The Older Man (29 page)

She lifted her face to him, and he gave a long sigh and kissed her, easing her down on the sand. Rennie’s arms went round his neck as he pressed closer to her. He kissed her and she responded with a passion that shook both of them.

His mouth wandered to her bare shoulder where the wrap had slipped. His hand slid it further down, baring her breast, too. He looked down at her, then into her eyes. “Rennie?” he said a third time. And now his voice too was unsteady.

She knew it was her last chance to say no. And knew that she didn’t want to say it. She said his name instead, and fearlessly put her hands behind his head and drew it to her breast. And as she felt his mouth close over it, warm and moist and gentle, her breath left her throat in a rush of joy.

His hand brushed away the robe on the other side and made its own slow, erotic exploration, before his mouth returned to hers and she welcomed it with renewed passion.

When he half sat up to sweep away the wrap entirely, she lifted her own hands and opened the buttons of his shirt, running her palms over his chest, glorying in the sudden indrawing of his breath, and his hurried tugging at his belt.

He threw off his clothes and stretched out at her side at first, admiring her in the moonlight, one hand playing over her body, inducing little drifts of pleasure that flowed from her lips, breasts, thighs, and eventually centred on one hot, spiralling core of need.

She bucked a little under his hand, and said, “Oh, please. Please, now!”

His shadow came over her, and his hand was under her head. “Not too fast, little virgin.”

Slightly stung, even in the grip of her desire, she said, “How do you know I’m still a virgin?”

The hand in her hair convulsed, and she saw the stark passion on his face. “I’m about to find out,” he said, as his legs parted hers, faintly harsh with sand. “So do I need to take this gently — or not?”

Staring into his eyes, she said rashly, “Take it how you like — but take it now!”

She stiffened with the shock of his first thrust, and saw his face change, and that he knew. She felt the way he stopped and held himself back and made it as easy as he could.

And then more than easy. She felt him glide in deeper, and his mouth met hers again, excitement overriding the slight discomfort, and she met him, matched him, closed herself about him and rode on wave after wave of golden light that splintered into shards of pleasure.

And heard him murmur her own name over and over as he rode it with her.

It was dawn before they talked, sitting on the sand with Rennie’s back against Grant’s chest, their hands linked in her lap. Grant had put on his clothes and pulled Rennie’s wrap about her because the air had cooled towards morning.

“Why did you deny that you still love me?” he asked her.

“I wanted it to be true. I accused you of being afraid to love me, being like Ellen, wanting to shut love out.” She stopped, dipped her head and then raised it, shaking back the damp mane of her hair. She said, looking out to the brightening skyline where it met the sea, “I suppose my life has been quite sheltered, privileged. Until last year I’d never been badly hurt by anyone — physically or emotionally. I always expected that people would like me and be kind to me.”

“As you were to them,” Grant put in quietly.

“I did try to be, mostly. That’s how I was brought up. I guess I thought that within reason I could get anything I wanted, either by plain asking or with hard work. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled. To want something as much as I wanted … your love, and have it denied, was almost unbelievable to me. And to have someone hate me and want to hurt me as Kevin did — that was an emotional shock too. The world wasn’t the friendly place I’d always taken for granted. It had another face, a face to be feared.” She shivered again and Grant’s arm tightened around her. “I know now how it feels to be afraid. I was afraid to love you. Afraid of being hurt again.”

His arm about her tightened. His voice muffled in her hair, he said, “I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I’d die of the pain, myself when I knew that I had.

She stirred. “And now? Why change your mind after sending me away, if it wasn’t pity?”

“There’s only so much self-sacrifice a man can make. I’ve reached the end of mine.”

“You told me it was self-preservation, not self-sacrifice.”

“In a way that was true. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the laughter leave your eyes, seeing it replaced by hatred and resentment.”

“You would never believe that I was different from Jean.” Hurt made her voice husky. “You always had us mixed up in your mind.”

“I know.”

“I suppose it was inevitable, when you’d just lost her,” Rennie acknowledged.

“I suppose it was. I loved you so much, your laughter, your love of life — the way you gave yourself, your love, to the children, and then to me. It was all I could do to stop myself taking advantage of that generous, openhearted loving. But I had no right to take your lovely youth and your vitality and suck it dry, turn you into a bitter, unhappy woman. I was haunted by the thought that if I did, you’d die inside.”

“I did that when you finally convinced me you didn’t want me.”

“I wanted you so that I ached for you, night and day. I was going crazy with wanting you.”

A wave slipped up the sand and slid back, leaving a glistening line of hissing bubbles behind in the moonlight. A faint breeze stirred Rennie’s hair. She raised a hand and pushed it out of her eyes.

“Crazy enough to tell yourself that what you felt wasn’t real and wouldn’t last?”

“It wasn’t my feelings I doubted.” He gent and kissed her, his hand on her cheek. “Try to understand, Rennie. Jean’s death and you coming into my life at the same time and me so screwed up I couldn’t think straight. Being apart from you these past months had me on the rack, but in a way it was a necessary torture. I needed to make my peace with Jean’s memory before I could truly believe I could make you happy.”

“Can you, now?”

“Yes. You’re Rennie, and I have no grounds for making assumptions about you based on another woman’s reactions. You’re generous and capable and amazingly mature. Lorna said once that maturity has very little to do with chronological age. She was right.”

“Grant — what about Lorna?”

Grant stared down at their linked hands. “She’d been in a long relationship with a man who never bothered to get a divorce. He died about the time of my divorce. Lorna and I are good friends, that’s all, and if I’d never met you I suppose it might have been a reasonable basis for marriage, eventually. She was … my protection.” His voice shook and he paused to steady it. “Because while you were living in my house I needed a buffer to stop myself from seducing you, which would have been a despicable act, given all the circumstances, and after you left there wasn’t a day when I didn’t have to force myself not to call you with some excuse for seeing you again. The day that bastard pushed you through the window, Lorna was in my office. When I realised it was you they were putting in the ambulance, I practically shoved her out of my way to get to you. Later, when I remembered her existence, I went back and apologised. She laughed and told me I’d better ask you to marry me. She meant it,” he added, answering her unspoken doubt. “She promised to dance at our wedding.”

Rennie was silent for a long time. He still held her hand. She felt his fingers tighten on hers, felt the effort he made to relax them. She could hear him breathing above the quiet rhythm of the waves, feel the slight rise and fall of his chest.

“When you visited me in the hospital.”

“You seemed so distant that day. It was no time to be forcing my attentions on you, though if you’d shown the slightest sign of still wanting me I’d have had a hard time not to hold you — something you obviously weren’t fit for. You looked so bruised and sick.”

“It’s a wonder you wanted me at all.”

He shook his head. “I’ll always want you, Rennie, in sickness and in health, bruised, scarred, scared — until death. I thought I’d been served a kind of poetic justice. You’d stopped wanting me, just when I finally gave in to the fact that I couldn’t stand to live my life without you. I thought I’d give you some time, it was only fair to let you get over the accident in your own way, which obviously didn’t include me, you’d made that abundantly clear. And then I was going to do my damndest to make you love me again. Retreating here was a pretty strong message that you didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, so I was trying to respect that, making myself wait until you came back. Then Celeste wrote that you’d called my name. I wanted so badly to gather you up and save you from any further hurt. I had to be here if you needed me.”

She looked up at him then. “When I left the hospital I kept thinking of Kevin and how he hated me. The look on his face when he said, ‘I’ll get you, you bitch!’ And he was still out there. I was frightened to leave the house — like Ellen. I was so ashamed, I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone about my stupid fear.”

“Did I really scare you?” he asked, troubled. “That first day I arrived here?”

Rennie shook her head. “Not physically. You threatened my peace, though. I thought you came in arrogance. And pity.”

Everything somehow got in the wrong order. I hadn’t meant to blurt out a proposal of marriage. But I never thought you’d react the way you did.”

“You unsettled me. Here on Sheerwind I’d conquered the nightmares, the fear. Grown a shell and shut myself inside it, told myself no one could hurt me any more. Then you came, and I realised you still could. If I let you.

“The trouble is,” she said, “in my shell I don’t feel anything at all. That seemed okay for a while, but it’s not much of a life, is it?”

Grant shook his head. “If you want to live, you have to accept you’ll get hurt sometimes.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I think I’m ready to start living again. If I can rely on you to be there next time someone shoves me through a window.”

“Next time,” he promised, “I’ll be there to stop him. Is this a yes to my proposal?”

“I think so. Yes.” Mischievously she added, “What do you think I’ve been angling for ever since we met? And it wasn’t,” she added indignantly, “someone to relieve me of my virginity!”

He winced.

“Although,” she added, “you’ve done that very nicely.”

“I’m sorry about that crack. Even at the time I didn’t believe it. And I didn’t mean to seduce you last night either. I shouldn’t have — “

She put a sandy finger to his lips. “Don’t feel guilty. I could have stopped you. I didn’t want to.” Her mouth curved. “All the times I practically begged you to make love to me — “

He groaned. “Don’t remind me. I never knew I had so much will power. You didn’t make it easy for me, Rennie.”

“Well, you can’t back out now,” she told him complacently. “You’re such an honourable man.” Her eyes were lit with tender laughter.

“No chance,” he agreed. “And I won’t let you back out either. You’re committed now. I’m afraid,” he said honestly, “that thought was in my mind last night, even as I tried to tell myself it was unfair to you. You drove me to desperate measures, Rennie.”

“Not unfair. But, Grant — ” she added, meeting his eyes, hoping to make him understand, “I made an adult choice last night. I’m no child-bride. You have to let me make my own decisions. I want you to be there for me, for the rest of my life. But I’ll be there for you too.”

“I’ll try to curb my protective instincts if they threaten your independence. Knowing you, I won’t be allowed to get away with treating you like a child. Which, in any case,” he added, smiling, “is the last thing I want right now.” He leaned forward and very carefully tipped her chin so that he could kiss her mouth.

Rennie responded, turning with an arm hooked about his neck, until he kissed her deeply, one hand behind her head, the other stroking her arm, her hip, her ribs, and coming to rest against her heart.

When he lifted his head, pushed her back again on the sand and kissed her cheek, her jawline, and her throat, she said, “The wedding will have to wait until after my surgery.”

“No.” he said. “Too long.”

“I can’t be a bride with this!” She touched her scarred cheek.

“Why not? I thought we agreed it wasn’t important.” His lips had reached the edge of the robe.

“It isn’t,” she gasped, “but — Grant, don’t do that!”

He paused with his hand on the edge of the robe that he had just slipped off her shoulder. “Why not?”

“It’s morning. Someone might see — ” Ethan sometimes took a morning swim, and the Palmers were early walkers.

He pulled the robe back into place, and kissed her again. “Come swimming with me tonight?” he murmured. “In the dark. When there’s no one to see.”

“You have an ulterior motive!” she accused.

“Yes.” He grinned. “I hope to talk you into an earlier wedding.”

“I want to look beautiful on my wedding day.”

“You will. You can’t help it.” He held up a hand. “All right, darling. If it’s important to you, I’ll wait until they’ve fixed your face. But tonight — we swim.”

She nodded. “Did you know,” she murmured, watching him with teasing eyes, “that people here swim nude?”

“Is that a fact?” he mocked, and smiled into her eyes.

“Have you ever done that?”

“Not here,” he said, glancing at the deserted beach. “And not with you.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Rennie said demurely.

He looked at her sternly. “You know, I believe I was right about you the first time we met.”

“You thought I was a delinquent.”

He laughed, playing with her hair, lifting a curling strand to his lips. “Something like that.”

“Well…” she said, and gave him a look very similar to those she had been giving Ethan the night he had looked at her so disapprovingly. She looped her arms about his neck, “Aren’t you lucky?”

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