"What does Valerie have to do with this?"
"She"s skinny, and I"m a little- I"m fat!"
"Man-oh-man. I"m giving up on women. I"m definitely giving up." As he grumbled, he began to caress her hips, and the skin at her temples tingled from the soft motion of his lips. "I know lots of women feel insecure about their bodies, and I know I should be sweet and understanding about this. But, Phoebe, honey, having you worry about being too fat is pretty much like having a billionaire worry about his money being too green."
"You were looking at me."
"You"ve got me there, but I"ve learned my lesson. From now on, I"m gonna shut my eyes." He lifted both her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his palms, bent his head, and found the left nipple with his mouth. As he suckled her, liquid threads of pleasure, hot and tingling, spread through her. Her insecurities faded as she clung to his shoulders and offered herself up to him.
She didn"t know how they got to the bed or what happened to her shoes, only that he was laying her on the soft, patterned blanket. She watched as he took off the rest of his clothes and came to lie beside her.
"I still have my stockings on."
"I know." He ran his hands over the sheer, black nylon and up to the soft, unprotected skin of her inner thigh, and she could see that the stockings excited him.
"Spread your legs for me, honey."
She did as he asked.
"Farther," he urged. "Pull up your knees."
She did that, too.
"You"re looking again." She gazed down at the top of his head.
"And you"re just as pretty here as you are everywhere else."
She could barely breathe as he did a moist tracing of her with the tip of his index finger. Taking his time. Looking his fill. Sometimes pressing his lips to the insides of her thighs. Murmuring little nonsense syllables against her skin.
His finger grew slippery as it pushed up a little and then withdrew, going round and round on its slow forever mission. She gasped for breath, taking short, quick pants. Her body was no longer part of the room, no longer lying on the bed, but spiraling toward some hot wet land.
He bent his head and took her with his mouth. She lost herself in pleasure. Then she felt not one finger, but two. Sliding. Pumping.
She knew he was watching her. Heard him praise her pa.s.sion. "That"s good, baby. So good. Let it go. Let it go, sweetheart."
"No," she gasped, barely able to speak. "No. I want you."
His fingers went deeper. "Do you, baby? Do you?"
"Yes, I ..."
Her eyes flew open. Those fingers! They were everywhere. He knew no shame.
He laughed a devil"s laugh, earthy and l.u.s.ty. "Relax, baby. Relax and let me feel you."
She moaned and let him do what he wanted because nothing on earth could have made her tell him to stop, not even when he took her nipple in his mouth, suckled hard, and hurled her over the mountaintop.
She flew through s.p.a.ce, end over end, spiraling, hitting the sun and then falling back to earth. He caught her safely before she hit the ground.
Long moments pa.s.sed before her eyelids drifted open. "I couldn"t wait for you," she finally whispered.
"I didn"t let you." He settled between her legs.
She was slick and wet, but she still had trouble taking him. Feeling that sweet stretch, she tilted her hips to get more, then whimpered as he gave it to her.
He froze. "Am I hurting you?"
"No," she gasped in a thick whisper. "It"s wonderful."
He arched his back like a great jungle cat, drove his hips, and she came again.
He laughed as he felt her shudders, then filled her mouth with his tongue and took her body away from her. It was his now. Sweet spoils won on a silken battlefield. Every inch belonged to him, and he would take it as he wished. Hard and deep, letting her feel the raw power of a strength so much greater than hers. Using her shamefully. Sensually. Making her cry out again and again in pa.s.sion.
Sweat slicked his body but he wouldn"t let himself climax because he wasn"t done with her; he hadn"t felt enough of her, not even when he had put her knees to her shoulders and driven so deeply he was blowing apart.
It wasn"t enough! He wanted more. More of her s.e.x. Her heart. Her soul.
She gave a soft cry that tore him apart, and something was unraveling inside him, something that should have remained coiled up tight and hard and safe. Frightened by instincts that had been developed in his childhood, instincts that warned him against the searing, unbearable pain of soft emotions, he turned her over like a rag doll. With one hand resting lightly on the back of her neck to hold her head down, he raised her hips, drawing her to her knees. Her blond hair swirled like a golden web on the pillow. He thrust into her from behind while he cupped the spilling bounty of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands and rolled the nipples between his fingers, taking her to that sweetest of all boundaries just this side of pain.
She was crying out his name, begging him to hurl her over the edge again, and this time he knew he couldn"t send her alone.
Her face was hidden, her s.e.x jutted up for his use. He was rutting like an animal, so he shouldn"t have felt this all-encompa.s.sing tenderness, sensations so warm and soft they almost made him weep. He willed those gentle feelings away, cursed himself, but as she once again convulsed around him, he would have died for her.
His fierceness left him, and he turned her back so he could gaze down at that soft beautiful face, cheeks flushed, lips parted. Pulling her tight against him, he squeezed his eyes shut against the surge of an emotion he refused to name.
With a great cry, he flooded her.
21.
Dan walked across the bedroom, unselfconscious about his nudity. As she lay in bed and gazed at the many scars on his body, she thought about all the hits he had taken over the years. He pulled a white terry cloth robe from the closet and slipped into it. "We"ve got to talk, Phoebe."
She had never seen him look so serious, and memories of what had happened the first time they"d made love in that Portland hotel room came rushing back.
He approached the bed and sat on the edge looking down at her. "I"m afraid we both got carried away tonight. I didn"t use anything."
She gazed at him blankly.
"I don"t know what happened. I"ve never been this careless, not even when I was a kid."
Understanding dawned, and with it an irrational sense of disappointment that the idea of getting her pregnant was so upsetting to him. "You don"t have to worry. I"m on the pill." He"d never know how recently she"d gone on it, right after the night in the airplane.
"These are the nineties. I"m worried about a little more than birth control. It"s been years since I"ve been with anyone but Valerie, and my contract with the Stars requires a regular physical. I know I"m healthy." He looked her right in the eye. "But I don"t know the same about you."
She stared at him.
"You"ve led a full life," he said quietly. "I"m not pa.s.sing judgment; I just want to know how careful you"ve been, and how much time has pa.s.sed since you"ve had a blood test."
She finally understood what he meant. How could she admit to this worldly man that AIDS hadn"t been a serious issue the last time she"d slept with another man? Stalling, she propped herself up on the pillow with one elbow and gazed at him through a lock of hair that had fallen over her eye. "You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself."
"This isn"t a joke."
"No, it isn"t." She slipped her legs over the opposite side of the bed and went to the chair where he"d dropped his tuxedo shirt. She didn"t want to have this conversation naked, and she couldn"t bear the idea of struggling back into her dress while he watched. "You don"t have anything to worry about. I"m clean as a whistle."
"How do you know?"
She slid her arms into the sleeves of his shirt. "I just do."
"I"m afraid that"s not good enough."
"There"s nothing to worry about. Take my word for it." There weren"t any b.u.t.tons on the shirt, so she wrapped his c.u.mmerbund twice around her waist and tied the ends.
"You"re not even looking at me. Are you hiding something?"
"No," she lied.
"Then sit down so we can talk this through."
"I don"t have anything else to say. Maybe you"d better take me home."
He stood. "Not until we have it out. You"re scaring me."
He didn"t sound scared. He sounded angry. She slipped into her heels. "I was fine at my last physical."
"When was that?"
"Spring."
"How many men have there been since then?"
His question was fair, but she still felt sick inside. "Dozens! Everybody knows I"ll sleep with anybody who asks!"
In two long strides, he was at her side. "Dammit, don"t do this! How many?"
"You want names and addresses?" She drew up her lip, trying to look hard and tough.
"Give me numbers first."
Her eyes began to sting. "You"re going to have to trust me. I"ve told you that you don"t have anything to worry about. My s.e.xual history isn"t any of your business."
"Right now, it"s very much my business." He caught her arm, not hurting her, but letting her know she couldn"t get away. "How many?"
"Don"t do this to me!"
"How many, dammit?"
"There haven"t been any! Just you."
"Right," he drawled.
His skepticism was the final drop in a night that had been an emotional roller coaster, and tears spilled over her lower lids. "Believe what you want to." She pulled away from him to head for the door.
His voice softened and he caught her before she could get away, turning her in his arms until she was pressed against his chest. "Don"t cry on me. You don"t have to cry, honey. Just tell me the truth."
"There hasn"t been anybody for a long time," she said wearily. "A very long time."
He pulled back just far enough so he could gaze into her eyes, and she saw that his anger had been replaced by bewilderment. "You"re telling the truth, aren"t you?"
She nodded.
He slid his fingers into her hair and gathered her against the shoulder of his robe. "I don"t understand you at all."
"I know you don"t," she whispered.
He drew her over to a cozy arm chair and pulled her into his lap. "What are we going to do about this? You"ve turned me inside out ever since the day we met." He tucked her head under his chin. "When you said it"s been a long time, are we talking more than a year?"
She nodded.
"More than two?"
She nodded again.
"A lot more?"
Another nod.
"I"m starting to get a glimmer here." He stroked her hair. "You really loved Flores, didn"t you?"
"More than I"ve ever loved anyone." Until now, Until now, she thought. she thought.
"Are you trying to tell me there hasn"t been anyone in your life since then? Is that what this is about? Phoebe, he must have died six or seven years ago?"
She was going to have to do this. They had no hope for a future together unless she had the guts to tell him the truth and let him see her as she was, scars and all. But revealing so much scared her to death.
He didn"t try to restrain her as she rose from his lap and crossed to the bed. She sat on the edge so that she was facing him, with her knees pressed together and her hands clasped in the shirt folds that lay in her lap.
"Arturo was gay, Dan. He wasn"t my lover. In every way that counted, he was my father."
She had never seen him look so bewildered. "Then I don"t understand anything."
Placing so much trust in another human being was the most difficult thing she had ever done, but she loved him, and she could no longer live in the shadows. Gathering her courage, she told him about the rape, speaking in broken sentences and twisting her hands as she struggled to explain. She didn"t realize until she saw the outrage on his face that she had been subconsciously preparing herself for disbelief, and the words came more quickly. As she spoke of those awful months in Paris when she"d slept with so many men, he showed no condemnation, only a sympathy that relaxed the tough lines of his face and made her yearn to throw herself into his arms. But she stayed where she was, nearly faltering as she attempted to describe how frozen she had felt for years and how impossible it had been for her to be intimate with anyone.
When she was done, she fell silent, her muscles screaming with tension, while she waited for him to absorb the fact that he was the man with whom she had chosen to end so many years of celibacy. He had not made a commitment of any kind to her, yet she was letting him know without words what he meant to her. Never had she risked so much.