Amber's Embrace (11 page)

Then, slowly, his hands began a gentle massage of her back, sketching small circles on the soft fabric of her sundress. When the beat of his heart grew less even, her own kept pace. A tingle of excitement radiated from his fingertips, traveling the length of her and back. It was the birth of a feeling she could not deny, the same burgeoning awareness of her needs and longings, woman to his man, that she’d discovered that afternoon. Although a small voice within cried for caution, the bulk of her senses surged forward. She held herself back from him for a brief moment, disturbing his play. Even in the darkness, his eyes mirrored the very pleasure she felt. It was too much to resist, this need to be purely selfish, to grasp at the stars. Happily, she let her head fall back to his chest. He was so strong and confident, she mused—and he made her feel so very, very feminine.

When his hand moved up to caress her shoulder, she answered in kind, allowing her fingers the freedom to inch toward the open neck of his shirt, there reveling in the fine tufts of hair, thrilling at the warmth that seeped from him. A heat began its molten circulation in her veins, totally aside from the summer’s heat, dissipated now under the newly emergent moon. His fingers teased her, circling the curve of her shoulder, then failing lower to tempt the gentle swell of her breast at the bodice of her dress. The thin spaghetti strap was all that kept his hand from her skin; as he toyed around it, she grew fuller in anticipation.

With a soft moan, she tilted her head upward. “Do you have any idea—” Her hoarse whisper was swallowed by his mouth as it seized her lips with the hunger she felt herself. When he finally relented and cupped the fullness of her breast to his palm, a quiver shook her. With it came a trace of reason. “Zachary—?” she asked, pleaded against his neck, knowing all too well what she wanted from this man, yet still fearful of taking it.

“Shhhh, Amber. It feels good, doesn’t it?” The huskiness of his voice betrayed his own emotional state.

“Yes, but—”

“Then let me. You, deserve this. There’s no harm in being selfish for a change, is there?” At that moment, as his words echoed her own earlier thoughts, she yielded to them willingly. He seemed to have a way with both her mind and her body. And he gave her nothing but pleasure.

Sighing her agreement, she wound both arms about the tanned column of his neck, gasping when he slipped a hand beneath her knees and swung her into his arms. “Where are you taking me?” she shrieked, oddly amused.

The wicked gleam in his eye burst forth as they left the cover of the porch and he descended the few steps to the grassy yard. “Soft grass and dim moonlight are a hell of a lot more comfortable than a hard wooden swing and the shadows. I want to see you.”

He eased her gently down on her back atop the lawn, then stretched his length beside her, his body leaning half over hers. With her arms maintaining a neck hold, she looked up at him, startled by the near reverence she saw in his eyes, moments before so full of mischief. The similar expression on her own face was blotted out when his head lowered to resume his kiss, this time with a tenderness that cried out to her very depths. Instinctively, she arched toward him, rewarded when his hand circled her breast again, caressing and teasing, skimming its taut peak, then retreating to an exploration of the lines of her hip. All past receded; there was only the now. Drowning in the ocean of his passion, she could not think one step further than where he took her at a given instant. When his hand slid beneath the thin strap of her dress and slipped it over her shoulder, her excitement grew. When the soft fabric was drawn down to expose the creamy softness of her breast, she held her breath. When his eyes slid from her face to that gleaming orb and his hand quickly followed suit, she moaned her delight. Her breast filled his palm, his thumb coaxed its bud to even greater firmness. When she would have cried out, his mouth swooped down to smother the sound, slanting hungrily across her lips as she trembled.

The fire of desire seared through her, fanned by the tongue that rolled over and around her nipple, causing wave after wave of sensual shock. But her need was to touch as well, to reacquaint herself with the swelling masculinity before her. She was an equal player in the drama, adapting to her role with little hesitancy.

His shirt lay suddenly open, its buttons released by her hands in their bid to know him further. When he lifted her off the grass, eased off her other shoulder strap, and drew her dress down to her waist, she curved her arms around him and brought herself into his embrace, heady and warm, his chest a brand against the bareness of her breasts.

“So beautiful, Amber,” he groaned, barely holding his control in check, his hands spanning her back, covering its every inch. Her breath caught in her throat as he clutched her convulsively to him. Then, he lay her down, cuffing her wrists to the ground on either side of her shoulders. His eyes devoured the silver-sheened upthrust of her breasts, delighting in her seminakedness for a long moment, before covering her body with his.

She was at once engulfed in a flood surge of emotion, crying for release from within as his ardent touch drove her to distraction. His lips rained kisses on her face, trailing a sensuous path down her neck to her throat and across her body. Against her thigh, his arousal was a vivid fact.

Burying her hands in the fullness of his dark hair, she arched closer against him. But when his hand slid beneath her dress to caress the silken smoothness of her thigh, an enigmatic and unbidden force made her stiffen. “Please, Zachary,” she whimpered, “please…”

Ragged gasping disturbed the normal velvet flow of his words. “Please, what, honey?” He raised himself on an elbow and searched her face, its glow now from passion as well as the moon. “Please make love to you … or please stop?” She gasped at his question, only then realizing the extent of her abandonment. Even amid her delirium, she caught the note of urgency in his tone. “If I don’t stop now, I won’t be able to. I’d like nothing better than to take you, right here, beneath that moon.” Long, strong fingers rested intimately on the bareness of her torso, tempting inches from the waistband of her dress and beyond. “Your body is ready for me, Amber. Are your emotions?”

The dilemma was all too real; he had summed it up precisely. As reason slowly returned, she knew that, despite the fiery cravings of her body, fully awakened after a long sleep, she was not yet ready to commit herself to the kind of relationship that entailed the totality of lovemaking. Indeed, her body had betrayed its awesome need. Yet, once fulfilled, would she fall prey to a new kind of bondage?

A new dimension of the situation chose that moment to enter her mind whirl. If she refused to yield to his possession, might she lose him? What they had shared during their time together this day was precious. She had felt more whole, in his company, than she had for so long. He made her feel like a woman, a beautiful woman, who
did
have it in her power to satisfy him. The tremor of his muscles, as he held himself suspended over her, told of his own susceptibility. Without a doubt, it was gratifying to her ego. But was it lust—or a deeper attraction to her as a person?

The doubts which raged through her features gave him the answer to his question. Without another word, he sat her up and eased her dress back until its straps hugged the hollow of her shoulders once more. Then, with a low groan, he lay back on the grass, inhaling deeply, struggling to calm his surging virility. Sensing his battle, she did not touch him, but sat several feet away and helplessly witnessed the labored rise and fall of his chest.

“You’re amazing, do you know that?” she finally whispered her gratitude.

One eye opened to spear her. “And how am I amazing?” Though his tone held a lingering hoarseness, it had chilled noticeably.

“I would have let you, if you had pushed me. Why didn’t you? I was pretty senseless, there, for a while.” Her confession poured freely forth, bolstered by the knowledge that he hadn’t, that he wouldn’t, take advantage of her.

Disturbed by her words, he threw an arm across his eyes. For a fearful moment, she wondered if he suddenly regretted not having satisfied his very obvious physical need when he’d had the chance. But when he finally spoke, his words were even, his thoughts fully rational. The arm lowered to uncover a strange harshness in his eyes.

“I don’t want a senseless woman, Amber. I want a woman who knows exactly what she is doing, who wants it with both her body and her mind. You’re no babe in the woods, any more than you are a virgin. By now, you should know that lovemaking is a two-sided thing. There’s more to it than…” His words died on his lips as he withdrew his thought abruptly. Then, in one fluid movement, he sat up to face her, his shirttails streaming behind him on the grass. Leaning forward, he put a fierce hand around the back of her neck. “When we make love, it’s going to be the most beautiful thing you have ever experienced in your life.” His sense of conviction sent a shaft of fear through her, but his next words were strangely comforting. “And it’s going to be that way for me, too. A man can find release many ways, Amber, when the physical need becomes too great. But at this stage in my life, the need is far more than the purely physical. I can wait.”

To Amber’s ear, his declaration was a perfect ending of a perfect day. When he kissed her a final time, it was without demand of any sort. Leading her into the house, he deposited their empty coffee mugs in the kitchen sink, then proceeded to the front door. Even then, a small part of her cried out for him to stay, to spend the night with her, to give her more of the delight he had so eloquently promised. But sanity prevailed.

“I’ve got to work tomorrow,” he said gently. “I’m preparing a lecture for my trip to Atlanta on Monday. Why don’t I talk with you when I get back?”

Her lips curved softly into a smile. “That’s fine.”

As he opened the front door to leave, his eyes narrowed. “You behave yourself … and lock this door, do you hear?”

At her nod, he turned and descended the walk to his car, driving off down the road without another look back. Amber’s eyes followed the twin taillights until they were swallowed by the night. Slowly, she turned, closed the door, and locked it, as a grin spread across her face. He was gone, yet she wasn’t alone. The memory of his bold presence lent a richness to her existence that precluded loneliness. The large brass bed upstairs welcomed her that night, its sheets cool and soothing against her fevered skin. Silence filled the darkness, broken only by the intermittent chirp of the crickets, the occasional howl of the basset hound down the street, beneath the oaks and maples. In her mind, Zach was beside her, holding her, caressing her, leading her to heights of ecstasy and joining her there. As the peace of the night slowly filtered through her limbs, she slept. She was in the eye of the storm, unaware that the following morning would bring a return of all the old doubts and a smattering of new ones—plus a most disturbing phone call to Scott.

CHAPTER FIVE

In the dark of night, there had been only Amber and Zachary. With daylight came the world of other things, each bearing its own mind link to reality. As the sun climbed higher, her doubts multiplied. She questioned both the prudence of her behavior the night before and, more generally, the course her feelings had run for the past week. Though the amount of time she had spent with Zachary was, in relative terms, small, she
did
feel that she knew him, and he her, better than many acquaintances of years. Yet his presence in her life took her completely by surprise; she was totally unprepared for the sort of relationship that theirs promised. Things had happened too quickly—her head reeled.

Puttering around the house this Sunday morning, finding one inconsequential chore after another to perform, she reminded herself that Zachary Wilder was only the second man she had ever really known romantically. Not only did the fact of her attraction to him startle her, but she was shocked by its strength. In her experience with Ron, things had built slowly, gradually over the years, from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. When sexual awareness grew, it likewise had progressed in steps.

Zachary Wilder was another matter. His overwhelming virility had taken her by storm. Granted, she was a mature, sophisticated woman now, no longer a virgin and with a preadolescent son to prove it. But her total abandonment in Zachary’s arms astonished—and worried—her. After so many years of showing, of feeling no interest in a physical relationship, why now had she suddenly rediscovered the flame of desire banked deep within her? What was it about Zachary that reduced her to a quivering mass of femininity? And what good could come of these wanton instincts? Hadn’t she made the mistake, once before, of letting her heart and emotions overrule reason? Then, she had emerged from the ordeal with a beautiful, healthy child whom she adored, and a heart full of pain and disillusionment. Could she risk the same now? It was untenable to contemplate such lunacy. Yet, how easily things might have gotten out of hand, had not Zachary, himself, offered a wedge of sanity.

Self-directed fury engulfed her. How very naive she continued to be, relying on a man to make things right! In hindsight, she saw that she had, perhaps, been the stronger partner in her relationship with Ron. Could she assume differently, in any future relationship with Zachary? But was she being fair to him, expecting him to take the responsibility for caution in a heady sexual encounter? He was a man, with normal physical needs—and he had denied those needs, once, for her benefit. Would he do it again? Could she
ask
him to do it again? Another man would have taken advantage of her the first time. Zachary hadn’t. Why not? Despite the explanation he had offered, her long-held skepticism prevailed.

The answer to the question eluded her, though one other thing was clear: she simply could not expect him to be her conscience again. It was
her
responsibility; she would have to answer to her own actions. If making love with Zachary was what she wanted to do, she might indulge in the heavy petting of the night past. On the other hand, if she was not prepared to surrender in full to him, she had no business leading him on.