His lips trailed down her body until his teeth could gently pull at the taut pink centers of her breasts. Her hands were fluttering aimlessly at her sides, but already her body was flushing with warmth, exactly what he wanted. Part of her so obviously wanted to talk, to understand where he was coming from; and yet her pulse was already racing. Zach, too, was communicating on the two levels, but he had no problem defining his priorities. He carried her hand to the growing hardness in his jeans and held it there.
Her breath locked in her lungs for a moment, and then her palm rubbed, over and over, that warm hardness encased in denim. His desire was clear. His need for her was just as clear. If she wanted to talk, that wasn’t solely for the purpose of hearing words said out loud. One could start communication in other ways; Zach had taught her that a long time ago. And her response was from the heart, as primal as his, her instincts just as strong.
Her lips were suddenly hot and wild, molding themselves against his. Her fingers fumbled for the zipper of his jeans. Why on earth did he have so many clothes on? Her heart kept beating harder, terribly uneven. Was he actually doubting how much she loved him; was that what his enigmatic anger was about? How could he be such a fool?
Zach pushed her hand away. Once his jeans were gone, he knew he wouldn’t last long. His patience was forced, but he was determined to try. His palm took a long, lazy path, between and around Bett’s breasts, over the satin flesh of her abdomen, finally slipping between her thighs. Her whole body arched against the shelf of his palms, and a silver mist of wanting filled his head, his blood, his body. Bett’s lips were suddenly moist and sweet and warm, seeking his, demanding his. His tongue invaded the hollow of her mouth.
She was on fire. It wasn’t enough. “Let me,” she whispered furiously.
Her fingers pushed up his sweatshirt. He let her strip the soft fabric over his head; he let her fingertips slide over his smoothly muscled chest; she loved to do that. Her hands trailed up, curled around his neck, got lost in his hair. He turned and shifted both of them. With her weight on top of him, he spread his legs, pinning her, loving the imprint of her tiny, taut nipples on his bare chest, loving the ache in his loins as he pressed against her abdomen. Her hair swept down, all in a tangle, strands of sun-touched silk that tickled his cheek as her lips sought his again. Dawn had turned into day. Sunlight filtered down, catching in her hair. Her eyes were never more blue than when she was blind with loving, caught up in the sweetest of senses. She thought herself such a seductress.
She so very much was. He slowed the pace she didn’t want slowed, but with a terrible effort. He had to bat her fingers away from his zipper again. He turned so that he was next to her and half on top, and then shifted his body downward. His tongue teased her breasts-one, then the other. His palm was work-roughened; he knew that. He kneaded the small ivory orbs, then apologized with the velvet wet of his tongue. He counted her ribs, one by one.
They were all there. He shifted up again, his knee bent, riding the space between her warm thighs. Way back, before they were married, before Bett had slept with him, he could remember well how he had desperately tried to coax her into bed. Rubbing, just so. A jeaned thigh, like now, until her body moved against his, desperately trying to sate itself.
“What are you trying to do to me?” Bett whispered huskily.
The answer was so very easy. To remind her of exactly how it had been with them at the beginning. Remind her…but not with words. He could still remember her murmuring unhappily that she couldn’t just…sleep with him. They barely knew each other. She’d made love before; heart wounds hurt. So they did, but Bett had some terrible misconceptions about herself and loving. That she was safe as long as he kept his jeans on. That it was important to be polite in bed. That it was not quite right that she had this wild, sweet, wanton side; that one kept one’s private fears and feelings to oneself. Out of fear of losing her, he’d kept his clothes on for a time. Not hers. Rapidly he’d turned around what she thought she could keep secret from him. They would keep no secrets from each other, not of the kind that counted. Sex was the medium; loving was the message.
Loving was still the message. His lips seared a very gentle, tender path down her throat, her breasts, her navel. Soon, the crinkle of soft hair tickled his lips; her hips tensed violently. He held them still with his hands. Very still. Like a sweet little whip, his tongue lashed out, a very gentle intruder.
Silver rain flooded through Bett. Her whole body convulsed, and her fingers clenched in his hair. “Come up here,” she said furiously.
Her husband was obviously trying to drive her mad. The morning sunlight was all around her, bathing her flesh, a warm weight on her eyes. She closed her eyes, aching inside. Her body felt like the hot, steady pulse of a summer rain. She was naked, and so close to the earth that her flesh felt part of it. Her heart was beating with a terrible thunder, but around her there was only sunshine. Sun and the peace of morning and shade and silence. Her breath, coming in harsh gasps, appalled her.
“Zach!”
Far too slowly, his lips trailed upward again. Her hands fumbled for his jeans, racing down the zipper. Her palms slid around and inside his jeans, curling over his flat male buttocks, pushing down the denim fabric that had separated them for far too long.
He had to stand to get his jeans off. Abandoned for those few seconds, she found herself staring at him, at his maleness, then at the look in his eyes as he came back down to her. His eyes were blue-silver with the first velvet thrust, blue-soft with the tenderness of loving, silver-sharp with a man’s drive to possess. So full he filled her, so unbelievably full.
“Burn for me, Bett,” he whispered. “Hurt with it. All of you.”
She tossed her head, wild with fever. All around her was the smell of dew, the smell of Zach, the smell of morning. She surged beneath him, exploding with need. The fierce rhythm of love rushed through her like a wanton silver river.
A stream of sunlight stole through the treetops in celebration of day, at the same time a different sunlight burst inside of her.
“We have,” Zach murmured, “a problem.”
Bett shook her head drowsily. “You may have a problem. I have no problems of any kind.” She curled her arms around his waist, snuggling closer to his bare, warm flesh. It seemed like a wonderful idea to stay just as they were. At least for the next hundred hours.
“You can be a disgracefully wanton woman, two bits.” He nuzzled at the delectable hollow in her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“Insatiable.”
“Yes.”
“Uninhibited.”
She opened one sleepy eye. “Where are all these compliments leading?”
“You look like such an angel. Blond hair, blue eyes.” Zach shook his head in teasing puzzlement. “I’ll tell you, though, you’d never cut the chaste life playing a harp.”
She chuckled, lazily sitting up. At a motion from him, she raised her hands in the air. He slipped her nightgown on her, then her robe. Finally, Zach stood up to tug on his jeans.
“So. What are we going to do about your mother?”
The question seemed to come out of the blue. Bett, leaning over to fold up the blanket, shot her husband a startled glance.
“Kick her out when she’s doing so well? Obviously not. Have her continually lay stress on you? That’s not going to keep happening, either. So let’s talk choices, Bett.”
He swung an arm around her shoulders as they strolled back down the path toward the pond. Bett wanted to answer him, but she couldn’t get any words out. So Zach was aware of how unhappy she’d been-she’d done her best to hide it from him. She’d done her best to pretend even to herself that it didn’t matter. Regardless, she saw no choices. Her mother had been lonely and unhappy and grieving alone; Elizabeth was happy with them. If Bett found the continual pressure wearing, the old game of trying to please both her mother and herself impossible, she didn’t see that she had any choice.