She was mistaken. David lifted her in his arms and carried her into her bedroom. Her mind raced with bursts of their conversation, his revelation of his own childhood and adolescence, and experiences that gave them common ground she hadn’t been aware of before. That made her understand him, pity him, want to comfort him. And take comfort in turn.
Their shared sorrow would have been some excuse for her surrender. His rescue of Megan was another. But this had been building from the day they’d met—smoldering since their first kiss in Al’s study—and she didn’t believe it was merely the remnant of some previous life.
She’d fought it, refused to acknowledge it. But she was tired of fighting. Her resistance was worn down and out.
This was for her. And for David, because he’d been devoid of human contact for too long, bereft of love longer still. And as for the consequences of just … giving in, for once in her life …
She couldn’t think anymore, because David had laid her on her bed—just wide enough for the two of them—and he was standing over her, looking at her in a way that sent fresh shivers tumbling along her nerves.
Raw desire burned in his blue eyes. What must it have been like to not touch a woman for nearly two centuries? She hadn’t been with a man in years, but that was nothing compared to his deprivation. She hadn’t realized how much her body could want a man’s touch.
David’s touch, not any man’s. She’d hardly been tempted in the past, even at close quarters with men in the Corps. Now it seemed she was dry tinder just waiting to ignite. And David was the spark.
He sat beside her on the bed, his weight substantial. He’d said he could do this, and if mere wanting were enough she had no doubt of it. If her wanting were enough, he wouldn’t have to leave time and again. He could …
His hand came to rest on her breast, and she swallowed her gasp. His fingers molded her nightshirt to her aching nipple, drawing slow circles around the peak.
She was afraid to look at him, but she forced herself to meet his eyes. She’d always been aware of how handsome he was, but for the first time she studied him as a woman studies her lover, caught up in the miracle of intimacy. There was a web of sun-lines radiating out from his eyes, and tiny scars along his firm jaw. His hair was forever falling into his eyes. He always had a faint five-o’clock shadow, as if he’d needed a shave when he died.
God, no. No place for death in any of this. She pushed herself up on the bed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him down for another kiss.
He obliged. But she refused to dwell on her inexperience and took command, boldly opening her mouth and meeting the thrust of his tongue. They’d gone well beyond preliminaries. She knew that if she demanded it, he would go slowly, taking cues from her hesitance.
Slow was dangerous, because slow meant thinking. Doubting. Dwelling on what couldn’t be changed. She couldn’t bear such intrusions.
So she invited him to devour her, to use his lips and tongue on hers in ways she’d never experienced. She pushed her fingers into his thick hair and arched her body to meet his. His snug trousers left no doubt of his desire for her, but she wanted to feel the corded muscles hidden under the uniform, his skin on hers.
“Jesse,” he said in a husky whisper. He drew back and cupped her face with his hands. “You’re a wonder.”
She couldn’t answer. She’d meant to begin unbuttoning his jacket, but her burst of daring was deserting her. His palms felt cool on her feverish cheeks.
“I’ve been wanting to see you,” he said, “since the first moment I came. All of you.”
Part of her wanted to jump up and peel off the nightshirt with utter nonchalance, as if that could protect her from her sudden self-consciousness.
Another part of her—a part she’d barely known existed—wanted something else entirely. She wanted to know the delicious sensation of David’s hands unbuttoning the shirt, smoothing it open, pulling it down to her breasts, her waist, her hips …
She didn’t need to say a word. David’s fingers were already at the short row of buttons at the neck of her shirt, undoing them with teasing deliberation. The lowest button was at the level of her nipples, making it just possible for David to spread the neckline apart, pull her shirt beneath her breasts so that they were lifted and taut and exposed.
Exposed. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so naked. David murmured something—an oath, a prayer—and simply stared at her.
“I … hope you’re not too disappointed,” she managed in a lame effort at humor, her mouth gone dry.
His gaze flashed to hers. “Disappointed?” he rasped. He swooped down, kissed her with enthusiasm, and cupped her breasts between his hands on either side. Then his mouth was on her nipples, closing around them, dragging a gasp from her throat.
She thought dimly that he must have been a very accomplished lover. He did things to her breasts with his tongue that she hadn’t imagined even in the rare sexual fantasies she’d allowed herself. He suckled, he licked, he kneaded and caressed until she was writhing on the bed like some clichéd storybook virgin.
And she didn’t give a damn. She pressed up, begging him to continue. A keen, painful pleasure shot in a straight course from her breasts to her belly and below. She dared to imagine what it would be like to feel his tongue there, where she was growing wet and hot and swollen.…
But his fingers found her first. His mouth was still on her breast while he slid his hand between her slick thighs, stroked over skin that offered no resistance, parted her, discovered the place where all sensation gathered. She jerked, and he moved his thumb in a tiny circle, building the pressure higher and higher. When it was close, so close to exploding, he moved his hand and thrust his finger inside her.
“No,” she protested. “I want—I want—”
He moved nearly on top of her, his weight on one arm. “Tell me what you want, Jesse,” he said against her ear. “Tell me.”
“I want—you. All of you.”
Abruptly he withdrew, and she wanted to cry out loud. But he didn’t make her wait long. He worked at the front of his trousers and pushed her nightshirt above her thighs, so there was only a narrow band of material covering her waist.
“Feel me, Jesse,” he commanded.
She reached down blindly, felt his hand guiding hers. He was hard, big and very hot, so hot she thought she would scorch her fingers. But he shuddered when she closed around him, felt the smoothness and subtle ridges of him. He closed his eyes and reared back under her caresses, as helpless as she had been.
They were equal. Equally vulnerable, equally wanting, equally needing. There was no loss here, no surrender.
Only desire. Only completion. Jesse knew an emptiness that could only be filled with David inside her, parting and entering. His body shuddering with ecstasy in time with her own. His masculine power awakening all the womanliness she’d almost forgotten.
She became the guide, showing him the way. He poised above her for an endless moment, waiting until she met his gaze.
Then he thrust, long and deep. She’d thought she was ready, but the shock after so long was unexpected. And unbearably erotic. Her body stretched to hold him. She’d wanted to see him naked, but there was a forbidden excitement in his being clothed as he made love to her, as if he were about to ride off to battle straight from their bed.
He thrust again, impossibly deeper, and the force of his movements pushed Jesse into the mattress. She reveled in it, in the proof of his undoubted reality, even as she knew it couldn’t last forever.
But the ending was the most remarkable of all. Jesse was the first to go flying over the edge, carried by a waterfall of pleasure that tumbled her into a place of pure light. David was quick to follow, his body stiffening and releasing with a final, urgent push. His light joined hers, and they floated in it together.
Jesse wondered if they’d found a piece of that heaven David had been denied. She didn’t feel sad when the wild elation changed to something quieter,
when the loving was over, because she was still in David’s arms. He didn’t fade or disappear as she’d half feared he would, drained of his energy by what they’d dared to attempt.
She didn’t know who held whom, if her will alone was enough to keep him with her. She didn’t care about her nudity, but David pulled the nightshirt over her, smoothing it to her skin with a caress.
He kissed her damp forehead. “Ah, Jesse,” he said. “It was more than I imagined.”
She smiled shyly. “Really? I admit that I … wasn’t sure what to expect myself.”
He propped himself up on one elbow. “But you did enjoy it.”
Insecurity from David Ventris? Jesse’s smile became a grin. “I just found it wonderful.” She snuggled more tightly against him, not minding the little jabs where stiffened fabric and buttons pressed into her skin. “You’re not … too tired?”
“I feel strong as a lion.”
“Strong enough to stay for a while?”
His finger traced the contour of her nose and came to rest on her lips. “As long as I can, Jesse,” he said. “I promise you.”
“As long as I can.” Jesse closed her eyes and listened as his breathing slowed and her heart gave up its urgent drumming. And how long is that, David? Can it ever be long enough?
For it was getting more and more difficult to deceive herself. To dismiss David as only a temporary addition to her life, a spiritual aberration, a man who’d come to fulfill his own purpose and had simply offered to be her friend while they helped each other.
What they shared now wasn’t friendship. Some men and woman could sleep together with no expectation of more, but that kind of casual relationship wasn’t in Jesse’s nature. Not where her heart was concerned. It was why she had almost no experience with sex—and why she knew, inexorably, that her and David’s lovemaking had forged the very bond David insisted had always existed between them.
Until now she’d felt the bond in bursts and snatches: in fleeting memories of Sophie, in gratitude for David’s help, in unpredictable emotion and a desire for his company. With their loving, that erratic beat had settled into a steady rhythm in her soul.
Her soul, which longed for a man who was fighting for his own. A man who wasn’t a man. How many times had she reminded herself of that fact? How much difference did it make in the end?
With a deliberate effort Jesse stilled her desperate thoughts, turned them away from what she couldn’t control. She concentrated on David’s profoundly male scent, the feel of his body close to hers. She lost herself in the newly awakened sensations of her own sated body.
“You’re very quiet,” David said, coiling a lock of her hair around his finger. “What’s wrong, Jesse?”
She opened her eyes and met his solemn blue gaze. Was it the bond that let him sense what she felt?
She shifted to face him. “I just realized,” she said, grasping at the first subject that came into her mind, “that I jumped into this without even thinking about … protection.”
Comprehension followed a brief, puzzled silence. “Ah. You wonder if I could have got you with child.”
Put so bluntly, the idea stunned her. She sat up. “Could you do it?”
His face turned expressionless, and he let his hand fall from her hair. “No. Life can’t come from death, Jesse. My potency is limited.” He glanced at the far wall. “Does that disappoint you?”
“No.” Amazing, how well she could discern his … shame? Sorrow? Enough that he hurt, and she had the power to do something about it. She stroked his rough cheek. “I never even hoped for what’s already happened.”
He captured her hand and pressed it to his face. “I told you that your wanting could make it so,” he said.
If only that were true. If only she had that power. “Let’s talk about something else. I still want to know more about your life. About—” She hesitated, asking herself how much she really did want to know. “About you and … Sophie.”
In the past he’d always been ready, even eager to assert their relationship in a former life. She’d been the reluctant one, because she didn’t want to be lost in memories and sensations so far outside her experience, so frightening. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that she’d been another person very much in love with David Ventris.
But David looked almost uncomfortable with her question. He opened his mouth and closed it again, as if he were censoring his first response.
“Did you and she know each other as children?” Jesse persisted. “Were you friends?”
David turned her hand palm-up and rubbed his thumb across it, back and forth. “We met when I was sixteen. Sophie was a few years younger, the daughter of the local squire. I didn’t have much use for her at first, but when she grew up—” He folded Jesse’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Ah, you were a beauty then, as well.”
You. How could she be jealous of herself? But she couldn’t completely claim that other incarnation. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready. “When did you fall in love with her?”
“Who can say when such a thing happens? We both came from situations we wished to escape.” He toyed with Jesse’s fingers in apparent fascination. “She was impetuous and full of life, eager for all the things I could show her.”
“Like making love,” Jesse said. “You seduced her on the hillside the day before you left for the war.”
He frowned at her, the expression more in his eyes than his mouth. “Do you remember that, Jesse?”
“She … begged you not to leave her.”
He rolled away and moved to the edge of the bed. Jesse realized that she could quite literally see through him—he was starting to fade, and she didn’t want him to go. Too many questions still crowded her thoughts.
“I couldn’t stay,” he said. “I’d made my decision and it was too late to change.”
“And you knew that when you slept with her.”
He tilted his head so that she could see his strong, taut profile. “Do you doubt that she wanted it as much as I did?”
The answer was clear in Jesse’s mind. She’d lived through that day with Sophie, and she knew how much Sophie had desired David even without understanding the consequences of her act. Jesse had the benefit of modern sophistication; she knew what she’d gotten into when she’d offered herself.
Jesse sat up and laid her hand on David’s back. “I’m not accusing you. You were both young. And you loved each other.”
He fixed his gaze at some point on the floor. “I sold my commission and came home when I learned that Sophie was with child.”
“Then you proved your responsibility. You didn’t keep running.”
“It was the only course I could take. I wouldn’t have left her to face her family and society alone.” He sighed and turned to meet her gaze. “We married within a month of my return from the Peninsula. My mother died shortly after that, and we settled in at Parkmere Hall.
“A place you hated.”
“But Sophie was eager to make it into a new home for both of us.” He smiled, a bit of the uncharacteristic grimness leaving his eyes. “She was constantly rearranging and decorating and planning balls, even when she had become quite … ponderous.”
Jesse was torn between envy and curiosity and other feelings she couldn’t begin to name. “Was Avery there with you? Did he and Sophie get along?”
“Avery was essentially running the Hall then. I saw no reason to take that from him after our parents were dead.”
“He must have been glad to have you back.”
David’s body flickered like a candle in a breeze. “My remaining time is short, Jesse,” he said. “I must leave soon.”
She caught his hand and held it, willing him strength. “Try to stay a little longer. I want to know … about the child.”
“The child.” David closed his eyes for the briefest moment. His smile had a sad cast. “She was born in October. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was perfect.”
A father’s love was in Davi
d’s voice, in his expression, and it warmed Jesse’s heart in a way that only added to the wonder of their loving. “You and Sophie must have been very happy.”
And that very first dream came back to her, fully formed and vivid—herself dressed in a pale gown, amid a garden filled with roses. A child was in her arms, and a handsome man came through the gate—a man she loved to the depths of her soul.
It had been real.
“How could we not be?” David said. “We had the Hall and a town house in London, and Sophie had her parties and balls and musicales. And we had Elizabeth.”
Jesse could have left it at that, released David to recoup his energy. But she was beginning to recall flashes of other, cloudier scenes that had come to her during her sessions with Al—hypnotic visions that touched an unexplored realm of darkness within her. Terrible visions she could barely remember, except that they had been about unbearable loss, wanting, fear.…
“But you rejoined the army,” she said, swallowing. “Something happened … to Elizabeth.”
He looked so bleak that she wished she’d kept silent. She was not Sophie, but he remembered it all personally. He didn’t have the distance of one life removed from the pain.
“Elizabeth became ill,” he said. “She lived a little more than a year.”
Because she’d been expecting his revelation, because she had anticipated his sorrow, Jesse pushed her own irrational grief aside and moved close to David, put her arms around him and hugged him with all her strength. Her body made contact, and then she felt him melt away, sliding from her grasp.
He vanished and rematerialized on his feet beside the bed, a dim specter of himself. Unable to touch him, Jesse could only reach out with words that were all too inadequate.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how much it hurt.”
“It was difficult for both of us. I—” He glanced at her, faltered. “We needed to be apart … for a while.”
Jesse understood. Nothing could be worse than the death of a child. Sophie’s anguish—David’s—was her own.
“You blamed yourself. But it wasn’t your fault.” She closed her eyes at a sudden certainty. “Sophie blamed you, didn’t she?”
Body and Soul Page 21
