Xander stared down at her, amazed by the woman in his arms. Despite her reticence, she’d been willing to take this adventure with him. Once resolved, she embraced the moment completely. He wondered how many women would have. Someone like her mother, certainly not. Even soaked to the bone she was gorgeous in the silver dress, and the way it had molded to her body made him swallow. The look in her eye stirred his blood and heated the emotions that burned comfortably inside as he remembered the other dances they had shared, and the work they’d done together.
“Hero. . .” he began, leaning into her. Her eyes widened a little in concern, his face was so serious.
“Yes, Xander?” she asked, unable to resist lifting her chin and turning her face up to him.
“I love you,” he said as if those three simple words were a poem all their own.
Hero answered him silently, her lips pressed against his, warm and wet with rain. She didn’t know what to think at first when he took her face in both hands, then her knees almost buckled as he lead the kiss and it became a dance of its own. Never had she been kissed so tenderly, so passionately, so completely. His full attention was centered in his mouth and how it came in contact with hers. He was in gentle, firm control of every aspect of the kiss: its depth; the pressure of his lips; the subtle searching of the tip of his tongue as it sought hers, found it, and slipped away again. Her hands pressed close between them against his chest and clenched, twining his shirt so tight between her fingers that it rang out some of the water that soaked the cloth.
Time ceased to exist. It no longer had any meaning. With each endless second that passed, the sensation that spilled through her with each touch of his lips intensified. She completely forgot the rain. There was only his mouth on hers, her eyelids shut tight. Touch was the only sense left in her world. His hand still cradled her face and tilted it to one side to meet him. He held her back gently when she gave into the hunger his kisses awakened in her. Sourceless light flashed behind her eyelids, then turned into a sea of stars and she let herself float away in it until she became the kiss. The rain, the house, the ocean beyond all faded away until her whole self was sensation and electricity and a universe of lips and mouths and tongues and teeth. When it ended she felt charged, as though a current of energy had passed into her and revitalized her. She couldn’t tell whether the kiss had lasted minutes, or hours. She took a deep breath and dragged her nails down his torso until her hands caught on his belt.
“Wow,” she breathed. He smiled and kissed her lightly this time, wrapping her up in his arms. His hands ran over her back, somewhere between a caress and a massage as he held her. Hero leaned against him for a moment longer.
“Thank you,” Xander said into her ear, referring to the whole evening.
“I love you too,” Hero said, though not as a response, her cheek against his chest. He kissed the top of her head. She felt him smile into her hair.
“You said there was something you wanted to talk about?” he asked her as time wore on.
She shook her head and looked into his eyes, which were still strikingly blue in the grey light. “No, I think we covered it.”
He grinned. “Alright. Are you ready to go in?”
“Okay,” she sighed, not really wanting the moment to end, but knowing it had to for now. “Do you have a towel I could borrow?” she asked.
“Actually, there are couple just inside. I came prepared,” he said with a smile.
“Great,” she replied, her mouth twitching to the side as an idea popped into her head. Xander raised one eyebrow in curiosity, then lead the way inside.
Just in the door, he grabbed a large, fluffy, red towel and held it out for her, stretched out almost his entire arm span. He expected her to step into it, but to his surprise Hero stopped a step away. She gave him a coy smile and put up one finger, asking him to wait. He nodded, not certain what was going on. Hero turned her back on him and leaned down to pull off first one shoe, then the other. The way the wet cloth hugged her curves made him swallow again. She was absolutely gorgeous. As he watched, she reached up under her left side and slowly undid the zipper. His eyebrows shot up as she looked over her shoulder at him and she smirked with contentment. Still facing away from him, she slipped the halter over her neck and let the dress fall into a silver puddle around her feet. His eyebrows went up further; she had nothing on underneath.
At the sight of Hero’s tan, naked skin, Xander felt his pulse quicken and he exhaled a long breath. She let him admire her for a minute then lifted her arms straight out to the sides. His eyes continued to wander.
“Xander. . .” she said to get his attention.
“Oh. Yes?” he asked, blinking his thoughts away.
“You can give me the towel now.”
He was still holding it out. He hadn’t even noticed that his arms were getting tired being in the same position for so long. Half a grin slipped across his face. He stepped forward, careful not to step on her dress, and wrapped the towel around her. When his arms were all the way around her, she took over, tucking the towel into itself. She turned in his arms and kiss him.
“Can you go find Jaimie for me and ask her to meet me in the guest room? I need to get dressed and redo my hair,” she said.
“You’re a tease,” he complained, though his voice betrayed amusement and pleasure at the turn of events.
“Did you like what you saw?” she asked, kissing his neck just below the ear.
“Yes. Tease,” he re-stated.
She stepped back, doe-eyed and feigning innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, letting her eyes fall to his crotch and back up.
He grinned. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again. “You’re not alone,” she whispered, her voice thick. “Now, go find Jaimie, please.”
Xander grinned wider and nodded. “I love you,” he said again, tasting the words and rolling them over his tongue.
“I love you,” she replied, her heart warm and strong in her chest.
* * *
As luck would have it, Xander encountered Jaimie almost immediately upon arriving downstairs. She rounded a corner into the hallway just as he was about to pass, almost running into him. The surprised girl jumped back quickly to avoid contact with his wet clothes, an obvious look of distaste on her face.
“Hero,” she demanded as Xander stood dripping on the floor.
“The guest room,” he answered, equally succinct.
“This is going to be good,” Jaimie responded with one eyebrow still raised at the puddle gathering at his feet. Without another word she moved in a wide arc to avoid the wet boy and stalked off. Xander wondered, not for the first time, if Hero and Jaimie had been switched at birth and raised by the wrong parents. He shrugged and laughed to himself. Hero was certainly going to get an earful.
“Well, were you right about her?” Zach’s voice suddenly asked from behind him.
Xander turned quickly, then recovered at the sight of his father and leaned casually against the wall. “Without a doubt, Dad. Without a doubt,” he answered with a smile he couldn’t keep from drawing across his face.
Zach offered his son a knowing smile and took the conversation another direction. “Your mother-in-law is not very happy,” he pointed out.
His son laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me, for some reason.”
“You should probably suck up to her for the rest of the evening, now that your diem is well carpéd. Keep your mother-in-law happy and the rest of your life will be much, much easier.”
Xander laughed again. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll do that.”
“Good idea. I’m glad you had it,” Zach said with a straight face.
“Great minds think alike,” his son replied, playing along.
“Did you know you’re soaking wet?”
“I may have noticed.”
“You should probably go change.”
“You know, I think I will.”
“I’ll get the mop,” Zach said,
laughing as his son headed off to change, leaving a small puddle behind.
The rest of the evening drifted by pleasantly. Xander came back down in a dress shirt, dark wash jeans, and a pair of Aris Allen’s men’s swing shoes. Hero re-appeared about half an hour later in a black satin swing dress and her wing tipped dancing shoes, with her hair re-curled and tied back with a ribbon. Anna immediately pounced on her, seizing her by the arm.
“Hero DiBenedetto! What were you thinking? Do you know how much that dress cost? You have guests! You can’t just run off and play in the rain!” she hissed.
The smile glued to Hero’s face throughout the tirade clearly made her mother suspicious. She continued to berate her daughter.
“What were you doing out there? Were you two. . . canoodling?”
Hero’s eyebrow shot up in amused disbelief at her mother’s word choice. While Anna continued her rant, Hero’s eyes were drawn to Xander as he stood talking with the Coven.
“Hero, are you listening to me? I’m serious!”
She turned to her mother. “Yes, mother. I’m sorry about the dress,” she said rather insincerely. “I’ll take it to the dry cleaner on Monday. But, like you said, we have guests, so we should do this later. I’m going to go dance.” With that, she slipped out of Anna’s grip and over to her friends, peeling Xander away from them and on to the dance floor.
Anna’s steely eyes followed Xander and Hero as they danced. The music was all swing with a little blues, DJd by Brian. During the first song, a lindy hop, they joked about her mother’s Medusa-like glare. The second, they got so caught up in their dancing they barely noticed. During the third it began to get uncomfortable as the intensity failed to lessen. As the song ended, Xander dipped Hero and turned her over to one of her guests who wanted to dance.
Jessica approached Xander from the far side of the room, but he shook his head apologetically and gestured toward Hero’s mother.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked, reaching for her hand.
Anna looked at him like a deer in the headlights. She paled nervously.
The next song had already begun to play as she answered a little too vigorously, like someone both delighted and frightened by the idea. “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly. It’s been far too long and I don’t know how to do all that Lindy hop stuff.”
“No worries,” Xander said. “We’ll just dance.” He took her gently by one hand.
“No, it’s alright. You go dance with one of those nice young ladies.”
He pulled her softly toward the floor, and she followed him, hesitating, but not entirely involuntarily.
Without moving to the steps of any particular dance, Xander twirled and spun Anna gently and easily, though the music playing was meant for faster movement. The tight scrunching of her eyebrows relaxed as they danced. He moved her carefully through simple patterns he was confident he could lead anyone through. Without any worry of footwork or technique, Anna broke into a smile. Xander had taken her into a closed position when he felt someone tap on his shoulder. He stopped and looked back to see Hero’s father standing next to them.
“Mind if I cut in?” Jared DiBenedetto asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“Not at all,” Xander said, bowing slightly to Anna and placing her hand into her husband’s.
Xander stood off to the side and watched as Hero’s parents danced. Jared spun his wife out of a closed position and brought her back in with an ease that showed he wasn’t a complete stranger to dancing. When the song ended, he dipped her into a kiss, looking for all the world like a picture from the 1940s.
“Ladies and Gentleman, Jared and Anna DiBenedetto,” Brian said into the mic he had set up at the DJ booth, gesturing to the older couple. Some of the younger guests clapped and whistled. Anna blushed a little as they stood. Xander smiled and Hero joined him, nestling into his side as her parents made their way off the dance floor arm in arm. Jared nodded to his daughter and her boyfriend as they walked up.
“You’re not the only one who can cut a rug, young man,” Jared said with a wink.
“I am pleasantly surprised, sir,” Xander replied.
Hero’s father offered his wife’s hand back to the youth and whisked his daughter away to dance. Xander walked Anna back out with less protest this time and they danced again.
* * *
Eventually the guests began to leave, filtering out slowly as the night wore on. By midnight, only Xander, Hero, their parents and the Coven remained. Leana was asleep on Jeremy’s lap at one of the tables, and he held her though she were some kind of precious, delicate thing that he would never let go. From the grimace that occasionally crossed his face, Xander figured it was a good guess that at least one of Jeremy’s legs had fallen asleep. He wouldn’t have guessed Jeremy was the type to suffer just to avoid waking her, but love always brings out the unexpected in people.
Xander wandered about the ballroom, idly cleaning up a plate here and a glass there while Hero was away saying goodbye to the DiBenedettos. The Coven had arranged to stay the night, the girls in the guest room set aside for Hero’s use and the guys in the cupola, upstairs and on the other side of the house. It had taken a lot of pleading and cajoling on Hero’s part, since her parents were none too certain about it, but in the end neither of them could deny their little girl anything on her birthday and, as Hero said again and again, she was 18 now and could make her own decisions. Anna had her own opinions about that, but had held onto them for the moment, on the understanding that Zach would agree to chaperone the teenagers.
Xander laughed to himself. As soon as the DiBenedettos had said goodnight and headed for the door, Zach had said one word to Xander and excused himself to the library.
“Propriety,” Xander repeated quietly, laughing again.
He looked around the room. Brian had fallen asleep on a couch set up behind the DJ booth and Jeremy still sat like a sleepy statue cradling Leana. Jaimie and Evan had slipped off somewhere. Hero walked back in and looked around before meeting Xander’s eyes. He looked at her with a smile and a silent question. She nodded and smiled in answer. Xander took her hand and pulled her out of the room and down the hall toward his room. They stopped by the door of the library. Xander intended to let his dad know where they were going, but Zach’s snores greeted them from within.
Hero let Xander lead her up the stairs to the cupola in the dark. The absence of light expanded the rest of her senses and she could hear the rough scuffing of his pants with each of his steps, and the deep, solid weight of his breathing. He went up carefully, waiting to feel through their connected hands that she was certain of her balance before each step. The storm clouds had blown away and moonlight spilled through the open door at the top. In spite of finally having curtains, Xander still left them open most of the time.
The young lovers slipped into the room like a whispered secret. The four-poster bed Hero had picked out now rested in the air mattress’ place. Xander had barely made it off the stairs when he turned and pulled Hero gently the rest of the way up and straight into a kiss. Her lips met his with a hunger that had been building throughout the day like water behind a dam and she melted into him. He didn’t hold her back this time, but returned her fervor with hungry kisses of his own. Her hands clawed at the buttons of his shirt, pulling it open one by one and baring the skin beneath. He began to explore the shape of her, his hands encompassing her shoulders. Firm fingers slid across her ribs, thumbs brushing the underwire of her bra through the satin of her dress. Her fingers ran across his chest, marveling at the muscles moving beneath his skin.
Two strong hands held her at the waist as his kisses trailed along the line of her chin toward the side of her neck. The heat of his mouth burned like tiny fires that grew hotter as he reached the more sensitive skin at his destination. His tongue found a spot behind her earlobe she hadn’t known was erogenous and as he made contact her whole body rolled against his like a wave against the shore. As warmth flooded through her she wondered in a passing tho
ught if somehow he had made her flammable. His teeth scored lightly against flesh and the thought disappeared as tiny tremors shook her.
Xander’s lips slowly traveled down, then across her collarbone, each kiss the collective work of this tip of his tongue and his lips’ full, lingering weight. When a particular spot drew a sudden intake of breath from her, he paused and kissed deeper, attentive to her sensitivity and storing the information for later. Tonight he would explore her, discover where to touch to make her breath catch in her throat, where on the map of her skin his kisses drew a soft moan of pleasure, where the brush of his fingers would make her hips rock and grind against him with desire. Tonight she was his, the One, a goddess to worship with hands and mouth and tongue. Beyond the windows and the door, the world became the far stretching reaches of the solar system, light years away. This room, and Hero, became the entire world.
Hero, in the meantime, was certain she was going to go crazy. She pulled his shirt from his shoulders and tossed it in whatever direction her hand happened to be pointing. She wasn’t paying attention and didn’t care. Her head rolled back to open her neck for more kisses and she pulled her hair away to bare the skin. His slow, unhurried discovery of her was not the kind of attention she was used to receiving from the boys she had known and it stoked the flame burning within her, a passion so new to her she barely recognized the person pressing herself into the man she loved. She was still fully clothed and felt like he was making love to her. Without the hurry she was used to, she felt cherished, wanted, loved, needed. She felt like a woman.
The West Wind Page 13
