Shades of Twilight (Page 100)

"Are you certain you can’t describe the man you saw her with?"

LINDA HOWABD

"I’d never seen him before. And since they were lying down, I couldn’t really see his face. I got the impression that he was older, but I was only seventeen. Thirty seemed old to me then." His teeth nipped at her neck, and she shivered. She could feel him losing interest in his questions; quite literally, in fact. His growing erection pushed at her bottom, and she leaned back against him, closing her eyes as warm pleasure began to fill her.

Slowly he slid his hands up her body and put his palms over her breasts.

"Just what I thought," he murmured, moving his love bites to her earlobe.

"What?" she gasped, reaching back to brace her hands on his thighs.

"Your nipples are already hard."

"Are you fixated on my breasts?"

"I must be," he murmured.

"And assorted other body parts, too."

He was very hard now. Roanna turned into his arms, and he walked her backward to the bed. They fell down upon it, Webb bracing his weight on his arms to keep from crushing her, and in the cool darkness their bodies came together with a fire and intensity that left her weak and shaking in his arms.

He held her close to his side, her head cradled on his shoulder. Left weak and boneless, utterly relaxed, Roanna felt drowsiness begin to ease over her. Evidently he was right about her insomnia: tension had kept her sleepless for ten years, but after his lovemaking she was too relaxed to resist. But sleep was one thing; the sleepwalking was something else entirely and disturbed her on a much deeper level. She said, "I need to put on my nightgown."

"No." His refusal was instant and emphatic. His arms tightened around her as if he would prevent her from moving.

"But if I walk in my sleep-" "You won’t. I’m going to hold you all night long. You won’t be able to get out of bed without waking me up." He kissed her long and slow.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll watch over you."

But she couldn’t. She could feel the tension coming back, invading her muscles. A habit of ten years’ duration couldn’t be broken in a single night, or even two. Webb, might understand the dread she felt at the thought of walking through the night so defenselessly, but he couldn’t feel the panic and helplessness of not waking up in the same place where she’d gone to sleep, not knowing how she’d gotten there or anything that had happened.

He felt the tension that kept her from relaxing. He held her closer, tried to soothe her with reassurances, but finally he evidently came to the conclusion that nothing would help except complete exhaustion.

She had thought she was accustomed to his lovemaking, that she already knew the extent of his sensuality. She found that she was wrong.

He brought her to climax with his hands, with his mouth. He put her astride his hard, muscled thigh and rocked her to completion, though she clutched at him and begged him to fill her. Finally he did, pulling her off the bed and turning her so that she was on her knees, bent over with her face buried in the covers. He drove into her from behind, slamming into her buttocks with the force of his thrusts, reaching around to the front of her sex to caress her at the same time. She cried out hoarsely and stifled the sound against the mattress as she climaxed a fourth time, and still he wasn’t finished. She was dissolving, going beyond peaks to a state where the pleasure simply went on and on, like the waves of the tide. It happened again, fast, and she reached back to grab his hips and pull him hard into her as she pulsed around him. Her action caught him by surprise and with a low, savage cry he joined her, shuddering and jerking as he came.

They were both shaking violently, so weak they could barely crawl back onto the bed. Sweat dripped from their bodies, and they clung together like shipwreck survivors.

This time there was no way to fight off the sleep that claimed her as surely as he had.

She woke once, only enough to be aware that he was still holding her, just as he had promised, and she drifted back to sleep.

The next time she awoke she was sitting up in bed, and Webb’s fingers were hard around her wrist.

"No," he said softly, implacably.

"You aren’t going anywhere."

She went back into his arms, and began to believe.

She woke for the last time at dawn, when he got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" she asked, yawning and sitting up.

"To my room," he replied, pulling on his pants. He smiled at her, and she felt herself melting inside all over again. He looked tough and sexy, with his dark hair tousled and his jaw darkened with beard stubble. His voice was still rough with sleep, and his eyelids were a little puffy, giving him a heavy-lidded, just-had-sex look.

"I have to get something," he said.

"Stay right there, and I mean right there. Don’t get out of bed."

"All right, I won’t." He left by the hallway door, and she lay back down and cuddled under the sheet. She wasn’t certain she could get out of bed. She remembered the night that had just passed, the things that had happened between them. She ached deep inside, and her thighs felt weak, sore. That hadn’t been mere lovemaking, that had been a melding that went beyond the mere physical. There were deeper levels of intimacy than she had ever imagined, and yet she knew there were still delights as yet untasted.

He was back in only a moment, carrying a plastic bag with a pharmacist’s name on it. He placed the bag on the bedside table.

"What’s that?" she asked.

He shucked off his pants again and got into bed beside her, tucking her close to his side.

"An early pregnancy test." She stiffened.

"Webb, I really don’t think-" "It’s possible," he interrupted.