbones flushed again. “Maybe you could take all of me without pain, after that,” he said in a soft, sensuous tone.
Erotic images flooded her mind. She was already vibrating with desire, this close to him. The look on his face, added to the vivid images of the statement, made her color and a faint shudder that he could feel eased through her body.
He backed into the spray of water, rinsing the soap out of his hair. Seconds later, he bent, and his hard mouth moved very gently against her parted lips. He was hesitant, careful with her. He brushed at her upper lip and slid just the tip of his tongue under it, teasing, arousing. One powerful leg inserted itself slowly between hers in a sensual motion that made her want to ease his passage. Her legs slipped apart and she gasped as she felt him move, so that his body was pressed intimately to her own.
He felt her immediate response. His mouth opened and hardened urgently on her soft mouth. She moaned as the kiss built to unmanageable proportions and her body began to shiver with the force of her hunger for him.
He drew back, turning off the shower. He reached for towels and blotted the moisture from her body while she did the same for him. He handed her the hair dryer wordlessly, his eyes making threats and promises with equal blatant meaning.
She could barely breathe. There was a lingering fear of remembered pain, but her body didn’t care. She ached to lie in bed with him and let him do anything he liked to her.
And he knew. It was in the taut lines of his body, the glitter of his dark eyes as she finished drying both his wavy dark hair and her own long blond tresses. He took the hair blower from her and unplugged it. She made one hesitant move toward her clothing. He blocked it by pulling her against him.
She couldn’t resist him. Curiosity and desire mixed, making her helpless.
“It won’t hurt,” he bit off. “Come here.”
He kissed her hungrily, his mouth urgent and ardent on her own. His hand caressed her, testing the soft weight of her breasts, the softness of her skin. He pulled his mouth from hers, bent and put his lips over a hard nipple, easing it completely between his lips.
She gasped out loud and arched toward him. The pleasure was maddening, narcotic. She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want him to stop. Desire seeped into every cell of her taut body as his mouth found her soft belly.
Seconds later, he had her by the hand and he was pulling her along with him to the bedroom. He barely had the presence of mind to close and lock the door on his way to the bed.
“Colby, we…shouldn’t,” she faltered as he eased her down on her back and followed her onto the clean sheets.
“I would try to be rational,” he whispered as his mouth began to work its way down her soft, taut body. “But I don’t think I have time…Sarina!”
It seemed almost indecent, the way he touched her, the aching hunger of his mouth on her skin. Pleasure built on pleasure as she writhed under his expert touch. It had never been so urgent, so desperate, not even in the first few ecstatic minutes of their wedding night, before he hurt her.
Despite his own aching need, he was slow and tender with her, making sure that she was completely aroused and ready for him before he eased down over her trembling body.
“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered at her mouth as he moved into complete intimacy with her. “No matter what it takes. Trust me.”
Her nails bit into his broad shoulders as she felt him teasing, pressing, penetrating softly. He lifted his head and looked into her dark, frightened eyes.
“I wouldn’t deliberately hurt you to save my own life,” he whispered tenderly. “I won’t take my pleasure at the expense of yours, either. Especially not now.” His eyes closed on a wave of pleasure as he moved higher against her and felt her gasp and pull at him. “You gave me a child,” he bit off, shuddering with pleasure.
The feel of him stretching her intimately was a delight beyond expression. Her short nails bit into his shoulders as she arched her hips toward his, enjoying the contact as it became more and more intimate. In spite of his reassurances, she’d expected some pain. There was none. Only pleasure that fed on itself as his motions, tender and slow, became relentlessly more intimate.
“All right?” he whispered, smiling as he felt her eager response.
“It’s…incredible,” she choked, shivering with every slow thrust.
“And we’ve barely started,” he replied huskily.
Her eyes opened wide. Barely started? The pleasure was already taking her. She was reaching toward something intangible. There was a high place, somewhere above, and she strained to reach it. She saw him, but his taut face hardly registered. She was intent on the deep motions that began to spiral, the tension that grew until she was openly shuddering with every lift and fall of his lean hips. Her mouth opened soundlessly and she moved with him, aggressive now, demanding, as she tried and tried to reach that high level of delight that was surely going to kill her.
“Slowly,” he whispered, his hand staying her thrashing hips. “There’s no rush.”
“I’m dying,” she choked, sobbing. “Please…!”
He smiled tenderly. She had no idea what was about to happen. She thought in terms of momentary satisfaction. He was thinking beyond these few seconds to the next few minutes, as he taught her the soft, rocking motion that escalated the pleasure second by throbbing second.
Resting on his elbow, barely aware of the missing hand in his blind passion for her, his hand moved between them into intimacy. He touched her, stroked her, while his hips levered even closer.
She stared up at him incredulously as the soft motion of his fingers shot her right over the edge of sanity into a hot, swirling agony of satisfaction that she sobbed out against his warm, hard mouth.
Her body relaxed and she stared up at him, embarrassed.
He shifted all at once, moved higher on her body, and her sensitized flesh reacted with an even more explosive climax than he’d just given her. She convulsed under his delighted gaze, both hands going to the back of his powerful thighs to hold him to her, to urge him even closer.
He was sweating. He was still weak, and his legs were shivering with the tension and the expenditure of energy. But for the life of him, he couldn’t have stopped.
“Please,” she sobbed against his mouth. “Closer…!”
“Risky,” he whispered back, but he wanted to be closer, too. He hesitated, reached for a pillow and pushed it under her hips. The elevation pushed her over the edge again, almost at once. He felt her body accept him, the heat and softness of it enveloping him, embracing him. He couldn’t hold it any longer. He drove for his own fulfillment in a blind, taut agony of motion. He felt it take him, whip his body into a tension that felt as if it could break bones. Then, in a blaze of ecstasy, it threw him up into the stars in a maelstrom of fiery delight. He cried out endlessly as his powerful body convulsed over and over again in the cradle of her softness.
She watched him, fascinated. Her own body was languid now with satiety, but she still responded to the fierce motion of his hips. The abrasion brought yet another climax, more powerful and frightening than all the others put together. She sobbed and moaned as the exquisite pulsing went on and on and on.
Finally he collapsed heavily on her damp body, gasping for breath.
She cradled him, blind with fulfillment, alive as she’d never been in her life. The weight of him was a pleasure so deep that she shivered with it. There had been no pain, none at all; only an ecstasy that she’d never dreamed existed.
“Are you all right?” he whispered at her ear.
“Oh…yes,” she choked.
He lifted his head. His hair was damp, like hers, but his face was more relaxed than she’d ever seen it. His
eyes were soft and dark, intense with feeling. He couldn’t find the right words to express what he wanted to say to her. He bent and traced her mouth tenderly with his lips. He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her closed eyelids, with breathless affection.
She shivered delicately. Every time he moved, the pleasure bit into her all over again. She began to shift under him, to bring it back.
He looked down at her quietly and caught her hip in a steely clasp. “No,” he whispered. “It will make you very sore. We have to stop.”
She colored and stilled. “Sorry…”
“I’d keep it up for hours, if I could do it without hurting you,” he bit off, his dark eyes smoldering with passion. “I love watching you. But it will be painful later.”
She drew in a long breath. “I’m…new to this.”
“I know.” He said it with heartfelt feeling. He kissed her eyelids shut. His own body shivered faintly as he began to withdraw from her, very carefully. He rolled onto his back and shuddered. “Just an hour ago I thought I was disabled.”
She lifted herself onto an elbow and looked at his lean, smiling face. “Excuse me?”
His eyes opened, quiet and soft. “I haven’t made love since I lost part of my arm,” he explained simply. “I was afraid to. I didn’t know if I could, without the prosthesis.”
“That was a long time ago,” she said.
“Yes.” There were oceans of meaning in the word. He lifted an eyebrow. “You and I fit together very nicely now.”
She colored. “I noticed.”
He stretched aching muscles and shivered. “I’m not as in shape yet as I’d like to be,” he confessed.
Her fingers went to his hard mouth. She traced it tenderly. “I hope this doesn’t set you back,” she worried.
“I wouldn’t care if it killed me,” he mused. “It would have been worth it.”
She searched his eyes curiously. “It wasn’t like this before.”
“You were afraid of it, before,” he replied quietly. “And a virgin.” He winced. “And I wasn’t cold sober. It still hurts me, to know how much damage I did to you.”
