“Thanks,” he murmured, coming to full awareness. He hadn’t been disoriented, since this was his home. Finding Marni sitting beside him, well, that was something else.
“You’re welcome. How does it feel … or shouldn’t I ask?”
“You shouldn’t ask,” he drawled, then stretched, twisting his torso. When he settled back, his eyes were on her. “Actually, it’s not bad. The discomfort’s localized now. It was worse when I was sleeping, because I couldn’t pinpoint it and it seemed to be all over.” He raised the hand in question and glared at the white gauze. “Helluva big bandage. I’ll have to get rid of some of this stuff.”
“Don’t you dare! If it was put on, it was put on for a reason.”
“How am I gonna shower?”
“Hold your hand up in the air out of the spray … or forget the shower and take a bath.”
“I never take baths.”
She shrugged. “Then take a shower with your hand in the air, and be grateful it’s your left hand. If it had been your right, you’d be inbigtrouble.”
He ran his palm over the stubble on his jaw. “You’ve got a point there.” His gaze skittered hesitantly to hers. “I must look like something the cat dragged in.”
She couldn’t have disagreed with him more. He looked a little rough, but all man, every sinewy, stubbly, hairy inch. “You look fine, no, wonderful, given the circumstances.” Her voice softened even more. “I’ve never seen you in the morning this way. We … we never spent a full night together.”
He smiled in regret, his voice as soft as hers. “So now we’ve done it, and we haven’t evendoneit.” He raised his good hand and skimmed a finger over her lips, back and forth, whisper-light. “Do you know, I haven’t even kissed you? Lord, I’ve wanted to, but I didn’t know if you wanted it, and it seemed more important to talk.”
Marni felt her insides melting. “Fourteen years ago it was the other way around.”
“We’re older now. Maybe we’ve got our priorities straight…. But I still want to kiss you.” He was stroking her cheek ever so gently, and she’d begun to tremble. “Will you let me?”
“You always had the bluest eyes,” she whispered, mesmerized by them, drowning in them. “I could never deny you when you looked at me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like you wanted me. Like you knew that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing, but you wanted me anyway. Like there was something aboutmethat you wanted, just me.”
“There is.” He slid his fingers into her hair and urged her head down. “There is, Marni. You’re … very … special….” The last was whispered against her lips, the sound vanishing into her mouth, which had opened, and waited, but was waiting no more.
It started gently, a tender reacquaintance, kisses whispered from one mouth to the other in a slow, renewing exchange. For Marni it was a homecoming; there was something about the taste of Web, the texture of his lips, the instinctive way he pleased her that erased the years that had passed. For Web the homecoming was no less true; there was something about the softness of Marni’s lips, the way they clung to his, the way her honeyed freshness poured warmly into him that made him forget everything that had come between this and their last kiss.
Familiarly their lips touched and sipped and danced. As it had always done, though, desire soon began to clamor, and whispered kisses were no longer enough. Web’s mouth grew more forceful, Marni’s demanded in return, and it was fire, hot, sweet fire surging through their veins, singeing all threads of caution.
Eyes closed under the force of sensation, Marni took everything he offered and gave as much in return. His mouth slanted openly against hers, hungrily devouring it. Her mouth fought fiercely for his, possessing it in turn. He ran his tongue along the line of her teeth and beyond; she caressed it with her own, then drew it in deeper. And while his hand wound restlessly through her hair, her own spread feverishly across his chest.
“C’mere,” he growled, and swiftly rolled her over him until she was on her back and he was above her. Her neck rested in the crook of his elbow, and it was that elbow that propped him up so he could touch her as she’d done him.
Even had their mouths not come together again, she wouldn’t have said a word in protest, because the fire was too hot, the sweetness too sweet to deprive herself of this little bit of heaven. Web had always been this for her, a flame licking at her nerve ends, spreading a molten desire within her that water couldn’t begin to quench.
He cupped her breast through the knit of her overblouse, molding it to his palm, kneading and circling until at last his fingers homed in on the tight nub at its crest. Her flesh swelled, and she arched up, seeking even closer contact with the instrument of such bliss. She’d been starving for years; now she couldn’t get enough. It was sheer relief when he impatiently tugged the overblouse from her hips.
“Lift up, sweet … there … I need … to touch you, Marni!”
She helped him, because she needed the very same thing, and she was tossing the blouse aside even as Web unhooked her bra and tore it away. Then he was lying half over her again, his large hand greedily rediscovering her blossoming flesh, and she was moaning in delight, straining for more, bunching the damp skin of his back in hands that clenched and unclenched, shifted, then clenched again.
She was in a frenzy. The tight knot in her belly was growing, inflamed not only by his thorough exploration of her nakedness but by the hardness of his sex pressing boldly against her thigh. When he slid down, she dug her fingers into his hair, holding on for dear life as his mouth opened over her breast, his tongue bathed it, his teeth closed around one distended nipple and tugged a path to her womb.
“Web!” she cried. “Oh, God, I need … I need …”
He slid back up, and her hand lowered instinctively to him, cupping him, caressing him until even that wasn’t enough. His hand tangled with hers then, clutching at the tab of his zipper, tugging it down. He took her fingers and led them inside his briefs. He was trembling as badly as she was, and his voice shook with urgency.
“Touch me … touch me, sunshine …”
This time the pet name was so perfectly placed, so very right that it was stimulation in and of itself. She touched him, stroked him, pleasured him until he gave a hoarse cry of even greater need. Then he was tugging at her pants, freeing her hips for his invasion.
