Winter's Daughter (20 page)

But hot tubbing wasn’t much fun alone.

She didn’t stay in the shower long either, just long enough to banish the chill in her body. Then she put on Dillon’s blue terry–cloth bathrobe, towel–dried her hair and combed it with her fingers, and returned to the living room.

Dillon was on one knee in front of the sandstone fireplace, gazing contemplatively into the flames. Tannis came upon him quietly in her bare feet, so at first he didn’t know she was there.

And, suddenly, she knew what had happened to the hunger and the passion. It was all there, in his unguarded face, in his eyes, even in the lines of his body.

Why did you it? Why are you trying to hide your need from me?

Oh, but it was hard to see him that way, so vulnerable. She thought of other times—that day in the park when she had first seen the two sides of Dillon James, and again this morning.

Why do I feel such a terrible, aching desire to feed and comfort you, to take away the bleakness in your eyes?

Sensing her presence at last, he turned to smile at her. His eyes were soft and unreadable.

"Hi," she said, not knowing what else to say.

He stood up and came toward her. "I see you found everything."

She laughed and lifted her arms, draped in the too–long sleeves of his robe. "Yeah, thanks. But, um—you’re still wet."

"Oh—yeah. Well, I guess the fire’s going okay, so—I’ll go and change. Back in a minute."

He started past her. She moved just slightly, blocking his path. Locking her gaze with his, she put her hands on his hips.

"Tannis—"

Without a word she caught the bottom of his sweater in her hands and lifted it. He closed his eyes; she heard the whisper of an escaping breath, and then in one quick movement he hauled the sweater up and over his head.

"Your skin’s so cool," she whispered, sliding her hands up over his ribs. She noted but didn’t remark on the narrow silver slashes of old knife scars there. They were just a part of him, like the pattern of dark brown hair on his body, and the cluster of three small moles near the apex of his rib cage.

"Tannis," he said again, hoarsely this time. He covered her wandering hands with his, trapping them against his sides.

For a long moment her gaze didn’t waver, and then, with a sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead on his chest. Beneath her hands, somewhere deep inside him, she felt him shiver.

His hands gripped her shoulders, hard. "What’s the matter?" she whispered against his skin, warming him with her breath.

"I don’t know." His voice grated in his chest. "An attack of conscience. I guess."

She gave a soft, shaky laugh. "For what, seducing me? I don’t see how you can. It looks to me like I’m the one doing the seducing."

He chuckled, a breathy spurt of surprise and amusement. "Oh, is that what you’re doing?"

"Yes. I think so. I’ve never tried it before." It was funny; she felt so calm. Almost sleepy. For the first time since she’d met Dillon, she was full of confidence, and the absolute certainty that this was right. "Dillon?" she moved her open mouth back and forth across his chest. "Um—I could probably use a little encouragement. Could you please tell me how I’m doing?"

"You know very well how you’re doing." His hands had gentled on her shoulders, massaging her through the layers of blue terry cloth. Now they moved slowly downward along the lapels of the robe, found and unknotted the sash, pulled it through the loops and let it drop. The robe fell open. Reaching inside, his hands sought her waist, spanned it, and drew her to him. Her nakedness cringed pleasantly against his hard, cold body, trembling with shivers of shock and delight as his hands left her waist and slipped downward again, curving over her bottom, gathering her in.

The unexpected bite of rough fabric against her belly and the sensitive places below made her gasp. His response was immediate and devastating; shifting only a little, he nudged his thigh between hers, inflaming the tender flesh there. Heat raced through her body in a scalding flood and settled, throbbing, in the part of her that was receiving that insistent pressure. Losing the support of her legs, she braced her hands against Dillon’s neck and sagged against him, riding the hard, vital ridge of his thigh.

As she turned her cheek against his chest and expelled her breath in a long sigh, she felt him lift her, criss–crossing her body with his arms, touching her with blatant eroticism in so many ways, in so many places. Caressing her bottom, cradling her nape, teasing her sensitized nipples against the raw–silk roughness of hair, tracing the delicate shell of her ear with his mouth, sending ripples of exquisite sensation shooting along her nerves with every breath.

Her arousal was an explosion, white–hot and devastating, her response to it a small, desperate cry: "
Dillon—"

She wasn’t calm and confident anymore. She wasn’t a languid seductress taking sensual pleasure in her own and in her partner’s responses. She was riding a lightning bolt, out of control. And all of a sudden she knew that her experience with Dan bore no more resemblance to what was happening to her now than a cozy fireplace does to a forest fire.

Dillon picked her up and stood for a moment with her in his arms, looking down into her shock–glazed eyes. He heard her quick, shallow breaths, and the little break in them when she swallowed. He felt the small vibrations in her body, and saw the sheen of perspiration that dusted the bridge of her nose and the delicate skin under her eyes. He recognized panic when he saw it.

Tenderness flooded through him, taming his own passions. Smiling, he whispered, "It’s all right—I’ve got you."

Her laugh resembled a whimper. Touching his lips with her fingers, she murmured, "Some seducer I am."

His smile formed against her fingertips. "Yeah, you are."

She felt his warm breath, and then a kind of melting as he drew her fingers one by one into his mouth, stroking their sensitive pads until they tingled, and the tingling ran into her palm, up her arm, and then all through her body. She licked her own lips, wanting the taste of him there. Her hand lay along his jaw, her fingers traced the outline of his ear while the still–wet tips of his hair touched them like tiny kisses.

Something swelled inside her, like a wave gathering momentum, making her body arch involuntarily toward his. She slid her fingers into his hair and lifted her face, seeking him blindly.

"Tannis—" his breath caressed her parted lips "—I want you. In fact—" There was a sigh, and the lightest of touches, like satin. "I think—I really need you." His lips pressed delicately against hers. His tongue drew a tantalizing line along the inside of her lower lip. "But I’ll take you home this minute if that’s what you want."

"I don’t want to go home." She moved her head from side to side, making her open mouth slide against his, finding that warm–slick contact as breathtaking as brandy.

"What do you want?" His voice was a growl she felt deep inside. Her heartbeat was thunderous. She drifted on undulating waves of sound. "I want—"

"Yes?"

"I want—" She was floating, whirling, caught in a maelstrom of heat and thunder, pulsing rhythms and rapturous spirals. She didn’t know whether she said the words, or only formed them in her mind.
I want you.

—She lay on her back on the soft rug before the fire. Dillon’s robe was a jumble underneath her, something she barely noticed, and minded not at all. His body was arranged alongside and above hers, making her aware of its hard, rough weight with all of her softest, most sensitive places. One of his hands held one of hers captive, pressed against the rug near her ear. His other arm cradled her head, his hand stroking her throat, lifting her chin, holding her mouth in readiness for him, while her hand clung to the firm, resilient muscle of his shoulder as if to a life preserver.

She looked up at his face and saw the grooves she loved, and her body lifted in a sinuous, unconscious yearning. She closed her eyes, sighed, and then opened the fingers of her captive hand, giving to him the gift of her unconditional trust and surrender.

Languorously now, in the slow, honeyed dance of passion, Dillon laced his fingers with hers. As he lowered his head, breaths hung suspended, then merged in a warm, intoxicating swirl. Lips touched, brushed, and sampled— silk on satin— then shifted and sampled a new and more erotic melding, while his fingers traced a delicate line along the arch of her throat.

Beneath his fingers Dillon felt the flutter of a pulse, a fragile thing, like the struggles of a captive butterfly. And yet, when he pressed his mouth against it, it seemed to echo and rebound through the whole of his being. Overcome, he turned his face into the hollow of her neck. Her hand slipped up over his shoulder to stroke the back of his neck, almost as if she were comforting him.

He felt the quickening rise and fall of her chest, pushing the gentle swell of her breasts against his chest. Pulling back from her a little, he watched the dusky crests change shape and texture, watched the firelight flit across her skin in random patterns of gold and shadows, and thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful. The fire burned hot, searing her breasts and his back like the rays of a midsummer sun; and yet, compared to the scalding need inside him, it felt more like a summer rain. Stunned by his need, and her response to it, he bowed his back and brought his mouth to one tender nipple.

At first he only warmed it with his breath, holding it in his open mouth, teasing, tormenting, while she held her breath. Her stomach muscles tightened and trembled beneath his. When at last he touched the pebbled tip with his tongue, drawing gentle, laving circles around it, her breath escaped her in a shuddering gasp, and this time it was her thigh muscles that tightened.

He knew it was only an involuntary tightening, a feminine reflex of protection. Nevertheless, he lifted his head and, catching her free hand, carried it to the rug above her head and held it there. Gently interweaving his fingers with hers, he stared down at the pattern of stress wrinkles in her forehead and whispered, "I can still stop if you want me to."

"No!" It was a whimper almost of pain.

"Tannis, open your eyes," he commanded hoarsely. "Look at me."

She obeyed him like one coming out of a drugged sleep.

"I’ll never hurt you. In any way. You know that, don’t you?"

She nodded, her drowned eyes clinging to him. He hesitated then, knowing what he was about to ask of her, understanding that there is no one so naked and vulnerable—both physically and emotionally—as a woman when she opens herself to a man. "Trust me," he whispered, knowing that she had trusted a man once and had her trust cruelly violated.

When she sighed, "I do—" and he felt her body relax and move sinuously under his, and her thighs open to make a place for him, he was so shaken he forgot about his own nakedness and vulnerability. And he forgot, while he had promised from his heart never to hurt her, that he had neglected to secure the same promise from her in return.

I didn’t know
, Tannis thought as she exploded, heart, soul, and body. It was her last coherent thought for a while. She was used to explosions, but this—this was holocaust, something she wouldn’t survive without being irrevocably changed. It was as if the old Tannis had been vaporized and a new one formed from the floating, drifting molecules.

And the difference in her was Dillon. He was with her in the holocaust, a part of it, and ever afterward he would be a part of her; destroyed and reformed into a new whole, not a joining, but a blending.

And yet none of that was conscious thought, only feelings. All she knew, when she was once again fully aware of her body and the one she held so tightly in her arms, was that she never, ever wanted to be separate from him again.
Dillon.
Now he was a real and solid weight on her chest, belly, and thighs, his arms a strong support under her, his back sweat–slick and cool beneath her stroking hands. The melding of their bodies seemed complete—legs entwined, flesh upon flesh, rocking gently to the rhythms of each other’s pulsebeats. She felt that to separate herself from him now would be an agony akin to having her heart ripped from her chest.

When he lifted his face from the warm curve of her neck, she actually gave a small cry of pain, and he asked her what was wrong.

"Don’t leave me," she whispered, frightened.

His eyes were tender and a little sad. "I won’t," he said, not quite understanding. "I told you that."

"No—I mean now. Please, stay and hold me a little longer."

"As long as you want me to." He brushed his open mouth across her forehead. "But I must be heavy."

"No." She hugged him fiercely.

"Oof." He gasped, laughing. "Here, I have an idea." Ignoring her protests, he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, altering their union only slightly. "There now," he murmured, stroking her back as she settled upon his chest with a sigh, "that’s better."

"I didn’t know," Tannis said sleepily sometime later.

"Know what, babe?" Dillon’s voice was groggy, too.

"Didn’t know it could be like this."