When she was naked, he scooped her up in his arms again and carried her to the hearth rug before the fire. He dropped beside her.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please.”
“Anything,” he murmured, running his palm over her full breasts, her flat belly, absorbing the beauty of her body.
“Love me. Now.”
He crushed her to him. “I will,” he groaned. “I do.”
He stroked her thighs, and they opened to receive him. She gazed in mute adoration at his face above hers, his lower lip caught between his teeth in a spasm of pleasure as he entered her. They both gasped aloud with the sensation.
Jennifer clutched him, burying her face against his shoulder as he moved within her. Tears stung behind her lids and ached unshed in her throat. She must not cry. She wanted to remember everything. Everything.
She was certain that she would.
* * * *
The cold woke Jennifer a few hours later. The fire had died, and the room become chilly. A few fading embers still glowed on the hearth, but they gave little heat.
Lee slept face down, one arm thrown across her, a long muscular leg entwined with hers. She slipped away from him, and he stirred with the movement Jennifer went to the hall closet to get a robe, and when she returned, he was sitting up, looking at her.
She felt a deep flush creep up her neck. What did he think of her? What did she think of herself? She had never been so brazen. He probably thought...she didn’t want to think.
To cover her embarrassment and confusion, she grabbed a poker and stirred the fire.
“Let me do that,” he said, adding logs from the storage bin in the wall. Soon the blaze was roaring again.
He reclined once more on the rug, looking like an Inca prince with his sleek, strong limbs, carved features, and midnight hair. He reached up for her with one hand and drew her down to him.
“What’s this?” he asked, fingering her housecoat.
“I was cold.”
“Take if off,” he said huskily. “I’ll make you warm.”
She obeyed and closed her eyes, letting herself melt into him. “We should move to the bedroom,” she said. “You won’t get any rest.”
“I’m not interested in rest,” he said huskily. “I’m fine right here.”
He propped himself on one elbow and gazed down at her, tracing her features with a blunt forefinger. Then he bent to place a kiss on the tip of her nose before he moved his mouth lower, seeking her lips with his.
The cycle began again, as headlong and as powerful as before. All her concerns went out of her mind. She would worry about them later.
It was dawn before they slept—the deep, exhausted sleep of satiety.
Chapter 7
Jennifer woke first in the morning and showered while Lee was still asleep. She dressed in jeans and a blouse and walked past Lee’s prone form on the way through the hall to the kitchen. He lay sprawled on the hearth rug, the arm which had claimed her so possessively during the night still flung out at his side. The sight of him filled her with yearning tenderness, and she could have stood there, watching him, all day. But she deliberately moved on, making coffee as quietly as possible.
A kiss on the back of her neck told her that Lee was standing behind her. As usual, she had not heard his approach. She set down the box of filters she was holding and turned to face him.
He was bare chested and barefoot, clad only in the black formal pants he had worn to the reception. His hair was still mussed and his eyes heavy from the night, making him look boyish and vulnerable, but never more attractive. Jennifer had to fight to keep from embracing him.
He embraced her instead, drawing her against his chest. The feel of his silky skin, the enclosing warmth of his muscular arms, sent her spinning into the now familiar vortex of desire. She resisted it, evading his attempt to kiss her.
Feeling her reluctance, Lee held her away from him, searching her face. His unasked question hung between them, demanding an answer.
Jennifer dropped her eyes from his. “I’m afraid, Lee. This is all too much, ever since we met, the constant pull, and now last night...” She broke off, unable to articulate further, finally repeating, “I’m afraid.”
She half expected him to ask what there was to fear, or otherwise dismiss her concern. But he surprised her, releasing her and looking away. She saw him draw a slow, careful breath.
“And you think I’m not?” he said quietly.
His reply produced a mixed reaction in Jennifer. She felt a surge of joy at the knowledge that he was apparently taking their relationship as seriously as she was. She would have been devastated by any light treatment on his part of what was so important to her. But at the same time, she felt something like despair. He couldn’t guide her out of these troubled waters; he was drowning, too.
Jennifer studied his strong profile, as sharp and as clean as any etched on a coin, and said softly, “I don’t do this, Lee, and I’m getting in too deep. I can’t help it. I’m not much for one-night stands.”
He raised his eyes to her face. “I know that,” he said seriously. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Jennifer nodded, relieved. “But where does that leave us?” she asked. “What’s the sense in torturing ourselves with samples of what we can’t have on a permanent basis? You’ve already told me how you feel about your sister, and I can’t be a party to the sort of betrayal you think she has made of her background and her people. I know you don’t want that, and if you got involved with me you’d wind up hating yourself in the end.”
He said nothing.
Jennifer had almost hoped that he would protest, but she saw now that he wasn’t going to. She could never affect his deepest beliefs; they were strongly held, rooted in his soul. There was an inner core of mysticism in him, which she had glimpsed while he talked to the children that afternoon, born of an ancient way of life as foreign to her as the pyramids of Egypt That will, and that difference, could never be possessed. She loved him and respected him for it, but knew that no matter how much he wanted her, he couldn’t change.
“We’re just wrong for each other, and it’s nobody’s fault. Your heritage is very important to you, and you need someone who understands it and can share it. You’ll always be afraid I’ll turn you into one of those imitation WASPs you despise, make you forget who you are. And I’ve been burned once, I’m gun-shy, too. Let’s call it quits now, before we hurt each other.” Jennifer said all this calmly, without betraying the inner turmoil she felt, which increased with each word.
He still didn’t answer.
“Say something, Lee.”
He lifted one shoulder. “What can I say? You’ve said it all.”
So that was to be it, then. Lee left the room and returned wearing his ruffled shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, and carrying his jacket draped over his shoulder, hooked by one index finger. He cupped her chin in his free hand, looking at her as if he might never see her again.
“That is such a sweet face,” he said, and kissed her gently on the mouth.
“Thank you for last night,” he said. “I won’t forget it.”
He was terribly close to saying final things, and Jennifer held her breath. But he merely brushed his lips across her brow, and slipped quietly out the door.
Jennifer stood with her eyes closed, still feeling his touch on her skin. She’d handled it well, behaved reasonably and with great maturity. But that knowledge did not ease the pain she had masked so expertly for Lee’s benefit.
She still wanted him desperately and didn’t know what to do about it.
* * * *
Jennifer spent the morning in a state of suspended animation, going through the motions of doing laundry and dusting furniture like an automaton. When the phone rang around lunchtime, her heart stopped for a second, but then she knew it wouldn’t be Lee.
It was Marilyn. They exchanged news and small talk for a little while, and then Marilyn said, in that gently probing way she had, “Something’s wrong, Jen. What is it?”