There was another long, awkward silence Devan felt she had to fill.
"You know, we used to kid around about hooking our parents up—her dad and my mom, but my mom couldn't stand the guy."
"Your folks divorced?"
"Oh, um, no...they were never married." She raised her eyebrows to gently mock the scandal. "I'm afraid I'm the product of a youthful indiscretion. So, I've met him a couple of times, but I don't really know him." What was up with that? Why was she baring her soul to this guy who didn't even like her?
"That's too bad."
"Maybe. I guess you don't miss what you never had."
"Maybe not," he answered wistfully.
"Do you have any kids?"
"No." He had a strange look on his face.
There was another long silence, but Devan resolved not to start blathering away again or ask any more dumb questions. Mercifully, at last, Vaughn said something.
"I’ve never shared this cabin with anyone. I’ve always come here on my own, to be alone. But it’s nice having you here." He was weary of his own mistrust, of fighting his inclination to like this strange girl.
"I’m glad." Maybe he didn't hate her after all. Or maybe he was just saying that.
"I suppose I’ve been lonely."
Suddenly it seemed like the sleepiness from the first cocktail had dissolved, and she took a drink.
"I sometimes feel lonely, too, in my regular life back in Seattle." She sounded wistful. Distant.
"No friends?"
"I have friends," she said.
Not many. Not real, close
friends
, she thought.
"No boyfriend?"
"No, not really." She hoped that her blush at his question was invisible by the firelight. Then she hastily added, "But that’s not why I feel lonely," because the implication that it was sounded pathetic.
"Then why?"
"Well, even when you’re around people all the time, you can feel apart. I guess that’s how I feel most of the time."
"How so?"
She'd really put herself on the spot with her passing sympathetic comment. He was looking at her with patient interest, though. Could it be they were about to have an actual conversation?
"I don't know…I’m there in the room with people, but I’m still alone. Even when I talk to people, most of the time it’s as though I’m on autopilot, just saying what I’m supposed to say, and they’re doing the same, and there’s nothing real to the interaction at all.”
"Sure," he said, with a soft voice and a soft smile. "I know what you mean."
A tiny aperture seemed to be opening in the wall between them, and Devan was nearly giddy with relief as the burden of her isolation lightened.
"Sometimes," she went on, suddenly animated, "I feel like I connect more deeply with the characters in novels than with people I meet in real life—maybe because in novels you get to read their thoughts. In life, you never know what people are thinking."
"You mean you don’t know what I’m thinking right now?"
He arched one eyebrow, doing his best Lothario.
She flushed absolutely crimson and gave a queer little giggle. He laughed, not unkindly, amused at her reaction. He had meant to make a joke, but her odd giggle and the two drinks had warmed him. Once again he was finding himself stirred in her presence. She had an innocent quality that was both alluring and perplexing. It had been a long time since he had been with a woman, but it had been much, much longer since he had been with a woman who had not aggressively worked to seduce him. This retiring girl who blushed so easily, who seemed to like being near him but never made a suggestive gesture or remark was, for him, a novelty. He had not wanted anyone in such a long time. But yes. He would finally admit it to himself. He wanted her. He fought back the creeping realization that he was feeling more than the torturous lust that had been building since he'd found her there four nights ago. That had lead to the embarrassing debacle two days earlier. After months of celibacy, he told himself, he needed to get laid. He was almost past caring that he might be giving her just what she'd come for.
He was leaning in toward her, and she thought maybe he was going to kiss her.
A little stab of excitement—half fear, half arousal—jabbed at her belly. She couldn't understand it, but she wanted his kiss. That creeping warmth of desire spread through her, stirred by her simple proximity to this man, by the mere thought that he might touch her, that his lips might brush against hers. She had never experienced arousal this way before—outside her weird fantasies, outside Conrad's coercions.
Her desire made no sense to her. She barely knew this man. Hell, she was terrified of him, half the time. But then nothing had made sense since the day Conrad had taken her from her apartment. This strange moment—the unfamiliar buzzing warmth of the alcohol, the arousing nearness of Vaughn, her increasing willingness to give in to whatever impulse was drawing her to him, seemed to fit with her surreal time out of time there in that forest.
Moment by moment he seemed somehow nearer and nearer. He smiled a little, now and then, as they talked, and that smile, which she had seen so rarely, made her feel soft and almost giddy. Now his eyes, dark but flashing like polished metal, seemed to be seeking something in her.
A silence fell between them, and after a moment she watched as he unbent that marble arm, as his hand came slowly toward her. Softly he caressed her cheek, and this innocent touch did her heart sudden, delicious violence. Her blood pounded her pulse points with staccato bursts. Suddenly it was hard to breathe evenly.
“Is this all right?” he asked, smiling, his voice low and gentle.
She just nodded.
Vaughn stroked her hair, then drew his hand down her neck, across her collarbone, and down her arm, letting his hand linger on hers. He wasn't sure if he was caving in to a manipulative woman, or attempting the seduction of an innocent girl he'd practically assaulted two days earlier.
He took her drink from her and set their glasses on the hearth. Coming near, he ran his palms up her neck until his fingers were submerged in her hair. Her dark eyes pulling him in, her soft full lips, slightly parted, inviting him. He gave her one small kiss on her cheek, then kissed the corners of her mouth. He pulled back a little and looked at her. She was still. Waiting. Willing.
It wasn't what he'd expected. He felt warm and soft, and looking at her face that was like a gentle welcome, so open, so beckoning, he smiled a warm soft smile.
He kissed her fully, tenderly, long and deep.
She was surprised by the power of that kiss, startled to find her whole body reacting to his touch and his mouth when, just days before, she had imagined she would never again want a man touching her. But now her stomach was fluttering, her knees and crotch tingling, her body feeling strangely like it had those few times she had been touched, though he was not touching her that way. Her heart’s vital beats echoed between her legs, and she imagined he could feel it, too, like the reverberations from a bass drum.
She let out a tiny moan that surprised her and inspired him. He was suddenly more ardent, his kiss hotter, his hold on her trembling, his breathing rapid. Sensing his arousal she felt a fresh surge of fear. And her fear stoked her soft warmth to yearning 123
heat. He could do anything to her; the idea brought a hot ache to her groin. Conrad had been right about her—the fleeting thought stung her before she drove it away.
Still they were kissing as his hands slid from her hair, her scalp tingling with the memory of his fingers that were now lightly trailing over new terrain, stirring nerves along neck and shoulders, over back, bottom, thigh, the skin coming joyously awake everywhere his hand passed.
“Still all right?” he asked her, his voice still gentle, though he was panting, now.
She smiled, embarrassed, touched. He was making sure. After her stupid silence two days earlier. But her voice caught in her throat and all she could do was nod again.
As they sank into another kiss, she didn't know what to do with her hands but they seemed to float away from her will, drifting to his dark hair, finding it wonderfully soft, floating down to his face, holding his jaw, unshaven and rough, winding around his neck, down onto those broad shoulders, harder than she knew flesh could be, muscles offering gentle curves to mold her palms against. She was drawing him to her, or drawing herself to him, that wonderful ache guiding her to seek him. His hand curved around her thigh, just above the knee, and gently drew her leg across him, his other arm encircling her back, pulling her against him. Still locked in their melting kiss she found herself straddling him, their mouths, their chests, their bellies pressed together, his hips pressed between her thighs. The intimacy of their embrace startled and warmed her.
He felt her, hot and trembling against him—this same girl who had trembled beneath him when he'd pinned her in the mud, the same girl he'd been tormenting in his endless fantasies ever since. Again, that dark, fleeting thought: he could have her 124
however he wanted her. But then another surge of gentle affection. Somehow all his dark desire was mingling with tender arousal as he held her now.
Emerging momentarily from their kiss he held her a little from him. Her black hair was framed by a delicate halo of firelight, her face almost hidden from him. But he heard her little panting breaths, felt her body against his and under his hands, quivering provocatively with what he felt sure was arousal and desire for more. He pulled her to him once more.
Under his mouth, wrapped in his embrace, pressed to his body she felt bewildered and needful and strangely elated, warm and small and seeking. And now, she not only felt his hands caressing her hair and tickling over her back and sliding over her thigh and ass; she not only felt the brush of his beard against her neck and jaw as he kissed and licked her throat in a way that made that ache between her legs swell and sharpen; now she felt him there, where his hips spread her legs. His hardness bulging against his jeans and pressing against her cunt, barely hidden from the sensation by the soft, yielding fabric of the sweat pants she was wearing.
The thought of his prick hard against her sex made her tummy twinge with a fresh surge of excitement and suddenly she felt she had crested that hill and now she was hurtling inevitably down toward that delicious obliterating crash. She was suddenly frightened to feel so much with him this way when he was only kissing her, to feel her aching, seeking cunt pressed against that wonderful, dangerous bulge. Hot with sudden embarrassment, she tried to pull a little away.
He let her go. When she opened and focused her eyes he was gazing at her, smiling at her.
“Should we stop?”
“No,” she breathed.
“If you want to stop, will you tell me?”
“I'll tell you.”
Vaughn smiled and pulled her into the warmth of his gentle embrace, and took her again in a deep kiss. Again her arousal swelled up. and she whimpered softly before she could silence herself.
Feeling her excitement, hearing her sweet little whimper, he sank hungrily into the other side of her neck, tonguing and licking and sucking and sighing softly in answer to her sighs. When she drew back he pulled her against him, almost roughly, bringing her neck to his lips with one hand and with the other caressing the lovely roundness of her ass, clutching her desperately to him, longing to hear another of her little moans, her shy whimpers.
Even as he kissed and held her she felt herself flush with embarrassment, but then his hands were both on her ass, drawing her against him and she went with his movement, the tiniest bit closer, the tiniest drift away, just a little up, a tiny hint down, and her whole belly felt full and heavy with promised pleasure and she was panting in panicked ecstasy as the ache built and swelled and rose up in her and made her whole body still and stiff in anticipation. She was so close, she couldn't help herself. In shy little movements, almost without realizing it, she flexed her hips, so slightly, rubbing herself against him, and then that heavy aching promise burst and pleasure flooded up her body and down her limbs like a torrent of warm rushing water and she froze, her nerves listening to this amazing song as the refrain echoed all through her and she let out a 126
whimper, different from the others, kind of lilting and sobbing but still so soft and then she went limp in his arms and he drew her gently against him and he was very still as he held her.
He knew. He knew what had happened to her. She was sure. He had stopped everything at the very moment when his caresses would have become a distraction from pleasure rather than an instrument of it. She was mortified. He had not even really touched her. What must he think of her, rubbing against him until she came when all they had done was kissed? A flush of unendurable shame burned her cheeks.
"You’re wonderful," he sighed out in a moment of warm, uncensored sincerity, surprising himself, utterly caught up in the sweet excitement of her shyness.
The gentle, open tenor of his voice half effaced her worry. He slowly let her out of his cocooning embrace and gazed down at her and he looked so sweetly happy she almost felt as though she had done nothing wrong. She was trembling in fading ecstasy and the waning anxiety that she had done something vulgar and ridiculous. He smiled softly and with that tender look melted the last of her embarrassment.
He did not pull her to him again but leaned a little forward to seek a small kiss.
With her lax body she felt his tremulous strain and desire swelled in her once more. She answered his questioning touch with an ardent one full of desire and promise. He rose above their kiss for a moment to caress her with another tender smile and to pull a cushion down from the sofa. Setting it on the floor beside them he leaned her back, laying her softly down, wrapping an arm around her waist, holding her tight against him.
"Comfortable?" he asked.
She smiled and nodded her reply.