Kelly was hardly aware when he gently unlocked her arms from around his neck and rolled off the bed. Limp and totally unable to move, she gradually came back to herself and to the realization that he was rapidly undressing. She forced her eyes to open, somehow startled by the brightness of the room, and looked at him as the last of his clothing was thrown aside.
He wanted her, the swollen fullness of his loins a mute testament to raging desire. And, once more but only for an instant, that primitive male hunger almost frightened her. The black fire of his gaze, the hard, powerful body filled with a strength she could never fight if he chose to turn it against her. And yet…he was beautiful like this. Beautiful and deeply moving in a way she’d never thought a man could be, as primitive and compelling as any wild creature but tugging painfully at her heart and senses because he was a man.
Until now the only experience Kelly had had of male sexuality was impatience and the seemingly driven compulsion to find release in a female body. She hadn’t understood how desire could be emotional as well, so all-consuming, and since she had never felt it herself during her marriage, any sign of Brad’s arousal had made her nervous and wary. Because, once aroused, he had been intent only on satisfying the demands of his body.
Now, as Mitch went still for an instant as he stood by the bed, she looked at him and felt the coiling, heated tension rising inside her again. And she felt no fear or wariness of him or of his desire. He had taught her to feel pleasure in the response of her own body to desire, and her cold anxiety had melted away in the heat of that fire.
Half consciously, she held out her arms to him, and Mitch made a low, rough sound as he rejoined her on the bed. His fingertip-hold on control was rapidly deserting him; he hadn’t dared undress before now because he’d known that his pounding need for her would overwhelm even his intense desire to please her. Though her confession of abuse had avoided the bedroom, she had implied without actually saying it that sex hadn’t been good between her and her ex-husband; it was something Mitch was certain of now. Her astonishment in his arms had told him that.
Even though need was riding him with a pulsing, bittersweet agony, he was aware of an almost savage satisfaction in that knowledge that was purely male and as old as time itself. No other man had seen her as he had, her delicate face taut with desire, her slender body writhing with need. No other man had heard the soft little sounds of uncontrolled passion, the final primitive cry of release. No other man could have felt the intense elation of having aroused her until she was at a point beyond herself, responding only to his touch.
The sharp talons of jealousy were less painful now, almost ghostly as they lost their hold on him. The man she had married had not won her heart or stirred her senses; for now it was enough.
All that was in him, the level of awareness almost beneath his conscious thoughts. But, even more, he was filled with another realization. He’d wanted to tell her, but hadn’t been able to shape the words. When he’d first seen her in the bright light of the bedroom, her pale gold body naked for the first time, he’d wanted to say that sometimes reality did measure up to dreams. That sometimes it even surpassed dreams.
So hungry for her that he knew how starvation felt, he couldn’t stop touching her, feeling her silky flesh beneath his hands and mouth. The strain of holding back had him on the fine edge of total insanity, but with his knowledge of the hard lesson of just how quickly and easily time itself could be stolen from him, he was even more driven to make love to her as if this would be his one and only chance.
Because it might well be.
Whatever fears she had harbored were gone now, and Mitch could neither see nor sense a ghost between them. Kelly was as totally involved in this as he was, completely responsive. He could feel her soft hands moving over his shoulders and back, feel the satiny skin of her inner thigh brush against his hip as she pressed herself closer.
“Mitch,” she murmured throatily, gleaming eyes darkened to purple as she looked at him.
He kissed her deeply as he settled between her thighs but braced himself away from her, managing to hold back even though the need to bury himself in her was tearing him apart. She was ready for him, trying to draw him down into her softness, and he could feel the tension of building desire in her body. She was moving slightly beneath him, dazed purple eyes fixed on his face, her breasts rising and falling rapidly with her shallow breathing.
“Lord,” he muttered, his control shattering as need surged through him like a hot red tide. “Oh, dear Lord, Kelly…” He had waited for her too long to be able to wait another second. He bore down slowly, the sensations of her tight heat enclosing him so exquisite that a groan of pleasure forced its way past his clenched teeth. He felt the silky brush of her inner thighs as her legs lifted to wrap around his hips, saw her eyes widen and then lose focus in a dreamy look so starkly, mysteriously feminine that it stole what was left of his breath.
Mitch wanted to make it last, but the need reined so tightly for so long burst free. He was aware of nothing except the woman cradling him, of the rising heat between them. She was with him all the way, her slender body responding to his powerful thrusts with lithe strength, the almost silent whimpering sounds she made driving his need higher and higher. Everything inside him began to rush wildly, like a molten flood sweeping through him. He barely heard her gasping cry, but the hot inner contractions of her pleasure caught him in delicate, sensuous ripples that pushed him violently over the edge and made a rasping groan tear from his throat.
—
The heavy weight of his body felt surprisingly comfortable to Kelly, and she didn’t want him to move. Her own body was limp and astonishingly filled with satisfaction. Soft aftershocks of pleasure lingered deep inside her, and she found herself wondering if the delight she’d found in Mitch’s arms was something so rare it could never be repeated. She hoped that wasn’t true, because it was a part of loving him she found absolutely wonderful. She seemed to be floating, even with his weight holding her down, and the feeling was so exquisite that she didn’t want to let go of it.
She felt sleep tugging at her mind, and thought vaguely that this time there would be no nightmares.
Nothing can take her away from me now. It was the first clear thought in Mitch’s mind, and one he instantly pushed away. Not because he didn’t want it to be true, but because he knew only too well how fickle fate truly was and had a superstitious compulsion not to tempt it. Concentrating on other things, he raised his upper body slightly and kissed her. Eyes still closed, she smiled and murmured something wordless, a sound of contentment. He started to ease away so that she’d be more comfortable, then changed his mind and rolled instead so that she lay on top of him.
She lifted her head briefly as if the new position startled her, but her eyes remained sleepy. “Mitch?”
“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” he said huskily.
With another murmur she rested her cheek on his chest and went still, supple as a cat.
Drawing the covers up over their cooling bodies, he held her securely, one hand stroking her soft hair. The warm weight of her slender body was oddly reassuring, but even so he couldn’t sleep himself. Though he should have been tired, he wasn’t; he felt wide awake and was conscious that the sharp edge of his desire for her had merely been blunted. And the thoughts running through his mind were too clear to avoid.
She had been the focus of his life ten years earlier, and yet he had taken her for granted. So arrogantly certain he was in control of his destiny, it had never occurred to him that what he had felt for Kelly was something to cherish and protect, something he might be called upon to fight for. Something that could all too easily be taken away from him. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t understood at all how deeply and surely the emotions had run in him. Perhaps she was right in saying that then he had needed her to be unformed and dependent. But that explanation was far too simple to be all the truth, Mitch knew now.
Because nothing could have kept h
im away from her. Through all the long, painful months of therapy, his determination to find Kelly had been the only thing that had kept him going. Completely aware that ten years would have changed her just as the loss of years had changed him, he had known only that he had to find her. If it had taken him another ten years—or even a lifetime—he wouldn’t have stopped searching. And if he had found her married, happily or not, he would have done his level best to take her away from that other man.
Arrogant? He examined the word, and knew it was the wrong one. Desperate was closer to the mark. Though his conscious reasoning had been complex and even confused, on a deeper level of himself, it had been implacable, certain.
He and Kelly belonged together. He felt it in his very bones, at the core of himself, a truth like a brand on his soul.
Mitch rubbed his chin in her soft hair and stared at the ceiling as his arms tightened around her. Ten years gone, yet they still had a chance. Still had a possible future—and maybe fate was responsible for that as well. Since awakening from the coma, he’d thought of fate as something hostile, a thief moving soundlessly in the night, but now he wondered if perhaps there was another side. Because what he felt for Kelly was too deeply rooted in himself to be something he had stumbled into by meeting her brother. Perhaps the destiny he had tried so hard to control had entangled him securely long before he had thought himself master of it.
Perhaps his destiny was to love Kelly. No matter what. Despite the vagaries of time and the whims of fate.
That he had always loved Kelly was an unnerving idea for a rational man. He had loved her always in this life…and always in whatever had come before. Or would come after.
But he didn’t know how she felt. Between them there was no such thing as a “simple” emotion; the memories they shared over the years as well as all their losses made that an inevitable truth. She hadn’t been able to let go of him, but what did that mean? Love or guilt? And would this new turn in their relationship provide answers, or more questions? Was she still convinced that all they had left together was an ending? Even now?
They were lovers now. Whatever happens, I don’t want to regret that again. A chapter ended for Kelly, with no regrets of what might have been to haunt her?
His arms again tightened around her and he stared grimly at the ceiling. Arrogance, he thought, had its benefits; it had at least insulated him from this grinding uncertainty ten years earlier. But he couldn’t afford arrogance today. He couldn’t control time or fate…or even Kelly’s love.
She stirred slightly and lifted her head from his chest, her peaceful nap over, and he forced his arms to relax. “Hi,” he said softly, smiling.
Her eyes skittered away from his briefly, but it was a look of faint shyness rather than discomfort or regret. She cleared her throat with an uncertain sound, her gaze steady now and a bit questioning. “Hi. Did I fall asleep?”
“For a while.”
“You didn’t,” she guessed.
“No. I have a little trouble with sleep these days.”
The response had been matter-of-fact, but Kelly felt herself shudder with empathetic pain. “It’s natural after what happened,” she offered.
“So the doctors said.” He shrugged as if to dismiss the subject, then lifted his head from the pillow and kissed her. Somewhere during that long, slow, heated kiss, he shifted position so that Kelly found herself lying on her back close beside him, her arms around his neck.
“I never knew,” she whispered against his lips, the confession made because she wanted him to understand just how much pleasure she’d found in his arms. “I didn’t even dream I could feel that way.”
Mitch kissed her again, then searched her face with a gaze he knew was too intense. But he couldn’t temper what he was feeling, because his own thoughts had made him afraid. Afraid he’d lose her again. “Sometimes reality is better than dreams. And the reality is that we belong together, Kelly.”
“Do we?” She avoided his gaze. “Because of ten years ago?”
“Because of now. Can’t you feel that?”
She did feel it—but she didn’t trust the emotions. They were still tangled inside her, and she needed time to sort them out. “Mitch, it has all happened so fast. I’m not sure what I feel. I know only that ten years is a long time, and not something we can ignore. You said that I had to come to you because I wanted to, not because I felt guilty. We both have to be sure of that. Any doubt could destroy us.”
He took a slow, deep breath and then nodded slightly. “You’re right, I know. I’m trying, Kelly. I’m trying not to hold on to you too hard.”
Looking up at the lean, handsome face that had tautened with his emotions, Kelly felt as much as saw what this meant to him. It wasn’t just important, it was vital. And it disturbed her on some deep level to realize she could be so much a part of someone else’s happiness. He saw her reaction, and his face relaxed suddenly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” His voice was rueful. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. I think I did that once before.”
Grateful for the crooked smile that invited her to share his wry look back at his younger self, she lifted her eyebrows and made her own voice dry. “You certainly did. Gathering my family together and announcing briskly that we were going to be married as soon as I graduated. If I’d been a little older, I probably would have thrown something at you.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to be domineering. If I say or do anything that feels that way to you, tell me. All right?”
She nodded, smiling a little. “All right. But now it’s my turn to warn you.”
He eyed her warily. “Oh?”
“Yes. I am older now, Mitch.”
He chuckled softly. “I’ll get ready to duck.” He bent his head and kissed her, the first light touch rapidly heating and becoming more deliberate.
Kelly pressed herself closer, her hands stroking his thick dark hair and her mouth coming alive beneath his. A sound of pleasure purred in the back of her throat, and she gave herself up to the wonder of these incredible feelings.
It was some considerable time later when they shared a shower in the glassed-in stall, and Kelly’s initial stiffness faded in the face of his behavior. Mitch looked at her and touched her, his intense yet tender expression as well as his murmured words telling her clearly that he found her beautiful. And though she very obviously aroused him—the interlude in the shower left her with the vague, curiously delighted certainty that all her bones had melted away—he never made her feel as if her body were only a source of physical satisfaction for him and nothing else.
He helped her to dry off, dropping occasional kisses on rosy flesh, the caresses definitely stirring her blood yet just as definitely intended to be soothing and loving rather than arousing.
They were new lovers physically, but the feelings that had prompted this new turn in their relationship were long-standing ones. And their reaction to each other now was a curious mixture of both. She was still a little shy, a little surprised but pleased by his fascination in the shape of her, the textures of her body. At the same time, Mitch had been a part of her for so long that her responses to him seemed to come from deep inside herself and without thought. And he touched her with an odd sense of familiarity as well as fascination.
Kelly got clean underwear out of the bureau in the bathroom and put it on, then went into the bedroom, where Mitch was putting on his discarded clothing. He eyed her as she pulled jeans and a bulky sweater from the chest of drawers, and when he spoke his voice was both light and husky.
“That ought to be illegal.”
“What?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“Frilly underwear.”
She glanced down at the flesh-colored bra and panties, which were lace-edged but otherwise rather plain, and laughed. “This? I have some lingerie that’s a lot more adventurous.”
He grinned slightly, looking extremely piratical as he stood there buttoning his shirt. “I hope you mean to do some
adventuring,” he said. “I’ve seen a few outfits in store windows and imagined you in them. Talk about fantasizing.”
Kelly stepped into her jeans and drew them up. “Frederick’s of Hollywood–type stuff?” she asked dryly.
“I have no idea. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to advertising. I remember one red lace thing with garters, and there was something in black that looked like one of those old-fashioned corsets.”
Choking back a laugh, she pulled the bulky sweater over her head. “You must have spent a lot of time in front of that window. Didn’t you get odd looks from passersby?”
“One little old lady snorted at me in disgust.”
“Ladies don’t snort, they sniff.”
“This one,” Mitch said with feeling, “snorted. And she made straight for a cop standing nearby on the street, obviously to report me as a pervert. So I slunk away, hugging my fantasies close.”
Her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her as she wondered suddenly about fantasies—and realities. She turned toward the dresser, running a brush through her damp hair, then put on her wristwatch. And, automatically, picked up the thin chain she always removed at night, slipping it over her head and allowing the ring to rest inside her sweater.
“Hey,” Mitch said in a wounded tone, “you were supposed to laugh.”
“At the image of you slinking away?” she asked lightly. “I think the lady was rude for intruding on your fantasies.”
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
She looked up to meet his gaze in the mirror, watching as he came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. Drawn back against the hard warmth of his body, she struggled not to ask what she had no right to. “Wrong?”