It was fast but right, inevitable.

At the start of the evening, the undercurrent of sexual tension made her nervous. She hadn’t been to bed with any man but Michael in the past fourteen years, since she was nineteen. She hadn’t been to bed with anyone at all for almost two years. Suddenly it seemed to her that she had done a mad, stupid thing when she’d hidden away like a nun for two years. Of course, during the first of those two years, she’d still been married to Michael and had felt compelled to remain faithful to him, even though a separation and then a divorce had been in the works, and even though he had not felt constrained by any similar moral sense. Later, with the stage show to produce and with poor Danny’s death weighing heavily on her, she hadn’t been in the mood for romance. Now she felt like an inexperienced girl. She wondered if she would know what to do. She was afraid that she would be inept, clumsy, ridiculous, foolish in bed. She told herself that sex was just like riding a bicycle, impossible to unlearn, but the frivolousness of that analogy didn’t increase her self-confidence.

Gradually, however, as she and Elliot went through the standard rites of courtship, the indirect sexual thrusts and parries of a budding relationship, albeit at an accelerated pace, the familiarity of the games reassured her. Amazing that it should be so familiar. Maybe  it really was a bit like riding a bicycle.

After dinner they adjourned to the den, where Elliot built a fire in the black-granite fireplace. Although winter days in the desert were often as warm as  springtime elsewhere, winter nights were always cool, sometimes downright bitter. With a chilly night wind moaning at the windows and howling incessantly under the eaves, the blazing fire was welcome.

Tina kicked off her shoes.

They sat side by side on the sofa in front of the fireplace, watching the flames and the occasional bursts of orange sparks, listening to music, and talking, talking, talking. Tina felt as if they had talked without pause all evening, speaking with quiet urgency, as if each had a vast quantity of earthshakingly important information that he must pass on to the other before they parted. The more they talked, the more they found in common. As an hour passed in front of the fire, and then another hour, Tina discovered that she liked Elliot Stryker more with each new thing she learned about him.

She never was sure who initiated the first kiss. He may have leaned toward her, or  perhaps she tilted toward him. But before she realized what was happening, their lips met softly, briefly. Then again. And a third time. And then he began planting small kisses on her forehead, on her eyes, on her cheeks, her nose, the corners of her mouth, her chin. He kissed her ears, her eyes again, and left a chain of kisses along her neck, and when at last he returned to her mouth, he kissed her more deeply than before, and she responded at once, opening her mouth to him.

His hands moved over her, testing the firmness and resilience of her, and she touched him too, gently squeezing his shoulders, his arms, the hard muscles of his back. Nothing had ever felt better to her than he felt at that moment.

As if drifting in a dream, they left the den and went into the bedroom. He switched on a small lamp that stood upon the dresser, and he turned down the sheets.

During the minute that he was away from her, she was afraid the spell was broken. But when he returned, she kissed him tentatively, found that nothing had changed, and pressed against him once more.

She felt as if the two of them had been here, like this, locked in an embrace, many times before.

“We hardly know each other,” she said. “Is that the way you feel?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

“I know you so well.” “For ages.”

“Yet it’s only been two days.” ‘Too fast?” he asked.

“What do you think?” “Not too fast for me.”

“Not too fast at all,” she agreed. “Sure?”

“Positive.” “You’re lovely.” “Love me.”

He was not a particularly large man, but he picked her up in his arms as if she were a child.

She clung to him. She saw a longing and a need in his dark eyes, a powerful wanting that was only partly sex, and she knew the same need to be loved and valued must be in her eyes for him to see.

He carried her to the bed, put her down, and urged her to lie back. Without haste, with a breathless anticipation that lit up his face, he undressed her.

He quickly stripped off his own clothes and joined her on the bed, took her in his arms. He explored her body slowly, deliberately, first with his eyes, then with his loving hands, then with his lips and tongue.

Tina realized that she had been wrong to think that celibacy should be a part of her period of mourning. Just the opposite was true. Good, healthy lovemaking with a man who cared for her would have helped her recover much faster than she had done, for sex was the antithesis of death, a joyous celebration of life, a denial of the tomb’s existence.

The amber light molded to his muscles. He lowered his face to hers. They kissed.

She slid a hand between them, squeezed and stroked him. She felt wanton, shameless, insatiable.

As he entered her, she let her hands travel over his body, along his lean flanks. “You’re so sweet,” he said.

He began the age-old rhythm of love. For a long, long time, they forgot that death existed, and they explored the delicious, silken surfaces of love, and it seemed to them, in those shining hours, that they would both live forever.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93