Love, Come to Me(118)

Slowly Heath raised his mouth, nuzzling the damp triangle of curls at the top of her thighs, and despite what they had just shared, Lucy went scarlet at the sight. His eyes twinkled as he saw her discomfiture, and he eased back up to kiss the side of her neck. How intimate he was with her, as if no part of her should remain secret from him. She had never dreamed that any man would want to know her so well; she had never imagined when she first met this man that someday he would possess her thoughts, her heart, and her body so completely. And yet, perhaps she had known. Who was to say when love began? The first glance, the first kiss, the first promise—it didn’t matter. She looked at him with her heart in her eyes, and the gentle suggestion of a smile lurked in the corners of her mouth.

“I love you, Heath. I love you.”

He rose above her, and the dispersed light from the fireplace played over the scarred sleekness of his skin. Fire and gold, sinew and strength—he was a marvel to her, and she reveled in the knowledge that he had given himself to her. Filling her slowly, he waited with unsteady gasps as he felt the delicate inner stretch of her body, and then she lifted her h*ps to accept him more deeply. Endless moments were theirs as their flesh was joined. She answered his long, heavy strokes with the same perfect rhythm, with the tender strength of her love. His muscles tightened, and he thrust into her one last time, the heat of him spreading through her in a searing flow. They held each other tightly, reluctant to allow any separation between their bodies. Splaying her fingers through his hair, she kissed the salty dampness of his temples, his cheeks, his lips. He smiled and rolled over lazily as he was suffused with pure masculine contentment, pulling her on top of him so that she could continue the rain of kisses undisturbed.

She cuddled closer against him while their warmth combined under the covers. “Now I’m even sorrier for all those nights we didn’t spend together.” Her hand wandered across the ridged flatness of his midriff.

“I’m not. We both had some learning to do, some thinking to do.”

“Are you saying you didn’t miss me?” she demanded in mock outrage.

“Settle down,” he said, and chuckled, pulling her closer against his side. “Hell, yes, I missed you . . . I spent most of those nights staring up at the ceiling or pacing the floor. But I needed that time alone in order to figure out what a stubborn fool I had been for letting my pride come between us.”

“Your pride?”

“Those weeks after I was sick . . . I realized how much I depended on you . . . and it was hard on my ego.” A touch of sheepishness entered his voice. “I was raised to think a man should take care of everything and be in control at all times. And then all of a sudden I was at everyone’s mercy, especially yours. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, but I felt I had to put some distance between us, until I felt more . . . in control again.”

“Maybe I was a little bossy. But I was frightened for you. I’ve never been so afraid about anything—”

“You weren’t bossy. You were exactly the way you should have been. I know all about what you went through, and what you did, and God knows I wasn’t so much of a fool that I didn’t appreciate what a woman you turned out to be. On the other hand, a man’s pride is easily bruised, Cin.”

“I’ll take care to remember that,” she said with exaggerated solemnity, and yelped as he made a move as if to tickle her.

“Sass. I try to talk to you about something serious, and all I get is sass.”

“Heath . . .” She crawled on top of him and lay her head on his chest, “I wish it could have been like this in the beginning. Now I can hardly believe there was so much anger between us, and that I was actually afraid of being . . . intimate with you—”

“We didn’t know each other then. And I should have been more patient with you. After all, I’d taken you away from Daniel—”

“You were doing me a favor.”

“True, but you didn’t know that at the time.”

“Conceited thing.” She made the words sound like an endearment as she strung kisses along his collarbone.

“But I’ll always have a little guilt about the way I got you away from Daniel. I should have done it another way. That morning after Emerson’s fire . . . I knew if I could get you in a compromising position, someone was bound to see us. It was just a coincidence that it happened to be Daniel and Sally.”

“Don’t feel guilty about it.”

“But to do that to you after you came to see if I was all right . . . and it was no accident that I seduced you, Cin—it was deliberate—and you didn’t even know what you were doing—”

“I knew what I was doing,” she said calmly, surprising him into silence. “No one forced me to go out there alone to see you. And as for what happened after that . . . I wasn’t fighting you. I wanted you. If it hadn’t happened then, it would have happened some other time.”

“You’re making me regret not having compromised you during those two days after we first met. I would have, with any encouragement at all.”

“Rascal. I never knew when you were going to sneak around the corner and surprise me in my pantalets.”

“I thought about how you looked in those pantalets and my shirt every time I saw you after that.”

“I could tell.” Lucy smiled in the darkness. “Afterwards you always looked at me in a way that made me blush, and I couldn’t help remembering the time we’d spent alone together. But even if I’d never seen you again, I would never have forgotten those two days. And I think I would have always wondered what it might have been like with you. Would you have wondered, too?”