A Child Of His Own, page 13
She wound her fingers in his thick, dark hair, and with a groan, pulled his head closer against her breast. Want and need converged to form one single passion within her. She wanted him, the triumph of hearing him catch his breath, the weakness that came when she lost her own. She was seized by a sudden, wanton desire to tell him what he wanted to hear, not to satisfy his masculine need to hear it, but to put an end to the terrible pressure of keeping it inside.
Another man might have told her how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her. But this man was not afraid to show it. He used his hot caresses and teasing tongue to tell her how beautiful he thought she was. The breathless voice that sent shivers down her spine told her how much he wanted her. She wasn’t surprised by his wanting her, for she’d seen it in his eyes from that very first day. Still, she knew it had taken courage for him to admit it.
She slid her hands to the sides of his face, cupping it, bringing it back up slowly to hers. Putting aside her own fears and doubts, she summoned some courage of her own and said softly, “I want you, Ben. Oh, how I want you.”
The words soared through Ben’s mind. How many nights had he lain awake in bed imagining her like this, her body all soft and warmly yielding, the breathless words “I want you” spilling from her lips? Yet no matter how many nights he dreamed about it, in this moment of revelation he realized how terribly lacking his dreams of her had been compared to the real thing.
He’d waited years for a feeling like this to come, when all the loose ends would come together, scattering his fears and apprehensions like so much dust in the wind, converging into one conscious, physical act. He had begun to think that only he was that lost, that lonely, yearning for a feeling that never seemed to come. Until tonight, standing amid the horses on the darkened carousel with Dory in his arms, tasting in her kiss a hunger as deep and as desperate as his own.
Whatever doubt still lingered as to whether it was smart to become intimately involved was laid to rest by Dory’s breathlessly uttered admission of wanting him, and by the knowledge that she needed him, and that if only for this one night, at least that need was solely for him.
She didn’t object when he swept her up into his arms and carried her to a spot between the horses. It wasn’t until he had laid her down gently upon the floor of the carousel that Dory realized her feet hadn’t touched the ground.
As he covered her body with his, he was torn by two impulses. One was to take her lingeringly, to savor every moment as if it were the first. The other was to possess her all at once, to put an end to the pressure that was building steadily inside of him, threatening to explode in a quick and forceful coupling.
His fingers closed over her soft, pliant breasts, touching and stroking and making her flesh tingle. He lowered his head and kissed their tender undersides, teasing her nipples erect with his tongue before returning his mouth to hers. Grazing her lips with his, he murmured her name over and over again.
She felt the precise moment when the urgency in his touch changed to a gentle, almost shy eagerness, as if he were experiencing this kind of passion for the very first time. Gone was the rough scrape of his calluses against the sheer cotton of her gown. With unhurried tenderness he slid the thin straps off her shoulders and gently pushed it down past her hips, exposing her naked flesh to the ray of moonlight that fell on them through the hole in the roof.
At first he only stared at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he drank in the sight of her body as he had imagined it a hundred times, naked and waiting. His face bore the expression of a man who was just now realizing the fulfillment of something he had only dreamed about.
She was so beautiful that it hurt his eyes to look at her. Unable to endure much more of the sweet torture, he lifted himself to his feet. With graceful movements that belied the fierce rush of blood through his veins, he unzipped his jeans and pulled them off.
From where she lay on the hard planks of the carousel floor, Dory blushed at the sight of the male form towering over her. His body was lean and taut, with muscles that were perfectly defined. In the shaft of moonlight from above, his skin looked incredibly smooth and soft. His potent arousal was obvious.
She could feel his manhood graze stiffly against her hip as he dropped to his knees and lay down beside her. His arms moved around her like liquid. With his gentle strength he pulled her over him and positioned her on top of him. He hugged her very close, touching his lips to hers lightly with feather-soft kisses. His hands moved slowly, exploringly downward, following the inward curve of her waist and the soft flare of her hips, coming to rest upon her buttocks, where he cupped the smooth, firm flesh and pulled her tightly against his own swollen flesh.
Her hair spilled down around him, the sexy scent of wildflowers mingling with the smell of the cool, dark earth and the green grass surrounding the carousel. Her breasts were flattened against him, spreading their warmth through him. Her hips were pressed to his, her soft folds gently yielding to his entry.
For one precarious moment in time she remained poised on top of him, the tip of him just shy of deeper fulfillment. He could have entered her with one thrust upwards, but he remained still, every thought and sensation focused on the point of contact and the excruciatingly sweet torment it produced.
He could feel her body straining above him. He seemed to know the precise moment when she was poised on the brink, for his lips sought hers, tongue thrusting deeply into the wet hollow of her mouth. At the same moment her body descended over his as his thrust upward to meet it, coming together in a sweet and savage coupling that went beyond conscious thought or reason.
Dory gasped at the rough, rapid filling. She moved instinctively, matching every thrust, moving atop him in heated motions, creating a friction that drove him wild. It would have been so easy to let himself go right then and there, but this wasn’t about just him. She had proven that her need was as great as his own.
With an iron will he used his strength to lift her from him. Ignoring the involuntary little groan of protest that spilled from her throat, he rolled her over onto her back and covered her body with the long, hard length of his. He touched her possessively, his strong fingers kneading her flesh in all its sensitive places, coming to rest upon the soft, dark triangle between her legs. Cupping the tender folds, he probed the wetness within, feeling a sense of triumph in the writhing of her body beneath his.
He kissed her deeply, filling and teasing the wet corners of her mouth the way his fingers filled and teased her.
Dory felt as if she were on fire inside and out. The fingers of one hand caught in his thick dark hair as she pulled his mouth harder against hers and met each thrust of his tongue with her own. Her hand sought his stiff member and closed around it, stroking and kneading and causing a fearsome trembling from deep inside of him.
Mercilessly he explored every inch of her, driving her beyond the brink of sanity, reducing her to the most raw and basic instinct. The tension mounted all about them as she gave back in her eagerness.
Energy and passion raced back and forth between them as they drove each other to heights of pleasure. When he could endure no more of her maddening caresses, Ben grabbed her hand and pulled it away. His breath came in short, gasping bursts as he moved into the space between her legs and slid his member to the place where his fingers had just been.
She was moist and ready and aching to be filled. Her voice was a hoarse whisper, thinning to a trembling plea. “Ben...Ben...now...please.”
There was only a deep, guttural sound of reply as he sank fully into her. In compliance, she opened her legs wider, welcoming him into the space, then closing around him and clutching him tightly, feeling his need in each savage thrust, in every desperate kiss, and matching it with her own.
With the stars peering down at them through the hole in the roof, with every nerve screaming for release, Dory’s hips rose higher and higher to meet his until at last she felt him arch for a final throbbing thrust, and answered it with a fierce shudder.
They were one writhing, feeling thing, a single flame shooting high into the sky, if not forever, then at least for now. Whatever fears or uncertainties existed before were lost in the tumult as need and want converged in a mass of tangled legs and teasing tongues and in the fulfillment of passion left too long denied.
His skin was damp, the hair at the back of his neck wet and cool against it. He lay atop her, feeling drained. His pulse, which only moments before had been hotter than a rocket on the Fourth of July, gradually eased as the quick, violent flow of blood through his veins began to subside. His weight was upon her, but he couldn’t move. Only when he was able to breathe deeply and evenly again, and to think a little more coherently, did he lift himself off her and onto his elbows, slipping out of her velvet warmth.
Looking down into her face, he was caught up in a million emotions. Her eyes were closed. Her cheeks were bathed in the soft rosy glow of their lovemaking. She looked content and fulfilled, like a kitten after a dish of warm milk. And so thoroughly beautiful that he felt the stirrings of renewed desire. He wanted her again, and he knew she would not deny him, yet he made no move to take her again.
He wanted to tell her so many things, like how it had never been for him the way it had been tonight with her, how sorry he was for the unhappiness he had caused her, and how he was falling in love with her. He wanted to tell her all that, and more. He wanted to tell her about those dark years in prison and about the events that preceded them.
Before he could say the words, Dory stirred beneath him, and opening her eyes, asked in a sleepy murmur, “What are you thinking?”
He rolled off her and sat up.
She felt the unmistakable bite of tension in the air. Had she said the wrong thing? Or worse, was he regretting what had just happened between them?
She had been right about him; he was a complicated lover, giving as much as he demanded with a fierceness that both frightened and excited her. He had offered to make her forget, and she had, for the moment, loosing her pent-up passion to a man with the power to heal old wounds and create new ones.
She rose to her feet, bending to scoop up her nightgown, which lay in a soft heap on the carousel floor. With sudden modesty, she quickly slipped it on over her head, shivering at the coolness all about her, when only a short time ago the air had been singed with the heat from their bodies. She was careful, not wanting to say anything that might be misunderstood. They had made love, and for her it had been more intense than anything she had ever experienced. She knew she had broken her own cardinal rule of not getting involved, but somehow, when all she could see and hear and smell and touch and taste was him, it hadn’t mattered. Now, however, as she stood there shivering, she was no longer so sure.
In a voice so soft it was scarcely a breath, she said, “There’s no need for either of us to regret what just happened. It’s not as if it’s ever going to happen again.”
He could hear the painful question behind her words. He rose and came toward her, his nakedness gleaming in the moonlight.
“I don’t regret it,” he said. “Not for one minute.”
Dory’s heart skipped a beat at his uncanny ability to read her thoughts, and to put her at ease.
“And as far as it never happening again, that’s up to you. Because if it were up to me...”
He reached for her, encircling her slender waist and drawing her to him.
Their lips met greedily. He was aroused and ready for her again. Without preliminaries, his hands slipped beneath her buttocks, lifting her effortlessly off the ground. Her legs went around him as he slid her down onto himself, locking her body to his in a deep, filling embrace that took them to the brink once more and then spiraled them none too gently back to earth.
She felt light as a feather in his arms as he let her slide slowly back down. “You were saying something about it not happening again?”
The moonlight struck her face in such a way that the shadow of her lashes fell long against her cheeks. He knew that she was blushing beneath them.
“Oh, hell, Dory,” he said with a sigh as he thrust one leg back into his jeans. “Neither one of us meant for this to happen, but it did, and I’m not sorry for it. Maybe after tonight it will never happen again, but we’re here right now. What happened tonight is about you and me and no one else.” He spoke with his back to her, as if he were resigned to it.
She watched him pull his jeans up over his beautiful body, her eyes softly flaring at the way the fabric stretched tightly over his buttocks.
“You can believe that or not,” he said. He turned around to face her, pulling up his zipper and concluding, “Still, it doesn’t change a thing.”
He was right, of course, she thought. The intensity of their lovemaking proved only that each of them was human. Want and need were one thing. But what about love? She noticed that word had never even been mentioned. Maybe it was for the best. Granted, physical intimacy only complicated the issues between them, but she shuddered to think what love would do.
She grasped one of the poles upon which the horse went up and down, and leaned back at arm’s length, closing her eyes to the midnight breeze and letting it rustle her hair, which was already tousled from their lovemaking. In a wistful, reminiscing tone she said, “When I was a little girl, I used to think that one day a handsome knight would come riding out of the mist that forms in the foothills and lift me up onto his charger. There’s an outcropping just west of here that looks a little like a castle, and that’s where I always imagined he would take me.”
She remembered something else she used to imagine. That she would only give herself to a man she loved. She had loved Eddie, briefly. And now here was Ben, to whom she had given herself not just willingly but wantonly. That couldn’t have been out of love...or could it?
Dory sighed. “Sometimes it’s fun to still imagine it. How about you? Do you ever daydream?”
Day, night, what difference did it make? he wanted to say. In prison his dreams, whether in sleep or wakefulness, had been the only things keeping him going. “Sure,” he said with a laugh. “I’d love to win the lottery. But then, who wouldn’t?”
Dory shrugged, the movement causing one thin strap to slip from her shoulder, creating a predictable tightening in Ben’s gut. “I never really had any money to speak of,” she said, “so it never mattered all that much to me. I’m satisfied as long as I can get by and support myself and my son. You must miss the money, though. Didn’t you tell me once that you used to make a lot of it?”
With the tip of his finger, Ben gently slid the strap back on her shoulder. “Come here. I want to show you something.” He led her to the edge of the carousel. “See that star up there? That big one that looks like it’s winking at us?”
Her gaze followed the direction of his outstretched arm. In the midnight sky one star burned brighter than all the others.
“Yes, I see it.”
“How far away do you think it is?”
“In light-years? Who knows?”
“Well, in answer to your question, that time in my life, when I used to make a lot of money, is about as far away from who I am and where I am right now as that star is to earth.”
“That far, huh? No wonder you’d like to win the lottery.”
“I was just kidding about that. The only things money can buy are possessions and the grief that comes with them. No thanks. I like things much better the way they are now.”
“Do you think you’ll ever settle down again?” she asked.
“You mean get married?”
“Well, that, or just stay in one place for any length of time.”
It was funny, but he didn’t used to think so. He went into prison vowing he would never love again and came out even more hardened in his conviction. He’d kept moving from one place to another, never staying long enough to form attachments, not when the hurt of his previous attachment was still so fresh in his heart, and when there was a child somewhere out there that he had to find.
He didn’t want to say anything that would disrupt the closeness he felt to her in the wake of their lovemaking. Yet the truth was that he daydreamed often about doing just that, settling down somewhere close by, in fact, in the event their petition was granted and the records were unsealed and it was revealed that he was Jason’s father.
“I think about it sometimes,” he said.
Even though Jason’s name had never been mentioned, Dory was also thinking about him. All this time she’d been agonizing over what would happen if Ben turned out to be Jason’s biological father, she had never considered the consequences of what would happen if it turned out he wasn’t. For the first time, the very real possibility of him packing his bag and leaving, just walking out of her life as easily as he had walked in, loomed before her.
Suddenly, Dory was frightened, not only of him staying, but of his leaving, and of the impact both would have on her life. She turned away and went to stand beside her favorite prancer. She stroked his arched neck as lovingly as if he were a living, breathing creature. In a soft voice, she said, “For me, there’s no knight in shining armor, no castle in the foothills, and no steed except this one.”
He heard no self-pity on her voice, only an acceptance of what she felt was her fate. Yet there it was again, that old familiar sadness in her eyes that beckoned him away from the edge of the carousel.
“Say, does this thing work?”
Dory glanced up from her thoughts, embarrassed at having been thinking out loud. “The carousel? Sure it does.”
“I haven’t been on one of these things in God knows how long. How about a free ride?”
“You mean right now?”
“Why not? Come on, Dory,” he gently coaxed her. “What’s the harm? Tomorrow we can go back to being responsible adults, but for now...”
She looked down at the hand that waited, palm up, for hers. “Oh, what the heck.”
She disappeared between the horses and jumped down on the inside of the carousel where the gears and movements were hidden behind the gilded panels. Even in the darkness she knew which panel opened to reveal the switches and the lever.
