Hot Touch (19 page)

Caroline turned around wearily as he crossed the room to her. “This is no time for accordion music.”

He cursed jauntily, snatched her against his torso, sank his hands under her rump, and lifted her on tiptoe so that his hardness slammed into her belly. It was calculated roughness, designed to excite rather than to frighten, and it shattered her overwrought control.

Caroline clutched his shoulders and looked up into his flushed, determined face. His desire and the fervor in his eyes stunned her. Finally she cleared her throat and asked in amazement, “You still want me?”

“I’d still want you if you said that frogs could sing ‘Zippity Doo-Dah.’ ” He shook her lightly. “I love you, Caroline. I believe in you. If you can talk to animals, there’s hope for all sorts of good things in the world. There really must be miracles.”

Her head swam. “Am I a freak?” she demanded hoarsely.

“Hell, no.”

“Do you think I’m crazy, off, bats, one brick short of a load, the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor?”

“You’ve got a gift, Caroline. You’re not abnormal, you’re
special
. I knew something strange was going on with the animals; I thought that maybe you were psychic, but I kept looking for a better explanation. With all the evidence you gave me, I should have figured out the truth a long time ago.”

She felt confused and dazed; suddenly nothing made sense except the admiration in his eyes and the possessive, provocative way he held her against his body. He still wanted to make love to her; he seemed to want it more than ever.

She wound her fingers into his black hair and held tightly. Her eyes unwavering, she asked, “Are you going to tell anyone what I said?”

“No.” He looked at her in exasperation, as if these questions were ridiculous but no more than he expected. He bumped her with bawdy skill, his movements an innuendo for much more intimate pastimes. “Is this what it takes to convince you I’m on your side?” he demanded.

Tenderness fought disbelief. Caroline dredged up another stab of cynicism. “Why do you believe me so easily? Are you lying?”

He tilted his head back and groaned dramatically, the sound almost a primitive growl of warning. “No!” Then with a low sound of delight he sank an open-mouthed kiss onto her lips. Caroline arched upward to capture the impatience of it and savor the sweet violence of his tongue. He flicked the tip across her lips, then lifted it to her tear-stained face.

When he licked her cheeks and eyes she fell apart inside and tilted her face for the warm, tender washing. As he ministered to her he carried her to the bed and sat down.

“
Fantastique
,” she murmured as he fell back on the bed and bounced her on his thighs. The giddiness inside her chest broke free as a tentative smile.

Paul growled half in play and half in passion. “There is an animal I want you to talk to.”

He lifted his hips into the harbor of her thighs, tantalizing her with the promise of what lay restrained under denim and cotton. His hands drew circles on her lower back, then rose up her spine with tingling slowness and cupped her shoulders.

She shook her head in helpless adoration. “Is it really all right? You believe me?”

He cupped her face reverently. “Oh, Caro,
yes
. Around these old bayous folks grow up believing in mysteries and magic. We Cajuns know better than to doubt things we can’t see.”

Trembling, she bowed her head. “I never expected acceptance from you.”

“You never expected love either.”

“No,” she agreed softly, and raised her gaze to be mesmerized by his look of devotion. “I’ll try my best to show you how much it means to me.”

Caroline curled her hands into his sweatshirt, eager to uncover his chest so that she could stroke the black hair and striated muscle. Fumbling as she tried to pull his shirt up, she managed to poke him in the stomach with a lacquered fingernail.

He winced. “Slow,
chère
, slow.”

Embarrassed, she stopped. “I’m not much good at this.”

“Ooh-la-la, the cat has claws,” he teased quickly. “I like them.”

“I know how to fake my feelings and I know how to be tender without being sexual,” she whispered in dismay, “but I don’t know anything in between. Help me.”

Quickly the teasing glint faded from his eyes. He pulled the sweatshirt off and threw it across the room, then placed her hands on his chest.

“You’re doing fine,” he whispered. “ ’Any better and I’d be a goner.”

She laughed warily and stroked her fingers down his chest. His hair felt like fine lamb’s wool, and the way it hugged the patterns of solid muscle and bones was so hypnotizing that she forgot everything else.

Caroline quivered as she swirled her hands over him, flicking his nipples gently, tracing his collarbones, running her fingers up to his shoulders and down his arms.

He watched her with his eyes half shut, and his chest rose quicker with each passing second. He shifted with pleasure, rotating his hips under her and caressing her sides.

Slowly his hands rose under her breasts, and he cupped them in his palms. His thumbs scrubbed over the tips, making them harden under her dress and
bra. She thrust forward instinctively, aching for his touch, and her obvious delight brought a gleam of pure male fire to his eyes.

“This is the way it should be between a man and a woman,” he told her. “Gentle and wild at the same time.”

“Teach me,” she whispered.

Smiling, his face ruddy with desire, he unbuttoned the bodice of her shirtwaist dress and slowly turned the material aside as if he were opening a pretty Christmas present that he wanted to anticipate just a moment longer.

When his forefinger traced a line of sensation from her throat into the cleft of her breasts she was so overcome that she dipped her head and tried to kiss the pleasuring hand. He lifted it to her mouth and she nuzzled his palm.

He groaned. “I don’t need to teach you anything,
chère
. You’ve got so much natural lovin’ inside you that you know what to do already. All you need is the chance.”

“Please. A chance,” she urged.

His heavy-lidded look told her that her words were an aphrodisiac. He slipped his big, nimble fingers into her bodice and lifted it off her shoulders. With quick movements he shoved the soft yellow fabric down to her elbows and ran his fingers over the satiny white bra he’d uncovered.

His hands lingered on her breasts. Gradually he pressed his fingers into the softness and rubbed with a skillful touch that made her pant. Just the idea of feeling his fingers on her bare skin caused her to clutch his sides and shiver.

He smiled wickedly and brushed a finger along the fine lacework edging the cups of her bra. “This is too pretty to be worn. Ought to just hang it up and look at it, eh?”

“Eh,” she agreed in a breathless tone. Reaching behind her, her eyes never leaving his, Caroline unfastened the bra. She shrugged gracefully and it slipped down her arms, landing where she placed her hands on his chest.

He held her gaze for a moment, then let his eyes drift down her body. Lusty appreciation deepened his look of barely controlled passion, and she thought if he didn’t immediately transfer that look into action, she’d collapse from imagining the results.

He didn’t make her wait; he cupped her breasts and raked his thumbs across the taut nipples. When she threw her head back and moaned he sat up and guided her breasts to his mouth.

Caroline laughed with joyous sensation as he gently savaged one nipple and then the other, taunting them to such great sensitivity that each tug of his lips brought a corresponding ache inside her.

She stroked his head fervently, then grasped his shoulders as he bent her backward so that her breasts thrust upward into his mouth.

“I want to do something for you that feels this incredible,” she whispered.

He chuckled hoarsely and lay back on the bed, pulling her beside him. Caroline glanced down his magnificent body and smiled at the straining thickness inside his jeans.

“I think I understand,” she murmured.

Quickly she unfastened his jeans and slipped her hand inside. Caroline sighed with anticipation. A tremor ran through him and echoed in her own body. His pleasure was hers, and they shared its vibration.

“You’re so soft and smooth on the surface, and so hot,” she whispered. The light, sensual caress of her fingers made his back bow and his hands tremble.

“Easy, easy,” he begged in a barely audible voice. “I haven’t got my accordion to protect me.”

Her pulse beat a heavy rhythm in her ears. “Your accordion?” she repeated groggily as she uncovered him and watched her hand’s caressing motions.

He shut his eyes and swallowed harshly, so lost in sensation that he had trouble responding. Finally he managed to say, “That night. You came up here. Told me …” He shifted on the bed. “Aaah, yes, touch me there too.” She made a growling sound and he smiled. “You told me to stop playing,” he finished.

Caroline nuzzled her face against his stomach. “And you stood in the hall wearing nothing but your squeeze box.”

“I wanted you that night, Caroline. I wanted you so bad I woke up aching the next morning.”

She cried out happily and kissed the center of his chest. “I wanted you too. I dreamed that I was an accordion and it felt
so
good when you made music with me.”

They shared a soft, throaty laugh. His turned into a groan of desire, and he guided her hand up his stomach to more neutral territory. Caroline kissed him and he pulled her close to him.

They both sighed when her nipples brushed against his thickly matted chest. Looking up into her eyes, Paul whispered, “Time to make some music,
chère
.”

“The best kind,” she answered, her throat tight. “I love you so much.”

They undressed each other quickly, all patience gone, and when they finished they stood beside the bed and gazed in rapt silence. “Look, we’ve got different parts,” he murmured coyly, reaching out.

He slid his hand between her legs and cupped her snugly, rubbing his fingers inside the secret folds of her body. Caroline leaned against him, her knees weak. “Have you no shame? Have you no inhibitions?”

“Nah.”

She sighed, “Wonderful.”

“I’ll show you.”

He picked her up, laid her on the bed, then eased her knees apart and knelt between them. Caroline lay in expectant silence, her body so infused with languor that she felt too heavy to move.

Without hesitation he ran his hands down her thighs and explored her, making modesty impossible and, more important, unwanted. Caroline writhed, intensely aware of every nerve ending he brought to life. He moved closer, his expression tight with control.

“Got to learn you,” he whispered in an urgent tone. “Take it slow. Make a little map.”

Readiness surged through her as she felt his hot, velvety tip against her inner thigh. He guided it over the supersensitive skin, tracing her contours in a way that made her legs quiver. Then he performed his special brand of mapmaking on the other thigh.

The harsh rhythm of his breathing excited her beyond anything she could have imagined. She struggled on the bed as he touched himself to the soft center of her body and devoted his attention to that center until only one mystery remained.

Caroline tilted her head back and tried to say how much she loved him, but her control was so far gone that she could only make husky mewling sounds. She felt calm and reckless, loving and lusty in an explosive combination just waiting for the right spark, and she wanted desperately to make this sweet, caring man happy.

“Doc,” she finally said, “don’t let me embarrass myself. Feeling good is new to me.”

“Let’s embarrass each other,” he urged. “It’ll be beautiful.”

Paul eased into her body, filling her slowly and completely. Caroline bit her lower lip and fought the desire to writhe. His deep, desire-roughened voice came to her through a haze. “Let go,
chère
. There’s no embarrassment
here; there’s just you and me making love, and everything we do is gonna be our secret to keep.”

That was all it took. Caroline made a desperate yearning sound she’d never expected to hear from her own throat. She reached for him with both hands and he lowered himself on top of her, his eyes shining with pleasure at her reaction.

He bent his head and whispered against her ear, “I’ve found my lifemate, just like Wolf found his, and there won’t be another one.”

Caroline cried out at the recklessness of these bittersweet promises when so much was unresolved; then she held him tightly and believed every word as her world gave way to Cajun magic.

The next few weeks turned her life upside down, and she didn’t mind a bit.

She clipped her long fingernails. She tossed most of her jewelry into a drawer of Paul’s dresser, where it lay unused, along with her makeup. He drove her to the clothing store in Breaux LaMonde so that she could buy jeans, T-shirts, a floppy straw hat, and utilitarian walking shoes. Her California wardrobe went into Paul’s bedroom closet and never came out again.

And she wore sunglasses only when it was sunny.

Word of her romance with Paul spread to all the cast and crew members of
Silver Wolf;
she felt their smiles and curious stares whenever he visited the set, which was every chance he got. The movie’s young star, Rebecca, a precocious pint-sized Shirley MacLaine, told her that her aura had turned from black to light blue.

Someone in the crew even swiped her canvas chair with the neatly stenciled
Property of C. Fitzsimmons, Do Not Remove
on its back, and when it reappeared the lettering proclaimed,
Earth Mother and Llama Mama
.

She was delighted.

The world had become a fresh new place full of familiar things that suddenly seemed wondrous—food tasted twice as good, sunsets were twice as beautiful. The air left a sweet scent in her nose and she craved it as if she’d never known how to breathe before.

It was all because of a loving wild man who did things like coax her outside to dance in a lazy afternoon rain, a man who fed her cantaloupe in bed every morning, a man who knew the value of kissing and cuddling and hugging in a warm, deep way that demanded nothing except tenderness.