He was touching her then, opening her, stroking deeper and deeper until she was moving against his hand, taking tiny, gasping breaths, instinctively stretching her thighs apart in a need for more.
Her control was slipping, but she didn’t want it to. She wanted the beauty to last forever, no, longer. Putting a shaky hand around Web’s wrist, she begged him, “Please … I want to touch you, too … I need to …”
“But I want you to come,” he said in a hushed whisper by her ear.
“This way, later. The first time—now—I want you inside. Please … take off your pants, Web …”
His fingers stopped their sweet torment and slowly, reluctantly, withdrew. He didn’t move to take off his clothes until he’d kissed her so thoroughly that she thought she’d disintegrate there and then. But she didn’t, and he shifted her from his lap, sat forward to rid himself of his shirt, then stood and peeled off the rest of his clothes. For a moment, just before lowering his jeans, he suddenly wished he hadn’t been as adept at building that fire and that it was still pitch-black in the room. The last thing he wanted was to spoil the mood by having Marni see his scars. But they were there; he couldn’t erase them, and if she loved him …
Marni sat watching, enthralled as more and more of his flesh was revealed. It was a long minute before she even saw his leg, so fascinated had she been with what else was now bare. But inevitably her gaze fastened on the multiple lines, some jagged, others straight, that formed a frightening pattern along the length of his right thigh.
“Web?” She caught her breath and, eyes filling with tears, looked up at him. “You didn’t tell me … I didn’t know….”
Quickly he knelt by her side and took both of her hands tightly in his. “Forget them, sweetheart. They’re part of the past, and the past has no place here and now.”
“But so many—”
“And all healed. No pain. No limp. Forget them. They don’t matter.” When she remained doubtful, he began to whisper kisses over her face. “Forget them,” he breathed against her eyelids, then her lips. “Just love me … I need that more than anything …”
More than anything, that was what Marni needed, too. So she forgot. She pushed all thought of his scars and what had caused them from her mind. He was right. The past had no place here and now, and she refused to let it infringe on her present happiness. There would be a time to discuss scars she assured herself dazedly, but that time wasn’t now, when the tender kisses he was raining over her face and throat, when the intimate sweep of his hands on her breasts was making clear thought an impossibility.
Her already simmering blood began to boil when he stood and reached for her hands to draw her up. She resisted, instead flattening her palms on his abdomen, moving them around and down. Gently, wonderingly, she encircled him and began a rhythmic stroking.
If he’d had any qualms about her reaction to his forty-year-old body, or fears that the sight of his leg would dull her desire, they were put soundly to rest by her worshipful ministration. He was digging his fingers into her shoulders by the time she leaned and pressed soft, wet kisses to his navel. Her hands, holding him, were between her breasts. Tucking in her chin, she slid her lips lower.
He was suddenly forcing her chin up, a pained smile on his face. “You don’t play fair,” he managed tightly. “I’m not made of stone.”
“But I want you to—”
“This way, later,” he whispered, repeating her earlier words. “For now, though, you were right …” When he reached for her hands this time, she stood, then with his help took off the rest of her clothes. They looked at each other, drenched in the pale orange glow of the fire. Then they came together, bare bodies touching for the first time in fourteen years, and it was so strangely new yet familiar, so stunningly electric yet right, that once again tears filled Marni’s eyes and this time trickled down her cheeks.
Web felt them against his chest, and his arms tightened convulsively around her. “Oh, no …”
“Just joy, Web,” she said as she laughed, then sniffled. “Tears of joy.” She had her arms wrapped around his neck and held on while he lowered them both to the woven rug before the fire. Bracing himself on his elbows, he traced the curve of her lips with the tip of his tongue. She tried to capture him, but he eluded her, so she raised her head and tried again. Soon he was thrusting his tongue into her welcoming mouth, thrusting and retreating only to thrust again when she whimpered in protest at the momentary loss.
She welcomed the feel of his large body over hers. She felt sheltered, protected, increasingly aroused by everything masculine about him. Her hands skated over the corded swells of his back, glided to his waist and spread over his firm buttocks. She arched up to the hand he’d slipped between their bodies and offered him her breasts, her belly, the smoldering spot between her legs.
They touched and caressed, whispered soft words of love, of pleasure, of urging as their mutual need grew. It was as if nothing in the world could touch them but each other, as if that touch was life-giving and life-sustaining to the extent that their beings were defined by it. Web’s lips gave form and substance to each of Marni’s features, as his hands did to her every feminine curve. Her mouth gave shape and purpose to his, as her hands did to his every masculine line.
Finally, locked in each other’s gaze, they merged fully. Web filled her last empty place, bowed his back and pressed even more deeply until he touched the entrance to her womb.
“I love you,” he mouthed, unable to produce further sound.
The best she could do was to brokenly mouth the words back. Her breath seemed caught in her throat, trapped by the intensity of the moment. She’d never felt as much of a person, as much of a woman as she did now, with Web’s masculinity surrounding her, filling her, completing her. Fourteen years ago they’d made love, and it had been breathtaking, too, but so different. Now she was old enough to understand and appreciate the full value of what she and Web shared. The extraordinary pleasure was emotional as well as physical, a total commitment on both of their parts to that precious quality of togetherness.
Web felt it, too. As he held himself still, buried deep inside Marni, he knew that he’d never before felt the same pleasure, the same satisfaction with another woman. The pleasure, the satisfaction, encompassed not only his body but his mind and heart as well, and the look of wonder on Marni’s face told him the feeling was shared.
Slowly he began to move, all the while watching her. Waves of bliss flowed over her features as he thrust gently, then with increasing speed and force as she moved in tempo beneath him. The act he’d carried through so many times before seemed to have taken on an entirely new and incredible intimacy that added fuel to the flame in his combustive body.
Harder and deeper he plunged, his ardor matched by her increasing abandon. Before long they were both lost in a world of glorious sensation, a world that grew suddenly brilliant, then blinding. Marni caught her breath, arched up and was suspended for a long moment before shattering into paroxysms of mindless delight. The air left her lungs in choked spurts, but she was beyond noticing, as was Web, whose own body tensed, then jerked, then shuddered.
Only when the spasms had ended and his limbs grew suddenly weak did he collapse over her with a drawn-out moan. “Marni … my God! I’ve never …never…” He buried his face in the damp tendrils of hair at her neck and whispered, “I love you … so much …”
Marni was as limp and weak, but nothing could have kept the broad smile from her face. Words seemed inadequate, so she simply draped her arms over his shoulders, closed her eyes … and smiled on.
It was some time later before either of them moved, and then it was Web, sliding to her side, bringing her along to face him. He brushed the wayward fall of hair from her cheeks and let his hand lightly caress her earlobe.
“You give so much, so much,” he whispered. “I almost feel as though I don’t deserve it.”
