Your Desire (14 page)

Placing her hands on his waist, she neither embraced him nor pushed away. She just absorbed the feel of him.

“I’m sorry, Allison.”

“For what?”

“For the fence, the lamp, for all the trouble. For being shitty when you were doing everything in your power to help me. I’m sorry for all of it. I just hope you understand.”

“I think I do,” she whispered. She did then what she’d wanted to do almost since meeting him. Her arms slid around his waist. His heartbeat, steady under her ear, sped up as he lightly pressed her head against him, holding her where she could sense the very core of him. A shudder passed through him; she felt as though it had run through her.

“I’m afraid.” Now the drumbeat of his heart was so loud, it filled her head.

For a man like Frank, fear must have been the hardest thing in the world to admit.

She nodded against his chest. “I know what you’re thinking. What if the doctors are wrong.”

The breath he released was like a live thing between them, felt as well as heard.

“Yes.
What ifs
have been plaguing me all night. I’m scared shitless, Allison, and I don’t know what to do. All my life there’ve been alternatives. Not always good ones, but some action I could take to affect an outcome. I’m at a loss here. Powerless.”

“Frank, the crash just happened. You have to give yourself time to heal.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, being handicapped when so much rides on your being in charge. Not you! Not with your magic touch, you wouldn’t know how I feel.” He groaned into her hair.

His pain washed over her and she tightened her arms. He responded, crushing her to him.

“What can I do to help you?”

“Lend me some of your strength. Tell me I’m going to be all right. Say it over and over until I believe you. Don’t leave me alone in the dark, with nothing but my thoughts for company.” His breath hitched. “Please.”

She leaned back to look into his face. Tears glistened in his eyes and he turned away. With a finger to his chin she brought his head back. Cupping his neck below his ear, she stroked her thumb across his cheek.

“Shall I tell you a secret now? I need you tonight, too. I need your warmth and comfort. Please hold me. Make me feel like a woman, not a nurse or just another volunteer. Not someone everyone knows will be available on Saturday night to fill in an extra shift. But someone desired.”

He relaxed his hold ever so slightly, some of the stiffness leaving him.

“Stress won’t help you heal faster,” she said, “so let go of that drive for perfection. Until you’re healed, just think about yourself.” Physician, heal thyself, she thought. Maybe her life would have been different if she’d given more thought to herself as she healed.
Had
she ever healed, truly? From the accident all those years ago, and then from her parents’ illnesses and deaths?

Speaking to herself as well as Frank, she added, “Give yourself permission to be selfish and just think about what’s best for you.”

“And you,” he amended.

Smiling, she leaned against him again. “Okay, you can take on the burden of me. I’ll gladly take the gift of your holding me tonight, and when you leave tomorrow I hope we’ll both be better off.”

By unspoken consent, they got into bed, breaking apart to move to opposite sides then coming together again like iron to a magnet. He wore his briefs, she her nightgown. Neither sought sex, just the other’s touch.

Quietly, held in his arms, Allison spoke of growing up on the farm. She described her parents and her uncle John, who lived on the next farm with his two sons and helped with her sheep. She portrayed in vivid words the seasons of her life in the
Virginia
mountains. The thrill of walking through the woods while being showered with dogwood petals, summer picnics held on slabs of rock in the middle of rushing streams, crisp air and golden leaves, and winters of sledding down the hill into the back pasture. She didn’t mention falling from her horse, crawling up the hillside of brambles or pushing herself in a painful effort to get home, thus making the injuries much worse than they would have been. Left out was the psychological pain the scars and limp caused, which affected her activities and view of the world. No, she’d kept the accident that had changed her life forever to herself.

Frank told of growing up in a row of dark tenement houses in
Chicago, where the winters were cold but the wind whipping from the lake made them twice as frigid. Describing his friends, he managed to make her laugh at their pranks, which he hinted were just inside the boundary of the law. There was no happy talk of family outings or afternoons spent with his parents and brother.

But his voice took on a sense of wonder when he explained his love affair with math and science, and how a casual interest finally turned to dedication. A note of pride crept into his tone when he told how his discipline and focus had earned him a scholarship to the university—the first person in his family to attend.

“Your parents must have been beside themselves with pride when you graduated,” she said.

He shrugged. “I guess my mother was happy, I don’t know. My dad died right after high school graduation and mom remarried soon afterward. We talk every few weeks but I don’t see her or my brother much. Truthfully, I don’t think I ever looked back after I left there, so I’m not sure I would have known if they were proud of me.” He shifted closer to her. “I admire that you took such good care of your folks. Especially your mother, when you could have been off at school, enjoying yourself. They needed you and you were here for them. I think at that age I might have been too selfish to do the right thing.”

“I doubt you have a selfish bone in your body.”

He snorted. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you don’t get where I am in business without being selfish.”

She raised on her elbow and looked at him, seeing the outline of his features in the pale light. Her nipples pressed through the thin material of her nightgown and rubbed his side. Mentally she caught her breath at the sensuousness of their contact. The hitch she heard in his breath was literal. “I’m a very good judge of character.”

“You must be some kind of judge, or you’d be pretty nervous pressing against me like that. You feel so damn good, Allison. In my mind I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can do anything about it. God knows, I wish I could.”

“No stress, remember? What we’ve just shared has been wonderful.” She touched his forehead. “Your head still hurts.”

He nodded. “How did you know?”

“Magic.” With a few presses on the small buttons, she set her watch alarm to go off in two hours. Then she pulled herself up and kissed him with all the tenderness she could muster. “Come here.” He turned to her and she wrapped her arm around him, softly stroking his head with her free hand. “Try to sleep. I’ve got you.”

Nestling his head against her breasts he murmured, “I can hear your heart, Allison. Can you hear mine?” With a soft sigh, he draped his arm over her hip and fell asleep.

* * * *

Half asleep, he’d first thought he was having a wet dream. His mouth was very near a nipple and with only a slight movement, he captured the nub, sucking it through some flimsy material. The taste was all the more erotic through the now-wet fabric. His tongue swirled over it, teasing, savoring, and finally causing the woman he was with to moan in pleasure.

Yeah, baby.
With her moan, his cock became hard as steel. He rubbed the hard ridge along her thigh.

Never. He’d never been so aroused. Well, maybe the first time or two he’d had a woman, but that was as a boy, when all he could think about was getting off. In all the years since, as he’d come to appreciate the chase, the seduction and the conquest, there had never been a moment like he felt now. Before, the satisfaction had come from the process of winning. Now, in his dream, there was nothing more than the sheer heat of the woman he held and the thrill of knowing she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

When she used a gentle touch on his nape to hold him closer, he realized he was awake. Where he was and who he was with hit him like a blow. It was Allison’s nipple his tongue teased, Allison’s thigh he rubbed, Allison’s body he wanted to be inside or die. This wasn’t some broad, or even a casual friend he’d brought home for an evening of mutually satisfying sex. This was no quick fuck, this was
Allison
.

She wanted him, of that he was certain. Last night she let him know when she’d said she needed to be held and desired as a woman. He didn’t think Allison was the kind of woman who said that to just any man, so she must have felt the same spark between them he did.

His mind grasped the point, even as his body moved past caring.

Was she even awake? He wasn’t sure. Her body moved against his, and soft whimpers escaped her lips. His hand moved down her thigh, finally reaching the hem of her gown. Sliding his hand under, he smoothed the thin material back up her leg, kneading her soft ass when he reached it.

With no effort at all, he pushed her to her back, bringing his hand from the cheeks of her butt to the soft curls of her pussy. She released his neck and squirmed, sighing and stretching. Her arms didn’t settle at her side, so they must be raised. Such trust—she’d left her body wide open to him.

“Allison? Are you awake?” His voice was no softer than his touch, as his fingers combed through her curls, inching to that secret place he knew she wanted him to be.

“Hmm-hmm. How’s your head?”

He chuckled for the first time in what felt like forever. “Oh, my head feels a lot better.” Dipping the head in question to lick her nipple, he pressed his hand against her mound. She parted her legs, allowing him the access he craved. He stroked her clit, gently at first then more insistently before searing a path down her stomach with his tongue.

“Frank?” She breathed his name.

“Hmm?” He buried his face in her pussy. The scent of her arousal forced even more blood rushing to his groin. He didn’t know how he could stand much more. She smelled sweet, so sweet, and he wanted her. God, yes! All of her. With a lightning caress, his tongue swept across her clit, while one finger worked in and out of her slick, hot lips.

“Frank!”

Sneaking another, longer lick, confirmed his first thought. She tasted even better than she smelled.

He raised his head, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t see.
There
was a joke he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone.
“Guess what I can do as well without sight as with?”

The motion of his finger never ceased, even as he answered her.

“What is it, sweetheart?” For her, he wanted to sound in command and sophisticated. But even to his own ears, his voice, low and raspy, gave him away as being like any other man who was dying to screw a woman. The common touch wasn’t good enough for Allison.

“What you’re doing feels so good, but please … please … please, Frank.”

She hadn’t finished her plea before he was standing, ripping his briefs off. “Take off your nightgown. I can’t see you but I want to feel all of you against all of me.”

The bed squeaked and he heard her softly grunt.
Taking off her gown.
Several squeaks.
Allison lying back, moving to the center.

“I’m ready.”

Her voice, half hoarse with desire, half shy, filled him with awe that she could feel both with him.
For
him. Two words. Yet they meant so much. In his heart, he knew a promise that making love with Allison would be something momentous, earth-shattering. Something that could change his life.

Now was not the time to analyze what was about to happen, however. He pushed it from his mind, needing to keep what they were doing simple, wanting nothing more than to bring each of them pleasure.

He knelt on the bed, gingerly reaching for her. She took his hand and covered her breast. Breathing became difficult. What was wrong with him? It’s not like she was his first. In fact, he didn’t want to think how many there had been before her.

Before
didn’t matter now. Allison was special.

He scooted to her, immediately stretching out between her parted legs. Braced on one elbow, he used his other hand to glide the head of his penis between her lips.

“Oh, my God,” she groaned.

“I can’t wait too long,” he gasped in reply.

“Don’t! Please don’t.”

“I won’t. I won’t, baby.” With one smooth thrust he entered her.

Her legs bent and came up around his waist. Raising his hips caused the most fantastic sensation. He wouldn’t hold out long at this rate. She was so
tight
, like she hadn’t been with a man in a long while. The thought made him absurdly happy.

“You’re tight, sweetheart, and so hot. I love being in you.”

Her hands were all over his shoulders and arms, stroking his skin. Her legs spread even wider.

“When you’re inside me it’s as though this is the way life should be.” Her hips rose to meet him. “Oh!”

Her nipples brushed his chest as they moved. He increased the sweet friction by leaning forward to take her lips. She opened for him and he thrust his tongue into her mouth in rhythm with his hips. Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled him onto her.

“Too heavy,” he whispered.

“I want it, please. Faster.”

“Yes.”

She sucked his tongue as he gave her his cock, hard and fast. Within seconds she screamed into his mouth.

Holy shit!
Her contractions were so powerful, cascading along the length of him. He held fast, reveling in pure sensation. When she calmed somewhat, he withdrew and thrust hard, setting her off again.

Pulling his mouth away he pushed up and off of her, driving once more, so deeply he thought he touched the back of her womb. Whether reality or imagination, that image was enough to make him erupt.

The emotion was too sweet. Too sweet to cry out, to yell, to call her name. He couldn’t put the world into rational perspective, couldn’t think of what came next, couldn’t imagine what life would be if he couldn’t have her again and again.