Home Fires

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Deanna? Deanna! What’s wrong?”

  His concerned tone snapped her from the nightmare. But she’d withdrawn into her shell and could only shake her head. He stared at her face, devoid now of color, paid the bill quickly with cash and then, with a muffled oath, he took her hand.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  6

  The fresh air was what she needed. Mark’s protective arm about her shoulder was not. She found herself nestling far too snugly against him, selfishly absorbing his comfort, all the while feeling guilty about how little she could offer in return.

  She let her arm curve beneath his jacket and around his lean waist. They walked slowly, silently and in perfect step. Occasionally their eyes met. It was at one of those times that Deanna realized she was well on her way to falling in love with Mark, if she hadn’t done so already. He was so special, had been from the first. She should have been able to see it coming—not that there was anything she could have done to stop it. It was beautiful and inevitable and terribly, terribly hopeless.

  “Okay now?” he murmured into the soft auburn sheen of her hair.

  “Uh-huh,” she lied, wanting to pretend that her hopelessness didn’t exist

  “Want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not tonight It’s too lovely.”

  A tremor passed the length of Mark’s body and she wondered for a minute if it was her own. When his arm tightened reflexively around her, she sighed her pleasure. If only she could retreat into fantasy again. If only she could disregard every reality but Mark, his magnificent body and her burgeoning desire for him.

  Reading her thoughts, Mark hurried her around a corner into a small alleyway and took her into his arms before she could begin to question the wisdom of the move. His lips came down on hers with the force of his own pent-up need, igniting a response that had been similarly building in her all evening. Nothing could dampen the hunger exploding between them as their arms wound convulsively around one another and their lips consumed each other greedily.

  “Deanna … Deanna … I need you so much … .” he rasped, dragging his mouth from hers to devour the faintly scented skin of her neck. His hands seemed everywhere, trailing white-hot fire along her arms and around her waist, covering her ribs and rising to her breasts as she strained in torment against him.

  She heard his love words only in a daze, for she was engrossed in the touching as well. This was a momentary bonanza—this dark, dark alleyway. For these few reckless moments she was free again. Her fingers pressed through the fabric of his suit to adore the vibrant sinews that stretched virilely beneath. She reached to his shoulders and arched catlike against him, then let her hands fall the length of his arms to his hips and thighs. As his kiss deepened into scorching tongue play, she stroked the steel of those thighs, moving slowly inward until he sucked in a breath of frustration.

  “Oh, honey … I could take you here and now … .”

  “I know,” she whispered, wanting it as well. “I know, Mark … .” Her body ached with the hollowness he’d created, the hollowness only he could fill. This time it was her mouth that sought an urgent kiss, her lips that underscored the internal cry.

  Then, slowly, a foreign sound penetrated the stillness of the dark alley. It was the steady beat of slow applause, one deliberate clap after the other, until both Deanna and Mark stared toward it in shock. Mark’s arms tightened protectively, pulling her slightly behind him. But there was no cause for fear. The drunk in the alley couldn’t even stand. As it was his speech was slurred, nearly incomprehensible.

  “Verrrra … goooood … shoow …” The applause continued in its monotonous rhythm.

  “Damn!” Mark seethed, hurrying Deanna from the alley to the sidewalk once more and heading at a faster clip toward the hotel. She wasn’t sure whether he was angry, embarrassed or frustrated. She herself felt all three, plus a fourth emotion: remorse. But there was little time for thought, or to regain her composure, before the Hunt International came into sight. Only then did Mark’s pace slacken and his arm fall from her shoulder to his side.

  He said nothing and she matched his silence. They might have been two strangers who just happened to arrive at the hotel simultaneously, each with his head down, each deep in thought. It was still early, barely ten. The lobby was busy for a Monday evening, the elevator nearly filled.

  This time Mark’s room was on the twenty-ninth floor. When the elevator stopped there and he firmly seized her hand, Deanna was taken by surprise. She hadn’t expected a repeat of this when she’d decided to have dinner with him. Or had she?

  With a still half-full elevator behind her and Mark standing commandingly before her she had little choice but to follow him. As soon as she heard the elevator door close, though, she forced out her protest.

  “I don’t want to come with you,” she whispered hoarsely. The pain of duplicity was sheer agony. She wanted more than anything to be with him. It was foresight that condemned the act “Mark … please!”

  He paid her no heed. He released her hand only when he’d reached his door, quickly inserted the card to unlock it, then almost gruffly led her inside. Once there he shut the door and bolted it. It seemed that he had only one purpose in mind. Deanna read it in the lambency of his gaze as he struggled to control his emotions.

  “You said we’d talk,” she reminded him in a fearful whisper, though the demon now was herself. Nothing would have pleased her more than to have thrown herself into his arms in an utterly selfish drive toward satisfaction. Was this all she had to give him—her body for his gratification? Even there she was no expert.

  Mark swallowed hard and spoke thickly, his hands cocked tensely on his hips. “How in the hell can we talk when I can’t think straight? The only truth seems to be our lovemaking. Primal communication. No pretense. No fear. Commitment … even if it’s fleeting.” Pausing, he studied her rounded eyes and gentled. “You look so pretty, Deanna. Your dress, your hair … but all I can think of is stripping you naked, taking that clip from your hair, making love to you until you can’t think straight!”

  Deanna caught her breath. Unable to argue with anything he’d said, she took a step back and shook her head at the urging of reason, but already her limbs were weakening. Already her pulse had sped up in anticipation. If this were the only gift she had to offer Mark, perhaps she might even be able to make it special. She’d need his help, though. Already she felt the fear of inadequacy.

  Stepping forward she crossed the small distance between them. Her hands lifted to his waist and she watched them slide up over the smooth fabric of his shirt until they rested on the corded swells of his chest. His heart raced beneath her fingertips, the first note of encouragement. Only then did she look up at him.

  “I’m afraid, Mark … of so much. I can’t ask you to understand what I don’t understand myself. But I do want to please you.” Her voice lowered to a barely audible plea. “Will you … help me?”

  She couldn’t quite fathom the incredulous look on his face. It was as though she’d spoken a foreign language. But then he answered and her own face adopted the same look.

  “Me … help you? Deanna, you don’t need any help. You please me just as you are now, just as you were last time we were together. It’s those memories that are driving me insane! I need you again. You!”

  A silent message coursed between them. At that instant there were only the two of them. All else in the world was irrelevant. Yielding to the longing that threatened to smother her from within, Deanna cried out as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself close against him. “I need you, Mark. I need you to love me,” she murmured dazedly, unaware of her words, mindful only of her frustration at every thin barrier between them.

  The frustration was mutual. Mark kissed her once, sweeping the honeyed sweetness from the far recesses of her mouth with a thrust that shook her, then set her back. They undressed wordlessly, never taking their eyes from each other. When Dean
na wore nothing but her silken bra and panties, she stopped. Having just stepped from his trousers Mark straightened slowly. At the sight of his briefs she burst into a light-hearted grin.

  “Now what’s so funny?” he growled, sweeping her off her feet and into his arms as he headed for the bedroom.

  “Blue-and-white stripes?” she laughed breathlessly. “I love it!”

  He lowered her gently to the bed. Seconds later he was upon her. “Pretty smart, aren’t you?” he drawled down at her, sliding his body intimately over hers. “You forgot your hair. Here, let me do it”

  He sat up beside her, reached down and with deliberate slowness undipped the gold clasp that had secured the thick fall. His touch held a wealth of tenderness as he finger-combed her hair around her head on the pillow.

  Meanwhile she reveled in the bareness of his chest. Broad, tanned and warm, its virile expanse beckoned. Reaching out, she touched him, then sat up with a bolt and nudged him down until he was the one on his back. If this was her gift, she’d make it good.

  Crouching over him, she lowered her mouth to his, moving her lips with sensual delight, teasing him, tasting him until he held her head still so he could plumb the depth she’d knowingly denied. At the instant she began to lose herself in him, she pulled away. She had to be controlled, to know what she was doing, if she hoped to pleasure him to the fullest.

  Her hands paved the way, then her lips followed over a trail that began at his mouth and wound down his throat to the firmness of his chest. His skin tasted tart. The flatness of his nipples soon grew hard beneath the pads of her thumbs. Her hair whispered over his skin, falling around her face, a delicate veil of passion.

  Mark groaned, squirmed, lifted her under her arms until she was over him, then kissed her fiercely. “You’re a minx!” he moaned into her mouth. But his tongue was gentle, tasting her mouth until Deanna was the one to cry out.

  Suddenly she found herself on her back, looking up as Mark unhooked the front closure of her bra and eased the material from her creamy-soft fullness. She watched, mesmerized, as his head lowered, his mouth surrounded the rosy shadow of her breast, his teeth closed carefully around her nipple’s peak. Then she let her lids drop and concentrated on sensation as he played with that nub, rolling it with his tongue, tugging until the pull bridged the far distance to her loins and she whimpered his name.

  At that point she barely recalled her intention. What little she did know she was unable to enact. He’d commandeered her senses as if bent on retribution for the week of cold showers he’d had to endure and she simply didn’t have the strength to deny herself any of this electrifying glory. If she lacked something as a seductress it was no longer important. Mark’s body strained as urgently as did hers.

  He sat up only to hook his thumbs beneath the lace of her panties and ease them over her hips. Then he rolled to his side to shimmy from the blue-and-white striped briefs she’d kidded him about. But she didn’t kid him now as he returned to kneel by her side in momentary awe of her body. Nor did she kid him on his obvious state of arousal.

  Instead she rose to meet him, kneeling before him suddenly with the desperate urge to declare her love. That was the ultimate vulnerability, though. The time wasn’t right.

  Her eyes spoke softly as she inched toward him and her hands grew emboldened by the love swelling within her. In as natural a move as she’d ever made, she reached to touch him. One hand slid over the flesh of his hips to his firm flank, the other to the proof of his need.

  He gasped her name and drew her closer as she stroked him. She found her own blood heating as she continued to warm his. Indeed, her ministrations affected her nearly as much as they did him, and she brought her mouth to meet his with a near violence she would never have believed had she been functioning rationally. But she wasn’t. She’d become a creature of love, motivated by it, driven by it, inspired by it until it was the only reality that existed.

  Dizzy from the force of passion’s eddy, they tumbled to the bed. Then, in a moment of choreographic precision, their bodies came together at last. Deanna was as moist and ready as Mark was firm to fill her. The night was broken by their cries as they seemed to shift and eclipse one another, climbing ever higher until first Deanna, then Mark, reached, sustained, shattered, then slowly descended from the far-flung ecstasy of fulfillment.

  Long afterward they lay in each other’s arms, their bodies damp and spent Deanna listened as Mark’s breathing grew gradually more even and he dozed off, exhausted. She snuggled closer, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her cheek against his chest, her hand falling to lie on his stomach.

  The slow cadence of his breathing should have been a sedative for her, but her eyes were wide open, sleep the furthest thing from mind. Unashamed for once, she studied his body. His stomach was flat, his hips lean. He lay still, drained of passion. He’d brought her such pleasure.

  She tipped her head back to study his face, at rest, yet no less manly. What she felt went far beyond physical arousal. Without doubt, she loved this man deeply. Emotion surged through her, filling her as fully as he had filled her earlier. She loved Mark … and she had no idea what she was going to do!

  He opened a heavy-lidded eye with slow reluctance. Deanna reached up and kissed his cheek. “I’ve got to go,” she murmured softly. “You go back to sleep.”

  “Stay, Deanna,” he whispered, closing his eyes again.

  “I can’t.”

  “We have … to talk … .”

  “Another time.” Very gently, she untangled herself from him and quietly dressed. By the time she was ready to leave he was sleeping soundly. Indulging herself for a final moment, she stood looking down at him. He was sprawled on his back, his head fallen sideways on the pillow. His hair was in disarray from their wild passion; his skin had a lingering sheen. He was long and strong, breathtaking in repose. But his body blurred before her when her eyes filled with tears. If only she could stay. He wanted so much, though, needed so much. If only she could have been the one. Blotting her eyes with the back of her hand, she turned and left.

  It took every bit of her self-command to rouse herself from bed the next morning. She couldn’t have slept for more than two or three hours and had a wicked headache as proof. Given her choice, she would have liked to burrow into oblivion for the day. But there were things to be done, people expecting her. And she felt an urgent need to be away from the suite when Mark called—as she was sure he would.

  All the agony of the lonely hours of the night had been futile. She hadn’t resolved a thing; the endless battle continued. Was this what she’d invited when she’d surrendered to fantasy one short week earlier? Could she have known she’d fall in love for real?

  She breakfasted earlier and more quickly than usual, calling on deep reserves to present her usual image of composure to the world as she prayed that Mark wouldn’t show. That particular prayer was answered. As for the escape she’d hoped to achieve by dashing off to the hospital, it evaded her. Throughout the morning, despite every diversion, her thoughts were her own and she brooded darkly. Mark deserved so much more than she could give him. She was a product of twenty-nine years of careful molding and she doubted she could ever break free.

  Back at her suite she barely picked at the cold sweet-and-sour salmon Irma had poached for her lunch.

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. Hunt?”

  “Yes.” She dragged herself from dark reflections. “Uh, yes. I guess I’m just not hungry, Irma. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The housekeeper knew her place and didn’t question her further. But she was watchful, much as she had been the night before when Deanna had returned to the suite so late with a flush of rose on her cheeks and her hair tumbling wildly about her shoulders. Then there were those phone calls this morning so soon after Deanna had left, and again before she’d returned. When Irma had mentioned them, Deanna had shrugged with an indifference she might have
carried off had it not been for the betraying tremor of her lower lip. Something was happening, Irma knew. Whether it was good or bad remained to be seen.

  In her room Deanna rehearsed every excuse in the book before reaching the conclusion that she simply couldn’t avoid the office. If it wasn’t that afternoon it would be the next day or Thursday, and she doubted she’d have anything more to say then than she had now. With a deep sigh of resignation she had Henry bring the car around.

  An hour later she was in the office, trying to pretend she was the same woman who’d spent every other Tuesday and Thursday there for what suddenly seemed forever. But she’d changed. The keen gaze she shot warily toward the door every now and then gave evidence of that. Fortunately, she wasn’t with any one person long enough to betray her unease.

  The hours dragged. She was busy enough, yet the slim gold watch on her wrist seemed to operate in slow motion. With each glance at the door she expected to see his face. Yet … nothing. Two. Two-thirty. Three. Three-thirty. Nothing. At four o’clock she gave up all pretense of collectedness. Wrapping her work up quickly, she spoke briefly with Bob, then left as furtively as possible.

  To her list of self-directed epithets she now added another: coward. Not only had she not had the courage to question Bob Warner about Mark’s whereabouts, she’d taken to avoiding Mark after all. As she let herself into the suite she felt ashamed. What had happened to the poised, dignified woman Larry Hunt had left behind? This new woman might have known the richness of love, but Deanna wasn’t sure she liked the side effects.

  She had barely started dinner when the doorbell rang. There was no question in her mind as to who it was. Nor had she any doubt that, for the sake of her self-respect alone, she had to see him.

  Laying her fork quietly on the plate, she waited. The voices from the foyer were muted; then Mark appeared at the archway to the breakfast room in which she sat Irma was immediately behind him, clenching her hands. Deanna took the situation in at a glance.