Something Different/Pepper's Way (35 page)

Thor carried her down the hall to his bedroom, going through the open door and kicking it shut behind them with one foot. He set her gently on her feet beside the bed and bent to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. As the lamp’s soft glow spread over them and the huge four-poster bed, he straightened and looked down at her, his hands lifting to surround her face.

Pepper met his searching gaze with no hesitation, no uncertainty in her own eyes. And when his lips returned to claim hers, her instant and total response laid to rest any question he might have had about whether or not she wanted to make love. The probing of his tongue was answered by her own, her need echoed his, her desire matched his flame for flame.

His hands dropped to the buttons of her shirt, unsteady, impatient. The shirt was pushed off her shoulders as his mouth left hers to feather a string of kisses down her throat and along
her collarbone, and Pepper flung the shirt aside to free her own hands. She tugged his shirt free of the jeans, helping him to shrug it off and let it fall to join hers on the floor. She nudged her loafers off, managing somehow to remove her socks as well, then stepped out of the jeans after he’d unfastened them and pushed them down over her hips.

Immediately her hands found his belt, unfastening it with unconscious familiarity. She slid the zipper down, and was on the point of pushing the jeans down over his hips when he groaned softly and brushed her hands aside. Obviously impatient, he stripped the remainder of his garments off, his eyes never leaving hers.

Absorbed, utterly unselfconscious, Pepper watched him undress. She thought dimly that he did indeed look like a god there in the lamplight; like a proud and pagan figure etched by the golden glow of a long-ago fire. And when he stood before her at last as raw and vital as man was intended to be, she was hardly aware of speaking.

“I knew that towel was a crime.”

A curious expression that was half laughter and half passion lit his silvery eyes. “I wondered what you were thinking that night,” he murmured huskily, stepping toward her. “You kept looking away from me.”

Pepper caught her breath as his big hands began to smooth away her delicate underthings. “It frightened me,” she gasped softly. “What I was feeling frightened me. It was too sudden; it happened too fast….”

Thor looked down at her as the last scrap of satin and lace dropped to the thick pile carpet, his eyes flashing silver fire and then darkening to a stormy slate-gray “And now?” he breathed, his hands finding her tiny waist and drawing her to him with torturing slowness.

“I’m not frightened now.” The words were throaty, filled
with longing. Her arms slid around his waist as she closed the distance between them fiercely. “This is right, so right.”

He caught his breath sharply, bending his head to find her lips with blind urgency. “God, you’re beautiful,” he muttered against her mouth. “I’m almost afraid to hold you, almost afraid you’ll disappear when I touch you.”

“I’m flesh and blood, Thor.” Her hands molded the rippling muscles of his back wonderingly “I’m real… a woman. Make me your woman, Thor.”

Groaning, Thor reached around her to fling back the covers on the wide bed, then lifted her easily and placed her in its center, following her down immediately. Trapping her restless legs with one of his own, he raked gentle fingers through her silvery hair, sending pins flying, then spread gleaming strands across the pillow. His hands slid down her back as her arms locked around his neck, his lips trailing fire down her throat.

One hand stroked slowly up her rib cage, finding and surrounding her engorged breast. His thumb teased gently, rhythmically, until a hardened bud rose in taut awareness and pleaded for a more intimate caress.

Pepper felt an animal-like whimper rise in her throat as his mouth closed over the aching nipple, then was unaware of the sound when his swirling tongue sent shivers coursing through her body. Her nails dug into the taut muscles of his shoulders. She couldn’t be still, couldn’t bear to be still; fire was lancing through every cell, every nerve.

Her hands slid up to tangle in his hair, holding him closer as his mouth lavished attention on one breast and then the other. She could hear her own panting, shallow breathing, could feel her heart thundering in runaway need.

“Thor…”

“You’re beautiful,” he rasped against her flesh, teeth nipping gently, then tongue soothing. “God, how I need you!”

His caresses seared the sensitive flesh below her breasts, moved lower, and lower still. Pepper felt his fingers probing erotically, then the hot brush of his lips, and her senses spiraled crazily. Behind her closed eyelids, colors whirled in a kaleidoscope of passion, and a moan ripped its way from the deepest part of her.

Something grew within her, winding tighter and tighter, until she knew that it had to snap. It was hot and cold, sharp and dull, aching with a pain that was a pleasure almost too great to bear. Like a snowball or fireball rolling downhill, it gathered speed and size and filled her with its image, yet left her achingly empty.

“Thor!” Her voice vibrated with a pleading quality. She heard herself as though it were someone else and wondered vaguely at the desperation in that woman’s voice. “Please, Thor…”

Her lashes, impossibly heavy, lifted as he rose above her, and desire-drugged violet eyes gazed up at him. She saw his lean face taut and masklike in an intolerable need, saw the slate-gray eyes flashing sparks of silver fire. And she saw the hesitation there, the uncertainty, and understood even before he spoke.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered raggedly, the words torn from him in his urgency.

Pepper pulled his head down, feeling the tension in him. “You won’t,” she murmured huskily against his mouth. “You won’t hurt me. Love me, Thor—I need you so much!”

With a strange, rough sound from deep in his chest, Thor kissed her hungrily, fiercely. His mouth possessed before his body did, both making her his for all time.

Pepper felt him come to her as though he belonged to her, their bodies fitting as though time itself had decreed it. Her eyes widened, startled at the primitive feeling of being known,
totally and completely, for the first time in her life. A little cry of surprise escaped her, surprise and wonderment, and her arms tightened around him in a new and instinctive possessive-ness.

As if the act of possession itself were enough, Thor was still for a moment, gazing deeply and searchingly into her eyes. The touch of anxiety in his own eyes faded as she smiled and lifted her head to kiss him, and their lips clung together for a timeless second of eternity.

When Thor began to move, his gentleness and care touched Pepper almost unbearably. Knowledge welled up out of instinct as her body responded to his, matching his rhythm, possessing him as utterly as he possessed her. The hovering tension began to build again, winding itself tighter and tighter, a critical mass that had to find release. It gripped their bodies, driving them relentlessly, compelling them as if they were senseless moths to a fiery death. And the flame was too strong to resist, engulfing them both in an eruption that paralyzed their bodies and cauterized their senses….

“Who,” Thor demanded in a voice that sounded a single breath away from exhaustion, “seduced who?”

“Whom,” Pepper murmured, snuggling a bit closer to his side and smiling with sleepy contentment.

“The question stands.” He reached down to pull the covers up over them both, patting her hip along the way.

Pepper smothered a yawn against the warm flesh of his neck. “Why don’t we just call it a joint effort, hmmm?”

“Suits me.” He was silent for a long moment, one hand playing almost compulsively with her hair as though he couldn’t stop touching her. When he finally spoke again, his voice was very quiet. “Have you caught me, Diana?”

She lifted her head, gazing at him with eyes that were still glowing softly. “You know I haven’t.”

Thor met her steady gaze for a moment, his own silvery eyes darkening with some kind of conflict. His hand cupped the nape of her neck and drew her forward, and he kissed her forehead softly before pressing her head gently down on his shoulder.

Troubled, Pepper moved even closer, needing to let him know that it was all right, that she understood. “I meant what I said before,” she told him softly. “I can live for today, Thor. Don’t worry about me.”

“I have to.” His arm tightened around her almost fiercely “I have to worry, Pepper. Especially now.”

She lifted her head again, holding the hand that had been stroking her hair. “No.” A frown flitted across her face and was gone. “Thor, I’m a grown woman, and I’ve been responsible for my own actions for a long time. So if you’re feeling responsible—well, don’t.”

His eyes were restless on her face. “There could be—”

“Repercussions?” She smiled a little and shook her head. “Not unless I’m one of the few women the Pill likes to trick. The doctor put me on birth control when I was sixteen. You know, my adventurous life-style and all that.”

“Oh.”

Pepper wondered suddenly why she had the feeling that her remarks had disappointed him. Was he, she wondered dimly, looking for an excuse to prolong their relationship? Did he
want
to be boxed in, with no other alternative? She wondered about his rules and what had written them.

The thought of having to leave him someday—perhaps soon—tortured her, but Pepper was determined that she wouldn’t use a single “feminine” weapon to hold him. He’d be
hers by
choice
or not at all. That fierce determination helped her to close the door on tomorrow.

“So you don’t have to be responsible for me,” she told him again quietly.

His restless eyes continued to search her own. “You told me to make you my woman,” he said slowly.

Pepper hesitated, then nodded. “I’m your woman as long as you want me,” she said with a simple, proud dignity.

Something like awe flickered in Thor’s eyes, but his lips twisted slightly. “But I’m not to feel responsible for you?”

She tried to make him understand. “Thor, I think most women resent that phrase
belong to
because they’ve never had a chance to belong to themselves. They go from being somebody’s daughter to somebody’s wife to somebody’s mother; they’re never just themselves. But I
have
been just me. I’ve lived alone and taken care of myself. I’ve belonged to me.

“Don’t you see, Thor? I belong to you now, not because you take, but because I give. It was my choice. You’re not responsible for that; you’re not responsible for me.”

He sighed roughly. “So I just accept the… the gift and offer nothing in return?”

Pepper pulled herself forward far enough to kiss him. “Thor, stop feeling guilty,” she chided gently. “I don’t regret a thing; don’t make me regret.”

Thor hugged her suddenly, a rueful, half painful apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry, be—” He broke off abruptly, then went on so quickly that she wasn’t sure he’d started to say something else. “I’m sorry, Pepper. If I had the sense God gave a mushroom, I’d be grateful that you see everything in black and white. If you’ve no complaints about this relationship, I don’t suppose I should question it. And since you’re satisfied…” He sent her a rather deceptively casual look.

She was smiling faintly. “I’m not going to fall into
that
trap,” she told him wryly.

He grinned, honestly amused. “You’d think I’d have learned by now not to fish with you,” he remarked in a dry tone.

“You’d think.”

Still amused, but with a spark of puzzlement in his eyes, he studied her. “You’re not about to pin me down, are you, Pepper?”

“No.”

“Giving me enough rope to hang myself?”

“No.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “If I told you to leave right now?”

“I’d leave. Right now.”

“Without a single recrimination?”

“Not a word.”

“Or a tear?”

She was still smiling. “You wouldn’t see one.”

“You’d just go?”

“I’d pack my things and go.” Her eyes were calm and honest.

Thor did an abrupt about-face. “You don’t have to sound so damn eager about it,” he grumbled morosely.

Pepper started to laugh, wondering if he were half serious and yet realizing that she couldn’t probe. The mood between them had lightened, and it had to remain light, she knew, or they’d get bogged down and begin heading toward an ending neither was ready to face yet.

“That wasn’t eagerness,” she told him solemnly. “That was sweet, womanly compliance with the master’s wishes.”

He brightened. “Oh, am I the master?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Just what kind of authority do I have?”

“Ultimate. Within reason,” she responded promptly.

“That’s a contradiction in terms.”

“Not in my dictionary, it isn’t.”

“Maybe you’d better explain my authority, then,” Thor demanded playfully.

“Don’t tell me to shine your shoes.”

“I see. Can I tell you to cook for me?”

“Yes. But if you say please, it’ll taste better.”

“Ah. Would you—uh—dance for me?”

“You have the heart of a Turk.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Harems.”

“Uh. The question stands.”

“Depends on the dance. And how you ‘tell’ me to do it.”

“I begin to see what you meant by ‘within reason.’”

“I thought you’d get it eventually.”

“Request rather than command.”

“I’m funny that way.”

“I should throw away my bullhorn and whip, eh?”

“I would.”

“Mmm. Diana?”

“Yes, Thor of the mighty hammer?”

“I have a request.”

“Remember to say please.”

Thor whispered a few words into her ear, and Pepper’s expression was a bit dazed when she lifted her head.

“At least you said please,” she mumbled.

It was a long while later when Thor’s long arm reached to turn out the lamp on the nightstand. Pepper cuddled closer to him, eyes closed, her smile still a bit dazed. “Vitamin E?” she murmured in sleepy interrogation.

“Wheaties,” Thor murmured, and pulled the covers up over them both.