by Rachel Lee
She did as he said simply because she couldn’t see the alternative. He was upset, he was angry, and he was right—she didn’t want to be a one-night stand. She wanted more, so much more.
Guin was moping. Apparently she didn’t like Craig staying outside. She sniffed at the door and gave Esther long, reproachful looks. Finally, unable to stand it anymore, Esther threw open the door and let the dog dash outside. By the joyous barks she heard a half minute later, she knew Guin had found Craig.
“Traitor,” she muttered in the Saint Bernard’s general direction. Giving up hope that Craig would come inside so they could set all this to rights somehow, she finally limped her way upstairs.
It was a relief to take the brace off at the end of the day. Even after all these years she hadn’t gotten used to it, even now when, instead of having to take whatever brace charity could provide, she was able to have one specially made. The straps still chafed a little, especially when the weather was hot, and the skin beneath was always happy to be set free.
She rubbed cream into the sore spots, soothing them. There was one place on the back of her thigh where the strap actually bit into her sometimes, and tonight it was almost too sore to touch. Of course, that was her fault. It had needed adjustment but she had ignored it, not wanting anything as unattractive as a brace to interrupt her Cinderella evening.
Cinderella? Had she sunk so low that being asked to go out for dinner at a diner could seem like being asked to the ball by the prince? God, was she never going to grow up?
Irritated and impatient with herself, she rose from her bed and dug a clean nightgown out of the closet. With no one to ever see her nightgowns, they were chosen to suit her: long, sleeveless, white cotton gowns with no more than a satin ribbon at the neck for decoration.
Slipping into one now was like settling into an old familiar chair. It reminded her that she was home and she was safe in her own bedroom. Everything else was locked outside.
It was a game she had taught herself as a child, to imagine her bedroom a sanctuary where no one could intrude. It wasn’t a perfect sanctuary, of course, but once she had been asleep her father had been very unlikely to focus his wrath on her. That old feeling of security came to her now as she crawled beneath the sheets and lay in the darkness with the summer breeze blowing gently over her.
She was dozing lightly when she heard Craig come in. Instantly she became alert, straining her ears to hear. After a few minutes all her fears that he might go home and leave her alone evaporated. She could hear him talking to Guinevere, heard him turn on the water in the bathroom downstairs, listened to the sounds as he showered.
His nearness was driving her nuts. The sleepiness that had been on the verge of overwhelming her vanished completely. The sheets were suddenly uncomfortably warm and she kicked them aside.
He was downstairs. In the shower. Naked. Oh, why couldn’t she just once know what it was like to be loved by a man? Why had he gone all noble on her at exactly the wrong time?
Sleep had become an impossibility. Her body was aching and tingling with feelings she couldn’t name, and restlessness kept her tossing on her bed. All she could think of was how much she wanted Craig to kiss her, hold her, touch her….
Her cheeks burned as she remembered him touching her breasts, and, as she wondered what it would be like to be kissed there, her entire body began to burn. She drew a shuddering breath and began to breathe rapidly as her mind unfolded a sorcerer’s brew of enchanting fantasies.
What if he came up those stairs and walked in on her? What if he crossed the room and lay beside her without a word? Would the darkness conceal enough to make it seem like a dream as his hands lifted her gown and wandered over her flesh?
If she had a nightmare, and he lay beside her to kiss her awake and was wearing nothing at all…
A shudder passed through her that had nothing to do with the temperature. She couldn’t go on like this. Understanding why Pandora had opened the forbidden box, she rose from her bed and walked carefully to the head of the stairs.
He was still in the bathroom. When he finished he would have to walk past the foot of the stairs to reach the living room. A band of yellow illumination fell across the hallway below where lamplight spilled from the living room. She would see him. Maybe call out to him. Maybe she would do nothing at all. She didn’t know.
She just knew that she waited with bated breath and hammering heart, riveted to the spot as if held there by a wizard’s spell, so full of yearning that she was helpless.
Suddenly Craig appeared, naked except for one of her ruby red towels around his waist. He was moving along the hall with his back to her. Guin was nowhere in sight.
Just as he turned the corner to pass the foot of the stairs, something alerted him to her presence. He looked up sharply, and froze when he saw her.
Except for the dim lamplight spilling from the living room, they stood in darkness, she at the head of the stairs in her long white nightgown, he at the foot wrapped in a towel. She looked like a pagan goddess emerging from the mists of night; he looked like a pagan warrior. Between them yawned a gaping darkness as treacherous as any chasm.
“Please,” she whispered.
“No.”
“Craig…”
“Damn it.” He swore quietly, as if he were afraid to disturb the dark between them. “I told you…I have nothing to give you.”
“You. All I want is you…”
His head jerked a little, as if the words struck him with the force of a blow. “No, you don’t know what you’re saying. I can’t offer you any kind of future, Esther. I’m dirt poor, I’m a wanderer…hell, I’m an Indian. Do you know how some folks are going to treat you if you mix up with me? If you think you’re a pariah now…”
“I don’t care what people like that think. I never have.” She wanted to approach him, but her legs were so shaky, and without her brace she would probably just tumble down the stairs and break something. “Craig…Craig, I’m not asking for the rest of your life.” Liar, whispered a voice at the back of her mind. “I’m asking for one night. Please.” Oh, God, had she really said that?
He turned so that he faced her fully. “Why, Esther?”
She stared at him mutely, unable to make herself explain. It was so humiliating.
“I’m not asking you to beg,” he said quietly. “I’d never ask that of you. But I deserve to know why you’re willing to settle for one night when you deserve a hell of a lot more.”
She closed her eyes as she felt her hopes slipping out of her grasp like so much water. In a moment she would turn and go back to her bed…alone. No!
Forcing herself to look at him, she humbled herself as she never had before. “I… No one has ever wanted me. No one.”
“I can’t believe that, Esther. No way.”
“It’s true.” She drew a deep breath, steadying herself and reaching for every bit of courage she had. “I’m crippled. Just like that man said tonight.”
“Esther—”
“No, don’t argue with me. It’s true. I wear a brace, I limp, my bad leg is smaller than my good leg…anybody can see it. It scares men off. They want perfect women.”
“Only boys want perfect women.”
She shook her head and laughed, a sad little sound. “Trust me. I’ve been on the receiving end. Once…” Her voice trembled. “Once there was a man who… Well, he told me I ought to be desperate enough to settle for anything.”
Craig swore. “I hope you gave him a good piece of your mind! I’ve never heard such hogwash.”
She gave another sad laugh. “He was right. I know that. Except that…I’ve never been desperate enough to just settle, you know?”
“Thank God!”
“And I…well, you…you don’t make me feel as if that’s what you think of me. You make me feel…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“Desirable,” he said for her, stepping up onto the first step. “Damn it, woman, you are desirable. You’v
e been driving me nuts.”
Her heart began to lift a little, and her hopes to soar.
“But this isn’t a good reason,” he told her. “There’ll be another man who finds you every bit as desirable as I do, someone who can offer you a future. A real future.”
“I have a future,” she cried out, holding her hands out almost desperately. “I have a real future, with a career and enough money and all the rest of it. What I don’t have, what I need…is to be loved. Just once.”
“Esther—”
She cut him off. “Craig, don’t you see? Just once before I die I want a man’s arms around me in love. And you’re the only person I’ve ever trusted enough. The only one I want.”
He hesitated visibly, looking like a man who could find no alternative that was acceptable. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ll hurt me only if you turn away now. I know what I’m asking for, Craig.”
“Do you? Do you really?” He took another step up. “I don’t think you have any way of knowing just what kind of effect this can have on you emotionally. I don’t want you to feel used later.”
“I’m willing to take that risk, because you’re never going to happen to me again. I’ll never have this chance again with you.”
She meant that heart and soul. And it seemed as if he realized that, because he climbed another couple of steps. As he climbed he left the lamplight behind and became a figure of darkness. For some reason the way the shadows etched him gave her an atavistic thrill.
“Esther…” He barely whispered her name, and it reached her as if it were sighed by the night itself.
Her heart climbed into her throat and lodged there. The darkness that surrounded them was sheltering, protective, as if they were held within the womb of night.
Closer he came, and she felt the sands of time trickling away, closing off her option to change her mind. And with that awareness a wildness began to rise in her. Somehow she sensed that an incredible freedom waited for her on the other side of tonight, if only she didn’t back out now.
When he reached the top step and extended a hand to her, the old wave of panic caught her again. A man at the top of the stairs… So many of her nightmares began and ended with a man on the stairs. She started to back up.
“It’s okay,” Craig murmured huskily. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you, Esther. I swear I won’t hurt you.”
She believed him, didn’t she? Why else was she here with him right now, torn between desire and sudden terror of shadows from the past.
“The stairs,” she gasped. “It’s the stairs…”
“The stairs and me.” Reaching out ruthlessly, he caught her up in his arms and began walking toward the bedroom. “See,” he said soothingly. “I’m taking you away from the stairs.”
She was gasping, as if she couldn’t drag in enough air, and shaking, but she didn’t fight him. Clenching her hands so tightly they ached, she forced herself not to react to old terrors. This was Craig, not her father. This was Craig, the man who had from the very beginning been so protective of her.
He set her down gently beside her bed, then stood in front of her. With a careless flick of his wrist, he flung away the towel and bared himself to her. It was so dark, but the starshine that came through her open windows was just enough to let her see that he was a magnificent figure of a man, perfect in every line. And for some reason the sight of him was easing her fear and replacing it with something deeper, hotter.
“Esther?”
She licked her lips, nervous now in a different way. Shyly she reached for her gown and began to pull it over her head. Thank goodness it was so dark.
Suddenly his hands were there, helping her, and his voice was whispering softly that she didn’t have to do a thing, all he wanted was for her to be very sure this was what she wanted.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “Oh, yes, please….”
Then skin met skin and the world spun away.
Chapter 12
They lay face-to-face on Esther’s bed. Craig drew her close, coaxing her head onto his shoulder, encouraging her to wrap her arms around him however she wanted. He even managed to nudge one of her legs between his, which left her feeling deliciously open and deliciously wanted.
He sprinkled kisses on her forehead and stroked her back soothingly, allowing her time to accustom herself to all the new sensations and experiences. “I’ve never made love to a virgin before,” he told her quietly.
“That’s okay. I’ve never done any of this before.”
There was a tremor of laughter in her voice and his heart soared. It was going to be all right, he thought. She had rediscovered her laughter, and everything was going to be just fine. His anxiety about whether he would do everything right lessened, and his passion rose another notch.
“Touch me,” he whispered raggedly. “Touch me anywhere…anyway…. It’s okay….”
Shyly she reached out to run her hands along his smooth shoulders and down over his hard chest. The sensation electrified him, causing him to gulp a deep breath and reach for his wavering self-control. Damn! Had any woman ever made him so hot so fast? If ever one had, he sure as hell couldn’t remember it.
But Esther was like a lighted match to his senses. Her shy explorations were as seductive as they were maddening, and he had to force himself to lie still beneath her caresses for fear of scaring her. He wanted to reach out and teach her the same lessons she was teaching him, wanted to stroke her smooth, warm skin the same way she was stroking him, but he restrained himself. First he wanted her to become comfortable with his male body. Then he would encourage her to become comfortable with hers.
Her hands wandered lower, tracing the contours of his abdomen, drawing achingly close to his manhood. It was torture of the most delightful kind for him, dragging a groan out of him.
The sound must have scared her, for her hand leapt away and only returned uncertainly when he managed to mutter, “That felt so damn good…”
Her fingers trailed down his back, branding him with fire it seemed, then across his hips and buttocks and down the back of his thighs. He loved it, loved her gentle touches and her growing boldness as she explored him, learning him.
She was getting caught up in it, too. Her breaths were coming quicker now, through her mouth, telling him that she was beginning to want him as much as he wanted her.
But he hesitated. Awareness of her virginity weighted him, making him cautious and almost reluctant. Everything would be new to her, so there was no way she could guide him to what pleased her most. There would be only trial and error, and a serious error could ruin the entire experience for her. He didn’t want that. He dreaded that.
This woman had had so little goodness in her life, and almost nothing of love. He wanted with every cell of his being to make this experience one she would cherish for the rest of her days, but there was no road map to follow, no guidebook to lead him. Worse, the passion arcing across his own nerve endings was likely to make him rough and impatient when she mostly needed gentleness and patience from him.
He gritted his teeth as her hand tentatively found its way to the thatch of hair at the juncture of his thighs, holding back another groan that he feared would scare her. He wanted her to touch him, but was almost afraid that he would lose his grip on his precarious self-control. But then her hand darted away, as if she didn’t have quite enough nerve.
That was good, he told himself, ignoring a surge of disappointment. There would be plenty of time later for him to know her most intimate touches. Right now when she was less afraid of his body, he needed to bring her on the journey with him, and lift her to the pinnacle of passion.
He nudged her gently over so that she was lying on her back. Taking care not to lean over her in a way that would seem threatening, he began to trace her contours with his fingertips. First the delicate line of her jaw—her bones felt so fragile!—then alongside her neck where he could feel her pulse steadily throbbing. Bending close, he pres
sed a kiss there, then resumed his exploration.
Down to her small shoulder, swallowed easily by his hand. Then to the graceful line of her collarbone, leading to the hollow at the base of her throat, where he pressed another kiss. As he did so, he heard her sharply indrawn breath, and knew that she was enjoying his touches.
Lower now his fingers wandered, passing tantalizingly between the hills of her breasts. They were small breasts, but soft and pretty and he had no trouble conjuring their image from memory. But they would have to wait, because he wanted to take this journey slowly. Carefully. Carrying her along one step at a time so that she never felt frightened.
He found her lower ribs, and traced them gently. Back and forth went his fingers, following the bones to her sides and back. He felt her stir, heard a soft gasp as he inadvertently tickled her, then felt the impatient rise of her hips.
Good. She was burning just as he was burning. The weight in his loins was heavy and hot, making him feel both edgy and slumberous. He imagined she must be experiencing a similar feeling of heaviness and anticipation. He hoped so.
Lower trailed his fingers, finding the hollow of her belly. There, between the points of her hipbones was the cradle that awaited him. Heat surged through his veins, and when he pressed his palm to her belly he felt her arch up as if to receive him.
Oh, she was responding to him. There was no doubt of that now. His touches were feeding the fire within her, and his fears began to ease a little.
Now his hand traveled lower, passing the delta between her thighs to concentrate on her legs. He heard her catch her breath again, and knew that this time the sound was one of apprehension. Recognizing it, he took his time as he traced her legs, learning the difference between them, discovering the disability of which she was so ashamed.
Yes, it was smaller, and he could feel how much weaker some of the muscles were. But there was nothing there that made her any less desirable. Nothing.
