Tomorrow's Promise

by Sandra Brown

  "Keely, beautiful Keely," he said as he gradually lowered himself over her and gathered her to him. She absorbed his weight, adjusting her body beneath his and awakening them anew to the precision with which they fitted.

  He pressed into her and a sharp, near virginal cry alarmed him. "Oh, God, Keely!" he cried in anguish and cupped her head, holding it protectively against his shoulder. "Darling, did I hurt you?"

  "No, no," she sobbed. "Please, Dax. It's wonderful … please, Dax…" she begged.

  The magic was spun. Her arms came from around his back to intertwine with his. Tightly laced fingers lay on either side of her head on the pillow. Thighs stroked thighs. Stomachs kneaded each other in a rhythmic cadence. Hair-roughened chest pressed smooth breasts. Mouths fused. Spirits sang. Essences were exchanged.

  Shaken and weak, they lay perfectly still, his head beside hers on the pillow. Long moments passed while they savored the interlocking intimacy of their damp bodies. His voice seemed to come from far away, though she could feel his lips moving on her ear. "This is what my life has been for, Keely. This moment. This is why I was born. To be here with you like this. Do you understand?"

  She could only nod. She did understand because she felt the same way, only she was too swept away by the miracle of it to say so.

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  «^»

  "How long have I been asleep?" he asked when he opened his eyes. She was watching him. Waking up had never been this nice.

  "A half hour or so. I don't know. It doesn't matter." Her fingers wandered over his cheekbones, down the aristocratically shaped nose, across the lean cheek, to the silver hairs at his temple.

  He shifted his weight, rolling over to face her and splaying his hand on her back to draw her closer. "How could I have slept?"

  "I think you were worn out," she said mischievously, draping her arm over his shoulder.

  He swatted her bottom playfully. "And you weren't?"

  "Oh, yes, I was," she laughed. "But I couldn't have slept." An inquisitive finger slid along his lips and she wondered how they could be so firm and yet feel so soft against her body.

  He captured her hand and murmured against the palm, "Why is that?"

  "Because that's never happened to me before," she said quietly, watching his reaction. "Never like that."

  His eyes across the pillow sparkled with a happy pride he was trying hard to keep at bay. "No?"

  She shook her head. "No." Comparisons weren't fair to Mark. She had told Dax all he needed to know.

  "I'm glad. I'd be less than honest to say I wasn't." Her emotions were too strained to say more. She groped for a more neutral subject. "Is this where you were wounded in the war?" she asked, tracing the puckered white scar beneath his shoulder blade with her finger.

  "Yes. Luckily it was a piece of shrapnel that had lost most of its momentum before it got to me." She kissed the spot. "It's ugly because it took several days to get to the medics. By that time it was badly infected. They had to gouge out about a pound of flesh. It left quite a hole."

  "Please don't tell me." She kissed his chin. "And the one under your eye?"

  "My cousin and I got in a fight when I was about thirteen." He saw her disappointment and laughed. "Sorry, nothing more dramatic than that."

  "How dare he pick on you." The seductive tone of her voice caught his attention and he watched in wonder and surprise as she knelt over him. Her hair fell softly around her face. The planes and valleys of her body were cast in sharp relief by the soft glow of the lamp. Light and shadow highlighted gentle mounds and tapering curves. Almost shyly she bent down and kissed his mouth.

  His hand came up to clasp the back of her head and hold her over him. But he let her he the aggressor. Her tongue probed his mouth timidly until she breached the barrier of his teeth. Then she explored at leisure.

  Her tongue made repeated dipping forays into his mouth. He was reminded of a child licking an ice-cream cone, who after each lick, returns his tongue to his mouth to savor the taste.

  Pulling up only slightly, she kissed the scar under his eye then the dimple beside his mouth. Her lips settled on his neck and in one long, sensuous, fluid motion slid down to his chest. His fingers became twisted in her hair as he clenched his fist convulsively. His other hand settled in the curve under her hip and with only the slightest suggestive tug she raised one thigh over his.

  "Keely, that's wonderful," he said as her lips sucked at his skin. His words were barely audible.

  It gave her a heady, gratifying feeling to know she could bring him this much pleasure. She kissed her way down his stomach, delighting in his uneven breathing and murmured phrases.

  Her mouth followed the tapering design of hair that became silky around his navel. When she examined that crevice with her tongue, his knee trapped her thigh against his. Her lingual exploration continued, and she found a thicker, rougher thatch. Dax's short ragged breathing stopped altogether. His fingers entangled in her hair, pulling it painfully. The muscle beneath her cheek contracted spasmodically.

  She hesitated but a moment before kissing him again.

  "Oh, God … sweet…" He lifted her, shifting them until she lay beneath him.

  He pressed her back against the mattress with his kiss. It was a deep, drugging kiss that involved not only their mouths but their bodies as well. When his tongue pressed deeper into the hollow of her mouth, it was symbolic of another possession, another void he filled.

  He raised his head and looked down at her. "The most beautiful sight I've ever seen was your face in that instant you knew what it was to be a woman fulfilled. Shine for me again, Keely."

  The words he whispered heightened her love because she knew that her fulfillment contributed to his. His hands, as they stroked down her sides and over her hips and thighs, were like the touch of a velvet glove. His mouth on her breasts was alternately rapacious then soothing and brought her closer to what he wanted to see.

  As her tumult built, so did his. What he wanted to witness was almost denied him. For at the last moment they did that little bit of dying together.

  * * *

  At dawn they left. Their hostess, who apparently ran the hotel single-handedly, was distressed over their hasty departure. Repeatedly Dax assured her that the room had been more than satisfactory, but that other matters prevented them from staying any longer. She looked sad standing at the concierge's desk as they left her hotel.

  Paris was barely awake. The streets looked washed clean from the nocturnal rain. Merchants and vendors were rolling down their awnings and preparing for a day of business. The aroma of fresh coffee and croissants filled the air.

  They stopped at a sidewalk caf6 not yet open and asked the proprietor for a take-out order. He grumbled, but being a true Parisian at heart and having a penchant for lovers, he relented and filled a sack with croissants and gave them plastic cups of steaming coffee. They munched as they strolled without undue haste.

  They didn't speak of why they had to go back to the Crilion, they simply knew that they must. Instead they whispered and laughed in intimate exchanges that brought blooming roses to Keely's cheeks and gave Dax's grin a satyric quality.

  "You love me so well," he said.

  "Do I?"

  "You love me well. Perfectly."

  Her eyes dropped to the half-eaten croissant. "I couldn't stand it if you thought I was forward or crude—"

  "God, no." He collected the refuse of their breakfast and shoved it into a trash receptacle. He came back to her, reaching out to smooth her cheek. "You are totally female, Keely, and I love all the physical parts of you that make you female. I also like your daintiness and delicacy, your ladylike demeanor and prim mannerisms.

  "I also adore that you shed them like clothing before you come to bed with me. But never in a million years could you be crude. Don't even think such a thing."

  "Dax," she said softly, tears shimmering in her eyes.

  "I can't stand this any longer," Dax
muttered impatiently and hailed a taxi.

  "What?"

  "I want to kiss you right now."

  "No one's looking," she challenged.

  "They will be if I kiss you the way I want to," he warned.

  He hustled her into the back seat of the cab and gave the driver their destination. "I told him to take the long way," he said to Keely before he fell on her with the desperation of a dying man seeking sustenance.

  He kissed her aggressively, hungrily, powerfully, as though he wanted to stamp his seal of ownership on her. She knew that in an endearing way he was convincing himself that even if they weren't securely locked in their small room, she still belonged to him.

  When she managed to pull her mouth free, she pushed against his chest. "Dax, the driver."

  "Let him get his own girl," he growled.

  She laughed, struggling against him and only exciting him more. Before she knew what he was about, his hands were inside her coat. "Dax! Do you realize what you're doing?"

  "Uh-huh." He smoothed his hands over her unfettered breasts beneath the soft dress. He had talked her out of wearing the bra this morning. His touch set off a chain reaction of sensations throughout her body and she strained against him.

  The ardency of his kisses and the persuasiveness of his hands depleted her consciousness. They could have been driving for hours or merely minutes when she finally realized that the cab driver was calling something in French over his shoulder. "Dax," she murmured and firmly pushed him away. "He's saying something to you."

  He sighed, sitting up and straightening his clothes. "The Crillon is in the next block."

  Dax paid the driver and hauled her out of the back seat by pulling on her hand. She fell against him, laughing, and his arms enclosed her briefly before they turned toward the hotel.

  Keely froze.

  Walking toward them were the Allways. Their arms were linked around each other's waists. They were smiling happily, but their smiles turned to expressions of shocked dismay when they saw Keely and Dax in an embrace resembling their own.

  The four stared at each other in stunned silence. It must have been the Allways' idea to have a quiet, private breakfast away from the throng of reporters and prying eyes. The interview session was to begin at ten o'clock. They were hoping for a couple of hours alone before an exhausting day.

  Seeing them had been more than a mild shock to Keely. It had been an assault. A piercing spasm of guilt struck her in the heart, and following the millions of capillaries that radiated into every part of her body, the guilt pervaded her, seeped into her, until she was saturated with it.

  She had betrayed these friends. They had remained faithful to each other, to their wedding vows, and to their conviction that their partner was surviving, if for no other reason than to see the other again.

  She had betrayed her husband by sleeping with another man. Her sexual unfaithfulness was only a particle of her adultery. She had given all of herself to Dax, freely and wildly. She had retained nothing, held none of herself in reserve for Mark lest he return one day. Everything had been given to Dax and there was nothing left to give to anyone else.

  She had betrayed herself by thinking she could put away every moral conviction she held dear in the name of love. Her loving Dax couldn't justify her betrayal of Mark. Love based on betrayal and deceit could never be blessed. She knew that and, until last night, had stood by that principle. But now in the light of day and in view of two who had withstood untold adversity to finally be brought together, she saw that she had been deluding herself. Love was never free. The price must always be paid.

  "We were just going out for breakfast," Bill Allway said calmly, breaking an awkward silence that Keely wasn't even aware of.

  "Would you like to join us…?" Betty asked graciously, but her voice trailed away to nothingness before she even completed the invitation. There was no condemnation in her eyes, but Keely felt like a scarlet letter had been branded on her chest. The evidence couldn't be more incriminating. She and Dax had got out of a taxi just minutes after dawn with their clothes rumpled and their faces flushed. What other conclusion could be drawn except the correct one? She thought that if she didn't die from guilt she would surely die of shame.

  "No, thank you." Keely answered Betty's invitation for both of them.

  Dax stood by silently and stared at her.

  "Well, then, we'll be getting on our way," Bill said. "Betty?" He took his wife's arm and all but dragged her away. She was staring at Keely and Dax as though she still couldn't believe what her eyes had seen.

  "Look at me," Dax hissed when the Allways were out of earshot.

  "No," she said and turned away from him.

  Her arm was practically wrenched from the socket as he whipped her around to face him. "Look at me," he commanded.

  She jerked her head up and stared at him mutinously and his heart twisted when he saw the hard, closed, determined expression on her face. "I know what you're thinking, Keely." His voice was tight with suppressed tension.

  "You couldn't possibly imagine what I'm thinking."

  "Yes, I can. You're awash with guilt over what happened last night." His hands came up to grip her shoulders. "Seeing Betty and Bill set your conscience working overtime again. They are a lovely, happy couple, Keely. I couldn't be happier for them. But what happened to them doesn't have anything to do with you and Mark."

  "It has everything to do with it," she argued stubbornly. "Betty was faithful. I wasn't."

  "Faithful to whom? To a man you can barely remember? To a man you'll probably never hear of again?" He despised the cruelty of his words but he couldn't afford to be kind.

  "Up until yesterday, Betty didn't know her husband was alive. Now he's back with her. Something could happen just that fast and Mark would be home expecting his wife to he waiting for him."

  Dax looked around him impatiently as though he couldn't stand to hear what she was saying. Frustration screamed from every cell of his body. Finally his roaming, directionless eyes returned to her. "That is a very slim, remote possibility. What happened between us is a sure thing." He softened his voice to match the warming depth in his eyes. "I love you, Keely. I love you."

  Her hand flew to her mouth and mashed her flattened lips to her teeth. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "No," she wailed softly. "Don't say it now. Not now."

  "I'll say it until I know you hear me. I love you."

  She fought his restraining hands with newfound strength and gained her release. "No! It's wrong, Dax. It always has been. Don't you see? I'm still not free to love you. It will never be right for me to love until I know that Mark is dead."

  She stumbled backward, fearful that he might come after her and take her in his arms and she would be doomed again. "It isn't possible. Leave me … leave me alone. Please."

  She turned and fled, nearly knocking down a man standing in the door of the hotel. It was only after she had reached her room and collapsed on the bed in a torrent of tears that she sat bolt upright and took a heaving, shuddering breath of fearful realization. That man had been Al Van Dorf.

  * * *

  Dax raced down the concourse, his heart pounding with each footfall. He barely noticed his exertion. With the least bit of encouragement he felt he could fly.

  To think that only this morning he was in the depths of despair when he watched with an empty heart as Keely ran away from him. He had all but flattened Van Doff when he made some snide remark about whether they were coming or going.

  He had pushed past the man and stormed to his room, ready to do combat with anyone brave enough to test his temper. He never remembered feeling that helpless and angry in his life.

  For hours he had paced his room and with each hour his frustration mounted. Looking at the situation from an objective point of view, he could see that there was no right side nor wrong side. No easy answer or simple solution was going to jump out at them. Their problem couldn't be solved by careful deductive reasoning. It
could only be resolved by making a judgment call, by weighing one strong emotion against another equally strong. It was a decision involving Keely's conscience. God! He was afraid what her decision would be.

  Congressman Parker had called his room and he had all but yanked the telephone out of the wall in his haste to answer it, thinking that maybe Keely had had a change of heart. "Yes," he barked.

  "I surrender," Congressman Parker laughed.

  Abashment and disappointment did battle, and disappointment won. "I'm sorry. What can I do for you, Congressman?"

  "I'm glad you offered your services, because I do have a favor to ask. I'm expected to attend those interview sessions today, sort of be on hand should any question pertaining to legalities or congressional options arise. I'm also expected to go to the hospital and visit those soldiers as a representative of the administration. I doubt if the President would object if I asked one of his pet congressmen to fill in for me there. Would you mind?"

  Dax ran a hand through his hair. He might as well. He wasn't up to another day in a crowded room filled with photojournalists and reporters. If he stayed here, he'd only think about Keely and that wasn't getting him anywhere either. "Certainly. Give me time to clean up. What info do I need before I go?"

  "We lost one of those boys, Dax. Last night. He just couldn't pull through."

  "Damn!"

  "Yeah. I'll send a folder down to your room with stats about each one of them. When you're ready to go, ask the desk to send a car. Take your time. There's no hurry. Oh, except for the plane leaving tonight."

  "What plane?"

  "Some had requested that they be sent right home and the President has agreed. So those who feel up to it are returning tonight as well as anyone on the original delegation who wants to go on home."

  "What time does the plane leave?"

  "Nine o'clock. From de Gaulle. I'll jot down all the particulars in one of the folders."

  "Thank you."

  "Thank you, Dax. Say hello to those soldiers for me."