The lamplight from the lower level was barely enough to illuminate the bed and them. Barely enough. But enough for her to be afraid of what he’d see. Derek knew that it could end right here. She could stop him now, and would, given only a moment in his own hesitation to think. But if it ended here and now, he knew it would be over for good. Because Shannon would always remember the moment it ended. And why it ended.
“The light,” she whispered, a hint of desperation in her unsteady voice. “Derek, the light—”
“Shhh.” He kept his hands still at her waist while his lips feathered over her face, down her throat. He explored the flushed curves of her breasts with gentle hunger, hearing the kittenlike sound she made in the back of her throat, and felt both her hands lift to his neck as he dropped slowly to one knee. The sensitive flesh of her stomach quivered beneath his lips, and this time there was no resistance when he slid the pajamas down over her curved hips and slender legs.
Still, he felt her stiffen, felt the sudden fearful, waiting tension in her as the scars became visible to him. He hurt when he saw the pain she had endured, saw what had been done to her. One scar curved over her hip joint, the wide, pale mark of an incision to repair inner damage. A second scar tracked down her upper thigh, several inches long and jagged. And there were other, fainter marks, wounds made by glass or metal, injuries that had marked a soul as well as a body.
Derek touched the scars with infinite gentleness, tracing each one with a sensitive finger and then his lips. He felt as well as heard the sob that caught at her as tension drained away, and her body seemed to curve briefly over his in a posture that was grateful and curiously protective.
“Ugly,” she whispered. “So ugly.”
“No.” He rose slowly back to his feet, one hand stroking her hip with a soft touch. He could taste the salt of her tears when he kissed her, and his free hand drew her close. “Not ugly. Just a part of you, honey. And you’re beautiful.”
Shannon caught her breath when he lifted her and placed her in the center of the turned-down bed. She lay gazing up at him as he discarded what remained of his clothing, and some distant part of her wondered if this could possibly be happening. She looked at him, powerful and starkly masculine, his body painted a dark bronze by the lamplight. She should have been afraid of so much power, so much perfect beauty—and then she saw the scar on his upper thigh, a jagged, twisting mark. A new kind of shock rippled through her. Not perfect. Scarred like her.
Derek came down on the bed beside her, taking her hand and guiding it to touch the scar he bore. “We all have scars, honey,” he said softly, roughly. “Inside or out—or both. We all have scars.”
She could feel the puckered flesh beneath her fingers, familiar to her touch because her scars felt like that, and she looked at him wonderingly. In that moment, she had never felt so close to another human being. And then she became aware of the hardness of his body as he half leaned over her, and she forgot about scars. Her hands lifted, one touching his powerful chest and the other sliding up his spine, and her mouth responded instantly, wildly, to the touch of his.
She was burning out of control, caught up in something that left her dizzy and breathless and needing. There was no time to think, and the time for questioning these turbulent new needs was long in the past. She barely heard the hungry sound that escaped her when his lips left hers to burn a trail down her throat. Tension was winding inside her like a spring, tighter and tighter.
His own need was coiling inside him, and Derek was jarred by the unfamiliar possessiveness of that inner beast. He watched his hands at her breasts, large and bronzed against her pale golden flesh, watched her rosy nipples harden with every teasing stroke of his fingers. His gaze flicked up to her face, flushed and awakened, the tender lips faintly swollen from his passion and the big amber eyes heavy-lidded with desire. And when the realization and acceptance of it flashed through his mind with brilliant clarity, a broken sound escaped from somewhere deep inside him and he buried his face between her breasts.
His. She was his. His heart, his soul, the other half of him. He had known he loved her, but he hadn’t known until that moment just how terribly vital she was to his very existence.
“Derek.”
He kept his gaze fixed on her body even as he lifted his head, unwilling to let her see what he knew was blazing out of him through his eyes. If his own violent emotions scared the hell out of him, what would they do to her? He couldn’t risk it. The gamble he was already taking by making love to her now was dangerous enough.
He concentrated on her breasts again, tasting her soft skin, gliding his tongue slowly around a hardened bud that begged mutely for a closer caress. He heard her whimper when his mouth closed at last over her nipple, and the choked little cry was the most seductive sound he’d ever heard. He could feel his own body respond wildly, feel the pounding pulse of his desire throb harder, stronger, until it seemed there was nothing left of him but that madly escalating need.
It was all he could do to hang on to some kind of control, and it took every shred of strength he could command to hold back when he wanted to bury himself in her, possess her until they were fused, bonded, until she’d never be rid of him. Only the knowledge that she was a virgin, a knowledge that was as sure as his own love, kept him in control. And it was because he loved her that he felt the weight of that responsibility so strongly; if she were hurt or frightened in this first vital joining, she could be forever beyond his reach.
However she felt about him in the morning, Derek wanted her memories of tonight to hold nothing but pleasure.
His mouth moved from one breast to the other, and his hand slid down her side, pausing for a moment to gently rub the scarred hip she was no longer aware of. He felt the slender tautness of her thigh, the skin like silk, and eased his hand to the inside, just above her knees. Her legs were pressed together, and he could feel the instinctive resistance in tightening muscles. But he was patient, slow, aware that her breath was coming faster and that her body’s needs were overcoming instinct.
Shannon felt his touch easing her legs apart, and something panicky stirred in her mind. She caught her breath to voice some protest, but then her pounding heart seemed to lodge in her throat and block the words before they could emerge. She was hot, burning, and her body didn’t want to be still, couldn’t be still. His mouth on her breasts was feeding the fire, the swirling tongue maddening, and the heat spread in waves until she thought she’d burst into flames.
Her nails dug unconsciously into his back, and she distantly heard a ragged moan, only vaguely aware that the sound came from her, that her legs were parting for him, obeying his insistent touch. That caressing hand was moving closer, closer, trailing more fire in its wake. She felt an awful, empty ache, and some new instinct told her he could make the ache go away, fill the emptiness. And then she caught her breath again as his gentle fingers settled over the pulsing ache, some animal sound fighting to escape her taut throat.
“Derek!” The animal sound, his name torn from her in a surge of violent need.
“So soft and warm,” he murmured hoarsely against her breast, the vibration of his words a new caress. His fingers probed her softness slowly and thoroughly, a building caress that stole her breath and shocked her senses, until she was trembling, until another ragged moan escaped her and her body moved in restless urgency to his touch. “You’re so beautiful you’re driving me out of my mind.”
Shannon thought she was going out of her mind, and her body was a disconnected thing filled with heat and need and a tension spiraling out of control. She was throbbing in a quickening rhythm, every inch of her pulsing in a single, giant heartbeat of desire. She felt the coiling tension wind tighter, felt all her senses rushing toward some distant explosion, and she wanted the detonation to swallow her up, engulf her, vanquish her.
But when the explosion came, it was triumph rather than defeat, lifting her in a violent rush to some distant place that was nothing but mind-num
bing pleasure. She hadn’t known such feelings were possible, and the wonder nearly stopped her heart.
The calm that finally descended over her was a fleeting thing, because Derek’s caresses began building tension again. Dazed, she felt the return of that slow, throbbing pulse inside her, and the strength of renewed need flowed back into her boneless limbs. Caught up in what was happening, she was only vaguely aware that he had paused briefly to reach into the nightstand drawer, and even though her mind understood what he was doing, she wasn’t troubled by the ramifications of his action.
She caught her breath when he moved over her, feeling an instant’s panic, a smothering sensation because he was so big and blotted out the light, because she felt so vulnerable. But then he was kissing her deeply, hungrily, and panic vanished. Her legs cradled him, and she felt a hard, blunt pressure, gentle but insistent. She caught at his shoulders as he raised his head, a distant echo of shock passing through her at the instinctive feminine realization of an alien intruder.
His face. She was mesmerized by his face. It was taut, hard, beautiful. Primitive, as if all the civilized layers had been stripped away from him by need. His dark eyes blazed down at her, and she saw now that the curious flecks of color were a deep, rich blue, sapphire glints in the darkness they shone out of. She felt an odd, jarring surprise when she realized that, a strange intensity of emotion that washed over her in a hard wave.
“I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart,” he said thickly, braced above her in tense stillness, feverish eyes fixed on her face.
And in that moment, without thought, she trusted him in the most simple, intimate, primitive way a woman could ever trust a man. With no hesitation, she trusted him with her vulnerability. The smile that curved her lips was as old as the caves.
Derek almost groaned aloud when he saw that trust shining in her amber eyes, and understood what it meant. It was more than he had dared to hope for, and his heart lurched when she offered it willingly. He could destroy that trust if he hurt her, he knew. But if trust remained intact when the morning and the world intruded, that slender but tempered steel bond forged in the blazing heat of their passion could very well turn out to be his only lifeline.
“Shannon,” he whispered, lowering his head to kiss her very tenderly.
“You won’t hurt me,” she murmured, her arms encircling his neck as she sought to draw him down to her.
Derek did groan then, and it was a rough sound edged with harsh strain as he fought to control his ravening need for her. He moved with exquisite care, gritting his teeth at the sheer pleasure of entering her body with such restraint. The searing tightness of her was a caress that sent his senses spinning wildly, snatching at his control until he felt torn in two, rent by the terrible conflict of savage need and tender love.
Shannon could see that conflict in his face, even as her body struggled to adjust to his slow possession. She could feel the instinctive shock of her body, the resistance, but there was no pain. He was filling her, stretching her, satisfying the emptiness that had ached for him. A momentary intruder, he became a part of her so smoothly that her body accepted him totally.
Derek was still, his breathing a rasping sound, searching her face intently for any sign of pain. “Shannon?” he whispered.
She looked up at him with wide, awed eyes, and her arms tightened slowly around his neck as she felt the throbbing power of him deep inside her. “I’m … fine,” she murmured after searching briefly for another word, a better word to tell him how wonderful she felt. Without her volition, her body moved, lifting to have more of him as tension coiled and demanded again.
A harsh sound escaped from Derek as his body responded instantly to her. He wanted to be careful and every muscle was tense with the effort as he answered her movements with his own, setting up a slow rhythm that escalated swiftly beyond any control he could have claimed. Her body sheathed his with a molten tightness that seared away caution, and her equally wild response drove both of them past the limits of mastery.
Shannon gloried in his strength and hers, meeting his increasingly powerful thrusts with her own lithe force as the hot, spiraling tension coiled inside her. His fiery kisses possessed her even as his body did, demanding, hungry, taking her. And she took as well, insisting with a woman’s silent, soul-deep need that he be hers, at least for tonight.
The firestorm of passion swept over them both, catching them, flinging them savagely into a bottomless well of mindless pleasure that tore a wordless cry from her and a rasping groan from him, joining them in an instant, making them one in that brief, timeless interlude that occurs only rarely between mortals.
Shannon came back to the awareness of her existence as a separate being very slowly, and the heavy heat of his body over hers helped ease the shock of transition. In a moment of clarity, she realized that never, as long as she lived, would she forget that brief, stark instant of sharing. Her trembling hands moved over his powerful back and shoulders, and she smiled when he lifted his head to gaze down at her.
Derek eased up onto his elbows, and his hands framed her face gently. One thumb brushed the swollen curve of her lower lip, and a slight frown drew his brows together. “Was I too rough, sweetheart? I didn’t want to be.” His voice was husky.
Shannon’s smile widened. “No.” She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “No.”
He wanted to ask: was it a mistake? But he didn’t. He knew that only the morning, and the mornings to follow, would answer the question. He turned his head to kiss her soft palm, and then sought her lips almost blindly, wishing he could stop time, stop the world. Wishing he could transport them both instantly to some deserted island where no one would bother them and she wouldn’t be able to run away from him when morning came.
“Derek?” She was a little puzzled, a little anxious, bothered by something she felt in him, something that seemed alien to what she knew of him. Derek afraid? No. No, not him.
He smiled suddenly, those sapphire-flecked dark eyes glowing down at her. “You’re so lovely, Shannon.”
And she smiled slowly in return, forgetting anxiety. For once, just this once, she believed him. “Thank you.”
Still smiling, he eased away from her and got them both under the covers, making her giggle because he mildly cursed a stubborn blanket, and because he very solemnly arranged them both beneath the covers so that he could hold her “just right” during the night.
Shannon fell asleep still smiling, cradled in his arms, listening to his heart beat.
She woke twice in the night to the vague thought that he certainly wasn’t getting the rest he needed, but not about to protest his renewed desire. Both times he assumed responsibility for their lovemaking, and both times she took note of that without thinking about it very much. She was too wrapped up in the fire he ignited to allow for much thinking.
Even in the heat of passion, Shannon had known morning would come, and that she would have to face him and herself, have to accept and understand what she had done. But she wasn’t prepared for morning to arrive with a breathless shock of interruption that cut them apart with the deadly swiftness of a knife.
She felt Derek move before she heard anything, and the tension she sensed in him brought her wide awake. She was sitting up even as he slid from the bed, clutching the sheet to her breasts and blinking in a sudden awareness of the soft buzzing sound that was coming from a little box she hadn’t noticed on the nightstand at his side of the bed.
That nightstand, she thought vaguely. Damn that nightstand. She wondered idly why she was damning the unoffending piece of furniture, but she wasn’t ready to think about consequences yet, and the subject escaped her.
“Derek?” It was a whisper, a plea for him to tell her everything was all right.
He didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure he heard her. Face taut and expressionless, unconcerned with or even unaware of his nakedness, he moved swiftly and silently to the rolltop desk, opening it to reveal two portable television sets where t
he cubbyholes should have been. He turned both on, and Shannon caught a glimpse of grainy pictures, shadows and gray light and stealthy movements. It was only in the instant he moved aside and reached to turn the sets off that she recognized in the pictures the front of the building they were in.
“Get dressed, Shannon.” His voice was soft and hard at the same time. “We have company. It’ll take them a while to get through the downstairs doors—we’ll slip out while they’re busy with that.”
She slid from the bed instantly, aware of a leaden coldness filling her. And, as he began swiftly gathering his clothes and dressing, she felt a wave of embarrassment at her own nudity. Her hands seemed to be all thumbs, and she concentrated fiercely on what she was doing, shoving her pajamas into the bag Derek had given her and snatching out underthings, jeans, and a thick sweater. Her eyes were burning and her throat hurt, and she dressed with shaking hands.
Morning had arrived.
Derek wanted to reassure her, and the bitterness of what was happening tore at him. It was wrong. They should have had time, time to be lovers. He could have helped her ease into the unfamiliar situation, could have avoided the tense embarrassment he saw in her averted face. Instead, she was being jerked rudely from their bed, and the cold necessity of that was hurting her in a way no woman should ever be hurt.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
There was no time to make it easier for her. He couldn’t even go to her and hold her, because there was no time. He silently, viciously damned the man responsible, and knew that if he ever got his hands around the bastard’s neck he’d choke the life out of him.
“I’m ready.” Her voice was soft, toneless. She had sat on the bed to pull on socks and running shoes, and now stood and reached for her packed bag.
Derek took it from her, holding hers and his own in one hand. His free arm encircled her abruptly, and he hugged her hard. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” he promised quietly, making an effort even over the urgency he felt not to sound as sharp and businesslike as before. “Everything’s going to be all right.”