“Hold on,” he instructed in a whisper as he draped my arms around his neck.
For a minute we sat there, locked eye to eye.I knew the story my face told.My eyes were bright, my cheeks pink, my lips moist, parted and inviting.
Peter’s face held tell-tale signs of its own.His skin was damp, his eyes intense.Small brackets on either side of his nose told of the self-control he was exerting.And his mouth was open to allow the free passage of what was very close to heavy breathing.
Looping my arms loosely around his neck, I held on.I watched him, watched him closely.
Reaching behind me, he unhooked my garter belt.It fell aside to leave me totally bare from the waist down.Peter looked at my stomach, looked at his hands on my stomach, looked at the gentle movement of my flesh when he began to lightly knead it.His fingers slipped lower, seeming irrevocably drawn to the pale nest between my legs.But at the first small gasp I gave when he drew me open, he moved his hands higher again.They didn’t stop this time until they cupped my breasts.
With a care that was in sharp contrast to the frenzied way we’d made love earlier, he took hold of the bunched hem of the teddy and drew it over my head.I had to release his neck to free my arms, and before I could grab onto him again, he threaded his fingers through mine and held my hands off to the sides.
For the first time, I felt shy.I wasn’t sure whether it was my total nudity, or the shameless way I was sitting, or the intentness with which Peter studied my body, but at that moment I would have given anything for a sheet to draw up.
“Don’t look away,” Peter whispered just as I realized that I had.“You are—” he paused, as though seeking the words “—the realization of a fantasy.I’ve been thinking about just this, imagining it since the first time I saw you.”Placing my hands at the back of his waist, hedrew me onto his lap.As my body came into full contact with his, I forgot my shyness.For one thing, he was magnificently aroused and made no attempt to hide it.For another, the sense of homecoming was stunning.
We fit perfectly.My head found its niche on his shoulder, my breasts nestled gently against his chest, my thighs framed his hips.I felt comfortable and content.I felt protected.I felt whole.
Which wasn’t to say that I complained when Peter tipped his head to nibble on my neck.Or that I fretted when he began to play with my breasts.Or that I raised a fuss when the magic of his fingers stirred up new yearnings between my legs.
This time there was tenderness.We explored each other more slowly, savoring all the little things we’d missed in the savagery of our first joining.But where I’d thought nothing could match the explosiveness of that first time, I was wrong.The slow rise, the gentle savoring, the feint and parry, the holding back—all led to a wildness that was every bit as combustive as savagery.
This time when we lay in the aftermath of orgasm, our limp bodies slick with sweat, our hearts pounding against each other, I couldn’t deny the fact that Peter did to me what no man had ever done.I’d thought it earlier, now I thought it again.He made me feel whole.
Peter took it one step further.When he’d recoveredenough to speak, he raised himself on an elbow above me, pressed a gentle kiss to my lips and said, “I love you.”
I hadn’t expected that.I didn’t want it.The words were too strong, too soon.They suggested and demanded.They evoked thoughts of things I wasn’t ready to face.
He must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he ran his tongue over my chin, ending in a feather-light kiss, and said, “I’m not asking you to love me back.Not yet.All I want is time together to see if it’s real.There’s been something between us from the start.Part of it’s physical, and that physical thing builds when we’re apart, so we come together and think of nothing but sex.”
Cupping my throat, he looked me straight in the eye.“But there’s more, Jill.There’s a whole lot more.I know you don’t want it to be there, but it is—just like when we first met, you didn’t want there to be anything physical, but you reached a point where you couldn’t deny it.You’ll reach that point about the rest.I know you will.But we need time together for that.”
I didn’t want to think about love.Icouldn’tthink about love.Neither, though, could I think about walking away from Peter.I’d come to New York to see him.I wanted to be with him.If he wanted to think about deeper things, that was fine, as long as I could just enjoy him in the here-and-now.
“Time, Jill,” he repeated, pinning me with apale green stare.“Can you give me that?”
“On one condition,” I whispered.“You’ll have to feed me.I’m starved.”
8
Swansy was in an uproar when I reached her house early Wednesday morning.She was watching the talk show that she watched every morning at that time, and the topic was rape.“Have you ever heard anythin’ so stupid?”she warbled, then snorted.“Men bein’ raped by women—it can’t happen unless the man wants it, and then it ain’t no rape.But those men yammer on, tryin’ to drum up sympathy for the pain they’ve suffered.I don’t buy it.Don’t buy it for a minute.”
I studied the three men alternately captured on the television screen.“They seem sincere enough,” I said.“Apparently they buy their story, even if you don’t.”
“It’s hogwash.Men are bigger ’n stronger ’n we are.They have the advantage every time, so we have to be on our toes up here—” she tapped her head “—if we don’t want ’em to run roughshod over us.”
I looked at Swansy, so petite, yet so strong, and though I wasn’t making any judgments about the possibility of a man being raped, I couldn’t argue the merit of a woman’s being onher toes.I’d gone flat-footed through the past four days, taking everything Peter had given.Now I needed to get back on the ball.
Rebecca nudged her cold nose under my hand.I was stroking her muzzle when Swansy said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”I wasn’t really in the frame of mind to discuss men who’d been raped.
She came through for me as she had so many times before.Pressing the remote control, she turned off the TV.“Sit down and tell me, girl.Tell me everything.”
I sat.Rebecca put her head on my thigh.“Where should I begin?”
Swansy’s smile was sweet and knowing.“How was the flight?”
“Smooth.”
