by Linda Barlow
"Oh, you're wanted all right."
Her fingers walked over his tautened stomach, probed the hollow of his navel, and then sought the magnificent thrust of his cock. He groaned as her light fingertips ventured along the shaft. He was throbbing, and she felt an answering series of spasms deep inside her.
"Nice," she told him, meeting his eyes with a mischievous smile as she stroked him harder. "When am I going to get it?"
"Witch." He delved into a drawer in the bedside table and came out with a handful of condoms. She giggled at the number, but for once Daniel didn’t join in her laughter; he moved swiftly to break open a packet and get one on. Then she found herself beneath him again, held immobile by his powerful body, his cock pressing insistently against her moist folds. "Never tempt a starving man."
But he waited one more second, his hooded eyes asking for her permission. "Yes, for godsake, take me, take me, take me..." The words formed an urgent rhythm as their bodies slowly merged. Kate glowed with happiness because it felt so perfect, so right.
For a golden instant, they were still, their eyes open and looking directly into each other's, and Kate felt all her defenses crumble. Smiling, she opened herself to him, body and soul. His hips plunged, and she met his thrust with her own. Both cried out with the sheer pleasure of it. They drew apart, then joined again, and she felt herself spinning as the tension in her core wound ever tighter. Closing her eyes, she saw colors, just as she had on the night they met—passionate blues, steamy yellows, hot pinks, and crimsons.
Her hands slipped down over his tense body, exploring him, reveling in his virile strength as he forced her into a wild, haphazard rhythm. Holding him tightly, she let herself go, trusting him to take her higher and higher until her breathing grew shallow and her limbs started to dissolve. There was one more moment of almost agonizing pleasure before she slipped over the edge. She was only vaguely aware of Daniel's hoarse cry as his body went rigid a few seconds later with his own climax, but in the aftermath, they clung to each other, making small sounds of wonder and awe at the extraordinary mutuality of their pleasure.
Afterward Kate's head rested on Daniel's shoulder, his arms holding her body loosely, their legs tangled. She was falling into a light slumber when she vaguely heard him say, "Sleep, my magical witchy woman." His lips touched her eyelids tenderly. "Sleep."
* * *
Kate woke up gasping, her heart sprinting. She'd seen Arthur in her dreams, his limp body lying on the ground beside the car, not moving while she strained to free herself from the wreckage and smelled the ominous scent of gasoline. Then he was beside the bed, lightly caressing her hair and telling her he still loved her. "I'm still here," he said to her. "Believe. Believe."
But when she opened her arms to him, he glared at her with Daniel's sardonic blue eyes.
Then Daniel's voice was comforting her, saying, "Ssh, love. You were dreaming." His strong arms enfolded her, and he lifted her atop him, his thighs parting to imprison her between them. She felt his crinkly chest hair brushing against her breasts. "It was only a dream."
"It was Arthur," she said shakily. "He told me to believe."
A fierce light sparked in Daniel's eyes. "Believe what?"
Realizing where she was, and with whom, Kate rapidly pulled herself together. "Uh, nothing." Daniel was the last person she could ever tell that she and Arthur had once lightheartedly agreed that whichever one of them died first would try to send the other a message from the Other Side, assuming the Other Side really existed. The message was to be the simple word "believe." It would mean that somehow, somewhere, Arthur's spirit still survived. "I'm sorry. I must still be half asleep."
Daniel's voice was kind. "It's natural, Kate. Don't worry about it. It's the first time, and you feel a little guilty. It'll pass."
She pressed her face against his shoulder. Although she tried to stifle them, the dream images still flitted across her mind. "Sometimes I still dream about the accident."
He held her tightly, and after a time he said, "Tell me about Arthur, Kate. You've been unusually loyal to him. He must have been really something."
She was surprised and touched. Usually he didn't want to hear about Arthur. "We grew up together," she answered slowly. "He lived down the street from me, and we were friends long before we started having sexual feelings for one another. We started dating in high school, and everybody kept telling us that high school relationships don't last, and that we'd never end up together, but they were wrong."
"So, you never even dated anybody else?" He sounded awed at the thought.
"Not seriously. There was some teenage flirting and crushing in high school before Arthur and I got together, and later, in college, we broke up for a couple of months. I guess we were both curious about what it would be like to see other people. I fooled around a bit with one or two guys I knew (including Stephen, she was thinking, amused at the memory). But I never actually had intercourse with anybody except Arthur. Our wedding was on the Saturday after our college graduation." Her voice dropped as she remembered the carefree pleasures of those happy days. "We both thought we'd be together forever. I couldn't believe it when he died. It didn't seem possible. It was as if I'd been severed from an essential part of myself."
Daniel muttered something under his breath.
"What did you say?"
"I was cursing. It's even worse than I thought. I suppose the guy was perfect, too? Handsome, great personality, terrific in bed?"
Actually, Daniel was a more exciting lover than Arthur had been. Or maybe it just seemed that way because her body had gone so long without sex. Once again, she felt a faint disloyalty to Arthur. She had thought their relationship so perfect, yet the first experience she'd had with another man had been more intense and ecstatic than anything she remembered experiencing with her husband. It shook her a little. "He was a sweet, kind, gentle man. He wasn't perfect, but who is? I loved him."
"How long were you married?"
"Nearly five years."
"Were you planning to have kids? From what you say, Arthur would have been an awesome dad."
Kate's hands touched her empty belly in an instinctively protective gesture. She rolled off Daniel and curled up beside him. "We did want kids." She was not going to cry, dammit.
Daniel propped himself up on one elbow and frowned into her eyes. "And?"
"We had just started trying when he died." To her horror, she felt her eyes fill. Not again! She turned her face into the pillow and fought to fend off crying jag. Nearly losing it in his car this morning had been bad enough. He was going to think she was some kind of basket case.
But once again, Daniel showed more sensitivity that she'd been giving him credit for. He lowered his body over hers and silently comforted her. "I'm sorry if my questions upset you," he murmured against her ear. "I want to know you, to understand you, but the last thing I want is to hurt you. Any time I ask you something that disturbs you, you're free to tell me to shut the hell up."
As it had earlier, his tenderness moved her. Because he seemed to be such a forceful, aggressive man who would think nothing of riding roughshod over everybody else's feelings, Kate still felt surprised when he offered her kindness and consideration. "I will," she said, grinning at him, "but so far you've been very nice."
He turned her over and gently stroked her cheeks, letting the ball of his thumb caress her bottom lip. "Nice?" His mouth curled up in a dangerous smile. "Is that the best you can manage?" His hand slipped down to smooth over her throat and breasts. His legs captured hers, and she felt his body stir and harden with renewed desire. "Let's see if we can find a better adjective than nice."
The husky promise in his voice incited a yearning deep inside her. When he kissed her, she rocked her pelvis against his until he groaned and slid between her thighs.
"I want you again," he said.
"Me, too."
"This time I'll do better. The first time was too fast."
"I loved the first time."
"Seco
nd time's the charm." His voice was determined, almost harsh. "I'm going to give you something new to dream about, babe."
He kept his promise. The Daniel who made love to her now was a different Daniel from the man who had exploded in her arms two hours before. No longer trembling with his need for release, he courted her in a more leisurely manner, showering her with his devastating sensual skills. She was dazzled. He knew exactly where to touch her to give her the most exquisite pleasure. He knew how fast, how hard. He knew when to tease, and when to satisfy. He even seemed to know what made her shy, and how to overcome her inhibitions.
The first time he used only his hands and his mouth to lead her to the edge of bliss, to hold her there for endless golden seconds, and finally to hurl her over. Thinking herself replete, she curled up and tried to rest against him, only to discover that he had no intention of letting her stop. Once again he aroused her, patiently seeking out every pleasure point on her body, finding many in the process that she'd never been acquainted with before. She felt like a virgin again, being introduced to pleasures that were beyond her experience and almost beyond her imagination.
"Lie still," he ordered at one point.
"Why?" she gasped, barely able to obey.
"Just feel me loving you." He moved inside her with tantalizing slowness, withdrawing and coming back to her after a breath-stealing delay. "I want you to feel me staking my claim on you, witch."
"Staking?" she said, giggling. "As in burning at the…"
He cut her off with a kiss, adding, in a pause after thoroughly plundering her mouth, "I want it to be clear to you exactly how alive we both are."
When he began to retreat again, she clasped her arms tightly around his back and tried to prevent him, but he was inexorable. "Lie still," he repeated as her hips strained upward in protest. His hand slipped between their bodies, seeking out the place where they were joined. As he moved out of her, he stroked her sex with a light, maddening touch. "I'm going to heighten your pleasure, but I want you to stay perfectly still for me."
On some deep level, his domination of their lovemaking thrilled her. It was new to her, this wild desire to surrender. Panting, she obeyed him, fighting the almost irresistible urge to move and feeling his slightest touch in every cell. "Some slave," she murmured as he continued the delicious torment. "You've got our roles reversed."
He chuckled, but his voice maintained its gently aggressive edge. "Speaking of roles, my darling witch"—he moved deeply within her while she gritted her teeth in her effort to prevent her body from undulating wildly beneath him—"I haven't forgotten the way you deceived me. You're no more qualified to tell fortunes than I am."
"Well, maybe a little more. I have powers that I've, uh, never really bothered to develop. They run in the female line of my family."
He muttered a skeptical expletive and thrust into her with such force that she thought he must surely hurt her, but she felt no pain, only pleasure. "Dear God, Daniel!" She let out an involuntary moan. "You're driving me crazy! May I move now?"
"No."
But she could tell from his breathing that his own control was slipping, so she defied him. His carnal lips moved in a brief, dark smile as he grabbed both of her wrists and held them down on the pillow. She struggled, but of course he was stronger, and a wave of delicious helplessness washed over her. This kind of edginess was new to her, but she liked it. She struggled some more, not because she really wanted him to release her, but because it felt incredibly hot to feel him holding her down. He was careful not to hurt her, and he whispered her name tenderly against her lips as he plunged deeply into her, his hips guiding her wildly into his rhythm. At some point, his hands fell away from her wrists. She wrapped her arms around his muscular back, unconsciously digging her nails into his flesh as they rode the final surge to completion, neither controlling the other now, both of them equal in the face of a storm of passion whose powers were greater than anything either of them possessed alone.
Afterward, lying flung out on her back in pleasant exhaustion, she murmured, "Wow. That was awesome."
He grinned and kissed her affectionately. "You're quite a woman."
"I've never been able to come twice in a row like that."
He chuckled. "You see what you've been missing? These are your golden years; you're approaching your sexual peak."
"And you're past yours," she teased him. "Don't men peak at nineteen or thereabouts? I should find myself a college student."
"No way, darling. You're mine now." His voice was fiercely possessive. "Deprive me for a few days, and you get hot-blooded lust; satisfy me, and you get slow, sensual seduction. What more could you want, you lucky girl?"
"Humility?"
He rolled on top of her, laughing, and she hugged him, feeling deliriously happy. He was tough, tender, and playful, all in one. She nestled closer, reveling in the feel of his hard, sweat-slick body. What more could she want? His love, of course. How easy it would be to fall in love with him.
Kate stiffened as she realized the unruly direction of her thoughts. Fall in love with him, indeed! This was exactly what she'd feared, dammit. Spend the night with a man, and—bingo!—she was imagining herself in love.
Careful, girl. She warned herself not to get carried away just because she was enjoying the pleasures of sex after three years of abstinence. It would be crazy to fall for D. B. Haggarty, no matter how much he prattled about the more he supposedly wanted from her. He was a whirlwind—pure passion, pure energy. No doubt he would blow out of her life as wildly and swiftly as he had blown in.
"What're you thinking?"
"Scorpio lovers," she said, closing her eyes.
"I looked us up on some astrology website this morning," he confided. "You're right: We're a perfect match."
"Ah-ha, the skeptic's walls are beginning to crumble!" she whooped. "Next I'll have you going to table-tappings and reading your horoscope each day."
"Don't be absurd," he said fiercely before kissing her into silence.
Chapter 10
It was still raining hard when they woke up on Sunday morning. Kate called Paul Tiele from Daniel's bed and was told that rehearsals had been canceled because of the storm. The entire city was paralyzed. There were trees and branches down all over the place, blocking many roads.
"Be in here tomorrow morning at ten," Paul said grouchily. "I don't care if you have to swim to work, Kingsley. This is probably all you fault, you know. Quoting from the play."
Daniel scowled when she switched off her phone and repeated her director's words. "Superstitious jerk." Then he grinned. "You got the day off, huh?"
She laughed, noting the lecherous gleam in his eyes. "I can't imagine what I'm going to do with my time."
Daniel promptly pounced. They rolled over once, wrestling playfully, before he trapped her against the headboard. The now-familiar melting heat washed through her with an intensity that made her groan and press herself against him. "I don't believe this. I feel depraved."
"From deprived to depraved in one night's time," he laughed, kissing her.
Later in the day, the rain finally stopped and they went for a walk to inspect the local damage. Daniel's home in Winchester was just across the road from a golf course, so there was a huge area where they could walk. The damage from the hurricane had assured that there would be no one golfing today. The ground was wet and there were broken branches tossed all over the fairways that they had to step over, but the exercise felt good.
When they returned from their walk, Daniel used a chainsaw to remove the tree limbs blocking his driveway. Watching, Kate thought he looked outrageously sexy, assaulting the poor dead wood. When the driveway was clear, he drove his car up to the house, and he looked outrageously sexy doing that, too. There was something about the way he moved the gear stick that really turned her on, particularly with those black driving gloves…
"Why are you staring at me?" he asked.
"I can’t stop thinking about how much I wan
t to get you naked again."
"That can be arranged."
"Daniel….when you take off everything else, could you maybe leave on the driving gloves?"
He grinned. "You like leather, huh? That gives me some truly wicked ideas."
* * *
Later that afternoon, Kate made tea while Daniel built a fire in the living room hearth, and they snuggled down on a thick carpet in front of the fireplace to talk. Kate tried to explain to him what it was like growing up with a mother who saw dead people on a frequent basis. "Living with my mom was, well, unusual. I know you don't believe in this stuff, so it's difficult to explain. You had to be there, in our house, I mean. And even then..." She stopped, helpless to describe what her childhood had been like to D. B Haggarty, professional skeptic and witch-hunter.
"What was it—haunted?" he asked with a disparaging laugh.
"I know you don't believe me, but yeah, it kinda was. Listen to me, and try to understand. When I was growing up, there was never a question of 'do you believe in ghosts' because some of my mother's best friends were ghosts. She'd go around talking to them half the time."
"She sounds psychotic to me."
"No, she's not psychotic." Kate looked earnestly into his face, trying her best to explain. "She's a little flaky, but she was never incapable of taking care of herself, or of me, or of running the house and coordinating all her nutty activities. Besides—and I know you're going to mock me for this—the ghosts used to answer back."
"I suppose you talked to them, too?"
"In a way. Some of them rapped. Once for no, twice for yes. Codes for letters of the alphabet. You could carry on a conversation with them if you wanted to."
"Knee joints."
"What?"
"Don't you know that the two sisters who started the spiritualist movement in this country admitted before they died that they had made their mysterious rapping sounds by cracking their knee joints? Or maybe it was their toe joints."
"You’re referring to the Fox sisters?" Kate knew about the Fox sisters, famous psychics who had lived in the middle of the 19th century. "There has always been controversy about Margaret Fox’s supposed confession."
