Surprisingly, he stopped, shifting back to my breasts and beginning the incredible sequence all over again, until I was trembling. Until I wanted more of him. By the time his fingers had returned to that throbbing portion of me, my legs separated of their own volition. My body arched, seeking his, reacting with a knowledge beyond my consciousness.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured encouragingly. My arm was free now, free to encircle his smooth muscled back, to pull him closer to me.
His hands were gentle again. Why was he waiting? I knew what was coming next; why was he putting it off? His lips moved back to my breast, and I cried out with disappointment. He fastened fiercely on my nipple, and I strained toward him, my back arching.
“Nialla? May I, Nialla? May I show you what it’s like?”
“Oh, Rafe, please. Please!”
A pillow was thrust under my hips, and his smooth silky body was no longer warm against me. His hands gently held my legs apart. I became aware of a gentle pressure against me, a slow, gradual filling of that aching emptiness. A filling that was a pain-pleasure so intense I cried out for the joy of it.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Oh, no. No!” I grabbed at his legs to hold him within me, trying to impale myself more deeply. He filled all of me, it seemed, with a throbbing warmth.
He shifted again, and I tightened my legs. When he chuckled, I opened my eyes and saw that he was stretching out above me, his legs carefully placed to the sides of mine, where I’d not been burn-marked. His weight lay lightly, warmly along me, and he kissed my lips softly, almost gaily, all that time that glorious strength filled me.
He began to move so gently I wasn’t first aware of the rhythmic sliding. And I began to move, imitating him, sensing approval in the way his kiss deepened. The pulse of his rhythm began to increase. Like Orfeo, the thought occurred to me, when he is facing a jump. His body began to tremble, too, as I clung to him, heedless of sores now, aware only of that thrusting, pulsing rhythm, again and again. Unbearably increasing to a tempo that threatened to split me. And it did, into a bursting, shivering height, totally unconnected with anything but Rafael Clery within me. Somewhere in the blaze, I heard his triumphant, “Oh, my God. My God!”
I came languidly out of nowhere into a reality where sensation was again possible, and he had not left my body. I was glad. He had bent his head to my breast so that his hair fell across my shoulder. I kissed his head, my lips falling against that awful scar. “Thank you, Rafe.”
“Nialla, don’t.” But his “don’t” was gratitude. Slowly he raised his head and looked at me, his eyes dark with emotion and a plea.
“I don’t want to be engaged to you anymore, Nialla Donnelly.”
“I’d no intention of holding you…” He consigned my intentions elsewhere with an expletive and put a hand over my mouth. “I want to be married to you. Then I can really make love to you; I want to teach you how to make love. I want to get you well so I’m not inhibited by burns and scrapes and scars. Because you were made to be loved, often and well, and I want exclusive rights. God!” And he threw his head back, grinning with a sort of savagery. “I could almost thank Marchmount. Don’t you dare tense up, Nialla Donnelly. He’s past history. I’m your present and your future.”
“Sure, Mr. Clery.”
He looked at me with a gladness in his eyes and face that made my heart leap. Then he kissed me, a kiss as different from any I’d been given as… as my two horses. His mouth was tender on mine, almost reverent. Which is ridiculous, because you can’t combine passion with reverence… no, not passion… sensuality… no! Neither. The kiss was a total commitment, the spectrum of the shades of loving, exacting an unreserved response from me. Later, I’d look back on that moment and remember that I became Nialla Clery then, signed, sealed, and delivered by that kiss.
It was such an incredible luxury to be cosseted and comforted that I protested volubly when Rafe left me. He was so beautiful as he stood by the side of the bed, so unselfconsciously male, grinning possessively down at me.
“Dear heart, there’re things to do… a doctor’s appointment”-he ticked them off on his short, sensitive fingers-”so we can get Wassermanns”-this said with a comically lascivious smirk-”I want to call the vet about Orfeo… and feed us.” He bent over, one hand gently cupping my breast. “You may not be aware of it, but it’s nearly one of the clock, and you haven’t had anything since that steak last night.” He gave me a squeeze. “I want to feed you up a little. You look positively transparent, love.”
He picked up the phone and ordered, mentioning items and glancing at me for confirmation. I was too quiescent to argue. I felt so light, lazy, and languid.
“Start thinking about what was in the car, Nialla,” he said as he walked with quick steps to the bathroom. “I’m ready to eat insurance men who displease me. However, in the interest of the devious underwriter mind, itemized lists, down to the peanut-butter jars”-and he swung around the door to grin at me-”always impress. Looks good when they run up statistics. I wonder what the death rate on peanut-butter jars will print out next year.”
The shower came on hard, depriving me of his conversation. I squinched down under the sheet and saw the bloody spots. Looked at my arms where the cinder burns were enlarged with smears of drying blood. I sat up, but there was no sign of my clothes. Surely my bra and pants had survived. I couldn’t…
“I’ve got to get you some clothes, too. My bride comes to me as she is… stark naked. And”-he paused in his toweling to point a stern finger at me-”no nonsense.”
“I can’t be nonsensical, Rafe,” I said meekly, covered to my chin with sheet. “All my clothes were in the station wagon.”
“I thought as much.” He scrubbed at his hair as he walked to the bureau, opening drawers to pull out various items. He threw me another shirt, then pulled on shorts. I hated to see him covered when I was just getting used to him. “You take a size eight? Thirty-two bra? Padded? About six-and-a-half shoe?”
I stared. He’d only seduced me, not measured me. Or did those sensitive hands have inbuilt calibrators? Probably.
“No big thing. I’ve been married twice, love, and bedded many more-” He broke off. “Does that worry you?”
“I haven’t had time to worry about it,” I replied truthfully. “Should I?”
He gave me one of those charismatic grins. “No, love. You shouldn’t. But you will, because it’s in the same category as remembering not to think about the camel’s left knee.”
“You read Isak Dinesen?”
“Worry about that, then. It’s more constructive!” He was shaving when room service knocked on the door. He stepped into his pants on the way to the door, grinning at me. Although I was decently covered, he kept the man out of the room, wheeling in the cart himself.
The moment I caught a whiff of the coffee and grilled ham, I realized that I was famished. To think I might never have to open another jar of peanut butter! Rafe finished shaving before he joined me-in three minutes-and quickly consumed the omelet he’d ordered for himself.
“I hate to leave you, Nialla,” he said as he shrugged on an elegant white linen jacket, checking his pockets for wallet, keys, and such miscellany. “You’re not to answer the phone or the door while I’m gone. Promise?”
All the uglinesses that had been dispersed by Rafe’s lovemaking and his presence crowded in on me. It undoubtedly showed in my expression, for he came striding across the floor and held me in his arms.
“Promise?”
I’d’ve promised anything with Rafe Clery’s arms around me, his smooth lemony-expensive-smelling cheek against mine.
“Sure, Mr. Clery.”
Warmth and security left the room when the door closed on him. I heard him try the knob.