Page 30 of Perfect


  Julie knew the moment it registered on him, because he lifted his mouth a fraction of an inch from her skin, and his body went so still she had the feeling he’d stopped breathing. “This is the first time for me,” she said shakily.

  He dropped his forehead on her breast, shut his eyes, and swore. “Christ!”

  The explosive whisper made it eloquently clear to Julie that he was not pleased by her revelation—a conviction that was reinforced when he finally raised his head and stared hard at her face, his eyes minutely inspecting each feature as if he were hoping to find some proof she was lying. He was either angry or disgusted, Julie realized with a sinking heart. She hadn’t wanted him to stop, only to slow down and not handle her like . . . like a body that was used to being handled.

  Zack was not disgusted, he was dumbstruck. He was disoriented. Within his personal frame of reference, he had never heard of a twenty-six-year-old virgin, let alone a beautiful, witty, intelligent, desirable one.

  But as he gazed at her lovely, apprehensive face, suddenly everything about her that had puzzled him last night and tonight began to make some sense. He remembered her heartbroken outburst after the news program last night: “My father is a minister!” she’d wept. “He’s a respected man. I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life trying to be perfect.” He remembered her answer when he asked her if she was engaged: “We’re talking about it.” Evidently they’d been doing a lot of talking and no lovemaking. And last night, Zack himself had likened her to a choirgirl.

  Now that he understood the past, he was more confused than ever by the present. Apparently, she had withheld her virginity from her own boyfriend, who obviously loved her and wanted to offer her respectability and a future. Tonight, however, she was willing to surrender it to an escaped convict who was incapable of loving anyone and who had nothing whatsoever to offer her. Zack’s conscience chose that moment to reassert itself for the first time in years by reminding him that Julie’s almost-fiancé hadn’t coerced her into surrendering her virginity; if Zack had any scruples, any decency whatsoever, he’d keep his hands off of her. He’d already kidnapped her, verbally abused her, and subjected her to public embarrassment and censure. Compounding all of that by robbing her of her virginity was inexcusable.

  But the feeble protest of his conscience wasn’t enough to deter him. He wanted her. He had to have her. He was going to have her. Fate had deprived him of his dignity, his freedom, and his future, but it had for some reason given her to him during these brief days of what was likely to be the end of his life. Neither his conscience nor anything else was going to deprive him of having her. Unaware of the passage of time, he stared at her until her shaky voice snapped him from his thoughts, and her words were poignant testimony to her lack of experience with men. “I didn’t expect you to be angry,” she said, completely misinterpreting the reason for his silence.

  With a harsh sigh, he said, “I’m angry with myself, not you.”

  Julie searched his face. “Why?”

  “Because,” he said gruffly, “it isn’t going to stop me. Because it isn’t going to matter a damn to me that you’ve never done this before, not even with someone who loved you or who could stay with you if he got you pregnant. Nothing matters to me right now . . .” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers, “but this . . .”

  But her inexperience did matter. It mattered enough to Zack to make him break off the kiss and try to get his lust under control, so that he could start over with her. “Come here/’ he whispered, gathering her into his arms and rolling onto his side so that she was facing him, her head pillowed against his shoulder. Breathing deeply, he waited for his pulse to return to normal, slowly running his hand down her trim back in a soothing caress, while he resolved to make this good for her, even if he died of unassuaged lust in the process. Somehow, he was going to have to arouse her thoroughly without arousing himself more than he already was.

  Julie lay in his arms, bewildered by the sudden change in his mood and terrified that, despite his words to the contrary, she’d apparently turned him off on the idea of making love altogether. Unable to stand it any longer, she kept her eyes on his throat and said shakily, “I didn’t mean to make such a—a big deal out of this being my first time. I was only trying to slow you down a little—not stop you.”

  Zack knew how hard it must have been for her to say a thing like that, and he felt another unfamiliar surge of tenderness toward her as he tipped her chin up and said with quiet gravity, “Don’t spoil this for either of us by belittling its importance. The truth is, I’ve never had the responsibility—or the privilege—of being a woman’s first lover, so it’s a first time for me, too.” Lifting his hand, he brushed her tousled hair off her cheek, slowly combing his fingers through it, watching it spill over her left shoulder as he mused aloud, “You must have been driving the boys in Keaton crazy all these years, wondering what you’d be like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pulled his gaze from her hair and smiled wryly into her eyes. “I mean that I’ve been fantasizing about running my fingers through this gorgeous mane of yours since yesterday, and I’d only been looking at it for two days.”

  Julie felt a warmth begin to seep through her entire body at his stirring words, and Zack instantly sensed the change in her expression and the way her body relaxed against his. Belatedly remembering that words could arouse a woman almost as well and as quickly as the most skillful sexual stimulation, Zack realized that was also the best way to accomplish his goal without driving himself to the dangerous extremes of lust that came with touching and kissing her. Softly and truthfully, he confessed, “Do you know what I was thinking last night during dinner?”

  She shook her head.

  “I was wondering how your mouth would taste on mine, and if your skin could possibly feel as soft as it looks.”

  Julie felt herself sinking into a deep, delicious sensual spell as he spread his fingers over her cheek and said, “Your skin is even softer than it looks.” His thumb moved over her lips and his eyes watched the movement. “And your mouth . . . God, you taste like heaven.” His hand slid inexorably down her throat, over her shoulder, then slowly covered her breast, and she dropped her gaze to the mat of dark, curly hair on his chest.

  “Don’t look away,” he whispered, and she forced her gaze back to his. “You have beautiful breasts.”

  That, Julie felt, was so far from true that it made her doubt the other things he’d just said. He saw the skeptical look on her face, and his mouth quirked in a somber smile. “If that wasn’t the truth,” he said, his thumb moving back and forth over her nipple, “then you tell me why I’m dying to touch them and look at them and have my mouth on them right now.” Her nipple tightened into a taut little bud against his thumb, and Zack felt lust begin to rage through him again. “You know it’s true, Julie. You can see on my face how badly I want you.”

  She did see it—it was there in his smoldering, heavy-lidded gaze.

  Dying to kiss her, Zack drew a long, steadying breath and bent his head, fighting to hold himself in check as he touched his tongue to her lips. “You are so sweet,” he whispered. “You are so damned sweet.”

  Julie’s restraint broke before his did. With a silent moan, she slid her hand around his nape and kissed him with all the passion building inside of her, pressing herself against his rigid length, glorying in the shudder that racked his body as his mouth opened over hers in a rough, tender kiss. With an instinct she didn’t know she possessed, she sensed his desperate struggle to prevent the kiss from becoming too erotic, and the tenderness she felt was almost past bearing. Brushing her parted lips over his, she coaxed him to deepen the kiss, and when that failed, she started kissing him the way he’d done earlier. She touched her tongue to his lips and felt the gasp of his indrawn breath; encouraged by that, she let her tongue make a brief, sensuous foray in his mouth, probing lightly . . .

  And she accomplished her goal.

  Zack’s res
traint broke with a low groan as he rolled her onto her back, kissing her with a raw, urgent hunger that made her feel at once powerful and helpless. His hands and mouth claimed her body, sliding over her breasts and waist and back, and when his mouth returned to hers again, he shoved his fingers into her hair, holding her a willing prisoner. When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, Julie’s whole body was on fire with desire.

  “Open your eyes, little one,” he whispered.

  Julie obeyed and found herself staring at a muscular male chest covered with curly dark hairs. The mere sight of that chest made her pulse pound. Hesitantly, she raised her gaze from his chest and beheld the changes that passion had made in him. A muscle was moving spasmodically in his throat, his face was hard and dark, and his eyes were burning. She watched his sensual lips form two words and heard the rasp in his voice as he enunciated them: “Touch me.” It was an invitation, an order, and a plea.

  Julie responded equally to all three. Raising her hand she laid it on his cheek. Without taking his eyes from hers, he turned his face into her hand and slid his lips back and forth against her sensitive palm. “Touch me.”

  Her heart beginning to pound ferociously, she trailed her fingertips down his hard cheek, over the thick cords of his neck, to his shoulder, then lower along the rigid planes of his chest. His skin felt like satin over granite, and when she leaned forward and kissed his chest, his muscles contracted reflexively. Heady with her newfound power, she kissed his small nipples, then trailed a long kiss downward toward his waist. A half-laugh, half-groan escaped him, and he abruptly rolled her onto her back, pinning her hands beside her head, his body half covering hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth, tangling with hers, plunging and retreating in blatant imitation of what he wanted to do to her with his body, and the fire that had been building inside Julie exploded into flames. She pulled her wrists from his hands, wound her arms around him, and turned into his arms, returning his drugging kisses, stroking his shoulders and back, moaning with joy as his mouth touched her breasts. So lost was she in the desire he was skillfully building in her that she scarcely noticed when his hand reached down between her thighs until his fingers began to explore her intimately. Clenching her eyes closed, she fought back waves of embarrassment and let herself yield to the exquisite pleasure his knowledgeable fingers were giving her.

  Fighting back his rampaging desire, Zack watched the reactions flicker across her lovely face as her body submitted to the unfamiliar, intimate stroking of his fingers. Each sound she made, each restless movement of her head, each time she quivered at his touch, filled him with poignant tenderness. Each second became crystallized in his mind, as bright as a diamond. Beneath his fingers, she was opening for him, wet and warm, and he was desperate to bury himself in her. Instead he held back, and bending his head, he kissed her long and thoroughly while he slid his finger deeply into her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and shivered, and the convulsive movement reminded him poignantly of her earlier words to him. “Shivering is good,” he whispered, increasing the depth of his exploration. “Shivering is very, very good.” Around his fingers, she seemed unusually narrow and extremely tight, and he had an awful feeling that he was built too large for her, that she wouldn’t be able to take his erection without being torn or hurt.

  Her hands were moving over him, gaining courage, and his breath caught when she finally brushed her fingers over his rigid arousal and then took him in her hand. The moment her fingers wrapped around him, her eyes flew open in shock, riveting on his face. If the situation weren’t so dire and so urgent, Zack would have chuckled at the expression in her eyes. But he was in no mood to laugh or feel flattered that he’d obviously “impressed” her with his size. In the firelight, she looked at him as if she were waiting for something—a decision from him, a movement, and all the while her fingers were driving him crazy, until he was on the verge of exploding in her hand. Her other hand lifted to his jaw, soothing away the tension, and the words she whispered to him made him melt. “You were worth waiting twenty-six years for, Mr. Benedict.”

  Zack lost control of his breathing. With his palms on either side of her flushed face, he bent his head to kiss her, only this time the word he whispered was hoarse with awed reverence. “Christ . . .”

  With blood pounding in his ears and foreboding weighing him down, Zack eased himself on top of her and between her legs, probing at the entrance of her body, easing his way slowly into her tight, wet passage, expelling his breath at the exquisite sensation as her body expanded to take him in, her wet warmth clasping him. When he encountered the fragile barrier, he lifted her slim hips, held his breath, and lunged. Her body stiffened with the brief pain, but before he could react, her arms were around him and she was opening for him like a flower . . . welcoming him, sheathing him. Fighting to control the orgasm that was threatening to erupt, Zack moved slowly within her, but when she began moving with him, clutching him to her, his restraint broke along with his desire to prolong the act. Seizing her mouth in a plundering kiss, he drove into her, forcing her faster and faster to the peak, driving her toward it, reveling in her muffled cry as she dug her nails into his back and began to shudder convulsively beneath him. Lifting her hips higher and tighter to him, he plunged harder, driven by some uncontrollable need to be as deep within her as possible when he came. He exploded inside her with a force that tore a low groan from him, and still he kept moving, as if she could somehow empty him of the bitterness of his past and the bleakness of his future. The second climax erupted in a jolt of sensation that screamed down his nerve endings, shook his entire body, and left him weak. Spent.

  In a state of boneless exhaustion, he collapsed on top of her and shifted onto his side, still joined with her. Breathless from exertion, Zack held her in his arms, stroking her spine, trying not to think, clinging to the fading euphoria as he fought to hold reality at bay, but after a few minutes, it was no use. Now that his passion was finally spent, there was no barrier between his brain and his conscience, and as he stared into the fire, he began to see all his actions and motives of the past three days in the light of glaring truth: The truth was that he had taken a defenseless woman as a hostage at gunpoint; he had blackmailed her into believing he would let her go if she took him to Colorado; he had threatened her with physical violence if she tried to escape, and when she defied him anyway, he forced her to kiss him in front of a witness, so that now the national press was crucifying her by intimating she was an accomplice. The truth was that he’d begun thinking about having sex with her the same day he’d taken her captive, and he’d been campaigning for it using every means he had at hand from intimidation to kindness to flirtation. The sickening truth was that he’d just managed to achieve his final, loathsome goal: He’d seduced the virginal daughter of a minister, a lovely, spirited, innocent human being who’d repaid all his cruelties and injustices by saving his life today. Seduced was much too polite a word for what he’d just done, Zack decided with sick disgust as his gaze shifted to the carpet. He’d taken her right here on the damned floor, not even in a bed! His conscience clawed at him with renewed vengeance for using her too roughly, for forcing her to take two climaxes from him, for burying himself all the way inside of her instead of using a little decent restraint The fact that she hadn’t cried out or struggled or given any sign of being either hurt or humiliated did nothing to assuage his guilt. She didn’t know she was entitled to more that what she’d gotten, but he did. He’d been promiscuous as hell as a teenager; as an adult he’d had more sexual flings than he could begin to count. The entire responsibility for the mess he’d made of Julie’s entire life and now, her first encounter with sex, was solely and exclusively his. And that was looking at the matter optimistically—without considering the possibility of pregnancy! It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the daughter of a minister probably wouldn’t consider having an abortion, so she’d either have to bear the public shame of having a baby out of wedlock, moving to another city
and doing it there, or foisting his child off on her almost-fiancé to father.

  Zack fully expected to be shot to death within days, or even hours, after he left the safety of this house. Now, he wished to God he’d have been caught before he ever got into the car with her. Until he went to prison, he’d never have considered involving an innocent human being in his problems, let alone pointing a gun at her or getting her pregnant. In prison, he’d obviously become a sick sociopath without conscience, scruples, or morals.

  Shooting, he now realized, was too good for the monster he had become.

  He was so involved with his own thoughts that it took all that time before it finally penetrated his brain that the woman he was holding in his arms was crying, and the dampness on his chest wasn’t his sweat, but her tears. Speechless with remorse, Zack loosened his hold on her and let her lie back on the carpet, but she kept her hand curved round his shoulder in a death grip and her wet face pressed against his chest.

  Leaning up on his elbow, helplessly trying to soothe her by brushing wayward strands of shiny hair off her wet cheek, he swallowed to clear the knot of remorse in his throat “Julie,” he whispered gruffly, “if I could undo all the things I’ve done to you, I would. Until tonight, the things I’ve done were at least done out of desperate necessity . . . But this—” He paused to swallow again and awkwardly brushed a curl off her temple. With her face still turned into his chest, he couldn’t judge her reaction, other than the fact that she seemed to have gone perfectly still from the moment he began to speak. “But what I just did to you,” he continued, “was completely inexcusable. There are explanations for it, but not excuses. You can’t be so naive that you don’t realize that five years is a long time for a man to go without . . .” Zack broke off abruptly, belatedly realizing that he was adding insult to injury by making it seem as if any woman would have suited him in his state of sexual deprivation. “That’s not why I did this tonight. It was part of the reason. The main part of the reason was that I’ve wanted you ever since . . .” Self-disgust welled up like bile in his throat and he couldn’t continue.