Falling Awake(48)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Laughter bubbled up inside her. “Guess what? I can walk.”

“Lucky you,” he muttered into her hair with great feeling. “I can barely stand up.”

But he was obviously in better shape than he thought because he locked her close to his side and drew her down the hall. It took a while to get to their destination because every few steps he stopped and pinned her against the wall long enough to kiss her and remove another item of clothing. By the time they reached the shadows of her bedroom she had somehow managed to shed all of her clothes except for her panties.

She slid beneath the covers and waited for him. Ellis got rid of his own garments with efficient, impatient movements. He turned toward her and then stopped and just stood there, looking at her as if she weren’t quite real. She realized that she was lying in a splash of moonlight.

“You are so lovely,” he said.

She could not speak so she smiled tremulously and raised her arms to welcome him into her bed.

He said something low, husky and hungry-sounding when he lowered himself to her.

And then the world went away. All that mattered was the hot, damp passion of their lovemaking.

Ellis’s kisses singed every part of her from head to toe. When he found the inside of her thigh she gasped and clutched at him. Burying her fingers in his hair, she twisted beneath him, feeling full and achy and frantic.

Her sexual experience had been limited—nonexistent altogether for the past year. She had told herself that one of the reasons she found it easy to forgo intimacy was because she had never found any genuinely stirring pleasure in the act. Her private fantasy dreams had always been a great deal more satisfying.

But tonight she was swamped with sensations she had never experienced except in her dreams and even in those the feelings had never been so intense.

When she reached down to cup him in her palm, he groaned, rolled to cover her and rested his forehead on hers. She could have sworn he was shaking a little. His back was slick with perspiration.

He reached down between their bodies, found the part of her that was clenched tight and gently pried it open with his fingers. Her hips came up off the bed in response. With his hand he urged her toward the response that her body demanded.

When her release struck she was so overwhelmed and so undone she could not even cry out. She convulsed, sinking her nails into his back.

He was inside her before the shimmering ripples had subsided, sinking deep. The sudden pressure created by the heavy, rigid length of him caused her body to soar along the delicate border between exquisite pleasure and exquisite pain.

“Ellis.”

He stopped at once, halfway inside her. When he raised his head to look down at her she could see his face etched in the moonlight. Highwayman, vampire, dashing rake; he was all of them, all of her midnight men.

“Are you okay?” he asked hoarsely.

“No. Yes.”

She encircled him with her legs, tightening her thighs. He groaned and crushed her down into the bedding.

His climax tore through him.

She heard satisfaction, exultation and astonished pleasure in the husky, elemental, utterly male cry of release.

he came out of the bathroom some time later, got back into bed and wrapped her close. He put one hand behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“We should probably talk,” he said.

Panic assailed her. Talking was dangerous. Talking was where things always went wrong. She did not want anything to spoil this perfect dream night.

“Not now.” She drew her fingertips down his chest. “There’s no need. Go to sleep.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to talk?”

“Positive.”

“Just as well, I’m not feeling real coherent at the moment,” he said in a voice that was already thickening with sleep. He tightened his arm around her, pulling her closer to him. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

An odd request, she thought.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised softly.

That seemed to satisfy him. He relaxed immediately and she knew that he slept.

It was a while before she managed to drift off into slumber. A part of her resisted closing her eyes. She was afraid she would wake up in the morning and discover that it had all been a dream.

22

i’m worried about Isabel,” Leila announced. She put the day’s edition of the Roxanna Beach Courier aside and reached for her glass of orange juice.

On the other side of the table, Farrell glanced up from the financial documents he was studying. She noticed that, in spite of his air of distraction and secretiveness these days, he was paying attention.

“Because she knew that guy who got run down out on the old highway or because of her connection to Ellis Cutler?” he asked.

“Both. But mostly because of Cutler.”

She put down the orange juice glass without taking a sip, picked up a spoon and toyed with her cereal. Her appetite had disappeared in the last few weeks. She had lost five pounds. She told herself she was either dying of some dreadful, as yet undiagnosed disease or she was depressed because Farrell was getting ready to tell her that he wanted a divorce. She was not sure which news would be harder to take.

Farrell drank some coffee and briefly considered. “Cutler is definitely not her usual type, is he?”

“No, and that’s what’s worrying me. All this talk of hiring Isabel as a freelance dream analyst is just plain weird. He doesn’t appear to be some New Age type who would take the psychic thing seriously. He seems too tough and smart for that nonsense.” She broke off, trying to find the words. “He looks dangerous, to tell you the truth. The whole situation strikes me as very strange.”

Farrell did not bother to hide his amusement. “You have to admit that there’s always been something a bit strange about your sister. Maybe it’s a case of weirdness attracting weirdness.”

The anger boiled up out of nowhere. “Isabel isn’t weird, she’s just different, that’s all.”

“Whoa.” Farrell held up both hands, palms out. “I take it back. I was just trying to inject a little humor into the discussion. Sorry.”

Leila took a deep, steadying breath. She and Farrell had always prided themselves on their ability to communicate. They rarely quarreled until the last few months. But lately it took very little provocation to make her snap at him.

“Isabel has always marched to a different drummer,” Leila said wearily. “She’s always had a fixation with dreams. But that does not make her a flake.”