Page 63 of Rainwater
His naked leg was delineated with heavy thick muscles bunched in seductive male beauty as he used it to anchor both of them on the bike.
Then she looked at herself in the painting. Is this what she looked like in his eyes? This sensuous, breathtaking, wild woman with a mane of blazing hair falling down her back? Her lips were parted as if she was crying out her release into the night sky. The painting stirred intense emotions in her that she hadn’t believed possible. Emotions she couldn’t even begin to name. It aroused her with a rush of heat and honey.
In the portrait, her head was back and her eyes closed as she absorbed the sensations he was stroking in her. Her face was rapt with love for him.
Her voice was unsteady and thick with tears when she was finally able to speak. “Corey, my God, it’s beautiful.”
He didn’t know what he expected her to say. Wondered while he was creating this replication of his most erotic fantasy, whether she would find it crude, disgusting, dirty. He closed his eyes, realizing that she had found it none of those. In her eyes, he realized he could do no wrong. It pushed the darkness back, the need to destroy evaporated.
She made a little sound so soft he would have missed it if he weren’t in such harmony with her body, with her feelings. “Don’t. Dear God, don’t cry, Jennifer. I’ll come apart.”
She went back to removing his clothes and when his body was bared, she pushed him onto the bed, then went into the bathroom and retrieved a bottle of lotion from the medicine cabinet. She returned to find him lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Turn onto your stomach,” she ordered. He complied without any protest and it wrung her heart. She straddled his hips and finally, he said, “Jennifer, you don’t have to.”
“Shh,” she scolded and poured a generous amount of lotion onto her hands. With soft sure strokes, she worked out the kinks in his shoulders, kneading his hard muscles, trying to loosen all his aches and pains. She worked her way down his back, her hands gentle and reassuring.
He relaxed into the bed. She could feel every small release of tension, the soft rush of his breath. She worked his lower back, wringing a moan of pleasure from him. Then with infinite tenderness, she stroked over his scar-rough hip. He flinched at first, but then let go, his body once again sinking into the bed. For a long time, she massaged his thick hip muscle, trying to show him with her hands that she understood how much it must have hurt. How vulnerable, scared and alone he must have felt.
Then she began on his other hip. When she finished, she got off him and said softly, “Come on, let’s go.”
He turned his head to look at her, and understanding lit his eyes with hot turquoise heat. Without a word, he got up and pulled on his jeans and boots, grabbing his mackintosh and shrugging into it, following her out of the cottage.
The bike made a sharp rumbling noise and they took off down the road, emerging onto the highway. Her hands were tight around his waist, and she yelled into his ear to turn off. They followed the old rutted road slowly and carefully by the bright light of the full moon.
Finally he stopped the bike, put down the kickstand and turned as she got off. Silence sweet, pure and clean filled the beautiful meadow, the dark mountains silhouetted against the bright backdrop of the sky.
“Back up,” Jennifer coaxed with sugar sweetness in her voice.
“What?”
“Slide that sweet, tight backside backward.” Their eyes met in the semidarkness, a flash of heat, a potent sizzle of electricity, and Jennifer shivered. She threw her leg over his and straddled him.
“Are you cold, darlin’?” he asked in a voice desire-filled and husky-soft.
“No. I’m hot, so hot, Corey.”
His mouth found hers, touching her lips with wonder, with such awe, she felt choked up again. “So gentle, so fierce, my sweet warrior. It’s time to lay down your weapons and surrender. Many battles you’ve waged, but now you’ve lost the war.”
“To whom?”
“To me. I claim victory.”
He moaned, the touch of her sweet mouth sending soundless shudders of pleasure down his body. His hands came up to hermoon-soaked hair, the strands like living coils of flame against his flesh. He would let her think she had won because nothing had changed.Only that she loves you, you fool. She loves you and you’re going to leave her.She would get over him. She and Ellie would find happiness with someone else. Someone who didn’t have the potential for violence in him.
She looked down at him, at his upturned face and she wanted to see that look that he had painted for himself. She wanted to make his fantasy a reality.
She slid off his lap and grasped the edges of the open mackintosh, pushing the coat off him. Then her hands went to the buttons of her shirt.
Corey surged off the bike with the innate ability of a predatory cat. He caught her in his arms, hugging her fiercely to him. “You’re turning me inside out. I feel raw and vulnerable.”
“And afraid?”
“Terrified.”
“I’ll teach you not to be afraid. Let me teach you.”
“I didn’t know what a relationship could be until you. You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed of. You don’t have to do this.”
