Gateway to Heaven

by BETH KERY

  “And you did?” she asked softly.

  “Like a baby.”

  “Are you going to sleep here again tonight?”

  “Are you asking me to?”

  “You didn’t need an invitation before.”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Well, this is different…seeing as how you’re conscious now and all.”

  They shared a smile. Christian’s faded when she lay back on the bed.

  “Okay, then. I’m inviting you. Not just to sleep here. To make love to me, too.”

  Chapter 9

  “Christian?” Megan asked warily a few seconds later. Christian had responded to her bold proposal with unsettling silence. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” he said slowly.

  “Why not?” she asked in surprise as she sat up on her elbows. “You used to want to.”

  “Oh, I want to,” he assured her with a ragged laugh. “Bit of an understatement, really,” he added under his breath. She watched him with wide eyes when he sat down next to her on the bed. “I’ve just gotten to know you more since then. Maybe we should take things slowly. I want you to be sure.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Maybe you are sure. But just in case, it won’t hurt either of us to wait a little longer,” he said doubtfully.

  Megan closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “Maybe it’s not hurting you, but I think it might be killing me.”

  His expression tensed. He reached for her, tenderly cupping her cheek in his palm. “Are you hurting, honey?”

  Megan crinkled her eyebrows, momentarily confused. His steamy gaze seemed to suggest it wasn’t a casual question.

  “Do you want me to touch you…give you some relief?” he asked quietly when he noticed her bewilderment.

  Her eyes widened. She was struck mute, but she managed a nod.

  He lay down on his side next to her and brought her into his arms.

  His kiss scorched her.

  * * * *

  Desire had built in him on and off during the day, only to spring up instantly and powerfully at Megan’s honesty. He’d keep his promise to himself to refrain from intercourse until she was confident of what she wanted, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to give her relief? If she was experiencing even a fraction of his need, it would be cruel not to grant her that, at least.

  He held her and made love to her mouth for long, languorous minutes, stroking the fire within her higher and higher. It was the sweetest kind of torture to go slow with her, to be so deliberate and careful. He caressed her neck, back, and hips, exploring her curves, mapping out her pleasing contours.

  “You fit just right in my palm,” he murmured next to her well-kissed lips as he molded one of her bottom cheeks to his palm. He plucked at her lower lip, then spread small kisses over her cheeks, nose, and eyelids.

  Megan was exploring his body as eagerly as he was exploring hers, making it harder and harder to keep himself on a leash. She spread her hands over his ribcage and discovered him inch by inch. She reached under his T-shirt. He groaned when she caressed bare skin. Her sensitive fingers made an eager study of him, making him hurt in the best sort of way. She smoothed her forefinger down the thin trail of hair that ran over his belly and followed it beneath the waist of his low-riding jeans. Christian paused in what he was doing, on the knife’s edge of anticipation, when Megan’s exquisite fingers whisked less than half an inch away from his erection.

  “You’re playing with fire,” he warned.

  “Isn’t that good?”

  “No. It’s tremendous. But I’m sort of struggling for control here,” he admitted gruffly. “I love it when you touch me. I give you an unrestricted license to do it whenever the mood strikes you in the future. But right now, for the next few minutes, just let me love you, okay?”

  “All right.”

  He clenched his teeth in agony at the sensation of her pulling her fingers out of the waistband of his jeans. He saw the trust in her beautiful eyes. Never much of one to pray, he suddenly beseeched a higher power for the strength to be deserving of what he saw in her gaze.

  He worked her top over her breasts. Megan helped him by leaning forward and shrugging out of it. He stared down at her in wonder and longing, taking a moment to relish how her firm breasts felt encased in smooth silk before he reached behind her and unsnapped her bra with a flick of his fingers. He unhooked the straps of the bra from her arms before he tossed away the flimsy lingerie. His hand stroked the delicate skin along her side as he inspected her with his eyes. His nostrils flared when he saw her delicate pink nipples tighten. Megan moved restlessly against him.

  Christian glanced up at her. “Are you embarrassed?”

  Megan shook her head.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “When you look at me, it feels like a touch.”

  Christian bent down and loved the mouth that kept uttering words that pierced his heart. While he kissed her, he filled his hands with her breasts. He memorized their exquisite softness, their gratifying weight, and the way her sensitive nipples pebbled beneath his fingertip at the lightest whisper of a caress.

  He lifted his head.

  “You’re so sweet,” he rasped as they both watched his fingers whisk over her pink, hardened crests.

  Her head moved restlessly on the pillow. She moaned softly. “Your fingertips are calloused,” she whispered.

  Christian glanced up regretfully. “It’s from years of playing the guitar.” His fingers stilled. “Do they feel scratchy?”

  Megan’s head rose abruptly when he stopped stroking her. “No, they feel heavenly. Gentle, but rough, too. Please. Don’t stop.”

  “Whatever you say, honey.”

  Christian alternated between kissing her mouth deliberately and watching as he played with her flushed breasts. Her cheeks grew vividly pink. Her green eyes shone with desire. When he saw her features tensing with arousal, he couldn’t resist teasing her a little. He plumped her breast, as if he were readying it for his mouth and stared at the taut peak that awaited him so temptingly.

  Megan stilled and her eyelids rose to watch him with tense expectation.

  “What do you want me to do, Megan?” he coaxed warmly.

  Megan inhaled, swelling her breast in his hand. “Kiss me. Put your mouth on me. Please.”

  He growled deep in his throat. He bent and suckled her hotly, but gently, tempering his need. After a moment, he noticed how she squeezed her thighs together and knew she did it to still her ache there. He continued to mold her breasts in his hands and stimulated her with his laving, lashing tongue, but he also reached down to unbutton her jeans. He raised his head momentarily from the moist, tight bud of her right nipple as he worked her jeans down over her thighs. Megan helped eagerly, kicking them off her lower legs after Christian eased them over her hips and knees.

  If he didn’t hurt so much he’d think he’d turned to stone he was so hard.

  He examined her as she lay on the bed, wearing nothing but tiny yellow silk bikini panties. Her golden hair was wildly tossed around her on the pillow. He read the puissant plea in her eyes. Her breasts were flushed and damp from his caresses. Her belly was pale, and flat, and strangely erotic to Christian in its vulnerability and softness.

  “You’re beautiful,” he rasped. “I knew that you would be, but this…”

  He pressed his mouth to her belly, unable to find the words for what he experienced in that moment. He’d made love to dozens of women in hundreds of different ways, but this relatively innocent sexual experience with Megan struck him as electric…amazing, even.

  She tangled her fingers in his hair. He rubbed his lips longingly against her silky skin and inhaled her womanly scent. He tongued her bellybutton.

  She made a strangled sound of longing. He opened his eyes, pinning her with his stare. He slowly raised himself over her and took her in his arms. His kisses on her mouth were feverish, but tender.

/>   “I’m going to touch you now, Megan. Okay?”

  ”Yes,” she pled.

  Their gazes remained locked as he palmed the mound at the juncture of her thighs. He pressed. Megan pressed back.

  “Christian.”

  “Shhh,” he soothed, although he wasn’t sure if he was trying to calm her desperation or his own jangled nerves. His arousal was greater than he’d ever known it to be. But just below it, like a brackish stream, ran his doubts and uncertainty. He didn’t want to hurt her. He only wanted to cherish the lovely, sensual nymph that lay beneath him, flushed with cresting desire.

  She tensed when his fingers slid beneath the silk of her underwear. He didn’t remove them, but just cupped her sex protectively for a few breathless moments. His lungs burned. When he heard her whimper of need, he carefully separated the tender petals that covered her most sensitive flesh. He slid and glided over her, hearing the erotic sound of her soft cries of pleasure.

  He dropped his head against hers on the pillow, slain by her sweetness.

  “Ah, Christ. You’re so wet, honey.” He panted as he stared into Megan’s damp, desire-tightened face. She was like hot silk gone liquid under his hand. “No, stay still, Megan,” he ordered gruffly when she started to squirm against his hand, wild for more friction.

  “Christian?” she asked shakily. Her body strained in pleasure.

  “Just let it happen,” he whispered hoarsely into her ear. “Give in to it. Trust me.”

  Her head went back and a sharp cry pushed out of her throat and past her lips. Her body shuddered against his hand. He watched her as she succumbed to pleasure, enthralled. He leaned down and spoke to her as he nursed her through her climax, soothing her, praising her responsiveness, her femininity, her innate sensuality. It was a choppy, unpracticed anthem, but Christian had never been so sincere in his life.

  He knew he would remember the moment forever when Megan’s eyelids opened and she looked at him. He would probably try to memorialize it in his music, but part of him knew that he would never fully capture the essence. It was the lament of the artist since time began.

  Her green eyes shone luminous. A light sheen of sweat covered her face, breasts and belly. Her hair looked wild, almost alive in its vibrancy. She was the same young woman he’d first seen playing with Emily in the park, but she was different, too…more than she had been.

  He responded naturally, without thought, to the newly awakened goddess who lay beside him. His kiss was reverent and lusty at once. He pressed his aching, tight erection into her soft flesh. Even though he had prohibited himself from doing so tonight, his fingers slid down her feminine folds, instinctively seeking the channel that was meant to cradle him.

  When he felt Megan tense, heard her cry of uncertainty, the spell abruptly shattered.

  He whipped his hand away from her and rolled off her. Megan was staring at him, wide-eyed.

  * * * *

  “Are you okay?” he demanded.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, it just…” Her words trailed off when she fully took in Christian’s expression.

  His anxiety was palpable. Why was he looking at her so strangely, like he thought she was going to break apart at his touch? Even as her mouth moved to ask the question out loud, her mind provided her with the answer. The amorphous uncertainty that had been plaguing her throughout the day suddenly crystallized.

  She felt stripped bare beneath his fierce gaze.

  Neither of them spoke as Megan reached for the sheet and drew it over her nakedness. She’d never realized that silence had the ability to confer as much pain as words until that moment.

  “Your family. All of them knew?” she whispered. She kept her eyes averted, but she raised her chin in a show of brittle defiance.

  “Just my parents and Katie,” Christian said woodenly.

  Powerful emotions clogged her throat. Megan didn’t know if she felt more like shouting or crying. She should have known. She was so stupid. Suddenly, the logic behind Katie’s kindness and Caroline’s maternal solicitude were all too clear to her. And Christian’s new wariness around her, his odd behavior in regard to sleeping in her room, his sudden disinterest in availing himself of her proposal to make love: all of that made sense, too.

  Bitterness clawed at her throat when she recognized that she would never escape a past that she couldn’t even recall. She was surprised at how much she’d come to need Christian’s honest, healthy sexual desire for her. It had somehow made her feel whole, like the sexual being that she was entitled to be. Now, her past had touched him too. Like almost everyone else, he was going to treat her like she was a piece of fragile porcelain.

  “What about you? You didn’t know. Not in the beginning, anyway. I would bet on it. Who told you?”

  Christian sat up slowly, raking his fingers through his unruly hair. “Hilary. She came by the night after I made you dinner.”

  Megan’s defiant expression broke. “Hilary?”

  “She wanted me to leave you alone.”

  Christian saw how she stiffened in disbelieving anger. How could Hilary have done that to her? He leaned toward her. “Maybe she did it for the wrong reasons. But I’m glad that she told me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s part of who you are, part of your history. I want to know all of you, Megan.”

  Her spine stiffened. “If you think that by knowing that I was sexually abused when I was three years old will make you understand me, Christian, you’re very wrong.”

  His eyes flared with emotion. “And if you believe that I’m that simple-minded, you’ve got another thing coming yourself.”

  Megan didn’t falter under his hard stare. Equal passion stormed in her breast. It was Christian who finally muttered a curse and turned away. She watched him silently as he got up from the bed. He moved like an old man.

  He seemed undecided as he stood with his back to her. He finally took a deep breath and exhaled, turning toward her. “Maybe now isn’t the time to go into this. I’m going to be busy tomorrow with the concert. I won’t be home until eleven or twelve. Will you be here? So that we can talk?”

  “I don’t know what my plans will be,” she said, wanting to hurt him with her careless tone. She felt exposed…helpless.

  Hurt.

  Christian’s expression said that he thought she was acting childish. For a second, he looked like he was going to argue with her. Then he stalked out of the bedroom, muttering sarcastically as he went, “Well, why don’t you just let me know when you do know, honey?”

  Chapter 10

  “Mom?”

  Megan’s voice seemed to echo off the walls in the house where she’d grown up. Had it always seemed this empty, so bereft of life? Or was she just seeing things through the haze of melancholy that had surrounded her since Christian left last night? Her gaze took in the familiar furniture, now beginning to show signs of wear and age.

  The few pictures of Hilary and herself that were scattered around the living room didn’t impart a sense of intimacy or warmth that one might expect of family pictures. It hurt her to admit it, but she couldn’t imagine her mother picking up a framed childhood picture of her and smiling with warmth and nostalgia. No, the photos scattered around the room were tokens of love, but the ones of her, at least, were obligatory, regretful ones. Megan had always known this. She couldn’t understand why she felt the old pain so poignantly today.

  “Meg?” Linda Shreve smiled thinly as she left the hallway. “Why, I haven’t seen you in a week. Hilary says that Jewish man—what’s his name—is letting you show some of those statues that you make. I guess that’s why you’ve been too busy to stop by.”

  “Rosenfeld, Mom,” Megan murmured as she hugged her mother. She felt light and hollow beneath Megan’s hands. When her mother began to back away, Megan surprised both of them by momentarily tightening the hug.

  Linda laughed uncomfortably. “Well, what’s gotten into you, Meg?” Her pale eyes searched her daughter’s face anxiously.
“Is everything all right, sweetheart?”

  Megan smiled brightly, automatically doing what was expected of her. “Of course, Mom. Everything is great.”

  Her mother didn’t look entirely convinced as she beckoned Megan into the kitchen while she put a pot on the stove for tea. For a while, Megan just sat quietly and listened to her mother’s customary ramble about the small, inconsequential details that formed the pattern of her life. Megan blinked into full awareness when her mother set a cup of steaming tea in front of her, followed by a small pitcher of cream and a sugar bowl.

  “…asked Phillip Barton, who lives next door, to put an extra lock on the back door before that block party tonight. I know Father Gregory has made a load of money for St. Cat’s by having that rock concert, but I never sleep a wink until that thing is over and done with every year. Seems like it’s an open invitation to every freak and criminal to come and loiter around our neighborhood,” Linda fretted.

  Megan stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her tea. “We’ve never had any trouble around the house during the St. Cat’s block party, have we?”

  Her mother’s lips pressed into a flat line. “We haven’t yet. It’s just a matter of time, though, with all the alcohol and drugs floating around just a few square blocks.”

  Megan sipped her tea. “Father Greg seems to have developed excellent relations with the Chicago police over the past several years. Everyone gets searched before entering the blockades. From what I’ve heard, the festival usually is a miracle of organizational smoothness,” Megan said reassuringly.

  Although she had never desired to attend the festival, Megan knew the block party had monumental financial significance to St. Cat’s. Her proximity to the administrative aspects of the parish through her job as a teacher had only reinforced how crucial the annual festival was to the functioning of St. Catherine’s and its various programs. It was because of the festival that the school board was able to offer her a full-time teaching position next term.