Jason became instantly still, looking deeply into the blue-green depths of her eyes that were dazed by an unbounded desire for him. Taking her hand, he led her off the terrace and through the garden, which teemed with red and purple bougainvillaea vines, pink gliricidia trees, red ginger and porcelain rose, all in various degrees of bloom. The large, highly colored leaves of the anthurium mingled with the orange and purple flowers of the bird of paradise plant and marked their way down the path to her cottage.
Entering it, they didn’t bother shutting the French doors or even switching on the lights. Instead, they turned to each other in a fury of need and kissed with a deep hunger, clinging and straining, until Morgan couldn’t have stood without Jason holding her. She didn’t notice when he unzipped her dress, but she felt it as it whispered down her legs, settling around her ankles. Then he was lifting her, carrying her to the bed and laying her down.
Stopping only long enough to undress himself, Jason joined her. Morgan could feel the trembling in her body as Jason slowly ran his hand over her, eliminating the rest of her undergarments as he did.
The velvet of the night winged into the open doors, carrying a gossamer breeze on wings of softness and, with only moonlight banding their bodies, Jason and Morgan made beautiful love to one another.
Morgan, using her tongue to taste the virile flavor of Jason, ran the tip of it around his nipple, enjoying the groan he gave and the way he clutched at her. Lying on top of him, she undulated farther down his body, loving the abrasive tingles she created, taking tiny, delicate nips of him as she went.
“God, woman! Where did you ever learn this witchery!” he gasped hoarsely. Gripping her tightly, Jason rolled over on top of her.
“I think I learned it the minute I opened my eyes and saw you,” she responded, gasping in turn when she felt him mouth the taut peak of her breast and commence sucking, and his hand move between her legs, caressing.
Stark passion boiled through Morgan’s blood, such as she had never known, such as she had never expected. “Now!” she cried. “Please … now … Jason!”
He entered her in one clean stroke and a pleasure streaked through her so intense that she called his name again and again. There was no awkwardness, as there sometimes is with people who are making love for the first time. Rather, their bodies moved in perfect oneness, synchronized to the finest degree. Their overpowering need for one another swiftly became ungovernable, taking them higher and higher, their movements quickening.
Jets of fiery liquid began to course through Morgan with an urgency that suddenly became a molten pressure, so volcanic in its force that it burst apart within her, erupting with a dynamic intensity equal to the explosion that once caused lava to flood out of Mt. Pelee. Afterwards, damp and glowing, she slept in Jason’s arms, completely fulfilled and utterly content. Before the morning’s sun rose, they made love again.
There was all too little time left of their vacation, but they continued to make the most of the days left, sightseeing, playing and, most of all, loving.
On the last day of their vacation, they drove to the other side of the island. There they discovered a village where a few of the women were engaged in batiking, the method of dyeing designs on cloth by coating with removable wax the parts not to be dyed, and Morgan made arrangements to have some of the cloth shipped to her store.
They returned via La Trace, zigzagging their way through the rain forest, and decided to stop. Walking hand in hand through the enchanted forest filled with ferns—tiny ones, knee-high ones and giant tree ferns—they marveled at the fairyland of green. However, nothing could compete for long with their intoxication at the presence of one another, and Jason soon turned to Morgan.
He nuzzled her neck and inhaled deeply. “You smell so good. Are you wearing the perfume I bought you?”
“Ummmm …” she acknowledged dreamily. “You know, I’ve never seen anything like this. There just aren’t enough words to describe this place properly.”
Jason took her fully into his arms. “I feel the same way, only about you. Your beauty defies all known words. You make me want to invent new ones.”
Running her hands around his neck, Morgan gazed adoringly at him. “You realize, don’t you, that what we’ve found on this paradise of an island is something very special.”
Jason’s mouth quirked wryly. “With you, Morgan, I find I don’t think a whole lot. I just feel.”
“What are you feeling now?”
Her whispered question wrested a deep growl from Jason. “I feel like laying you down in this bower of green and making love to you until your cries of ecstasy echo across the forest.”
The strength and power of her love for Jason overcame her, and Morgan’s fingers began to move restively over his chest, stopping to unbutton his shirt. “Do it… please, Jason, do it.”
His hands went purposefully to the knot behind her neck, releasing it, and the halter top Morgan was wearing fell to her waist. Reaching behind her, he untied the final knot and the top fell to the ground.
Jason’s grip on her arms was as strong as steel, but there was a definite gentleness to his actions as he held her, dropping them together onto the carpet of ferns. Morgan peeled her shorts off and lay waiting eagerly while Jason took the remainder of his clothes off.
The glade they were in was interspersed with wild orchids, fragile pink in color, and was laced with sunshine that rivaled the golden sparks glimmering in Jason’s eyes. His mouth covered hers in a kiss that was as old as time, yet as new as their love for one another, and Morgan’s tongue mated with his, receiving and giving. There was nothing reserved in the way her body curved against him; she wanted to be possessed by him and her murmured words of desire told him so, but Jason was in no hurry.
He moved his attention to the side of her neck where he grazed up to her ear, tenderly exploring that delicate orifice to his complete satisfaction, before nibbling unhurriedly back down her neck and over to her breastbone. With the moist sorcery of his tongue, Jason drew a deliberately precise line between her breasts and then traced under them, where he paused to nip the sensitive underside of the weighted fullness.
Morgan heard the sound of an impassioned moan and realized it had come from her, as Jason continued his journey around her breast, completing a full circle with his tongue, and then switched to the other breast, to begin again making maddeningly methodical circles with his mouth, around and around her breast, coming closer and closer to the rigid tip, until Morgan didn’t think she would be able to stand it if he didn’t reach his destination soon.
“Jason … oh, Jason …”
“Darling,” he breathed onto the heated surface of her skin. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
His mouth stopped beside her nipple, and Morgan’s stomach tightened with expectation. Closing over the throbbing point with his teeth, Jason gently moved it back and forth, causing small ripples of pressure to commence deep within her. His hand came up to support the breast, squeezing it, urging the nipple further into his mouth.
Morgan put her hands on Jason’s shoulders, sinking her fingers into the muscled flesh. Her hips arched erotically upward. She wanted Jason now. She didn’t want to wait. She wasn’t sure she could. But Jason’s mouth went to her other breast, using it with an alternate pressure and friction to intensify the gales of pleasure that blew in waves through her body.
Her fingers threaded through the dark gloss of his hair and attempted to bring him up to her. Instead, Jason’s head moved lower, over the silky expanse of her stomach … and even lower, his tongue and hands seeking, probing and memorizing the geography of her body. Morgan felt his fingers push into her buttocks and raise her so that he could have better access to the inside of her thighs. Then, rubbing his tongue into the highly sensitive feminine folds located there, Jason brought Morgan to a never-before-reached fever pitch of passion. Her whole body quivered with an ache so intense it threatened to consume her if it wasn’t relieved soon.
&nb
sp; “Please … oh please,” she pleaded almost incoherently.
Jason raised and plunged into Morgan in one bold motion, entirely filling her with himself. Their overwhelming desire for one another took over, making them forget time and place. Yet lying under a jungle canopy of green, in a tropical woodland, the two of them were in strange and wonderful fellowship with their primeval environment. Natural forces prevailed around and in them, and Morgan dug her nails into Jason, dragging them the length of his back, as their mutual cries of ultimate release shattered the peace of the forest.
Quiet returned to the rain forest and eventually to them. Resting beside Jason, Morgan breathed happily. “I don’t think there has ever been a place or a day such as this.”
“Don’t ever forget,” Jason whispered back.
Chapter Four
Still heady with happiness from their vacation, Jason and Morgan deplaned into the crowded Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport late the next afternoon. Despite the throng of milling people, it was not difficult for Morgan to spot Sami.
Wearing a purple Cossack top embroidered with fuchsia and jade flowers around the high collar and down the asymmetrical placket, paired with a tight pair of jeans stuffed into navy-colored, high-heeled cowboy boots, Sami was standing in the middle of what looked to be a group of religious cult members. A belt with an enormous free-form gold buckle measured her narrow waist and a Navy pea coat was draped casually over one arm, Sami, as usual, looked magnificent.
“Sami!” Morgan yelled, and grabbing Jason’s hand, started to push their way through the crowd. Sami’s long blond hair swished around her shoulders as she turned, waved and started toward them. Observing how the crowd parted and then turned to stare at her beautiful friend, Morgan grinned. Sami could part the Red Sea if she put her mind to it.
But then Sami’s arms were around her in a tight, crushing hug and her words came tumbling out in a jumble of excitement. “I’m so glad you’re back! I thought you’d never get here. How was Martinique … and the plane ride? I didn’t tell you, but I had a little talk with the pilot and he promised to fly carefully.”
“Should I ask what you promised him?”
“Nothing more than to have dinner with him.”
“I guess it was worth it then, because we didn’t crash. Of course, I’m not at all sure I would have noticed even if we had.” Morgan held her friend at arm’s length, laughing at the amazed expression on her face. “I see nothing has changed here.” She nodded over Sami’s shoulder toward the religious group that had followed. Despite the frigid weather outside, they were all dressed uniformly in green tunics, with open sandals on their bare feet, and wore identical bland expressions and lengths of long hair, making it hard to tell what sex they were. “You haven’t invited them for dinner have you?”
Sami glanced behind her, giving the group a graceful shrug of dismissal. “Oh, no. I was just trying to find out where they get their tunics. Turns out they’re issued to them, just like in the army, and you can’t get one unless you join their organization.”
“It’s the wrong color green for you, anyway,” Morgan consoled. “Listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.” She pulled Sami around to face Jason, who had been watching the two equally stunning young women with quiet amusement.
Sami’s great golden eyes sparkled with comprehension and genuine delight. “Morgan! You found him!” She extended her hand to Jason, clasping his large hand in her small one. “I knew it, I just knew it! You don’t have to tell me who you are! You’re ‘Tall, Dark and Handsome,’ right?”
“Sami, behave yourself!” Morgan laughed. “This is Jason Falco.”
“Of course he is.” Sami was still beaming her smug satisfaction at being right, and she hadn’t let go of his hand. “Did you two have a simply wonderful affair?”
“Sami!”
“Yes, we did,” Jason answered with unembarrassed ease that made Morgan love him all the more, “and as a matter of fact, we still are. What’s more, I doubt very much if our affair will ever end.”
“Oh, you’re marvelous!” Sami informed him gleefully and finally let go of his hand to turn back toward Morgan and demand, “Didn’t I tell you?”
“She’ll never let me hear the end of this, you know,” Morgan groaned wearily to a somewhat puzzled Jason. “Don’t ask me how, but she predicted you!”
Jason laughed and drew Morgan into his arms, giving her a light kiss on the cheek. “Sami, however you did it, I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life.”
Sami shrugged modestly. “Nothing to it—just a little black magic.”
“Is she serious?” Jason asked Morgan.
“It’s hard to say. I haven’t seen her in two weeks.”
“Hey!” A plaintive voice intruded through the din. “I just fought off the whole defensive line of the Minnesota Vikings, a mean-looking traffic cop and two nuns for a parking place. Don’t I get a kiss?”
“Jerome!” Morgan rushed over to the tall, lanky young man with the sandy-colored hair and planted a big kiss on his smiling lips. “How have you been?”
“Great. And I don’t have to ask about you. I can see. Martinique must have agreed with you—I’ve never seen you look more beautiful.”
“And here is why,” Sami informed him triumphantly, breaking in on their conversation and dragging Jason over to them. “Jerome, this is Jason Falco. Jason this is Jerome Mailer. He lives with us.”
“More or less,” Jerome amended and extended his hand toward Jason, his pale blue eyes twinkling behind square-shaped, tortoise-rimmed glasses.
“Morgan told me all about you,” Jason said, “and it’s a pleasure to meet you. Incidentally, I like your jacket.”
Jerome glanced down at the chocolate brown World War II pilot’s jacket he wore. ‘Thanks. Sami brought it home one day after an afternoon of scavenging in one of the thrift shops she frequents.”
“I’ll have to send her out shopping for me sometime.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Sami chimed in, immediately getting caught up in the idea. “With your dark complexion, you’d be devastating in a long Moroccan caftan … maybe gold,” she mused, looking him over thoroughly.
“I’ll think about it,” Jason promised dubiously, once more reaching out a long arm to Morgan and bringing her back to his side. “I enjoyed meeting you both, but right now I’m afraid I’ve got to get to the office.”
“Do you have to?” Sami questioned with real disappointment. “I was hoping we could all have dinner together.”
“I’m afraid so. I was supposed to be back over a week ago, and if I stay away any longer, they’re liable to put out a missing persons bulletin on me.”
Jerome spoke up. “In that case, why don’t Sami and I go get the car, Morgan, and you can meet us at the curb with your luggage?”
“Fine.” Morgan was grateful for the additional few minutes alone with Jason. “And by the way, Sami,” she called over her shoulder. “You better contribute to that group’s cause or they might just follow us home. They seem to have taken to you.”
After retrieving their bags, Jason and Morgan made their way slowly toward the entrance, prolonging their inevitable separation.
“You know where Paddy’s and Company is, don’t you?” Jason asked, naming an Irish bar-restaurant located about halfway between their two apartments. “Why don’t we meet there around seven tomorrow evening?”
“Okay,” Morgan agreed readily, but then added ruefully, “I think the next twenty-four hours will be among the longest I’ve ever spent.”
Jason didn’t reply, but the force of his parting kiss showed Morgan that he felt the same way.
The next morning, Morgan relaxed at the window of her second-story apartment, wrapped in a warm robe and drinking a cup of coffee. From where she was standing she could see the Mississippi, frozen solid in mottled gray and white designs for the winter, and the stark outlines of iced-encased tree limbs, struggling against the harsh elements to survive unti
l the spring.
Everything was the same, yet everything was different, Morgan reflected with happiness. Now she knew Jason Falco lived in St. Paul, and that knowledge made her automatically look at her surroundings differently. Had he noticed how brightly the sun glinted off the snow this morning, she wondered? What was he doing at this exact moment? Was he looking out his window and thinking of her? Morgan wanted to run to the phone and call to ask him, but she resisted. Jason had said seven tonight and she would wait.
Showered and dressed, Morgan was just about to make her way down to the shop when the phone rang. She answered with eagerness, thinking that it might be Jason. “Hello?”
“Morgan?”
It was David DeWitt. She had completely forgotten about him! Swallowing her disappointment, she answered brightly, “David. How nice to hear from you. How did you know I was home?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been marking the days off my calendar, one by one.” His voice lowered. “I’ve missed you terribly and I’m dying to see you.”
David was so nice, Morgan thought, but she realized that she had let their relationship drift casually for entirely too long, believing it was the “kind” thing to do. However, now she had only one choice: she had to break off with him, once and for all. With this in mind, Morgan said, “I-I’d like to see you, too, David.”
“You would? Great! How about lunch today?”
He sounded like a little boy looking forward to a special treat and Morgan’s burden of guilt felt all the heavier; nevertheless, she answered firmly, “That would be perfect. I’m anxious to talk to you.”
“Good. By the way, my brother is back in town, and I want you two to meet. I’ve been telling him all about you, so don’t let me down.”
The Seduction of Jason Page 5
